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What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Per Curiam.
This case presents the question whether the warnings given to respondent prior to a recorded conversation with a police officer satisfied the requirements of Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U. S. 436 (1966). Although ordinarily this Court would not be inclined to review a case involving application of that precedent to a particular set of facts, see Fare v. Michael C., 439 U. S. 1310, 1314 (1978) (Rehnquist, J., in chambers, opinion of Court at 442 U. S. 707 (1979)), the opinion of the California Court of Appeal essentially laid down a flat rule requiring that the content of Miranda warnings be a virtual incantation of the precise language contained in the Miranda opinion. Because such a rigid rule was not mandated by Miranda or any other decision of this Court, and is not required to serve the purposes of Miranda, we grant the motion of respondent for leave to proceed in forma -pauperis and the petition for certiorari and reverse.
On January 30, 1978, Mrs. Donna Iris Erickson was brutally murdered. Later that evening respondent and a co-defendant were apprehended for commission of the offense. Respondent was brought to a substation of the Tulare County Sheriff's Department and advised of his Miranda rights. He declined to talk and, since he was a minor, his parents were notified. Respondent’s parents arrived and after meeting with them respondent decided to answer police questions. An officer questioned respondent, on tape, with respondent’s parents present. The tape reflects that the following warnings were given prior to any questioning:
“Sgt. Byrd: . . . Mr. Randall James Prysock, earlier today I advised you of your legal rights and at that time you advised me you did not wish to talk to me, is that correct?
“Randall P.: Yeh.
“Sgt. Byrd: And, uh, during, at the first interview your folks were not present, they are now present. I want to go through your legal rights again with you and after each legal right I would like for you to answer whether you understand it or not. . . . Your legal rights, Mr. Prysock, is [sic] follows: Number One, you have the right to remain silent. This means you don’t have to talk to me at all unless you so desire. Do you understand this?
“Randall P.: Yeh.
“Sgt. Byrd: If you give up your right to remain silent, anything you say can and will be used as evidence against you in a court of law. Do you understand this?
“Randall P.: Yes.
“Sgt. Byrd: You have the right to talk to a lawyer before you are questioned, have him present with you while you are being questioned, and all during the questioning. Do you understand this?
“Randall P.: Yes.
“Sgt. Byrd: You also, being a juvenile, you have the right to have your parents present, which they are. Do you understand this?
“Randall P.: Yes.
“Sgt. Byrd: Even if they weren’t here, you’d have this right. Do you understand this?
“Randall P.: Yes.
“Sgt. Byrd: You all, uh, — if,—you have the right to have a lawyer appointed to represent you at no cost to yourself. Do you understand this?
“Randall P.: Yes.
“Sgt. Byrd: Now, having all these legal rights in mind, do you wish to talk to me at this time?
“Randall P.: Yes.” App. A to Pet. for Cert, i-iii.
At this point, at the request of Mrs. Prysock, a conversation took place with the tape recorder turned off. According to Sgt. Byrd, Mrs. Prysock asked if respondent could still have an attorney at a later time if he gave a statement now without one. Sgt. Byrd assured Mrs. Prysock that respondent would have an attorney when he went to court and that “he could have one at this time if he wished one.” Id., at ll.
At trial in the Superior Court of Tulare County the court denied respondent’s motion to suppress the taped statement. Respondent was convicted by a jury of first-degree murder with two special circumstances — torture and robbery. Cal. Penal Code Ann. §§ 187, 190.2, 12022 (b) (West Supp. 1981). He was also convicted of robbery with the use of a dangerous weapon, §§ 211, 12022 (b), burglary with the use of a deadly weapon, §§ 459, 12022 (b), automobile theft, Cal. Veh. Code Ann. § 10851 (West Supp. 1981), escape from a youth facility, Cal. Welf. & Inst. Code Ann. § 871 (West 1972), and destruction of evidence, Cal. Penal Code Ann. § 135 (West 1970).
The Court of Appeal for the Fifth Appellate District reversed respondent’s convictions and ordered a new trial because of what it thought to be error under Miranda. App. A to Pet. for Cert. 4. The Court of Appeal ruled that respondent’s recorded incriminating statements, given with his parents present, had to be excluded from consideration by the jury because respondent was not properly advised of his right to the services of a free attorney before and during interrogation. Although respondent was indisputably informed that he had “the right to talk to a lawyer before you are questioned, have him present with you while you are being questioned, and all during the questioning,” and further informed that he had “the right to have a lawyer appointed to represent you at no cost to yourself,” the Court of Appeal ruled that these warnings were inadequate because respondent was not explicitly informed of his right to have an attorney appointed before further questioning. The Court of Appeal stated that “[o]ne of [Miranda’s,] virtues is its precise requirements which are so easily met,” and quoted from Harryman v. Estelle, 616 F. 2d 870, 873-874 (CA5), cert. denied, 449 U. S. 860 (1980), that “ 'the rigidity of the Miranda rules and the way in which they are to be applied was conceived of and continues to be recognized as the decision’s greatest strength.’ ” App. A to Pet. for Cert. 12. Relying on two previous decisions of the California Court of Appeal, People v. Bolinski, 260 Cal. App. 2d 706, 67 Cal. Rptr. 347 (1968), and People v. Stewart, 267 Cal. App. 2d 366, 73 Cal. Rptr. 484 (1968), the court ruled that the requirements of Miranda were not met in this case. The California Supreme Court denied a petition for hearing, with two justices dissenting. App. D to Pet. for Cert.
This Court has never indicated that the “rigidity” of Miranda extends to the precise formulation of the warnings given a criminal defendant. See, e. g., United States v. Lamia, 429 F. 2d 373, 375-376 (CA2), cert. denied, 400 U. S. 907 (1970). This Court and others have stressed as one virtue of Miranda the fact that the giving of the warnings obviates the need for a case-by-case inquiry into the actual voluntariness of the admissions of the accused. See Fare v. Michael C., 42 U. S., at 718; Harryman v. Estelle, supra. Nothing in these observations suggests any desirable rigidity in the form of the required warnings.
Quite the contrary, Miranda itself indicated that no talis-manic incantation was required to satisfy its strictures. The Court in that case stated that “[t]he warnings required and the waiver necessary in accordance with our opinion today are, in the absence of a fully effective equivalent, prerequisites to the admissibility of any statement made by a defendant.” 384 U. S., at 476 (emphasis supplied). See also id., at 479. Just last Term in considering when Miranda applied we noted that that decision announced procedural safeguards including “the now familiar Miranda warnings ... or their equivalent.” Rhode Island v. Innis, 446 U. S. 291, 297 (1980) (emphasis supplied).
Other courts considering the precise question presented by this case — whether a criminal defendant was adequately informed of his right to the presence of appointed counsel prior to and during interrogation — have not required a verbatim recital of the words of the Miranda opinion but rather have examined the warnings given to determine if the reference to the right to appointed counsel was linked with some future point in time after the police interrogation. In United States v. Garcia, 431 F. 2d 134 (CA9 1970) (per curiam), for example, the court found inadequate advice to the defendant that she could “have an attorney appointed to represent you when you first appear before the U. S. Commissioner or the Court.” People v. Bolinski, supra, relied upon by the court below, is a case of this type. Two separate sets of warnings were ruled inadequate. In the first, the defendant was advised that “if he was charged ... he would be appointed counsel.” 260 Cal. App. 2d, at 718, 67 Cal. Rptr., at 355 (emphasis supplied). In the second, the defendant, then in Illinois and about to be moved to California, was advised that “ 'the court would appoint [an attorney] in Riverside County [, California].’ ” Id., at 723, 67 Cal. Rptr., at 359 (emphasis supplied). In both instances the reference to appointed counsel was linked to a future point in time after police interrogation, and therefore did not fully advise the suspect of his right to appointed counsel before such interrogation.
Here, in contrast, nothing in the warnings given respondent suggested any limitation on the right to the presence of appointed counsel different from the clearly conveyed rights to a lawyer in general, including the right “to a lawyer before you are questioned, . . . while you are being questioned, and all during the questioning.” App. A to Pet. for Cert. 9-10; ii. Like United States v. Noa, 443 P. 2d 144 (CA9 1971), where the warnings given were substantially similar to those given here and defendant’s argument was the same as that adopted by the Court of Appeal, “[t]his is not a case in which the defendant was not informed of his right to the presence of an attorney during questioning ... or in which the offer of an appointed attorney was associated with a future time in court . . . .” Id., at 146.
It is clear that the police in this case fully conveyed to respondent his rights as required by Miranda. He was told of his right to have a lawyer present prior to and during interrogation, and his right to have a lawyer appointed at no cost if he coüld not afford one. These warnings conveyed to respondent his right to have a lawyer appointed if he could not afford one prior to and during interrogation. The Court of Appeal erred in holding that the warnings were inadequate simply because of the order in which they were given.
Because respondent was given the warnings required by Miranda, the decision of the California Court of Appeal to the contrary is reversed, and the case is remanded for further proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
The tape reflects the following concerning the off-the-record discussion:
“Sgt. Byrd: . . . Okay, Mrs. Prysock, you asked to get off the tape During that time you asked, decided you wanted some time to think about getting, whether to hire a lawyer or not.
“Mrs. P.: ’Cause I didn’t understand it.
“Sgt. Byrd: And you have decided now that you want to go ahead and you do not wish a lawyer present at this time?
“Mrs. P.: That’s right.
“Sgt. Byrd: And I have not persuaded you in any way, is that correct?
“Mrs. P.: No, you have not.
“Sgt. Byrd: And, Mr. Prysock is that correct that I have done nothing to persuade you not to, to hire a lawyer or to go on with this?
“Mr. P.: That’s right.
“Sgt. Byrd: Okay, everything we’re doing here is strictly in accordance with Randall and yourselves, is that correct?
“Mr. P.: That is correct.
“Sgt. Byrd: Okay. Uh, all right, Randy, I can’t remember where I left off, I think I asked you, uh, with your legal rights in mind, do you wish to talk to me at this time? This is with everything I told you, all your legal rights, your right to an attorney, your right, and your right to remain silent, and all these, I mean do you wish to talk to me at this time about the case?
“Randall P.: Yes.” App. A to Pet. for Cert, iii-iv.
Contrary to respondent’s suggestion, it is clear that the decision below was based on federal law. The Court of Appeal stated that it was reversing and ordering a new trial “because of Miranda error.” Id., at 4.
The dissent, arguing that the Court of Appeal opinion is unfairly criticized as requiring mimicking of Miranda, post, at 365-366, ignores substantial portions of the opinion below and substitutes arguments of its own for those articulated by the Court of Appeal. For example, the dissent makes no mention of the lower court’s stress on the “precise requirements” of Miranda or its “rigidity” in this area, and ignores the portion of the opinion in which the court quotes from Miranda and then criticizes the officer for not repeating the exact language in advising respondent of his rights. See App. A to Pet. for Cert. 12-14. The Court of Appeal did conclude that respondent was not advised of his right to appointed counsel prior to and during interrogation, but this was because the officer did not parrot the language of Miranda. The more substantive reasons suggested by the dissent are implausible. The reference to “appointed” counsel has never been considered as suggesting that the availability of counsel was postponed, and Mrs. Prysock’s off-the-record conversation was occasioned by her fear that waiving the right to counsel at interrogation would occasion a waiver of the right to counsel later in court, Ápp. A to Pet. for Cert. 11, clearly indicating that the officer conveyed the right to counsel at interrogation.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
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.
We granted certiorari to review the decree of the Circuit Court of Appeals which, with one judge dissenting, vacated and set aside a cease and desist order issued by the Federal Trade Commission against the respondents. 157 F. 2d 533. Those respondents are: The Cement Institute, an unincorporated trade association composed of 74 corporations which manufacture, sell and distribute cement; the 74 corporate members of the Institute; and 21 individuals who are associated with the Institute. It took three years for a trial examiner to hear the evidence which consists of about 49,000 pages of oral testimony and 50,000 pages of exhibits. Even the findings and conclusions of the Commission cover 176 pages. The briefs with accompanying appendixes submitted by the parties contain more than 4,000 pages. The legal questions raised by the Commission and by the different respondents are many and varied. Some contentions are urged by all respondents and can be jointly considered. Others require separate treatment. In order to keep our opinion within reasonable limits, we must restrict our record references to the minimum consistent with an adequate consideration of the legal questions we discuss.
The proceedings were begun by a Commission complaint of two counts. The first charged that certain alleged conduct set out at length constituted an unfair method of competition in violation of § 5 of the Federal Trade Commission Act. 38 Stat. 719, 15 U. S. C. § 45. The core of the charge was that the respondents had restrained and hindered competition in the sale and distribution of cement by means of a combination among themselves made effective through mutual understanding or agreement to employ a multiple basing point system of pricing. It was alleged that this system resulted in the quotation of identical terms of sale and identical prices for cement by the respondents at any given point in the United States. This system had worked so successfully, it was further charged, that for many years prior to the filing of the complaint, all cement buyers throughout the nation, with rare exceptions, had been unable to purchase cement for delivery in any given locality from any one of the respondents at a lower price or on more favorable terms than from any of the other respondents.
The second count of the complaint, resting chiefly on the same allegations of fact set out in Count I, charged that the multiple basing point system of sales resulted in systematic price discriminations between the customers of each respondent. These discriminations were made, it was alleged, with the purpose of destroying competition in price between the various respondents in violation of § 2 of the Clayton Act, 38 Stat. 730, as amended by the Robinson-Patman Act, 49 Stat. 1526. That section, with certain conditions which need not here be set out, makes it “unlawful for any person engaged in commerce,... either directly or indirectly, to discriminate in price between different purchasers of commodities of like grade and quality....” 15 U. S. C. § 13.
Resting upon its findings, the Commission ordered that respondents cease and desist from “carrying out any planned common course of action, understanding, agreement, combination, or conspiracy” to do a number of things, 37 F. T. C. 87, 258-262, all of which things, the Commission argues, had to be restrained in order effectively to restore individual freedom of action among the separate units in the cement industry. Certain contentions with reference to the order will later require a more detailed discussion of its terms. For the present it is sufficient to say that, if the order stands, its terms are broad enough to bar respondents from acting in concert to sell cement on a basing point delivered price plan which so eliminates competition that respondents’ prices are always identical at any given point in the United States.
We shall not now detail the numerous contentions urged against the order’s validity. A statement of these contentions can best await the separate consideration we give them.
Jurisdiction. — At the very beginning we are met with a challenge to the Commission’s jurisdiction to entertain the complaint and to act on it. This contention is pressed by respondent Marquette Cement Manufacturing Co. and is relied upon by other respondents. Count I of the complaint is drawn under the provision in § 5 of the Federal Trade Commission Act which declares that “Unfair methods of competition... are hereby declared unlawful.” Marquette contends that the facts alleged in Count I do not constitute “an unfair method of competition” within the meaning of § 5. Its argument runs this way: Count I in reality charges a combination to restrain trade. Such a combination constitutes an offense under § 1 of the Sherman Act which outlaws “Every... combination... in restraint of trade.” 26 Stat. 209, 15 U. S. C. § 1. Section 4 of the Sherman Act provides that the Attorney General shall institute suits under the Act on behalf of the United States, and that the federal district courts shall have exclusive jurisdiction of such suits. Hence, continue respondents, the Commission, whose jurisdiction is limited to “unfair methods of competition,” is without power to institute proceedings or to issue an order with regard to the combination in restraint of trade charged in Count I. Marquette then argues that since the fact allegations of Count I are the chief reliance for the charge in Count II, this latter count also must be interpreted as charging a violation of the Sherman Act. Assuming, without deciding, that the conduct charged in each count constitutes a violation of the Sherman Act, we hold that the Commission does have jurisdiction to conclude that such conduct may also be an unfair method of competition and hence constitute a violation of § 5 of the Federal Trade Commission Act.
As early as 1920 this Court considered it an “unfair method of competition” to engage in practices “against public policy because of their dangerous tendency unduly to hinder competition or create monopoly.” Federal Trade Comm’n v. Gratz, 253 U. S. 421, 427. In 1922, the Court in Federal Trade Comm’n v. Beech-Nut Packing Co., 257 U. S. 441, sustained a cease and desist order against a resale price maintenance plan because such a plan “necessarily constitutes a scheme which restrains the natural flow of commerce and the freedom of competition in the channels of interstate trade which it has been the purpose of all the anti-trust acts to maintain.” Id. at 454. The Court, in holding that the scheme before it constituted an unfair method of competition, noted that the conduct in question was practically identical with that previously declared unlawful in Dr. Miles Medical Co. v. Park & Sons Co., 220 U. S. 373, and United States v. Schrader’s Son, Inc., 252 U. S. 85, the latter a suit brought under § 1 of the Sherman Act. Again in 1926 this Court sustained a Commission unfair-method-of-competition order against defendants who had engaged in a price-fixing combination, a plain violation of § 1 of the Sherman Act. Federal Trade Comm’n v. Pacific States Paper Trade Assn., 273 U. S. 52. In 1941 we reiterated that certain conduct of a combination found to conflict with the policy of the Sherman Act could be suppressed by the Commission as an unfair method of competition. Fashion Originators’ Guild v. Federal Trade Comm’n, 312 U. S. 457, 465. The Commission’s order was sustained in the Fashion Originators’ case not only because the prohibited conduct violated the Clayton Act but also because the Commission’s findings brought the “combination in its entirety well within the inhibition of the policies declared by the Sherman Act itself.” In other cases this Court has pointed out many reasons which support interpretation of the language “unfair methods of competition” in § 5 of the Federal Trade Commission Act as including violations of the Sherman Act. Thus it appears that soon after its creation the Commission began to interpret the prohibitions of § 5 as including those restraints of trade which also were outlawed by the Sherman Act, and that this Court has consistently approved that interpretation of the Act.
Despite this long and consistent administrative and judicial construction of § 5, we are urged to hold that these prior interpretations were wrong and that the term “unfair methods of competition” should not be construed as embracing any conduct within the ambit of the Sherman Act. In support of this contention, Marquette chiefly relies upon its reading of the legislative history of the Commission Act. We have given careful consideration to this contention because of the earnestness with which it is pressed. Marquette points to particular statements of some of the Act’s sponsors which, taken out of their context, might lend faint support to its contention that Congress did not intend the Commission to concern itself with conduct then punishable under the Sherman Act. But on the whole the Act’s legislative history shows a strong congressional purpose not only to continue enforcement of the Sherman Act by the Department of Justice and the federal district courts but also to supplement that enforcement through the administrative process of the new Trade Commission. Far from being regarded as a rival of the Justice Department and the district courts in dissolving combinations in restraint of trade, the new Commission was envisioned as an aid to them and was specifically authorized to assist them in the drafting of appropriate decrees in antitrust litigation. All of the committee reports and the statements of those in charge of the Trade Commission Act reveal an abiding purpose to vest both the Commission and the courts with adequate powers to hit at every trade practice, then existing or thereafter contrived, which restrained competition or might lead to such restraint if not stopped in its incipient stages. These congressional purposes are revealed in the legislative history cited below, most of which is referred to in respondents’ briefs. We can conceive of no greater obstacle this Court could create to the fulfillment of these congressional purposes than to inject into every Trade Commission proceeding brought under § 5 and into every Sherman Act suit brought by the Justice Department a possible jurisdictional question.
We adhere to our former rulings. The Commission has jurisdiction to declare that conduct tending to restrain trade is an unfair method of competition even though the selfsame conduct may also violate the Sherman Act.
There is a related jurisdictional argument pressed by Marquette which may be disposed of at this time. While review of the Commission’s order was pending in the Circuit Court of Appeals, the Attorney General filed a civil action in the Federal District Court for Denver, Colorado, to restrain the Cement Institute, Marquette and 88 other cement companies, including all of the present respondents, from violating § 1 of the Sherman Act. Much of the evidence before the Commission in this proceeding might also be relevant in that case, which, we are informed, has not thus far been brought to trial. Marquette urges that the Commission proceeding should now be dismissed because it is contrary to the public interest to force respondents to defend both a Commission proceeding and a Sherman Act suit based largely on the same alleged misconduct.
We find nothing to justify a holding that the filing of a Sherman Act suit by the Attorney General requires the termination of these Federal Trade Commission proceedings. In the first place, although all conduct violative of the Sherman Act may likewise come within the unfair trade practice prohibitions of the Trade Commission Act, the converse is not necessarily true. It has long been recognized that there are many unfair methods of competition that do not assume the proportions of Sherman Act violations. Federal Trade Comm’n v. R. F. Keppel & Bro., 291 U. S. 304; Federal Trade Comm’n v. Gratz, 253 U. S. 421, 427. Hence a conclusion that respondents’ conduct constituted an unfair method of competition does not necessarily mean that their same activities would also be found to violate § 1 of the Sherman Act. In the second place, the fact that the same conduct may constitute a violation of both acts in nowise requires us to dismiss this Commission proceeding. Just as the Sherman Act itself permits the Attorney General to bring simultaneous civil and criminal suits against a defendant based on the same misconduct, so the Sherman Act and the Trade Commission Act provide the Government with cumulative remedies against activity detrimental to competition. Both the legislative history of the Trade Commission Act and its specific language indicate a congressional purpose, not to confine each of these proceedings within narrow, mutually exclusive limits, but rather to permit the simultaneous use of both types of proceedings. Marquette’s objections to the Commission’s jurisdiction are overruled.
Objections to Commission’s Jurisdiction by Certain Respondents on Ground That They Were Not Engaged in Interstate Commerce. — One other challenge to the Commission’s jurisdiction is specially raised by Northwestern Portland and Superior Portland. The Commission found that “Northwestern Portland makes no sales or shipments outside the State of Washington,” and that “Superior Portland, with few exceptions, makes sales and shipments outside the State of Washington only to Alaska.” These two respondents contend that, since they did not engage in interstate commerce and since § 5 of the Trade Commission Act applies only to unfair methods of competition in interstate commerce, the Commission was without jurisdiction to enter an order against them under Count I of the complaint. For this contention they chiefly rely on Federal Trade Comm’n v. Bunte Bros., 312 U. S. 349. They also argue that for the same reason the Commission lacked jurisdiction to enforce against them the price discrimination charge in Count II of the complaint.
We cannot sustain this contention. The charge against these respondents was not that they, apart from the other respondents, had engaged in unfair methods of competition and price discriminations simply by making intrastate sales. Instead, the charge was, as supported by the Commission’s findings, that these respondents in combination with others agreed to maintain a delivered price system in order to eliminate price competition in the sale of cement in interstate commerce. The combination, as found, includes the Institute and cement companies located in many different states. The Commission has further found that “In general, said corporate respondents have maintained, and now maintain, a constant course of trade and commerce in cement among and between the several States of the United States.” The fact that one or two of the numerous participants in the combination happen to be selling only within the borders of a single state is not controlling in determining the scope of the Commission’s jurisdiction. The important factor is that the concerted action of all of the parties to the combination is essential in order to make wholly effective the restraint of commerce among the states. The Commission would be rendered helpless to stop unfair methods of competition in the form of interstate combinations and conspiracies if its jurisdiction could be defeated on a mere showing that each conspirator had carefully confined his illegal activities within the borders of a single state. We hold that the Commission did have jurisdiction to make an order against Superior Portland and Northwestern Portland.
The Multiple Basing Point Delivered Price System.— Since the multiple basing point delivered price system of fixing prices and terms of cement sales is the nub of this controversy, it will be helpful at this preliminary stage to point out in general what it is and how it works. A brief reference to the distinctive characteristics of “factory” or “mill prices” and “delivered prices” is of importance to an understanding of the basing point delivered price system here involved.
Goods may be sold and delivered to customers at the seller’s mill or warehouse door or may be sold free on board (f. o. b.) trucks or railroad cars immediately adjacent to the seller’s mill or warehouse. In either event the actual cost of the goods to the purchaser is, broadly speaking, the seller’s “mill price” plus the purchaser’s cost of transportation. However, if the seller fixes a price at which he undertakes to deliver goods to the purchaser where they are to be used, the cost to the purchaser is the “delivered price.” A seller who makes the “mill price” identical for all purchasers of like amount and quality simply delivers his goods at the same place (his mill) and for the same price (price at the mill). He thus receives for all f. o. b. mill sales an identical net amount of money for like goods from all customers. But a “delivered price” system creates complications which may result in a seller’s receiving different net returns from the sale of like goods. The cost of transporting 500 miles is almost always more than the cost of transporting 100 miles. Consequently if customers 100 and 500 miles away pay the same “delivered price,” the seller’s net return is less from the more distant customer. This difference in the producer’s net return from sales to customers in different localities under a “delivered price” system is an important element in the charge under Count I of the complaint and is the crux of Count II.
The best known early example of a basing point price system was called “Pittsburgh plus.” It related to the price of steel. The Pittsburgh price was the base price, Pittsburgh being therefore called a price basing point. In order for the system to work, sales had to be made only at delivered prices. Under this system the delivered price of steel from anywhere in the United States to a point of delivery anywhere in the United States was in general the Pittsburgh price plus the railroad freight rate from Pittsburgh to the point of delivery. Take Chicago, Illinois, as an illustration of the operation and consequences of the system. A Chicago steel producer was not free to sell his steel at cost plus a reasonable profit. He must sell it at the Pittsburgh price plus the railroad freight rate from Pittsburgh to the point of delivery. Chicago steel customers were by this pricing plan thus arbitrarily required to pay for Chicago produced steel the Pittsburgh base price plus what it would have cost to ship the steel by rail from Pittsburgh to Chicago had it been shipped. The theoretical cost of this fictitious shipment became known as “phantom freight.” But had it been economically possible under this plan for a Chicago producer to ship his steel to Pittsburgh, his “delivered price” would have been merely the Pittsburgh price, although he actually would have been required to pay the freight from Chicago to Pittsburgh. Thus the “delivered price” under these latter circumstances required a Chicago (non-basing point) producer to “absorb” freight costs. That is, such a seller’s net returns became smaller and smaller as his deliveries approached closer and closer to the basing point.
Several results obviously flow from use of a single basing point system such as “Pittsburgh plus” originally was. One is that the “delivered prices” of all producers in every locality where deliveries are made are always the same regardless of the producers’ different freight costs. Another is that sales made by a non-base mill for delivery at different localities result in net receipts to the seller which vary in amounts equivalent to the “phantom freight” included in, or the “freight absorption” taken from the “delivered price.”
As commonly employed by respondents, the basing point system is not single but multiple. That is, instead of one basing point, like that in “Pittsburgh plus,” a number of basing point localities are used. In the multiple basing point system, just as in the single basing point system, freight absorption or phantom freight is an element of the delivered price on all sales not governed by a basing point actually located at the seller’s mill. And all sellers quote identical delivered prices in any given locality regardless of their different costs of production and their different freight expenses. Thus the multiple and single systems function in the same general manner and produce the same consequences — identity of prices and diversity of net returns. Such differences as there are in matters here pertinent are therefore differences of degree only.
Alleged Bias of the Commission. — One year after the taking of testimony had been concluded and while these proceedings were still pending before the Commission, the respondent Marquette asked the Commission to disqualify itself from passing upon the issues involved. Marquette charged that the Commission had previously prejudged the issues, was “prejudiced and biased against the Portland cement industry generally,” and that the industry and Marquette in particular could not receive a fair hearing from the Commission. After hearing oral argument the Commission refused to disqualify itself. This contention, repeated here, was also urged and rejected in the Circuit Court of Appeals one year before that court reviewed the merits of the Commission’s order. Marquette Cement Mfg. Co. v. Federal Trade Comm’n, 147 F. 2d 589.
Marquette introduced numerous exhibits intended to support its charges. In the main these exhibits were copies of the Commission’s reports made to Congress or to the President, as required by § 6 of the Trade Commission Act. 15 U. S. C. § 46. These reports, as well as the testimony given by members of the Commission before congressional committees, make it clear that long before the filing of this complaint the members of the Commission at that time, or at least some of them, were of the opinion that the operation of the multiple basing point system as they had studied it was the equivalent of a price fixing restraint of trade in violation of the Sherman Act. We therefore decide this contention, as did the Circuit Court of Appeals, on the assumption that such an opinion had been formed by the entire membership of the Commission as a result of its prior official investigations. But we also agree with that court’s holding that this belief did not disqualify the Commission.
In the first place, the fact that the Commission had entertained such views as the result of its prior ex parte investigations did not necessarily mean that the minds of its members were irrevocably closed on the subject of the respondents’ basing point practices. Here, in contrast to the Commission’s investigations, members of the cement industry were legally authorized participants in the hearings. They produced evidence — volumes of it. They were free to point out to the Commission by testimony, by cross-examination of witnesses, and by arguments, conditions of the trade practices under attack which they thought kept these practices within the range of legally permissible business activities.
Moreover, Marquette’s position, if sustained, would to a large extent defeat the congressional purposes which prompted passage of the Trade Commission Act. Had the entire membership of the Commission disqualified in the proceedings against these respondents, this complaint could not have been acted upon by the Commission or by any other government agency. Congress has provided for no such contingency. It has not directed that the Commission disqualify itself under any circumstances, has not provided for substitute commissioners should any of its members disqualify, and has not authorized any other government agency to hold hearings, make findings, and issue cease and desist orders in proceedings against unfair trade practices. Yet if Marquette is right, the Commission, by making studies and filing reports in obedience to congressional command, completely immunized the practices investigated, even though they are “unfair,” from any cease and desist order by the Commission or any other governmental agency.
There is no warrant in the Act for reaching a conclusion which would thus frustrate its purposes. If the Commission’s opinions expressed in congressionally required reports would bar its members from acting in unfair trade proceedings, it would appear that opinions expressed in the first basing point unfair trade proceeding would similarly disqualify them from ever passing on another. See Morgan v. United States, 313 U. S. 409, 421. Thus experience acquired from their work as commissioners would be a handicap instead of an advantage. Such was not the intendment of Congress. For Congress acted on a committee report stating: “It is manifestly desirable that the terms of the commissioners shall be long enough to give them an opportunity to acquire the expertness in dealing with these special questions concerning industry that comes from experience.” Report of Committee on Interstate Commerce, No. 597, June 13, 1914, 63d Cong., 2d Sess. 10-11.
Marquette also seems to argue that it was a denial of due process for the Commission to act in these proceedings after having expressed the view that industry-wide use of the basing point system was illegal. A number of cases are cited as giving support to this contention. Tumey v. Ohio, 273 U. S. 510, is among them. But it provides no support for the contention. In that case Tumey had been convicted of a criminal offense, fined, and committed to jail by a judge who had a direct, personal, substantial, pecuniary interest in reaching his conclusion to convict. A criminal conviction by such a tribunal was held to violate procedural due process. But the Court there pointed out that most matters relating to judicial disqualification did not rise to a constitutional level. Id. at 523.
Neither the Tumey decision nor any other decision of this Court would require us to hold that it would be a violation of procedural due process for a judge to sit in a case after he had expressed an opinion as to whether certain types of conduct were prohibited by law. In fact, judges frequently try the same case more than once and decide identical issues each time, although these issues involve questions both of law and fact. Certainly, the Federal Trade Commission cannot possibly be under stronger constitutional compulsions in this respect than a court.
The Commission properly refused to disqualify itself. We thus need not review the additional holding of the Circuit Court of Appeals that Marquette’s objection on the ground of the alleged bias of the Commission was filed too late in the proceedings before that agency to warrant consideration.
Alleged Errors in re Introduction of Evidence. — The complaint before the Commission, filed July 2, 1937, alleged that respondents had maintained an illegal combination for “more than 8 years last past.” In the Circuit Court of Appeals and in this Court the Government treated its case on the basis that the combination began in August, 1929, when the respondent Cement Institute was organized. The Government introduced much evidence over respondents’ objections, however, which showed the activities of the cement industry for many years prior to 1929, some of it as far back as 1902. It also introduced evidence as to respondents’ activities from 1933 to May 27, 1935, much of which related to the preparation and administration of the NRA Code for the cement industry pursuant to the National Industrial Recovery Act, 48 Stat. 195, held invalid by this Court May 27, 1935, in Schechter Poultry Cory. v. United States, 295 U. S. 495. All of the testimony to which objection was made related to the initiation, development, and carrying on of the basing point practices.
Respondents contend that the pre-1929 evidence, especially that prior to 1919, is patently inadmissible with reference to a 1929 combination, many of whose alleged members were non-existent in 1919. They also urge that evidence of activities during the NRA period was improperly admitted because § 5 of Title I of the NRA provided that any action taken in compliance with the code provisions of an industry should be “exempt from the provisions of the antitrust laws of the United States.” And some of the NRA period testimony relating to basing point practices did involve references to code provisions. The Government contends that evidence of both the pre-1929 and the NRA period activities of members of the cement industry tends to show a continuous course of concerted efforts on the part of the industry, or at least most of it, to utilize the basing point system as a means to fix uniform terms and prices at which cement would be sold, and that the Commission had properly so regarded this evidence. The Circuit Court of Appeals agreed with respondents that the Commission had erroneously considered both the NRA period evidence and the pre-1929 evidence in making its findings of the existence of a combination among respondents.
We conclude that both types of evidence were admissible for the purpose of showing the existence of a continuing combination among respondents to utilize the basing point pricing system.
The Commission did not make its findings of post-1929 combination, in whole or in part, on the premise that any of respondents’ pre-1929 or NRA code activities were illegal. The consideration given these activities by the Commission was well within the established judicial rule of evidence that testimony of prior or subsequent transactions, which for some reason are barred from forming the basis for a suit, may nevertheless be introduced if it tends reasonably to show the purpose and character of the particular transactions under scrutiny. Standard Oil Co. v. United States, 221 U. S. 1, 46-47; United States v. Reading Co., 253 U. S. 26, 43-44. Here the trade practices of an entire industry were under consideration. Respondents, on the one hand, insisted that the multiple basing point delivered price system represented a natural evolution of business practices adopted by the different cement companies, not in concert, but separately in response to customers’ needs and demands. That the separately adopted business practices produced uniform terms and conditions of sale in all localities was, so the respondents contended, nothing but an inevitable result of long-continued competition. On the other hand, the Government contended that, despite shifts in ownership of individual cement companies, what had taken place from 1902 to the date the complaint was filed showed continued concerted action on the part of all cement producers to develop and improve the basing point system so that it would automatically eliminate competition. In the Government’s view the Institute when formed in 1929 simply took up the old practices for the old purpose and aided its member companies to carry it straight on through and beyond the NRA period. See Fort Howard Paper Co. v. Federal Trade Comm’n, 156 F. 2d 899, 906.
Furthermore, administrative agencies like the Federal Trade Commission have never been restricted by the rigid rules of evidence. Interstate Commerce Comm’n v. Baird, 194 U. S. 25, 44. And of course rules which bar certain types of evidence in criminal or quasi-criminal cases are not controlling in proceedings like this, where the effect of the Commission’s order is not to punish or to fasten liability on respondents for past conduct but to ban specific practices for the future in accordance with the general mandate of Congress.
The foregoing likewise largely answers respondents’ contention that there was error in the admission of a letter written by one Treanor in 1934 to the chairman of the NRA code authority for the cement industry. Treanor, who died prior to the filing of the complaint, was at the time president of one of the respondent companies and also an active trustee of the Institute. In the letter he stated among other things that the cement industry was one “above all others that cannot stand free competition, that must systematically restrain competition or be ruined.” This statement was made as part of his criticism of the cement industry’s publicity campaign in defense of the basing point system. The relevance of this statement indicating this Institute official’s informed judgment is obvious. That it might be only his conclusion does not render the statement inadmissible in this administrative proceeding.
All contentions in regard to the introduction of testimony have been considered. None of them justify refusal to enforce this order.
The Old Cement Case. — This Court’s opinion in Cement Mfrs. Protective Assn. v. United States, 268 U. S. 588, known as the Old Cement case, is relied on by the respondents in almost every contention they present. We think it has little relevance, if any at all, to the issues in this case.
In that case the United States brought an action in the District Court to enjoin an alleged combination to violate § 1 of the Sherman Act. The respondents were the Cement Manufacturers Protective Association, four of its officers, and nineteen cement manufacturers. The District Court held hearings, made findings of fact, and issued an injunction against those respondents. This Court, with three justices dissenting, reversed upon a review of the evidence. It did so because the Government did not charge and the record did not show “any agreement or understanding between the defendants placing limitations on either prices or production,” or any agreement to utilize the basing point system as a means of fixing prices. The Court said “But here the Government does not rely upon agreement or understanding, and this record wholly fails to establish, either directly or by inference, any concerted action other than that involved in the gathering and dissemination of pertinent information with respect to the sale and distribution of cement to which we have referred; and it fails to show any effect on price and production except such as would naturally flow from the dissemination of that information in the trade and its natural influence on individual action.” Id. at 606. In the Old Cement case and in Maple Flooring Assn. v. United States, 268 U. S. 563, decided the same day, the Court’s attention was focused on the rights of a trade association, despite the Sherman Act, openly to gather and disseminate statistics and information as to production costs, output, past prices, merchandise on hand, specific job contracts, freight rates, etc., so long as the Association did these things without attempts to foster agreements or concerted action with reference to prices, production, or terms of sale. Such associations were declared guiltless of violating the Sherman Act, because “in fact, no prohibited concert of action was found.” Corn Products Co. v. Federal Trade Comm’n, 324 U. S. 726, 735.
The Court’s holding in the Old Cement case would not have been inconsistent with a judgment sustaining the Commission’s order here, even had the two cases been before this Court the same day. The issues in the present Commission proceedings are quite different from those in the Old Cement case, although many of. the trade practices shown here were also shown there. In the first place, unlike the Old Cement case, the Commission does here specifically charge a combination to utilize the basing point system as a means to bring about uniform prices and terms of sale. And here the Commission has focused attention on this issue, having introduced evidence on the issue which covers thousands of pages. Furthermore, unlike the trial court in the Old Cement case, the Commission has specifically found the existence of a combination among respondents to employ the basing point system for the purpose of selling at identical prices.
In the second place, individual conduct, or concerted conduct, which falls short of being a Sherman Act violation may as a matter of law constitute an "unfair method of competition” prohibited by the Trade Commission Act. A major purpose of that Act, as we have frequently said, was to enable the Commission to restrain practices as “unfair” which, although not yet having grown into Sherman Act dimensions would, most likely do so if left unrestrained. The Commission and the courts were to determine what conduct, even though it might then be short of a Sherman Act violation, was an “unfair method of competition.” This general language was deliberately left to the “commission and the courts” for definition because it was thought that “There is no limit to human inventiveness in this field”; that consequently, a definition that fitted practices known to lead towards an unlawful restraint of trade today would not fit tomorrow’s new inventions in the field; and that for Congress to try to keep its precise definitions abreast of this course of conduct would be an “endless task.” See Federal Trade Commission v. R. F. Keppel & Bro., 291 U. S. 304, 310-312, and congressional committee reports there quoted.
These marked differences between what a court must decide in a Sherman Act proceeding and the duty of the Commission in determining whether conduct is to be classified as an unfair method of competition are enough in and of themselves to make the Old Cement decision wholly inapplicable to our problem in reviewing the findings in this case. That basic problem is whether the Commission made findings of concerted action, whether those findings are supported by evidence, and if so whether the findings are adequate as a matter of law to sustain the Commission’s conclusion that the multiple basing point system as practiced constitutes an “unfair method of competition,” because it either restrains free competition or is an incipient menace to it.
Findings and Evidence. — It is strongly urged that the Commission failed to find, as charged in both counts of the complaint, that the respondents had by combination, agreements, or understandings among themselves utilized the multiple basing point delivered price system as a restraint to accomplish uniform prices and terms of sale. A subsidiary contention is that assuming the Commission did so find, there is no substantial evidence to support such a finding. We think that adequate findings of combination were made and that the findings have support in the evidence.
The Commission’s findings of fact set out at great length and with painstaking detail numerous concerted activities carried on in order to make the multiple basing point system work in such way that competition in quality, price and terms of sale of cement would be nonexistent, and that uniform prices, job contracts, discounts, and terms of sale would be continuously maintained. The Commission found that many of these activities were carried on by the Cement Institute, the industry’s un
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
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. Chief Justice Burger
announced the judgment of the Court and delivered an opinion, in which Mr. Justice White and Mr. Justice Rehnquist joined.
The question presented is whether the news media have a constitutional right of access to a county jail, over and above that of other persons, to interview inmates and make sound recordings, films, and photographs for publication and broadcasting by newspapers, radio, and television.
I
Petitioner Houchins, as Sheriff of Alameda County, Cal., controls all access to the Alameda County Jail at Santa Rita. Respondent KQED operates licensed television and radio broadcasting stations which have frequently reported newsworthy events relating to penal institutions in the San Francisco Bay Area. On March 31, 1975, KQED reported the suicide of a prisoner in the Greystone portion of the Santa Rita jail. The report included a statement by a psychiatrist that the conditions at the Greystone facility were responsible for the illnesses of his patient-prisoners there, and a statement from petitioner denying that prison conditions were responsible for the prisoners' illnesses.
KQED requested permission to inspect and take pictures within the Greystone facility. After permission was refused, KQED and the Alameda and Oakland branches of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) filed suit under 42 U. S. C. § 1983. They alleged that petitioner had violated the First Amendment by refusing to permit media access and failing to provide any effective means by which the public could be informed of conditions prevailing in the Greystone facility or learn of the prisoners’ grievances. Public access to such information was essential, they asserted, in order for NAACP members to participate in the public debate on jail conditions in Alameda County. They further asserted that television coverage of the conditions in the cells and facilities was the most effective way of informing the public of prison conditions.
.The complaint requested a preliminary and permanent injunction to prevent petitioner from “excluding KQED news personnel from the Greystone cells and Santa Rita facilities and generally preventing full and accurate news coverage of the conditions prevailing therein.” On June 17,1975, when the complaint was filed, there appears to have been no formal policy regarding public access to the Santa Rita jail. However, according to petitioner, he had been in the process of planning a program of regular monthly tours since he took office six months earlier. On July 8, 1975, he announced the program and invited all interested persons to make arrangements for the regular public tours. News media were given notice in advance of the public and presumably could have made early reservations.
Six monthly tours were planned and funded by the county at an estimated cost of $1,800. The first six scheduled tours were filled within a week after the July 8 announcement. A KQED reporter and several other reporters were on the first tour on July 14, 1975.
Each tour was limited to 25 persons and permitted only limited access to the jail. The tours did not include the disciplinary cells or the portions of the jail known as “Little Greystone,” the scene of alleged rapes, beatings, and adverse physical conditions. Photographs of some parts of the jail were made available, but no cameras or tape recorders were allowed on the tours. Those on the tours were not permitted to interview inmates, and inmates were generally removed from view.
In support of the request for a preliminary injunction, respondents presented testimony and affidavits stating that other penal complexes had permitted media interviews of inmates and substantial media access without experiencing significant security or administrative problems. They contended that the monthly public tours at Santa Rita failed to provide adequate access to the jail for two reasons: (a) once the scheduled tours had been filled, media representatives who had not signed up for them had no access and were unable to cover newsworthy events at the jail; (b) the prohibition on photography and tape recordings, the exclusion of portions of the jail from the tours, and the practice of keeping inmates generally removed from view substantially reduced the usefulness of the tours to the media.
In response, petitioner admitted that Santa Rita had never experimented with permitting media access beyond that already allowed; he did not claim that disruption had been caused by media access to other institutions. He asserted, however, that unregulated access by the media would infringe inmate privacy, and tend to create “jail celebrities,” who in turn tend to generate internal problems and undermine jail security. He also contended that unscheduled media tours would disrupt jail operations.
Petitioner filed an affidavit noting the various means by which information concerning the jail could reach the public. Attached to the affidavit were the current prison mail, visitation, and phone call regulations. The regulations allowed inmates to send an unlimited number of letters to judges, attorneys, elected officials, the Attorney General, petitioner, jail officials, or probation officers, all of which could be sealed prior to mailing. Other letters were subject to inspection for contraband but the regulations provided that no inmate mail would be read.
With few exceptions, all persons, including representatives of the media, who knew a prisoner could visit him. Media reporters could interview inmates awaiting trial with the consent of the inmate, his attorney, the district attorney, and the court. Social services officers were permitted to contact “rela* tives, community agencies, employers, etc.,” by phone to assist in counseling inmates with vocational, educational, or personal problems. Maximum-security inmates were free to make unmonitored collect telephone calls from designated areas .of the jail without limit.
After considering the testimony, affidavits, and documentary evidence presented by the parties, the District. Court preliminarily enjoined petitioner from denying KQED news personnel and “responsible representatives” of the news media access to the Santa Rita facilities, including Greystone, “at reasonable times and hours” and “from preventing KQED news personnel and responsible representatives of the news media from utilizing photographic and sound equipment or from utilizing inmate interviews in providing full and accurate coverage of the Santa Rita facilities.”
The District Court rejected petitioner’s contention that the media policy then in effect was necessary to protect inmate privacy or minimize security and administrative problems. It found that the testimony of officials involved with other jails indicated that a “more flexible press policy at Santa Rita [was] both desirable and attainable.” The District Court concluded that the respondents had “demonstrated irreparable injury, absence of an adequate remedy at law, probability of success on the merits, a favorable public interest, and a balance of hardships” in their favor.
On interlocutory appeal from the District Court’s order, petitioner invoked Pell v. Procunier, 417 U. S. 817, 834 (1974), where this Court held that “newsmen have no constitutional right of access to prisons or their inmates beyond that afforded to the general public.” He contended that the District Court had departed from Pell and abused its discretion because it had ordered that he give the media greater access to the jail than he gave to the general public. The Court of Appeals rejected petitioner’s argument that Pell and Saxbe v. Washington Post Co., 417 U. S. 843 (1974), were controlling. It concluded, albeit in three separate opinions, that the public and the media had a First and Fourteenth Amendment right of access to prisons and jails, and sustained the District Court’s order.
II
Notwithstanding our holding in Pell v. Procunier, supra, respondents assert that the right recognized by the Court of Appeals flows logically from our decisions construing the First Amendment. They argue that there is a constitutionally guaranteed right to gather news under Pell v. Procunier, supra, at 835, and Branzburg v. Hayes, 408 U. S. 665, 681, 707 (1972). From the right to gather news and the right to receive information, they argue for an implied special right of access to government-controlled sources of information. This right, they contend, compels access as a constitutional matter. Respondents suggest further support for this implicit First Amendment right in the language of Grosjean v. American Press Co., 297 U. S. 233, 250 (1936), and Mills v. Alabama, 384 U. S. 214, 219 (1966), which notes the importance of an informed public as a safeguard against “misgovernment” and the crucial role of the media in providing information. Respondents contend that public access to penal institutions is necessary to prevent officials from concealing prison conditions from the voters and impairing the public’s right to discuss and criticize the prison system and its administration.
Ill
We can agree with many of the respondents’ generalized assertions; conditions in jails and prisons are clearly matters “of great public importance.” Pell v. Procunier, supra, at 830 n. 7. Penal facilities are public institutions which require large amounts of public funds, and their mission is crucial in our criminal justice system. Each person placed in prison becomes, in effect, a ward of the state for whom society assumes broad responsibility. It is equally true that with greater information, the public can more intelligently form opinions about prison conditions. Beyond question, the role of the media is important; acting as the “eyes and ears” of the public, they can be a powerful and constructive force, contributing to remedial action in the conduct of public business. They have served that function since the beginning of the Republic, but like all other components of our society media representatives are subject to limits.
The media are not a substitute for or an adjunct of government and, like the courts, they are “ill equipped” to deal with problems of prison administration. Cf. Procunier v. Martinez, 416 U. S. 396, 405 (19-74). We must-not confuse the role of the media with that of government; each has special, crucial functions, each complementing- — -and sometimes conflicting with — the other.
The public importance of conditions in penal facilities and the media’s role of providing information afford no basis for reading into the Constitution a right of the public or the media to enter these institutions, with camera equipment, and take moving and still pictures of inmates for broadcast purposes. This Court has never intimated a First Amendment guarantee of a right of access to all sources of information within government control. Nor does the rationale of the decisions upon which respondents rely lead to the implication of such a right.
Grosjean v. American Press Co., supra, and Mills v. Alabama, supra, emphasized the importance of informed public opinion and the traditional role of a free press as a source of public information., But an analysis of those cases reveals that the Court was concerned with the freedom of the media to communicate information once it is obtained; neither case intimated that the Constitution compels the government to provide the media with information or access to it on demand. Grosjean involved a challenge to a state tax on advertising revenues of newspapers, the “plain purpose” of which was to penalize the publishers and curtail the publication of a selected group of newspapers. 297 U. S., at 251. The Court summarized the familiar but important history of the attempts to prevent criticism of the Crown in England by the infamous licensing requirements and special taxes on the press, id., at 245-247, and concluded that the First Amendment had been designed to prevent similar restrictions or any other “form of previous restraint upon printed publications, or their circulation.” Id., at 249.
In discussing the importance of an “untrammeled press,” the Court in Orosjean readily acknowledged the need for “informed public opinion” as a restraint upon misgovernment. 297 U. S., at 250. It also criticized the tax at issue because it limited “the circulation of information to which the public [was] entitled.” Ibid. But nothing in the Court’s holding implied a special privilege of access to information as distinguished from a right to publish information which has been obtained; Gres jean dealt only with government attempts to burden and restrain a newspaper’s communication with the public. The reference to a public entitlement to information meant no more than that the government cannot restrain communication of whatever information the media acquire— and which they elect to reveal. Cf. Landmark Communications, Inc. v. Virginia, 435 U. S. 829, 838 (1978).
Mills involved a statute making it a crime to publish an editorial about election issues on election day. In striking down the statute, the Court noted that “a major purpose of [the First] Amendment was to protect the free discussion of governmental affairs,” 384 U. S., at 218. The Court also discussed the role of the media “as a powerful antidote to any abuses of power by governmental officials and as a constitutionally chosen means for keeping officials elected by the people responsible to all the people whom they were selected to serve.” Id., at 219. As in Grosjean, however, the Court did not remotely imply a constitutional right guaranteeing anyone access to government information beyond that open to the public generally.
Branzburg v. Hayes, supra, offers even less support for the respondents’ position. Its observation, in dictum, that “news gathering is not without its First Amendment protections,” 408 U. S., at 707, in no sense implied a constitutional right of access to news sources. That observation must be read in context; it was in response to the contention that forcing a reporter to disclose to a grand jury information received in confidence would violate the First Amendment by deterring news sources from communicating information. Id., at 680. There is an undoubted right to gather news “from any source by means within the law,” id., at 681-682, but that affords no basis for the claim that the First Amendment compels others — private persons or governments — to supply information.
That the Court assumed in Branzburg that there is no First Amendment right of access to information is manifest from its statements that
“the First Amendment does not guarantee the press a constitutional right of special access to information not available to the public generally,” id., at 684,
and that
“[njewsmen have no constitutional right of access to the scenes of crime or disaster when the general public is excluded,” id., at 684-685.
Pell v. Procunier and Saxbe v. Washington Post Co. also assumed that there is no constitutional right of access such as the Court of Appeals conceived. In those cases the Court declared, explicitly and without reservation, that the media have “no constitutional right of access to prisons or their inmates beyond that afforded the general public,” Pell, 417 U. S., at 834; Saxbe, 417 U. S., at 850, and on that premise the Court sustained prison regulations that prevented media interviews with inmates.
The fact that the Court relied upon Zemel v. Rusk, 381 U. S. 1 (1965), in both Branzburg, 408 U. S., at 684 n. 22, and Pell, supra, at 834 n. 9, further negates any notion that the First Amendment confers a right of access to news sources. The appellant in Zemel made essentially the same argument that respondents advance here. He contended that the ban on travel to Cuba, then in effect, interfered with his First Amendment right to acquaint himself with the effects of our Government’s foreign and domestic policies and the conditions in Cuba that might affect those policies. Mr. Chief Justice Warren, writing for the Court, flatly rejected the contention that there was a First Amendment right at stake, stating:
“[Tjhere are few restrictions on action which could not be clothed by ingenious argument in the garb of decreased data flow. For example, the prohibition of unauthorized entry into the White House diminishes the citizen’s opportunities to gather information he might find relevant to his opinion of the way the country is being run, but that does not make entry into the White House a First Amendment right. The right to speak and publish does not carry with it the unrestrained right to gather information.” 381 U. S., at 16-17. (Emphasis added.)
The right to receive ideas and information is not the issue in this case. See, e. g., Virginia Pharmacy Board v. Virginia Citizens Consumer Council, 425 U. S. 748 (1976); Procunier v. Martinez, 416 U. S., at 408-409; Kleindienst v. Mandel, 408 U. S. 753, 762-763 (1972). The issue is a claimed special privilege of access which the Court rejected in Pell and Saxbe, a right which is not essential to guarantee the freedom to communicate or publish.
IV
The respondents’ argument is flawed, not only because it lacks precedential support and is contrary to statements in this Court’s opinions, but also because it invites the Court to involve itself in what is clearly a legislative task which the Constitution has left to the political processes. Whether the government should open penal institutions in the manner sought by respondents is a question of policy which a legislative body might appropriately resolve one way or the other.
A number of alternatives are available to prevent problems in penal facilities from escaping public attention. The early penal reform movements in this country and England gained impetus as a result of reports from citizens and visiting committees who volunteered or received commissions to visit penal institutions and make reports. See T. Eriksson, The Reformers 32-42, 69 (Djurklou translation 1976); W. Crawford, Report on the Penitentiaries of the United States vii-viii, xiii-xv, 10-11, App. 9 (1969 ed.); B. McKelvey, American Prisons 52-56, 193 (1936). Citizen task forces and prison visitation committees continue to play an important role in keeping the public informed on deficiencies of prison systems and need for reforms. Grand juries, with the potent subpoena power — not available to the media — traditionally concern themselves with conditions in public institutions; a prosecutor or judge may initiate similar inquiries, and the legislative power embraces an arsenal of weapons for inquiry relating to tax-supported institutions. In each case, these public bodies are generally compelled to publish their findings and, if they default, the power of the media is always available to generate public pressure. for disclosure. But the choice as to the most effective and appropriate method is a policy decision to be resolved by legislative decision. We must not confuse what is “good,” “desirable,” or “expedient” with what is constitutionally commanded by the First Amendment. To do so is to trivialize constitutional adjudication.
Unarticulated but implicit in the assertion that media access to the jail is essential for informed public debate on jail conditions is the assumption that media personnel are the best qualified persons for the task of discovering malfeasance in public institutions. But that assumption finds no support in the decisions of this Court or the First Amendment. Editors and newsmen who inspect a jail may decide to publish or not to 'publish what information they acquire. Cf. Columbia Broadcasting System, Inc. v. Democratic National Committee, 412 U. S. 94, 124 (1973); Miami Herald Publishing Co. v. Tornillo, 418 U. S. 241 (1974); Note, The Rights of the Public and the Press To Gather Information, 87 Harv. L. Rev. 1505, 1508, 1513 (1974). Public bodies and public officers, on the other hand, may be coerced by public opinion to disclose what they might prefer to conceal. No comparable pressures are available to anyone to compel publication by the media of what they might prefer not to make known.
There is no discernible basis for a constitutional duty to disclose, or for standards governing disclosure of or access to information. Because the Constitution affords no guidelines, absent statutory standards, hundreds of judges would, under the Court of Appeals’ approach, be at large to fashion ad hoc standards, in individual cases, according to their own ideas of what seems “desirable” or “expedient.” We, therefore, reject the Court of Appeals’ conclusory assertion that the public and the media have a First Amendment right to government information regarding the conditions of jails and their inmates and presumably all other public facilities such as hospitals, and mental institutions.
“There is no constitutional right to have access to particular government information, or to require openness from the bureaucracy. [Citing Pell v. Procunier, supra.] The public’s interest in knowing about its government is protected by the guarantee of a Free Press, but the protection is indirect. The Constitution itself is neither a Freedom of Information Act nor an Official Secrets Act.
“The Constitution, in other words, establishes the contest, not its resolution. Congress may provide a resolution, at least in some instances, through carefully drawn legislation. For the rest, we must rely, as so often in our system we must, on the tug and pull of the political forces in American society.” Stewart, “Or of the Press,” 26 Hastings L. J. 631, 636 (1975).
Petitioner cannot prevent respondents from learning about jail conditions in a variety of ways, albeit not as conveniently as they might prefer. Respondents have a First Amendment right to receive letters from inmates criticizing jail officials and reporting on conditions. See Procunier v. Martinez, 416 U. S., at 413-418. Respondents are free to interview those who render the legal assistance to which inmates are entitled. See id., at 419. They are also free to seek out former inmates, visitors to the prison, public officials, and institutional personnel, as they sought out the complaining psychiatrist here.
Moreover, California statutes currently provide for a prison Board of Corrections that has the authority to inspect jails and prisons and must provide a public report at regular intervals. Cal. Penal Code Ann. §§ 6031-6031.2 (West Supp. 1978). Health inspectors are required to inspect prisons and ’provide reports to a number of officials, including the State Attorney General and the Board of Corrections. Cal. Health & Safety Code Ann. § 459 (West 1970). Fire officials are also required to inspect prisons. 15 Cal. Admin. Code § 1025 (1976). Following the reports of the suicide at the jail involved here, the County Board of Supervisors called for a report from the County Administrator; held a public hearing on the report, which was open to the media; and called for further reports when the initial report failed to describe the conditions in the cells in the Greystone portion of the jail.
Neither the First Amendment nor the Fourteénth Amendment mandates a right of access to government information or sources of information within the government’s control. Under our holdings in Pell v. Procunier, supra, and Saxbe v. Washing ton Post Co., supra, until the political branches decree otherwise, as they are free to do, the media have no special right of access to the Alameda County Jail different from or greater than that accorded the public generally.
The judgment of the Court of Appeals is reversed, and the case is remanded for further proceedings.
Reversed and remanded.
Mr. Justice Marshall and Mr. Justice Blackmun took no part in the consideration or decision of this case.
According to petitioner, the initial public interest in the tours has now subsided and there is no longer a waiting list.
It is true that inmates lose many rights when they are lawfully confined, but they do not lose all civil rights. See, e. g., Wolff v. McDonnell, 418 U. S. 539, 555-556 (1974), and eases cited therein. Inmates in jails, prisons, or mental institutions retain certain fundamental rights of privacy; they are not like animals in a zoo to be filmed and photographed at will by the public or by media reporters, however “educational” the process may be for others.
Persons who were on parole or had been released from a state prison could not visit without the approval of the commanding officer. Persons released from the Santa Rita or the courthouse jail within a certain period of time were also required to obtain approval to visit from the commanding officer.
See 546 F. 2d 284 (CA9 1976).
The Court relied upon Near v. Minnesota ex rel. Olson, 283 U. S. 697, 713-716 (1931). More recently in Organization for a Better Austin v. Keefe, 402 U. S. 415 (1971), these concepts were reaffirmed. See also Nebraska Press Assn. v. Stuart, 427 U. S. 539 (1976); Miami Herald Publishing Co. v. Tornillo, 418 U. S. 241 (1974).
See, e. g., Behind the Bars, ABA Report of Young Lawyers Section on Prison Visitation Program 1970-1975; Case, Citizen Participation: An Experiment in Prison-Community Relations, 30 Federal Probation 18, 19-21 (Dee. 1966); Final Report of the Ohio Citizens' Task Force on Corrections A28 (1971); Report of the Illinois Subcommittee on Penal Institutions of the Legislative Comm’n To Visit and Examine State Institutions (1969); Massachusetts, Governor’s Task Force on Correctional Industries, Final Report (Sept. 1970); California Correctional System Study, Final Report, California Board of Corrections (July 1971).
The Freedom of Information Act, 5 U. S. C. §552 (1976 ed.), for example, is the result of legislative decisions.
See Brenneman v. Madigan, 343 F. Supp. 128, 132-133 (ND Cal. 1972). Based on a, personal visit to the facility, Judge Zirpoli reached the “inescapable conclusion . . . that Greystone should be razed to the ground.”
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
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 Stevens
delivered the opinion of the Court.
Respondent was employed by United Air Lines as a flight attendant from November 1966 to February 1968. She was rehired in February 1972. Assuming, as she alleges, that her separation from employment in 1968 violated Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the question now presented is whether the employer is committing a second violation of Title VII by refusing to credit her with seniority for any period prior to February 1972.
Respondent filed charges with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in February 1973, alleging that United discriminated and continues to discriminate against her because she is a female. After receiving a letter granting her the right to sue, she commenced this action in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois. Because the District Court dismissed her complaint, the facts which she has alleged are taken as true. They may be simply stated.
During respondent’s initial period of employment, United maintained a policy of refusing to allow its female flight attendants to be married. When she married in 1968, she was therefore forced to resign. Although it was subsequently decided that such a resignation violated Title VII, Sprogis v. United Air Lines, 444 F. 2d 1194 (CA7 1971), cert. denied, 404 U. S. 991, respondent was not a party to that case and did not initiate any proceedings of her own in 1968 by filing a charge with the EEOC within 90 days of her separation. A claim based on that discriminatory act is therefore barred.
In November 1968, United entered into a new collective-bargaining agreement which ended the pre-existing “no marriage” rule and provided for the reinstatement of certain flight attendants who had been terminated pursuant to that rule. Respondent was not covered by that agreement. On several occasions she unsuccessfully sought reinstatement; on February 16, 1972, she was hired as a new employee. Although her personnel file carried the same number as it did in 1968, for seniority purposes she has been treated as though she had no prior service with United. She has not alleged that any other rehired employees were given credit for prior service with United, or that United’s administration of the seniority system has violated the collective-bargaining agreement covering her employment.
Informal requests to credit her with pre-1972 seniority-having been denied, respondent commenced this action. The District Court dismissed the complaint, holding that the failure to file a charge within 90 days of her separation in 1968 caused respondent’s claim to be time barred, and foreclosed any relief under Title VII.
A divided panel of the Court of Appeals initially affirmed; then, after our decision in Franks v. Bowman Transportation Co., 424 U. S. 747, the panel granted respondent’s petition for rehearing and unanimously reversed. 534 F. 2d 1247 (CA7 1976). We granted certiorari, 429 U. S. 917, and now hold that the complaint was properly dismissed.
Respondent recognizes that it is now too late to obtain relief based on an unlawful employment practice which occurred in •1968. She contends, however, that United is guilty of a present, continuing violation of Title VII and therefore that her claim is timely. She advances two reasons for holding that United’s seniority system illegally discriminates against her: First, she is treated less favorably than males who were hired after her termination in 1968 and prior to her re-employment in 1972; second, the seniority system gives present effect to the past illegal act and therefore perpetuates the consequences of forbidden discrimination. Neither argument persuades us that United is presently violating the statute.
It is true that some male employees with less total service than respondent have more seniority than she. But this disparity is not a consequence of their sex, or of her sex. For females hired between 1968 and 1972 also acquired the same preference over respondent as males hired during that period. Moreover, both male and female employees who had service prior to February 1968, who resigned or were terminated for a nondiscriminatory reason (or for an unchallenged discriminatory reason), and who were later re-employed, also were treated as new employees receiving no seniority credit for their prior service. Nothing alleged in the complaint indicates that United’s seniority system treats existing female employees differently from existing male employees, or that the failure to credit prior service differentiates in any way between prior service by males and prior service by females. Respondent has failed to allege that United’s seniority system differentiates between similarly situated males and females on the basis of sex.
Respondent is correct in pointing out that the seniority system gives present effect to a past act of discrimination. But United was entitled to treat that past act as lawful after respondent failed to file a charge of discrimination within the 90 days then allowed by § 706 (d). A discriminatory act which is not made the basis for a timely charge is the legal equivalent of a discriminatory act which occurred before the statute was passed. It may constitute relevant background evidence in a proceeding in which the status of a current practice is at issue, but separately considered, it is merely an unfortunate event in history which has no present legal consequences.
Respondent emphasizes the fact that she has alleged a continuing violation. United’s seniority system does indeed have a continuing impact on her pay and fringe benefits. But the emphasis should not be placed on mere continuity; the critical question is whether any present violation exists. She has not alleged that the system discriminates against former female employees or that it treats former employees who were discharged for a discriminatory reason any differently from former employees who resigned or were discharged for a nondiscriminatory reason. In short, the system is neutral in its operation.
Our decision in Franks v. Bowman Transportation Co., supra, does not control this case. In Franks we held that retroactive seniority was an appropriate remedy to be awarded under § 706 (g) of Title VII, 42 U. S. C. § 2000e-5 (g) (1970 ed., Supp. V), after an illegal discriminatory act or practice had been proved, 424 U. S., at 762-768. When that case reached this Court, the issues relating to the timeliness of the charge and the violation of Title VII had already been decided; we dealt only with a question of remedy. In contrast, in the case now before us we do not reach any remedy issue because respondent did not file a timely charge based on her 1968 separation and she has not alleged facts establishing a violation since she was rehired in 1972.
The difference between a remedy issue and a violation issue is highlighted by the analysis of § 703 (h) of Title VII in Franks. As we held in that case, by its terms that section does not bar the award of retroactive seniority after a violation has been proved. Rather, § 703 (h) “delineates which employment practices are illegal and thereby prohibited and which are not,” 424 U. S., at 758.
That section expressly provides that it shall not be an unlawful employment practice to apply different terms of employment pursuant to a bona fide seniority system, provided that any disparity is not the result of intentional discrimination. Since respondent does not attack the bona fides of United’s seniority system, and since she makes no charge that the system is intentionally designed to discriminate because of race, color, religion, sex, or national origin, § 703 (h) provides an additional ground for rejecting her claim.
The Court of Appeals read § 703 (h) as intended to bar an attack on a seniority system based on the consequences of discriminatory acts which occurred prior to the effective date of Title VII in 1965, but having no application to such attacks based on acts occurring after 1965. This reading of § 703 (h) is too narrow. The statute does not foreclose attacks on the current operation of seniority systems which are subject to challenge as discriminatory. But such a challenge to a neutral system may not be predicated on the mere fact that a past event which has no present legal significance has affected the calculation of seniority credit, even if the past event might at one time have justified a valid claim against the employer. A contrary view would substitute a claim for seniority credit for almost every claim which is barred by limitations. Such a result would contravene the mandate of § 703 (h).
The judgment of the Court of Appeals is reversed.
It is so ordered.
78 Stat. 253. Title VII, as amended, is codified in 42 U. S. C. § 2000e et seq. (1970 ed. and Supp. V).
At that time United required that all flight attendants be female, except on flights between the mainland and Hawaii and on overseas military charter flights. See Sprogis v. United Air Lines, 444 F. 2d 1194, 1203 (CA7 1971) (Stevens, J., dissenting), cert. denied, 404 U. S. 991.
Section 706 (d), 78 Stat. 260, 42 U. S. C. § 2000&-5 (d), then provided in part:
“A charge under subsection (a) shall be filed within ninety days after the alleged unlawful employment practice occurred . . .
The 1972 amendments to Title VII added a new subsection (a) to § 706. Consequently, subsection (d) was redesignated as subsection (e). At the same time it was amended to enlarge the limitations period to 180 days. See 86 Stat. 105,42 U. S. C. § 2000e-5 (e) (1970 ed., Supp. V).
Timely filing is a prerequisite to the maintenance of a Title VII action. Alexander v. Gardner-Denver Co., 415 U. S. 36, 47. See Electrical Workers v. Robbins & Myers, Inc., 429 U. S. 229, 239-240.
Respondent is carried on two seniority rolls. Her “company” or “system” seniority dates from the day she was rehired, February 16, 1972. Her “stewardess” or “pay” seniority dates from the day she completed her flight attendant training, March 16, 1972. One or both types of seniority determine a flight attendant’s wages; the duration and timing of vacations; rights to retention in the event of layoffs and rights to re-employment thereafter; and rights to preferential selection of flight assignments. App. 5-6, 10.
Under the provisions of the collective-bargaining agreement between United and the Air Line Stewardesses and Flight Stewards as represented by the Air Line Pilots Association International for the period 1972-1974, seniority is irrevocably lost or broken after the separation from employment of a flight attendant “who resigns or whose services with the Company are permanently severed for just came.’’ Brief for Respondent 6.
The relief requested in respondent’s complaint included an award of seniority to the starting date of her initial employment with United, and backpay “lost as a result of the discriminatory employment practices of [United].” App. 8. In her brief in this Court, respondent states that she seeks backpay only since her date of rehiring, February 16, 1972, which would consist of the increment in pay and benefits attributable to her lower seniority since that time. Brief for Respondent 4.
The District Court recited that the motion was filed pursuant to Fed. Rule Civ. Proc. 12 (b) (1) and dismissed the complaint on the ground that it had no jurisdiction of a time-barred claim. The District Court also held, however, that the complaint did not allege any continuing violation. For that reason, the complaint was ripe for dismissal under Rule 12 (b)(6). The District Court stated:
“Plaintiff asserts that by defendant’s denial of her seniority back to the starting date of her original employment in 1966, United is currently perpetuating the effect of past discrimination.
“Plaintiff, however, has not been suffering from any 'continuing’ violation. She is seeking to have this court merely reinstate her November, 1966 seniority date which was lost solely by reason of her February, 1968 resignation. The fact that that resignation was the result of an unlawful employment practice is irrelevant for purposes of these proceedings because plaintiff lost her opportunity to redress that grievance when she failed to file a charge within ninety days of February, 1968. United’s subsequent employment of plaintiff in 1972 cannot operate to resuscitate such a time-barred claim.” App. 18.
Respondent cannot rely for jurisdiction on the single act of failing to assign her seniority credit for her prior service at the time she was rehired, for she filed her discrimination charge with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission on February 21, 1973, more than one year after she was rehired on February 16, 1972. The applicable time limit in February 1972, was 90 days; effective March 24, 1972, this time was extended to 180 days, see n. 3, supra.
This case does not involve any claim by respondent that United’s seniority system deterred her from asserting any right granted by Title VII. It does not present the question raised in the so-called departmental seniority cases. See, e. g., Quarles v. Philip Morris, Inc., 279 F. Supp. 505 (ED Va. 1968).
The Court of Appeals had disposed of the timeliness issues in Franks, 495 F. 2d 398, 405 (CA5 1974).
This finding of the District Court was unchallenged in the Court of Appeals, id., at 402, 403, and was assumed in this Court, 424 U. S., at 750.
In any event we noted in Franks: “The underlying legal wrong affecting [the class] is not the alleged operation of a racially discriminatory seniority system but of a racially discriminatory hiring system.” Id., at 758.
At the time she was rehired in 1972, respondent had no greater right to a job than any other applicant for employment with United. Since she was in fact treated like any other applicant when she was rehired, the employer did not violate Title VII in 1972. And if the employer did not violate Title VII in 1972 by refusing to credit respondent with back seniority, its continued adherence to that policy cannot be illegal.
Section 703 (h), 78 Stat. 257, 42 U. S. C. §2000e-2 (h), provides:
“Notwithstanding any other provision of this title, it shall not be an unlawful employment practice for an employer to apply different standards of compensation, or different terms, conditions, or privileges of employment pursuant to a bona fide seniority or merit system . . . provided that such differences are not the result of an intention to discriminate because of race, color, religion, sex, or national origin ....’’
534 F. 2d, at 1251.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | B | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Per Curiam.
The petitions for writs of certiorari are granted and the judgments are reversed. Rogers v. Missouri Pacific R. Co., 352 U. S. 500.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | H | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Justice Souter
delivered the opinion of the Court.
The Charter of the American National Red Cross authorizes the organization “to sue and be sued in courts of law and equity, State or Federal, within the jurisdiction of the United States.” 33 Stat. 600, as amended, 36 U. S. C. §2. In this case we consider whether that “sue and be sued” provision confers original jurisdiction on federal courts over all cases to which the Red Cross is a party, with the consequence that the organization is thereby authorized to remove from state to federal court any state-law action it is defending. We hold that the clause does confer such jurisdiction.
J — I
In 1988 respondents filed a state-law tort action in a court of the State of New Hampshire, alleging that one of respondents had contracted AIDS from a transfusion of contaminated blood during surgery, and naming as defendants the surgeon and the manufacturer of a piece of medical equipment used during the procedure. After discovering that the Red Cross had supplied the tainted blood, respondents sued it, too, again in state court, and moved to consolidate the two actions. Before the state court decided that motion, the Red Cross invoked the federal removal statute, 28 U. S. C. § 1441, to remove the latter suit to the United States District Court for the District of New Hampshire. The Red Cross claimed federal jurisdiction based both on the diversity of the parties and on the "sue and be sued” provision of its charter, which it argued conferred original federal jurisdiction over suits involving the organization. The District Court rejected respondents’ motion to remand the case to state court, holding that the charter provision conferred original federal jurisdiction. See District Court order of May 24,1990, reprinted at App. to Pet. for Cert. 18a-25a.
On interlocutory appeal, the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit reversed. 938 F. 2d 1494 (1991). The Court of Appeals compared the Red Cross Charter’s “sue and be sued” provision with analogous provisions in federal corporate charters previously examined by this Court, and concluded that the relevant language in the Red Cross Charter was similar to its cognates in the charter of the first Bank of the United States, construed in Bank of the United States v. Deveaux, 5 Cranch 61 (1809), and in that of the federally chartered railroad construed in Bankers Trust Co. v. Texas & Pacific R. Co., 241 U. S. 295 (1916), in neither of which cases did we find a grant of federal jurisdiction. The Court of Appeals distinguished Osborn v. Bank of United States, 9 Wheat. 738 (1824), where we reached the opposite result under the charter of the second Bank of the United States, the Court of Appeals finding it significant that the second Bank’s authorization to sue and be sued spoke of a particular federal court and of state courts already possessed of jurisdiction. The Court of Appeals also discounted the Red Cross’s reliance on our opinion in D’Oench, Duhme & Co. v. Federal Deposit Ins. Corp., 315 U. S. 447 (1942), concluding that in that ease we had “notfed] only incidentally” that federal jurisdiction was based on the “sue and be sued” clause in the FDIC’s charter. See 938 F. 2d, at 1497-1499. The Court of Appeals found support for its conclusion in the location of the Red Cross Charter’s “sue and be sued” provision in the section “denominating] standard corporate powers,” id., at 1499, as well as in legislative history of the amendment to the Red Cross Charter adding the current “sue and be sued” language, and in the different form of analogous language in other federal corporate charters enacted contemporaneously with that amendment, see id., at 1499-1500.
We granted certiorari, 502 U. S. 976 (1991), to answer this difficult and recurring question.
H-1 H — 1
Since its founding in 1881 as part of an international effort to ameliorate soldiers’ wartime suffering, the American Red Cross has expanded its activities to include, among others, the civilian blood-supply services here at issue. The organization was reincorporated in 1893, and in 1900 received its first federal charter, which was revised in 1905. See American National Red Cross, Report of the Advisory Committee on Organization 4 (1946) (hereinafter Advisory Report), reprinted at App. to Brief for Appellants in No. 90-1873 (CAl), pp. 94, 101.
The 1905 charter empowered the Red Cross “to sue and be sued in courts of law and equity within the jurisdiction of the United States.” Act of Jan. 5,1905, eh. 23, § 2, 33 Stat. 600. At that time the provision would not have had the jurisdictional significance of its modern counterpart, since the law of the day held the involvement of a federally chartered corporation sufficient to render any case one “arising under” federal law for purposes of general statutory federal-question jurisdiction. See Pacific Railroad Removal Cases, 115 U. S. 1, 14 (1885). In 1925, however, Congress restricted the reach of this jurisdictional théory to federally chartered corporations in which the United States owned more than one-half of the capital stock. Act of Feb. 13, 1925, ch. 229, § 12, 43 Stat. 941; codified as amended at 28 U. S. C. § 1349. Since the effect of the 1925 law on nonstock corporations like the Red Cross is unclear, see, e. g., C. H. v. American Red Cross, 684 F. Supp. 1018, 1020-1022 (ED Mo. 1987) (noting split in authority over whether § 1349 applies to nonstock corporations), its enactment invested the charter’s “sue and be sued” clause with a potential jurisdiction significance previously unknown to it.
Its text, nevertheless, was left undisturbed for more than 20 years further, until its current form, authorizing the Red Cross “to sue and be sued in courts of law and equity, State or Federal, within the jurisdiction of the United States,” took shape with the addition of the term “State or Federal” to the 1905 language, as part of an overall revision of the organization’s charter and bylaws. See Act of May 8, 1947, Pub. L. 80-47, §3, 61 Stat. 80, 81. It is this language upon which the Red Cross relies, and which the Court of Appeals held to have conferred no federal jurisdiction.
HH HH H-i
A
As indicated earlier, we do not face a clean slate. Beginning with Chief Justice Marshall’s opinion in 1809, we have had several occasions to consider whether the “sue and be sued” provision of a particular federal corporate charter conferred original federal jurisdiction over cases to which that corporation was a party, and our readings of those provisions not only represented our best efforts at divining congressional intent retrospectively, but have also placed Congress on prospective notice of the language necessary and sufficient to confer jurisdiction. See, e. g., United States v. Merriam, 263 U. S. 179, 186 (1923) (Congress presumed to intend judicially settled meaning of terms); Cannon v. University of Chicago, 441 U. S. 677, 696-698 (1979) (presuming congressional knowledge of interpretation of similarly worded earlier statute). Those cases therefore require visitation with care.
In Deveaux, we considered whether original federal jurisdiction over suits by or against the first Bank of the United States was conferred by its charter. The language in point authorized the Bank “ ‘to sue and be sued, plead and be im-ple? -d, answer and be answered, defend and be defended, in /urts of record, or any other place whatsoever,’” 5 Cranch, at 85. In the opinion written by Chief Justice Marshall, the Court held this language to confer no federal jurisdiction, reading it as a mere grant to the bank of the normal corporate capacity to sue, id., at 85-86. The Court contrasted the charter’s “sue and be sued” provision with one authorizing the institution of certain suits against the bank’s officers “in any court of record of the United States, or of [sic] either of them,” a provision the Court described as “expressly authoriz[ing] the bringing of that action in the federal or state courts,” id., at 86. The Chief Justice concluded that this latter provision “evince[d] the opinion of congress, that the right to sue does not imply a right to sue in the courts of the union, unless it be expressed,” ibid.
The same issue came to us again 15 years later in Osborn. By this time Congress had established the second Bank of the United States, by a charter that authorized it “to sue and be sued, plead and be impleaded, answer and be answered, defend and be defended, in all state courts having competent jurisdiction, and in any circuit court of the United States.” Act of Apr. 10, 1816, ch. 44, §7, 3 Stat. 266, 269. In its interpretation of this language, the Court, again speaking through Chief Justice Marshall, relied heavily on its Deveaux analysis, and especially on the contrast developed there between the first bank charter’s “sue and be sued” provision and its provision authorizing suits against bank officers. See Osborn, 9 Wheat., at 818. Holding that the language of the second bank’s charter “could not be plainer by explanation,” ibid., in conferring federal jurisdiction, the Osborn Court distinguished Deveaux as.holding that “a general capacity in the Bank to sue, without mentioning the courts of the Union, may not give a right to sue in those courts,” 9 Wheat., at 818.
With the basic rule thus established, our next occasion to consider the issue did not arise until Bankers Trust, nearly a century later. The federal charter considered in that case authorized a railroad corporation “to sue and be sued, plead and be impleaded, defend and be defended, in all courts of law and equity within the United States.” Act of Mar. 3, 1871, ch. 122, § 1, 16 Stat. 573, 574. Testing this language against that construed in Deveaux and Osborn, we concluded that it “d[id] not literally follow” its analogues considered in either of the earlier cases, 241 U. S., at 304, but held, nevertheless, that it had “the same generality and natural import” as the clause contained in the first Bank charter. Thus, we followed Deveaux and found in the failure to authorize federal court litigation expressly no grant of federal jurisdiction. 241 U. S., at 304-305.
Last came D’Oench, Duhme, where we held that the FDIC’s charter granted original federal jurisdiction. That jurisdiction was not, we explained, “based on diversity of citizenship. Respondent, a federal corporation, brings this suit under an Act of Congress authorizing it to sue or be sued ‘in any court of law or equity, State or Federal.’ ” 315 U. S., at 455-456 (citation and footnote omitted). It is perfectly true, as respondents stressed in argument, that in an accompanying footnote we quoted without comment another part of the same statute, providing that “ ‘[a]ll suits of a civil nature at common law or in equity to which the Corporation shall be a party shall be deemed to arise under the laws of the United States: Provided, That any such suit to which the Corporation is a party in its capacity as receiver of a State bank and which involves only the rights or obligations of depositors, creditors, stockholders and such State bank'under State law shall not be deemed to arise under the laws of the United States.’” Id., at 455-456, n. 2. The footnote did not, however, raise any doubt that the Court held federal jurisdiction to rest on the terms of the “sue and be sued” clause. Quite the contrary, the footnote’s treatment naturally expressed the subordinate importance of the provision it quoted. While as a state bank’s receiver the FDIC might lose the benefit of the deemer clause as a grant of federal jurisdiction, the “sue and be sued” clause would settle the jurisdictional question conclusively, in any case.
B
These eases support the rule that a congressional charter’s “sue and be sued” provision may be read to confer federal court jurisdiction if, but only if, it specifically mentions the federal courts. In Deveaux, the Court found a “conclusive argument” against finding a jurisdictional grant in the “sue and be sued” clause in the fact that another provision of the same document authorized suits by and against bank officers “in any court of record of the United States, or of [sic] either of them....” See 5 Cranch, at 86. In contrasting these two provisions the Deveaux Court plainly intended to indicate the degree of specificity required for a jurisdictional grant. That is certainly how the Osborn Court understood Deveaux, as it described the latter provision as an “express grant of jurisdiction,” 9 Wheat., at 818, in contrast to the first Bank charter’s “sue and be sued” provision, which, “without mentioning the courts of the Union,” ibid., was held merely to give the Bank “a general capacity... to sue [but not] a right to sue in those courts,” ibid. The Osborn Court thus found a jurisdictional grant sufficiently stated in the second Bank charter’s “sue and be sued” provision, with its express federal reference, remarking that “[t]o infer from [Deveaux] that words expressly conferring a right to sue in those courts do not give the right, is surely a conclusion which the premises do not warrant.” Ibid.
Applying the rule thus established, in Bankers Trust we described the railroad charter’s “sue and be sued” provision, with its want of any reference to federal courts, and, holding it up against its analogues in Deveaux and Osborn, we found it closer to the former. Finally, in D’Oench, Duhme we based our finding of jurisdiction on the “sue and be sued” provision of the FDIC charter, which mentioned the federal courts in general, but not a particular federal court.
The rule established in these cases makes it clear that the Red Cross Charter’s “sue and be sued” provision should be read to confer jurisdiction. In expressly authorizing the organization to sue and be sued in federal courts, using language resulting in a “sue and be sued” provision in all relevant respects identical to one on which we based a holding of federal jurisdiction just five years before, the provision extends beyond a mere grant of general corporate capacity to sue, and suffices to confer federal jurisdiction.
>
Respondents offer several arguments against this conclusion, none of which we find availing.
A
First, we can make short work of respondents’ argument that the charter’s conferral of federal jurisdiction is nevertheless subject to the requirements of the “well-pleaded complaint” rule (that the federal question must appear on the face of a well-pleaded complaint) limiting the removal of cases from state to federal court. See Brief for Respondents 38-46. Respondents erroneously invoke that rule outside the realm of statutory “arising under” jurisdiction, i. e., jurisdiction based on 28 U. S. C. § 1831, to jurisdiction based on a separate and independent jurisdictional grant, in this ease, the Red Cross Charter’s “sue and be sued” provision. The “well-pleaded complaint” rule applies only to statutory “arising under” eases, see Verlinden B. V. v. Central Bank of Nigeria, 461 U. S. 480, 494 (1983); see also 18B C. Wright, A. Miller, & E. Cooper, Federal Practice and Procedure §3566, pp. 82-83 (2d ed. 1984); Chemerinsky & Kramer, Defining the Role of the Federal Courts, 1990 B. Y. U. L. Rev. 67, 75, n. 17; it has no applicability here.
B
Respondents also claim that language used in congressional charters enacted closely in time to the 1947 amendment easts doubt on congressional intent thereby to confer federal jurisdiction over cases involving the Red Cross. Respondents argue that the 1948 amendment to the charter of the Commodity Credit Corporation (CCC), the 1947 amendment to the charter of the Federal Crop Insurance Corporation (FCIC), and the 1935 amendment to the FDIC’s charter, each of which includes explicit grants of federal jurisdiction, together demonstrate “a practice of using clear and explicit language to confer federal jurisdiction over corporations [Congress] had created.” Brief for Respondents 27.
The argument does not hold up. The CCC amendment is irrelevant to this enquiry, as it conferred exclusive, rather than concurrent, federal jurisdiction. See Act of June 29, 1948, eh. 704, §4, 62 Stat. 1070. There is every reason to expect Congress to take great care in its use of explicit language when it wishes to confer exclusive jurisdiction, given our longstanding requirement to that effect. Its employment of explicitly jurisdictional language in the CCC’s case thus raises no suggestion that its more laconic Red Cross amendment was not meant to confer concurrent federal jurisdiction.
Nor do the other two enactments support respondents’ argument. The statutes were passed 12 years apart and employed verbally and doctrinally distinct formulations. Compare Banking Act of 1935, ch. 614, § 101, 49 Stat. 684, 692 (providing that suits involving FDIC “shall be deemed to arise under the laws of the United States”), with Act of Aug. 1,1947, eh. 440, § 7, 61 Stat. 719 (providing that FCIC “may sue and be sued in its corporate name in any court of record of a State having general jurisdiction, or in any United States district court, and [that] jurisdiction is hereby conferred upon such district court to determine such controversies without regard to the amount in controversy”). These differences are not merely semantic: the jurisdictional effect of the FDIC’s provision depends on the 28 U. S. C. § 1331 grant of general federal-question jurisdiction, while the FCIC’s provision functions independently of § 1331. These differences of both form and substance belie respondents’ claim of a coherent drafting pattern against which to judge the ostensible intent behind the Red Cross amendment.
If, indeed, respondents’ argument could claim any plausibility, it would have to be at the cost of ignoring the 1942 D’Oench, Duhme opinion citing the FDIC charter’s “sue and be sued” provision as the source of federal jurisdiction in that case. See 315 U. S., at 455. If the “sue and be sued” clause is sufficient for federal jurisdiction when it occurs in the same charter with the language respondents claim to be at odds with its jurisdictional significance, it is certainly sufficient standing alone. In any event, the fact that our opinion in D’Oench, Duhme was handed down before the 1947 amendment to the Red Cross Charter indicates that Congress may well have relied on that holding to infer that amendment of the Red Cross Charter’s “sue and be sued” provision to make it identical to the FDIC’s would suffice to confer federal jurisdiction. See, e. g., Cannon, 441 U. S., at 696-697. Congress was, in any event, entitled to draw the inference.
C
Respondents would have us look behind the statute to find quite a different purpose when they argue that the 1947 amendment may have been meant not to confer jurisdiction, but to clarify the Red Cross’s capacity to sue in federal courts where an independent jurisdictional basis exists. See Brief for Respondents 23-27. The suggestion is that Congress may have thought such a clarification necessary after passage of the 1925 statute generally bringing an end to federal incorporation as a jurisdictional basis. See 28 U. S. C. § 1349. But this suggestion misconstrues § 1349 as somehow affecting a federally chartered corporation’s capacity to sue, when by its own terms it speaks only to jurisdiction. If, then, respondents are correct that the enactment of § 1349 motivated the 1947 amendment, that motivation cuts against them, given that § 1349 affected only jurisdiction.
The legislative history of the 1947 amendment cuts against them, as well, to the extent it points in any direction. Congress’s revision of the charter was prompted by, and followed, the recommendations of a private advisory committee of the Red Cross. See H. R. Rep. No. 337, 80th Cong., 1st Sess., 6 (1947) (“[The 1947 amendment] was drafted as the result of recommendations made by [the Advisory committee].... [They] incorporate] the recommendations of th[at] advisory committee...”); S. Rep. No. 38, 80th Cong., 1st ■ Sess., 1 (1947) (“The present legislation incorporates, in the main, the recommendations of the [A]dvisory committee”). The Advisory Report had recommended that “[t]he charter should make it clear that the Red Cross can sue and be sued in the Federal Courts,” reasoning that “[t]he Red Cross has in several instances sued in the Federal Courts, and its powers in this respect have not been questioned. However, in view of the limited nature of the jurisdiction of the Federal Courts, it seems desirable that this right be clearly stated in the Charter.” Advisory Report 35-36, reprinted at App. to Brief for Appellants in No. 90-1873, at 132-133. The Advisory Report’s explicit concern with the limited jurisdiction of the federal courts indicates that the recommended change, which prompted the amendment to the “sue. and be sued” provision, spoke to jurisdiction rather than capacity to sue. Against this, respondents argue only that the Advisory Report’s use of the words “can” and “power” indicate concern with the latter, not the former. See Brief for Respondents 25. This is fine parsing, too fine to overcome the overall jurisdictional thrust of the Report’s recommendation.
In a final look toward the text, respondents speculate that the 1947 amendment can be explained as an attempt to clarify the Red Cross’s capacity to enter the federal courts under their diversity jurisdiction. See Brief for Respondents 25-26, 29. The argument turns on the theory that federally chartered corporations are not citizens of any particular State, and thus may not avail themselves of diversity jurisdiction. See id., at 26 (quoting Walton v. Howard University, 683 F. Supp. 826, 829 (DC 1987)). Respondents completely fail, however, to explain how the addition of the words “State or Federal” to the “sue and be sued” provision might address this claimed jurisdictional problem. Indeed, the 1947 amendment, by specifying the particular courts open to the Red Cross, as opposed to the Red Cross’s status as a party, seems particularly ill-suited to rectifying an asserted party-based jurisdictional deficiency.
Perhaps most obviously, respondents' argument violates. the ordinary sense of the language used, as well as some basic canons of statutory construction. The 1905 charter, authorizing the Red Cross “to sue and be sued in courts of law and equity within the jurisdiction of the United States,” simply cannot be read as failing to empower the Red Cross to sue in federal courts having jurisdiction. That faet, when combined with the Advisory Report’s justification of the 1947 amendment by reference to federal courts’ limited jurisdiction, see supra, leaves it extremely doubtful that capacity to sue simpliciter motivated that amendment. Indeed, the Red Cross’s clear preamendment capacity to sue in federal courts calls into play the canon of statutory construction requiring a change in language to be read, if possible, to have some effect, see, e. g., Brewster v. Gage, 280 U. S. 327, 337 (1930); 2A N. Singer, Sutherland on Statutory Construction §46.06 (5th rev. ed. 1992), a rule which here tugs hard toward a jurisdictional reading of the 1947 amendment.
V
Our holding leaves the jurisdiction of the federal courts well within Article Ill’s limits. As long ago as Osborn, this Court held that Article Ill’s “arising under” jurisdiction is broad enough to authorize Congress to confer federal-court jurisdiction over actions involving federally chartered corporations. See 9 Wheat., at 823-828. We have consistently reaffirmed the breadth of that holding. See Pacific R. Removal Cases, 115 U. S., at 11-14; In re Dunn, 212 U. S. 374, 383-384 (1909); Bankers Trust, 241 U. S., at 305-306; Puerto Rico v. Russell & Co., 288 U. S. 476, 485 (1933); Verlinden, 461 U. S., at 492. We would be loath to repudiate such a longstanding and settled rule, on which Congress has surely-been entitled to rely, cf. Pennsylvania v. Union Gas Co., 491 U. S. 1, 34-35 (1989) (Scalia, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part), and this ease gives us no reason to contemplate overruling it.
VI
The judgment of the Court of Appeals is reversed, and the case is remanded for proceedings consistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
Although more than 40 District Court cases have considered this issue, no result clearly predominates. Compare Pet. for Cert. 10, n. 4 (listing cases finding jurisdictional grant in Red Cross Charter’s “sue and be sued” provision), with id., at 11, n. 5 (listing cases reaching opposite conclusion). Reflecting this confusion, the only other Court of Appeals to consider this issue decided differently from the First Circuit. See Kaiser v. Memorial Blood Center of Minneapolis, Inc., 938 F. 2d 90 (CA8 1991).
Congress had previously overruled much of Pacific Railroad Removal Cases, 115 U. S. 1 (1885), by withdrawing federal jurisdiction over cases involving federally chartered railroads based solely on the railroad's federal incorporation, see Act of Jan. 28,1915, ch. 22, §5, 38 Stat. 803, 804, a limitation irrelevant for our purposes.
We do not address this question, as we hold that the “sue and be sued” provision of the Red Cross’s Charter suffices to confer federal jurisdiction independently of the organization’s federal incorporation.
The “sue and be sued” language was originally enacted in the statute creating the FDIC, see Banking Act of 1933, ch, 89, §8,48 Stat. 162, 172, and was reenacted in the 1935 amendments to that statute, see Banking Act of 1936, ch. 614, § 101, 49 Stat, 684, 692. The 1935 amendments also enacted for the first time the deemer provision we quoted in footnote 2 of our opinion in D’Oench, Duhme & Co. v. FDIC, 315 U. S. 447, 455 (1942). See 49 Stat. 684, 692.
Respondents argue that the parties in D’Oench, Duhme did not litigate the jurisdictional issue. See Brief for Respondents 18-22. But the parties’ failure to challenge jurisdiction is irrelevant to the force of our holding on that issue. See, e. g., FW/PBS, Inc. v. Dallas, 493 U. S. 215, 231 (1990) (federal courts have independent obligation to examine their own jurisdiction); see also Ex parte Bollman, 4 Cranch 75,100 (1807) (Marshall, C. J.) (giving controlling weight to previous jurisdictional holding by Court even though parties to previous case had not raised jurisdictional issue).
The dissent reads Deveaux as distinguishing between these two provisions not on this basis, but rather on the ground that the provision authorizing suits against bank officers allowed the bringing of a particular cause of action. See post, at 270. That reading might be possible if Chief Justice Marshall had not nipped it in the bud. He did not explain the difference between the jurisdictional significance of the two clauses in question by saying that jurisdiction may be granted only in provisions referring to courts in which causes of action could be brought. He explained it simply by inferring, from the drafting contrasts, “the opinion of congress that the right to sue does not imply the right to sue in the courts of the union unless it be expressed.” Deveaux, 5 Cranch, at 86 (emphasis added).
The dissent accuses us of repeating what it announces as Chief Justice Marshall’s misunderstanding, in Osborn, of his own previous opinion in Deveaux. See post, at 271. We are honored.
Contrary to respondents’ argument, our cases do not support a requirement that federal jurisdiction under a “sue and be sued” clause requires mention of the specific federal court on which it is conferred. D’Oench, Duhme, of course, bars any such reading. Nor would Osborn v. Bank of United States, 9 Wheat. 738 (1824), require such a specification even if D’Oench, Duhme were not on the books. When the second Bank was chartered, two sets of federal courts, the Circuit Courts and the District Courts, shared overlapping original federal jurisdiction. See, e.g., E. Surrency, History of the Federal Courts 61 (1987). If (as apparently was the case) the framers of the second Bank’s charter wished to provide that all suits in federal court involving the Bank be brought in one set of courts, it would have been necessary for any jurisdictional grant to specify which set of federal trial courts was being invested with jurisdiction. This need no longer exists, and the means chosen by the drafters of the early charters to resolve that problem should not be thought significant in resolving the very different issue before us today. Moreover, the larger part of the Court’s analysis in Osborn speaks only of the charter’s mention of federal courts, not its specification of the Circuit Courts in particular. See 9 Wheat., at 817-818. The charter’s specification of those courts would have made it natural for the Osborn Court to indicate its reliance on that narrower ground, had it believed such specificity to be required. The fact that it did not so indicate is strong evidence that the Court thought it unnecessary.
The dissent is playful in manufacturing a conflict between our synthesis of the cases and the opinion in Bankers Trust Co. v. Texas and Pacific R. Co., 241 U. S. 295 (1916). See post, at 272. The dissent first quotes the Court’s construction in the Bankers Trust opinion, that the clause at issue there implied no jurisdictional grant, but simply rendered the corporation “ 'capable of suing and being sued by its corporate name in any court of law or equity — Federal, state or territorial — whose jurisdiction as otherwise competently defined was adequate to the occasion.’ ” Post, at 272 (emphasis omitted) (quoting 241 U. S., at 303). The dissent then concludes that “[t]hat paraphrasing of the railroad charter, in terms that would spell jurisdiction under the key the Court adopts today, belies any notion that Bankers Trust was using the same code book.” Post, at 273. The dissent thus attempts to set up a conflict between our analysis and the result in Bankers Trust, by suggesting that that Court’s interpretation of the provision (i e., to confer capacity to sue in courts including federal ones) should itself be subject to a second-order interpretation, which under our analysis might require a holding of jurisdiction, the conclusion rejected by the Bankers Trust Court. This "interpretation of an interpretation” methodology is simply illegitimate, originating not in our opinion but in the dissent’s whimsy. Like our predecessors, we are construing a charter, not a paraphrase.
See Claflin v. Houseman, 93 U. S. 130, 136 (1876) (“[0]ur judgment [has] been... to affirm [concurrent state-court] jurisdiction, where it is not excluded by express provision, or by incompatibility in its exercise arising from the nature of the particular case”); see also Charles Dowd Box Co. v. Courtney, 368 U. S. 502, 508 (1962) (Claflin’s analysis of this question “has remained unmodified through the years”).
Respondents do not repeat the Court of Appeals’s argument that the original language of the FCIC charter tracked in all relevant respects that in the Red Cross’s post-1947 charter, and that Congress’s later amendment of the FCIC charter to make jurisdiction more explicit thus implicitly suggests that Congress considered that language insufficient to confer jurisdiction. See 938 F. 2d 1494, 1500 (CA1 1991). We note here only that the Red Cross adequately rebuts that argument. See Brief for Petitioner 42-43.
See Act of Feb. 13, 1925, eh. 229, §12, 43 Stat. 941 (currently codified at 28 U. S. C. § 1349). The exception, for federally chartered corporations over one-half owned by the United States, is irrelevant to our enquiry. See n. 3, supra.
The only debate on the 1947 amendment to the charter’s “sue and be sued” provision occurred at a Senate Committee hearing. See Hearings on S. 691 before the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, 80th Cong., 1st Sess., 10 (1947). The only two relevant comments, both made by Senator George, appear to be mutually contradictory on the matter at issue here. At one point Senator George said: “I think the purpose of the bill is very clear, and that is to give the jurisdiction in State courts and Federal courts, and I think we had better leave it there,” ibid. Later, however, he stated: “I think there might be some question about the right of a Federal corporation to be sued in a State court. I thought that was, and I still think it is, the purpose of this provision,” id., at 11.
At oral argument respondents carried the suggestion a further step by speculating that the 1947 amendment could be explained as an attempt to ensure the Red Cross's access to federal courts when diversity jurisdiction existed, due to concern, presumably present until our 1949 decision in National Mut. Ins. Co. v. Tidewater Transfer Co., 337 U. S. 582, about the constitutionality of the 1940 statute giving District of Columbia-chartered corporations the same rights to sue in diversity as state-chartered corporations. See Tr. of Oral Arg. 30-31. But the speculation, if sound, would prove too much. For on this theory Congress would have been hedging against a constitutional problem of diversity jurisdiction by resorting to a special grant of jurisdiction to cover the Red Cross,
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | I | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Mr. Justice Harlan
delivered the opinion of the Court.
United States Gypsum Company appeals from a decree of a three-judge court of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia, entered December 9, 1954. This decree modified a final decree of that court, entered May 15, 1951, against Gypsum, the appellees National Gypsum Company and Certain-teed Products Corporation, and others, in a civil antitrust proceeding instituted by the Government in 1940. The modification was a provision ordering Gypsum to dismiss with prejudice four suits which it had brought in three different federal district courts against National, Certain-teed, and two other co-defendants in the antitrust proceeding, to recover compensation or damages for the pendente lite use of certain of its patents during the period February 1, 1948, to May 15, 1951.
At the outset some mention of the prolonged antitrust proceeding is required to put the present post-decree controversy in context. In that proceeding the Government charged Gypsum, National, Certain-teed, and a number of other corporate and individual defendants with conspiracy to restrain and monopolize interstate commerce in gypsum board and other gypsum products in violation of §§ 1, 2 and 3 of the Sherman Act. The crux of the Government’s charges was the alleged illegality of Gypsum’s system of industry-wide uniform patent licensing agreements containing clauses giving Gypsum the right to fix prices on gypsum board and products. In 1946, at the close of the Government’s case, the District Court dismissed the complaint. On appeal this Court, on March 8, 1948, reversed and remanded the case for further proceedings. Thereafter the District Court, with one dissent, interpreting this Court’s decision to mean that Gypsum’s multiple uniform price fixing patent licenses were illegal per se under the antitrust laws, granted the Government’s motion for summary judgment, accepting as true the defendants’ proffer of proof. On November 7, 1949, the District Court entered a decree which, among other things, adjudged Gypsum’s patent licensing agreements illegal, null and void, enjoined the performance of such agreements, provided for limited compulsory nonexclusive licensing of Gypsum’s patents on a reasonable royalty basis, and reserved jurisdiction over the case and parties for certain purposes. On appeals by both the Government and Gypsum, this Court, in 1950, dismissed Gypsum’s appeal, affirmed the summary judgment below, and held the Government entitled to broader relief in certain respects, remanding the case for that purpose. Meanwhile, in noting probable jurisdiction on the Government's appeal, this Court enjoined the defendants from carrying out the price fixing provisions of their current license agreements, and from entering into any agreements or engaging in concerted action in restraint of trade. This preliminary injunction, entered May 29, 1950, remained in force until the new final decree of the District Court was entered on May 15, 1951.
After this Court’s 1948 reversal of the District Court’s original order of dismissal, National, Certain-teed, and Gypsum’s other co-defendant licensees ceased paying royalties under their license agreements. Following the May 15, 1951, decree, National and Certain-teed, as authorized by Article VI of that decree, entered into new license agreements, effective May 15, for the future use of Gypsum’s patents, such licenses containing no price fixing clauses; the royalty rate was the same as under the old licenses, except that the licensee’s returns on unpatented gypsum products did not enter into its measure. The new licenses were without prejudice to Gypsum’s claim for compensation for the use of the patents during the period February 1, 1948, to May 15, 1951. The respondents not having paid for that period, Gypsum, in 1953, brought suit against them in the Iowa federal court. The complaints in these suits asserted three separate grounds for recovery: (a) the royalty provisions of the old license agreements (Counts I and II); (b) quantum meruit for the reasonable value of the use of the patents (Counts III and IV); and (c) damages for patent infringement (Count V).
Thereafter, National and Certain-teed, claiming that the institution of the Iowa actions violated the 1951 decree, and that in any event Gypsum was barred from recovery by reason of unpurged misuse of the patents involved, petitioned the antitrust court to enjoin further prosecution of the actions. The Government also filed a separate petition to enjoin Gypsum from maintaining any action based on the illegal license agreements, but took no position on Gypsum’s right to recover for the period in question on the grounds of quantum meruit or patent infringement. Gypsum’s answers to these petitions in substance alleged that the District Court was without jurisdiction to grant the relief sought by the petitioners, and put in issue all of the allegations on which the right to relief was predicated.
The District Court decided that it had jurisdiction to grant relief (one judge dissenting), and, after hearing the parties through briefs and oral argument, but without taking any evidence beyond that already of record in the antitrust proceeding, concluded that the 1951 decree should be modified so as to enjoin the prosecution of Gypsum’s suits. The court held that prosecution of Counts I and II, which declared upon the illegal license agreements, could not be maintained under the terms of the 1951 decree. Although finding that the other three Counts were not barred by that decree, it further held that the suits should be prohibited in their entirety because of Gypsum’s unpurged misuse of its patents. There followed the modifying decree of December 9, 1954, from which this appeal was taken. We noted probable jurisdiction. 350 U. S. 946. For the reasons given hereafter we conclude that, except as it related to the two causes of action based on the illegal license agreements (Counts I and II), this proscriptive modification of the 1951 decree was not justified by the record before the District Court.
I.
Preliminarily, we conclude that three aspects of the lower court’s holding must be upheld. First, we think that Article X of the 1951 decree, reserving to the antitrust court jurisdiction, upon application of “any of the parties” to the decree, to make such “directions” and “modifications” as may be appropriate to the “carrying out” and “enforcement” of the decree, provided a fully adequate basis for the jurisdiction exercised below. United States v. Swift & Co., 286 U. S. 106, 114; Missouri-Kansas Pipe Line Co. v. United States, 312 U. S. 502. See also Chrysler Corp. v. United States, 316 U. S. 556. Gypsum argues that insofar as the relief granted below was rested upon patent misuse, instead of a construction of the 1951 decree which was the basis of enjoining the prosecution of Counts I and II of Gypsum’s suits, the lower court’s decision involved a determination of a collateral private controversy between this group of antitrust defendants, rather than a “carrying out” or “enforcement” of the terms of that decree. But we think that whether Gypsum was barred from recovery in these suits by reason of the abuse of its patent rights was a problem sufficiently related to the rationale of the 1951 decree to bring it within the reserved jurisdiction clause. This is especially so because patent misuse was the essence of the old antitrust litigation, and its continuance or renewal were thus issues peculiarly within the province of the antitrust court, whose determination would avoid multiple litigation and possibly conflicting decisions on that issue among the courts in which Gypsum had brought suit.
Likewise we conclude that there is no basis for disturbing the District Court’s determinations that prosecution of Counts I and II, based on the old license agreements, was not permissible under the 1951 decree, but that its terms did not reach the quantum meruit and infringement Counts.
The outcome of this appeal then turns on whether the District Court was right in holding as a matter of law that Gypsum was barred from any kind of recovery for the pendente lite use of its patents because of their unpurged misuse. It is now, of course, familiar law that the courts will not aid a patent owner who has misused his patents to recover any of their emoluments accruing during the period of misuse or thereafter until the effects of such misuse have been dissipated, or “purged” as the conventional saying goes. Morton Salt Co. v. G. S. Suppiger Co., 314 U. S. 488; B. B. Chemical Co. v. Ellis, 314 U. S. 495; Edward Katzinger Co. v. Chicago Metallic Mfg. Co., 329 U. S. 394; MacGregor v. Westinghouse Electric & Mfg. Co., 329 U. S. 402; Mercoid Corp. v. Minneapolis Honeywell Regulator Co., 320 U. S. 680. The rule is an extension of the equitable doctrine of “unclean hands” to the patent field. In terms of this case this means that Gypsum may not recover from these appellees for their use of its patents between February 1, 1948, and May 15, 1951, if Gypsum has been guilty of misuse of the patents since 1948, or if the original misuse found in the antitrust litigation remained unpurged. This issue, of course, involves essentially a question of fact. And since the record is barren of any facts with respect to the situation existing in the gypsum industry since 1941, we think that the District Court erred in holding purely as a matter of law that an unpurged misuse had been shown.
II.
Putting aside the two contract Counts, the enjoining of which we have held was sufficiently supported by the court’s finding that they could not be maintained under the terms of the 1951 decree, there are three aspects to the lower court’s holding as to the remaining Counts. First, the court held those Counts barred because Gypsum had engaged in “fresh” patent misuse — misuse unrelated to the original antitrust litigation. Secondly, it was held that since the “old” misuse adjudicated in the antitrust proceeding had continued unpurged, recovery must in any case be barred. And finally, the court held that irrespective of purge, the “old” misuse itself was sufficient to bar the patent infringement Count. We discuss each of these holdings in turn.
A.
The “fresh” misuse found by the lower court was simply the fact of the inclusion of Counts I and II in the 1953 suits. These Counts sought recovery of royalties under the illegal licensing agreements. Such inclusion, the court held, was a renewed attempt to enforce these illegal agreements, and as such should be regarded as a new misuse of the patents which barred recovery under the other Counts as well. We do not agree.
The five Counts in Gypsum’s complaints were merely alternative legal theories for reaching a single end, namely, recovery for the pendente lite use of Gypsum’s patents. Had the complaints declared only upon the quantum meruit and infringement Counts the mere bringing of the suits could then hardly have been regarded as fresh misuse, even though recovery might be defeated by showing some independent unpurged misuse of the patents involved. For as the lower court recognized, such recovery by way of quantum meruit or damages for infringement was not “expressly or impliedly” touched by the terms of the 1951 decree. Gypsum explains the inclusion of the two contract Counts as precautionary pleading to fend against the possibility that the defendants, if sued only for quantum meruit and infringement, might set up the license agreements in defense. Such alternative pleading is expressly sanctioned by the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, Rule 8, and, even though that defense has turned out to be untenable in light of the lower court’s findings, we think that it distorts the doctrine of patent misuse to hold that recourse to this method of pleading here vitiated the other Counts of the complaints.
Moreover, in view of what transpired before the antitrust court in the hearings relating to the settlement of the 1949 decree, we are by no means satisfied that Gypsum was not entitled to a bona fide guess, at least as a matter of alternative pleading, that the decree would not be interpreted as barring the collection of these interim royalties. At those hearings counsel for one of the defendants, Celotex, without remonstrance by either of these respondents, stated:
“In order that United States Gypsum will have no misunderstanding of my position, I want them to know that my suggestion [that the decree should declare the licenses ‘illegal, null and void’] is in no sense based on any hope or desire on my part to get out of any license fees during any interim period, and if we can agree ... as far as my client is concerned, we are willing to let the royalty rate [of the new compulsory licenses], whatever it is, agreed upon apply back to the time when we ceased paying royalties. I just want to make it clear to all that we are not attempting by this declaration of illegality of them to find some way of avoiding the license fees which during this [litigation] none of us have paid.”
Further, both the Government and the other co-defendants at that time seem to have regarded the “illegal, null and void” provisions of the decree as simply the equivalent of “cancellation” of the licenses. In view of the narrow adjudication of violation by this Court, infra, p. 470, we cannot say that Gypsum could not have reasonably entertained the belief that the price fixing provisions of the license agreements would ultimately be held separable from the basic undertaking to pay royalties. Indeed, the new licenses, authorized by the decree, which omitted the price fixing clauses, carried the same royalty rate on products made under the patents.
We conclude that in the circumstances present here it was error to regard the inclusion of the contract Counts as constituting a “fresh” patent misuse on Gypsum’s part.
B.
We come next to the holding that the “old” misuse, found in the antitrust proceeding, continued unpurged through the 1948-1951 period. And here we are met immediately by the fact that the record before the antitrust court is completely bare of any facts relating to this period, or indeed any period after 1941. For the Government’s proof in the antitrust case, presented from 1940 to 1944, concerned the gypsum industry prior to and until 1941, and no further evidence has ever been introduced into any of these litigations. We thus know literally nothing about the state of the gypsum industry between 1948, when this Court, on evidence not extending beyond 1941, first held that there had been an antitrust violation, and 1951. How, then, can we assume that this earlier violation, adjudicated for the first time in 1948, continued thereafter?
The answer to this question depends on the nature and extent of that violation. According to Gypsum, the only illegality ever adjudicated was the fixing of prices on gypsum materials under the industry-wide uniform price fixing clauses of patent licenses which were found to have been the product of concerted action between Gypsum and its co-defendants. In other words, Gypsum, relying on the 1949 decree, which followed this Court’s first decision, and its underlying findings, argues that the maintenance of uniform patent licenses with price fixing clauses was the only patent misuse ever found. It then points out that it offered to prove below that price fixing in the industry stopped in 1941, and that the licenses were rescinded in 1948. Add to this the fact that the 1949 decree, and again this Court’s 1950 interlocutory decree, enjoined Gypsum from enforcing these licenses, and, says Gypsum, the inference arises that the only patent misuse ever adjudicated had ceased by 1948 — an inference at least sufficient to allow the issue to go to trial on the facts.
According to appellees National and Certain-teed, however, the adjudication of misuse in the antitrust proceeding was much broader, encompassing the regimentation of the entire gypsum industry, the restraint of commerce in unpatented gypsum products, the elimination of jobbers, and the standardization of trade practices throughout the industry. This broad view of the character of the antitrust violation rests upon this Court’s 1950 decision, which held the 1949 decree too narrow and allowed the Government the broader relief embodied in the 1951 decree. Appellees argue that the fact that this Court felt it necessary to broaden the 1949 decree involved by necessity an adjudication of broad patent misuse, misuse not prohibited by the 1949 decree and therefore left un-purged by it. In other words, the argument runs, the broadening of the decree by this Court necessarily involved a holding that Gypsum was guilty of violations not proscribed by the original decree, violations which existed unpurged during part or all of the 1948-1951 period, since they were first adjudicated by this Court in 1950 and presumptively continued until 1951, when they were finally dealt with by the 1951 decree.
Appellees’ argument is ingenious, but incorrect. The course of decisions in the antitrust litigation clearly shows that the only misuse ever adjudicated was that arising from the uniform price fixing provisions of the license agreements. In the original suit the only undisputed issue of fact was that Gypsum had given its competitors uniform patent licenses containing a price fixing clause. The Government also charged Gypsum with a variety of other abuses, including price fixing on unpatented articles, elimination of jobbers, and standardization of trade practices. All of these charges were put in issue by Gypsum. On the appeal from the original dismissal of the proceedings, this Court held that the uniform price fixing licenses constituted a per se antitrust violation, and also that the Government’s evidence as to the other matters constituted a prima jade case of additional violation. On remand, the District Court, instead of going into a factual trial of these other matters, granted summary judgment on the price fixing violation. This left all of the other matters still at issue. They continued to remain at issue after the ensuing appeals to this Court, for in affirming the summary judgment and broadening the 1949 decree, this Court made it clear that it was proceeding solely on the basis of the narrow antitrust violation found by the District Court:
“We agree with a statement made by counsel for the Government in argument below that as a 'matter of formulating the decree’ many facts offered to be proven would have effect upon the conclusion of a court as to the decree’s terms. However, we read the preliminary statement of the District Court . . . as an adjudication of violation of the Sherman Act by the action in concert of the defendants through the fixed-price licenses, accepting as true the underlying facts in defendants’ proof by proffer. The trial judges understood the summary judgment to be, as Judge Stephens said, ‘limited to that one undisputed question.’ Judge Garrett and Judge Jackson agreed. That conclusion entitled the Government only to relief based on that finding and the proffered facts. On that basis we dismissed United States Gypsum’s appeal from the decree, and on that basis we examine the Government’s objection to the decree.
“[A decree] is not limited to prohibition of the proven means by which the evil was accomplished, but may range broadly through practices connected with acts actually found to be illegal. . . .
“. . . We turn then to the Government’s proposals for modification of the decree.on the assumption that only a violation through concerted industry license agreements has been proven, but recognizing, as is conceded by defendants, that relief, to be effective, must go beyond the narrow limits of the proven violation.” 340 U. S., at 87-89, 90.
Thus we see that the only patent misuse that has ever been established in this long-drawn-out litigation is concerted price fixing under the former patent licenses, and that the 1950 holding of this Court was not an adjudication of other violations but only an application of the well-known principle that relief in antitrust cases may range beyond the narrow area of proven violations. Nothing, therefore, in the broadening of the decree supports the inference that the acts prohibited therein and left open in the 1949 decree continued in the pendente lite period or, in fact, had ever taken place. Perhaps Gypsum did engage in broad regimentation of the industry, as charged in the Government’s 1940 complaint, and perhaps such misuse or its effects continued through 1951. But there is nothing in this record to show that any such hypothesis is true, and no part of it has ever been proved. The question is one of fact, and Gypsum is entitled to go to trial on it.
Nor is it enough to sustain the judgment below to say, as appellees do, that the conceded “old” misuse, consisting of industry-wide price fixing through uniform patent licenses, should be presumed to have continued unpurged into the 1948-1951 period. The record shows, without dispute so far, that for seven years before the beginning of the 1948-1951 period Gypsum had not engaged in price fixing, and that for two of those three years price fixing had been under injunction. These factors raised a sufficient inference of purge prior to the critical period to entitle Gypsum to go to trial on the point and to prevent the court from granting what in effect was summary judgment. Cf. United States v. Oregon State Medical Society, 343 U. S. 326. Nor do we think this conclusion is overcome by the lower court's findings that the “five acts” of purge offered by Gypsum were not sufficient to establish purge. We express no opinion upon the merits of these findings, for their sufficiency can hardly be judged in isolation from the facts as to competitive conditions in the gypsum industry during the 1941-1951 period, on which the record is silent. And other alleged antitrust violations are not now available to appellees as acts of misuse, for as to them Gypsum has not yet had its day in court.
We conclude, therefore, that the judgment below cannot be supported on the basis of the claimed unpurged “old” misuse.
C.
We pass lastly to the lower court’s holding that the “old” misuse, without regard to purge, barred the infringement Count of Gypsum’s suits. In effect this holding was that, because “of the practical and legal situation,” proscription of this Count should be added by relation back, as it were, to the relief already accorded by the 1951 decree. Admittedly such relief was neither obtained nor sought by the Government in either the 1949 or 1951 decree proceedings. To be sure one of the prayers for relief in the Government’s antitrust complaint in 1940 had been that the defendants should be enjoined from bringing any action for infringement of any of the patents involved or from attempting to collect in any way royalties or fees for their use until all misuse had been abandoned and its consequences dissipated. In the subsequent 1949 and 1951 decree and appellate proceedings, however, this item of proposed relief was never adverted to, much less pressed upon the courts. And even in the 1953-1954 modification proceedings, and now, the Government does not contend that Gypsum is precluded from maintaining the infringement Count. The conclusion seems inescapable that the Government’s original request for such relief was in effect withdrawn. In this state of affairs we think this relief should not have been added to the decree in 1954, in the absence of proof of intervening circumstances indicating its need in the public interest. Cf. Hughes v. United States, 342 U. S. 353. There was no such proof, and without it the proscription of the infringement Count amounted to the imposition of an unwarranted penalty on Gypsum.
Nor do we think that anything in the Hartford-Empire cases, 323 U. S. 386, 324 U. S. 570, to which the lower court attached much weight, justifies what was done here. The basic difference between Hartford and this case is that in Hartford the injunction against infringement suits on Hartford’s misused patents was part of the original relief granted the Government, whereas here that relief was added, without the taking of any evidence as to justifying intervening circumstances, some five years after the original decree was entered in the District Court, and three years after its enlargement pursuant to the 1950 decision of this Court, which made no mention of this type of relief.
Moreover, the factors justifying such relief in Hartford were quite different from those involved here, in that the litigated findings of fact as to Hartford’s violation of the antitrust laws were much broader than anything found here. See supra, p. 470. Beyond this, in Hartford only infringement suits against nondefendants were enjoined, and not, as here, suits against co-defendants; and despite the breadth of Hartford’s violations, this Court held that Hartford was entitled to quantum meruit compensation for the pendente lite use of its patents unless further violations of the antitrust laws during that period were shown. No such violations on Gypsum’s part were shown or claimed by the Government or appellees, except for the inclusion of the contract Counts in Gypsum’s suits, a contention which has already been met. And although the Court in Hartford struck down royalty-free compulsory licensing as part of the relief, the District Court here in effect held these appellees entitled to three years’ free use of Gypsum’s patents. We thus find no parallel between this case and Hartford.
Our conclusions then are these: The enjoining of Counts I and II of Gypsum’s Iowa suits was proper, and upon remand the District Court may, by appropriate modification of the decree of May 15, 1951, or otherwise, require Gypsum to discontinue and dismiss such Counts with prejudice. The enjoining of Counts III, IV and V of those suits was not justified upon this record, and as to them the case should be remanded to the District Court for the taking of evidence upon the issues of misuse and purge as they may relate to the period since February 1, 1948. We think it appropriate that these issues should be tried and disposed of by the antitrust court rather than the Iowa court, both because of reasons already given, supra, pp. 463-464, and because of the antitrust court’s familiarity with what has occurred in these protracted litigations. However, should the antitrust court conclude that Gypsum is not barred fom recovery on Counts III, IV or V by reason of unpurged patent misuse, we think that the trial and disposition of all other issues, including any defense of patent invalidity, should then take place in the District Courts in which the two suits are pending. There is no reason why the three-judge court should be burdened with such issues.
Accordingly, we reverse the judgment below and remand the case to the District Court for further proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion.
Reversed and remanded.
Mr. Justice Clark took no part in the consideration or decision of this case.
Throughout this opinion United States Gypsum Company will be referred to as “Gypsum,” National Gypsum Company as “National,” and Certain-teed Products Corporation as “Certain-teed.”
The suits against National and Certain-teed were brought in the Northern District of Iowa. The other two suits were brought in the District of New Jersey, against Newark Plaster Company, and in the Southern District of New York, against Ebsary Gypsum Company. These latter suits have been settled and are not before us.
26 Stat. 209 (1890), as amended, 15 U. S. C. §§ 1-3.
67 F. Supp. 397.
333 U. S. 364.
The opinion of the court, and the dissenting opinion of the late Judge Stephens, are not officially reported. They appear at pp. 137-140, 478, of the record on this appeal.
339 U. S. 959.
339 U. S. 960.
340 U. S. 76.
339 U. S. 960.
The significance of these various holdings as it bears upon the issues in the present controversy is dealt with later. Infra, pp. 468-473.
In the case of National and Certain-teed the default period began with the February 1, 1948 royalties, due March 20, 1948.
The lower court, regarding Count III as declaring upon a contract implied in law, described that Count as being for “indebitatus assumpsit.” The appellant says it was for “quantum meruit.” As nothing here turns on the characterization, we shall refer to both Counts III and IV as “the quantum meruit” Counts.
The Iowa court, upon motions by National and Certain-teed, stayed all proceedings in the two actions pending the determination of the antitrust court now under review.
The Government takes the same position in this Court.
124 F. Supp. 573. Judge Cole dissented on the jurisdictional ground. 124 F. Supp. 598. On December 9, 1954, the District Court denied reconsideration, Record, p. 1136; and on June 30, 1955, it denied Gypsum’s motion for a new trial. 134 F. Supp. 69.
The court also held that Count III should be barred because it was “but a left-handed, indirect method for recovering such royalties.” The court did not elaborate on this, but since it held that this Count was not “expressly or impliedly” covered by the 1951 decree we think this additional ground requires no separate discussion.
The operative part of the decree reads as follows: “Defendant United States Gypsum Company is hereby ordered and directed to discontinue and to dismiss, with prejudice to United States Gypsum Company, its pending actions as follows: against National Gypsum Company, in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Iowa; against Certain-Teed Products Corporation, in the same District Court . . . .”
Article X reads: “Jurisdiction of this cause, and of the parties hereto, is retained by the Court for the purpose of enabling any of the parties to this decree, or any other person, firm or corporation that may hereafter become bound thereby in whole or in part, to apply to this Court at any time for such orders, modifications, vacations or directions as may be necessary or appropriate (1) for the construction or carrying out of this decree, and (2) for the enforcement of compliance therewith.”
Article IV of the 1951 decree had adjudicated as to all defendants that these license agreements were “unlawful under the antitrust laws of the United States and illegal, null and void.” Article V enjoined the defendants from “performing” such agreements. Cf. Continental Wall Paper Co. v. Louis Voight & Sons Co., 212 U. S. 227. It might be well to add that the 1951 decree would similarly prevent the use of these illegal agreements as defenses by co-defendants National and Certain-teed against the quantum meruit and infringement Counts of Gypsum’s suits.
As appears, infra, p. 474, the Government at one time had sought to bar all such claims for recovery on the patents, but later in effect abandoned that request for relief.
Counts I and II were also held barred on these grounds.
We assume that if the inclusion of Counts I and II constituted a “fresh” patent misuse, the fact that they were not asserted until 1953 would make no difference in their effectiveness to bar recovery for the 1948-1951 period.
National had in fact pleaded that defense in the suit against it. But see n. 20, supra.
In view of this conclusion it is unnecessary to deal with the contention that the lower court’s holding also violated 35 U. S. C. §271 (d).
See n. 6, supra.
340 U. S. 76. This relief included the extension of the injunctive provisions to the entire United States (instead of merely the East) and to all gypsum products (instead of only gypsum board), compulsory licensing for an indefinite period (instead of for only 90 days), such licensing to include after-acquired (instead of only existing) patents.
333 U. S. 364.
3 39 U. S. 960.
340 U. S. 76.
As we have seen, supra, pp. 460-461, the Court dismissed Gypsum’s appeal from the 1949 decree. 339 U. S. 959.
That this Court's expansion of the 1949 decree did not involve a corresponding holding of broader violation is illustrated by what was done with respect to the geographical area covered by the decree. The Government’s complaint charged Gypsum with violation only in the eastern part of the United States. There was never any claim, much less proof, that Gypsum engaged in any improper activities in the West. Yet the Court granted the Government’s prayer that the 1949 decree be broadened to cover the whole United States. This was done not because it was alleged or proved that Gypsum had done anything illegal in the West, but simply on the theory that effective relief required that the decree be broader than the “proven violation.”
340 U. S. 76.
National makes a further contention as to the quantum meruit Counts. It argues that these Counts in any event were properly proscribed because they related to an illegal transaction. But the rule on which National relies applies only where the quantum meruit claim declares upon an implied agreement which, had it been reduced to an express contract, would itself have been illegal; that is, a contract where the kind of consideration moving between the parties is wholly against public policy, as, for example, a contract to commit murder. The implied contract here was not of that character, for certainly an express contract simply for reasonable compensation for the use of Gypsum’s patents would not have been illegal.
yre recognize that the composition of the three-judge court has completely changed since the main antitrust case was tried. Even so, the present court has acquired an intimate knowledge of the record.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | H | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Per Curiam.
The motion of respondent for leave to proceed in forma pauperis is granted. The petition for writ of certiorari is granted and the judgment is reversed. Linkletter v. Walker, ante, p. 618.
Mr. Justice Black and Mr. Justice Douglas dissent for the reasons stated in their dissenting opinion in Link-letter v. Walker, ante, at 640.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
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 whether § 103 (a) of the Federal Mine Safety and Health Act of 1977, 30 U. S. C. § 813 (a) (1976 ed., Supp. Ill), which authorizes warrantless inspections of underground and surface mines, violates the Fourth Amendment. Concluding that searches conducted pursuant to this provision are reasonable within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment, we reverse the judgment of the District Court for the Eastern District of Wisconsin invalidating the statute.
I
The Federal Mine Safety and Health Act of 1977, 91 Stat. 1290, 30 U. S. C. § 801 et seq. (1976 ed. and Supp. Ill), requires the Secretary of Labor to develop detailed mandatory health and safety standards to govern the operation of the Nation’s mines. 30 XJ. S. C. §811 (1976 ed., Supp. III). Section 103 (a) of the Act, 30 U. S. C. § 813 (a) (1976 ed., Supp. HI), provides that federal mine inspectors are to inspect underground mines at least four times per year and surface mines at least twice a year to insure compliance with these standards, and to make followup inspections to determine whether previously discovered violations have been corrected. This section also grants mine inspectors “a right of entry to, upon, or through any coal or other mine” and states that “no advance notice of an inspection shall be provided to any person.” If a mine operator refuses to allow a warrant-less inspection conducted pursuant to § 103 (a), the Secretary is authorized to institute a civil action to obtain injunctive or other appropriate relief. 30 U. S. C. § 818 (a)(1)(C) (1976 ed., Supp. III).
In July 1978, a federal mine inspector attempted to inspect quarries owned by appellee Waukesha Lime and Stone Co. in order to determine whether all 25 safety and health violations uncovered during a prior inspection had been corrected. After the inspector had been on the site for about an hour, Waukesha’s president, appellee Douglas Dewey, refused to allow the inspection to continue unless the inspector first obtain a search warrant. The inspector issued a citation to Waukesha for terminating the inspection, and the Secretary subsequently filed this civil action in the District Court for the Eastern District of Wisconsin seeking to enjoin appellees from refusing to permit warrantless searches of the Waukesha facility.
The District Court granted summary judgment in favor of appellees on the ground that the Fourth Amendment prohibited the warrantless searches of stone quarries authorized by § 103 (a) of the Act. 493 F. Supp. 963 (1980). The Secretary appealed directly to this Court pursuant to 28 U. S. C. § 1252. Because the District Court’s ruling invalidated an important prqvision of the Mine Safety and Health Act, we noted probable jurisdiction. Sub nom. Marshall v. Dewey, 449 U. S. 1122 (1981).
II
Our prior cases have established that the Fourth Amendment’s prohibition against unreasonable searches applies to administrative inspections of private commercial property. Marshall v. Barlow’s, Inc., 436 U. S. 307 (1978); See v. City of Seattle, 387 U. S. 541 (1967). However, unlike searches of private homes, which generally must be conducted pursuant to a warrant in order to be reasonable under the Fourth Amendment, legislative schemes authorizing warrantless administrative searches of commercial property do not necessarily violate the Fourth Amendment. See, e. g., United States v. Biswell, 406 U. S. 311 (1972); Colonnade Catering Corp. v. United States, 397 U. S. 72 (1970). The greater latitude to conduct warrantless inspections of commercial property reflects the fact that the expectation of privacy that the owner of commercial property enjoys in such property differs significantly from the sanctity accorded an individual's home, and that this privacy interest may, in certain circumstances, be adequately protected by regulatory schemes authorizing warrantless inspections. United States v. Biswell, supra, at 316.
The interest of the owner of commercial property is not one in being free from any inspections. Congress has broad authority to regulate commercial enterprises engaged in or affecting interstate commerce, and an inspection program may in some cases be a necessary component of federal regulation. Rather, the Fourth Amendment protects the interest of the owner of property in being free from unreasonable intrusions onto his property by agents of the government. Inspections of commercial property may be unreasonable if they are not authorized by law or are unnecessary for the furtherance of federal interests. Colonnade Catering Corp. v. United States, supra, at 77. Similarly, warrantless inspections of commercial property may be constitutionally objectionable if their occurrence is so random, infrequent, or unpredictable that the owner, for all practical purposes, has no real expectation that his property will from time to time be inspected by government officials. Marshall v. Barlow’s, Inc., supra, at 323. “Where Congress has authorized inspection but made no rules governing the procedures that inspectors must follow, the Fourth Amendment and its various restrictive rules apply.” Colonnade Corp. v. United States, supra, at 77. In such cases, a warrant may be necessary to protect the owner from the “unbridled discretion [of] executive and administrative officers,” Marshall v. Barlow’s, Inc., supra, at 323, by assuring him that “reasonable legislative or administrative standards for conducting an . . . inspection are satisfied with respect to a particular [establishment].” Camara v. Municipal Court, 387 U. S. 523, 538 (1967).
However, the assurance of regularity provided by a warrant may be unnecessary under certain inspection schemes. Thus, in Colonnade Corp. v. United States, we recognized that because the alcoholic beverage industry had long been “subject to close supervision and inspection,” Congress enjoyed “broad power to design such powers of inspection ... as it deems necessary to meet the evils at hand.” 397 U. S., at 76-77. Similarly, in United States v. Biswell, this Court-concluded that the Gun Control Act of 1968, 18 U. S. C. § 921 et seq., provided a sufficiently comprehensive and predictable inspection scheme that the warrantless inspections mandated under the statute did not violate the Fourth Amendment. After describing the strong federal interest in conducting unannounced, warrantless inspections, we noted:
“It is also plain that inspections for compliance with the Gun Control Act pose only limited threats to the dealer’s justifiable expectations of privacy. When a dealer chooses to engage in this pervasively regulated business ... , he does so with the knowledge that his records, firearms, and ammunition will be subject to effective inspection. . . . The dealer is not left to wonder about the purposes of the inspector or the limits of his task.” 406 U. S., at 316.
These decisions make clear that a warrant may not be constitutionally required when Congress has reasonably determined that warrantless searches are necessary to further a regulatory scheme and the federal regulatory presence is sufficiently comprehensive and defined that the owner of commercial property cannot help but be aware that his property will be subject to periodic inspections undertaken for specific purposes.
We re-emphasized this exception to the warrant requirement most recently in Marshall v. Barlow’s, Inc. In that case, we held that absent consent a warrant was constitutionally required in order to conduct administrative inspections under § 8 (a) of the Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970, 29 U. S. C. §657 (a). That statute imposes health and safety standards on all businesses engaged in or affecting interstate commerce that have employees, 29 U. S. C. § 652 (5), and authorizes representatives of the Secretary to conduct inspections to ensure compliance with the Act. 29 U. S. C. § 657 (a). However, the Act fails to tailor the scope and frequency of such administrative inspections to the particular health and safety concerns posed by the numerous and varied businesses regulated by the statute. Instead, the Act flatly authorizes administrative inspections of “any factory, plant, establishment, construction site, or other area, workplace, or environment where work is performed by an employee of an employer” and empowers inspectors conducting such searches to investigate “any such place of employment and all pertinent conditions, structures, machines, apparatus, devices, equipment, and materials therein, and to question privately any such employer, owner, operator, agent, or employee.” Ibid. Similarly, the Act does not provide any standards to guide inspectors either in their selection of establishments to be searched or in the exercise of their authority to search. The statute instead simply provides that such searches must be performed “at . . . reasonable times, and within reasonable limits and in a reasonable manner.” Ibid.
In assessing this regulatory scheme, this Court found that the provision authorizing administrative searches “devolves almost unbridled discretion upon executive and administrative officers, particularly those in the field, as to when to search and whom to search.” 436 U. S., at 323. Accordingly, we concluded that a warrant was constitutionally required to assure a nonconsenting owner, who may have little real expectation that his business will be subject to inspection, that the contemplated search was “authorized by statute, and . . . pursuant to an administrative plan containing specific neutral criteria.” Ibid. However, we expressly limited our holding to the inspection provisions of the Occupational Safety and Health Act, noting that the “reasonableness of a warrantless search . . . will depend upon the specific enforcement needs and privacy guarantees of each statute” and that some statutes “apply only to a single industry, where regulations might already be so pervasive that a Colonnade-Biswell exception to the warrant requirement could apply.” Id., at 321.
Applying this analysis to the case before us, we conclude that the warrantless inspections required by the Mine Safety and Health Act do not offend the Fourth Amendment. As an initial matter, it is undisputed that there is a substantial federal interest in improving the health and safety conditions in the Nation’s underground and surface mines. In enacting the statute, Congress was plainly aware that the mining industry is among the most hazardous in the country and that the poor health and safety record of this industry has significant deleterious effects on interstate commerce. Nor is it seriously contested that Congress in this case could reasonably determine, as it did with respect to the Gun Control Act in Biswell, that a system of warrantless inspections was necessary “if the law is to be properly enforced and inspection made effective.” United States v. Biswell, 406 U. S., at 316. In designing an inspection program. Congress expressly recognized that a warrant requirement could significantly frustrate effective enforcement of the Act. Thus, it provided in § 103 (a) of the Act that “no advance notice of an inspection shall be provided to any person.” In explaining this provision, the Senate Report notes:
“[I]n [light] of the notorious ease with which many safety or health hazards may be concealed if advance warning of inspection is obtained, a warrant requirement would seriously undercut this Act’s objectives.” S. Rep. No. 95-181, p. 27 (1977).
We see no reason not to defer to this legislative determination. Here, as in Biswell, Congress could properly conclude: “[I]f inspection is to be effective and serve as a credible deterrent, unannounced, even frequent, inspections are essential. In this context, the prerequisite of a warrant could easily frustrate inspection.” 406 U. S., at 316.
Because a warrant requirement clearly might impede the “specific enforcement needs” of the Act, Marshall v. Barlow’s, Inc., 436 U. S., at 321, the only real issue before us is whether the statute’s inspection program, in terms of the certainty and regularity of its application, provides a constitutionally adequate substitute for a warrant. We believe that it does. Unlike the statute at issue in Barlow’s, the Mine Safety and Health Act applies to industrial activity with a notorious history of serious accidents and unhealthful working conditions. The Act is specifically tailored to address those concerns, and the regulation of mines it imposes is sufficiently pervasive and defined that the owner of such a facility cannot help but be aware that he “will be subject to effective inspection.” United States v. Biswell, supra, at 316. First, the Act requires inspection of all mines and specifically defines the frequency of inspection. Representatives of the Secretary must inspect all surface mines at least twice annually and all underground mines at least four times annually. 30 U. S. C. § 813 (a) (1976 ed., Supp. III). Similarly, all mining operations that generate explosive gases must be inspected at irregular 5-, 10-, or 15-day intervals. § 813 (i). Moreover, the Secretary must conduct followup inspections of mines where violations of the Act have previously been discovered, § 813 (a), and must inspect a mine immediately if notified by a miner or a miner’s representative that a violation of the Act or an imminently dangerous condition exists. § 813 (g). Second, the standards with which a mine operator is required to comply are all specifically set forth in the Act or in Title 30 of the Code of Federal Regulations. Indeed, the Act requires that the Secretary inform mine operators of all standards proposed pursuant to the Act. § 811 (e). Thus, rather than leaving the frequency and purpose of inspections to the unchecked discretion of Government officers, the Act establishes a predictable and guided federal regulatory presence. Like the gun dealer in Biswell, the operator of a mine “is not left to wonder about the purposes of the inspector or the limits of his task.” 406 U. S., at 316.
Finally, the Act provides a specific mechanism for accommodating any special privacy concerns that a specific mine operator might have. The Act prohibits forcible entries, and instead requires the Secretary, when refused entry onto a mining facility, to file a civil action in federal court to obtain an injunction against future refusals. 30 U. S. C. § 818 (a) (1976 ed., Supp. III). This proceeding provides an adequate forum for the mineowner to show that a specific search is outside the federal regulatory authority, or to seek from the district court an order accommodating any unusual privacy interests that the mineowner might have. See, e. g., Marshall v. Stoudt’s Ferry Preparation Co., 602 F. 2d 589, 594 (CA3 1979) (inspectors ordered to keep confidential mine's trade secrets), cert. denied, 444 U. S. 1015 (1980).
Under these circumstances, it is difficult to see what additional protection a warrant requirement would provide. The Act itself clearly notifies the operator that inspections will be performed on a regular basis. Moreover, the Act and the regulations issued pursuant to it inform the operator of what health and safety standards must be met in order to be in compliance with the statute. The discretion of Government officials to determine what facilities to search and what violations to search for is thus directly curtailed by the regulatory scheme. In addition, the statute itself embodies a means by which any special Fourth Amendment interests can be accommodated. Accordingly, we conclude that the general program of warrantless inspections authorized by § 103 (a) of the Act does not violate the Fourth Amendment.
Appellees contend, however, that even if § 103 (a) is constitutional as applied to most segments of the mining industry, it nonetheless violates the Fourth Amendment as applied to authorize warrantless inspections of stone quarries. Appel-lees’ argument essentially tracks the reasoning of the court below. That court, while expressly acknowledging our decisions in Colonnade and Biswell, found the exception to the warrant requirement defined in those cases to be inapplicable solely because surface quarries, which came under federal regulation in 1966, do “not have a long tradition of government regulation.” 493 F. Supp., at 964. To be sure, in Colonnade this Court referred to “the long history of the regulation of the liquor industry,” 397 U. S., at 75, and more recently in Marshall v. Barlow’s, Inc., 436 U. S., at 313, we noted that a “long tradition of close government supervision” militated against imposition of a warrant requirement. However, as previously noted, see supra, at 599, it is the pervasiveness and regularity of the federal regulation that ultimately determines whether a warrant is necessary to render an inspection program reasonable under the Fourth Amendment. Thus in United States v. Biswell, this Court upheld the warrantless search provisions of the Gun Control Act of 1968 despite the fact that “[f]ederal regulation of the interstate traffic in firearms is not as deeply rooted in history as is governmental control of the liquor industry.” 406 U. S., at 315. Of course, the duration of a particular regulatory Scheme will often be an important factor in determining whether it is sufficiently pervasive to make the imposition of a warrant requirement unnecessary. But if the length of regulation were the only criterion, absurd results would occur. Under appellees’ view, new or emerging industries, including ones such as the nuclear power industry that pose enormous potential safety and health problems, could never be subject to warrantless searches even under the most carefully structured inspection program simply because of the recent vintage of regulation.
The Fourth Amendment’s central concept of reasonableness will not tolerate such arbitrary results, and we therefore conclude that warrantless inspection of stone quarries, like similar inspections of other mines covered by the Act, are constitutionally permissible. The judgment of the District Court is reversed, and the case is remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
So ordered.
The Act supersedes the Federal Coal Mine Health and Safety Act of 1969, formerly 30 U. S. C. § 801 et seq., and repeals and replaces the Federal Metal and Nonmetallic Mine Safety Act of 1966, formerly 30 U. S. C. § 721 et seq.
The Act defines “coal or other mine” to include “an area of land from which minerals are extracted in nonliquid form or, if in liquid form, are extracted with workers underground.” 30 U. S. C. § 802 (h) (1) (1976 ed., Supp. III). It is undisputed that the quarry operated by appellee company falls within this definition.
The Act provides that the Secretary shall issue citations and propose civil penalties for violations of the Act or standards promulgated under the Act. 30 U. S. C. §§ 814 (a), 820 (a) (1976 ed., Supp. III). The Secretary’s regulations call for issuance of a citation and the assessment of a civil penalty for denial of entry. 30 CFR § 100.4 (1980). The Act also allows a mine operator to contest any citation in a hearing before an administrative law judge, whose decision is subject to discretionary review by the Mine Safety and Health Review Commission. 30 U. S. C. §§ 815 (d), 823 (d) (1976 ed., Supp. III). The operator thereafter is entitled to review of a final administrative ruling in the appropriate court of appeals. 30 U. S. C. §816 (1976 ed., Supp. III).
In this case, the Administrative Law Judge upheld a $1,000 civil penalty proposed by the Secretary. This decision is currently under review by the Mine Safety and Health Review Commission.
Although the District Court limited its holding to the constitutionality of § 103 (a) as applied to warrantless inspections of stone quarries, the Act makes no distinction as to the type of mine to be inspected, and our conclusions here apply equally to all warrantless inspections authorized by the Act.
Three Courts of Appeals have upheld the warrantless inspection provisions of the Act as they apply to quarry operations similar to appellees’ facility. See Marshall v. Texoline Co., 612 F. 2d 935 (CA5 1980); Marshall v. Nolichuckey Sand Co., 606 F. 2d 693 (CA6 1979), cert. denied, 446 U. S. 908 (1980); Marshall v. Stoudt’s Ferry Preparation Co., 602 F. 2d 589 (CA3 1979), cert. denied, 444 U. S. 1015 (1980).
Absent consent or exigent circumstances, a private home may not be entered to conduct a search or effect an arrest without a warrant. Steagald v. United States, 451 U. S. 204 (1981); Payton v. New York, 445 U. S. 573 (1980); Johnson v. United States, 333 U. S. 10 (1948). Of course, these same restrictions pertain when commercial property is searched for contraband or evidence of crime. G. M. Leasing Corp. v. United States, 429 U. S. 338, 352-359 (1977).
In the preamble to the Act, Congress declared:
“[T]here is an urgent need to provide more effective means and measures for improving the working conditions and practices in the Nation’s coal or other mines in order to prevent death and serious physical harm, and in order to prevent occupational diseases originating in such mines. . . .
“[T]he existence of unsafe and unhealthful conditions and practices in the Nation’s coal or other mines is a serious impediment to the future growth of the coal and other mining industry and cannot be tolerated. . . .
“[T]he disruption of production and the loss of income to operators and miners as a result of coal or other mine accidents or occupationally caused diseases unduly impedes and burdens commerce.” 30 U. S. C. §§ 801 (c), (d), (f).
These congressional findings were based on extensive evidence showing that the mining industry was among the most hazardous of the Nation’s industries. See S. Rep. No. 95-181 (1977); H. R. Rep. No. 95-312 (1977). Although Congress did not make explicit reference to stone quarries in these findings, stone quarries were deliberately included within the scope of the statute. Since the Mine Safety and Health Act, unlike the Occupational Safety and Health Act, is narrowly and explicitly directed at inherently dangerous industrial activity, the inclusion of stone quarries in the statute is presumptively equivalent to a finding that the stone quarrying industry is inherently dangerous.
Cf. H. R. Rep. No. 95-312, supra, at 1 (mining operations are “so unique, so complex, and so hazardous as to not fit neatly under the Occupational Safety and Health Act”).
In contrast, the inspection scheme considered in Barlow’s did not require the periodic inspection of businesses covered by the Occupational Safety and Health Act, and instead left the decision to inspect within the broad discretion of agency officials. Thus, when a Government official attempted to inspect the facility in that case, the owner had no indication of “why an inspection of [his] establishment was within the program.” 436 U. S., at 323, n. 20.
Stone quarries were first subjected to federal health and safety inspections under the Federal Metal and Nonmetallie Mine Safety Act of 1966, 30 TJ. S. C. §§ 723, 724.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
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 petitioner was brought to trial before a jury in the District of Columbia upon a charge of felony murder. At that trial the prosecution introduced three confessions allegedly made by the petitioner while he was in the custody of the police. After these confessions had been admitted in evidence, the petitioner took the witness stand and testified to his own version of the events leading to the victim’s death. The jury found the petitioner guilty, but the Court of Appeals reversed his conviction, holding that the petitioner’s confessions had been illegally obtained and were therefore inadmissible in evidence against him. Harrison v. United States, 123 U. S. App. D. C. 230, 238, 359 F. 2d 214, 222; on rehearing en banc, 123 U. S. App. D. C. 239, 359 F. 2d 223.
The substance of the confessions was that the petitioner and two others, armed with a shotgun, had gone to the victim’s house intending to rob him, and that the victim had been killed while resisting their entry into his home. In his testimony at trial the petitioner said that he and his companions had gone to the victim’s home hoping to pawn the shotgun, and that the victim was accidentally killed while the petitioner was presenting the gun to him for inspection.
Upon remand, the case again came to trial before a jury. This time the prosecutor did not, of course, offer the alleged confessions in evidence. But he did read to the jury the petitioner’s testimony at the prior trial— testimony which placed the petitioner, shotgun in hand, at the scene of the killing. The testimony was read over the objection of defense counsel, who argued that the petitioner had been induced to testify at the former trial only because of the introduction against him of the inadmissible confessions. The petitioner was again convicted, and the Court of Appeals affirmed. We granted certiorari to decide whether the petitioner’s trial testimony was the inadmissible fruit of the illegally procured confessions.
In this case we need not and do not question the general evidentiary rule that a defendant’s testimony at a former trial is admissible in evidence against him in later proceedings. A defendant who chooses to testify waives his privilege against compulsory self-incrimination with respect to the testimony he gives, and that waiver is no less effective or complete because the defendant may have been motivated to take the witness stand in the first place only by reason of the strength of the lawful evidence adduced against him.
Here, however, the petitioner testified only after the Government had illegally introduced into evidence three confessions, all wrongfully obtained, and the same principle that prohibits the use of confessions so procured also prohibits the use of any testimony impelled thereby — the fruit of the poisonous tree, to invoke a time-worn metaphor. For the “essence of a provision forbidding the acquisition of evidence in a certain way is that not merely evidence so acquired shall not be used before the Court but that it shall not be used at all.” Silverthorne Lumber Co. v. United States, 251 U. S. 385, 392.
In concluding that the petitioner’s prior testimony could be used against him without regard to the confessions that had been introduced in evidence before he testified, the Court of Appeals relied on the fact that the petitioner had “made a conscious tactical decision to seek acquittal by taking the stand after [his] in-custody statements had been let in . ...” But that observation is beside the point. The question is not whether the petitioner made a knowing decision to testify, but why. If he did so in order to overcome the impact of confessions illegally obtained and hence improperly introduced, then his testimony was tainted by the same illegality that rendered the confessions themselves inadmissible. As Justice Tobriner wrote for the Supreme Court of California,
“If the improper use of [a] defendant’s extrajudicial confession impelled his testimonial admission of guilt, ... we could not, in order to shield the resulting conviction from reversal, separate what he told the jury on the witness stand from what he confessed to the police during interrogation.”
The remaining question is whether the petitioner’s trial testimony was in fact impelled by the prosecution’s wrongful use of his illegally obtained confessions. It is, of course, difficult to unravel the many considerations that might have led the petitioner to take the witness stand at his former trial. But, having illegally placed his confessions before the jury, the Government can hardly demand a demonstration by the petitioner that he would not have testified as he did if his inadmissible confessions had not been used. “The springs of conduct are subtle and varied,” Mr. Justice Cardozo once observed. “One who meddles with them must not insist upon too nice a measure of proof that the spring which he released was effective to the exclusion of all others.” Having “released the spring” by using the petitioner’s unlawfully obtained confessions against him, the Government must show that its illegal action did not induce his testimony.
No such showing has been made here. In his opening statement to the jury, defense counsel announced that the petitioner would not testify in his own behalf. Only after his confessions had been admitted in evidence did he take the stand. It thus appears that, but for the use of his confessions, the petitioner might not have testified at all. But even if the petitioner would have decided to testify whether or not his confessions had been used, it does not follow that he would have admitted being at the scene of the crime and holding the gun when the fatal shot was fired. On the contrary, the more natural inference is that no testimonial admission so damaging would have been made if the prosecutor had not already spread the petitioner’s confessions before the jury. That is an inference the Government has not dispelled.
It has not been demonstrated, therefore, that the petitioner’s testimony was obtained “by means sufficiently distinguishable” from the underlying illegality “to be purged of the primary taint.” Wong Sun v. United States, 371 U. S. 471, 488. Accordingly, the judgment must be
Reversed.
An earlier conviction had been vacated on appeal. See n. 4, infra.
Two of the confessions were found to have been obtained in violation of Mallory v. United States, 354 U. S. 449. The third was found to have been obtained in violation of a prior en banc decision of the Court of Appeals, Marling v. United States, 111 U. S. App. D. C. 174, 295 F. 2d 161. See n. 6, infra.
128 U. S. App. D. C. 245, 387 F. 2d 203.
389 U. S. 969. The petitioner’s further contention that he was denied the right to a speedy trial is wholly without merit and was properly rejected by the Court of Appeals. See 128 U. S. App. D. C., at 248-250, 387 F. 2d, at 206-208. The petitioner was indicted more than eight years ago and has been tried and convicted three times for the offense here involved. His first conviction was vacated on appeal when it became clear that the man who had represented him in certain post-verdict proceedings was an ex-convict posing as an attorney, see 123 U. S. App. D. C. 230, 232-233, 359 F. 2d 214, 216-217; his second conviction was reversed because the Government employed inadmissible confessions against him on retrial, see 123 U. S. App. D. C. 230, 238, 239, 359 F. 2d 214, 222, 223; and his third conviction is presently before us. Virtually all of the delays of which the petitioner complains occurred in the course of appellate proceedings and resulted either from the actions of the petitioner or from the need to assure careful review of an unusually complex ease.
See, e. g., Edmonds v. United States, 106 U. S. App. D. C. 373, 377-378, 273 F. 2d 108, 112-113; Ayres v. United States, 193 F. 2d 739, 740-741. And see generally C. McCormick, Evidence §§ 131, 230-235, 239 (1954).
In the present posture of this case, the earlier holding of the Court of Appeals that the petitioner’s confessions were illegally obtained, see 123 U. S. App. D. C. 230, 238, 239, 359 F. 2d 214, 222, 223, is not in dispute. We therefore proceed upon the assumption that the Court of Appeals was correct in ruling the confessions inadmissible, but we intimate no view upon how we would evaluate that ruling if it were properly before us.
See also Nardone v. United States, 308 U. S. 338, 341; Wong Sun v. United States, 371 U. S. 471, 484-488. Cf. Fahy v. Connecticut, 375 U. S. 85, 91. See also the opinions of Chief Justice Traynor in People v. Jackson, 67 Cal. 2d 96, 97, 429 P. 2d 600, 603, and People v. Polk, 63 Cal. 2d 443, 449, 406 P. 2d 641, 644, and the opinions of Justice Tobriner in People v. Spencer, 66 Cal. 2d 158, 164-169, 424 P. 2d 715, 719-724, and People v. Bilderbach, 62 Cal. 2d 757, 763-768, 401 P. 2d 921, 924-927.
128 U. S. App. D. C. 245, 252, 387 F. 2d 203, 210.
We have no occasion in this case to canvass the complex and varied problems that arise when the trial testimony of a witness other than the accused is challenged as “the evidentiary product of the poisoned tree.” R. Ruffin, Out on a Limb of the Poisonous Tree: The Tainted Witness, 15 U. C. L. A. Law Rev. 32, 44 (1967). See also Comment, Fruit of the Poisonous Tree — A Plea for Relevant Criteria, 115 U. Pa. L. Rev. 1136, 1143-1153 (1967). Compare United States v. Wade, 388 U. S. 218, 241; Gilbert v. California, 388 U. S. 263, 272-273. And, contrary to the suggestion made in a dissenting opinion today, post, at 234, we decide here only a case in which the prosecution illegally introduced the defendant’s confession in evidence against him at trial in its case-in-chief.
People v. Spencer, supra, 66 Cal. 2d, at 164, 424 P. 2d, at 719-720.
It is argued in dissent that the petitioner’s trial testimony should not be suppressed “even if it was in fact induced by the wrongful admission into evidence of an illegal confession,” post, at 232, since any deterrence such suppression might achieve is insufficient to warrant placing new “obstacles ... in the path of policeman, prosecutor, and trial judge alike.” Post, at 235. Of course, no empirical evidence on the deterrence issue is available. And “[s]ince as a practical matter it is never easy to prove a negative, it is hardly likely that conclusive factual data could ever be assembled.” Elkins v. United States, 364 U. S. 206, 218. But it is not deterrence alone that warrants the exclusion of evidence illegally obtained— it is “the imperative of judicial integrity.” Id., at 222. The exclusion of an illegally procured confession and of any testimony obtained in its wake deprives the Government of nothing to- which it has any lawful claim and creates no impediment to legitimate methods of investigating and prosecuting crime. On the contrary, the exclusion of evidence causally linked to the Government’s illegal activity no more than restores the situation that would have prevailed if the Government had itself obeyed the law.
De Cicco v. Schweizer, 221 N. Y. 431, 438, 117 N. E. 807, 810.
See People v. Spencer, supra, 66 Cal. 2d, at 168, 424 P. 2d, at 722. As Mr. Justice Harlan recently observed, “when the prosecution seeks to use a confession uttered after an earlier one not found to be voluntary, it has . . . the burden of proving . . . that the later confession . . . was not directly produced by the existence of the earlier confession.” Darwin v. Connecticut, 391 U. S. 346, 351 (concurring in part and dissenting in part). The same principle compels the conclusion that, when the prosecution seeks to use testimony given after the introduction in evidence of a confession unlawfully obtained, it has the burden of proving that the defendant's testimony was not produced by the illegal use of his confession at trial. Compare Chapman v. California, 386 U. S. 18, 24: "Certainly error ... in illegally admitting highly prejudicial evidence . . . casts on someone other than the person prejudiced by it a burden to show that it was harmless.”
“In evaluating the possibility that the erroneous introduction of [a] defendant’s extrajudicial confession might have induced his subsequent testimonial confession, we must assess [the] defendant’s reaction to the use of his confession at trial on the basis of the information then available to him . . . .” People v. Spencer, supra, 66 Cal. 2d, at 165, 424 P. 2d, at 720.
Compare United States v. Bayer, 331 U. S. 532: “Of course, after an accused has once let the cat out of the bag by confessing, no matter what the inducement, he is never thereafter free of the psychological and practical disadvantages of having confessed. He can never get the cat back in the bag. The secret is out for good. In such a sense, a later confession always may be looked upon as fruit of the first.” Id., at 540 (dictum). Compare also Darwin v. Connecticut, supra, 391 U. S. 346, 349; id., at 350-351 (separate opinion of Mr. Justice Harlan); Beecher v. Alabama, 389 U. S. 35, 36, n. 2; Clewis v. Texas, 386 U. S. 707, 710.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
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 Stevens
delivered the opinion of the Court.
We granted certiorari to decide the following question:
“May a sentence of death constitutionally be imposed after a jury verdict of guilt of a capital offense, when the jury was not permitted to consider a verdict of guilt of a lesser included non-capital offense, and when the evidence would have supported such a verdict?” 444 U. S. 897.
We now hold that the death penalty may not be imposed under these circumstances.
Petitioner was tried for the capital offense of “[rjobbery or attempts thereof when the victim is intentionally killed by the defendant.” Under the Alabama death penalty statute the requisite intent to kill may not be supplied by the felony-murder doctrine. Felony murder is thus a lesser included offense of the capital crime of robbery-intentional killing. However, under the statute the judge is specifically prohibited from giving the jury the option of convicting the defendant of a lesser included offense. Instead, the jury is given the choice of either convicting the defendant of the capital crime, in which case it is required to impose the death penalty, or acquitting him, thus allowing him to escape all penalties for his alleged participation in the crime. If the defendant is convicted and the death penalty imposed, the trial judge must then hold a hearing with respect to aggravating and mitigating circumstances; after hearing the evidence, the judge may refuse to impose the death penalty, sentencing the defendant to life imprisonment without possibility of parole.
In this case petitioner’s own testimony established his participation in the robbery of an 80-year-old man named Roy Malone. Petitioner consistently denied, however, that he killed the man or that he intended his death. Under petitioner’s version of the events, he and an accomplice entered their victim’s home in the afternoon, and, after petitioner had seized the man intending to bind him with a rope, his accomplice unexpectedly struck and killed him. As the State has conceded, absent the statutory prohibition on such instructions, this testimony would have entitled petitioner to a lesser included offense instruction on felony murder as a matter of state law.
Because of the statutory prohibition, the court did not instruct the jury as to the lesser included offense of felony murder. Instead, the jury was told that if petitioner was acquitted of the capital crime of intentional killing in the course of a robbery, he “must be discharged” and “he can never be tried for anything that he ever did to Roy Malone.” Record 743. The jury subsequently convicted petitioner and imposed the death penalty; after holding a hearing with respect to aggravating and mitigating factors, the trial court refused to overturn that penalty.
In the courts below petitioner attacked the prohibition on lesser included offense instructions in capital cases, arguing that the Alabama statute was constitutionally indistinguishable from the mandatory death penalty statutes struck down in Woodson v. North Carolina, 428 U. S. 280, and Roberts v. Louisiana, 428 U. S. 325. The Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals rejected this argument on the ground that the jury’s only function under the Alabama statute is to determine guilt or innocence and that the death sentence it is required to impose after a finding of guilt is merely advisory. In a brief opinion denying review, the Alabama Supreme Court also rejected petitioner’s arguments, citing Jacobs v. State, 361 So. 2d 640 (Ala. 1978), cert. denied, 439 U. S. 1122, in which it had upheld the constitutionality of the Alabama death penalty statute against a similar challenge. 365 So. 2d 1006, 1007 (1978).
In this Court petitioner contends that the prohibition on giving lesser included offense instructions in capital cases violates both the Eighth Amendment as made applicable to the States by the Fourteenth Amendment and the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment by substantially increasing the risk of error in the factfinding process. Petitioner argues that, in a case in which the evidence clearly establishes the defendant’s guilt of a serious noncapital crime such as felony murder, forcing the jury to choose between conviction on the capital offense and acquittal creates a danger that it will resolve any doubts in favor of conviction. In response, Alabama argues that the preclusion of lesser included offense instructions does not impair the reliability of the factfinding process or prejudice the defendant in any way. Rather, it argues that the apparently mandatory death penalty will make the jury more prone to acquit in a doubtful case and that the jury’s ability to force a mistrial by refusing to return a verdict acts as a viable third option in a case in which the jury has doubts but is nevertheless unwilling to acquit. The State also contends that prohibiting lesser included offense instructions is a reasonable way of assuring that the death penalty is not imposed arbitrarily and capriciously as a result of compromise verdicts. Finally, it argues that any error in the imposition of the death penalty by the jury can be cured by the judge after a hearing on aggravating and mitigating circumstances.
I
At common law the jury was permitted to find the defendant guilty of any lesser offense necessarily included in the offense charged. This rule originally developed as an aid to the prosecution in cases in which the proof failed to establish some element of the crime charged. See 2 C. Wright, Federal Practice and Procedure § 515, n. 54 (1969). But it has long been recognized that it can also be beneficial to the defendant because it affords the jury a less drastic alternative than the choice between conviction of the offense charged and acquittal. As Mr. Justice Brennan explained in his opinion for the Court in Keeble v. United States, 412 U. S. 205, 208, providing the jury with the “third option” of convicting on a lesser included offense ensures that the jury will accord the defendant the full benefit of the reasonable-doubt standard:
“Moreover, it is no answer to petitioner’s demand for a jury instruction on a lesser offense to argue that a defendant may be better off without such an instruction. True, if the prosecution has not established beyond a reasonable doubt every element of the offense charged, and if no lesser offense instruction is offered, the jury must, as a theoretical matter, return a verdict of acquittal. But a defendant is entitled to a lesser offense instruction — in this context or any other — precisely because he should not be exposed to the substantial risk that the jury’s practice will diverge from theory. Where one of the elements of the offense charged remains in doubt, but the defendant is plainly guilty of some offense, the jury is likely to resolve its doubts in favor of conviction. In the case before us, for example, an intent to commit serious bodily injury is a necessary element of the crime with which petitioner was charged, but not of the crime of simple assault. Since the nature of petitioner’s intent was very much in dispute at trial, the jury could rationally have convicted him of simple assault if that option had been presented. But the jury was presented with only two options: convicting the defendant of assault with intent to commit great bodily injury, or acquitting him outright. We cannot say that the availability of a third option — convicting the defendant of simple assault — -could not have resulted in a different verdict. Indeed, while we have never explicitly held that the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment guarantees the right of a defendant to have the jury instructed on a lesser included offense, it is nevertheless clear that a construction of the Major Crimes Act to preclude such an instruction would raise difficult constitutional questions.” Id., at 212-213 (emphasis in original).
Alabama’s failure to afford capital defendants the protection provided by lesser- included offense instructions is unique in American criminal law. In the federal courts, it has long been “beyond dispute that the defendant is entitled to an instruction on a lesser included offense if the evidence would permit a jury rationally to find him guilty of the lesser offense and acquit him of the greater.” Keeble v. United States, supra, at 208. Similarly, the state courts that have addressed the issue have unanimously held that a defendant is entitled to a lesser included offense instruction where the evidence warrants it. Indeed, for all noncapital crimes Alabama itself gives the defendant a right to such instructions under appropriate circumstances. See n. 5, supra.
While we have never held that a defendant is entitled to a lesser included offense instruction as a matter of due process, the nearly universal acceptance of the rule in both state and federal courts establishes the value to the defendant of this procedural safeguard. That safeguard would seem to be especially important in a case such as this. For when the evidence unquestionably establishes that the defendant is guilty of a serious, violent offense — but leaves some doubt with respect to an element that would justify conviction of a capital offense — the failure to give the jury the “third option” of convicting on a lesser included offense would seem inevitably to enhance the risk of an unwarranted conviction.
Such a risk cannot be tolerated in a case in which the defendant’s life is at stake. As we have often stated, there is a significant constitutional difference between the death penalty and lesser punishments:
“[D]eath is a different kind of punishment from any other which may be imposed in this country.... From the point of view of the defendant, it is different in both its severity and its finality. From the point of view of society, the action of the sovereign in taking the life of one of its citizens also differs dramatically from any other legitimate state action. It is of vital importance to the defendant and to the community that any decision to impose the death sentence be, and appear to be, based on reason rather than caprice or emotion.” Gardner v. Florida, 430 U. S. 349, 357-358 (opinion of Stevens, J.).
To insure that the death penalty is indeed imposed on the basis of “reason rather than caprice or emotion,” we have invalidated procedural rules that tended to diminish the reliability of the sentencing determination. The same reasoning must apply to rules that diminish the reliability of the guilt determination. Thus, if the unavailability of a lesser included offense instruction enhances the risk of an unwarranted conviction, Alabama is constitutionally prohibited from withdrawing that option from the jury in a capital case.
II
Alabama argues, however, that petitioner’s factual premise is wrong and that, in the context of an apparently mandatory death penalty statute, the preclusion of lesser included offense instructions heightens, rather than diminishes, the reliability of the guilt determination. The State argues that, because the jury is led to believe that a death sentence will automatically follow a finding of guilt, it will be more likely to acquit than to convict whenever it has anything approaching a reasonable doubt. In support of this theory the State relies on the historical data described in Woodson v. North Carolina, 428 U. S., at 293 (opinion of Stewart, Powell, and Stevens, JJ.), which indicated that American juries have traditionally been so reluctant to impose the death penalty that they have “with some regularity, disregarded their oaths and refused to convict defendants where a death sentence was the automatic consequence of a guilty verdict.”
The State’s argument is based on a misreading of our eases striking down mandatory death penalties. In Furman v. Georgia, 408 U. S. 238, the Court held unconstitutional a Georgia statute that vested the jury with complete and unguided discretion to impose the death penalty or not as it saw fit, on the ground that such a procedure led to the “wanton” and “freakish” imposition of the penalty. Id., at 310 (Stewart, J., concurring). In response to Furman several States enacted statutes that purported to withdraw any and all discretion from the jury with respect to the punishment decision by making the death penalty automatic on a finding of guilt. But, as the prevailing opinion noted in Woodson v. North Carolina, in so doing the States “simply papered over the problem of unguided and unchecked jury discretion.” 428 U. S., at 302 (opinion of Stewart, Powell, and Stevens, JJ.). For, as historical evidence indicated, juries faced with a mandatory death penalty statute often created their own sentencing discretion by distorting the fact-finding process, acquitting even a clearly guilty defendant if they felt he did not deserve to die for his crime. Because the jury was given no guidance whatsoever for determining when it should exercise this de facto sentencing power, the mandatory death statutes raised the same possibility that the death penalty would be imposed in an arbitrary and capricious manner as the statute held invalid in Furman.
The Alabama statute, which was enacted after Furman but before Woodson, has many of the same flaws that made the North Carolina statute unconstitutional. Thus, the Alabama statute makes the guilt determination depend, at least in part, on the jury’s feelings as to whether or not the defendant deserves the death penalty, without giving the jury any standards to guide its decision on this issue.
In Jacobs v. State, 361 So. 2d 640 (Ala. 1978), cert. denied, 439 U. S. 1122, Chief Justice Torbert attempted to distinguish the Alabama death statute from the North Carolina and Louisiana statutes on the ground that the unavailability of lesser included offense instructions substantially reduces the risk of jury nullification. Thus, because of their reluctance to acquit a defendant who is obviously guilty of some serious crime, juries will be unlikely to disregard their oaths and acquit a defendant who is guilty of a capital crime simply because of their abhorrence of the death penalty. However, because the death penalty is mandatory, the State argues that the jury will be especially careful to accord the defendant the full benefit of the reasonable-doubt standard. In the State’s view the end result is a perfect balance between competing emotional pressures that ensures the defendant a reliable procedure, while at the same time reducing the possibility of arbitrary and capricious guilt determinations.
The State’s theory, however, is supported by nothing more than speculation. The 96% conviction rate achieved by prosecutors under the Alabama statute hardly supports the notion that the statute creates such a perfect equipoise. Moreover, it seems unlikely that many jurors would react in the theoretically perfect way the State suggests. As Justice Shores stated in dissent in Jacobs v. State, supra, at 651-652:
“The Supreme Court of the United States did remark in Furman, infra, and again in Woodson, supra, that this nation abhorred the mandatory death sentence.... I suggest that, although there is no historical data to support it, most, if not all, jurors at this point in our history perhaps equally abhor setting free a defendant where the evidence establishes his guilt of a serious crime. We have no way of knowing what influence either of these factors have on a jury’s deliberation, and which of these unappealing alternatives a jury opts for in a particular case is a matter of purest conjecture. We cannot know that one outweighs the other. Jurors are not expected to come into the jury box and leave behind all that their human experience h'as taught them. The increasing crime rate in this country is a source of concern to all Americans. To expect a jury to ignore this reality and to find a defendant innocent and thereby set him free when the evidence establishes beyond doubt that he is guilty of some violent crime requires of our juries clinical detachment from the reality of human experience....”
In the final analysis the difficulty with the Alabama statute is that it interjects irrelevant considerations into the factfind-ing process, diverting the jury’s attention from the central issue of whether the State has satisfied its burden of proving beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant is guilty of a capital crime. Thus, on the one hand, the unavailability of the third option of convicting on a lesser included offense may encourage the jury to convict for an impermissible reason— its belief that the defendant is guilty of some serious crime and should be punished. On the other hand, the apparently mandatory nature of the death penalty may encourage it to acquit for an equally impermissible reason — that, whatever his crime, the defendant does not deserve death. In any particular case these two extraneous factors may favor the defendant or the prosecution or they may cancel each other out. But in every case they introduce a level of uncertainty and unreliability into the factfinding process that cannot be tolerated in a capital case.
Ill
The State also argues that, whatever the effect of precluding lesser included offense instructions might otherwise be, there is no possibility of harm under the Alabama statute because of two additional safeguards. First, although the jury may not convict the defendant of a lesser included offense, the State argues that it may refuse to return any verdict at all in a doubtful case, thus creating a mistrial. After a mistrial, the State may reindict on the capital offense or on lesser included offenses. In this case the jury was instructed that a mistrial would be declared if it was unable to agree on a verdict or if it was unable to agree on fixing the death penalty; it was also told that, in the event of a mistrial, the defendant could be tried again. Record 743.
We are not persuaded by the State’s argument that the mistrial “option” is an adequate substitute for proper instructions on lesser included offenses. It is extremely doubtful that juries will understand the full implications of a mistrial or will have any confidence that their choice of the mistrial option will ultimately lead to the right result. Thus, they could have no assurance that a second trial would end in the conviction of the defendant on a lesser included offense. Moreover, invoking the mistrial option in a case in which the jury agrees that the defendant is guilty of some offense, though not the offense charged, would require the jurors to violate their oaths to acquit in a proper case — contrary to the State’s assertions that juries should not be expected to make such lawless choices. Finally, the fact that lesser included offense instructions have traditionally been given in non-capital cases despite the availability of the mistrial “option” indicates that such instructions provide a necessary additional measure of protection for the defendant.
The State’s second argument is that, even if a defendant is erroneously convicted, the fact that the judge has the ultimate sentencing power will ensure that he is not improperly sentenced to death. Again, we are not persuaded that sentencing by the judge compensates for the risk that the jury may return an improper verdict because of the unavailability of a “third option.”
If a fully instructed jury would find the defendant guilty only of a lesser, noncapital offense, the judge would not have the opportunity to impose the death sentence. Moreover, it is manifest that the jury’s verdict must have a tendency to motivate the judge to impose the same sentence that the jury did. Indeed, according to statistics submitted by the State’s Attorney General, it is fair to infer that the jury verdict will ordinarily be followed by the judge even though he must hold a separate hearing in aggravation and mitigation before he imposes sentence. Under these circumstances, we are unwilling to presume that a post-trial hearing will always correct whatever mistakes have occurred in the performance of the jury’s factfinding function.
Accordingly, the judgment of the Alabama Supreme Court is Reversed.
There are 14 capital offenses under the Alabama statute, Ala. Code §§ 13-11-2 (a) (1) — (14) (1975):
“(1) Kidnapping for ransom or attempts thereof, when the victim is intentionally killed by the defendant;
“(2) Robbery or attempts thereof when the victim is intentionally killed by the defendant;
“(3) Rape when the victim is intentionally killed by the defendant; camal knowledge of a girl under 12 years of age, or abuse of such girl in an attempt to have camal knowledge, when the victim is intentionally killed by the defendant;
“(4) Nighttime burglary of an occupied dwelling when any of the occupants is intentionally killed by the defendant;
“(5) The murder of any police officer, sheriff, deputy, state trooper or peace officer of any kind, or prison or jail guard while such prison or jail guard is on duty or because of some official or job-related act or performance of such officer or guard;
“(6) Any murder committed while the defendant is under sentence of life imprisonment;
“(7) Murder in the first degree when the killing was done for a pecuniary or other valuable consideration or pursuant to a contract or for hire;
“(8) Indecent molestation of, or an attempt to indecently molest, a child under the age of 16 years, when the child victim is intentionally killed by the defendant;
“(9) Willful setting off or exploding dynamite or other explosive under circumstances now punishable by section 13-2-60 or 13-2-61, when a person is intentionally killed by the defendant because of said explosion;
“(10) Murder in the first degree wherein two or more human beings are intentionally killed by the defendant by one or a series of acts;
“(11) Murder in the first degree where the victim is a public official or public figure and the murder stems from or is caused by or related to his official position, acts or capacity;
“(12) Murder in the first degree committed while the defendant is engaged or participating in the act of unlawfully assuming control of any aircraft by use of threats or force with intent to obtain any valuable consideration for the release of said aircraft or any passenger or crewman thereon, or to direct the route or movement of said aircraft, or otherwise exert control over said aircraft;
“(13) Any murder committed by a defendant who has been convicted of murder in the first or second degree in the 20 years preceding the crime; or
“(14) Murder when perpetrated against any witness subpoenaed to testify at any preliminary hearing, trial or grand jury proceeding against the defendant who kills or procures the killing of witness, or when perpetrated against any human being while intending to kill such witness.”
Alabama Code § 13-11-2 (b) (1975) states that “[ejvidence of intent under this section shall not be supplied by the felony-murder doctrine.” In Ritter v. State, 375 So. 2d 270, 275 (1979), cert, pending, No. 79-5741, the Alabama Supreme Court held that the State could not satisfy its burden of proof under the new death penalty statute simply by showing that the defendant intended to commit robbery or even by showing that he should have known that there was a substantial possibility that someone would be killed. Although the State is not required to prove that the defendant was the actual triggerman, it must show that he had a “particularized intent” to kill the victim or that he “sanctioned and facilitated the crime [of intentional killing] so that his culpability is comparable to that of” the actual killer.
Alabama Code § 13-11-2 (a) (1975) provides:
“If the jury finds the defendant guilty, it shall fix the punishment at death when the defendant is charged by indictment with any of the following offenses and with aggravation, which must also be averred in the indictment, and which offenses so charged with said aggravation shall not include any lesser offenses.”
The last phrase of this subsection has been consistently construed to preclude any lesser included offense instructions in capital cases. See Jacobs v. State, 361 So. 2d 640, 646 (Ala. 1978) (Torbert, C. J., concurring in part and dissenting in part), cert. denied, 439 U. S. 1122; Evans v. Birtton, 472 F. Supp. 707, 714 (SD Ala. 1979).
Alabama Code § 13-11-3 (1975) provides:
“If the jury finds the defendant guilty of one of the aggravated offenses listed in section 13-11-2 and fixes the punishment at death, the court shall thereupon hold a hearing to aid the court to determine whether or not the court will sentence the defendant to death or to life imprisonment without parole. In the hearing, evidence may be presented as to any matter that the court deems relevant to sentence and shall include any matters relating to any of the aggravating or mitigating circumstances enumerated in sections 13-11-6 and 13-11-7. Any such evidence which the court deems to have probative value may be received, regardless of its admissibility under the exclusionary rules of evidence, provided that the defendant is accorded a fair opportunity to rebut any hearsay statements; provided further, that this section shall not be construed to authorize the introduction of any evidence secured in violation of the Constitution of the United States or the state of Alabama. The state and the defendant, or his counsel, shall be permitted to present argument for or against the sentence of death.”
The Alabama rule in cases other than capital cases is that the defendant is entitled to a lesser included offense instruction if “there is any reasonable theory from the evidence which would support the position.” Fulghum v. State, 291 Ala. 71, 75, 277 So. 2d 886, 890 (1973). The State concedes that under this standard petitioner would have been entitled to instructions on first-degree (felony) murder and robbery. Brief for Respondent 78-79; Tr. of Oral Arg. 23. The parties disagree as to whether petitioner also would have been entitled to an instruction on second-degree murder under state law. We, of course, have no occasion to pass on this issue.
In the trial court petitioner’s counsel argued that telling the jury that “you have got a choice of two things, either you can sentence him to die or you can acquit him” unconstitutionally interfered with its fact-finding role and made the statute an unconstitutional mandatory death penalty. Record 40. In the Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals the court described petitioner’s argument with respect to the constitutionality of the Alabama death penalty statute as follows:
“The trial jury cannot be instructed on lesser included offenses.
“In the absence of such a provision, the appellant insists that the only choice that a petit jury has is imposing death or acquitting the defendant. He states that because only those two choices are presented to the jury, the statute can only be interpreted as having a mandatory death provision.” 365 So. 2d 985, 999 (1978).
In his petition for certiorari to the Alabama Supreme Court petitioner specifically stated that he was challenging the Alabama statute as being in violation of the Eighth, Sixth, and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution and argued that it is “in fact a mandatory death sentence.” However, petitioner did not explore these issues more fully in his brief to the Alabama Supreme Court, Tr. of Oral Arg. 5, and, in its one-paragraph opinion affirming the judgment of the Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals, the Supreme Court adverted only to the state constitutional issues petitioner had raised.
In his dissenting opinion Mr. Justice Rehnquist takes the position that we are required to construe the Alabama Supreme Court’s failure to address petitioner’s federal constitutional claims as a determination that petitioner had waived those claims. We disagree. It is clear that petitioner did present his federal claims in some fashion to the Alabama Supreme Court. The State has never argued that this presentation was insufficient, as a matter of state law, to preserve the issue. On the contrary, in its brief in opposition to the petition for certiorari, the State argued that “the Alabama Appellate Courts have reviewed these matters raised in the petition, fully considered them and correctly decided the issues.” Similarly, after certiorari was granted, the State again did not argue that petitioner’s due process and Eighth Amendment claims were not properly raised or preserved below.
While the parties of course cannot confer jurisdiction on this Court by agreement, we should not simply brush aside the Alabama Attorney General’s view of his own State’s law. Cf. Chambers v. Mississippi, 410 U. S. 284, 290, n. 3. That is especially true in a case such as this, where the death penalty was imposed in a plainly unconstitutional manner. Cf. Vachon v. New Hampshire, 414 U. S. 478.
365 So. 2d, at 1000. The Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals relied on Jacobs v. State, 361 So. 2d 640 (Ala. 1978), cert. denied, 439 U. S. 1122, for this proposition. The majority in Jacobs did not specifically discuss the validity of the prohibition on lesser included offense instructions. However, in an opinion concurring in part and dissenting in part, Chief Justice Torbert stated that, far from being suspect, the prohibition helped to save the statute from being an unconstitutional mandatory death penalty. He noted that in Roberts v. Louisiana, 428 U. S. 325, this Court had struck down a mandatory death penalty statute which required the judge to give the jury the option of convicting on lesser included offenses whether or not such instructions were warranted by the evidence, on the ground that such a statute gave the jury de facto, standardless sentencing discretion. Because Alabama’s statute withdraws from the jury the discretion to control the imposition of the death penalty by convicting the defendant on a lesser included offense and because it is the judge and not the jury who does the actual sentencing, the chief justice concluded that the statute was acceptable as a matter of federal constitutional law.
Petitioner also argues that, because Alabama law requires a trial judge to give lesser included offense instructions where appropriate in noncapi-tal cases, the total prohibition on such instructions in capital cases constitutes an irrational discrimination violative of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. In view of our disposition of the case, it is not necessary to consider this issue. Moreover, petitioner failed to raise this claim in the courts below.
2 M. Hale, Pleas of the Crown 301-302 (1736); 2 W. Hawkins, Pleas of the Crown 623 (6th ed. 1787); 1 J. Chitty, Criminal Law 250 (5th Am. ed. 1847); T. Starkie, Treatise on Criminal Pleading 351-352 (2d ed. 1822).
Mississippi’s post-Furman death penalty statute also contained a prohibition on charging lesser included offenses. In Jackson v. State, 337 So. 2d 1242, 1255 (1976), the Mississippi Supreme Court struck down this part of the statute on the ground that it “constitutes an impediment to full and complete administration of justice in the trial of capital cases and is therefore not binding on the courts....” While warning that lesser included offense instructions should not be given “indiscriminately or automatically,” the court held that they should continue to be given when “warranted by the evidence.”
This principle was first announced in Stevenson v. United States, 162 U. S. 313, 323:
“A judge may be entirely satisfied from the whole evidence in the case that the person doing the killing was actuated by malice; that he was not in any such passion as to lower the grade of the crime from murder to manslaughter by reason of any absence of malice; and yet if there be any evidence fairly tending to bear upon the issue of manslaughter, it is the province of the jury to determine from all the evidence what the condition of mind was, and to say whether the crime was murder or manslaughter.”
See also Berra v. United States, 351 U. S. 131, 134, where Mr. Justice Harlan indicated that the defendant’s entitlement to such an instruction could not be doubted:
“In a case where some of the elements of the crime charged themselves constitute a lesser crime, the defendant, if the evidence justified it, would no doubt be entitled to an instruction which would permit a finding of guilt of the lesser offense. See Stevenson v. United States, 162 U. S. 313.” Rule 31 (c) of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure provides that “[t]he defendant may be found guilty of an offense necessarily included in the offense charged... Although the Rule is permissively phrased, it has been universally interpreted as granting a defendant a right to a requested lesser included offense instruction if the evidence warrants it. See, e. g., United States v. Scharf, 558 F. 2d 498, 502 (CA8 1977); United States v. Crutchfield, 547 F. 2d 496, 500 (CA9 1977); Government of Virgin Islands v. Carmona, 422 F. 2d 95, 100 (CA3 1970); 2 C. Wright, Federal Practice and Procedure § 515, n. 57 (1969).
Although the States vary in their descriptions of the quantum of proof necessary to give rise to a right to a lesser included offense instruction, they agree that it must be given when supported by the evidence See, e. g., Christie v. State, 580 P. 2d 310 (Alaska 1978); State v. Valencia, 121 Ariz. 191, 589 P. 2d 434 (1979); Westbrook v. State, 265 Ark. 736, 580 S. W. 2d 702 (1979); People v. Preston, 9 Cal. 3d 308, 508 P. 2d 300 (1973); People v. White, 191 Colo. 353, 553 P. 2d 68 (1976); State v. Brown, 173 Conn. 254, 377 A. 2d 268 (1977); Matthews v. State, 310 A. 2d 645 (Del. 1973); State v. Terry, 336 So. 2d 65 (Fla. 1976); Loury v. State, 147 Ga. App. 152, 248 S. E. 2d 291 (1978); State v. Travis, 45 Haw. 435, 368 P. 2d 883 (1962); State v. Beason, 95 Idaho 267, 506 P. 2d 1340 (1973); People v. Simpson, 57 Ill. App. 3d 442, 373 N. E. 2d 809 (1978); Pruitt v. State, 269 Ind. 559, 382 N. E. 2d 150 (1978); State v. Millspaugh, 257 N. W. 2d 513 (Iowa 1977); State v. White, 225 Kan. 87, 587 P. 2d 1259 (1978); Martin v. Commonwealth, 571 S. W. 2d 613 (Ky. 1978); State v. Carmichael, 405 A. 2d 732 (Me. 1979); Blackwell v. State, 278 Md. 466, 365 A. 2d 545 (1976), cert. denied, 431 U. S. 918; Commonwealth v. Santo, 375 Mass. 299, 376 N. E. 2d 866 (1978); People v. Jones, 395 Mich. 379, 236 N. W. 2d 461 (1975) ; State v. Merrill, 274 N. W. 2d 99 (Minn. 1978); Jackson v. State, 337 So. 2d 1242 (Miss. 1976); State v. Stone, 571 S. W. 2d 486 (Mo. App. 1978); State v. Ostwald, 180 Mont. 530, 591 P. 2d 646 (1979); State v. Hegwood, 202 Neb. 379, 275 N. W. 2d 605 (1979); Colle v. State, 85 Nev. 289, 454 P. 2d 21 (1969); State v. Boone, 119 N. H. 594, 406 A. 2d 113 (1979); State v. Saulnier, 63 N. J. 199, 306 A. 2d 67 (1973); State v. Aubrey, 91 N. M. 1, 569 P.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | A | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Per Curiam.
Respondent, Hawkeye-Security Insurance Company, filed a motion to quash the return of service of summons on the grounds that the District Court acquired no personal jurisdiction over it and that the power of attorney which it had filed with the Commissioner of Motor Vehicles of the State of Wisconsin did not authorize him to accept service of process for it in this case. After this motion was denied, respondent filed its answer to the complaint in which it again pressed its claim that the District Court lacked personal jurisdiction over it. Subsequently, however, respondent filed (1) a motion to amend its answer and to interplead; (2) a counterclaim; (3) a stipulation and order adding a party-plaintiff and amending the complaint and answer; and (4) a stipulation that judgment be entered against the alleged insured in favor of the additional party-plaintiff. The latter stipulation included the following provision, together with others consistent with it and confirmatory of its purpose:
“1. That each of the parties to this stipulation voluntarily submits to the jurisdiction of the above entitled Court without service of process herein, the same as if personal service had been obtained by each against the other.”
Following a trial on the merits, judgment was entered against respondent, but the Court of Appeals, with one judge dissenting, reversed on the ground that respondent’s motion to quash should have been granted. 226 F. 2d 126.
Upon examination of the record and the law, we conclude that the District Court had jurisdiction of the subject matter and that respondent, by its stipulation, waived any right to assert a lack of personal jurisdiction over it. We, therefore, reverse the judgment of the Court of Appeals and remand the case to it for further proceedings.
Reversed and remanded.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | I | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Chief Justice Rehnquist
delivered the opinion of the Court.
James Lewis Smith pleaded guilty to charges of burglary and rape. In exchange for the plea, a sodomy charge was dropped. Later, Smith succeeded in having his guilty plea vacated. He went to trial on the three original charges, was convicted on each, and received a longer sentence on the burglary conviction than had been given after his guilty plea. The Alabama Supreme Court held that this increased sentence created a presumption of vindictiveness similar to that set forth in North Carolina v. Pearce, 395 U. S. 711 (1969). We hold that no presumption of vindictiveness arises when the first sentence was based upon a guilty plea, and the second sentence follows a trial.
In 1985, an Alabama grand jury indicted Smith for burglary, rape, and sodomy. All the charges related to a single assault. Smith agreed to plead guilty to the burglary and rape charges in exchange for the State’s agreement to dismiss the sodomy charge. The trial court granted the State’s motion to dismiss the sodomy charge, accepted respondent’s guilty plea, and sentenced him to concurrent terms of 30-years’ imprisonment on each conviction. Later, respondent moved to withdraw his guilty plea, claiming that he had not entered it knowingly and voluntarily. The trial court denied this motion, but the Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals reversed, finding that respondent had not been properly informed of the penalties associated with the crimes to which he had pleaded guilty. 494 So. 2d 182 (1986).
The case was reassigned to the same trial judge. The State moved to reinstate the charge of first-degree sodomy; the trial court granted that motion, and respondent went to trial on all three original charges. At trial, the victim testified that respondent had broken into her home in the middle of the night, clad only in his underwear and a ski mask and wielding a kitchen knife. Holding the knife to her chest, he had raped and sodomized her repeatedly and forced her to engage in oral sex with him. The attack, which lasted for more than an hour, occurred in the victim’s own bedroom, just across the hall from the room in which her three young children lay sleeping. The State also offered respondent’s post-arrest statement, in which he admitted many of the details of the offenses. Respondent later took the stand and repudiated his postarrest statement, testifying instead that he had been in bed with his girl friend at the time the attack took place.
The jury returned a verdict of guilty on all three counts. This time, the trial judge imposed a term of life imprisonment for the burglary conviction, plus a concurrent term of life imprisonment on the sodomy conviction and a consecutive term of 150 years’ imprisonment on the rape conviction. The trial court explained that it was imposing a harsher sentence than it had imposed following respondent’s guilty plea because the evidence presented at trial, of which it had been unaware at the time it imposed sentence on the guilty plea, convinced it that the original sentence had been too lenient. See App. to Pet. for Cert. 28-30. As the court explained, at the time it imposed sentence on the guilty plea, it had heard only “[respondent’s] side of the story”; whereas now, it “has had a trial and heard all of the evidence,” including testimony that respondent had raped the victim at least five times, forced her to engage in oral sex with him, and threatened her life with a knife. Ibid. The court stated that this new information about the nature of respondent’s crimes and their impact on the victim, together with its observations of his “mental outlook on [the offenses] and [his] position during the trial,” convinced it that it was “proper to increase the sentence beyond that which was given to [him] on the plea bargain.” Id., at 30.
The Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals affirmed respondent’s convictions, as well as the life sentences imposed for burglary and sodomy, but remanded the rape conviction for resentencing. The Supreme Court of Alabama then granted respondent’s request for review of the burglary sentence, and reversed and remanded by a divided vote. Ex parte Smith, 557 So. 2d 13 (1988). The majority held that under our decision in North Carolina v. Pearce, supra, there can be no increase in sentence “upon reconviction at [a] second trial after the first conviction has been overturned on appeal and remanded for a new trial,” unless the increase is justified by “‘events subsequent to the first trial.’” 557 So. 2d, at 15. Because the majority thought the trial court had increased respondent’s sentence for the burglary conviction based on new information about events occurring prior to the imposition of the original sentence — e. g., new information about the nature of the crime and its effect on the victim — the majority held that Pearce required it to set aside that sentence.
The three dissenting justices argued that the Pearce presumption of vindictiveness did not apply where the original sentence is entered after a guilty plea. Id., at 16. In their view, a defendant “should not be allowed to receive sentence concessions in return for a guilty plea and then, after a successful attack on that plea, bind the State to its original sentencing bargain if he is later convicted after a trial.” Id., at 17. Were it otherwise, they argued, a defendant “could go to trial and chance an acquittal knowing he could receive a sentence no harsher than he was originally given.” Ibid.
Because of the conflicting results reached by the lower courts on the question whether the Pearce presumption of vindictiveness applies when a sentence imposed after trial is greater than that previously imposed after a guilty plea, we granted certiorari, 488 U. S. 1003 (1989), and now reverse.
While sentencing discretion permits consideration of a wide range of information relevant to the assessment of punishment, see Williams v. New York, 337 U. S. 241, 245-249 (1949), we have recognized it must not be exercised with the purpose of punishing a successful appeal. Pearce, 395 U. S., at 723-725. “Due process of law, then, requires that vindictiveness against a defendant for having successfully attacked his first conviction must play no part in the sentence he receives after a new trial.” Id., at 725. “In order to assure the absence of such a motivation, we have concluded that whenever a judge imposes a more severe sentence upon a defendant after a new trial, the reasons for him doing so must affirmatively appear.” Id. at 726. Otherwise, a presumption arises that a greater sentence has been imposed for a vindictive purpose — a presumption that must be rebutted by “‘objective information . . . justifying the increased sentence.’” Texas v. McCullough, 475 U. S. 134, 142 (1986) (quoting United States v. Goodwin, 457 U. S. 368, 374 (1982)).
While the Pearce opinion appeared on its face to announce a rule of sweeping dimension, our subsequent cases have made clear that its presumption of vindictiveness “do[es] not apply in every case where a convicted defendant receives a higher sentence on retrial. ” Texas v. McCullough, 475 U. S., at 138. As we explained in Texas v. McCullough, “the evil the [Pearce] Court sought to prevent” was not the imposition of “enlarged sentences after a new trial” but “vindictiveness of a sentencing judge.” Ibid. See also Chaffin v. Stynchcombe, 412 U. S. 17, 25 (1973) (the Pearce presumption was not designed to prevent the imposition of an increased sentence on retrial “for some valid reason associated with the need for flexibility and discretion in the sentencing process,” but was “premised on the apparent need to guard against vindictiveness in the resentencing process”). Because the Pearce presumption “may operate in the absence of any proof of an improper motive and thus . . . block a legitimate response to criminal conduct,” United States v. Goodwin, supra, at 373, we have limited its application, like that of “other ‘judicially created means of effectuating the rights secured by the [Constitution],’” to circumstances “where its ‘objectives are thought most efficaciously served,’” Texas v. McCullough, supra, at 138, quoting Stone v. Powell, 428 U. S. 465, 482, 487 (1976). Such circumstances are those in which there is a “reasonable likelihood,” United States v. Goodwin, supra, at 373, that the increase in sentence is the product of actual vindictiveness on the part of the sentencing authority. Where there is no such reasonable likelihood, the burden remains upon the defendant to prove actual vindictiveness, see Wasman v. United States, 468 U. S. 559, 569 (1984).
In Colten v. Kentucky, 407 U. S. 104 (1972), for example, we refused to apply the presumption when the increased sentence was imposed by the second court in a two-tiered system which gave a defendant convicted of a misdemeanor in an inferior court the right to trial de novo in a superior court. We observed that the trial de novo represented a “completely fresh determination of guilt or innocence” by a court that was not being “asked to do over what it thought it had already done correctly.” Id., at 117. If the de novo trial resulted in a greater penalty, we said that “it no more follows that such a sentence is a vindictive penalty . . . than that the inferior court imposed a lenient penalty.” Ibid. Consequently, we rejected the proposition that greater penalties on retrial were explained by vindictiveness “with sufficient frequency to warrant the imposition of a prophylactic rule.” Id., at 116. Similarly, in Chaffin v. Stynchcombe, 412 U. S. 17 (1973), we held that no presumption of vindictiveness arose when a second jury, on retrial following a successful appeal, imposed a higher sentence than a prior jury. We thought that a second jury was unlikely to have a “personal stake” in the prior conviction or to be “sensitive to the institutional interests that might occasion higher sentences.” Id., at 26-28.
We think the same reasoning leads to the conclusion that when a greater penalty is imposed after trial than was imposed after a prior guilty plea, the increase in sentence is not more likely than not attributable to the vindictiveness on the part of the sentencing judge. Even when the same judge imposes both sentences, the relevant sentencing information available to the judge after the plea will usually be considerably less than that available after a trial. A guilty plea must be both “voluntary” and “intelligent,” Boykin v. Alabama, 395 U. S. 238, 242 (1969), because it “is the defendant’s admission in open court that he committed the acts charged in the indictment,” Brady v. United States, 397 U. S. 742, 748 (1970). But the sort of information which satisfies this requirement will usually be far less than that brought out in a full trial on the merits.
As this case demonstrates, supra, at 796-797, in the course of the proof at trial the judge may gather a fuller appreciation of the nature and extent of the crimes charged. The defendant’s conduct during trial may give the judge insights into his moral character and suitability for rehabilitation. Supra, at 797. See United States v. Grayson, 438 U. S. 41, 53 (1978) (sentencing authority’s perception of the truthfulness of a defendant testifying on his own behalf may be considered in sentencing). Finally, after trial, the factors that may have indicated leniency as consideration for the guilty plea are no longer present. See Brady v. United States, supra, at 752. Here, too, although the same judge who sentenced following the guilty plea also imposes sentence following trial, in conducting the trial the court is not simply “do[ing] over what it thought it had already done correctly.” Colten, supra, at 117. Each of these factors distinguishes the present case, and others like it, from cases like Pearce. There, the sentencing judge who presides at both trials can be expected to operate in the context of roughly the same sentencing considerations after the second trial as he does after the first; any unexplained change in the sentence is therefore subject to a presumption of vindictiveness. In cases like the present one, however, we think there are enough justifications for a heavier second sentence that it cannot be said to be more likely than not that a judge who imposes one is motivated by vindictiveness.
Our conclusion here is not consistent with Simpson v. Rice, the companion case to North Carolina v. Pearce. In Simpson v. Rice, the complained-of sentence followed trial after Rice had successfully attacked his previous guilty plea. 395 U. S., at 714. We found that a presumption of vindictiveness arose when the State offered “no evidence attempting to justify the increase in Rice’s original sentences . . . .” Id., at 726. With respect, it does not appear that the Court gave any consideration to a possible distinction between the Pearce case, in which differing sentences were imposed after two trials, and the Rice case, in which the first sentence was entered on a guilty plea.
The failure in Simpson v. Rice to note the distinction just described stems in part from that case’s having been decided before some important developments in the constitutional law of guilty pleas. A guilty plea may justify leniency, Brady v. United States, supra; a prosecutor may offer a “recommendation of a lenient sentence or a reduction of charges” as part of the plea bargaining process, Bordenkircher v. Hayes, 434 U. S. 357, 363 (1978), and we have upheld the prosecutorial practice of threatening a defendant with increased charges if he does not plead guilty, and following through on that threat if the defendant insists on his right to stand trial, ibid.; we have recognized that the same mutual interests that support the practice of plea bargaining to avoid trial may also be pursued directly by providing for a more lenient sentence if the defendant pleads guilty, Corbitt v. New Jersey, 439 U. S. 212, 221-223 (1978).
Part of the reason for now reaching a conclusion different from that reached in Simpson v. Rice, therefore, is the later development of this constitutional law relating to guilty pleas. Part is the Court’s failure in Simpson to note the greater amount of sentencing information that a trial generally affords as compared to a guilty plea. Believing, as we do, that there is no basis for a presumption of vindictiveness where a second sentence imposed after a trial is heavier than a first sentence imposed after a guilty plea, we overrule Simpson v. Rice, supra, to that extent. Respondent contends that there is evidence to support a finding of actual vindictiveness on the part of the sentencing judge in this case. This is not the question upon which we granted certiorari, and we decline to reach it here although it may be open to respondent on our remand to the Supreme Court of Alabama.
The judgment of the Supreme Court of Alabama is reversed, and the cause remanded for further proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
The State filed an application for rehearing, which the Supreme Court of Alabama denied. App. to Pet. for Cert. 15. This time four justices dissented.
Compare, for example, the Alabama Supreme Court’s decision in the instant case, Ex parte Smith, 557 So. 2d 13 (1988), State v. Sutton, 197 Conn. 485, 498 A. 2d 65 (1985), and United States v. Gilliss, 645 F. 2d 1269 (CA8 1981), with State v. Bawdon, 386 N. W. 2d 484 (S. D. 1986), and McKenzie v. Risley, 842 F. 2d 1525, 1536-1537 (CA9 1988) (en banc).
We adopted a similar prophylactic rule to guard against vindictiveness by the prosecutor at the postconviction stage in Blackledge v. Perry, 417 U. S. 21 (1974). There the prosecutor charged the defendant with a felony when the latter availed himself of de novo review of his initial conviction of a misdemeanor for the same conduct. He received a sentence of five to seven years for the felony compared to the 6-month sentence he had received for the misdemeanor. On these facts, we concluded that a presumption of vindictiveness arose analogous to that in Pearce because the “prosecutor clearly has a considerable stake in discouraging convicted misdemeanants from appealing.” Id., at 27. We made clear, however, that “the Due Process Clause is not offended by all possibilities of increased punishment upon retrial after appeal, but only by those that pose a realistic likelihood of ‘vindictiveness.’ ” Ibicl. And in our other cases dealing with pretrial prosecutorial decisions to modify the charges against a defendant, we have continued to stress that “a mere opportunity for vindictiveness is insufficient to justify the imposition of a prophylactic rule.” United States v. Goodwin, 457 U. S. 368, 384 (1982); Bordenkircher v. Hayes, 434 U. S. 357 (1978).
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | A | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Justice Kennedy
delivered the opinion of the Court.
Some 20 years ago in rural Tennessee, Carolyn Muncey was murdered. A jury convicted petitioner Paul Gregory House of the crime and sentenced him to death, but new revelations cast doubt on the jury’s verdict. House, protesting his innocence, seeks access to federal court to pursue habeas corpus relief based on constitutional claims that are procedurally barred under state law. Out of respect for the finality of state-court judgments federal habeas courts, as a general rule, are closed to claims that state courts would consider defaulted. In certain exceptional cases involving a compelling claim of actual innocence, however, the state procedural default rule is not a bar to a federal habeas corpus petition. See Schlup v. Delo, 513 U. S. 298, 319-322 (1995). After careful review of the full record, we conclude that House has made the stringent showing required by this exception; and we hold that his federal habeas action may proceed.
I
We begin with the facts surrounding Mrs. Muncey’s disappearance, the discovery of her body, and House’s arrest. Around 3 p.m. on Sunday, July 14, 1985, two local residents found her body concealed amid brush and tree branches on an embankment roughly 100 yards up the road from her driveway. Mrs. Muncey had been seen last on the evening before, when, around 8 p.m., she and her two children — Lora Muncey, aged 10, and Matthew Muncey, aged 8 — visited their neighbor, Pam Luttrell. According to Luttrell, Mrs. Muncey mentioned her husband, William Hubert Muncey, Jr., known in the community as “Little Hube” and to his family as “Bubble.” As Luttrell recounted Mrs. Muncey’s comment, Mr. Muncey “had gone to dig a grave, and he hadn’t come back, but that was all right, because [Mrs. Muncey] was going to make him take her fishing the next day,” App. 11-12. Mrs. Muncey returned home, and some time later, before 11 p.m. at the latest, Luttrell “heard a car rev its motor as it went down the road,” something Mr. Muncey customarily did when he drove by on his way home. Record, Addendum 4, 5 Tr. of Evidence in No. 378 (Crim. Ct. Union Cty., Tenn.), pp. 641-642 (hereinafter Tr.). Luttrell then went to bed.
Around 1 a.m., Lora and Matthew returned to Luttrell’s home, this time with their father, Mr. Muncey, who said his wife was missing. Muncey asked Luttrell to watch the children while he searched for his wife. After he left, Luttrell talked with Lora. According to Luttrell:
“[Lora] said she heard a horn blow, she thought she heard a horn blow, and somebody asked if Bubbie was home, and her mama, you know, told them — no. And then she said she didn’t know if she went back to sleep or not, but then she heard her mama going down the steps crying and I am not sure if that is when that she told me that she heard her mama say — oh God, no, not me, or if she told me that the next day, but I do know that she said she heard her mother going down the steps crying.” App. 14-15.
While Lora was talking, Luttrell recalled, “Matt kept butting in, you know, on us talking, and he said — sister they said daddy had a wreck, they said daddy had a wreck.” Id., at 13.
At House’s trial, Lora repeated her account of the night’s events, this time referring to the “wreck” her brother had mentioned. To assist in understanding Lora’s account, it should be noted that Mrs. Muncey’s father-in-law — Little Hube’s father — was sometimes called “Big Hube.” Lora and her brother called him “Paw Paw.” We refer to him as Mr. Muncey, Sr. According to Lpra, Mr. Muncey, Sr., had a deep voice, as does petitioner House.
Lora testified that after leaving Luttrell’s house with her mother, she and her brother “went to bed.” Id., at 18. Later, she heard someone, or perhaps two different people, ask for her mother. Lora’s account of the events after she went to bed was as follows:
“Q Laura [sic], at some point after you got back home and you went to bed, did anything happen that caused your mother to be upset or did you hear anything?
“A Well, it sounded like PawPaw said — where’s daddy at, and she said digging a grave.
“Q Okay. Do you know if it was PawPaw or not, or did it sound like PawPaw?
“A It just sounded like PawPaw.
“Q And your mother told him what?
“A That he was digging a grave.
“Q Had you ever heard that voice before that said that?
“A I don’t remember.
“Q After that, at some point later, did you hear anything else that caused your mother to be upset?
“A Well, they said that daddy had a wreck down the road and she started crying — next to the creek.
“Q Your mother started crying. What was it that they said?
“A That daddy had a wreck.
“Q Did they say where?
“A Down there next to the creek.” Id., at 18-19.
Lora did not describe hearing any struggle. Some time later, Lora and her brother left the house to look for their mother, but no one answered when they knocked at the Luttrells’ home, and another neighbor, Mike Clinton, said he had not seen her. After the children returned home, according to Lora, her father came home and “fixed him a bologna sandwich and he took a bit of it and he says — sissy, where is mommy at, and I said — she ain’t been here for a little while.” Id., at 20. Lora recalled that Mr. Muneey went outside and, not seeing his wife, returned to take Lora and Matthew to the Luttrells’ so that he could look further.
The next afternoon Billy Ray Hensley, the victim’s first cousin, heard of Mrs. Muncey’s disappearance and went to look for Mr. Muneey. As he approached the Munceys’ street, Hensley allegedly “saw Mr. House come out from under a bank, wiping his hands on a black rag.” Id., at 32. Just when and where Hensley saw House, and how well he could have observed him, were disputed at House’s trial. Hensley admitted on cross-examination that he could not have seen House “walking up or climbing up” the embankment, id., at 39; rather, he saw House, in “[j]ust a glance,” id., at 40, “appear out of nowhere,” “next to the embankment,” id., at 39. On the Munceys’ street, opposite the area where Hensley said he saw House, a white Plymouth was parked near a sawmill. Another witness, Billy Hankins, whom the defense called, claimed that around the same time he saw a “boy” walking down the street away from the parked Plymouth and toward the Munceys’ home. This witness, however, put the “boy” on the side of the street with the parked car and the Munceys’ driveway, not the side with the embankment.
Hensley, after turning onto the Munceys’ street, continued down the road and turned into their driveway. “I pulled up in the driveway where I could see up toward Little Hube’s house,” Hensley testified, “and I seen Little Hube’s car wasn’t there, and I backed out in the road, and come back [the other way].” Id., at 32. As he traveled up the road, Hensley saw House traveling in the opposite direction in the white Plymouth. House “flagged [Hensley] down” through his windshield, ibid., and the two cars met about 300 feet up the road from the Munceys’ driveway. According to Hensley, House said he had heard Mrs. Muncey was missing and was looking for her husband. Id., at 33. Though House had only recently moved to the area, he was acquainted with the Munceys, had attended a dance with them, and had visited their home. He later told law enforcement officials he considered both of the Munceys his friends. According to Hensley, House said he had heard that Mrs. Muncey’s husband, who was an alcoholic, was elsewhere “getting drunk.” Ibid.
As Hensley drove off, he “got to thinking to [him]self — he’s hunting Little Hube, and Little Hube drunk — what would he be doing off that bank....” Ibid. His suspicion aroused, Hensley later returned to the Munceys’ street with a friend named Jack Adkins. The two checked different spots on the embankment, and though Hensley saw nothing where he looked, Adkins found Mrs. Muncey. Her body lay across from the sawmill near the corner where House’s car had been parked, dumped in the woods a short way down the bank leading toward a creek.
Around midnight, Dr. Alex Carabia, a practicing pathologist and county medical examiner, performed an autopsy. Dr., Carabia put the time of death between 9 and 11 p.m. Mrs. Muncey had a black eye, both her hands were bloodstained up to the wrists, and she had bruises on her legs and neck. Dr. Carabia described the bruises as consistent with a “traumatic origin,” i. e., a fight or a fall on hard objects. 7 Tr. 985-986. Based on the neck bruises and other injuries, he concluded Mrs. Muncey had been choked, but he ruled this out as the cause of death. The cause of death, in Dr. Carabia’s view, was a severe blow to the left forehead that inflicted both a laceration penetrating to the bone and, inside the skull, a severe right-side hemorrhage, likely caused by Mrs. Muncey’s brain slamming into the skull opposite the impact. Dr. Carabia described this head injury as consistent either with receiving a blow from a fist or other instrument or with striking some object.
The county sheriff, informed about Hensley’s earlier encounter with House, questioned House shortly after the body was found. That evening, House answered farther questions during a voluntary interview at the local jail. Special Agent Ray Presnell of the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation (TBI) prepared a statement of House’s answers, which House signed. Asked to describe his whereabouts on the previous evening, House claimed — falsely, as it turned out— that he spent the entire evening with his girlfriend, Donna Turner, at her trailer. Asked whether he was wearing the same pants he had worn the night before, House replied— again, falsely — that he was. House was on probation at the time, having recently been released on parole following a sentence of five years to life for aggravated sexual assault in Utah. House had scratches on his arms and hands, and a knuckle on his right ring finger was bruised. He attributed the scratches to Turner’s cats and the finger injury to recent construction work tearing down a shed. The next day House gave a similar statement to a different TBI agent, Charles Scott.
In fact House had not been at Turner’s home. After initially supporting House’s alibi, Turner informed authorities that House left her trailer around 10:30 or 10:45 p.m. to go for a walk. According to Turner’s trial testimony, House returned later — she was not sure when — hot and panting, missing his shirt and his shoes. House, Turner testified, told her that while he was walking on the road near her home, a vehicle pulled up beside him, and somebody inside “called him some names and then they told him he didn’t belong here anymore.” App. 89. House said he tried to ignore the taunts and keep walking, but the vehicle pulled in behind him, and “one of them got out and grabbed him by the shoulder... and [House] swung around with his right hand” and “hit something.” Ibid. According to Turner, House said “he took off down the bank and started running and he said that he — he said it seemed forever where he was running. And he said they fired two shots at him while he took off down the bank....” Ibid. House claimed the assailants “grabbed ahold of his shirt,” which Turner remembered as “a blue tank top, trimmed in yellow,” and “they tore it to where it wouldn’t stay on him and he said — I just throwed it off when I was running.” Id., at 91. Turner, noticing House’s bruised knuckle, asked how he hurt it, and House told her “that’s where he hit.” Id., at 90. Turner testified that she “thought maybe my ex-husband had something to do with it.” Ibid.
Although the white Plymouth House drove the next day belonged to Turner, Turner insisted House had not used the car that night. No forensic evidence connected the car to the crime; law enforcement officials inspected a white towel covering the driver seat and concluded it was clean. Turner’s trailer was located just under two miles by road, through hilly terrain, from the Muncey residence.
Law enforcement officers also questioned the victim’s husband. Though Mrs. Muncey’s comments to Luttrell gave no indication she knew this, Mr. Muncey had spent the evening at a weekly dance at a recreation center roughly a mile and a half from his home. In his statement to law enforcement — a statement House’s trial counsel claims he never saw— Mr. Muncey admitted leaving the dance early, but said it was only for a brief trip to the package store to buy beer. He also stated that he and his wife had had sexual relations Saturday morning.
Late in the evening on Monday, July 15 — two days after the murder — law enforcement officers visited Turner’s trailer. With Turner’s consent, Agent Scott seized the pants House was wearing the night Mrs. Muncey disappeared. The heavily soiled pants were sitting in a laundry hamper; years later, Agent Scott recalled noticing “reddish brown stains” he “suspected” were blood. Id., at 274-275. Around 4 p.m. the next day, two local law enforcement officers set out for the Federal Bureau of Investigation in Washington, D. C., with House’s pants, blood samples from the autopsy, and other evidence packed together in a box. They arrived at 2 a.m. the next morning. On July 17, after initial FBI testing revealed human blood on the pants, House was arrested.
II
The State of Tennessee charged House with capital murder. At House’s trial, the State presented testimony by Luttrell, Hensley, Adkins, Lora Muncey, Dr. Carabia, the sheriff, and other law enforcement officials. Through TBI Agents Presnell and Scott, the jury learned of House’s false statements. Central to the State’s case, however, was what the FBI testing showed — that semen consistent (or so it seemed) with House’s was present on Mrs. Muncey’s nightgown and panties, and that small bloodstains consistent with Mrs. Muncey’s blood but not House’s appeared on the jeans belonging to House.
Regarding the semen, FBI Special Agent Paul Bigbee, a serologist, testified that the source was a “secretor,” meaning someone who “secrete[s] the ABO blood group substances in other body fluids, such as semen and saliva” — a characteristic shared by 80 percent of the population, including House. Id., at 55. Agent Bigbee further testified that the source of semen on the gown was blood-type A, House’s own blood type. As to the semen on the panties, Agent Bigbee found only the H blood-group substance, which A and B blood-type secretors secrete along with substances A and B, and which O-type secretors secrete exclusively. Agent Bigbee explained, however — using science an amicus here sharply disputes, see Brief for Innocence Project, Inc., as Amicus Curia\e 24-26 — that House’s A antigens could have “degraded” into H, App. 57-58. Agent Bigbee thus concluded that both semen deposits could have come from House, though he acknowledged that the H antigen could have come from Mrs. Muneey herself if she was a secretor — something he “was not able to determine,” id., at 58 — and that, while Mr. Muneey was himself blood-type A (as was his wife), Agent Bigbee was again “not able to determine his secretor status,” id., at 57. Agent Bigbee acknowledged on cross-examination that “a saliva sample” would have sufficed to determine whether Mr. Muneey was a secretor; the State did not provide such a sample, though it did provide samples of Mr. Muncey’s blood. Id., at 62.
As for the blood, Agent Bigbee explained that “spots of blood” appeared “on the left outside leg, the right bottom cuff, on the left thigh and in thé right inside pocket and on the lower pocket on the outside.” Id., at 48. Agent Bigbee determined that the blood’s source was type A (the type shared by House, the victim, and Mr. Muneey). He also successfully tested for the enzyme phosphoglucomutase and the blood serum haptoglobin, both of which “are found in all humans” and carry “slight chemical differences” that vary genetically and “can be grouped to differentiate between two individuals if those types are different.” Id., at 49-50. Based on these chemical traces and on the A blood type, Agent Bigbee determined that only some 6.75 percent of the population carry similar blood, that the blood was “consistent” with Mrs. Muncey’s (as determined by testing autopsy samples), and that it was “impossible” that the blood came from House. Id., at 48-52.
A different FBI expert, Special Agent Chester Blythe, testified about fiber analysis performed on Mrs. Muncey’s clothes and on House’s pants. Although Agent Blythe found blue jean fibers on Mrs. Muncey’s nightgown, brassiere, housecoat, and panties, and in fingernail scrapings taken from her body (scrapings that also contained trace, unidentifiable amounts of blood), he acknowledged that, as the prosecutor put it in questioning the witness, “blue jean material is common material,” so “this doesn’t mean that the fibers that were all over the victim’s clothing were necessarily from [House’s] pair of blue jeans.” 6 Tr. 864-865. On House’s pants, though cotton garments both transfer and retain fibers readily, Agent Blythe found neither hair nor fiber consistent with the victim’s hair or clothing.
In the defense case House called Hankins, Clinton, and Turner, as well as House’s mother, who testified that House had talked to her by telephone around 9:30 p.m. on the night of the murder and that he had not used her car that evening. House also called the victim’s brother, Ricky Green, as a witness. Green testified that on July 2, roughly two weeks before the murder, Mrs. Muncey called him and “said her and Little Hube had been into it and she said she was wanting to leave Little Hube, she said she was wanting to get out— out of it, and she was scared.” 7 id., at 1088. Green recalled that at Christmastime in 1982 he had seen Mr. Muncey strike Mrs. Muncey after returning home drunk.
As Turner informed the jury, House’s shoes were found several months after the crime in a field near her home. Turner delivered them to authorities. Though the jury did not learn of this fact (and House’s counsel claims he did not either), the State tested the shoes for blood and found none. House’s shirt was not found.
The State’s closing argument suggested that on the night of her murder, Mrs. Muncey “was deceived.... She had been told [her husband] had had an accident.” 9 id., at 1226. The prosecutor emphasized the FBI’s blood analysis, noting that “after running many, many, many tests,” Agent Bigbee
“was able to tell you that the blood on the defendant’s blue jeans was not his own blood, could not be his own blood. He told you that the blood on the blue jeans was consistent with every characteristic in every respect of the deceased’s, Carolyn Muncey’s, and that ninety-three (93%) percent of the white population would not have that blood type____He can’t tell you one hundred (100%) percent for certain that it was her blood. But folks, he can sure give you a pretty good — a pretty good indication.” Id., at 1235-1236.
In the State’s rebuttal, after defense counsel questioned House’s motive “to go over and kill a woman that he barely knew[,] [w]ho was still dressed, still clad in her clothes,” id., at 1274, the prosecutor referred obliquely to the semen stains. While explaining that legally “it does not make any difference under God’s heaven, what the motive was,” App. 106, the prosecutor told the jury, “you may have an idea why he did it,” ibid.:
“The evidence at the scene which seemed to suggest that he was subjecting this lady to some kind of indignity, why would you get a lady out of her house, late at night, in her night clothes, under the trick that her husband has had a wreck down by the creek?... Well, it is because either you don’t want her to tell what indignities you have subjected her to, or she is unwilling and fights against you, against being subjected to those indignities. In other words, it is either to keep her from telling what you have done to her, or it is that you are trying to get her to do something that she nor any mother on that road would want to do with Mr. House, under those conditions, and you kill her because of her resistance. That is what the evidence at the scene suggests about motive.” Id., at 106-107.
In addition the government suggested the black rag Hensley said he saw in House’s hands was in fact the missing blue tank top, retrieved by House from the crime scene. And the prosecution reiterated the importance of the blood. “[D]efense counsel,” he said, “does not start out discussing the fact that his client had blood on his jeans on the night that Carolyn Muncey was killed.... He doesn’t start with the fact that nothing that the defense has introduced in this case explains what blood is doing on his jeans, all over his jeans, that is scientifically, completely different from his blood.” Id., at 104-105. The jury found House guilty of murder in the first degree.
The trial advanced to the sentencing phase. As aggravating factors to support a capital sentence, the State sought to prove: (1) that House had previously been convicted of a felony involving the use or threat of violence; (2) that the homicide was especially heinous, atrocious, or cruel in that it involved torture or depravity of mind; and (3) that the murder was committed while House was committing, attempting to commit, or fleeing from the commission of, rape or kidnaping. See Tenn. Code Ann. §§ 39 — 2—203(i)(2), (5), (7) (1982) (repealed 1989); cf. §§39-13-204(i)(2), (5), (7) (2003). After presenting evidence of House’s parole status and aggravated sexual assault conviction, the State rested. As mitigation, the defense offered testimony from House’s father and mother, as well as evidence, presented through House’s mother, that House attempted suicide after the guilt-phase verdict. Before the attempt House wrote his mother a letter professing his innocence.
In closing the State urged the jury to find all three aggravating factors and impose death. As to the kidnaping or rape factor, the prosecution suggested Mrs. Muncey was “decoy[ed] or entic[ed]... away from her family, and confin[ed] against her will because you know that as she was being beaten to death.” 10 Tr. 1410. “We also think,” the prosecutor added, “the proof shows strong evidence of attempted sexual molestation of the victim to accompany the taking away and murdering her.” Id., at 1410-1411. Later the prosecutor argued, “I think the proof shows in the record that it is more likely than not that having been through the process before and having been convicted of a crime involving the threat of violence, or violence to another person, aggravated sexual assault, that the defendant cannot benefit from the type of rehabilitation that correction departments can provide.” Id., at 1413. The jury unanimously found all three aggravating factors and concluded “there are no mitigating circumstances sufficiently substantial to outweigh the statutory aggravating circumstance or circumstances.” Id., at 1454. The jury recommended a death sentence, which the trial judge imposed.
Ill
The Tennessee Supreme Court affirmed House’s conviction and sentence, describing the evidence against House as “circumstantial” but “quite strong.” State v. House, 743 S. W. 2d 141, 143, 144 (1987). Two months later, in a state trial court, House filed a pro se petition for postconviction relief, arguing he received ineffective assistance of counsel at trial. The court-appointed counsel amended the petition to raise other issues, including a challenge to certain jury instructions. At a hearing before the same judge who conducted the trial, House’s counsel offered no proof beyond the trial transcript. The trial court dismissed the petition, deeming House’s trial counsel adequate and overruling House’s other objections. On appeal House’s attorney renewed only the jury-instructions argument. In an unpublished opinion the Tennessee Court of Criminal Appeals affirmed, and both the Tennessee Supreme Court and this Court, House v. Tennessee, 498 U. S. 912 (1990), denied review.
House filed a second postconviction petition in state court reasserting his ineffective-assistance claim and seeking investigative and/or expert assistance. After extensive litigation regarding whether House’s claims were procedurally defaulted the Tennessee Supreme Court held that House’s claims were barred under a state statute providing that claims not raised in prior postconviction proceedings are presumptively waived, Tenn. Code Ann. §40-80-112 (1990) (repealed 1995), and that courts may not consider grounds for relief “which the court finds should be excluded because they have been waived or previously determined,” §40-30-111 (repealed 1995). See House v. State, 911 S. W. 2d 705 (1995). This Court denied certiorari. House v. Tennessee, 517 U. S. 1193 (1996).
House next sought federal habeas relief, asserting numerous claims of ineffective assistance of counsel and prosecutorial misconduct. The United States District Court for the Eastern District of Tennessee, though deeming House’s claims procedurally defaulted and granting summary judgment to the State on the majority of House’s claims, held an evidentiary hearing to determine whether House fell within the “actual innocence” exception to procedural default that this Court recognized as to substantive' offenses in Schlup and as to death sentences in Sawyer v. Whitley, 505 U. S. 333 (1992). Presenting evidence we describe in greater detail below, House attacked the semen and blood evidence used at his trial and presented other evidence, including a putative confession, suggesting that Mr. Muncey, not House, committed the murder. The District Court nevertheless denied relief, holding that House had neither demonstrated actual innocence of the murder under Schlup nor established that he was ineligible for the death penalty under Sawyer.
The Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit granted a certificate of appealability under 28 U. S. C. § 2253(c) as to all claims in the habeas petition. On the merits a divided panel affirmed, but its opinion was withdrawn and the case taken en banc. A divided en banc court certified state-law questions to the Tennessee Supreme Court. House v. Bell, 311 F. 3d 767 (CA6 2002). Concluding that House had made a compelling showing of actual innocence, and recognizing that in Herrera v. Collins, 506 U. S. 390 (1993), this Court assumed without deciding that “in a capital case a truly persuasive demonstration of ‘actual innocence’ made after trial would render the execution of a defendant unconstitutional, and warrant federal habeas relief if there were no state avenue open to process such a claim,” id., at 417, the six-judge majority certified questions to the State Supreme Court, 311 F. 3d, at 777-778. The questions sought “to ascertain whether there remains a ‘state avenue open to process such a claim’ in this case.” Id., at 768. Four dissenting judges argued the court should have reached the merits, rather than certifying questions to the state court; these judges asserted that House could not obtain relief under Schlup, let alone Sawyer and Herrera. 311 F. 3d, at 780-781 (opinion of Boggs, J.). A fifth dissenter explained that while he agreed with the majority that House “presents a strong claim for habeas relief, at least at the sentencing phase of the case,” he objected to the certification of questions to the Tennessee high court. Id., at 787 (opinion of Gilman, J.). This Court denied certiorari. Bell v. House, 539 U. S. 937 (2003).
The State urged the Tennessee Supreme Court not to answer the Court of Appeals’ certified questions, and the state court did not do so. The case returned to the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. This time an eight-judge majority affirmed the District Court’s denial of habeas relief. 386 F. 3d 668 (2004). Six dissenters argued that House not only had met the actual-innocence standard for overcoming procedural default but also was entitled to immediate release under Herrera. 386 F. 3d, at 708 (opinion of Merritt, J.). A seventh dissenter (the same judge who wrote separately in the previous en banc decision) described the case as “a real-life murder mystery, an authentic ‘who-done-it’ where the wrong man may be executed.” Id., at 709 (opinion of Gilman, J.). He concluded such grave uncertainty necessitated relief in the form of a new trial for House. Id., at 710.
We granted certiorari, 545 U. S. 1151 (2005), and now reverse.
IV
As a general rule, claims forfeited under state law may support federal habeas relief only if the prisoner demonstrates cause for the default and prejudice from the asserted error. See Murray v. Carrier, 477 U. S. 478, 485 (1986); Engle v. Isaac, 456 U. S. 107, 129 (1982); Wainwright v. Sykes, 433 U. S. 72, 87 (1977). The rule is based on the comity and respect that must be accorded to state-court judgments. See, e.g., Engle, supra, at 126-129; Wainwright, supra, at 89-90. The bar is not, however, unqualified. In an effort to “balance the societal interests in finality, comity, and conservation of scarce judicial resources with the individual interest in justice that arises in the extraordinary case,” Schlup, 513 U. S., at 324, the Court has recognized a miscarriage-of-justice exception. “ ‘[I]n appropriate cases,’” the Court has said, “the principles of comity and finality that inform the concepts of cause and prejudice ‘must yield to the imperative of correcting a fundamentally unjust incarceration,’ ” Carrier, supra, at 495 (quoting Engle, supra, at 135).
In Schlup, the Court adopted a specific rule to implement this general principle. It held that prisoners asserting innocence as a gateway to defaulted claims must establish that, in light of new evidence, “it is more likely than not that no reasonable juror would have found petitioner guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.” 513 U. S., at 327. This formulation, Schlup explains, “ensures that petitioner’s case is truly 'extraordinary,’ while still providing petitioner a meaningful avenue by which to avoid a manifest injustice.” Ibid. (quoting McCleskey v. Zant, 499 U. S. 467, 494 (1991)). In the usual case the presumed guilt of a prisoner convicted in state court counsels against federal review of defaulted claims. Yet a petition supported by a convincing Schlup gateway showing “raise[s] sufficient doubt about [the petitioner’s] guilt to undermine confidence in the result of the trial without the assurance that that trial was untainted by constitutional error”; hence, “a review of the merits of the constitutional claims” is justified. 513 U. S., at 317.
For purposes of this case several features of the Schlup standard bear emphasis. First, although “ft]o be credible” a gateway claim requires “new reliable evidence — whether it be exculpatory scientific evidence, trustworthy eyewitness accounts, or critical physical evidence — that was not presented at trial,” id., at 324, the habeas court’s analysis is not limited to such evidence. There is no dispute in this case that House has presented some new reliable evidence; the State has conceded as much, see infra, at 540-541. In addition, because the District Court held an evidentiary hearing in this case, and because the State does not challenge the court’s decision to do so, we have no occasion to elaborate on Schlup’s observation that when considering an actual-innocence claim in the context of a request for an evidentiary hearing, the District Court need not “test the new evidence by a standard appropriate for deciding a motion for summary judgment,” but rather may “consider how the timing of the submission and the likely credibility of the affiants bear on the probable reliability of that evidence.” 513 U. S., at 331-332. Our review in this case addresses the merits of the Schlup inquiry, based on a fully developed record, and with respect to that inquiry Schlup makes plain that the habeas court must consider “ ‘all the evidence,’ ” old and new, incriminating and exculpatory, without regard to whether it would necessarily be admitted under “rules of admissibility that would govern at trial.” See id., at 327-328 (quoting Friendly, Is Innocence Irrelevant? Collateral Attack on Criminal Judgments, 38 U. Chi. L. Rev. 142, 160 (1970)). Based on this total record, the court must make “a probabilistic determination about what reasonable, properly instructed jurors would do.” 513 U. S., at 329. The court’s function is not to make an independent factual determination about what likely occurred, but rather to assess the likely impact of the evidence on reasonable jurors. Ibid.
Second, it bears repeating that the Schl
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
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.
Section 812 of the Civil Rights Act of 1968, 82 Stat. 88, 42 U. S. C. § 3612, authorizes private plaintiffs to bring civil actions to redress violations of Title VIII, the fair housing provisions of the Act, and provides that “[t]he court may grant as relief, as it deems appropriate, any permanent or temporary injunction, temporary restraining order, or other order, and may award to the plaintiff actual damages and not more than $1,000 punitive damages, together with court costs and reasonable attorney fees . . . The question presented in this case is whether the Civil Rights Act or the Seventh Amendment requires a jury trial upon demand by one of the parties in an action for damages and injunctive relief under this section.
Petitioner, a Negro woman, brought this action under § 812, claiming that respondents, who are white, had refused to rent an apartment to her because of her race, in violation of § 804 (a) of the Act, 42 U. S. C. § 3604 (a). In her complaint she sought only injunctive relief and punitive damages; a- claim for compensatory damages was later added. After an evidentiary hearing, the District Court granted preliminary injunctive relief, enjoining the respondents from renting the apartment in question to anyone else pending the trial on the merits. This injunction was dissolved some five months later with the petitioner’s consent, after she had finally obtained other housing, and the case went to trial on the issues of actual and punitive damages.
Respondents made a timely demand for jury trial in their answer. The District Court, however, held that jury trial was neither authorized by Title VIII nor required by the Seventh Amendment, and denied the jury request. Rogers v. Loether, 312 F. Supp. 1008 (ED Wis. 1970). After trial on the merits, the District Judge found that respondents had in fact discriminated against petitioner on account of her race. Although he found no actual damages, see n. 1, supra, he awarded $250 in punitive damages, denying petitioner’s request for attorney’s fees and court costs.
The Court of Appeals reversed on the jury trial issue. Rogers v. Loether, 467 F. 2d 1110 (CA7 1972). After an extended analysis, the court concluded essentially that the Seventh Amendment gave respondents the right to a jury trial in this action, and therefore interpreted the statute to authorize jury trials so as to eliminate any question of its constitutionality. In view of the importance of the jury trial issue in the administration and enforcement of Title VIII and the diversity of views in the lower courts on the question, we granted certiorari, 412 U. S. 937 (1973). We affirm.
The legislative history on the jury trial question is sparse, and what little is available is ambiguous. There seems to be some indication that supporters of Title VIII were concerned that the possibility of racial prejudice on juries might reduce the effectiveness of civil rights damages actions. On the other hand, one bit of testimony during committee hearings indicates an awareness that jury trials would have to be afforded in damages actions under Title VIII. Both petitioner and respondents have presented plausible arguments from the wording and construction of § 812. We see no point to giving extended consideration to these arguments, however, for we think it is clear that the Seventh Amendment entitles either party to demand a jury trial in an action for damages in the federal courts under § 812.
The Seventh Amendment provides that “[i]n suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved.” Although the thrust of the Amendment was to preserve the right to jury trial as it existed in 1791, it has long been settled that the right extends beyond the common-law forms of action recognized at that time. Mr. Justice Story established the basic principle in 1830:
“The phrase 'common law/ found in this clause, is used in contradistinction to equity, and admiralty, and maritime jurisprudence. ... By common law, [the Framers of the Amendment] meant . . . not merely suits, which the common law recognized among its old and settled proceedings, but suits in which legal rights were to be ascertained and determined, in contradistinction to those where equitable rights alone were recognized, and equitable remedies were administered .... In a just sense, the amendment then may well be construed to embrace all suits which are not of equity and admiralty jurisdiction, whatever might be the peculiar form which they may assume to settle legal rights.” Parsons v. Bedford, 3 Pet. 433, 446-447 (1830) (emphasis in original).
Petitioner nevertheless argues that the Amendment is inapplicable to new causes of action created by congressional enactment. As the Court of Appeals observed, however, we have considered the applicability of the constitutional right to jury trial in actions enforcing statutory rights “as a matter too obvious to be doubted.” 467 F. 2d, at 1114. Although the Court has apparently never discussed the issue at any length, we have often found the Seventh Amendment applicable to causes of action based on statutes. See, e. g., Dairy Queen, Inc. v. Wood, 369 U. S. 469, 477 (1962) (trademark laws); Hepner v. United States, 213 U. S. 103, 115 (1909) (immigration laws); cf. Fleitmann v. Welsbach Street Lighting Co., 240 U. S. 27 (1916) (antitrust laws), and the discussion of Fleitmann in Ross v. Bernhard, 396 U. S. 531, 535-536 (1970). Whatever doubt may have existed should now be dispelled. The Seventh Amendment does apply to actions enforcing statutory rights, and requires a jury trial upon demand, if the statute creates legal rights and remedies, enforceable in an action for damages in the ordinary courts of law.
NLRB v. Jones & Laughlin Steel Corp,, 301 U. S. 1 (1937), relied on by petitioner, lends no support to her statutory-rights argument. The Court there upheld the award of backpay without jury trial in an NLRB unfair labor practice proceeding, rejecting a Seventh Amendment claim on the ground that the case involved a “statutory proceeding” and “not a suit at common law or in the nature of such a suit.” Id., at 48. Jones & Laughlin merely stands for the proposition that the Seventh Amendment is generally inapplicable in administrative proceedings, where jury trials would be incompatible with the whole concept of administrative adjudication and would substantially interfere with the NLRB’s role in the statutory scheme. Katchen v. Landy, 382 U. S. 323 (1966), also relied upon by petitioner, is to like effect. There the Court upheld, over a Seventh Amendment challenge, the Bankruptcy Act's grant of summary jurisdiction to the bankruptcy court over the trustee’s action to compel a claimant to surrender a voidable preference; the Court recognized that a bankruptcy court has been traditionally viewed as a court of equity, and that jury trials would “dismember” the statutory scheme of the Bankruptcy Act. Id., at 339. See also Guthrie National Bank v. Guthrie, 173 U. S. 528 (1899). These cases uphold congressional power to entrust enforcement of statutory rights to an administrative process or specialized court of equity free from the strictures of the Seventh Amendment. But when Congress provides for enforcement of statutory rights in an ordinary civil action in the district courts, where there is obviously no functional justification for denying the jury trial right, a jury trial must be available if the action involves rights and remedies of the sort typically enforced in an action at law.
We think it is clear that a damages action under § 812 is an action to enforce “legal rights” within the meaning of our Seventh Amendment decisions. See, e. g., Ross v. Bernhard, supra, at 533, 542; Dairy Queen, Inc. v. Wood, supra, at 476-477. A damages action under the statute sounds basically in tort — the statute merely defines a new legal duty, and authorizes the courts to compensate a plaintiff for the injury caused by the defendant’s wrongful breach. As the Court of Appeals noted, this cause of action is analogous to a number of tort actions recognized at common law. More important, the relief sought here — actual and punitive damages — is the traditional form of relief offered in the courts of law.
We need not, and do not, go so far as to say that any award of monetary relief must necessarily be “legal” relief. See, e. g., Mitchell v. DeMario Jewelry, Inc., 361 U. S. 288 (1960); Porter v. Warner Holding Co., 328 U. S. 395 (1946). A comparison of Title VIII with Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, where the courts of appeals have held that jury trial is not required in an action for reinstatement and backpay, is instructive, although we of course express no view on the jury trial issue in that context. In Title VII cases the courts of appeals have characterized backpay as an integral part of an equitable remedy, a form of restitution. But the statutory language on which this characterization is based—
“[T]he court may enjoin the respondent from engaging in such unlawful employment practice, and 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) (1970 ed., Supp. II)—
contrasts sharply with § 812’s simple authorization of an action for actual and punitive damages. In Title VII cases, also, the courts have relied on the fact that the decision whether to award backpay is committed to the discretion of the trial judge. There is no comparable discretion here: if a plaintiff proves unlawful discrimination and actual damages, he is entitled to judgment for that amount. Nor is there any sense in which the award here can be viewed as requiring the defendant to disgorge funds wrongfully withheld from the plaintiff. Whatever may be the merit of the “equitable” characterization in Title VII cases, there is surely no basis for characterizing the award of compensatory and punitive damages here as equitable relief.
We are not oblivious to the force of petitioner’s policy arguments. Jury trials may delay to some extent the disposition of Title VIII damages actions. But Title VIII actions seeking only equitable relief will be unaffected, and preliminary injunctive relief remains available without a jury trial even in damages actions. Dairy Queen, Inc. v. Wood, 369 U. S., at 479 n. 20. Moreover, the statutory requirement of expedition of § 812 actions, 42 U. S. C. § 3614, applies equally to jury and non-jury trials. We recognize, too, the possibility that jury prejudice may deprive a victim of discrimination of the verdict to which he or she is entitled. Of course, the trial judge’s power to direct a verdict, to grant judgment notwithstanding the verdict, or to grant a new trial provides substantial protection against this risk, and respondents’ suggestion that jury trials will expose a broader segment of the populace to the example of the federal civil rights laws in operation has some force. More fundamentally, however, these considerations are insufficient to overcome the clear command of the Seventh Amendment. The decision of the Court of Appeals must be
Affirmed.
Although the lower courts treated the action as one for compensatory and punitive damages, petitioner has emphasized in this Court that her complaint sought only punitive damages. It is apparent, however, that petitioner later sought to recover actual damages as well. The District Court’s pretrial order indicates the judge’s understanding, following a pretrial conference with counsel, that the question of actual damages would be one of the issues to be tried. App. 18a. Petitioner in fact attempted to prove actual damages, App. 45a, but her testimony was excluded for failure to comply with a pretrial discovery order. The District Judge later dismissed the claim of actual damages for failure of proof. In these circumstances, it is irrelevant that the pleadings were never formally amended. Fed. Rules Civ. Proc. 15 (b), 16.
The Seventh Circuit here was the first court of appeals to consider this issue, but the reported decisions of the district courts are evenly divided on the question. In addition to the District Court in this case, the court in Cauley v. Smith, 347 F. Supp. 114 (ED Va. 1972), held that jury trial was not required in an action under § 812. Kastner v. Brackett, 326 F. Supp. 1151 (Nev. 1971), and Kelly v. Armbrust, 351 F. Supp. 869 (N. D. 1972), held that jury trial was required.
Petitioner married while the cas'e was pending before the Court, and her motion to change the caption of the case accordingly was granted. 414 U. S. 1140 (1974).
See, e. g., Hearings on Miscellaneous Proposals Regarding Civil Rights before Subcommittee No. 5 of the House Committee on the Judiciary, 89th Cong., 2d Sess., ser. 16, p. 1183 (1966).
See Hearings on S. 3296 before the Subcommittee on Constitutional Rights of the Senate Committee on the Judiciary, 89th Cong., 2d Sess., pt. 2, p. 1178 (1966).
We recognize, of course, the “cardinal principle that this Court will first ascertain whether a construction of the statute is fairly possible by which the [constitutional] question may be avoided.” United States v. Thirty-seven Photographs, 402 U. S. 363, 369 (1971), and cases there cited. In this case, however, the necessity for jury trial is so clearly settled by our prior Seventh Amendment decisions that it would be futile to spend time on the statutory issue, particularly since our result is not to invalidate the Civil Rights Act but only to direct that a certain form of procedure be employed in federal court actions under § 812.
Moreover, the Seventh Amendment issue in this case is in a very real sense the narrower ground of decision. Section 812 (a) expressly authorizes actions to be brought “in appropriate State or local courts of general jurisdiction,” as well as in the federal courts. The Court has not held that the right to jury trial in civil cases is an element of due process applicable to state courts through the Fourteenth Amendment. Since we rest our decision on Seventh Amendment rather than statutory grounds, we express no view as to whether jury trials must be afforded in § 812 actions in the state courts.
See also Porter v. Warner Holding Co., 328 U. S. 395, 401-402 (1946) (Emergency Price Control Act); Texas & Pacific R. Co. v. Rigsby, 241 U. S. 33 (1916) (Safety Appliance Act). The Courts of Appeals have similarly rejected the notion that the Seventh Amendment has no application to causes of action created by statute. See, e. g., International Brotherhood of Boilermakers v. Braswell, 388 F. 2d 193, 197 (CA5), cert. denied, 391 U. S. 935 (1968); Simmons v. Avisco, Local 713, Textile Workers, 350 F. 2d 1012, 1018 (CA4 1965); Arnstein v. Porter, 154 F. 2d 464, 468 (CA2 1946), as well as the decision of the Seventh Circuit in this case, 467 F. 2d, at 1113-1116. See generally Developments in the Law — Employment Discrimination and Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 84 Harv. L. Rev. 1109, 1266 (1971).
“[T]he concept of expertise on which the administrative agency rests is not consistent with the use by it of a jury as fact finder.” L. Jaffe, Judicial Control of Administrative Action 90 (1965).
See Rogers v. Loether, 467 F. 2d 1110, 1115-1116 (CA7 1972); Developments in the Law, supra, n. 7, at 1267-1268.
For example, the Court of Appeals recognized that Title VIII could be viewed as an extension of the common-law duty of innkeepers not to refuse temporary lodging to a traveler without justi-fi cation, a duty enforceable in a damages action triable to a jury, to those who rent apartments on a long-term basis. See 467 F. 2d, at 1117. An action to redress racial discrimination may also be likened to an action for defamation or intentional infliction of mental distress. Indeed, the contours of the latter tort are still developing, and it has been suggested that “under the logic of the common law development of a law of insult and indignity, racial discrimination might be treated as a dignitary tort.” C. Gregory & H. Kalven, Cases and Materials on Torts 961 (2d ed. 1969).
The procedural history of this case generated some question in the courts below as to whether the action should be viewed as one for damages and injunctive relief, or as one for damages alone, for purposes of analyzing the jury trial issue. The Court of Appeals concluded that the right to jury trial was properly tested by the relief sought in the complaint and not by the claims remaining at the time of trial. 467 F. 2d, at 1118-1119. We need express no view on this question. If the action is properly viewed as one for damages only, our conclusion that this is a legal claim obviously requires a jury trial on demand. And if this legal claim is joined with an equitable claim, the right to jury trial on the legal claim, including all issues common to both claims, remains intact. The right cannot be abridged by characterizing the legal claim as “incidental” to the equitable relief sought. Beacon Theatres, Inc. v. Westover, 359 U. S. 500 (1959); Dairy Queen, Inc. v. Wood, 369 U. S. 469, 470-473 (1962).
See also Swofford v. B&W, Inc., 336 F. 2d 406, 414 (CA5 1964).
Johnson v. Georgia Highway Express, Inc., 417 F. 2d 1122, 1125 (CA5 1969); Robinson v. Lorillard Corp., 444 F. 2d 791, 802 (CA4), cert. dismissed under Rule 60, 404 U. S. 1006 (1971); cf. McFerren v. County Board of Education, 455 F. 2d 199, 202-204 (CA6 1972); Harkless v. Sweeny Independent School District, 427 F. 2d 319, 324 (CA5 1970), cert. denied, 400 U. S. 991 (1971); Smith v. Hampton Training School, 360 F. 2d 577, 581 n. 8 (CA4 1966) (en banc); see generally Developments in the Law, supra, n. 7, at 1265-1266.
See Comment, The Seventh Amendment and Civil Rights Statutes: History Adrift in a Maelstrom, 68 Nw. U. L. Rev. 503, 524-527 (1973).
Although petitioner has emphasized that the policies underlying the Fair Housing Act are derived from the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendments, she expressly "does not maintain that these constitutional considerations could prevent a jury trial if a jury were otherwise required by the Seventh Amendment.” Brief for Petitioner 7. Moreover, although the legislative history of Title VIII with respect to jury trials is ambiguous, there is surely no indication that Congress intended to override the requirements of the Seventh Amendment if it mandates that jury trials be provided in § 812 damage actions. We therefore have no occasion to consider in this case any question of the scope of congressional power to enforce § 2 of the Thirteenth Amendment or § 5 of the Fourteenth Amendment.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | A | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Chief Justice Burger
delivered the opinion of the Court.
The question presented in this case is whether a state statute which requires a physician to “[njotify, if possible,” the parents of a dependent, unmarried minor girl prior to performing an abortion on the girl violates federal constitutional guarantees.
I
In the spring of 1978, appellant was an unmarried 15-year-old girl living with her parents in Utah and dependent on them for her support. She discovered she was pregnant. She consulted with a social worker and a physician. The physician advised appellant that an abortion would be in her best medical interest. However, because of Utah Code Ann. § 76-7-304 (1978), he refused to perform the abortion without first notifying appellant’s parents.
Section 76-7-304, enacted in 1974, provides:
“To enable the physician to exercise his best medical judgment [in considering a possible abortion], he shall:
“(1) Consider all factors relevant to the well-being of the woman upon whom the abortion is to be performed including, but not limited to,
“(a) Her physical, emotional and psychological health and safety,
“(b) Her age,
“(c) Her familial situation.
“(2) Notify, if possible, the parents or guardian of the woman upon whom the abortion is to be performed, if she is a minor or the husband of the woman, if she is married.” (Emphasis supplied.)
Violation of this section is a misdemeanor punishable by-imprisonment for not more than one year or a fine of not more than $1,000.
Appellant believed “for [her] own reasons” that she should proceed with the abortion without notifying her parents. According to appellant, the social worker concurred in this decision. While still in the first trimester of her pregnancy, appellant instituted this action in the Third Judicial District Court of Utah. She sought a declaration that § 76-7-304 (2) is unconstitutional and an injunction prohibiting appellees, the Governor and the Attorney General o'f Utah, from enforcing the statute. Appellant sought to represent a class consisting of unmarried “minor women who are suffering unwanted pregnancies and desire to terminate the pregnancies but may not do so” because of their physicians’ insistence on complying with § 76-7-304 (2). The trial judge declined to grant a temporary restraining order or a preliminary injunction.
The trial judge held a hearing at which appellant was the only witness. Appellant affirmed the allegations of the complaint by giving monosyllabic answers to her attorney’s leading questions. However, when the State attempted to cross-examine appellant about her reasons for not wishing to notify her parents, appellant’s counsel vigorously objected, insisting that “the specifics of the reasons are really irrelevant to the Constitutional issue.” The only constitutionally permissible prerequisites for performance of an abortion, he insisted, were the desire of the girl and the medical approval of a physician. The trial judge sustained the objection, tentatively construing the statute to require appellant’s physician to notify her parents “if he is able to physically contact them.”
Thereafter, the trial judge entered findings of fact and conclusions of law. He concluded that appellant “is an appropriate representative to represent the class she purports to represent.” He construed the statute to require notice to appellant’s parents “if it is physically possible.” He concluded that § 76-7-304 (2) “do[es] not unconstitutionally restrict the right of privacy of a minor to obtain an abortion or to enter into a doctor-patient relationship.” Accordingly, he dismissed the complaint.
On appeal, the Supreme Court of Utah unanimously upheld the statute. 604 P. 2d 907 (1979). Relying on our decisions in Planned Parenthood of Central Mo. v. Danforth, 428 U. S. 52 (1976), Carey v. Population Services International, 431 U. S. 678 (1977), and Bellotti v. Baird, 443 U. S. 622 (1979) (Bellotti II), the court concluded that the statute serves “significant state interest[s]” that are present with respect to minors but absent in the case of adult women.
The court looked first to subsection (1) of § 76-7-304. This provision, the court observed, expressly incorporates the factors we identified in Doe v. Bolton, 410 U. S. 179 (1973), as pertinent to exercise of a physician’s best medical judgment in making an abortion decision. In Doe, we stated:
“We agree with the District Court . . . that the medical judgment may be exercised in the light of all factors— physical, emotional, psychological, familial, and the wom- art’s age — relevant to the well-being of the patient. All these factors may relate to health. This allows the attending physician the room he needs to make his best medical judgment.” Id., at 192 (emphasis supplied).
Section 76-7-304 (1) of the Utah statute suggests that the legislature sought to reflect the language of Doe.
The Utah Supreme Court held that notifying the parents of a minor seeking an abortion is “substantially and logically related” to the Doe factors set out in § 76-7-304 (1) because parents ordinarily possess information essential to a physician’s exercise of his best medical judgment concerning the child. 604 P. 2d, at 909-910. The court also concluded that encouraging an unmarried pregnant minor to seek the advice of her parents in making the decision of whether to carry her child to term promotes a significant state interest in supporting the important role of parents in child-rearing. Id., at 912. The court reasoned that since the statute allows no veto power over the minor’s decision, it does not unduly intrude upon a minor’s rights.
The Utah Supreme Court also rejected appellant’s argument that the phrase “if possible” in § 76-7-304 (2) should be construed to give the physician discretion whether to notify appellant’s parents. The court concluded that the physician is required to notify parents “if under the circumstances, in the exercise of reasonable diligence, he can ascertain their identity and location and it is feasible or practicable to give them notification.” The court added, however, that “the time element is an important factor, for there must be sufficient expedition to provide an effective opportunity for an abortion.” 604 P. 2d, at 913.
II
Appellant challenges the statute as unconstitutional on its face. She contends it is overbroad in that it can be construed to apply to all unmarried minor girls, including those who are mature and emancipated. We need not reach that question since she did not allege or proffer any evidence that either she or any member of her class is mature or emancipated. The trial court found that appellant “is unmarried, fifteen years of age, resides at home and is a dependent of her parents.” That affords an insufficient basis for a finding that she is either mature or emancipated. Under Harris v. McRae, 448 U. S. 297, 320 (1980), she therefore lacks “the personal stake in the controversy needed to confer standing” to advance the overbreadth argument.
There are particularly strong reasons for applying established rules of standing in this case. The United States District Court for Utah has held that § 76-7-304 (2) does not apply to emancipated minors and that, if so applied, it would be unconstitutional. L. R. v. Hansen, Civil No. C-80-0078J (Feb. 8, 1980). Since there was no appeal from that ruling, it is controlling on the State. We cannot assume that the statute, when challenged in a proper case, will not be construed also to exempt demonstrably mature minors. See Bellotti v. Baird, 428 U. S. 132, 146-148 (1976) (Bellotti I). Nor is there any reason to assume that a minor in need of emergency treatment will be treated in any way different from a similarly situated adult. The Utah Supreme Court has had no occasion to consider the application of the statute to such situations. In Bellotti I, supra, we unanimously declined to pass on constitutional challenges to an abortion regulation statute because the statute was “susceptible of a construction by the state judiciary ‘which might avoid in whole or in part the necessity for federal constitutional adjudication, or at least materially change the nature of the problem.'" Id., at 147, quoting Harrison v. NAACP, 360 U. S. 167, 177 (1969). See Kleppe v. New Mexico, 426 U. S. 529, 546-647 (1976); Ashwander v. TV A, 297 U. S. 288, 346-347 (1936) (concurring opinion). We reaffirm that approach and find it controlling here insofar as appellant challenges a purported statutory exclusion of mature and emancipated minors.
The only issue before us, then, is the facial constitutionality of a statute requiring a physician to give notice to parents, “if possible," prior to performing an abortion on their minor daughter, (a) when the girl is living with and dependent upon her parents, (b) when she is not emancipated by marriage or otherwise, and (c) when she has made no claim or showing as to her maturity or as to her relations with her parents.
Ill
A
Appellant contends the statute violates the right to privacy recognized in our prior cases with respect to abortions. She places primary reliance on Bellotti II, 443 U. S., at 642, 655. In Danforth, we struck down state statutes that imposed a requirement of prior written consent of the patient’s spouse and of a minor patient’s parents as a prerequisite for an abortion. We held that a state
“does not have the constitutional authority to .give a third party an absolute, and possibly arbitrary, veto over the decision of the physician and his patient to terminate the patient’s pregnancy, regardless of the reason for withholding the consent.” 428 U. S., at 74.
We emphasized, however, “that our holding . . . does not suggest that every minor, regardless of age or maturity, may give effective consent for termination of her pregnancy.” Id., at 75, citing Bellotti I, supra. There is no logical relationship between the capacity to become pregnant and the capacity for mature judgment concerning the wisdom of an abortion.
In Bellotti II, dealing with a class of concededly mature pregnant minors, we struck down a Massachusetts statute requiring parental or judicial consent before an abortion could be performed on any unmarried minor. There the State’s highest court had construed the statute to allow a court to overrule the minor’s decision even if the court found that the minor was capable of making, and in fact had made, an informed and reasonable decision to have an abortion. We held, among other things, that the statute was unconstitutional for failure to allow mature minors to decide to undergo abortions without parental consent. Four Justices concluded that the flaws in the statute were that, as construed by the state court, (a) it permitted overruling of a mature minor’s decision to abort her pregnancy; and (b) “it requires parental consultation or notification in every instance, without affording the pregnant minor an opportunity to receive an independent judicial determination that she is mature enough to consent or that an abortion would be in her best interests.” 443 U. S., at 651. Four other Justices concluded that the defect was in making the abortion decision of a minor subject to veto by a third party, whether parent or judge, “no matter how mature and capable of informed decisionmaking” the minor might be. Id., at 653-656.
Although we have held that a state may not constitutionally legislate a blanket, unreviewable power of parents to veto their daughter’s abortion, a statute setting out a “mere requirement of parental notice” does not violate the constitutional rights of an immature, dependent minor. Four Justices in Bellotti II joined in stating:
“[Plaintiffs] suggest . . . that the mere requirement of parental notice [unduly burdens the right to seek an abortion]. As stated in Part II above, however, parental notice and consent are qualifications that typically may be imposed by the State on a minor’s right to make important decisions. As immature minors often lack the ability to make fully informed choices that take account of both immediate and long-range consequences, a State reasonably may determine that parental consultation often is desirable and in the best interest of the minor. It may further determine, as a general proposition, that such consultation is particularly desirable with respect to the abortion decision — one that for some people raises profound moral and religious concerns. . . .
“ ‘There can be little doubt that the State furthers a constitutionally permissible end by encouraging an unmarried pregnant minor to seek the help and advice of her parents in making the very important decision whether or not to bear a child. That is a grave decision, and a girl of tender years, under emotional stress, may be ill-equipped to make it without mature advice and emotional support. It seems unlikely that she will obtain adequate counsel and support from the attending physician at an abortion clinic, where abortions for pregnant minors frequently take place.’ ” Id., at 640-641 (footnotes omitted), quoting Danforth, 428 U. S., at 91 (concurring opinion).
Accord, 443 U. S., at 657 (dissenting opinion).
In addition, “constitutional interpretation has consistently recognized that the parents’ claim to authority in their own household to direct the rearing of their children is basic in the structure of our society.” Ginsberg v. New York, 390 U. S. 629, 639 (1968). In Quilloin v. Walcott, 434 U. S. 246 (1978), the Court expanded on this theme:
“We have recognized on numerous occasions that the relationship between parent and child is constitutionally protected. See, e. g., Wisconsin v. Yoder, 406 U. S. 205, 231-233 (1972); Stanley v. Illinois, [405 U. S. 645 (1972)]; Meyer v. Nebraska, 262 U. S. 390, 399-401 (1923). Tt is cardinal with us that the custody, care and nurture of the child reside first in the parents, whose primary function and freedom include preparation for obligations the state can neither supply nor hinder.’ ” Id., at 255, quoting Prince v. Massachusetts, 321 U. S. 158, 166 (1944).
See also Parham v. J. R., 442 U. S. 584, 602 (1979); Pierce v. Society of Sisters, 268 U. S. 510, 535 (1925). We have recognized that parents have an important “guiding role” to play in the upbringing of their children, Bellotti II, supra, at 633-639, which presumptively includes counseling them on important decisions.
B
The Utah statute gives neither parents nor judges a veto power over the minor’s abortion decision. As in Bellotti I, “we are concerned with a statute directed toward minors, as to whom there are unquestionably greater risks of inability to give an informed consent.” 428 U. S., at 147. As applied to immature and dependent minors, the statute plainly serves the important considerations of family integrity and protecting adolescents which we identified in Bellotti II. In addition, as applied to that class, the statute serves a significant state interest by providing an opportunity for parents to supply essential medical and other information to a physician. The medical, emotional, and psychological consequences of an abortion are serious and can be lasting; this is particularly so when the patient is immature. An adequate medical and psychological case history is important to the physician. Parents can provide medical and psychological data, refer the physician to other sources of medical history, such as family physicians, and authorize family physicians to give relevant data.
Appellant intimates that the statute’s failure to declare, in terms, a detailed description of what information parents may provide to physicians, or to provide for a mandatory period of delay after the physician notifies the parents, renders the statute unconstitutional. The notion that the statute must itemize information to be supplied by parents finds no support in logic, experience, or our decisions. And as the Utah Supreme Court recognized, 604 P. 2d, at 913, time is likely to be of the essence in an abortion decision. The Utah statute is reasonably calculated to protect minors in appellant’s class by enhancing the potential for parental consultation concerning a decision that has potentially traumatic and permanent consequences.
Appellant also contends that the constitutionality of the statute is undermined because Utah allows a pregnant minor to consent to other medical procedures without formal notice to her parents if she carries the child to term. But a state’s interests in full-term pregnancies are sufficiently different to justify the line drawn by the statutes. Cf. Maher v. Roe, 432 U. S. 464, 473-474 (1977). If the pregnant girl elects to carry her child to term, the medical decisions to be made entail few — perhaps none — of the potentially grave emotional and psychological consequences of the decision to abort.
That the requirement of notice to parents may inhibit some minors from seeking abortions is not a valid basis to void the statute as applied to appellant and the class properly before us. The Constitution does not compel a state to fine-tune its statutes so as to encourage or facilitate abortions. To the contrary, state action “encouraging childbirth except in the most urgent circumstances” is “rationally related to the legitimate governmental objective of protecting potential life.” Harris v. McRae, 448 U. S., at 325. Accord, Maher v. Roe, supra, at 473-474.
As applied to the class properly before us, the statute plainly serves important state interests, is narrowly drawn to protect only those interests, and does not violate any guarantees of the Constitution. The judgment of the Supreme Court of Utah is
Affirmed.
Whether parents of a minor are liable under Utah law for the expense of an abortion and related aftercare is not disclosed by the record.
Utah also provides by statute that no abortion may be performed unless a “voluntary and informed written consent” is first obtained by the attending physician from the patient. In order for such a consent to be “voluntary and informed,” the patient must be advised at a minimum about available adoption services, about fetal development, and about foreseeable complications and risks of an abortion. See Utah Code Ann. §76-7-305 (1978). In Planned Parenthood of Central Mo. v. Danforth, 428 U. S. 52, 65-67 (1976), we rejected a constitutional attack on written consent provisions.
Utah Code Ann. §§76-7-314 (3), 76-3-204 (1), 76-3-301 (3) (1978).
Appellant’s counsel stated in his jurisdictional statement and again in his brief that the physician concluded not only that an abortion would be in appellant’s best interests, but also that parental notification would not be in appellant’s best interests. However, at oral argument, counsel corrected this statement and conceded that there is no evidence to support this assertion. Tr. of Oral Arg. 8, 17.
The record does not reveal whether appellant proceeded with the abortion.
The trial judge allowed appellant to proceed without appointment of a guardian ad litem. He noted that a guardian would be required to notify the parents.
The testimony was as follows:
“BY MR. DOLOWITZ [appellant’s counsel]:
“Q At the time that the Complaint in this matter was signed, you were pregnant?
“A Yes.
“Q You had consulted with a counselor about that pregnancy?
“A Yeah.
“Q You had determined after talking to the counselor that you felt you should get an abortion?
“A Yes.
“Q You felt that you did not want to notify your parents—
“A Right.
“Q —of that decision? You did not feel for your own reasons that you could discuss it with them?
“A Right.
“Q After discussing the matter with a counselor, you still believed that you should not discuss it with your parents?
“A Right.
“Q And they shouldn’t be notified?
“A Right.
“Q After talking the matter over with a counselor, the counselor concurred in your decision that your parents should not be notified?
“A Right.
“Q You were advised that an abortion couldn’t be performed without notifying them?
“A Yes.
“Q You then came to me to see about filing a suit?
“A Right.
“Q You and I discussed it as to whether or not you had a right to do what you wanted to do?
“A Yes.
“Q You decided that, after our discussion, you should still proceed with the action to try to obtain an abortion without notifying your parents ?
“A Right.
“Q Now, at the time that you signed the Complaint and spoke with the counselor and spoke with me, you were in the first trimester of pregnancy, within your first twelve weeks of pregnancy?
“A Yes.
“Q You feel that, from talking to the counselor and thinking the situation over and discussing it with me, that you could make the decision on your own that you wished to abort the pregnancy?
“A Yes.
“Q You are living at home?
“A Yes.
“Q You still felt, even though you were living at home with your parents, that you couldn’t discuss the matter with them?
“A Right.”
Tr. 5-7.
“BY MR. McCarthy [counsel for the State]:
“Q . . . Are you still living at home?
“A Yes.
“Q Are you dependent on your parents?
“A Yes.
“Q All your money comes from them?
“A Yes.
“Q How old are you now?
“A Fifteen.
“Q Aside from the issue of abortion, do you have any reason to feel that you can’t talk to your parents about other problems?
“A Yes.
“Q What are those reasons?
“MR. DOLOWITZ: Now you are moving into the problem area that I indicated. . . .”
Id., at 8.
Id., at 10. Appellant repeatedly pressed this point despite the trial court’s statements that it could “conceive of a situation where a child probably wouldn’t have to tell the parents” and that the statute “might be [unconstitutional as it relates to a particular fact situation but [constitutional as it relates to another fact situation.” Id., at 10, 17.
There is no evidence to support the “surmise” in the dissent, post, at 438, n. 24, that “appellant expects family conflict over the abortion decision.”
Tr. 18.
The trial judge adopted, verbatim, findings of fact and conclusions of law prepared by appellant. The findings, the conclusions, and the opinion of the State Supreme Court make no mention whatsoever of the precise limits of the class.
The trial judge also ruled that the statute does not violate 42 U. S. C. § 1983.
In Bellotti II, by contrast, the principal class consisted of “unmarried [pregnant] minors in Massachusetts who have adequate capacity to give a valid and informed consent [to abortion], and who do not wish to involve their parents.” 443 U. S., at 626 (emphasis supplied). The courts considered the rights of “all pregnant minors who might be affected” by the statute. Id., at 627, n. 5.
The record shows that the State unsuccessfully argued in the trial court that it should be permitted to inquire into appellant’s degree of maturity. Tr. 11.
Justice Stevens and the dissent argue that the Utah Supreme Court held that the statute may validly be applied to all members of the class described in the complaint. Post, at 421, 430, 431, 432-433. However, as we have shown, neither of the state courts mentioned the scope or limits of the class. See n. 10, supra. Moreover, appellant’s counsel prepared the findings and conclusions. In addition to considerations of standing, we construe the ambiguity against appellant.
There is no authority for the view expressed in the dissent that the statute would apply to "minors with emergency health care needs.” Post, at 450-451. Appellant does not so contend, and the Utah Supreme Court in this case took pains to say that time is of the essence in an abortion decision. 604 P. 2d 907, 913 (1979). When the specific question was properly posed in Bellotti II, the Massachusetts statute was construed by the state court not to apply in such cases. 443 U. S., at 630.
The same is true for minors with hostile home situations, a class referred to by appellant’s amici curiae and by the dissent, post, at 437-441.
Bellotti II, 443 U. S., at 642-643, 653-656; Danforth, 428 U. S., at 74.
Bellotti II, supra, at 640, 649; id., at 657 (dissenting opinion); Danforth, supra, at 90-91 (concurring opinion); see Bellotti v. Baird, 428 U. S. 132, 145, 147 (1976) (Bellotti I); cf. Carey v. Population Services International, 431 U. S. 678, 709-710 (1977).
The main premise of the dissent seems to be that a requirement of notice to the parents is the functional equivalent of a requirement of parental consent. See post, at 437-441. In Bellotti II, however, we expressly declined to equate notice requirements with consent requirements. 443 U. S., at 640, 657.
Bellotti II, supra, at 637-639. The short shrift given by the dissent to “parental authority and family integrity,” post, at 447, runs contrary to a long line of constitutional cases in this Court. See cases cited supra, at 410.
Bellotti II, supra, at 634-637.
Abortion is associated with an increased risk of complication in subsequent pregnancies. Maine, Does Abortion Affect Later Pregnancies?, 11 Family Planning Perspectives 98 (1979). The emotional and psychological effects of the pregnancy and abortion experience are markedly more severe in girls under 18 than in adults. Wallerstein, Kurtz, & Bar-Din, Psychosocial Sequelae of Therapeutic Abortion in Young Unmarried Women, 27 Arch. Gen. Psychiatry 828 (1972); see also Babikian & Goldman, A Study in Teen-Age Pregnancy, 128 Am. J. Psychiatry 755 (1971).
At least five States have enacted parental notification statutes containing brief mandatory waiting periods. See La. Rev. Stat. Ann. §40:-1299.35.5 (West Supp. 1981) (24 hours’ actual notice or 72 hours’ constructive notice except for court-authorized abortions); Mass. Gen. Laws Ann., ch. 112, § 12S (West Supp. 1981) (24 hours); Me. Rev. Stat. Ann., Tit. 22, § 1597 (1980) (24 hours); N. D. Cent. Code § 14-02.1-03 (Supp. 1979) (24 hours); Tenn. Code Ann. §39-302 (Supp. 1979) (two days).
Members of the particular class now before us in this case have no constitutional right to notify a court in lieu of notifying their parents. See Bellotti II, supra, at 647. This case does not require us to decide in what circumstances a state must provide alternatives to parental notification.
See Utah Code Ann. § 78-14-5 (4) (f) (1977) (permitting any female to give informed consent “to any health care not prohibited by law . . . in connection with her pregnancy or childbirth”).
See also Bellotti II, 443 U. S., at 643-644; Bellotti I, 428 U. S., at 148-149; Danforth, 428 U. S., at 65-67, 79-81; Connecticut v. Menillo, 423 U. S. 9, 11 (1975); West Side Women’s Services, Inc. v. City of Cleveland, 450 F. Supp. 796, 798 (ND Ohio), affirmance order, 582 F. 2d 1281 (CA6), cert. denied, 439 U. S. 983 (1978).
Appellant argues that the statute violates her right to secure necessary treatment from a physician who, in the exercise of his best medical judgment, does not believe the parents should be notified. Since there is no evidence that the physician had such an opinion, we decline to reach this question. See supra, at 401, n. 3, and 405-407.
The dissenting opinion purports to see in the Court’s opinion “a clear signal” as to how the Court will decide a future case concerning this or a similar statute, and goes on to forecast a successful challenge on the merits. Today, of course, the Court’s function is to decide only the question properly presented in this case, and there is no occasion to intimate or predict a view as to the proper resolution of some future case. Speaking for the unanimous Court in Kleppe v. New Mexico, 426 U. S. 529 (1976), Justice Marshall took note of the impropriety of deciding constitutional questions “in the absence of ‘an adequate and full-bodied record.’ ” Id., at 546, quoting Public Affairs Associates, Inc. v. Rickover, 369 U. S. Ill, 113 (1962).
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | E | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Justice Scalia
delivered the opinion of the Court.
The petitioners, United States citizen employees of the Panama Canal Commission and their spouses, seek refunds of income taxes collected on salaries paid by the Commission between 1979 and 1981. We granted certiorari to resolve conflicting appellate interpretations of an international agreement. 474 U. S. 1050 (1986).
From 1904 to 1979, the United States exercised sovereignty over the Panama Canal and the surrounding 10-mile-wide Panama Canal Zone under the Isthmian Canal Convention, 38 Stat. 2234. On September 7, 1977, the United States and Panama signed the Panama Canal Treaty, T.I.A.S. No. 10030, which was ratified by the Senate on April 17, 1978, and took effect on October 1, 1979. The Treaty transferred to Panama sovereignty over the Canal and Zone, but gave the United States the right to operate the Canal until December 31, 1999. The vehicle for United States administration of the Canal is the Panama Canal Commission, a United States Government agency supervised by a Board of nine members, four of whom are Panamanian nationals proposed by the Government of Panama. See 22 T.I.A.S. No. 10031 (hereinafter Agreement), contains the provision that gives rise to the present dispute. Article XV of the Agreement, entitled “Taxation,” provides as follows:
“1. By virtue of this Agreement, the Commission, its contractors and subcontractors are exempt from payment in the Republic of Panama of all taxes, fees or other charges on their activities or property.
“2. United States citizen employees and dependents shall be exempt from any taxes, fees or other charges on income received as a result of their work for the Commission. Similarly, they shall be exempt from payment of taxes, fees or other charges on income derived from sources outside the Republic of Panama.
“3. United States citizen employees and dependents shall be exempt from taxes, fees or other charges on gifts or inheritance or on personal property, the presence of which within the territory of the Republic of Panama is due solely to the stay therein of such persons on account of their or their sponsor’s work with the Commission.
“4. The Coordinating Committee may establish such regulations as may be appropriate for the implementation of this Article.”
The petitioners contend that § 2 of this Article constitutes an express exemption of their Commission salaries from both Panamanian and United States taxation. See 26 U. S. C. § 894(a) (“Income of any kind, to the extent required by any treaty obligation of the United States, shall not be included in gross income and shall be exempt from taxation under this subtitle”). The Claims Court agreed, 6 Cl. Ct. 115 (1984), but was reversed by a five-judge panel of the Federal Circuit. 761 F. 2d 688 (1985). In a substantively identical case, the Eleventh Circuit has ruled for the taxpayers. Harris v. United States, 768 F. 2d 1240 (1985), cert. pending, No. 85-1011. The same issue is presented in numerous cases still pending in the lower courts.
We agree with the Federal Circuit. The first section of Article XV, which confers upon the Commission and its contractors an exemption “from payment in the Republic of Panama of all taxes” (emphasis added), establishes the context for the discussion of tax exemptions in the entire Article — so that when §§2 and 3 state that “United States citizen employees . . . shall be exempt” from taxes they are understood to be dealing only with taxes payable in Panama. In that regard the structure of Article XV is similar to that of Article XVI, which in most of its sections speaks generally of import duties, but is understood to refer only to Panamanian import duties principally because § 1 sets the stage in that fashion by referring to “the customs laws and regulations of the Republic of Panama.” Agreement, Art. XVI, § 1 (emphasis added).
There is some purely textual evidence, albeit subtle, of the understanding that Article XV applies only to Panamanian taxes: In conferring an exemption from property taxes, §3 displays an assumption that only personal property within the Republic of Panama is at issue; otherwise, that significant qualification to the operation of § 3 would more naturally have been set forth as an explicit limitation (“personal property within the territory of the Republic of Panama, whose presence there,” etc.) rather than being referred to incidentally in the modifying clause (“personal property, whose presence within the territory of the Republic of Panama,” etc.). And the assumption that only personal property within Panama is at issue in turn reflects the more fundamental assumption that only Panamanian personal property taxes are being addressed.
More persuasive than the textual evidence, and in our view overwhelmingly convincing, is the contextual case for limiting Article XV to Panamanian taxes. Unless one posits the ellipsis of failing to repeat, in each section, § l’s limitation to taxes “in the Republic of Panama,” the Article takes on a meaning that is utterly implausible and has no foundation in the negotiations leading to the Agreement. For if the first sentence of § 2 refers to United States as well as Panamanian taxes, then the second sentence of § 2, and the totality of § 3, must do so as well — with the consequence that United States citizen employees and their dependents would be exempt not only from United States income tax on their earnings from the Commission, but also from United States income tax on all income from sources outside Panama (e. g., United States bank accounts), and from all United States gift and inheritance taxes. While, as the petitioners assert, there might have been some reason why Panama would insist that its inability to tax United States citizen Commission employees upon their earnings in Panama be matched by a detraction from the United States’ sovereign power to tax those same earnings, there is no conceivable reason why this hypothetical “your-sovereignty-for-mine” negotiating strategy would escalate into a demand that the United States yield more sovereign prerogatives than it was asking Panama to forgo — and no imaginable reason why the United States would accept such an escalation, producing tax immunity of unprecedented scope.
from the United States’ sovereign power to tax those same earnings, there is no conceivable reason why this hypothetical “your-sovereignty-for-mine” negotiating strategy would escalate into a demand that the United States yield more sovereign prerogatives than it was asking Panama to forgo — and no imaginable reason why the United States would accept such an escalation, producing tax immunity of unprecedented scope.
The petitioners’ attempts to explain why these broader tax consequences need not follow from their interpretation are unpersuasive. With regard to the second sentence of §2, they argue that the opening word “similarly” should be read to incorporate into that sentence the first sentence’s restriction to “income received as a result of . . . work for the Commission.” On this understanding, the second sentence provides a “simila[r]” tax exemption for Commission-related income “derived from sources outside the Republic of Panama,” but allows both countries to tax non-Commission income. In addition to being an unnatural reading of “similarly” in this context, this interpretation is flatly inconsistent with the language of § 2. Contrary to the petitioners’ tacit assumption, the first sentence contains nothing limiting the scope of its exemption to income received as a result of work for the Commission in Panama. A person receiving a Commission salary for work performed in, for example, Bo-gotá would seem plainly to qualify for exemption under this provision — rendering the second sentence, on the petitioners’ understanding, superfluous. With regard to §3, the petitioners assert that its reference to taxation of property “within the territory of the Republic of Panama” is sufficient to demonstrate that only Panamanian taxation is intended to be covered. But as a reading of the provision will readily demonstrate, that reference applies only to personal property taxes; there is no comparable qualification on §3’s exemption from taxes “on gifts or inheritance.” That is limited, if at all, only by the implication that Panamanian taxes alone are at issue. In sum, we find the verbal distortions necessary to give plausible content, under the petitioners' theory, to the second sentence of §2 and §3, far less tolerable than the acknowledgment of ellipsis which forms the basis of the Government’s interpretation.
Not only is limitation of Article XV to Panamanian taxes in accord with the consistent application of the Agreement by the Executive Branch — a factor which alone is entitled to great weight, see Sumitomo Shoji America, Inc. v. Avagliano, 457 U. S. 176, 184-185 (1982)—but that application has gone unchallenged by Panama. It is undisputed that, pursuant to clear Executive Branch policy, the Panama Canal Commission consistently withheld United States income taxes from petitioners and others similarly situated, see Letter from John L. Haines, Jr., Deputy General Counsel, Panama Canal Commission, to David Slacter, United States Department of Justice, Dec. 20, 1982, pp. 2-3, 1 App. in Nos. 85-504, 85-505, 85-506, and 85-507 (CA Fed.), pp. 61-62, and that Panama, which had four of its own nationals on the Board of the Commission, did not object. The course of conduct of parties to an international agreement, like the course of conduct of parties to any contract, is evidence of its meaning. See Trans World Airlines, Inc. v. Franklin Mint Corp., 466 U. S. 243, 259-260 (1984); Pigeon River Improvement, Slide & Boom Co. v. Charles W. Cox, Ltd., 291 U. S. 138, 158-161 (1934). Cf. Uniform Commercial Code §2-208(1) (1978).
Agreement. Similarly, as is provided by Panamanian law, they shall be exempt from payment of taxes, fees or other charges on income derived from sources outside the Republic of Panama.” Panama Canal Treaty: Implementation of Article IV, Sept. 7, 1977, Art. XVI, § 2, T.I.A.S. No. 10032 (emphasis added).
The petitioners contend that the variation in the phraseology of the two provisions demonstrates that the taxation provisions of the Article III Agreement were meant to be bilateral. We think not. It would be another matter if the variation at issue were alteration of the phrase “Panamanian taxes” in one agreement to merely “taxes” in the other; there would have been no reason to object to the former formulation except the belief that more than Panamanian taxes were covered. Several plausible reasons, however, would justify objection to the phrase “as is provided by Panamanian law.” The most obvious is the concern that the phrase would be interpreted to leave future scope of the tax exemption within Panama’s unilateral control, through the amendment of its domestic law. (To be sure, that reason would seemingly call for deletion of the phrase from both agreements rather than merely the Agreement in Implementation of Article III — but perhaps it was only with respect to the latter agreement, in which Panama had steadfastly opposed the whole concept of tax exemption, that unilateral Panamanian action was feared.) The surmise that the reason for deletion of the phrase in the Article III Agreement was its implication that only Panamanian taxes were covered would perhaps be reasonable if it were clear that the deletion was prompted by Panama. In fact, however, the deletion was made in the course of the American side’s own internal drafting, before any text had even been presented to the Panamanians. (The phrase “as is provided by Panamanian law” was included in the June 26, 1977, United States draft of § 2 of Art. XV, 1 App. in Nos. 85-504, 85-505, 85-506, and 85-507 (CA Fed.), p. 74, but was dropped from subsequent United States only Panamanian taxes were covered would perhaps be reasonable if it were clear that the deletion was prompted by Panama. In fact, however, the deletion was made in the course of the American side’s own internal drafting, before any text had even been presented to the Panamanians. (The phrase “as is provided by Panamanian law” was included in the June 26, 1977, United States draft of § 2 of Art. XV, 1 App. in Nos. 85-504, 85-505, 85-506, and 85-507 (CA Fed.), p. 74, but was dropped from subsequent United States drafts, id., at 77, 81.) The petitioners assert that this occurred as a consequence of the American side’s knowledge that Panama would not accept a unilateral tax exemption provision and would accept a bilateral one — but they point to no Panamanian negotiating proposal supporting that speculation, which seems to us not inordinately credible on its face.
We find the petitioners’ attempted reliance upon other elements of the negotiating history unavailing. While the Claims Court may have been correct that the negotiating history does not favor the Government’s position sufficiently to overcome what that court regarded as a plain textual meaning in favor of the taxpayers, it certainly does not favor the taxpayers’ position sufficiently to affect our view of the text. It contains, we may note, only a single (unhelpful) reference to United States income taxation — a silence that can perhaps be reconciled with the petitioners’ position, but can hardly be said affirmatively to support it.
Finally, we find no significance in the fact, urged so strongly by the petitioners, that Article XV is entitled “Taxation” rather than “Panamanian Taxation.” Of the 21 Articles of the Agreement, only 2 — Articles V and IX — are limited by title to Panamanian subject matter, though it is plain that most are so limited in their application. See, e. g., Article VII (“Water Rights”); Article XII (“Entry and Departure”); Article XVI (“Import Duties”).
The judgment of the Court of Appeals is
Affirmed.
After this case was argued, the President signed into law the Tax Reform Act of 1986, Pub. L. 99-514, 100 Stat. 2085. Section 1232(a) of that Act provides, in relevant part, that for “all taxable years whether beginning before, on, or after the date of the enactment of this Act (or in the case of any tax not imposed with respect to a taxable year, [for] taxable events after the date of enactment of this Act,” no provision of the Treaty or Agreement “shall be construed as exempting (in whole or in part) any citizen or resident of the United States from any tax under the Internal Revenue Code of 1954 or 1986.” Because we find that the Agreement, properly interpreted, provides for the same result, we do not rely upon the statute, and thus avoid confronting the constitutional questions posed by retroactive income taxation. See United States v. Darusmont, 449 U. S. 292, 296-301 (1981); Welch v. Henry, 305 U. S. 134, 146-151 (1938).
The Government has contended, here and before the Court of Appeals, that the answer to the current question is illumined, if not conclusively determined, by a February 22,1985, diplomatic note from the Government of Panama, indicating that it shares the United States’ view that Article XV pertains only to Panamanian taxation. The petitioners assert that mutual agreement between the contracting parties on interpretation cannot be dis-positive of third-party rights, and that the note is in any event inadmissible on various grounds. Since we would sustain the Government’s position without reference to the note, we need not resolve these disputes.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
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 Sc alia
delivered the opinion of the Court.
The question presented in these cases is whether certain interim provisions of the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act, Pub. L. 103-159, 107 Stat. 1536, commanding state and local law enforcement officers to conduct background checks on prospective handgun purchasers and to perform certain related tasks, violate the Constitution.
I
The Gun Control Act of 1968 (GCA), 18 U. S. C. § 921 et seq., establishes a detailed federal scheme governing the distribution of firearms. It prohibits firearms dealers from transferring handguns to any person under 21, not resident in the dealer’s State, or prohibited by state or local law from purchasing or possessing firearms, § 922(b). It also forbids possession of a firearm by, and transfer of a firearm to, convicted felons, fugitives from justice, unlawful users of controlled substances, persons adjudicated as mentally defective or committed to mental institutions, aliens unlawfully present in the United States, persons dishonorably discharged from the Armed Forces, persons who have renounced their citizenship, and persons who have been subjected to certain restraining orders or been convicted of a misdemeanor offense involving domestic violence. §§ 922(d) and (g).
In 1993, Congress amended the GCA by enacting the Brady Act. The Act requires the Attorney General to establish a national instant background-check system by November 30, 1998, Pub. L. 103-159, as amended, Pub. L. 103-322, 103 Stat. 2074, note following 18 U. S. C. § 922, and immediately puts in place certain interim provisions until that system becomes operative. Under the interim provisions, a firearms dealer who proposes to transfer a handgun must first: (1) receive from the transferee a statement (the Brady Form), § 922(s)(1)(A)(i)(I), containing the name, address, and date of birth of the proposed transferee along with a sworn statement that the transferee is not among any of the classes of prohibited purchasers, § 922(s)(3); (2) verify the identity of the transferee by examining an identification document, § 922(s)( 1)(A)(i)(II); and (3) provide the “chief law enforcement officer” (CLEO) of the transferee’s residence with notice of the contents (and a copy) of the Brady Form, §§ 922(s)(1)(A)(i)(III) and (IV). With some exceptions, the dealer must then wait five business days before consummating the sale, unless the CLEO earlier notifies the dealer that he has no reason to believe the transfer would be illegal. § 922(s)(1)(A)(ii).
The Brady Act creates two significant alternatives to the foregoing scheme. A dealer may sell a handgun immediately if the purchaser possesses a state handgun permit issued after a background check, § 922(s)(1)(C), or if state law provides for an instant background cheek, § 922(s)(1)(D). In States that have not rendered one of these alternatives applicable to all gun purchasers, CLEOs are required to perform certain duties. When a CLEO receives the required notice of a proposed transfer from the firearms dealer, the CLEO must “make a reasonable effort to ascertain within 5 business days whether receipt or possession would be in violation of the law, including research in whatever State and local recordkeeping systems are available and in a national system designated by the Attorney General.” § 922(s)(2). The Act does not require the CLEO to take any particular action if he determines that a pending transaction would be unlawful; he may notify the firearms dealer to that effect, but is not required to do so. If, however, the CLEO notifies a gun dealer that a prospective purchaser is ineligible to receive a handgun, he must, upon request, provide the would-be purchaser with a written statement of the reasons for that determination. § 922(s)(6)(C). Moreover, if the CLEO does not discover any basis for objecting to the sale, he must destroy any records in his possession relating to the transfer, including his copy of the Brady Form. § 922(s)(6)(B)(i). Under a separate provision of the GCA, any person who “knowingly violates [the section of the GCA amended by the Brady Act] shall be fined under this title, imprisoned for not more than 1 year, or both.” § 924(a)(5).
Petitioners Jay Printz and Richard Mack, the CLEOs for Ravalli County, Montana, and Graham County, Arizona, respectively, filed separate actions challenging the constitutionality of the Brady Act’s interim provisions. In each case, the District Court held that the provision requiring CLEOs to perform background checks was unconstitutional, but concluded that that provision was severable from the remainder of the Act, effectively leaving a voluntary background-check system in place. 856 F. Supp. 1372 (Ariz. 1994); 854 F. Supp. 1503 (Mont. 1994). A divided panel of the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit reversed, finding none of the Brady Act’s interim provisions to be unconstitutional. 66 F. 3d 1025 (1995). We granted certiorari. 518 U. S. 1003 (1996).
II
From the description set forth above, it is apparent that the Brady Act purports to direct state law enforcement officers to participate, albeit only temporarily, in the administration of a federally enacted regulatory scheme. Regulated firearms dealers are required to forward Brady Forms not to a federal officer or employee, but to the CLEOs, whose obligation to accept those forms is implicit in the duty imposed upon them to make “reasonable efforts” within five days to determine whether the sales reflected in the forms are lawful. While the CLEOs are subjected to no federal requirement that they prevent the sales determined to be unlawful (it is perhaps assumed that their state-law duties will require prevention or apprehension), they are empowered to grant, in effect, waivers of the federally prescribed 5-day waiting period for handgun purchases by notifying the gun dealers that they have no reason to believe the transactions would be illegal.
Petitioners here object to being pressed into federal service, and contend that congressional action compelling.state officers to execute federal laws is unconstitutional. Because there is no constitutional text speaking to this precise question, the answer to the CLEOs’ challenge must be sought in historical understanding and practice, in the structure of the Constitution, and in the jurisprudence of this Court. We treat those three sources, in that order, in this and the next two sections of this opinion.
Petitioners contend that compelled enlistment of state executive officers for the administration of federal programs is, until very recent years at least, unprecedented. The Government contends, to the contrary, that “the earliest Congresses enacted statutes that required the participation of state officials in the implementation of federal laws,” Brief for United States 28. The Government’s contention demands our careful consideration, since early congressional enactments “provid[e] ‘contemporaneous and weighty evidence’ of the Constitution’s meaning,” Bowsher v. Synar, 478 U. S. 714, 723-724 (1986) (quoting Marsh v. Chambers, 463 U. S. 783, 790 (1983)). Indeed, such “contemporaneous legislative exposition of the Constitution..., acquiesced in for a long term of years, fixes the construction to be given its provisions.” Myers v. United States, 272 U. S. 52, 175 (1926) (citing numerous cases). Conversely if, as petitioners contend, earlier Congresses avoided use of this highly attractive power, we would have reason to believe that the power was thought not to exist.
The Government observes that statutes enacted by the first Congresses required state courts to record applications for citizenship, Act of Mar. 26, 1790, ch. 3, § 1, 1 Stat. 103, to transmit abstracts of citizenship applications and other naturalization records to the Secretary of State, Act of June 18, 1798, ch. 54, § 2, 1 Stat. 567, and to register aliens seeking naturalization and issue certificates of registry, Act of Apr. 14, 1802, ch. 28, § 2, 2 Stat. 154-155. It may well be, however, that these requirements applied only in States that authorized their courts to conduct naturalization proceedings. See Act of Mar. 26, 1790, ch. 3, § 1, 1 Stat. 103; Holmgren v. United States, 217 U. S. 509, 516-517 (1910) (explaining that the Act of March 26, 1790, “conferred authority upon state courts to admit aliens to citizenship” and refraining from addressing the question “whether the States can be required to enforce such naturalization laws against their consent”); United States v. Jones, 109 U. S. 513, 519-520 (1883) (stating that these obligations were imposed “with the consent of the States” and “could not be enforced against the consent of the States”). Other statutes of that era apparently or at least arguably required state courts to perform functions unrelated to naturalization, such as resolving controversies between a captain and the crew of his ship concerning the seaworthiness of the vessel, Act of July 20, 1790, ch. 29, § 3, 1 Stat. 132, hearing the claims of slave owners who had apprehended fugitive slaves and issuing certificates authorizing the slave’s forced removal to the State from which he had fled, Act of Feb. 12, 1793, ch. 7, § 3, 1 Stat. 302-305, taking proof of the claims of Canadian refugees who had assisted the United States during the Revolutionary War, Act of Apr. 7, 1798, ch. 26, § 3, 1 Stat. 548, and ordering the deportation of alien enemies in times of war, Act of July 6, 1798, ch. 66, §2, 1 Stat. 577-578.
These early laws establish, at most, that the Constitution was originally understood to permit imposition of an obligation on state judges to enforce federal prescriptions, insofar as those prescriptions related to matters appropriate for the judicial power. That assumption was perhaps implicit in one of the provisions of the Constitution, and was explicit in another. In accord with the so-called Madisonian Compromise, Article III, § 1, established only a Supreme Court, and made the creation of lower federal courts optional with the Congress — even though it was obvious that the Supreme Court alone could not hear all federal cases throughout the United States. See C. Warren, The Making of the Constitution 325-327 (1928). And the Supremacy Clause, Art. VI, cl. 2, announced that “the Laws of the United States... shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby.” It is understandable why courts should have been viewed distinctively in this regard; unlike legislatures and executives, they applied the law of other sovereigns all the time. The principle underlying so-called “transitory” causes of action was that laws which operated elsewhere created obligations in justice that courts of the forum State would enforce. See, e. g., McKenna v. Fisk, 1 How. 241, 247-249 (1843). The Constitution itself, in the Full Faith and Credit Clause, Art. IV, § 1, generally required such enforcement with respect to obligations arising in other States. See Hughes v. Fetter, 341 U. S. 609 (1951).
For these reasons, we do not think the early statutes imposing obligations on state courts imply a power of Congress to impress the state executive into its service. Indeed, it can be argued that the numerousness of these statutes, contrasted with the utter lack of statutes imposing obligations on the States’ executive (notwithstanding the attractiveness of that course to Congress), suggests an assumed absence of such power. The only early federal law the Government has brought to our attention that imposed duties on state executive officers is the Extradition Act of 1793, which required the “executive authority” of a State to cause the arrest and delivery of a fugitive from justice upon the request of the executive authority of the State from which the fugitive had fled. See Act of Feb. 12,1793, ch. 7, § 1,1 Stat. 302. That was in direct implementation, however, of the Extradition Clause of the Constitution itself, see Art. IV, § 2.
Not only do the enactments of the early Congresses, as far as we are aware, contain no evidence of an assumption that the Federal Government may command the States’ executive power in the absence of a particularized constitutional authorization, they contain some indication of precisely the opposite assumption. On September 23, 1789 — the day before its proposal of the Bill of Rights, see 1 Annals of Congress 912-913 — the First Congress enacted a law aimed at obtaining state assistance of the most rudimentary and necessary sort for the enforcement of the new Government’s laws: the holding of federal prisoners in state jails at federal expense. Significantly, the law issued not a command to the States’ executive, but a recommendation to their legislatures. Congress “recommended to the legislatures of the several States to pass laws, making it expressly the duty of the keepers of their gaols, to receive and safe keep therein all prisoners committed under the authority of the United States,” and offered to pay 50 cents per month for each prisoner. Act of Sept. 23, 1789, 1 Stat. 96. Moreover, when Georgia refused to comply with the request, see L. White, The Federalists 402 (1948), Congress’s only reaction was a law authorizing the marshal in any State that failed to comply with the Recommendation of September 23,1789, to rent a temporary jail until provision for a permanent one could be made, see Resolution of Mar. 3, 1791, 1 Stat. 225.
In addition to early legislation, the Government also appeals to other sources we have usually regarded as indicative of the original understanding of the Constitution. It points to portions of The Federalist which reply to criticisms that Congress’s power to tax will produce two sets of revenue officers — for example, “Brutus’s” assertion in his letter to the New York Journal of December 13, 1787, that the Constitution “opens a door to the appointment of a swarm of revenue and excise officers to prey upon the honest and industrious part of the community, eat up their substance, and riot on the spoils of the country,” reprinted in 1 Debate on the Constitution 502 (B. Bailyn ed. 1993). “Publius” responded that Congress will probably “make use of the State officers and State regulations, for collecting” federal taxes, The Federalist No. 36, p. 221 (C. Rossiter ed. 1961) (A. Hamilton) (hereinafter The Federalist), and predicted that “the eventual collection [of internal revenue] under the immediate authority of the Union, will generally be made by the officers, and according to the rules, appointed by the several States,” id., No. 45, at 292 (J. Madison). The Government also invokes The Federalist’s more general observations that the Constitution would “enable the [national] government to employ the ordinary magistracy of each [State] in the execution of its laws,” id., No. 27, at 176 (A. Hamilton), and that it was “extremely probable that in other instances, particularly in the organization of the judicial power, the officers of the States will be clothed with the correspondent authority of the Union,” id., No. 45, at 292 (J. Madison). But none of these statements necessarily implies — what is the critical point here — that Congress could impose these responsibilities without the consent of the States. They appear to rest on the natural assumption that the States would consent to allowing their officials to assist the Federal Government, see FERC v. Mississippi, 456 U. S. 742, 796, n. 35 (1982) (O’Connor, J., concurring in judgment in part and dissenting in part), an assumption proved correct by the extensive mutual assistance the States and Federal Government voluntarily provided one another in the early days of the Republic, see generally White, supra, at 401-404, including voluntary federal implementation of state law, see, e. g., Act of Apr. 2, 1790, ch. 5, § 1, 1 Stat. 106 (directing federal tax collectors and customs officers to assist in enforcing state inspection laws).
Another passage of The Federalist reads as follows:
“It merits particular attention... that the laws of the Confederacy as to the enumerated and legitimate objects of its jurisdiction will become the supreme law of the land; to the observance of which all officers, legislative, executive, and judicial in each State will be bound by the sanctity of an oath. Thus, the legislatures, courts, and magistrates, of the respective members will be incorporated into the operations of the national government as far as its just and constitutional authority extends; and will be rendered auxiliary to the enforcement of its laws.” The Federalist No. 27, at 177 (A. Hamilton) (emphasis in original).
The Government does not rely upon this passage, but Justice Souter (with whose conclusions on this point the dissent is in agreement, see post, at 947-948) makes it the very foundation of his position; so we pause to examine it in some detail. Justice Souter finds “[t]he natural reading” of the phrases “‘will be incorporated into the operations of the national government’ ” and ‘“will be rendered auxiliary to the enforcement of its laws’ ” to be that the National Government will have “authority..., when exercising an otherwise legitimate power (the commerce power, say), to require state ‘auxiliaries’ to take appropriate action.” Post, at 971, 975. There are several obstacles to such an interpretation. First, the consequences in question (“incorporated into the operations of the national government” and “rendered auxiliary to the enforcement of its laws”) are said in the quoted passage to flow automatically from the officers’ oath to observe “the laws of the Confederacy as to the enumerated and legitimate objects of its jurisdiction.” Thus, if the passage means that state officers must take an active role in the implementation of federal law, it means that they must do so without the necessity for a congressional directive that they implement it. But no one has ever thought, and no one asserts in the present litigation, that that is the law. The second problem with Justice Souter’s reading is that it makes state legislatures subject to federal direction. (The passage-in question, after all, does not include legislatures merely incidentally, as by referring to “all state officers”; it refers to legislatures specifically and first of all.) We have held, however, that state legislatures are not subject to federal direction. New York v. United States, 505 U. S. 144 (1992).
These problems are avoided, of course, if the calculatedly vague consequences the passage recites — “incorporated into the operations of the national government” and “rendered auxiliary to the enforcement of its laws” — are taken to refer to nothing more (or less) than the duty owed to the National Government, on the part of all state officials, to enact, enforce, and interpret state law in such fashion as not to obstruct the operation of federal law, and the attendant reality that all state actions constituting such obstruction, even legislative Acts, are ipso facto invalid. See Silkwood v. Kerr-McGee Corp., 464 U. S. 238, 248 (1984) (federal pre-emption of conflicting state law). This meaning accords well with the context of the passage, which seeks to explain why the new system of federal law directed to individual citizens, unlike the old one of federal law directed to the States, will “bid much fairer to avoid the necessity of using force” against the States, The Federalist No. 27, at 176. It also reconciles the passage with Hamilton’s statement in The Federalist No. 36, at 222, that the Federal Government would in some circumstances do well “to employ the State officers as much as possible, and to attach them to the Union by an accumulation of their emoluments” — which surely suggests inducing state officers to come aboard by paying them, rather than merely commandeering their official services.
Justice Souter contends that his interpretation of The Federalist No. 27 is “supported by No. 44,” written by Madison, wherefore he claims that “Madison and Hamilton” together stand opposed to our view. Post, at 971, 975. In fact, The Federalist No. 44 quite clearly contradicts Justice Souter’s reading. In that Number, Madison justifies the requirement that state officials take an oath to support the Federal Constitution on the ground that they “will have an essential agency in giving effect to the federal Constitution.” If the dissent’s reading of The Federalist No. 27 were correct (and if Madison agreed with it), one would surely have expected that “essential agency” of state executive officers (if described further) to be described as their responsibility to execute the laws enacted under the Constitution. Instead,' however, The Federalist No. 44 continues with the following description:
“The election of the President and Senate will depend, in all cases, on the legislatures of the several States. And the election of the House of Representatives will equally depend on the same authority in the first instance; and will, probably, forever be conducted by the officers and according to the laws of the States.” Id., at 287 (emphasis added).
It is most implausible that the person who labored for that example of state executive officers’ assisting the Federal Government believed, but neglected to mention, that they had a responsibility to execute federal laws. If it was indeed Hamilton’s view that the Federal Government could direct the officers of the States, that view has no clear support in Madison’s writings, or as far as we are aware, in text, history, or early commentary elsewhere.
To complete the historical record, we must note that there is not only an absence of executive-commandeering statutes in the early Congresses, but there is an absence of them in our later history as well, at least until very recent years. The Government points to the Act of August 3, 1882, ch. 376, §§ 2, 4, 22 Stat. 214, which enlisted state officials “to take charge of the local affairs of immigration in the ports within such State, and to provide for the support and relief of such immigrants therein landing as may fall into distress or need of public aid”; to inspect arriving immigrants and exclude any person found to be a “convict, lunatic, idiot,” or indigent; and to send convicts back to their country of origin “without compensation.” The statute did not, however, mandate those duties, but merely empowered the Secretary of the Treasury “to enter into contracts with such State... officers as may be designated for that purpose by the governor of any State.” (Emphasis added.)
The Government cites the World War I selective draft law that authorized the President “to utilize the service of any or all departments and any or all officers or agents of the United States and of the several States, Territories, and the District of Columbia, and subdivisions thereof, in the execution of this Act,” and made any person who refused to comply with the President’s directions guilty of a misdemeanor. Act of May 18, 1917, ch. 15, § 6, 40 Stat. 80-81 (emphasis added). However, it is far from clear that the authorization “to utilize the service” of state officers was an authorization to compel the service of state officers; and the misdemeanor provision surely applied only to refusal to comply with the President’s authorized directions, which might not have included directions to officers of States whose Governors had not volunteered their services. It is interesting that in implementing the Act President Wilson did not commandeer the services of state officers, but instead requested the assistance of the States’ Governors, see Proclamation of May 18, 1917, 40 Stat. 1665 (“calling] upon the Governor of each of the several States... and all officers and agents of the several States... to perform certain duties”); Registration Regulations Prescribed by the President Under the Act of Congress Approved May 18, 1917, pt. 1, § 7 (“[T]he governor [of each State] is requested to act under the regulations and rules prescribed by the President or under his direction” (emphasis added)), obtained the consent of each of the Governors, see Note, The President, the Senate, the Constitution, and the Executive Order of May 8, 1926, 21 Ill. L. Rev. 142, 144 (1926), and left it to the Governors to issue orders to their subordinate state officers, see Selective Service Regulations Prescribed by the President Under the Act of May 18, 1917, § 27 (1918); J. Clark, The Rise of a New Federalism 91 (1965). See generally Note, 21 Ill. L. Rev., at 144. It is impressive that even with respect to a wartime measure the President should have been so solicitous of state independence.
The Government points to a number of federal statutes enacted within the past few decades that require the participation of state or local officials in implementing federal regulatory schemes. Some of these are connected to federal funding measures, and can perhaps be more accurately described as conditions upon the grant of federal funding than as mandates to the States; others, which require only the provision of information to the Federal Government, do not involve the precise issue before us here, which is the forced participation of the States’ executive in the actual administration of a federal program. We of course do not address these or other currently operative enactments that are not before us; it will be time enough to do so if and when their validity is challenged in a proper case. For deciding the issue before us here, they are of little relevance. • Even assuming they represent assertion of the very same congressional power challenged here, they are of such recent vintage that they are no more probative than the statute before us of a constitutional tradition that lends meaning to the text. Their persuasive force is far outweighed by almost two centuries of apparent congressional avoidance of the practice. Compare INS v. Chadha, 462 U. S. 919 (1983), in which the legislative veto, though enshrined in perhaps hundreds of federal statutes, most of which were enacted in the 1970’s and the earliest of which was enacted in 1932, see id., at 967-976 (White, J., dissenting), was nonetheless held unconstitutional.
Ill
The constitutional practice we have examined above tends to negate the existence of the congressional power asserted here, but is not conclusive. We turn next to consideration of the structure of the Constitution, to see if we can discern among its “essential postulate^],” Principality of Monaco v. Mississippi, 292 U. S. 313, 322 (1934), a principle that controls the present cases.
A
It is incontestible that the Constitution established a system of “dual sovereignty.” Gregory v. Ashcroft, 501 U. S. 452, 457 (1991); Tafflin v. Levitt, 493 U. S. 455, 458 (1990). Although the States surrendered many of their powers to the new Federal Government, they retained “a residuary and inviolable sovereignty,” The Federalist No. 39, at 245 (J. Madison). This is reflected throughout the Constitution’s text, Lane County v. Oregon, 7 Wall. 71, 76 (1869); Texas v. White, 7 Wall. 700, 725 (1869), including (to mention only a few examples) the prohibition on any involuntary reduction or combination of a State’s territory, Art. IV, § 3; the Judicial Power Clause, Art. Ill, § 2, and the Privileges and Immunities Clause, Art. IV, § 2, which speak of the “Citizens” of the States; the amendment provision, Article V, which requires the votes of three-fourths of the States to amend the Constitution; and the Guarantee Clause, Art. IV, §4, which “presupposes the continued existence of the states and... those means and instrumentalities which are the creation of their sovereign and reserved rights,” Helvering v. Gerhardt, 304 U. S. 405, 414-415 (1938). Residual state sovereignty was also implicit, of course, in the Constitution’s conferral upon Congress of not all governmental powers, but only discrete, enumerated ones, Art. I, § 8, which implication was rendered express by the Tenth Amendment’s assertion that “[t]he powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”
The Framers’ experience under the Articles of Confederation had persuaded them that using the States as the instruments of federal governance was both ineffectual and provocative of federal-state conflict. See The Federalist No. 15. Preservation of the States as independent political entities being the price of union, and “[t]he practicality of making laws, with coercive sanctions, for the States as political bodies” having been, in Madison’s words, “exploded on all hands,” 2 Records of the Federal Convention of 1787, p. 9 (M. Farrand ed. 1911), the Framers rejected the concept of a central government that would act upon and through the States, and instead designed a system in which the State and Federal Governments would exercise concurrent authority over the people — who were, in Hamilton’s words, “the only proper objects of government,” The Federalist No. 15, at 109. We have set forth the historical record in more detail elsewhere, see New York v. United States, 505 U. S., at 161-166, and need not repeat it here. It suffices to repeat the conclusion: “the Framers explicitly chose a Constitution that confers upon Congress the power to regulate individuals, not States.” Id., at 166. The great innovation of this design was that “our citizens would have two political capacities, one state and one federal, each protected from incursion by the other” — “a legal system unprecedented in form and design, establishing two orders of government, each with its own direct relationship, its own privity, its own set of mutual rights and obligations to the people who sustain it and are governed by it.” U S. Term Limits, Inc. v. Thornton, 514 U. S. 779, 838 (1995) (Kennedy, J., concurring). The Constitution thus contemplates that a State’s government will represent and remain accountable to its own citizens. See New York, supra, at 168-169; United States v. Lopez, 514 U. S. 549, 576-577 (1995) (Kennedy, J., concurring). Cf. Edgar v. MITE Corp., 457 U. S. 624, 644 (1982) (“[T]he State has no legitimate interest in protecting nonresident^] ”). As Madison expressed it: “[T]he local or municipal authorities form distinct and independent portions of the supremacy, no more subject, within their respective spheres, to the general authority than the general authority is subject to them, within its own sphere.” The Federalist No. 39, at 245.
This separation of the two spheres is one of the Constitution’s structural protections of liberty. “Just as the separation and independence of the coordinate branches of the Federal Government serve to prevent the accumulation of excessive power in any one branch, a healthy balance of power between the States and the Federal Government will reduce the risk of tyranny and abuse from either front.” Gregory, 501 U. S., at 458. To quote Madison once again:
“In the compound republic of America, the power surrendered by the people is first divided between two distinct governments, and then the portion allotted to each subdivided among distinct and separate departments. Hence a double security arises to the rights of the people. The different governments will control each other, at the same time that each will be controlled by itself.” The Federalist No. 51, at 323.
See also The Federalist No. 28, at 180-181 (A. Hamilton). The power of the Federal Government would be augmented immeasurably if it were able to impress into its service — and at no cost to itself — the police officers of the 50 States.
B
We have thus far discussed the effect that federal control of state officers would have upon the first element of the “double security” alluded to by Madison: the division of power between State and Federal Governments. It would also have an effect upon the second element: the separation and equilibration of powers between the three branches of the Federal Government itself. The Constitution does not leave to speculation who is to administer the laws enacted by Congress; the President, it says, “shall take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed,” Art. II, § 3, personally and through officers whom he appoints (save for such inferior officers as Congress may authorize to be appointed by the “Courts of Law” or by “the Heads of Departments” who are themselves Presidential appointees), Art. II, § 2. The Brady Act effectively transfers this responsibility to thousands of CLEOs in the 50 States, who are left to implement the program without meaningful Presidential control (if indeed meaningful Presidential control is possible without the power to appoint and remove). The insistence of the Framers upon unity in the Federal Executive — to ensure both vigor and accountability — is well known. See The Federalist No. 70 (A. Hamilton); 2 Documentary History of the Ratification of the Constitution 495 (M. Jensen ed. 1976) (statement of James Wilson); see also Calabresi & Prakash, The President’s Power to Execute the Laws, 104 Yale L. J. 541 (1994). That unity would be shattered, and the power of the President would be subject to reduction, if Congress could act as effectively without the President as with him, by simply requiring state officers to execute its laws.
C
The dissent of course resorts to the last, best hope of those who defend ultra vires congressional action, the Necessary and Proper Clause. It reasons, post, at 941, that the power to regulate the sale of handguns under the Commerce Clause, coupled with the power to “make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers,” Art. I, §8, conclusively establishes the Brady Act’s constitutional validity, because the Tenth Amendment imposes no limitations on the exercise of delegated powers but merely prohibits the exercise of powers “not delegated to the United States.” What destroys the dissent’s Necessary and Proper Clause argument, however, is not the Tenth Amendment but the Necessary and Proper Clause itself. When a “La[w]... for carrying into Execution” the Commerce Clause violates the principle of state sovereignty reflected in the various constitutional provisions we mentioned earlier, supra, at 919, it is not a “La[w]... proper for carrying into Execution the Commerce Clause,” and is thus, in the words of The Federalist, “merely [an] ac[t] of usurpation” which “deserve[s] to be treated as such.” The Federalist No. 33, at 204 (A.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | 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 Souter
delivered the opinion of the Court.
This case calls for specific application of the standard of reasonable competence required on the part of defense counsel by the Sixth Amendment. We hold that even when a capital defendant’s family members and the defendant himself have suggested that no mitigating evidence is available, his lawyer is bound to make reasonable efforts to obtain and review material that counsel knows the prosecution will probably rely on as evidence of aggravation at the sentencing phase of trial.
I
On the morning of January 14, 1988, James Scanlon was discovered dead in a bar he ran in Allentown, Pennsylvania, his body having been stabbed repeatedly and set on fire. Ronald Rompilla was indicted for the murder and related offenses, and the Commonwealth gave notice of intent to ask for the death penalty. Two public defenders were assigned to the case.
The jury at the guilt phase of trial found Rompilla guilty on all counts, and during the ensuing penalty phase, the prosecutor sought to prove three aggravating factors to justify a death sentence: that the murder was committed in the course of another felony; that the murder was committed by torture; and that Rompilla had a significant history of felony convictions indicating the use or threat of violence. See 42 Pa. Cons. Stat. §§ 9711(d)(6), (8), (9) (2002). The Commonwealth presented evidence on all three aggravators, and the jury found all proven. Rompilla’s evidence in mitigation consisted of relatively brief testimony: five of his family members argued in effect for residual doubt, and beseeched the jury for mercy, saying that they believed Rompilla was innocent and a good man. Rompilla’s 14-year-old son testified that he loved his father and would visit him in prison. The jury acknowledged this evidence to the point of finding, as two factors in mitigation, that Rompilla’s son had testified on his behalf and that rehabilitation was possible. But the jurors assigned the greater weight to the aggravating factors, and sentenced Rompilla to death. The Supreme Court of Pennsylvania affirmed both conviction and sentence. Commonwealth v. Rompilla, 539 Pa. 499, 653 A. 2d 626 (1995).
In December 1995, with new lawyers, Rompilla filed claims under the Pennsylvania Post Conviction Relief Act, 42 Pa. Cons. Stat. § 9541 et seq. (2004), including ineffective assistance by trial counsel in failing to present significant mitigating evidence about Rompilla’s childhood, mental capacity and health, and alcoholism. The postconviction court found that trial counsel had done enough to investigate the possibilities of a mitigation case, and the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania affirmed the denial of relief. Commonwealth v. Rompilla, 554 Pa. 378, 721 A. 2d 786 (1998).
Rompilla then petitioned for a writ of habeas corpus under 28 U. S. C. §2254 in Federal District Court, raising claims that included inadequate representation. The District Court found that the State Supreme Court had unreasonably applied Strickland v. Washington, 466 U. S. 668 (1984), as to the penalty phase of the trial, and granted relief for ineffective assistance of counsel. The court found that in preparing the mitigation case the defense lawyers had failed to investigate “pretty obvious signs” that Rompilla had a troubled childhood and suffered from mental illness and alcoholism, and instead had relied unjustifiably on Rompilla’s own description of an unexceptional background. Rompilla v. Horn, No. CIV.A.99-737 (ED Pa., July 11, 2000), App. 1307-1308.
A divided Third Circuit panel reversed. Rompilla v. Horn, 355 F. 3d 233 (2004). The majority found nothing unreasonable in the state court’s application of Strickland, given defense counsel’s efforts to uncover mitigation material, which included interviewing Rompilla and certain family members, as well as consultation with three mental health experts. Although the majority noted that the lawyers did not unearth the “useful information” to be found in Rompilla’s “school, medical, police, and prison records,” it thought the lawyers were justified in failing to hunt through these records when their other efforts gave no reason to believe the search would yield anything helpful. 355 F. 3d, at 252. The panel thus distinguished Rompilla’s case from Wiggins v. Smith, 539 U. S. 510 (2003). Whereas Wiggins’s counsel failed to investigate adequately, to the point even of ignoring the leads their limited enquiry yielded, the Court of Appeals saw the Rompilla investigation as going far enough to leave counsel with reason for thinking further efforts would not be a wise use of the limited resources they had. But Judge Sloviter’s dissent stressed that trial counsel’s failure to obtain relevant records on Rompilla’s background was owing to the lawyers’ unreasonable reliance on family members and medical experts to tell them what records might be useful. The Third Circuit denied rehearing en banc by a vote of 6 to 5. Rompilla v. Horn, 359 F. 3d 310 (2004).
We granted certiorari, 542 U. S. 966 (2004), and now reverse.
II
Under 28 U. S. C. § 2254, Rompilla’s entitlement to federal habeas relief turns on showing that the state court’s resolution of his claim of ineffective assistance of counsel under Strickland v. Washington, supra, “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,” § 2254(d)(1). An “unreasonable application” occurs when a state court “‘identifies the correct governing legal principle from this Court’s decisions but unreasonably applies that principle to the facts’ of petitioner’s case.” Wiggins v. Smith, supra, at 520 (quoting Williams v. Taylor, 529 U. S. 362, 413 (2000) (opinion of O’Connor, J.)). That is, “the state court’s decision must have been [not only] incorrect or erroneous [but] objectively unreasonable.” Wiggins v. Smith, supra, at 520-521 (quoting Williams v. Taylor, supra, at 409 (internal quotation marks omitted)).
Ineffective assistance under Strickland is deficient performance by counsel resulting in prejudice, 466 U. S., at 687, with performance being measured against an “objective standard of reasonableness,” id., at 688, “under prevailing professional norms,” ibid.; Wiggins v. Smith, supra, at 521. This case, like some others recently, looks to norms of adequate investigation in preparing for the sentencing phase of a capital trial, when defense counsel’s job is to counter the State’s evidence of aggravated culpability with evidence in mitigation. In judging the defense’s investigation, as in applying Strickland generally, hindsight is discounted by pegging adequacy to “counsel’s perspective at the time” investigative decisions are made, 466 U. S., at 689, and by giving a “heavy measure of deference to counsel’s judgments,” id., at 691.
A
A standard of reasonableness applied as if one stood in counsel’s shoes spawns few hard-edged rules, and the merits of a number of counsel’s choices in this case are subject to fair debate. This is not a case in which defense counsel simply ignored their obligation to find mitigating evidence, and their workload as busy public defenders did not keep them from making a number of efforts, including interviews with Rompilla and some members of his family, and examinations of reports by three mental health experts who gave opinions at the guilt phase. None of the sources proved particularly helpful.
Rompilla’s own contributions to any mitigation case were minimal. Counsel found him uninterested in helping, as on their visit to his prison to go over a proposed mitigation strategy, when Rompilla told them he was “bored being here listening” and returned to his cell. App. 668. To questions about childhood and schooling, his answers indicated they had been normal, ibid., save for quitting school in the ninth grade, id., at 677. There were times when Rompilla was even actively obstructive by sending counsel off on false leads. Id., at 663-664.
The lawyers also spoke with five members of Rompilla’s family (his former wife, two brothers, a sister-in-law, and his son), id., at 494, and counsel testified that they developed a good relationship with the family in the course of their representation, id., at 669, 729. The state postconvietion court found that counsel spoke to the relatives in a “detailed manner,” attempting to unearth mitigating information, id., at 264, although the weight of this finding is qualified by the lawyers’ concession that “the overwhelming response from the family was that they didn’t really feel as though they knew him all that well since he had spent the majority of his adult years and some of his childhood years in custody,” id., at 495; see also id., at 669. Defense counsel also said that because the family was “coming from the position that [Rom-pilla] was innocent. . . they weren’t looking for reasons for why he might have done this.” Id., at 494.
The third and final source tapped for mitigating material was the cadre of three mental health witnesses who were asked to look into Rompilla’s mental state as of the time of the offense and his competency to stand trial. Id., at 473-474, 476. But their reports revealed “nothing useful” to Rompilla’s ease, id., at 1358, and the lawyers consequently did not go to any other historical source that might have cast light on Rompilla’s mental condition.
When new counsel entered the case to raise Rompilla’s postconviction claims, however, they identified a number of likely avenues the trial lawyers could fruitfully have followed in building a mitigation case. School records are one example, which trial counsel never examined in spite of the professed unfamiliarity of the several family members with Rompilla’s childhood, and despite counsel’s knowledge that Rompilla left school after the ninth grade. Id., at 677. Other examples are records of Rompilla’s juvenile and adult incarcerations, which counsel did not consult, although they were aware of their client’s criminal record. And while counsel knew from police reports provided in pretrial discovery that Rompilla had been drinking heavily at the time of his offense, Lodging to App. 111-120 (hereinafter Lodging), and although one of the mental health experts reported that Rompilla’s troubles with alcohol merited further investigation, App. 723-724, counsel did not look for evidence of a history of dependence on alcohol that might have extenuating significance.
Before us, trial counsel and the Commonwealth respond to these unexplored possibilities by emphasizing this Court’s recognition that the duty to investigate does not force defense lawyers to scour the globe on the off chance something will turn up; reasonably diligent counsel may draw a line when they have good reason to think further investigation would be a waste. See Wiggins v. Smith, 539 U. S., at 525 (further investigation excusable where counsel has evidence suggesting it would be fruitless); Strickland v. Washington, supra, at 699 (counsel could “reasonably surmise . . . that character and psychological evidence would be of little help”); Burger v. Kemp, 483 U. S. 776, 794 (1987) (limited investigation reasonable because all witnesses brought to counsel’s attention provided predominantly harmful information). The Commonwealth argues that the information trial counsel gathered from Rompilla and the other sources gave them sound reason to think it would have been pointless to spend time and money on the additional investigation espoused by postconviction counsel, and we can say that there is room for debate about trial counsel’s obligation to follow at least some of those potential lines of enquiry. There is no need to say more, however, for a further point is clear and dispositive: the lawyers were deficient in failing to examine the court file on Rompilla’s prior conviction.
B
There is an obvious reason that the failure to examine Rompilla’s prior conviction file fell below the level of reasonable performance. Counsel knew that the Commonwealth intended to seek the death penalty by proving Rompilla had a significant history of felony convictions indicating the use or threat of violence, an aggravator under state law. Counsel further knew that the Commonwealth would attempt to establish this history by proving Rompilla’s prior conviction for rape and assault, and would emphasize his violent character by introducing a transcript of the rape victim’s testimony given in that earlier trial. App. 665-666. There is no question that defense counsel were on notice, since they acknowledge that a “plea letter,” written by one of them four days prior to trial, mentioned the prosecutor’s plans. Ibid. It is also undisputed that the prior conviction file was a public document, readily available for the asking at the very courthouse where Rompilla was to be tried.
It is clear, however, that defense counsel did not look at any part of that file, including the transcript, until warned by the prosecution a second time. In a colloquy the day before the evidentiary sentencing phase began, the prosecutor again said he would present the transcript of the victim’s testimony to establish the prior conviction.
“[DEFENSE]: I would also like to review whatever he’s going to read from.
“[PROSECUTOR]: Well, I told you that I was going to do this a long time ago. You certainly had the opportunity to review the Transcript.
“[DEFENSE]: Well, I would like a copy of this.
“[PROSECUTOR]: I don’t think that’s my duty to provide you with a copy. That’s a public record, and you could have gotten that Transcript at any time prior to this Trial. I made one copy for myself, and I’d like to have it now.
“[DEFENSE]: Well, Judge, then I’m going to need to get a copy of it. I’m going to need to get a copy of it.” Id., at 32, 36.
At the postconviction evidentiary hearing, Rompilla’s lawyer confirmed that she had not seen the transcript before the hearing in which this exchange took place, id., at 506-507, and crucially, even after obtaining the transcript of the victim’s testimony on the eve of the sentencing hearing, counsel apparently examined none of the other material in the file.
With every effort to view the facts as a defense lawyer would have done at the time, it is difficult to see how counsel could have failed to realize that without examining the readily available file they were seriously compromising their opportunity to respond to a case for aggravation. The prosecution was going to use the dramatic facts of a similar prior offense, and Rompilla’s counsel had a duty to make all reasonable efforts to learn what they could about the offense. Reasonable efforts certainly included obtaining the Commonwealth’s own readily available file on the prior conviction to learn what the Commonwealth knew about the crime, to discover any mitigating evidence the Commonwealth would downplay, and to anticipate the details of the aggravating evidence the Commonwealth would emphasize. Without making reasonable efforts to review the file, defense counsel could have had no hope of knowing whether the prosecution was quoting selectively from the transcript, or whether there were circumstances extenuating the behavior described by the victim. The obligation to get the file was particularly pressing here owing to the similarity of the violent prior offense to the crime charged and Rompilla’s sentencing strategy stressing residual doubt. Without making efforts to learn the details and rebut the relevance of the earlier crime, a convincing argument for residual doubt was certainly beyond any hope.
The notion that defense counsel must obtain information that the State has and will use against the defendant is not simply a matter of common sense. As the District Court points out, the American Bar Association Standards for Criminal Justice in circulation at the time of Rompilla’s trial describes the obligation in terms no one could misunderstand in the circumstances of a case like this one:
“It is the duty of the lawyer to conduct a prompt investigation of the circumstances of the case and to explore all avenues leading to facts relevant to the merits of the case and the penalty in the event of conviction. The investigation should always include efforts to secure information in the possession of the prosecution and law enforcement authorities. The duty to investigate exists regardless of the accused’s admissions or statements to the lawyer of facts constituting guilt or the accused’s stated desire to plead guilty.” 1 ABA Standards for Criminal Justice 4-4.1 (2d ed. 1982 Supp.).
“[W]e long have referred [to these ABA Standards] as ‘guides to determining what is reasonable.’” Wiggins v. Smith, 539 U. S., at 524 (quoting Strickland v. Washington, 466 U. S., at 688), and the Commonwealth has come up with no reason to think the quoted standard impertinent here.
At argument the most that Pennsylvania (and the United States as amicus) could say was that defense counsel’s efforts to find mitigating evidence by other means excused them from looking at the prior conviction file. Tr. of Oral Arg. 37-39, 45-46. And that, of course, is the position taken by the state postconviction courts. Without specifically discussing the prior case file, they too found that defense eoun-sel’s efforts were enough to free them from any obligation to enquire further. Commonwealth v. Rompilla, No. 682/ 1988 (Pa. Ct. Common Pleas, Aug. 28, 1996), App. 263-264, 272-273.
We think this conclusion of the state court fails to answer the considerations we have set out, to the point of being an objectively unreasonable conclusion. It flouts prudence to deny that a defense lawyer should try to look at a file he knows the prosecution will cull for aggravating evidence, let alone when the file is sitting in the trial courthouse, open for the asking. No reasonable lawyer would forgo examination of the file thinking he could do as well by asking the defendant or family relations whether they recalled anything helpful or damaging in the prior victim’s testimony. Nor would a reasonable lawyer compare possible searches for school reports, juvenile records, and evidence of drinking habits to the opportunity to take a look at a file disclosing what the prosecutor knows and even plans to read from in his case. Questioning a few more family members and searching for old records can promise less than looking for a needle in a haystack, when a lawyer truly has reason to doubt there is any needle there. E.g., Strickland, supra, at 699. But looking at a file the prosecution says it will use is a sure bet: whatever may be in that file is going to tell defense counsel something about what the prosecution can produce.
The dissent thinks this analysis creates a “rigid, per se” rule that requires defense counsel to do a complete review of the file on any prior conviction introduced, post, at 404 (opinion of Kennedy, J.), but that is a mistake. Counsel fell short here because they failed to make reasonable efforts to review the prior conviction file, despite knowing that the prosecution intended to introduce Rompilla’s prior conviction not merely by entering a notice of conviction into evidence but by quoting damaging testimony of the rape victim in that case. The unreasonableness of attempting no more than they did was heightened by the easy availability of the file at the trial courthouse, and the great risk that testimony about a similar violent crime would hamstring counsel’s chosen defense of residual doubt. It is owing to these circumstances that the state courts were objectively unreasonable in concluding that counsel could reasonably decline to make any effort to review the file. Other situations, where a defense lawyer is not charged with knowledge that the prosecutor intends to use a prior conviction in this way, might well warrant a different assessment.
C
Since counsel’s failure to look at the file fell below the line of reasonable practice, there is a further question about prejudice, that is, whether “there is a reasonable probability that, but for counsel’s unprofessional errors, the result of the proceeding would have been different.” 466 U. S., at 694. Because the state courts found the representation adequate, they never reached the issue of prejudice, App. 265, 272-273, and so we examine this element of the Strickland claim de novo, Wiggins v. Smith, 539 U. S., at 534, and agree with the dissent in the Court of Appeals. We think Rompilla has shown beyond any doubt that counsel’s lapse was prejudicial; Pennsylvania, indeed, does not even contest the claim of prejudice.
If the defense lawyers had looked in the file on Rompilla’s prior conviction, it is uncontested they would have found a range of mitigation leads that no other source had opened up. In the same file with the transcript of the prior trial were the records of Rompilla’s imprisonment on the earlier conviction, App. 508, 571, 631, which defense counsel testified she had never seen, id., at 508. The prison files pictured Rompilla’s childhood and mental health very differently from anything defense counsel had seen or heard. An evaluation by a corrections counselor states that Rompilla was “reared in the slum environment of Allentown, Pa. vicinity. He early came to [the] attention of juvenile authorities, quit school at 16, [and] started a series of incarcerations in and out Penna. often of assaultive nature and commonly related to over-indulgence in alcoholic beverages.” Lodging 40. The same file discloses test results that the defense’s mental health experts would have viewed as pointing to schizophrenia and other disorders, and test scores showing a third grade level of cognition after nine years of schooling. Id., at 32-35.
The accumulated entries would have destroyed the benign conception of Rompilla’s upbringing and mental capacity defense counsel had formed from talking with Rompilla himself and some of his family members, and from the reports of the mental health experts. With this information, counsel would have become skeptical of the impression given by the five family members and would unquestionably have gone further to build a mitigation case. Further effort would presumably have unearthed much of the material postconviction counsel found, including testimony from several members of Rompilla’s family, whom trial counsel did not interview. Judge Sloviter summarized this evidence:
“Rompilla’s parents were both severe alcoholics who drank constantly. His mother drank during her pregnancy with Rompilla, and he and his brothers eventually developed serious drinking problems. His father, who had a vicious temper, frequently beat Rompilla’s mother, leaving her bruised and black-eyed, and bragged about his cheating on her. His parents fought violently, and on at least one occasion his mother stabbed his father. He was abused by his father who beat him when he was young with his hands, fists, leather straps, belts and sticks. All of the children lived in terror. There were no expressions of parental love, affection or approval. Instead, he was subjected to yelling and verbal abuse. His father locked Rompilla and his brother Richard in a small wire mesh dog pen that was filthy and excrement filled. He had an isolated background, and was not allowed to visit other children or to speak to anyone on the phone. They had no indoor plumbing in the house, he slept in the attic with no heat, and the children were not given clothes and attended school in rags.” 355 F. 3d, at 279 (dissenting opinion) (citations omitted).
The jury never heard any of this and neither did the mental health experts who examined Rompilla before trial. While they found “nothing helpful to [Rompilla’s] case,” Rompilla, 554 Pa., at 385, 721 A. 2d, at 790, their postconviction counterparts, alerted by information from school, medical, and prison records that trial counsel never saw, found plenty of “‘red flags’” pointing up a need to test further. 355 F. 3d, at 279 (Sloviter, J., dissenting). When they tested, they found that Rompilla “suffers from organic brain damage, an extreme mental disturbance significantly impairing several of his cognitive functions.” Ibid. They also said that “Rompilla’s problems relate back to his childhood, and were likely caused by fetal alcohol syndrome [and that] Rom-pilla’s capacity to appreciate the criminality of his conduct or to conform his conduct to the law was substantially impaired at the time of the offense.” Id., at 280 (Sloviter, J., dissenting).
These findings in turn would probably have prompted a look at school and juvénile records, all of them easy to get, showing, for example, that when Rompilla was 16 his mother “was missing from home frequently for a period of one or several weeks at a time.” Lodging 44. The same report noted that his mother “has been reported . . . frequently under the influence of alcoholic beverages, with the result that the children have always been poorly kept and on the filthy side which was also the condition of the home at all times.” Ibid. School records showed Rompilla’s IQ was in the mentally retarded range. Id., at 11, 13, 15.
This evidence adds up to a mitigation case that bears no relation to the few naked pleas for mercy actually put before the jury, and although we suppose it is possible that a jury could have heard it all and still have decided on the death penalty, that is not the test. It goes without saying that the undiscovered “mitigating evidence, taken as a whole, ‘might well have influenced the jury’s appraisal’ of [Rompilla’s] culpability,” Wiggins v. Smith, 539 U. S., at 538 (quoting Williams v. Taylor, 529 U. S., at 398), and the likelihood of a different result if the evidence had gone in is “sufficient to undermine confidence in the outcome” actually reached at sentencing, Strickland, 466 U. S., at 694.
The judgment of the Third Circuit is reversed, and Pennsylvania must either retry the case on penalty or stipulate to a life sentence.
It is so ordered.
Because we reverse on ineffective-assistance grounds, we have no occasion to consider Rompilla’s other claim, under Simmons v. South Carolina, 512 U. S. 154 (1994). It is enough to say that any retrial of Rompilla’s sentence will be governed by the Simmons line of cases.
A similar exchange took place at the same hearing about the indictment in the record of Rompilla’s prior conviction.
“[DEFENSE]: Well, I think we need to look at the Indictment then. If he’s charged with committing the Burglary-
“[PROSECUTOR]: I had a copy, and I forgot to bring it up with me.
“[COURT]: All right.
“[DEFENSE]: Can we see it, Judge?
“[COURT]: Sime, he’s going to get it.
“[PROSECUTOR]: It’s a public record . . . you could have gone over [sic] lunch and looked at it just like I did.” App. 28.
Defense counsel also stated at the postconviction hearing that she believed at some point she had looked at some files regarding that prior conviction and that she was familiar with the particulars of the case. But she could not recall what the files were or how she obtained them. Id., at 507-508. In addition, counsel apparently obtained Rompilla’s rap sheet, which showed that he had prior convictions, including the one for rape. Id., at 664. At oral argument, the United States, arguing as an amicus in support of Pennsylvania, maintained that counsel had fulfilled their obligations to investigate the prior conviction by obtaining the rap sheet. Tr. of Oral Arg. 44-45. But this cannot be so. The rap sheet would reveal only the charges and dispositions, being no reasonable substitute for the prior conviction file. The dissent nonetheless concludes on this evidence that counsel knew all they needed to know about the prior conviction. Post, at 401 (opinion of Kennedy, J.). Given counsel’s limited investigation into the prior conviction, the dissent’s parsing of the record seems generous to a fault.
The ease with which counsel could examine the entire file makes application of this standard correspondingly easy. Suffice it to say that when the State has warehouses of records available in a particular case, review of counsel’s performance will call for greater subtlety.
This requirement answers the dissent’s and the United States’s contention that defense counsel provided effective assistance with regard to the prior conviction file because it argued that it would be prejudicial to allow the introduction of the transcript. Post, at 402; Brief for United States as Amicus Curiae 29. Counsel’s obligation to rebut aggravating evidence extended beyond arguing it ought to be kept out. As noted above, supra this page, counsel had no way of knowing the context of the transcript and the details of the prior conviction without looking at the file as a whole. Counsel could not effectively rebut the aggravation case or build their own case in mitigation.
Nor is there any merit to the United States’s contention that further enquiry into the prior conviction file would have been fruitless because the sole reason the transcript was being introduced was to establish the aggravator that Rompilla had committed prior violent felonies. Brief for United States as Amicus Curiae 30. The Government maintains that because the transcript would incontrovertibly establish the fact that Rom-pilla had committed a violent felony, the defense could not have expected to rebut that aggravator through further investigation of the file. That analysis ignores the fact that the sentencing jury was required to weigh aggravating factors against mitigating factors. We may reasonably assume that the jury could give more relative weight to a prior violent felony aggravator where defense counsel missed an opportunity to argue that circumstances of the prior conviction were less damning than the prosecution’s characterization of the conviction would suggest.
The new version of the Standards now reads that any “investigation should include efforts to secure information in the possession of the prosecution and law enforcement authorities” whereas the version in effect at the time of Rompilla’s trial provided that the “investigation” should always include such efforts. ABA Standards for Criminal Justice, Prosecution Function and Defense Function 4-4.1 (3d ed. 1993). We see no material difference between these two phrasings, and in any case cannot think of any situation in which defense counsel should not make some effort to learn the information in the possession of the prosecution and law enforcement authorities.
In 1989, shortly after Rompilla’s trial, the ABA promulgated a set of guidelines specifically devoted to setting forth the obligations of defense counsel in death penalty cases. ABA Guidelines for the Appointment and Performance of Counsel in Death Penalty Cases (1989) (hereinafter 1989 ABA Guidelines or Guideline). Those Guidelines applied the dear requirements for investigation set forth in the earlier Standards to death penalty cases and imposed a similarly forceful directive: “Counsel should make efforts to secure information in the possession of the prosecution or law enforcement authorities, including police reports.” Guideline 11.4.1.D.4. When the United States argues that Rompilla’s defense counsel complied with these Guidelines, it focuses its attentions on a different Guideline, 11.4.1.D.2. Brief for United States as Amicus Curiae 20-21. Guideline 11.4.1.D.2 concerns practices for working with the defendant and potential witnesses, and the United States contends that it imposes no requirement to obtain any one particular type of record or information. Ibid. But this argument ignores the subsequent Guideline quoted above, which is in fact reprinted in the appendix to the United States’s brief, that requires counsel to “‘make efforts to secure information in the possession of the prosecution or law enforcement authorities.’” App. to id., at 4a.
Later, and current, ABA Guidelines relating to death penalty defense are even more explicit:
“Counsel must. . . investigate prior convictions ... that could be used as aggravating circumstances or otherwise come into evidence. If a prior conviction is legally flawed, counsel should seek to have it set aside. Counsel may also find extenuating circumstances that can be offered to lessen the weight of a conviction.” ABA Guidelines for the Appointment and Performance of Defense Counsel in Death Penalty Cases 10.7, comment. (rev. ed. 2003), reprinted in 31 Hofstra L. Rev. 913, 1027 (2003) (footnotes omitted).
Our decision in Wiggins made precisely the same point in citing the earlier 1989 ABA Guidelines. 539 U. S., at 524 (“The ABA Guidelines provide that investigations into mitigating evidence ‘should comprise efforts to discover all reasonably available mitigating evidence and evidence to rebut any aggravating evidence that may be introduced by the prosecutor’” (quoting 1989 ABA Guideline 11.4.1.C; emphasis in original)). For reasons given in the text, no such further investigation was needed to point to the reasonable duty to look in the file in question here.
The dissent would ignore the opportunity to find this evidence on the ground that its discovery (and the consequent analysis of prejudice) “rests on serendipity,” post, at 405. But once counsel had an obligation to examine the file, counsel had to make reasonable efforts to learn its contents; and once having done so, they could not reasonably have ignored mitigation evidence or red flags simply because they were unexpected. The dissent, however, assumes that counsel could reasonably decline even to read what was in the file, see post, at 406 (if counsel had reviewed the case file for mitigating evidence, “[t]here would have been no reason for counsel to read, or even to skim, this obscure document”). While that could well have been true if counsel had been faced with a large amount of possible evidence, see n. 4, supra, there is no indication that examining the case file in question here would have required significant labor. Indeed, Pennsylvania has conspicuously failed to contest Rompilla’s claim that because the information was located in the prior conviction file, reasonable efforts would have led counsel to this information.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
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.
At issue in this case are the meaning and validity of § 1903(f) of the Social Security Act, 81 Stat. 898, as amended, 42 U. S. C. § 1396b(f). As applied in Massachusetts, that provision results in a distribution of Medicaid benefits to recipients of Supplemental Security Income (SSI) — a class of aged, blind, or disabled persons who lack sufficient income to meet their basic needs — that is more generous than the distribution of such benefits to persons who are self-supporting. Appellees are members of the latter class. Because they must incur medical expenses — for which they are never reimbursed — before they become eligible for Medicaid, they have less income available for their nonmedical needs than the recipients of SSI. The District Court concluded that this discrimination was irrational and held that § 1903(f) was unconstitutional. Hogan v. Harris, 501 F. Supp. 1129 (Mass. 1980). We disagree and reverse.
The statutory provisions governing the Medicaid program are complex. See 42 U. S. C. § 1396 et seq. (1976 ed. and Supp. IV). We first consider the history of the specific provisions at issue in this case, then relate the circumstances that gave rise to the present controversy, and finally address the two legal issues that are presented.
I
Section 1903(f) of the Social Security Act (Act) was enacted in 1968. To understand the present controversy, however, it is necessary to consider amendments to the Act made in 1965, 1967, and 1972.
A
The Medicaid program was established in 1965 in Title XIX of the Act “for the purpose of providing federal financial assistance to States that choose to reimburse certain costs of medical treatment for needy persons;” Harris v. McRae, 448 U. S. 297, 301. Section 1902(a)(10) of the Act, 42 U. S. C. § 1396a(a)(10), sets forth the basic scope of the program, which has not changed significantly from its enactment in 1965. See 79 Stat. 345. Participating States are required to provide Medicaid coverage to certain individuals — now described as the “categorically needy”; at their option States also may provide coverage (and receive partial federal reimbursement) to other individuals — described as the “medically needy.” See Schweiker v. Gray Panthers, 453 U. S. 34, 37. These classes are defined by reference to other federal assistance programs.
In 1965, federal assistance programs existed for the aged, the blind, the disabled, and families with dependent children. At that time, each of these programs was administered by the States, which established both the “standard of need” and the “level of benefits.” See Jefferson v. Hackney, 406 U. S. 535; Rosado v. Wyman, 397 U. S. 397. In establishing the Medicaid program, Congress required participating States to provide medical assistance to individuals who received cash payments under one of these assistance programs. 79 Stat. 345, as amended, 42 U. S. C. §1396a(a) (10)(A). The House Report explained: “These people are the most needy in the country and it is appropriate for medical care costs to be met, first, for these people.” They are the “categorically needy.”
Congress also provided that a participating State could offer Medicaid benefits to individuals who. fell within one of the categories for which federal assistance was available but whose income made them ineligible for aid under those programs. These individuals were deemed “less needy” and could receive assistance only if their income and resources were insufficient “to meet the costs of necessary medical or remedial care and services.” 79 Stat. 345, as amended, 42 U. S. C. § 1396a(a)(10)(C). In 1965, no limit was placed on the extent to which federal reimbursement was available for optional coverage that States elected to provide to these persons who might become “medically needy.”
Since States established the income limits for the categorical assistance programs, they also established the income limits for the “categorically needy” under the Medicaid program. In addition, participating States established the eligibility standards for the optional coverage provided to the “medically needy.” In § 1902(a)(17) of the Act, 42 U. S. C. § 1396a (a)(17), however, Congress set forth certain requirements governing state standards for determining eligibility. In particular, Congress required States to “provide for flexibility in the application of such standards with respect to income by taking into account, except to the extent prescribed by the Secretary, the costs (whether in the form of insurance premiums or otherwise) incurred for medical care or any other type of remedial care recognized under State law.” 79 Stat. 346; see 42 U. S. C. § 1396a(a)(17).
Most States promptly elected to participate in the Medicaid program. Many of these States also chose to provide Medicaid coverage to the “medically needy.” Within a year, Congress recognized that it was fiscally improvident to rely exclusively on the States to set income limits for both aspects of the Medicaid program. See H. R. Rep. No. 2224, 89th Cong., 2d Sess., 1-3 (1966). It cautioned States “to avoid unrealistic levels of income and resources for title XIX eligibility purposes.” Id., at 3.
B
In 1967, Congress placed a limit on federal participation in the Medicaid program. Representative Mills introduced a bill, sponsored by the Johnson administration, that would have made significant changes in both the Medicaid program and the categorical assistance programs. H. R. 5710, 90th Cong., 1st Sess. (1967). Under §220 of H. R. 5710, a State participating in the Medicaid program would have been entitled to receive federal financial assistance for providing Medicaid benefits only to those persons whose income, after deduction of incurred medical expenses, was less than 150% of the highest of the State’s categorical assistance standards of need. Section 202 of the bill would have required States to revise annually the standards of need under each of the categorical assistance programs to reflect changes in the costs of living and, in some circumstances, to pay 100% of the standard of need established under the programs. In support of this provision, the Secretary of the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare explained that “33 States provide less support for needy children [under the AFDC program] than the standards the States themselves have set as necessary to meet basic human needs.”
After extensive consideration, the House Ways and Means Committee reported out a substantially revised bill. H. R. 12080, 90th Cong., 1st Sess. (1967). The Committee Report described its primary proposed limitation on federal participation:
“Your committee is proposing... that Federal sharing will not be available for families whose income exceeds 133 Vs percent of the highest amount ordinarily paid to a family of the same size (without any income and resources) in the form of money payments under the AFDC program. (AFDC income limits are, generally speaking, the lowest that are used in the categorical assistance programs).” 1967 House Report, at 119.
As noted, see n. 10, supra, the amount of benefits paid in many States was less than the qualifying standard of need. The Committee Report explained the reasons for the move to limit federal participation in the Medicaid program. After noting that a few States had provided benefits beyond that anticipated by Congress, it stated:
“Your committee expected that the State plans submitted under title XIX would afford better medical care and services to persons unable to pay for adequate care. It neither expected nor intended that such care would supplant health insurance presently carried or presently provided under collective bargaining agreements for individuals and families in or close to an average income range. Your committee is also concerned that the operation of some State plans may greatly reduce the incentives for persons aged 65 or over to participate in the supplementary medical insurance program [Medicare] of title XVIII of the Social Security Act, which was also established by the Social Security Amendments of 1965. The provisions of the bill are directed toward eliminating, insofar as Federal sharing is concerned, these clearly unintended and, in your committee’s judgment, undesirable actual and potential effects of the legislation.” Id., at 118.
In States that paid less than 75% of the AFDC standard of need, the House provision would have provided Medicaid benefits only to persons whose income, after deduction of incurred medical expenses, was less than the AFDC standard of need.
The Committee proposal was severely criticized on the House floor. It nevertheless was passed by the House and sent to the Senate. The Senate returned a substantially different bill and the matter was referred to conference.
The Conference Committee adopted the House 13873% AFDC payment standard. H. R. Conf. Rep. No. 1030, 90th Cong., 1st Sess., 63 (1967). It added, however, an express exception for the categorically needy. Ibid. Opposition to the Conference proposal was voiced in both the House and the Senate. The 133 Vs% AFDC payment standard nevertheless was approved by Congress and enacted into law as § 1903(f) of the Social Security Act. See 81 Stat. 898, as amended, 42 U. S. C. §1396b(f).
c
In 1972, Congress replaced three of the four state-administered categorical assistance programs with a new federal program entitled Supplemental Security Income for the Aged, Blind, and Disabled (SSI), 42 U. S. C. § 1381 et seq. (1976 ed. and Supp. IV). The SSI program establishes a federally guaranteed minimum income for the aged, blind, and disabled. See Schweiker v. Wilson, 450 U. S. 221, 223. Under the program, however, the States may (and in some cases must) raise that minimum standard and supplement the benefits provided by the Federal Government. See 42 U. S. C. § 1382e (1976 ed. and Supp. IV). Moreover, if supplemental payments are made to persons who would be eligible for SSI benefits except for the amount of their income, the State also may provide Medicaid benefits to those persons. See 42 U. S. C. § 1396a(a)(10)(C)(ii).
H hH
The Commonwealth of Massachusetts has chosen to participate in the Medicaid program and to provide benefits— to the extent that federal financial assistance is available — to the “medically needy.” The State also has elected to make supplementary payments to individuals who are eligible for SSI benefits or who would be eligible except for their income. Finally, the State has chosen to provide Medicaid benefits to those persons who receive supplemental payments. In Massachusetts, 13373% of the appropriate state AFDC payment amount is less in some cases than the combined federal SSI and state supplementary payment level.
Appellees filed this suit in 1980 in federal court, contending that § 1903(f) of the Act — as applied in Massachusetts — violates the equal protection component of the Fifth Amendment. Each of the appellees is either aged, blind, or disabled, but they are not categorically needy. For each ap-pellee or his spouse was employed at one time and paid “Social Security” taxes. Each appellee (or his spouse) currently receives Social Security benefits (Federal Old-Age, Survivors, and Disability Insurance, 42 U. S. C. §401 et seq. (1976 ed. and Supp. IV)) in an amount that renders him ineligible for either SSI benefits or state supplementary payments. Appellees challenged the fact that, since 13373% of the Massachusetts AFDC payment level is for them lower than the SSI payment level, they are ineligible for Medicaid until their income, after deduction of incurred medical expenses, is less than that of SSI payment recipients. By reason of the Social Security benefits that they receive, appellees thus have less income available for nonmedical expenses than individuals who — possibly because they never worked and receive no Social Security benefits — are dependent upon public assistance for support.
The District Court granted appellees’ motion for partial summary judgment. It ruled that the Massachusetts Medicaid program was unconstitutional insofar as it forced Social Security recipients to incur medical expenses that reduced their remaining income to an amount below SSI payment levels. The court later declared explicitly that § 1903(f) of the Act, 42 U. S. C. § 1396b(f), is unconstitutional as applied in Massachusetts. App. to Juris. Statement 25a. We noted probable jurisdiction. 454 U. S. 891.
III
In this Court, for the first time, appellees contend that the Social Security Act itself compels the conclusion that, if Medicaid services are provided to the “medically needy,” those persons may not be forced to incur medical expenses that would reduce their remaining income below the applicable public assistance standard. Although appellees did not advance this argument in the District Court, they are not precluded from asserting it as a basis on which to affirm that court’s judgment. “Where a party raises both statutory and constitutional arguments in support of a judgment, ordinarily we first address the statutory argument in order to avoid unnecessary resolution of the constitutional issue.” Blum v. Bacon, ante, at 137. See Harris v. McRae, 448 U. S., at 306-307.
Appellees contend that a “fundamental Congressional purpose in the creation of the medically needy feature of Title XIX was to achieve equity between public assistance recipients and others similarly situated.” Brief for Appellees 12. In support of this contention, appellees cite the requirement first imposed in 1965 that States “include reasonable standards (which shall be comparable for all groups) for determining eligibility for and the extent of medical assistance under the plan...,” 79 Stat. 346 (emphasis added), as amended, 42 U. S. C. § 1396a(a)(17), and note the statements in the legislative history that a State could not require an individual to use, for medical expenses, income “which would bring the individual below the test of eligibility under the State plan.” See n. 7, supra.
Moreover, appellees contend that this “comparability requirement” was not changed by the enactment of § 1903(f) in 1968. Appellees argue that the separate bills passed in both the House and the Senate would have affected both the categorically and the medically needy. Only when the Conference Committee accepted the House provision and added an exception for the categorically needy, appellees argue, did the 1968 modification potentially change the comparability requirement between the two groups. Appellees assert that such a change was not intended; rather, they argue that the exception for the categorically needy was added only to ensure that they would not be adversely affected by § 1908(f). Appellees assert that the medically needy were not similarly excepted from the 13373% rule in those States in which that figure was less than the applicable standard of need because, in 1967, those States did not have medically needy programs.
Thus, appellees urge that we construe § 1903(f) to require the medically needy to incur medical expenses until their income is 133V3% of the AFDC payment amount or — to maintain comparability — 100% of the combined SSI-state supplementary payment level if that figure is higher. Appellees argue that the legislative history of the 1965 and 1967 Amendments to the Social Security Act justifies a departure from the literal language of § 1903(f) and the Secretary’s interpretation of that provision.
We cannot agree. Congress explicitly stated in § 1903(f) that federal reimbursement for benefits provided to the medically needy was available only if the income of those persons, after the deduction of incurred medical expenses, was less than 13373% of the state AFDC payment level. In specifically excepting the categorically needy from this rule, Congress recognized that this amount could be lower than categorical assistance eligibility levels. There is no basis in either the statute or the legislative history for appellees’ argument that Congress implicitly “assumed” that those States in which 13373% of the AFDC payment level was less than the applicable standard of need simply would not provide assistance to the medically needy. Even if this were true in 1967, the Medicaid program then was less than two years old; Congress was aware that many States were in the process of adopting Medicaid programs. To assume that Congress was unaware that § 1903(f) — which applied only to the medically needy — could operate in those States — which Congress knew existed — in which 13373% of the AFDC payment amount was less than the applicable standard of need is to demean the intelligence of the Congress. We are not prepared to interpret a statute on the basis of an unsupported assumption that Congress had little idea of what it was doing.
The literal and clear language of § 1903(f) does not conflict with any other provision of the Act. In both § 1902(a)(10) and §1902(a)(17), see 79 Stat. 345-346, Congress required comparability among the various “categories” for which federal assistance was available, but these provisions did not require that the medically needy be treated comparably to the categorically needy in all respects. See n. 6, supra. Indeed, such a broad comparability requirement would be inconsistent with the fact that Congress provided in 1965 that the medically needy could be excluded entirely from the Medicaid program. Moreover, § 1903(f) is not inconsistent with the congressional intent, see n. 7, supra, that medical expenses be considered in determining, where appropriate, an individual’s eligibility for Medicaid. In § 1903(f) Congress determined that federal assistance would not be available for payments made to individuals whose income, after deduction of incurred medical expenses, was greater than 13373% of applicable state AFDC payments. Congress determined that, so long as an individual retained that level of income to meet basic needs, he need not receive reimbursement for medical expenses. That income level might appear unreasonably low, but it is the level that Congress chose. We find no inconsistency between § 1903(f) and § 1902(a)(17).
In sum, we see no reason to ignore the literal language of § 1903(f). Moreover, this analysis is consistent with the Secretary’s interpretation of that statutory provision. “We have often noted that the interpretation of an agency charged with the administration of a statute is entitled to substantial deference.” Blum v. Bacon, ante, at 141. We hold that the discrimination challenged in this case is required by the Social Security Act.
IV
Appellees also contend — and the District Court held — that § 1903(f), as applied in Massachusetts, irrationally discriminates between the categorically and the medically needy. The unfairness of the statute stems from the fact that appel-lees receive less medical assistance, and have less income remaining for their nonmedical needs, than do SSI recipients. The unfairness is accentuated by the fact that the disfavored class consists largely of persons who worked and paid taxes to provide for their retirement while the favored class includes persons who may never have done so. Powerful equities unquestionably support the appellees’ claim of unfair treatment.
A belief that an Act of Congress may be inequitable or unwise is of course an insufficient basis on which to conclude that it is unconstitutional. Moreover, the validity of a broad legislative classification is not properly judged by focusing solely on the portion of the disfavored class that is affected most harshly by its terms. Califano v. Jobst, 434 U. S. 47. In this case, Congress has differentiated between the categorically needy — a class of aged, blind, disabled, or dependent persons who have very little income — and other persons with similar characteristics who are self-supporting. Members of the former class are automatically entitled to Medicaid; members of the latter class are not eligible unless a State elects to provide benefits to the medically needy and unless their income, after consideration of medical expenses, is below state standards of eligibility.
According to the congressional scheme, then, the medically needy may be excluded entirely from the Medicaid program. Before considering the constitutional constraints that may exist if a State chooses to provide benefits to that class, it is appropriate to confront the more basic question whether the optional character of the program for the medically needy is itself constitutionally permissible.
In establishing public assistance programs, Congress often has determined that the Federal Government cannot finance a program that provides meaningful benefits in equal measure to everyone. Both federal and state funds available for such assistance are limited. In structuring the Medicaid program, Congress chose to direct those limited funds to persons who were most impoverished and who — because of their physical characteristics — were often least able to overcome the effects of poverty. The legislative history of the 1965 Amendments makes clear that this group was not chosen for administrative convenience. “These people are the most needy in the country and it is appropriate for medical care costs to be met, first, for these people.” A decision to allocate medical assistance benefits only to the poor does not itself violate constitutional principles of equality; in terms of their ability to provide for essential medical services, the wealthy and the poor are not similarly situated and need not be treated the same. It is rational to distribute public assistance benefits on the basis of the income and resources available to potential recipients.
In choosing to require coverage only for the categorically needy, Congress permitted States to exclude from the program many persons who — by reason of large medical expenses — often were just as much in need of medical assistance as the categorically needy. Yet Congress found these persons “less needy.” 1965 House Report, at 66. By reason of the greater income available to them, as a class these persons generally are better able to provide for their medical needs. In the legislative history of the 1967 Amendments, see supra, at 577-580, and n. 14, Congress noted that these persons often are able to prepare for future medical expenses through private insurance or through participation in the Medicare program.
In Fullington v. Shea, 404 U. S. 963, this Court affirmed a decision of a three-judge District Court holding that it was constitutional for the State of Colorado to provide benefits to the categorically needy but not to the medically needy. We decided Fullington summarily. It is clear that a decision to allocate scarce assistance benefits on the basis of an assumption that persons with greater incomes generally are better able to prepare for future medical needs is not inconsistent with constitutional principles of equal treatment. In other words, it is rational to define need on the basis of income, even though some persons with greater income — who have been unable or unwilling to save enough of their earnings to prepare for future medical needs — may actually be in greater need of assistance than those with less gross income. Although some “medically needy” persons have less income available for nonmedical expenses than those who receive categorical assistance, the broad legislative classification does not involve the type of arbitrariness that is constitutionally offensive.
Appellees do not challenge the decision in Fullington. They do not contend that it is irrational to deny benefits entirely to the medically needy. Thus, they do not challenge the line drawn by Congress to separate the class that receives favored treatment from the class that does not. Ap-pellees attack only the manner in which one of the separate classes is affected by the program. They argue that if medical benefits are made available to a class of persons who are not categorically needy, it is constitutionally impermissible to deny them benefits if their income, after the deduction of incurred medical expenses, is lower than that of an individual who receives public assistance.
In view of the unchallenged decision in Fullington, appel-lees’ constitutional argument is self-defeating. The injury that they regard as inconsistent with constitutional principles of equal treatment could be avoided by denying them all Medicaid benefits, thus placing them in a worse position financially than they are in now. No interest in “equality” could be furthered by such a result. If a State may deny all benefits to the medically needy — while providing benefits to the categorically needy and rendering some persons who are on public assistance better off than others who are not — a State surely may narrow the gap between the two classes by providing partial benefits to the medically needy, even though certain members of that class may remain in a position less fortunate than those on public assistance.
The validity of the distinction between the categorically needy and the medically needy is not undermined by § 1903(f), because the impact of that provision falls entirely on persons who are not within the categorically needy class. See n. 30, supra. The function of the 13373% AFDC payment rule is to place a limit on the availability of reimbursement for potential members of the “medically needy” class. That rule prevents some persons (although not the appellees) from qualifying as medically needy; it also determines the extent to which the medically needy are reimbursed for their medical expenses. Yet appellees do not challenge the fact that, among persons who do not receive public assistance, some are treated differently from others. In other words, they do not complain of any discrimination within the class (all persons who are not categorically needy) in which the rule performs its entire function. Nor do they argue that Congress chose an eligibility level that is unrelated to ability to provide for medical needs.
The fact that Massachusetts, unlike the State of Colorado in Fullington, has provided Medicaid benefits to the medically needy — and in doing so has defined eligibility for persons who are not categorically needy on the basis of incurred medical expenses — does not force it to make immediate medical need the sole standard in its entire Medicaid program. Massachusetts in essence has determined that those individuals whose gross income is greater than public assistance levels are ineligible for Medicaid, unless medical expenses in any computation period reduce available income to ISSfflo of the state AFDC payment level. By adding the qualifying clause, which the State of Colorado did not, Massachusetts did not offend any constitutional interest in equality. Accordingly, without endorsing the wisdom of the particular standard that Congress selected — a matter that is not for us to consider — we conclude that it violates no constitutional command. The judgment of the District Court is reversed. The case is remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
But see n. 18, infra.
These programs were entitled: Old Age Assistance (OAA), 42 U. S. C. § 301 et seq. (1970 ed.); Aid to the Blind, § 1201 et seq.; Aid to the Permanently and Totally Disabled, § 1351 et seq.; and Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC), § 601 et seq. See also 42 U. S. C. §§ 1381-1385 (1970 ed.). These programs are of course fundamentally different from Old Age, Survivors, and Disability Insurance (OASDI or Social Security), 42 U. S. C. §401 et seq.
In many States, the “level of benefits” did not raise an individual’s income to the “standard of need.” The standard of need determined eligibility for some benefits; often the benefits provided, however, were merely a fraction of the difference between the individual’s income and the defined standard of need. See Jefferson v. Hackney. The standards of need also typically varied from program to program.
H. R. Rep. No. 213, 89th Cong., 1st Sess., 66 (1965) (1965 House Report).
Ibid. See also S. Rep. No. 404, 89th Cong., 1st Sess., pt. 1, p. 77 (1965) (1965 Senate Report).
The 1965 Act contained certain requirements governing the comparative treatment of different beneficiaries under the Act. It provided that the medical assistance afforded to an individual who qualified under any categorical assistance program could not be different from that afforded to an individual who qualified under any other program. 79 Stat. 345, as amended, 42 U. S. C. § 1396a(a)(10)(B)(i). In other words, the amount, duration, and scope of medical assistance provided to an individual who qualified to receive assistance for the aged could not be different from the amount, duration, and scope of benefits provided to an individual who qualified to receive assistance for the blind. “This will assure comparable treatment for all of the needy under the federally aided categories of assistance and will eliminate some of the unevenness which has been apparent in the treatment of the medical needs of various groups of the needy.” 1965 House Report, at 66. See also 1965 Senate Report, at 77.
A similar “comparability” requirement among the aged, blind, disabled, and dependent applied to the optional distribution of benefits to the “medically needy.” If a State elected to provide benefits to one group, it was obligated to provide benefits to the others, and “the determination of financial eligibility must be on a basis that is comparable as among the people who, except for their income and resources, would be recipients of money for maintenance under the other public assistance programs.” 1965 House Report, at 67; see also 1965 Senate Report, at 77. 79 Stat. 345, as amended, 42 U. S. C. § 1396a(a)(10)(C)(i). In addition, the benefits provided to each categorical group of the medically needy were required to be equal in amount, duration, and scope. 79 Stat. 345, as amended, 42 U. S. C. § 1396a(a)(10)(C)(ii).
In its provision for “comparability among the various categorical groups of needy people,” 1965 House Report, at 67, the Act required comparability in the criteria used to determine eligibility for each group. 79 Stat. 346, as amended, 42 U. S. C. § 1396a(a)(17). See also 1965 House Report, at 67; 1965 Senate Report, at 77 (“Although States may set a limitation on income and resources which individuals may hold and be eligible for aid, they must do so by maintaining a comparability among the various categorical groups of needy people”). Finally, the Act provided that the assistance provided to the “medically needy” could not be greater in amount, duration, or scope than the assistance provided to the “categorically needy.” 79 Stat. 345, as amended, 42 U. S. C. § 1396a(a)(10)(B)(ii). “This was included in order to make sure that the most needy in a State receive no less comprehensive care than those who are not as needy.” 1965 House Report, at 67; see also 1965 Senate Report, at 77.
In its discussion of this portion of the statute, the 1965 House Report, at 68, explains:
“The bill also contains a provision designed to correct one of the weaknesses identified in the medical assistance for the aged program. Under the current provisions of Federal law, some States have enacted programs which contain a cutoff point on income which determines the financial eligibility of the individual. Thus, an individual with an income just under the specified limit may qualify for all of the aid provided under the State plan. Individuals, however, whose income exceeds the limitation adopted by the State are found ineligible for the medical assistance provided under the State plan even though the excess of the individual’s income may be small when compared with the cost of the medical care needed. In order that all States shall be flexible in the consideration of an individual’s income, your committee bill requires that the States standards for determining eligibility for and the extent of medical assistance shall take into account, except to the extent prescribed by the Secretary, the cost — whether in the form of insurance premiums or otherwise — incurred for medical care or any other type of remedial care recognized under State law. Thus, before an individual is found ineligible for all or part of the cost of his medical needs, the State must be sure that the income of the individual has been measured in terms of both the State’s allowance for basic maintenance needs and the cost of the medical care he requires.”
See also 1965 Senate Report, at 78-79. To this extent, the House Report mirrors the statutory language. In further describing this provision, however, the 1965 House Report, at 68, immediately continues:
“The State may require the use of all the excess income of the individual toward his medical expenses, or some proportion of that amount. In no event, however, with respect to either this provision or that described below with reference to the use of deductibles for certain items of medical service, may a State require the use of income or resources which would bring the individual below the test of eligibility under the State plan. If the test of eligibility should be $2,000 a year, an individual with income in excess of that amount shall not be required to use his income to the extent he has remaining less than $2,000. This action would reduce the individual below the level determined by the State as necessary for his maintenance.” See also 1965 Senate Report, at 79. This additional comment has no direct foundation in the statutory language of § 1902(a)(17). See 42 U. S. C. § 1396a(a)(17).
See H. R. Rep. No. 544, 90th Cong., 1st Sess., 117 (1967) (1967 House Report).
This provision, of course, would have had no effect on the “categorically needy,” since their income was necessarily less than 150% of the highest categorical assistance standard of need.
President’s Proposals for Revision in the Social Security System: Hearings on H. R. 5710 before the House Committee on Ways and Means, 90th Cong., 1st Sess., 118 (1967). In January 1965, there were 21 States that paid less than 75% of the standard of need established for a family of four under the State’s AFDC program. Id., at 119.
The proposed bill also provided another limit on federal participation. It included a provision that set “a figure of 133V;! percent of the average per capita income of a State as the upper limit on Federal sharing when applied to a family of four under the title XIX program.” 1967 House Report, at 119. It is noteworthy that these proposals were not an insignificant part of what was — admittedly—a complex bill. In setting forth at the outset the “principal purposes of the bill,” the House Report provides:
“Fifth, to modify the program of medical assistance to establish certain limits on Federal participation in the program and to add flexibility in administration, the bill would—
“(a) Impose a limitation on Federal matching at an income level related to payments for families receiving aid to families with dependent children or to the per capita-income of the State, if lower.”' Id., at 5.
If the House bill applied to both the categorically needy and the medically needy, it could have resulted in the denial of Medicaid benefits to certain categorically needy individuals who — although eligible for assistance under the State’s standard of need — had an income that was higher than 133 V8% of the amount the State actually paid to a qualifying individual with no income. The House bill did not, however, alter § 1902(a)(10) of the Act, 42 U. S. C. § 1396a(a)(10), which required participating States to provide Medicaid benefits to all of the categorically needy.
See 113 Cong. Rec. 23065 (1967) (remarks of Rep. King); id., at 23077 (remarks of Rep. Burke); id., at 23082 (remarks of Rep. Vanik); id., at 23084 (remarks
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | B | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Mr. Chief Justice Burger
delivered the opinion of the Court.
These appeals present the- question of whether Congress may, consistent with the Constitution, impose a limitation on liability for nuclear accidents resulting from the operation of private nuclear power plants licensed by the Federal Government.
I
A
When Congress passed the Atomic Energy Act of 1946, it contemplated that the development of nuclear power would be a Government monopoly. See Act of Aug. 1, 1946, ch. 724, 60 Stat. 755. Within a decade, however, Congress concluded that the national interest would be best served if the Government encouraged the private sector to become involved in the development of atomic energy for peaceful purposes under a program of federal regulation and licensing. See H. R. Rep. No. 2181, 83d Cong., 2d Sess., 1-11 (1954). The Atomic Energy Act of 1954, Act of Aug. 30, 1954, ch. 1073, 68 Stat. 919, as amended, 42 U. S. C. §§ 2011-2281 (1970 ed. and Supp. V), implemented this policy decision, providing for licensing of private construction, ownership, and operation of commercial nuclear power reactors for energy production under strict supervision by the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC). See Power Reactor Development Co. v. Electrical Workers, 367 U. S. 396 (1961), rev’g and remanding 108 U. S. App. D. C. 97, 280 P. 2d 645 (I960).
Private industry responded to the Atomic Energy Act of 1954 with the development of an experimental power plant constructed under the auspices of a consortium of interested companies. It soon became apparent that profits from the private exploitation of atomic energy were uncertain and the accompanying risks substantial. See Green, Nuclear Power: Risk, Liability, and Indemnity, 71 Mich. L. Rev. 479-481 (1973) (Green). Although the AEC offered incentives to encourage investment, there remained in the path of the private nuclear power industry various problems — the risk of potentially vast liability in the event of a nuclear accident of a sizable magnitude being the major obstacle. Notwithstanding comprehensive testing and study, the uniqueness of this form of energy production made it impossible totally to rule out the risk of a major nuclear accident resulting in extensive damage. Private industry and the AEC were confident that such a disaster would not occur, but the very uniqueness of nuclear power meant that the possibility remained, and the potential liability dwarfed the ability of the industry and private insurance companies to absorb the risk. See Hearings before the Joint Committee on Atomic Energy on Government Indemnity for Private Licensees and AEC Contractors Against Reactor Hazards, 84th Cong., 2d Sess., 122-124 (1956). Thus, while repeatedly stressing that the risk of a major nuclear accident was extremely remote, spokesmen for the private sector informed Congress that they would be forced to withdraw from the field if their liability were not limited by appropriate legislation. Id., at 9, 109-110, 115, 120, 136-137, 148, 181, 195, and 240.
Congress responded in 1957 by passing the Price-Anderson Act, 71 Stat. 576, 42 U. S. C. § 2210 (1970 ed. and Supp. V). The Act had the dual purpose of “protect [ing] the public and... encouraging] the development of the atomic energy industry.” 42 U. S. C. § 2012 (i). In its original form, the Act limited the aggregate liability for a single nuclear incident to $500 million plus the amount of liability insurance available on the private market — some $60 million in 1957. The nuclear industry was required to purchase the maximum available amount of privately underwritten public liability insurance, and the Act provided that if damages from a nuclear disaster exceeded the amount of that private insurance coverage, the Federal Government would indemnify the licensee and other “persons indemnified” in an amount not to exceed $500 million. Thus, the actual ceiling on liability was the amount of private insurance coverage plus the Government’s indemnification obligation which totaled $560 million.
Since its enactment, the Act has been twice amended, the first occasion being on the eve of its expiration in I960. These amendments extended the basic liability-limitation provisions for another 10 years, and added a provision which had the effect of requiring those indemnified under the Act to waive all legal defenses in the event of a substantial nuclear accident. This provision was based on a congressional concern that state tort law dealing with liability for nuclear incidents was generally unsettled and that some way of insuring a common standard of responsibility for all jurisdictions — strict liability — was needed. A waiver of defenses was thought to be the preferable approach since it entailed less interference with state tort law than would the enactment of a federal statute prescribing strict liability. See S. Rep. No. 1605, 89th Cong., 2d Sess., 6-10 (1966).
In 1975, Congress again extended the Act’s coverage until 1987, and continued the $560 million limitation on liability. However a new provision was added requiring, in the event of a nuclear incident, each of the 60 or more reactor owners to contribute between $2 and $5 million toward the cost of compensating victims. 42 U. S. C. § 2210 (b) (1970 ed., Supp. V). Since the liability ceiling remained at the same level, the effect of the “deferred premium” provision was to reduce the Federal Government’s contribution to the liability pool. In its amendments to the Act in 1975, Congress also explicitly provided that “in the event of a nuclear incident involving damages in excess of [the] amount of aggregate liability, the Congress will thoroughly review the particular incident and will take whatever action is deemed necessary and appropriate to protect the public from the consequences of a disaster of such magnitude... 42 U. S. C. § 2210 (e) (1970 ed., Supp. Y).
Under the Price-Anderson Act as it presently stands, liability in the event of a nuclear incident causing damages of $560 million or more would be spread as follows: $315 million would be paid from contributions by the licensees of the 63 private operating nuclear power plants; $140 million would come from private insurance (the maximum now available); the remainder of $105 million would be borne by the Federal Government.
B
Appellant in No. 77-262, Duke Power Co., is an investor-owned public utility which is constructing one nuclear power plant in North Carolina and one in South Carolina. Duke Power, along with the NRC, was sued by appellees, two organizations — Carolina Environmental Study Group and the Catawba Central Labor Union — and 40 individuals who live within close proximity to the planned facilities. The action was commenced in 1973, and sought, among other relief, a declaration that the Price-Anderson Act is unconstitutional.
After the parties had engaged in extensive discovery, the District Court held an evidentiary hearing on the questions of whether the issues were ripe for adjudication and whether appellees had standing to challenge the constitutionality of the Act. That court determined that appellees had standing and that their claim could properly be adjudicated. The District Court went on to hold that the Price-Anderson Act was unconstitutional in two respects: (a) it violated the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment because it allowed injuries to occur without assuring adequate compensation to the victims; (b) the Act offended the equal protection component of the Fifth Amendment by forcing the victims of nuclear incidents to bear the burden of injury, whereas society as a whole benefits from the existence and development of nuclear power.
We noted probable jurisdiction in these appeals, 434 U. S. 937 (1977), and we now reverse.
II
As a threshold matter, we must address the question of whether the District Court had subject-matter jurisdiction over appellees’ claims, despite the fact that none of the parties raised this issue and the District Court did not consider it. See Liberty Mutual Ins. Co. v. Wetzel, 424 U. S. 737, 740 (1976). Appellees’ complaint alleges jurisdiction under 28 U. S. C. § 1337 (1976 ed.), which provides for original jurisdiction in the district courts over “any civil action or proceeding arising under any Act of Congress regulating commerce or protecting trade and commerce against restraints and monopolies.” Our reading of the pleadings, however, indicates that appellees’ claims do not “arise under” the Price-Anderson Act as that statutory language has been interpreted in prior decisions. See Peyton v. Railway Express Agency, 316 U. S. 350, 353 (1942).
Specifically, as we read the complaint, appellees are making two basic challenges to the Act — both of which find their moorings in the Fifth Amendment. First, appellees contend that the Due Process Clause protects them against arbitrary governmental action adversely affecting their property rights and that the Price-Anderson Act — -which both creates the source of the underlying injury and limits the recovery therefor — constitutes such arbitrary action. And second, they are contending that in the event of a nuclear accident their property would be “taken” without any assurance of just compensation.. The Price-Anderson Act is the instrument of the taking since on this record, without it, there would be no power plants and no possibility of an accident. Implicit in the complaint is also the assumption that there exists a cause of action directly under the Constitution to vindicate appellees’ federal rights through a suit against the NRC, the executive agency charged with enforcement and administration of the allegedly unconstitutional statute. Appellees’ right to relief thus depends not on the interpretation or construction of the Price-Anderson Act itself, but instead “upon the construction or application of the Constitution,” Smith v. Kansas City Title & Trust Co., 255 U. S. 180, 199 (1921). Hence, if there exists jurisdiction to hear appellees' claims at all, it must be derived from 28 U. S. C. § 1331 (a) (1976 ed.), the general federal-question statute, rather than from § 1337 — the jurisdictional base pleaded.
For purposes of determining whether jurisdiction exists under § 1331 (a) to resolve appellees’ claims, it is not necessary to decide whether appellees’ alleged cause of action against the NRC based directly on the Constitution is in fact a cause of action “on which [appellees] could actually recover.” Bell v. Hood, 327 U. S. 678, 682 (1946). Instead, the test is whether “ ‘the cause of action alleged is so patently without merit as to justify... the court’s dismissal for want of jurisdiction.’ ” Hagans v. Lavine, 415 U. S. 528, 542-543 (1974), quoting Bell v. Hood, supra, at 683. (Emphasis added.) See also Oneida Indian Nation v. County of Oneida, 414 U. S. 661, 666 (1974) (test is whether right claimed is “so insubstantial, implausible, foreclosed by prior decisions of this Court, or otherwise completely devoid of merit as not to involve a federal controversy”)- In light of prior decisions, for example, Bivens v. Six Unknown Fed. Narcotics Agents, 403 U. S. 388 (1971) and Hagans v. Lavine, supra, as well as the general admonition that “where federally protected rights have been invaded... courts will be alert to adjust their remedies so as to grant the necessary relief,” Bell v. Hood, supra, at 684, we conclude that appellees’ allegations are sufficient to sustain jurisdiction under § 1331 (a).
The further question of whether appellees’ cause of action under the Constitution is one generally to be recognized need not be decided here. The question does not directly implicate our jurisdiction, see Bell v. Hood, supra, was not raised in the court below, was not briefed, and was not addressed during oral argument. As we noted last Term in a similar context, questions of this sort should not be resolved on such an inadequate record; leaving them unresolved is no bar to full consideration of the merits. See Mt. Healthy City Bd. of Educ. v. Doyle, 429 U. S. 274, 278-279 (1977). It is enough for present purposes that the claimed cause of action to vindicate appel-lees’ constitutional rights is sufficiently substantial and color-able to sustain jurisdiction under § 1331 (a).
Ill
The District Judge held four days of hearings on the questions of standing and ripeness; his factual findings form the basis for our analysis of these issues.
A
The essence of the standing inquiry is whether the parties seeking to invoke the court’s jurisdiction have “alleged such a personal stake in the outcome of the controversy as to assure that concrete adverseness which sharpens the presentation of issues upon which the court so largely depends for illumination of difficult constitutional questions.” Baker v. Carr, 369 U. S. 186, 204 (1962). As refined by subsequent reformulation, this requirement of a “personal stake” has come to be understood to require not only a “distinct and palpable injury,” to the plaintiff, Warth v. Seldin, 422 U. S. 490, 501 (1975), but also a “fairly traceable” causal connection between the claimed injury and the challenged conduct. Arlington Heights v. Metropolitan Housing Dev. Corp., 429 U. S. 252, 261 (1977). See also Simon v. Eastern Ky. Welfare Rights Org., 426 U. S. 26, 41-42 (1976); Linda R. S. v. Richard D., 410 U. S. 614, 617 (1973). Application of these constitutional standards to the factual findings of the District Court persuades us that the Art. Ill requisites for standing are satisfied by appellees.
We turn first to consider the kinds of injuries the District Court found the appellees suffered. It discerned two categories of effects which resulted from the operation of nuclear power plants in potentially dangerous proximity to appellees’ living and working environment. The immediate effects included: (a) the production of small quantities of non-natural radiation which would invade the air and water; (b) a “sharp increase” in the temperature of two lakes presently used for recreational purposes resulting from the use of the lake waters to produce steam and to cool the reactor; (c) interference with the normal use of the waters of the Catawba River; (d) threatened reduction in property values of land neighboring the power plants; (e) “objectively reasonable” present fear and apprehension regarding the “effect of the increased radioactivity in air, land and water upon [appellees] and their property, and the genetic effects upon their descendants”; and (f) the continual threat of “an accident resulting in uncontrolled release of large or even small quantities of radioactive material” with no assurance of adequate compensation for the resultant damage. 431 F. Supp. 203, 209. Into a second category of potential effects were placed the damages “which may result from a core melt or other major accident in the operation of a reactor....” Id., at 209.
For purposes of the present inquiry, we need not determine whether all the putative injuries identified by the District Court, particularly those based on the possibility of a nuclear accident and the present apprehension generated by this future uncertainty, are sufficiently concrete to satisfy constitutional requirements. Compare O’Shea v. Littleton, 414 U. S. 488 (1974), with United States v. SCRAP, 412 U. S. 669 (1973). See also Conservation Society of Southern Vermont v. AEC, Civ. Action No. 19-72 (DC Apr. 17, 1975). It is enough that several of the “immediate” adverse effects were found to harm appellees. Certainly the environmental and aesthetic consequences of the thermal pollution of the two lakes in the vicinity of the disputed power plants is the type of harmful effect which has been deemed adequate in prior cases to satisfy the "injury in fact” standard. See United States v. SCRAP, supra. Cf. Sierra Club v. Morton, 405 U. S. 727, 734 (1972), And the emission of non-natural radiation into appellees’ environment would also seem a direct and present injury, given our generalized concern about exposure to radiation and the apprehension flowing from the uncertainty about the health and genetic consequences of even small emissions like those concededly emitted by nuclear power plants.
The more difficult step in the standing inquiry is establishing that these injuries “fairly can be traced to the challenged action of the defendant,” Simon v. Eastern Ky. Welfare Rights Org., supra, at 41, or put otherwise, that the exercise of the Court’s remedial powers would redress the claimed injuries. 426 U. S., at 43. The District Court discerned a “but for” causal connection between the Price-Anderson Act, which appellees challenged as unconstitutional, “and the construction of the nuclear plants which the [appellees] view as a threat to them.” 431 F. Supp., at 219. Particularizing that causal link to the facts of the instant case, the District Court concluded that “there is a substantial likelihood that Duke would not be able to complete the construction and maintain the operation of the McGuire and Catawba Nuclear Plants but for the protection provided by the Price-Anderson Act.” Id., at 220.
These findings, which, if accepted, would likely satisfy the second prong of the constitutional test for standing as elaborated in Simon, are challenged on two grounds. First, it is argued that the evidence presented at the hearing, contrary to the conclusion reached by the District Court, indicated that the McGuire and Catawba nuclear plants would be completed and operated without the Price-Anderson Act’s limitation on liability. And second, it is contended that the Price-Anderson Act is not, in some essential sense, the “but for” cause of the disputed nuclear power plants and resultant adverse effects since if the Act had not been passed Congress may well have chosen to pursue the nuclear program as a Government monopoly as it had from 1946 until 1954. We reject both of these arguments.
The District Court’s finding of a “substantial likelihood” that the McGuire and Catawba nuclear plants would be neither completed nor operated absent the Price-Anderson Act rested in major part on the testimony of corporate officials before the Joint Committee on Atomic Energy (JCAE) in 1956-1957 when the Price-Anderson Act was first considered and again in 1975 when a second renewal was discussed. During the 1956-1957 hearings, industry spokesmen for the utilities and the producers of the various component parts of the power plants expressed a categorical unwillingness to participate in the development of nuclear power absent guarantees of a limitation on their liability. 431 F. Supp., at 215. See also Green 486, 490-491. By 1975, the tenor of the testimony had changed only slightly. While large utilities and producers were somewhat more equivocal about whether a failure to renew Price-Anderson would entail their leaving the industry, the smaller producers of component parts and architects and engineers — all of whom are essential to the building of the reactors and generating plants — considered renewal of the Act as the critical variable in determining their continued involvement with nuclear power. 431 F. Supp., at 216-217. Duke Power itself, in its letter to the Committee urging extension of the Act, cited recent experiences with suppliers and contractors who were requiring the inclusion of cancellation clauses in their contracts to take effect if the liability-limitation provisions were eliminated. Id,., at 217. And the Report of the JCAE, in discussing the need for renewal of the Act, stated:
“Nuclear power plants now in the planning and design phases would not receive construction permits until about 1977-1978. Thus there is uncertainty as to whether these plants would receive protection in the form of Government indemnity. Reactor manufacturers and architect-engineers are already requiring escape clauses in their contracts to permit cancellation in the event some form of protection from unlimited potential liability is not provided. Action is required soon to prevent disruption in utility plans for nuclear power.” H. R. Rep. No. 94^-648, p. 7 (1975).
Nor was the testimony at the hearing in this case, evaluation of which is the primary responsibility of the trial judge, at odds with the impression drawn from the legislative history. The testimony of Executive Vice President Lee of Duke Power simply echoed the views presented by Duke and others to Congress in 1975, that is, although some of the utilities themselves might be confident enough with respect to safety factors to proceed with nuclear power absent a liability limitation, the suppliers of critical parts and the utility shareholders could reasonably be expected to take a more cautious view. Appellees presented expert testimony essentially to the same effect. Considering the documentary evidence and the testimony in the record, we cannot say we are left with “the definite and firm conviction that” the finding by the trial court of a substantial likelihood that the McGuire and Catawba nuclear power plants would be neither completed nor operated absent the Price-Anderson Act is clearly erroneous; and, hence, we are bound to accept it. United States v. United States Gypsum Co., 333 U. S. 364, 395 (1948).
The second attack on the District Court’s finding of a causal link warrants only brief attention. Essentially the argument is, as we understand it, that Price-Anderson is not a “but for” cause of the injuries appellees claim since, if Price-Anderson had not been passed, the Government would have undertaken development of nuclear power on its own and the same injuries would likely have accrued to appellees from such Government-operated plants as from privately operated ones. Whatever the ultimate accuracy of this speculation, it is not responsive to the simple proposition that private power companies now do in fact operate the nuclear-powered generating plants injuring appellees, and that their participation would not have occurred but for the enactment and implementation of the Prices Anderson Act.. Nothing in our prior cases requires a party seeking to invoke federal jurisdiction to negate the kind of speculative and hypothetical possibilities suggested in order to demonstrate the likely effectiveness of judicial relief.
B
It is further contended that in addition to proof of injury and of a causal link between such injury and the challenged conduct, appellees must demonstrate a connection between the injuries they claim and the constitutional rights being asserted. This nexus requirement is said to find its origin in Flast v. Cohen, 392 U. S. 83 (1968), where the general question of taxpayer standing was considered:
“The nexus demanded of federal taxpayers has two aspects to it. First, the taxpayer must establish a logical link between that status and the type of legislative enactment attacked.... Secondly, the taxpayer must establish a nexus between that status and the precise nature of the constitutional infringement alleged.” Id., at 102.
See also United States v. Richardson, 418 U. S. 166, 174 — 175 (1974). Since the environmental and health injuries claimed by appellees are not directly related to the constitutional attack on the Price-Anderson Act, such injuries, the argument continues, cannot supply a predicate for standing. We decline to accept this argument.
The major difficulty with the argument is that it implicitly assumes that the nexus requirement formulated in the context of taxpayer suits has general applicability in suits of all other types brought in the federal courts. No cases have been cited outside the context of taxpayer suits where we have demanded this type of subject-matter nexus between the right asserted and the injury alleged, and we are aware of none. Instead, in Schlesinger v. Reservists Comm, to Stop the War, 418 U. S. 208, 225 n. 15 (1974), we explicitly rejected such a broad compass for the Flast nexus requirement:
“Looking To the substantive issues' which Flast stated to be both ‘appropriate and necessary' in relation to taxpayer standing was for the express purpose of determining ‘whether there is a logical nexus between the [taxpayer] status asserted and the claim sought to be adjudicated.' 392 U. S., at 102. This step is not appropriate on a claim of citizen standing since the Flast nexus test is not applicable where the taxing and spending power is not challenged....''
We continue to be of the same view and cannot accept the contention that, outside the context of taxpayers’ suits, a litigant must demonstrate something more than injury in fact and a substantial likelihood that the judicial relief requested will prevent or redress the claimed injury to satisfy the “case or controversy” requirement of Art. III.
Our prior cases have, however, acknowledged “other limits on the class of persons who may invoke the courts’ decisional and remedial powers,” Warth v. Seldin, 422 U. S., at 499, which' derive from general prudential concerns “about the proper — and properly limited' — role of the courts in a democratic society.” Id., at 498. See also Schlesinger v. Reservists Comm. to Stop the War, supra, at 221-227. Thus, we have declined to grant standing where the harm asserted amounts only to a generalized grievance shared by a large number of citizens in a substantially equal measure. See United States v. Richardson, supra. We have also narrowly limited the circumstances in which one party will be given standing to assert the legal rights of another. “[E]ven when the plaintiff has alleged injury sufficient to meet the ‘case or controversy’ requirement, this Court has held that the plaintiff generally must assert his own legal rights and interests, and cannot rest his claim to relief on the legal rights or interests of third parties.” Warth v. Seldin, supra, at 499. See also United States v. Raines, 362 U. S. 17 (1960). This limitation on third-party standing arguably suggests a connection between the claimed injury and the right asserted bearing some resemblance to the nexus requirement now urged upon us.
There are good and sufficient reasons for this prudential limitation on standing when rights of third parties are implicated — the avoidance of the adjudication of rights which those not before the Court may not wish to assert, and the assurance that the most effective advocate of the rights at issue is present to champion them. See Singleton v. Wulff, 428 U. S. 106, 113-114 (1976). We do not, however, find these reasons a satisfactory predicate for applying this limitation or a similar nexus requirement to all cases as a matter of course. Where a party champions his own rights, and where the injury alleged is a concrete and particularized one which will be prevented or redressed by the relief requested, the basic practical and prudential concerns underlying the standing doctrine are generally satisfied when the constitutional requisites are met. See, e. g., Arlington Heights v. Metropolitan Housing Dev. Corp., 429 U. S. 252 (1977).
We conclude that appellees have standing to challenge the constitutionality of the Price-Anderson Act.
C
The question of the ripeness of the constitutional challenges raised by appellees need not long detain us. To the extent that “issues of ripeness involve, at least in part, the existence of a live ‘Case or Controversy,’ ” Regional Rail Reorganization Act Cases, 419 U. S., at 138, our conclusion that appellees will sustain immediate injury from the operation of the disputed power plants and that such injury would be redressed by the relief requested would appear to satisfy this requirement.
The prudential considerations embodied in the ripeness doctrine also argue strongly for a prompt resolution oí the claims presented. Although it is true that no nuclear accident has yet occurred and that such an occurrence would eliminate much of the existing scientific uncertainty surrounding this subject, it would not, in our view, significantly advance our ability to deal with the legal issues presented nor aid us in their resolution. However, delayed resolution of these issues would foreclose any relief from the present injury suffered by appellees — relief that would be forthcoming if they were to prevail in their various challenges to the Act. Similarly, delayed resolution would frustrate one of the key purposes of the Price-Anderson Act — the elimination of doubts concerning the scope of private liability in the event of major nuclear accident. In short, all parties would be adversely affected by a decision to defer definitive resolution of the constitutional validity vel non of the Price-Anderson Act. Since we are persuaded that “we will be in no better position later than we are now” to decide this question, Id., at 143-145, we hold that it is presently ripe for adjudication.
IV
The District Court held that the Price-Anderson Act contravened the Due Process Clause because “[t]he amount of recovery is not rationally related to the potential losses”; because “[t]he Act tends to encourage irresponsibility in matters of safety and environmental protection...”; and finally because “[t]here is no quid pro quo” for the liability limitations. 431 F. Supp., at 222-223. An equal protection violation was also found because the Act “places the cost of [nuclear power] on an arbitrarily chosen segment of society, those injured by nuclear catastrophe.” Id., at 225. Application of the relevant constitutional principles forces the conclusion that these holdings of the District Court cannot be sustained.
A
Our due process analysis properly begins with a discussion of the appropriate standard of review. Appellants, portraying the liability-limitation provision as a legislative balancing of economic interests, urge that the Price-Anderson Act be accorded the traditional presumption of constitutionality generally accorded economic regulations and that it be upheld absent proof of arbitrariness or irrationality on the part of Congress. See Ferguson v. Skrupa, 372 U. S. 726, 731-732 (1963); Usery v. Turner Elkhorn Mining Co., 428 U. S. 1, 15 (1976). Appellees, however, urge a more elevated standard of review on the ground that the interests jeopardized by the Price-Anderson Act “are far more important than those in the economic due process and business-oriented cases” where the traditional rationality standard has been invoked. Brief for Appellees 36. An intermediate standard like that applied in cases such as Craig v. Boren, 429 U. S. 190 (1976) (equal protection challenge to statute requiring that males be older than females in order to purchase beer) or United States Trust Co. of New York v. New Jersey, 431 U. S. 1 (1977) (Contract Clause challenge to repeal of statutory covenant providing security for bondholders) is thus recommended for our use here.
As we read the Act and its legislative history, it is clear that Congress’ purpose was to remove the economic impediments in order to stimulate the private development of electric energy by nuclear power while simultaneously providing the public compensation in the event of a catastrophic nuclear incident. See, e. g., S. Rep. No. 296, 85th Cong., 1st Sess., 15 (1957). The liability-limitation provision thus emerges as a classic example of an economic regulation — a legislative effort to structure and accommodate “the burdens and benefits of economic life.” Usery v. Turner Elkhorn Mining Co., supra, at 15. “It is by now well established that [such] legislative Acts... come to the Court with a presumption of constitutionality, and that the burden is on one complaining of a due process violation to establish that the legislature has acted in an arbitrary and irrational way.” Ibid. That the accommodation struck may have profound and far-reaching consequences, contrary to appellees’ suggestion, provides all the more reason for this Court to defer to the congressional judgment unless it is demonstrably arbitrary or irrational.
B
When examined in light of this standard of review, the Price-Anderson Act, in our view, passes constitutional muster. The record before us fully supports the need for the imposition of a statutory limit on liability to encourage private industry participation and hence bears a rational relationship to Congress’ concern for stimulating the involvement of private enterprise in the production of electric energy through the use of atomic power; nor do we understand appellees or the District Court to be of a different view. Rather their challenge is to the alleged arbitrariness of the particular figure of $560 million, which is the statutory ceiling on liability. The District Court aptly summarized its position:
“The amount of recovery is not rationally related to the potential losses. Abundant evidence in the record shows that although major catastrophe in any particular place is not certain and may not be extremely likely, nevertheless, in the territory where these plants are located, damage to life and property for this and future generations could well be many, many times the limit which the law places on liability.” 431 F. Supp., at 222.
Assuming, arguendo, that the $560 million fund would not insure full recovery in all conceivable circumstances — and the hard truth is that no one can ever know — it does not by any means follow that the liability limitation is therefore irrational and violative of due process. The legislative history clearly indicates that the $560 million figure was not arrived at on the supposition that it alone would necessarily be sufficient to guarantee full compensation in the event of a nuclear incident. Instead, it was conceived of as a “starting point” or a working hypothesis. The reasonableness of the statute's assumed ceiling on liability was predicated on two corollary considerations — expert appraisals of the exceedingly small risk of a nuclear incident involving claims in excess of $560 million, and the recognition that in the event of such an incident, Congress would likely enact extraordinary relief provisions to provide additional relief, in accord with prior practice.
“[T]his limitation does not, as a practical matter, detract from the public protection afforded by this legislation. In the first place, the likelihood of an accident occurring which would result in- claims exceeding the sum of the financial protection required and the governmental indemnity is exceedingly remote, albeit theoretically possible. Perhaps more important, in the event of a national disaster of this magnitude, it is obvious that Congress would have to review the problem and take appropriate action. The history of other natural or man-made disasters, such as the Texas City incident, bears this out. The limitation of liability serves primarily as a device for facilitating further congressional review of such a situation, rather than as an ultimate bar to further relief of the public.” H. R. Rep. No. 883, 89th Cong., 1st Sess., 6-7 (1965).
See also S. Rep. No. 296, supra, at 21; H. R. Rep. No. 9-M348, pp. 12, 15 (1975).
Given our conclusion that, in general, limiting liability is an acceptable method for Congress to utilize in encouraging the private development of electric energy by atomic power, candor requires acknowledgment that whatever ceiling figure is selected will, of necessity, be arbitrary in the sense that any choice of a figure based on imponderables like those at issue here can always be so characterized. This is not, however, the kind of arbitrariness which flaws otherwise constitutional action. When appraised in terms of both the extremely remote possibility of an accident where liability would exceed the limitation and Congress’ now statutory commitment to “take whatever action is deemed necessary and appropriate to protect the public from the consequences of” any such disaster, 42 U. S. C. § 2210 (e) (1970 ed., Supp. V), we hold the congressional decision to fix a $560 million ceiling, at this stage in the private development and production of electric energy by
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | H | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Justice O’Connor
delivered the opinion of the Court.
These cases present the question whether conviction for conspiracy to commit money laundering, in violation of 18 Ü. S. C. § 1956(h), requires proof of an overt act in furtherance of the conspiracy. We hold that it does not.
I
In March 1999, a federal grand jury returned a 20-count indictment against petitioners and five codefendants. As relevant here, Count II of the indictment charged petitioners with conspiracy to launder money, in violation of § 1956(h). The indictment described, in general terms, the “manner and means” used to accomplish the objects of the money laundering conspiracy, but it did not charge the defendants with the commission of any overt act in furtherance thereof.
At trial, the Government presented evidence that petitioners were members of the executive board of an entity known as Greater Ministries International Church (GMIC). GMIC operated a “gifting” program that took in more than $400 million between 1996 and 1999. Under that program, petitioners and others induced unwary investors to give money to GMIC with promises that investors would receive double their money back within a year and a half. Petitioners marketed the program throughout the country, claiming that GMIC would generate returns on investors’ “gifts” through overseas investments in gold and diamond mining, commodities, and offshore banks. Investors were told that GMIC would use some of the profits for philanthropic purposes. Most of these claims were false. GMIC made none of the promised investments, had no assets, and gave virtually nothing to charity. Many participants in GMIC’s program received little or no return on their money, and their investments indeed largely turned out to be “gifts” to GMIC representatives. Petitioners together allegedly received more than $1.2 million in commissions on the money they solicited.
At the close of the evidence, petitioners asked the District Court to instruct the jury that the Government was required to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that at least one of the co-conspirators had committed an overt act in furtherance of the money laundering conspiracy. The court denied that request, and the jury returned a verdict of guilty on the money laundering conspiracy charge.
The Eleventh Circuit affirmed petitioners’ convictions, holding, in relevant part, that the jury instructions approved by the District Court were proper because § 1956(h) does not require proof of an overt act. 349 F. 3d 1320, 1324 (2003). The Court of Appeals noted that some of its sister Circuits had taken the opposite position. Id., at 1323 (citing United States v. Wilson, 249 F. 3d 366, 379 (CA5 2001); United States v. Hildebrand, 152 F. 3d 756, 762 (CA8 1998)). It concluded, however, that those decisions were erroneously based on case law interpreting the general conspiracy statute, 18 U. S. C. § 371, which, unlike § 1956(h), expressly includes an overt-act requirement. 349 F. 3d, at 1323. The Eleventh Circuit instead relied upon United States v. Shabani, 513 U. S. 10 (1994), where we held that the drug conspiracy statute, 21 U. S. C. § 846, does not require proof of an overt act. Because the language of 18 U. S. C. § 1956(h) and 21 U. S. C. § 846 is “nearly identical,” the Eleventh Circuit found itself compelled to follow the reasoning of Shabani in holding that § 1956(h), too, requires no proof of an overt act. 349 F. 3d, at 1323-1324. We granted certiorari to resolve the conflict among the Circuits on the question presented, 542 U. S. 918 (2004), and we now affirm the decision below.
II
Congress enacted 18 U. S. C. §§ 1956 and 1957 (2000 ed. and Supp. II) as part of the Money Laundering Control Act of 1986, Pub. L. 99-570, 100 Stat. 3207-18. Section 1956 penalizes the knowing and intentional transportation or transfer of monetary proceeds from specified unlawful activities, while § 1957 addresses transactions involving criminally derived property exceeding $10,000 in value. As originally enacted, neither section included a conspiracy provision. Accordingly, the Government relied on the general conspiracy statute, 18 U. S. C. §371, to prosecute conspiracies to commit the offenses set forth in §§ 1956 and 1957. In 1992, however, Congress enacted the money laundering conspiracy provision at issue in these cases, now codified at 18 U. S. C. § 1956(h). See Annunzio-Wylie Anti-Money Laundering Act, Pub. L. 102-550, § 1530, 106 Stat. 4066. Section 1956(h) provides: “Any person who conspires to commit any offense defined in [§1956] or section 1957 shall be subject to the same penalties as those prescribed for the offense thé commission of which was the object of the conspiracy.”
In Shabani, we addressed whether the nearly identical language of the drug conspiracy statute, 21 U. S. C. § 846, requires proof of an overt act. See ibid. (“Any person who attempts or conspires to commit any offense defined in this subchapter shall be subject to the same penalties as those prescribed for the offense, the commission of which was the object of the attempt or conspiracy”). We held that it does not, relying principally upon our earlier decisions in Nash v. United States, 229 U. S. 373 (1913), and Singer v. United States, 323 U. S. 338 (1945). See Shabani, supra, at 13-14. In each of those cases, the Court held that, where Congress had omitted from the relevant conspiracy provision any language expressly requiring an overt act, the Court would not read such a requirement into the statute. See Singer, supra, at 340 (Selective Training and Service Act of 1940); Nash, supra, at 378 (Sherman Act).
As we explained in Shabani, these decisions “follow the settled principle of statutory construction that, absent contrary indications, Congress intends to adopt the common law definition of statutory terms. See Molzof v. United States, 502 U. S. 301, 307-308 (1992). We have consistently held that the common law understanding of conspiracy ‘does not make the doing of any act other than the act of conspiring a condition of liability.’ ” 513 U. S., at 13-14 (quoting Nash, supra, at 378). In concluding that the drug conspiracy statute in Shabani did not require proof of an overt act, we found instructive the distinction between that statute and the general conspiracy statute, § 371, which supersedes the common law rule by expressly including an overt-act requirement. 513 U. S., at 14. See 18 U. S. C. § 371 (“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 fined under this title or imprisoned not more than five years, or both” (emphasis added)).
Shabani distilled the governing rule for conspiracy statutes as follows: “ ‘Nash and Singer give Congress a formu-lary: by choosing a text modeled on § 371, it gets an overt-act requirement; by choosing a text modeled on the Sherman Act, 15 U. S. C. § 1 [which, like 21 U. S. C. § 846, omits any express overt-act requirement], it dispenses with such a requirement.’” 513 U. S., at 14 (quoting United States v. Sassi, 966 F. 2d 283, 284 (CA7 1992)). This rule dictates the outcome in the instant cases as well: Because the text of § 1956(h) does not expressly make the commission of an overt act an element of the conspiracy offense, the Government need not prove an overt act to obtain a conviction.
III
Petitioners argue that the rule that governed Shabani is inapplicable here, because § 1956(h) does not establish a new conspiracy offense; rather, they say, it merely increases the penalty for conviction of a money laundering conspiracy under § 371. In other words, as we understand their argument, petitioners contend that the Government must continue to prosecute money laundering conspiracies under § 371, but that § 1956(h) now provides enhanced penalties for conviction. Since §371 contains an overt act requirement, the argument goes, the Government must prove an overt act in prosecutions ostensibly brought under § 1956(h). This reading of § 1956(h) is untenable for two principal reasons. First, petitioners concede — as they must — that §1956(h)’s text is sufficient to establish an offense. Indeed, its language is nearly identical to the drug conspiracy statute at issue in Shabani, which indisputably created an offense. Second, petitioners apparently read § 1956(h) to supply an enhanced penalty for violation of §371 in cases where the object of the conspiracy is to violate the substantive money laundering offenses in §§ 1956(a) and 1957. But the text of § 1956(h) fails to provide any cross-reference to § 371. Mere use of the word “conspires” surely is not enough to establish the necessary link between these two separate statutes. In short, if Congress had intended to create the scheme petitioners envision, it would have done so in clearer terms.
Petitioners seek support for their construction of § 1956(h) in the provision’s legislative history. They contend that this, history contains no indication that Congress meant to create a new offense or to eliminate the pre-existing overt-act requirement for money laundering conspiracy prosecutions that hitherto had been brought under § 371. They say that the history instead shows that § 1956(h) was intended only to raise the penalty for money laundering conspiracy from the 5-year maximum sentence under §371 to the greater máximums available for substantive money laundering offenses under §§ 1956(a) and 1957. Petitioners also point out that, when Congress enacted § 1956(h), it did so under the title “Penalty for Money Laundering Conspiracies,” 106 Stat., at 4066 (emphasis added). Had Congress wanted to enact an “offense” provision, they argue, it would have titled it accordingly.
Because the meaning of § 1956(h)’s text is plain and unambiguous, we need not accept petitioners’ invitation to consider the legislative history. But even were we to do so, we would reach the same conclusion. It is undisputed that Congress intended § 1956(h) to increase the penalties for money laundering conspiracies. The provision’s text makes clear that Congress did so precisely by establishing a new offense. Given the clarity of the text, mere silence in the legislative history cannot justify reading an overt-act requirement, or a cross-reference to § 371, into § 1956(h). See, e. g., United States v. Wells, 519 U. S. 482, 496-497 (1997) (refusing to read a materiality element into the statute at issue based on silence in the legislative history); Harrison v. PPG Industries, Inc., 446 U. S. 578, 692 (1980) (“[I]t would be a strange canon of statutory construction that would require Congress to state in committee reports or elsewhere in its deliberations that which is obvious on the face of a statute”). Nor do we find it significant that Congress chose to label § 1956(h) a “penalty” rather than an “offense” provision. See Pennsylvania Dept. of Corrections v. Yeskey, 524 U. S. 206, 212 (1998) (“ ‘[T]he title of a statute . . . cannot limit the plain meaning of the text’”); Castillo v. United States, 530 U. S. 120, 125 (2000) (although “[t]he title of the entirety of §924 is ‘Penalties’ ... at least some portion of §924 . . . creates, not penalty enhancements, but entirely new crimes”).
Petitioners’ legislative history argument is particularly inapt here, we might add, because Congress is presumed to have knowledge of the governing rule described in Shabani. While Shabani was decided two years after § 1956(h) was enacted, the rule it articulated was established decades earlier in Nash and Singer. These decisions establish a “for-mulary” that provides clear and predictable guidance to Congress. As the Government points out, Congress has included an express overt-act requirement in at least 22 other current conspiracy statutes, clearly demonstrating that it knows how to impose such a requirement when it. wishes to do so. See Brief for United States 11, and n. 5 (citing statutes). Where Congress has chosen not to do so, we will not override that choice based on vague and ambiguous signals from legislative history.
We conclude by addressing two arguments raised by petitioners relating to the text and structure of § 1956 as a whole. First, petitioners note that Congress placed each of the three substantive money laundering offenses in § 1956 under subsection (a). Had the drafters intended § 1956(h) to create a new offense, petitioners contend, they would have placed it with the other offenses in subsection (a) instead of in its own separate subsection. We fail to see why that should be so. The three offenses placed in subsection (a) share a common feature: All are substantive money laundering crimes. We find nothing remarkable in Congress' decision to place a qualitatively different conspiracy offense provision in a separate subsection.
Petitioners' second textual argument is based on § 1956(i) (2000 ed., Supp. II), a venue provision added to'the statute in 2001. See USA PATRIOT ACT, Pub. L. 107-56, §1004, 115 Stat. 392. Section 1956(i)(2) (2000 ed., Supp. II) provides that “[a] prosecution for an attempt or conspiracy offense under [§ 1956 or § 1957] may be brought in the district where venue would lie for the completed offense under [§ 1956(i)(l)], or in any other district where an act in furtherance of the attempt or conspiracy took place.” Petitioners contend that, by setting venue in the district where an overt act took place, Congress confirmed what (petitioners say) was the majority view of the Courts of Appeals at the time of § 1956(i)’s enactment: that proof of ah overt act was required under § 1956(h). Moreover, petitioners argue, setting venue where an overt act took place makes little sense if such an act is not an element of the offense.
This argument fails for several reasons. As a preliminary matter, petitioners assume that § 1956(i) is the sole provision setting venue in money laundering conspiracy prosecutions. Although we need not definitively construe that provision here, we note that its language appears permissive rather than exclusive — § 1956(i) says a conspiracy prosecution “may be brought” in a district meeting the specified criteria. (Emphasis added.) This suggests that the provision serves to supplement, rather than supplant, the default venue rule: “Unless a statute or these rules permit otherwise, the government must prosecute an offense in a district where the offense was committed.” Fed. Rule Crim. Proc. 18. For a conspiracy prosecution under the common law rule, the district in which the unlawful agreement was reached would satisfy this default venue rule. See Hyde v. Shine, 199 U. S. 62, 76 (1905).
But even if we assume, for the sake of argument, that §1956(i) is an exclusive venue provision, petitioners’ argument still fails. The provision authorizes two alternative venues for money laundering conspiracy prosecutions: (1) the district in which venue would lie if the completed substantive money laundering offense had been accomplished, or (2) any district in which an overt act in furtherance of the conspiracy was committed. The first venue option clearly does not require that any overt act have been committed, and the Government therefore need not allege or prove such an act for venue to be properly established under this portion of § 1956(i). As to the second venue option, this Court has long held that venue is proper in any district in which an overt act in furtherance of the conspiracy was committed, even where an overt act is not a required element of the conspiracy offense. See, e.g., United States v. Socony-Vacuum Oil Co., 310 U. S. 150, 252 (1940); United States v. Trenton Potteries Co., 273 U. S. 392, 402-404 (1927). In light of this longstanding rule, § 1956(i)(2)’s authorization of venue in a district where an overt act took place cannot be taken to indicate that Congress deemed such an act necessary for conviction under § 1956(h). Instead, Congress appears merely to have confirmed the availability of this alternative venue option in money laundering conspiracy cases.
* * *
For the reasons set forth above, we hold that conviction for conspiracy to commit money laundering, in violation of 18 U. S. C. § 1956(h), does not require proof of an overt act in furtherance of the conspiracy. Accordingly, 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: | 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.
The question presented is whether the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA or Act), 5 U. S. C. § 552 (1982 ed. and Supp. V), requires the United States Department of Justice (Department) to make available copies of district court decisions that it receives in the course of litigating tax cases on behalf of the Federal Government. We hold that it does.
i — I
The Department’s Tax Division represents the Federal Government in nearly all civil tax cases in the district courts, the courts of appeals, and the Claims Court. Because it represents a party in litigation, the Tax Division receives copies of all opinions and orders issued by these courts in such cases. Copies of these decisions are made for the Tax Division’s staff attorneys. The original documents are sent to the official files kept by the Department.
If the Government has won a district court case, the Tax Division must prepare a bill of costs and collect any money judgment indicated in the decision. If the Government has lost, the Tax Division must decide whether to file a motion to alter or amend the judgment or whether to recommend filing an appeal. The decision whether to appeal involves not only the Tax Division but also the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and the Solicitor General. A division of the IRS reviews the district court’s decision and prepares a recommendation on whether an appeal should be taken. The court decision and the accompanying recommendation are circulated to the Tax Division, which formulates its own recommendation, and then to the Solicitor General, who reviews the district court decision in light of the IRS and Tax Division’s recommendations. If the Solicitor General ultimately approves an appeal, the Tax Division prepares a record and joint appendix, both of which must contain a copy of the district court decision, for transmittal to the court of appeals. If no appeal is taken, the Tax Division is responsible for ensuring the payment of any court-ordered refund and for defending against any claim for attorney’s fees.
Respondent Tax Analysts publishes a weekly magazine, Tax Notes, which reports on legislative, judicial, and regulatory developments in the field of federal taxation to a readership largely composed of tax attorneys, accountants, and economists. As one of its regular features, Tax Notes provides summaries of recent federal-court decisions on tax issues. To supplement the magazine, Tax Analysts provides full texts of these decisions in microfiche form. Tax Analysts also publishes Tax Notes Today, a daily electronic data base that includes summaries and full texts of recent federal-court tax decisions.
In late July 1979, Tax Analysts filed a FOIA request in which it asked the Department to make available all district court tax opinions and final orders received by the Tax Division earlier that month. The Department denied the request on the ground that these decisions were not Tax Division records. Tax Analysts then appealed this denial administratively. While the appeal was pending, Tax Analysts agreed to withdraw its request in return for access to the Tax Division’s weekly log of tax cases decided by the federal courts. These logs list the name and date of a case, the docket number, the names of counsel, the nature of the ease, and its disposition.
Since gaining access to the weekly logs, Tax Analysts’ practice has been to examine the logs and to request copies of the decisions noted therein from the clerks of the 90 or so district courts around the country and from participating attorneys. In most instances, Tax Analysts procures copies reasonably promptly, but this method of acquisition has proven unsatisfactory approximately 25% of the time. Some court clerks ignore Tax Analysts’ requests for copies of decisions, and others respond slowly, sometimes only after Tax Analysts has forwarded postage and copying fees. Because the Federal Government is required to appeal tax cases within 60 days, Tax Analysts frequently fails to obtain copies of district court decisions before appeals are taken.
Frustrated with this process, Tax Analysts initiated a series of new FOIA requests in 1984. Beginning in November 1984, and continuing approximately once a week until May 1985, Tax Analysts asked the Department to make available copies of all district court tax opinions and final orders identified in the Tax Division’s weekly logs. The Department denied these requests and Tax Analysts appealed administratively. When the Department sustained the denial, Tax Analysts filed the instant suit in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia, seeking to compel the Department to provide it with access to district court decisions received by the Tax Division.
The District Court granted the Department’s motion to dismiss the complaint, holding that 5 U. S. C. § 552(a)(4)(B), which confers jurisdiction in the district courts when “agency records” have been “improperly withheld,” had not been satisfied. 643 F. Supp. 740, 742 (1986). The court reasoned that the district court decisions at issue had not been “improperly withheld” because they “already are available from their primary sources, the District Courts,” id., at 743, and thus were “on the public record.” Id., at 744. The court did not address whether the district court decisions are “agency records.” Id., at 742.
The Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit reversed. 269 U. S. App. D. C. 315, 845 F. 2d 1060 (1988). It first held that the district court decisions were “improperly withheld.” An agency ordinarily may refuse to make available documents in its control only if it proves that the documents fall within one of the nine disclosure exemptions set forth in § 552(b), the court noted, and in this instance, “[n]o exemption applies to the district court opinions.” Id., at 319, 845 F. 2d, at 1064. As for the Department’s contention that the district court decisions are publicly available at their source, the court observed that “no court... has denied access to... documents on the ground that they are available elsewhere, and several have assumed that such documents must still be produced by the agency unless expressly exempted by the Act.” Id., at 321, 845 F. 2d, at 1066.
The Court of Appeals next held that the district court decisions sought by Tax Analysts are “agency records” for purposes of the FOIA. The court acknowledged that the district court decisions had originated in a part of the Government not covered by the FOIA, but concluded that the documents nonetheless constituted “agency records” because the Department has the discretion to use the decisions as it sees fit, because the Department routinely uses the decisions in performing its official duties, and because the decisions are integrated into the Department’s official case files. Id., at 323-324, 845 F. 2d, at 1068-1069. The court therefore remanded the case to the District Court with instructions to enter an order directing the Department “to provide some reasonable form of access” to the decisions sought by Tax Analysts. Id., at 317, 845 F. 2d, at 1062.
We granted certiorari, 488 U. S. 1003 (1989), and now affirm.
HH
In enacting the FOIA 23 years ago, Congress sought to open agency action to the light of public scrutiny.’” Department of Justice v. Reporters Committee for Freedom of Press, 489 U. S. 749, 772 (1989), quoting Department of Air Force v. Rose, 425 U. S. 352, 372 (1976). Congress did so by requiring agencies to adhere to “ ‘a general philosophy of full agency disclosure.’” Id., at 360, quoting S. Rep. No. 813, 89th Cong., 1st Sess., 3 (1965). Congress believed that this philosophy, put into practice, would help “ensure an informed citizenry, vital to the functioning of a democratic society.” NLRB v. Robbins Tire & Rubber Co., 437 U. S. 214, 242 (1978).
The FOIA confers jurisdiction on the district courts “to enjoin the agency from withholding agency records and to order the production of any agency records improperly withheld.” § 552(a)(4)(B). Under this provision, “federal jurisdiction is dependent on a showing that an agency has (1) ‘improperly’ (2) ‘withheld’ (3) ‘agency records.’” Kissinger v. Reporters Committee for Freedom of Press, 445 U. S. 136, 150 (1980). Unless each of these criteria is met, a district court lacks jurisdiction to devise remedies to force an agency to comply with the FOIA’s disclosure requirements.
In this case, all three jurisdictional terms are at issue. Although these terms are defined neither in the Act nor in its legislative history, we do not write on a clean slate. Nine Terms ago we decided three cases that explicated the meanings of these partially overlapping terms. Kissinger v. Reporters Committee for Freedom of Press, supra; Forsham v. Harris, 445 U. S. 169 (1980); GTE Sylvania, Inc. v. Consumers Union of United States, Inc., 445 U. S. 375 (1980). These decisions form the basis of our analysis of Tax Analysts’ requests.
A
We consider first whether the district court decisions at issue are “agency records,” a term elaborated upon both in Kissinger and in Forsham. Kissinger involved three separate FOIA requests for written summaries of telephone conversations in which Henry Kissinger had participated when he served as Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs from 1969 to 1975, and as Secretary of State from 1973 to 1977. Only one of these requests — for summaries of specific conversations that Kissinger had had during his tenure as National Security Adviser — raised the “agency records” issue. At the time of this request, these summaries were stored in Kissinger’s office at the State Department in his personal files. We first concluded that the summaries were not “agency records” at the time they were made because the FOIA does not include the Office of the President in its definition of “agency.” 445 U. S., at 156. We further held that these documents did not acquire the status of “agency records” when they were removed from the White House and transported to Kissinger’s office at the State Department, a FOIA-covered agency:
“We simply decline to hold that the physical location of the notes of telephone conversations renders them ‘agency records.’ The papers were not in the control of the State Department at any time. They were not generated in the State Department. They never entered the State Department’s files, and they were not used by the Department for any purpose. If mere physical location of papers and materials could confer status as an ‘agency record’ Kissinger’s personal books, speeches, and all other memorabilia stored in his office would have been agency records subject to disclosure under the FOIA.” Id., at 157.
Forsham, in turn, involved a request for raw data that formed the basis of a study conducted by a private medical research organization. Although the study had been funded through federal agency grants, the data never passed into the hands of the agencies that provided the funding, but instead was produced and possessed at all times by the private organization. We recognized that “[r]ecords of a nonagency certainly could become records of an agency as well,” 445 U. S., at 181, but the fact that the study was financially supported by a FOIA-covered agency did not transform the source material into “agency records. ” Nor did the agencies’ right of access to the materials under federal regulations change this result. As we explained, “the FOIA applies to records which have been in fact obtained, and not to records which merely could have been obtained.” Id., at 186 (emphasis in original; footnote omitted).
Two requirements emerge from Kissinger and Forsham, each of which must be satisfied for requested materials to qualify as “agency records.” First, an agency must “either create or obtain” the requested materials “as a prerequisite to its becoming an ‘agency record’ within the meaning of the FOIA.” Id., at 182. In performing their official duties, agencies routinely avail themselves of studies, trade journal reports, and other materials produced outside the agencies both by private and governmental organizations. See Chrysler Corp. v. Brown, 441 U. S. 281, 292 (1979). To restrict the term “agency records” to materials generated internally would frustrate Congress’ desire to put within public reach the information available to an agency in its decision-making processes. See id., at 290, n. 10. As we noted in Forsham, “The legislative history of the FOIA abounds with... references to records acquired by an agency.” 445 U. S., at 184 (emphasis added).
Second, the agency must be in control of the requested materials at the time the FOIA request is made. By control we mean that the materials have come into the agency’s posses-, sion in the legitimate conduct of its official duties. This requirement accords with Kissinger’s teaching that the term “agency records” is not so broad as to include personal materials in an employee’s possession, even though the materials may be physically located at the agency. See 445 U. S., at 157. This requirement is suggested by Forsham as well, 445 U. S., at 183, where we looked to the definition of agency records in the Records Disposal Act, 44 U. S. C. §3301. Under that definition, agency records include “all books, papers, maps, photographs, machine readable materials, or other documentary materials, regardless of physical form or characteristics, made or received by an agency of the United States Government under Federal law or in connection with the transaction of public business....” Ibid, (emphasis added). Furthermore, the requirement that the materials be in the agency’s control at the time the request is made accords with our statement in Forsham that the FOIA does not cover “information in the abstract.” 445 U. S., at 185.
Applying these requirements here, we conclude that the requested district court decisions constitute “agency records.” First, it is undisputed that the Department has obtained these documents from the district courts. This is not a case like Forsham, where the materials never in fact had been received by the agency. The Department contends that a district court is not an “agency” under the FOIA, but this truism is beside the point. The relevant issue is whether an agency covered by the FOIA has “create[d] or obtaine[d]” the materials sought, Forsham, 445 U. S., at 182, not whether the organization from which the documents originated is itself covered by the FOIA.
Second, the Department clearly controls the district court decisions that Tax Analysts seeks. Each of Tax Analysts’ FOIA requests referred to district court decisions in the agency’s possession at the time the requests were made. This is evident from the fact that Tax Analysts based its weekly requests on the Tax Division’s logs, which compile information on decisions the Tax Division recently had received and placed in official case files. Furthermore, the court decisions at issue are obviously not personal papers of agency employees. The Department counters that it does not control these decisions because the district courts retain authority to modify the decisions even after they are released, but this argument, too, is beside the point. The control inquiry focuses on an agency’s possession of the requested materials, not on its power to alter the content of the materials it receives. Agencies generally are not at liberty to alter the content of the materials that they receive from outside parties. An authorship-control requirement thus would sharply limit “agency records” essentially to documents generated by the agencies themselves. This result is incompatible with the FOIA’s goal of giving the public access to all nonexempted information received by an agency as it carries out its mandate.
The Department also urges us to limit “agency records,” at least where materials originating outside the agency are concerned, “to those documents ‘prepared substantially to be relied upon in agency decisionmaking.’” Brief for Petitioner 21, quoting Berry v. Department of Justice, 733 F. 2d 1343, 1349 (CA9 1984). This limitation disposes of Tax Analysts’ requests, the Department argues, because district court judges do not write their decisions primarily with an eye toward agency decisionmaking. This argument, however, makes the determination of “agency records” turn on the intent of the creator of a document relied upon by an agency. Such a mens rea requirement is nowhere to be found in the Act. Moreover, discerning the intent of the drafters of a document may often prove an elusive endeavor, particularly if the document was created years earlier or by a large number of people for whom it is difficult to divine a common intent.
B
We turn next to the term “withheld,” which we discussed in Kissinger. Two of the requests in that case — for summaries of all the telephone conversations in which Kissinger had engaged while serving as National Security Adviser and as Secretary of State — implicated that term. These summaries were initially stored in Kissinger’s personal flies at the State Department. Near the end of his tenure as Secretary of State, Kissinger transferred the summaries first to a private residence and then to the Library of Congress. Significantly, the two requests for these, summaries were made only after the summaries had been physically delivered to the Library. We found this fact dispositive, concluding that Congress did not believe that an agency “withholds a document which has been removed from the possession of the agency prior to the filing of the FOIA request. In such a case, the agency has neither the custody nor control necessary to enable it to withhold.” 445 U. S., at 150-151. We accordingly refused to order the State Department to institute a retrieval action against the Library. As we explained, such a course “would have us read the ‘hold’ out of ‘withhold.... A refusal to resort to legal remedies to obtain possession is simply not conduct subsumed by the verb withhold.’” Id., at 151.
The construction of “withholding” adopted in Kissinger readily encompasses Tax Analysts’ requests. There is no claim here that Tax Analysts filed its requests for copies of recent district court tax decisions received by the Tax Division after these decisions had been transferred out of the Department. On the contrary, the decisions were on the Department’s premises and otherwise in the Department’s control, supra, at 146-147, when the requests were made. See n. 6, supra. Thus, when the Department refused to comply with Tax Analysts’ requests, it “withheld” the district court decisions for purposes of § 552(a)(4)(B).
The Department’s counterargument is that, because the district court decisions sought by Tax Analysts are publicly available as soon as they are issued and thus may be inspected and copied by the public at any time, the Department cannot be said to have “withheld” them. The Department notes that the weekly logs it provides to Tax Analysts contain sufficient information to direct Tax Analysts to the “original source of the requested documents. ” Brief for Petitioner 23. It is not clear from the Department’s brief whether this argument is based on the term “withheld” or the term “improperly.” But, to the extent the Department relies on the former term, its argument is without merit. Congress used the word “withheld” only “in its usual sense.” Kissinger, 445 U. S., at 151. When the Department refused to grant Tax Analysts’ requests for the district court decisions in its files, it undoubtedly “withheld” these decisions in any reasonable sense of that term. Nothing in the history or purposes of the FOIA counsels contorting this word beyond its usual meaning. We therefore reject the Department’s argument that an agency has not “withheld” a document under its control when, in denying an otherwise valid request, it directs the requester to a place outside of the agency where the document may be publicly available.
C
The Department is left to argue, finally, that the district court decisions were not “improperly” withheld because of their public availability. The term “improperly,” like “agency records” and “withheld,” is not defined by the Act. We explained in GTE Sylvania, however, that Congress’ use of the word “improperly” reflected its dissatisfaction with § 3 of the Administrative Procedure Act, 5 U. S. C. § 1002 (1964 ed.), which “had failed to provide the desired access to information relied upon in Government decisionmaking, and in fact had become ‘the major statutory excuse for withholding Government records from public view.’” 445 U. S., at 384, quoting H. R. Rep. No. 1497, 89th Cong., 2d Sess., 3 (1966). Under § 3, we explained, agencies had “broad discretion... in deciding what information to disclose, and that discretion was often abused.” 445 U. S., at 385.
In enacting the FOIA, Congress intended “to curb this apparently unbridled discretion” by “clos[ing] the ‘loopholes which allow agencies to deny legitimate information to the public.’ ” Ibid, (citation omitted); see also EPA v. Mink, 410 U. S. 73, 79 (1973). Toward this end, Congress formulated a system of clearly defined exemptions to the FOIA’s otherwise mandatory disclosure requirements. An agency must disclose agency records to any person under § 552(a), “unless they may be withheld pursuant to one of the nine enumerated exemptions listed in § 552(b).” Department of Justice v. Julian, 486 U. S. 1, 8 (1988). Consistent with the Act’s goal of broad disclosure, these exemptions have been consistently given a narrow compass. See, e. g., ibid.; FBI v. Abramson, 456 U. S. 615, 630 (1982). More important for present purposes, the exemptions are “explicitly exclusive.” FAA Administrator v. Robertson, 422 U. S. 255, 262 (1975); see also Rose, 425 U. S., at 361; Robbins Tire & Rubber Co., 437 U. S., at 221; Mink, supra, at 79. As Justice O’Connor has explained, Congress sought “to insulate its product from judicial tampering and to preserve the emphasis on disclosure by admonishing that the ‘availability of records to the public’ is not limited, ‘except as specifically stated.’” Abramson, supra, at 642 (dissenting opinion) (emphasis in original), quoting § 552(c) (now codified at § 552(d)); see also 456 U. S., at 637, n. 5; H. R. Rep. No. 1497, supra, at 1. It follows from the exclusive nature of the § 552(b) exemption scheme that agency records which do not fall within one of the exemptions are “improperly” withheld.
The Department does not contend here that any exemption enumerated in § 552(b) protects the district court decisions sought by Tax Analysts. The Department claims nonetheless that there is nothing “improper” in directing a requester “to the principal, public source of records.” Brief for Petitioner 26. The Department advances three somewhat related arguments in support of this proposition. We consider them in turn.
First, the Department contends that the structure of the Act evinces Congress’ desire to avoid redundant disclosures. An understanding of this argument requires a brief survey of the disclosure provisions of § 552(a). Under subsection (a)(1), an agency must “currently publish in the Federal Register” specific materials, such as descriptions of the agency, statements of its general functions, and the agency’s rules of procedure. Under subsection (a)(2), an agency must “make available for public inspection and copying” its final opinions, policy statements, and administrative staff manuals, “unless the materials are promptly published and copies offered for sale.” Under subsection (a)(3), the general provision covering the disclosure of agency records, an agency need not make available those materials that have already been disclosed under subsections (a)(1) and (a)(2). Taken together, the Department argues, these provisions demonstrate the inapplicability of the FOIA’s disclosure requirements to previously disclosed, publicly available materials. “A fortiori, a judicial record that is a public document should not be subject to a FOIA request.” Id., at 29.
* The Department’s argument proves too much. The disclosure requirements set out in subsections (a)(1) and (a)(2) are carefully limited to situations in which the requested materials have been previously published or made available by the agency itself. It is one thing to say that an agency need not disclose materials that it has previously released; it is quite another to say that an agency need not disclose materials that some other person or group may have previously released. Congress undoubtedly was aware of the redundancies that might exist when requested materials have been previously made available. It chose to deal with that problem by crafting only narrow categories of materials which need not be, in effect, disclosed twice by the agency. If Congress had wished to codify an exemption for all publicly available materials, it knew perfectly well how to do so. It is not for us to add or detract from Congress’ comprehensive scheme, which already “balances, and protects all interests” implicated by Executive Branch disclosure. Mink, supra, at 80, quoting S. Rep. No. 813, 89th Congress, 1st Sess., 3 (1965).
It is not surprising, moreover, that Congress declined to exempt all publicly available materials from the FOIA’s disclosure requirements. In the first place, such an exemption would engender intractable fights over precisely what constitutes public availability, unless the term were defined with precision. In some sense, nearly all of the information that comes within an agency’s control can be characterized as publicly available. Although the form in which this material comes to an agency — i. e., a report or testimony — may not be generally available, the information included in that report or testimony may very well be. Even if there were some agreement over what constitutes publicly available materials, Congress surely did not envision agencies satisfying their disclosure obligations under the FOIA simply by handing re-questers a map and sending them on scavenger expeditions throughout the Nation. Without some express indication in the Act’s text or legislative history that Congress intended such a result, we decline to adopt this reading of the statute.
The Department’s next argument rests on the fact that the disclosure of district court decisions is partially governed by other statutes, in particular 28 U. S. C. § 1914, and by rules set by the Judicial Conference of the United States. The FOIA does not compel disclosure of district court decisions, the Department contends, because these other provisions are “more precisely drawn to govern the provision of court records to the general public.” Brief for Petitioner 30. We disagree. As with the Department’s first argument, this theory requires us to read into the FOIA a disclosure exemption that Congress did not itself provide. This we decline to do. That Congress knew that other statutes created overlapping disclosure requirements is evident from § 552(b)(3), which authorizes an agency to refuse a FOIA request when the materials sought are expressly exempted from disclosure by another statute. If Congress had intended to enact the converse proposition — that an agency may refuse to provide disclosure of materials whose disclosure is mandated by another statute — it was free to do so. Congress, however, did not take such a step.
The Department’s last argument is derived from GTE Syl-vania, where we held that agency records sought from the Consumer Products Safety Commission were not “improperly” withheld even though the records did not fall within one of subsection (b)’s enumerated exemptions. The Commission had not released the records in question because a district court, in the course of an unrelated lawsuit, had enjoined the Commission from doing so. In these circumstances, we held, “[t]he concerns underlying the Freedom of Information Act [were] inapplicable, for the agency... made no effort to avoid disclosure.” 445 U. S., at 386. We therefore approved the Commission’s compliance with the injunction, noting that when Congress passed the FOIA, it had not “intended to require an agency to commit contempt of court in order to release documents. Indeed, Congress viewed the federal courts as the necessary protectors of the public’s right to know.” Id., at 387.
Although the Department is correct in asserting that GTE Sylvania represents a departure from the FOIA’s self-contained exemption scheme, this departure was a slight one at best, and was necessary in order to serve a critical goal independent of the FOIA — the enforcement of a court order. As we emphasized, GTE Sylvania arose in “a distinctly different context” than the typical FOIA case, id., at 386, where the agency decides for itself whether to comply with a request for agency records. In such a case, the agency cannot contend that it has “no discretion... to exercise.” Ibid.
The present dispute is clearly akin to those typical FOIA cases. No claim has been made that the Department was powerless to comply with Tax Analysts’ requests. On the contrary, it was the Department’s decision, and the Department’s decision alone, not to make the court decisions available. We reject the Department’s suggestion that GTE Syl-vania invites courts in every case to engage in balancing, based on public availability and other factors, to determine whether there has been an unjustified denial of information. The FOIA invests courts neither with the authority nor the tools to make such determinations.
HH HH ► — 1
For the reasons stated, the Department improperly withheld agency records when it refused Tax Analysts’ requests for copies of the district court tax decisions in its files. Accordingly, the judgment of the Court of Appeals is
Affirmed.
Tax Analysts also requested copies of tax decisions received from the Claims Court and the courts of appeals. Decisions from these courts are not at issue in this case.
Section 552(a)(4)(B) provides:
“On complaint, the district court of the United States in the district in which the complainant resides, or has his principal place of business, or in which the agency records are situated, or in the District of Columbia, has jurisdiction to enjoin the agency from withholding agency records and to order the production of any agency records improperly withheld from the complainant. In such a case the court shall determine the matter de novo, and may examine the contents of such agency records in camera to determine whether such records or any part thereof shall be withheld under any of the exemptions set forth in subsection (b) of this section, and the burden * is on the agency to sustain its action.”
The burden is on the agency to demonstrate, not the requester to disprove, that the materials sought are not “agency records” or have not been “improperly” “withheld.” See S. Rep. No. 813, 89th Cong., 1st Sess., 8 (1965) (“Placing the burden of proof upon the agency puts the task of justifying the withholding on the only party able to explain it”); H. R. Rep. No. 1497, 89th Cong., 2d Sess., 9 (1966) (same); cf. Federal Open Market Committee v. Merrill, 443 U. S. 340, 352 (1979).
Title 5 U. S. C. § 552(b)(4), which exempts from disclosure trade secrets and commercial or financial information “obtained from a person,” provides further support for the principle that the term “agency records” includes materials received by an agency. See Forsham, 445 U. S., at 184-185; see also id., at 183-184 (noting that the definition of “records” in the Records Disposal Act, 44 U. S. C. §3301, and in the Presidential Records Act of 1978, 44 U. S. C. §2201(2), encompassed materials “received” by an agency).
In GTE Sylvania, Inc. v. Consumers Union of United States, Inc., 445 U. S. 375, 385 (1980), we noted that Congress intended the FOIA to prevent agencies from refusing to disclose, among other things, agency telephone directories and the names of agency employees. We are confident, however, that requests for documents of this type will be relatively infrequent. Common sense suggests that a person seeking such documents or materials housed in an agency library typically will find it easier to repair to the Library of Congress, or to the nearest public library, rather than to invoke the FOIA’s disclosure mechanisms. Cf. Department of Justices v. Reporters Committee for Freedom of Press, 489 U. S. 749, 764 (1989) (“[I]f the [requested materials] were ‘freely available,’ there would be no reason to invoke the FOIA to obtain access”). To the extent such requests are made, the fact that the FOIA allows agencies to recoup the costs of processing requests from the requester may discourage recourse to the FOIA where materials are readily available elsewhere. See 5 U. S. C. § 662(a)(4)(A).
Because requested materials ordinarily will be in the agency’s possession at the time the FOIA request is made, disputes over control should be infrequent. In some circumstances, however, requested materials might be on loan to another agency, “purposefully routed... out of agency possession in order to circumvent [an impending] FOIA request,” or “wrongfully removed by an individual after a request is filed.” Kissinger v. Reporters Committee for Freedom of Press, 446 U. S. 136, 156, n. 9 (1980). We leave consideration of these issues to another day.
This point is implicit in Department of Justice v. Julian, 486 U. S. 1, 7, and n. 6 (1988), where it was uncontroverted that presentence reports, which had been prepared under district court auspices and turned over to the Department and the Parole Commission, constituted “agency records.”
Nonpersonal materials in an agency’s possession may be subject to certain disclosure restrictions. This fact, however, does not bear on whether the materials are in the agency’s control, but rather on the subsequent question whether they are exempted from disclosure under § 562(b)(3).
Although a control inquiry for “withheld” replicates part of the test for “agency records,” the FOIA’s structure and legislative history make clear that agency control over requested materials is a “prerequisite to triggering any duties under the FOIA.” Kissinger, 445 U. S., at 151 (emphasis added); see also id., at 152-153; Forsham v. Harris, 445 U. S. 169, 185 (1980).
Kissinger’s focus on the agency’s present control of a requested document was based in part on the Act’s purposes and structure. With respect to the former, we noted that because Congress had not intended to “obligate agencies to create or retain documents,” an agency should not be “required to retrieve documents which have escaped its possession, but which it has not endeavored to recover.” 445 U. S., at 152 (citations omitted). As for the Act’s structure, we noted that, among other provisions, § 552(a) (6)(B) gives agencies a 10-day extension of the normal 10-day period for responding to FOIA requests if there is a need to search and collect the requested materials from facilities separate from the office processing the request. The brevity of this extension period indicates that Congress did not expect agencies to resort to lawsuits to retrieve documents within that period. See id., at
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | E | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Justice Kennedy
delivered the opinion of the Court.
Petitioners are aliens designated as enemy combatants and detained at the United States Naval Station at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. There are others detained there, also aliens, who are not parties to this suit.
Petitioners present a question not resolved by our earlier cases relating to the detention of aliens at Guantanamo: whether they have the constitutional privilege of habeas corpus, a privilege not to be withdrawn except in conformance with the Suspension Clause, Art. I, § 9, cl. 2. We hold these petitioners do have the habeas corpus privilege. Congress has enacted a statute, the Detainee Treatment Act of 2005 (DTA), 119 Stat. 2739, that provides certain procedures for review of the detainees’ status. We hold that those procedures are not an adequate and effective substitute for habeas corpus. Therefore §7 of the Military Commissions Act of 2006 (MCA), 28 U. S. C. § 2241(e), operates as an unconstitutional suspension of the writ. We do not address whether the President has authority to detain these petitioners nor do we hold that the writ must issue. These and other questions regarding the legality of the detention are to be resolved in the first instance by the District Court.
I
Under the Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF), § 2(a), 115 Stat. 224, note following 50 U. S. C. §1541, the President is authorized “to use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored such organizations or persons, in order to prevent any future acts of international terrorism against the United States by such nations, organizations or persons.”
In Hamdi v. Rumsfeld, 542 U. S. 507 (2004), five Members of the Court recognized that detention of individuals who fought against the United States in Afghanistan “for the duration of the particular conflict in which they were captured, is so fundamental and accepted an incident to war as to be an exercise of the ‘necessary and appropriate force’ Congress has authorized the President to use.” Id., at 518 (plurality opinion of O’Connor, J.); id., at 588-589 (Thomas, J., dissenting). After Hamdi, the Deputy Secretary of Defense established Combatant Status Review Tribunals (CSRTs) to determine whether individuals detained at Guantanamo were “enemy combatants,” as the Department defines that term. See App. to Pet. for Cert. in No. 06-1195, p. 81a. A later memorandum established procedures to implement the CSRTs. See App. to Pet. for Cert. in No. 06-1196, p. 147. The Government maintains these procedures were designed to comply with the due process requirements identified by the plurality in Hamdi. See Brief for Federal Respondents 10.
Interpreting the AUMF, the Department of Defense ordered the detention of these petitioners, and they were transferred to Guantanamo. Some of these individuals were apprehended on the battlefield in Afghanistan, others in places as far away from there as Bosnia and Gambia. All are foreign nationals, but none is a citizen of a nation now at war with the United States. Each denies he is a member of the al Qaeda terrorist network that carried out the September 11 attacks or of the Taliban regime that provided sanctuary for al Qaeda. Each petitioner appeared before a separate CSRT; was determined to be an enemy combatant; and has sought a writ of habeas corpus in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia.
The first actions commenced in February 2002. The District Court ordered the cases dismissed for lack of jurisdiction because the naval station is outside the sovereign territory of the United States. See Rasul v. Bush, 215 F. Supp. 2d 55 (2002). The Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit affirmed. See Al Odah v. United States, 321 F. 3d 1134, 1145 (2003). We granted certiorari and reversed, holding that 28 U. S. C. §2241 extended statutory habeas corpus jurisdiction to Guantanamo. See Rasul v. Bush, 542 U. S. 466, 473 (2004). The constitutional issue presented in the instant cases was not reached in Rasul. Id., at 476.
After Rasul, petitioners’ cases were consolidated and entertained in two separate proceedings. In the first set of cases, Judge Richard J. Leon granted the Government’s motion to dismiss, holding that the detainees had no rights that could be vindicated in a habeas corpus action. In the second set of cases Judge Joyce Hens Green reached the opposite conclusion, holding the detainees had rights under the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment. See Khalid v. Bush, 355 F. Supp. 2d 311,314 (DC 2005); In re Guantanamo Detainee Cases, 355 F. Supp. 2d 443, 464 (DC 2005).
While appeals were pending from the District Court decisions, Congress passed the DTA. Subsection (e) of § 1005 of the DTA amended 28 U. S. C. § 2241 to provide that “no court, justice, or judge shall have jurisdiction to hear or consider..'. an application for a writ of habeas corpus filed by or on behalf of an alien detained by the Department of Defense at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.” 119 Stat. 2742. Section 1005 further provides that the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit shall have “exclusive” jurisdiction to review decisions of the CSRTs. Ibid.
In Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, 548 U. S. 557, 576-577 (2006), the Court held this provision did not apply to cases (like petitioners’) pending when the DTA was enacted. Congress responded by passing the MCA, 10 U. S. C. § 948a et seq., which again amended §2241. The text of the statutory amendment is discussed below. See Part II, infra. (Four Members of the Hamdan majority noted that “[n]othing prevented] the President from returning to Congress to seek the authority he believes necessary.” 548 U. S., at 636 (Breyer, J., concurring). The authority to which the concurring opinion referred was the authority to “create military commissions of the kind at issue” in the case. Ibid. Nothing in that opinion can be construed as an invitation for Congress to suspend the writ.)
Petitioners’ cases were consolidated on appeal, and the parties filed supplemental briefs in light of our decision in Hamdan. The Court of Appeals’ ruling, 476 F. 3d 981 (CADC 2007), is the subject of our present review and today’s decision.
The Court of Appeals concluded that MCA §7 must be read to strip from it, and all federal courts, jurisdiction to consider petitioners’ habeas corpus applications, id., at 987; that petitioners are not entitled to the privilege of the writ or the protections of the Suspension Clause, id., at 990-991; and, as a result, that it was unnecessary to consider whether Congress provided an adequate and effective substitute for habeas corpus in the DTA.
We granted certiorari. 551 U. S. 1160 (2007).
II
As a threshold matter, we must decide whether MCA § 7 denies the federal courts jurisdiction to hear habeas corpus actions pending at the time of its enactment. We hold the statute does deny that jurisdiction, so that, if the statute is valid, petitioners’ cases must be dismissed.
As amended by the terms of the MCA, 28 U. S. C. § 2241(e) now provides:
“(1) No court, justice, or judge shall have jurisdiction to hear or consider an application for a writ of habeas corpus filed by or on behalf of an alien detained by the United States who has been determined by the United States to have been properly detained as an enemy combatant or is awaiting such determination.
“(2) Except as provided in [§§ 1005(e)(2) and (e)(3) of the DTA] no court, justice, or judge shall have jurisdiction to hear or consider any other action against the United States or its agents relating to any aspect of the detention, transfer, treatment, trial, or conditions of confinement of an alien who is or was detained by the United States and has been determined by the United States to have been properly detained as an enemy combatant or is awaiting such determination.”
Section 7(b) of the MCA provides the effective date for the amendment of § 2241(e). It states:
“The amendment made by [MCA §7(a)] shall take effect on the date of the enactment of this Act, and shall apply to all cases, without exception, pending on or after the date of the enactment of this Act which relate to any aspect of the detention, transfer, treatment, trial, or conditions of detention of an alien detained by the United States since September 11, 2001.” 120 Stat. 2636.
There is little doubt that the effective date provision applies to habeas corpus actions. Those actions, by definition, are cases “which relate to... detention.” See Black’s Law Dictionary 728 (8th ed. 2004) (defining habeas corpus as “[a] writ employed to bring a person before a court, most frequently to ensure that the party’s imprisonment or detention is not illegal”). Petitioners argue, nevertheless, that MCA §7(b) is not a sufficiently clear statement of congressional intent to strip the federal courts of jurisdiction in pending cases. See Ex parte Yerger, 8 Wall. 85, 102-103 (1869). We disagree.
Their argument is as follows: Section 2241(e)(1) refers to “a writ of habeas corpus.” The next paragraph, § 2241(e)(2), refers to “any other action... relating to any aspect of the detention, transfer, treatment, trial, or conditions of confinement of an alien who... [has] been properly detained as an enemy combatant or is awaiting such determination.” There are two separate paragraphs, the argument continues, so there must be two distinct classes of cases. And the effective date subsection, MCA § 7(b), it is said, refers only to the second class of cases, for it largely repeats the language of § 2241(e)(2) by referring to “cases... which relate to any aspect of the detention, transfer, treatment, trial, or conditions of detention of an alien detained by the United States.”
Petitioners’ textual argument would have more force were it not for the phrase “other action” in § 2241(e)(2). The phrase cannot be understood without referring back to the paragraph that precedes it, § 2241(e)(1), which explicitly mentions the term “writ of habeas corpus.” The structure of the two paragraphs implies that habeas actions are a type of action “relating to any aspect of the detention, transfer, treatment, trial, or conditions of confinement of an alien who is or was detained... as an enemy combatant.” Pending habeas actions, then, are in the category of cases subject to the statute’s jurisdictional bar.
We acknowledge, moreover, the litigation history that prompted Congress to enact the MCA. In Hamdan the Court found it unnecessary to address the petitioner’s Suspension Clause arguments but noted the relevance of the clear statement rule in deciding whether Congress intended to reach pending habeas corpus cases. See 548 U. S., at 575 (Congress should “not be presumed to have effected such denial [of habeas relief] absent an unmistakably clear statement to the contrary”). This interpretive rule facilitates a dialogue between Congress and the Court. Cf. Hilton v. South Carolina Public Railways Comm’n, 502 U. S. 197, 206 (1991); H. Hart & A. Sacks, The Legal Process: Basic Problems in the Making and Application of Law 1209-1210 (W. Eskridge & P. Prickey eds. 1994). If the Court invokes a clear statement rule to advise that certain statutory interpretations are favored in order to avoid constitutional difficulties, Congress can make an informed legislative choice either to amend the statute or to retain its existing text. If Congress amends, its intent must be respected even if a difficult constitutional question is presented. The usual presumption is that Members of Congress, in accord with their oath of office, considered the constitutional issue and determined the amended statute to be a lawful one; ¿nd the Judiciary, in light of that determination, proceeds to its own independent judgment on the constitutional question when required to do so in a proper case.
If this ongoing dialogue between and among the branches of Government is to be respected, we cannot ignore that the MCA was a direct response to Hamdan’s holding that the DTA’s jurisdiction-stripping provision had no application to pending cases. The Court of Appeals was correct to take note of the legislative history when construing the statute, see 476 F. 3d, at 986, n. 2 (citing relevant floor statements); and we agree with its conclusion that the MCA deprives the federal courts of jurisdiction to entertain the habeas corpus actions now before us.
Ill
In deciding the constitutional questions now presented we must determine whether petitioners are barred from seeking the writ or invoking the protections of the Suspension Clause either because of their status, i. e., petitioners’ designation by the Executive Branch as enemy combatants, or their physical location, i. e., their presence at Guantanamo Bay. The Government contends that noncitizens designated as enemy combatants and detained in territory located outside our Nation’s borders have no constitutional rights and no privilege of habeas corpus. Petitioners contend they do have cognizable constitutional rights and that Congress, in seeking to eliminate recourse to habeas corpus as a means to assert those rights, acted in violation of the Suspension Clause.
We begin with a brief account of the history and origins of the writ. Our account proceeds from two propositions. First, protection for the privilege of habeas corpus was one of the few safeguards of liberty specified in a Constitution that, at the outset, had no Bill of Rights. In the system conceived by the Framers the writ had a centrality that must inform proper interpretation of the Suspension Clause. Second, to the extent there were settled precedents or legal commentaries in 1789 regarding the extraterritorial scope of the writ or its application to enemy aliens, those authorities can be instructive for the present cases.
A
The Framers viewed freedom from unlawful restraint as a fundamental precept of liberty, and they understood the writ of habeas corpus as a vital instrument to secure that freedom. Experience taught, however, that the common-law writ all too often had been insufficient to guard against the abuse of monarchial power. That history counseled the necessity for specific language in the Constitution to secure the writ and ensure its place in our legal system.
Magna Carta decreed that no man would be imprisoned contrary to the law of the land. Art. 39, in Sources of Our Liberties 17 (R. Perry & J. Cooper eds. 1959) (“No free man shall be taken or imprisoned or dispossessed, or outlawed, or banished, or in any way destroyed, nor will we go upon him, nor send upon him, except by the legal judgment of his peers or by the law of the land”). Important as the principle was, the Barons at Runnymede prescribed no specific legal process to enforce it. Holdsworth tells us, however, that gradually the writ of habeas corpus became the means by which the promise of Magna Carta was fulfilled. 9 W. Holds-worth, A History of English Law 112 (1926) (hereinafter Holdsworth).
The development was painstaking, even by the centuries-long measures of English constitutional history. The writ was known and used in some form at least as early as the reign of Edward I. Id., at 108-125. Yet at the outset it was used to protect not the rights of citizens but those of the King and his courts. The early courts were considered agents of the Crown, designed to assist the King in the exercise of his power. See J. Baker, An Introduction to English Legal History 38-39 (4th ed. 2002). Thus the writ, while it would become part of the foundation of liberty for the King’s subjects, was in its earliest use a mechanism for securing compliance with the King’s laws. See Halliday & White, The Suspension Clause: English Text, Imperial Contexts, and American Implications, 94 Va. L. Rev. 575, 585 (2008) (hereinafter Halliday & White) (manuscript, at 11, online at http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id= 1008252 (all Internet materials as visited June 9, 2008, and available in Clerk of Court’s case file) (noting that “conceptually the writ arose from a theory of power rather than a theory of liberty”)). Over time it became clear that by issuing the writ of habeas corpus common-law courts sought to enforce the King’s prerogative to inquire into the authority of a jailer to hold a prisoner. See M. Hale, Prerogatives of the King 229 (D. Yale ed. 1976); 2 J. Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States § 1341, p. 237 (3d ed. 1858) (noting that the writ ran “into all parts of the king’s dominions; for it is said, that the king is entitled, at all times, to have an account, why the liberty of any of his subjects is restrained”).
Even so, from an early date it was understood that the King, too, was subject to the law. As the writers said of Magna Carta, “it means this, that the king is and shall be below the law.” 1 F. Pollock & F Maitland, History of English Law 173 (2d ed. 1909); see also 2 Bracton On the Laws and Customs of England 33 (S. Thorne transí. 1968) (“The king must not be under man but under God and under the law, because law makes the king”). And, by the 1600’s, the writ was deemed less an instrument of the King’s power and more a restraint upon it. See Collings, Habeas Corpus for Convicts — Constitutional Right or Legislative Grace, 40 Cal. L. Rev. 335, 336 (1952) (noting that by this point the writ was “the appropriate process for checking illegal imprisonment by public officials”).
Still, the writ proved to be an imperfect check. Even when the importance of the writ was well understood in England, habeas relief often was denied by the courts or suspended by Parliament. Denial or suspension occurred in times of political unrest, to the anguish of the imprisoned and the outrage of those in sympathy with them.
A notable example from this period was Darnel’s Case, 3 How. St. Tr. 1 (K. B. 1627). The events giving rise to the case began when, in a display of the Stuart penchant for authoritarian excess, Charles I demanded that Darnel and at least four others lend him money. Upon their refusal, they were imprisoned. The prisoners sought a writ of habeas corpus; and the King filed a return in the form of a warrant signed by the Attorney General. Ibid. The court held this was a sufficient answer and justified the subjects’ continued imprisonment. Id., at 59.
There was an immediate outcry of protest. The House of Commons promptly passed the Petition of Right, 3 Car. 1, ch. 1 (1627), 5 Statutes of the Realm 23, 24 (reprint 1963), which condemned executive “imprison[ment] without any cause” shown, and declared that “no freeman in any such manner as is before mencioned [shall] be imprisoned or deteined.” Yet a full legislative response was long delayed. The King soon began to abuse his authority again, and Parliament was dissolved. See W. Hall & R. Albion, A History of England and the British Empire 328 (3d ed. 1953) (hereinafter Hall & Albion). When Parliament reconvened in 1640, it sought to secure access to the writ by statute. The Act of 1640, 16 Car. 1, ch. 10, 5 Statutes of the Realm, at 110, expressly authorized use of the writ to test the legality of commitment by command or warrant of the King or the Privy Council. Civil strife and the Interregnum soon followed, and not until 1679 did Parliament try once more to secure the writ, this time through the Habeas Corpus Act of 1679, 31 Car. 2, ch. 2, id., at 935. The Act, which later would be described by Blackstone as the “stable bulwark of our liberties,” 1 W. Blackstone, Commentaries *137 (hereinafter Blackstone), established procedures for issuing the writ; and it was the model upon which the habeas statutes of the 13 American Colonies were based, see Collings, supra, at 338-339.
This history was known to the Framers. It no doubt confirmed their view that pendular swings to and away from individual liberty were endemic to undivided, uncontrolled power. The Framers’ inherent distrust of governmental power was the driving force behind the constitutional plan that allocated powers among three independent branches. This design serves not only to make Government accountable but also to secure individual liberty. See Loving v. United States, 517 U. S. 748, 756 (1996) (noting that “[e]ven before the birth of this country, separation of powers was known to be a defense against tyranny”); cf. Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer, 343 U. S. 579, 635 (1952) (Jackson, J., concurring) (“[T]he Constitution diffuses power the better to secure liberty”); Clinton v. City of New York, 524 U. S. 417, 450 (1998) (Kennedy, J., concurring) (“Liberty is always at stake when one or more of the branches seek to transgress the separation of powers”). Because the Constitution’s separation-of-powers structure, like the substantive guarantees of the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments, see Yick Wo v. Hopkins, 118 U. S. 356,374 (1886), protects persons as well as citizens, foreign nationals who have the privilege of litigating in our courts can seek to enforce separation-of-powers principles, see, e. g., INS v. Chadha, 462 U. S. 919, 958-959 (1983).
That the Framers considered the writ a vital instrument for the protection of individual liberty is evident from the care taken to specify the limited grounds for its suspension: “The Privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require it.” Art. I, § 9, cl. 2; see Amar, Of Sovereignty and Federalism, 96 Yale L. J. 1425, 1509, n. 329 (1987) (“[T]he non-suspension clause is the original Constitution’s most explicit reference to remedies”). The word “privilege” was used, perhaps, to avoid mentioning some rights to the exclusion of others. (Indeed, the only mention of the term “right” in the Constitution, as ratified, is in its clause giving Congress the power to protect the rights of authors and inventors. See Art. I, § 8, cl. 8.)
Surviving accounts of the ratification debates provide additional evidence that the Framers deemed the writ to be an essential mechanism in the separation-of-powers scheme. In a critical exchange with Patrick Henry at the Virginia ratifying convention Edmund Randolph referred to the Suspension Clause as an “exception” to the “power given to Congress to regulate courts.” See 3 Debates in the Several State Conventions on the Adoption of the Federal Constitution 460-464 (J. Elliot 2d ed. 1876). A resolution passed by the New York ratifying convention made clear its understanding that the Clause not only protects against arbitrary suspensions of the writ but also guarantees an affirmative right to judicial inquiry into the causes of detention. See Resolution of the New York Ratifying Convention (July 26, 1788), in 1 id., at 328 (noting the convention’s understanding “[t]hat every person restrained of his liberty is entitled to an inquiry into the lawfulness of such restraint, and to a removal thereof if unlawful; and that such inquiry or removal ought not to be denied or delayed, except when, on account of public danger, the Congress shall suspend the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus”). Alexander Hamilton likewise explained that by providing the detainee a judicial forum to challenge detention, the writ preserves limited government. As he explained in The Federalist No. 84:
“[T]he practice of arbitrary imprisonments, have been, in all ages, the favorite and most formidable instruments of tyranny. The observations of the judicious Blackstone... are well worthy of recital: 'To bereave a man of life... or by violence to confiscate his estate, without accusation or trial, would be so gross and notorious an act of despotism as must at once convey the alarm of tyranny throughout the whole nation; but confinement of the person, by secretly hurrying him to jail, where his sufferings are unknown or forgotten, is a less public, a less striking, and therefore a more dangerous engine of arbitrary government.’ And as a remedy for this fatal evil he is everywhere peculiarly emphatical in his encomiums on the habeas corpus act, which in one place he calls 'the bulwark of the British Constitution.’ ” C. Rossiter ed., p. 512 (1961) (quoting 1 Blackstone *136, 4 id., at *438).
Post-1789 habeas developments in England, though not bearing upon the Framers’ intent, do verify their foresight. Those later events would underscore the need for structural barriers against arbitrary suspensions of the writ. Just as the writ had been vulnerable to executive and parliamentary encroachment on both sides of the Atlantic before the American Revolution, despite the Habeas Corpus Act of 1679, the writ was suspended with frequency in England during times of political unrest after 1789. Parliament suspended the writ for much of the period from 1792 to 1801, resulting in rampant arbitrary imprisonment. See Hall & Albion 550. Even as late as World War I, at least one prominent English jurist complained that the Defence of the Realm Act, 1914, 4 & 5 Geo. 5, ch. 29(l)(a), effectively had suspended the privilege of habeas corpus for any person suspected of “communicating with the enemy.” See King v. Halliday, [1917] A. C. 260, 299 (Lord Shaw, dissenting); see generally A. Simpson, In the Highest Degree Odious: Detention Without Trial in Wartime Britain 6-7, 24-25 (1992).
In our own system the Suspension Clause is designed to protect against these cyclical abuses. The Clause protects the rights of the detained by a means consistent with the essential design of the Constitution. It ensures that, except during periods of formal suspension, the Judiciary will have a time-tested device, the writ, to maintain the “delicate balance of governance” that is itself the surest safeguard of liberty. See Hamdi, 542 U. S., at 536 (plurality opinion). The Clause protects the rights of the detained by affirming the duty and authority of the Judiciary to call the jailer to account. See Preiser v. Rodriguez, 411 U. S. 475, 484 (1973) (“[T]he essence of habeas corpus is an attack by a person in custody upon the legality of that custody”); cf. In re Jackson, 15 Mich. 417, 439-440 (1867) (Cooley, J., concurring) (“The important fact to be observed in regard to the mode of procedure upon this [habeas] writ is, that it is directed to, and served upon, not the person confined, but his jailer”). The separation-of-powers doctrine, and the history that influenced its design, therefore must inform the reach and purpose of the Suspension Clause.
B
The broad historical narrative of the writ and its function is central to our analysis, but we seek guidance as well from founding-era authorities addressing the specific question before us: whether foreign nationals, apprehended and detained in distant countries during a time of serious threats to our Nation’s security, may assert the privilege of the writ and seek its protection. The Court has been careful not to foreclose the possibility that the protections of the Suspension Clause have expanded along with post-1789 developments that define the present scope of the writ. See INS v. St. Cyr, 533 U. S. 289, 300-301 (2001). But the analysis may begin with precedents as of 1789, for the Court has said that “at the absolute minimum” the Clause protects the writ as it existed when the Constitution was drafted and ratified. Id., at 301.
To support their arguments, the parties in these cases have examined historical sources to construct a view of the common-law writ as it existed in 1789 — as have amici whose expertise in legal history the Court has relied upon in the past. See Brief for Legal Historians as Amici Curiae; see also St. Cyr, supra, at 302, n. 16. The Government argues the common-law writ ran only to those territories over which the Crown was sovereign. See Brief for Federal Respondents 27. Petitioners argue that jurisdiction followed the King’s officers. See Brief for Petitioner Boumediene et al. 11. Diligent search by all parties reveals no certain conclusions. In none of the cases cited do we find that a common-law court would or would not have granted, or refused to hear for lack of jurisdiction, a petition for a writ of habeas corpus brought by a prisoner deemed an enemy combatant, under a standard like the one the Department of Defense has used in these cases, and when held in a territory, like Guantanamo, over which the Government has total military and civil control.
We know that at common law a petitioner’s status as an alien was not a categorical bar to habeas corpus relief. See, e. g., Sommersett’s Case, 20 How. St. Tr. 1, 80-82 (1772) (ordering an African slave freed upon finding the custodian’s return insufficient); see generally Khera v. Secretary of State for the Home Dept. [1984] A. C. 74, 111 (“Habeas corpus protection is often expressed as limited to ‘British subjects.’ Is it really limited to British nationals? Suffice it to say that the case law has given an emphatic ‘no’ to the question”). We know as well that common-law courts entertained habeas petitions brought by enemy aliens detained in England — “entertained” at least in the sense that the courts held hearings to determine the threshold question of entitlement to the writ. See Case of Three Spanish Sailors, 2 Black. W. 1324, 96 Eng. Rep. 775 (C. P. 1779); King v. Schiever, 2 Burr. 765, 97 Eng. Rep. 551 (K. B. 1759); Du Castro’s Case, Fort. 195, 92 Eng. Rep. 816 (K. B. 1697).
In Schiever and the Spanish Sailors’ case, the courts denied relief to the petitioners. Whether the holdings in these cases were jurisdictional or based upon the courts’ ruling that the petitioners were detained lawfully as prisoners of war is unclear. See Spanish Sailors, supra, at 1324, 96 Eng. Rep., at 776; Schiever, supra, at 766, 97 Eng. Rep., at 552. In Du Castro’s Case, the court granted relief, but that case is not analogous to petitioners’ because the prisoner there appears to have been detained in England. See Halliday & White 27, n. 72. To the extent these authorities suggest the common-law courts abstained altogether from matters involving prisoners of war, there was greater justification for doing so in the context of declared wars with other nation states. Judicial intervention might have complicated the military’s ability to negotiate exchange of prisoners with the enemy, a wartime practice well known to the Framers. See Resolution of Mar. 30, 1778, 10 Journals of the Continental Congress 1774-1789, p. 295 (W. Ford ed. 1908) (directing General Washington not to exchange prisoners with the British unless the enemy agreed to exempt citizens from capture).
We find the evidence as to the geographic scope of the writ at common law informative, but, again, not dispositive. Petitioners argue the site of their detention is analogous to two territories outside of England to which the writ did run: the so-called “exempt jurisdictions,” like the Channel Islands; and (in former times) India. There are critical differences between these places and Guantanamo, however.
As the Court noted in Rasul, 542 U. S., at 481-482, and nn. 11-12, common-law courts granted habeas corpus relief to prisoners detained in the exempt jurisdictions. But these areas, while not in theory part of the realm of England, were nonetheless under the Crown’s control. See 2 H. Hallam, Constitutional History of England: From the Accession of Henry VII to the Death of George II, pp. 232-233 (reprint 1989). And there is some indication that these jurisdictions were considered sovereign territory. King v. Cowle, 2 Burr. 834, 854, 855, 856, 97 Eng. Rep. 587, 599 (K. B. 1759) (describing one of the exempt jurisdictions, Berwick-upon-Tweed, as under the “sovereign jurisdiction” and “subjection of the Crown of England”). Because the United States does not maintain formal sovereignty over Guantanamo Bay, see Part IV, infra, the naval station there and the exempt jurisdictions discussed in the English authorities are not similarly situated.
Petitioners and their amici further rely on cases in which British courts in India granted writs of habeas corpus to non-citizens detained in territory over which the Moghul Emperor retained formal sovereignty and control. See Brief for Petitioner Boumediene et al. 12-13; Brief for Legal Historians as Amici Curiae 12-13. The analogy to the present cases breaks down, however, because of the geographic location of the courts in the Indian example. The Supreme Court of Judicature (the British Court) sat in Calcutta; but no federal court sits at Guantanamo. The Supreme Court of Judicature was, moreover, a special court set up by Parliament to monitor certain conduct during the British Raj. See Regulating Act of 1773, 13 Geo. 3, ch. 63, §§ 13-14. That it had the power to issue the writ
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | A | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
MR. Justice Douglas
delivered the opinion of the Court.
This case, a companion case to No. 316, Smith v. Sperling, ante, p. 91, presents another aspect of the problem of realignment of parties in a stockholders’ derivative suit that is brought in a Federal District Court on the basis of diversity of citizenship. Plaintiff-stockholders are citizens of Nevada and stockholders in the Chicago North Shore & Milwaukee Ry. Co., an Illinois corporation. It was made a defendant along with individuals, who are citizens of Illinois, a Delaware corporation, and an Indiana corporation. The complaint charged a conspiracy to defraud the Railway Co. The alleged fraud consisted of a series of sales of transit properties to the Railway Co., properties in which it is charged some of the directors were personally interested. The complaint averred a demand on the directors to bring suit, a refusal on their part, and the futility of making any demand on the stockholders.
Answers were filed and motions made to dismiss. The District Court dismissed the bill on the ground that no showing had been made that the refusal of the management to act to redress the alleged wrong was not a decision entrusted to the good-faith judgment of the directors. In other words, the District Court concluded that the controversy did not fall within the exceptional group of cases where the stockholder may dispute the management and take the reins of corporate litigation in his own hands.
On appeal, the Court of Appeals did not reach that question. Though it appeared from the record that the directors were opposed to the bringing of the suit, the Court of Appeals concluded that there was no such hostility to the plaintiffs as to make it “antagonistic” within the meaning of the cases. It accordingly realigned the corporation as a party plaintiff. Since there were then Illinois citizens on each side of the litigation, the requisite diversity was not present and the orders dismissing the bill were affirmed. 230 F. 2d 228. The case is here on a writ of certiorari. 352 U. S. 865.
For the reasons stated in Smith v. Sperling, supra, we think this case is an instance where the management— for good reasons or for bad — is definitely and distinctly opposed to the institution of this litigation. The management is, therefore, antagonistic to the stockholders as that conception has been used in the cases. It follows that the corporation was properly made a defendant.
There remains for consideration the question ruled on by the District Court and which the Court of Appeals did not reach, viz. whether this suit is of that exceptional character which stockholders may bring.
As we stated in Smith v. Sperling, ante, p. 91, since our decision in Erie R. Co. v. Tompkins, 304 U. S. 64, the question whether in these diversity suits a stockholder may sue on behalf of his corporation is governed by local law. See Cohen v. Beneficial Loan Corp., 337 U. S. 541, 555-556. The classical description of those situations is contained in Hawes v. Oakland, 104 U. S. 450, 460:
“Some action or threatened action of the managing board of directors or trustees of the corporation which is beyond the authority conferred on them by their charter or other source of organization;
“Or such a fraudulent transaction completed or contemplated by the acting managers, in connection with some other party, or among themselves, or with other shareholders as will result in serious injury to the corporation, or to the interests of the other shareholders;
“Or where the board of directors, or a majority of them, are acting for their own interest, in a manner destructive of the corporation itself, or of the rights of the other shareholders;
“Or where the majority of shareholders themselves are oppressively and illegally pursuing a course in the name of the corporation, which is in violation of the rights of the other shareholders, and which can only be restrained by the aid of a court of equity.”
Whether local law follows that definition or adopts another and whether this case falls within the one provided by local law is a question on which the Court of Appeals has not ruled. We therefore remand the case to it for consideration of the question.
Reversed.
[For opinion of Mr. Justice Frankfurter, joined by Mr. Justice Burton, Mr. Justice Harlan and Mr. Justice Whittaker, see ante, p. 98.]
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
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 SOTOMAYORdelivered the opinion of the Court.
Rights in a trademark are determined by the date of the mark's first use in commerce. The party who first uses a mark in commerce is said to have priority over other users. Recognizing that trademark users ought to be permitted to make certain modifications to their marks over time without losing priority, lower courts have provided that, in limited circumstances, a party may clothe a new mark with the priority position of an older mark. This doctrine is called "tacking," and lower courts have found tacking to be available when the original and revised marks are "legal equivalents" in that they create the same, continuing commercial impression. The question presented here is whether a judge or a jury should determine whether tacking is available in a given case. Because the tacking inquiry operates from the perspective of an ordinary purchaser or consumer, we hold that a jury should make this determination.
I
Petitioner, Hana Financial, and respondent Hana Bank, a subsidiary of respondent Hana Financial Group, both provide financial services to individuals in the United States. Hana Bank (hereinafter respondent) was established in 1971 as a Korean entity called Korea Investment Finance Corporation. In 1991, that entity changed its name to "Hana Bank" and began using this name in Korea. In 1994, it established a service called Hana Overseas Korean Club to provide financial services to Korean expatriates, and specifically advertised that service in the United States. Those advertisements used the name "Hana Overseas Korean Club" in both English and Korean, and included the name "Hana Bank" in Korean and respondent's "dancing man" logo. See App. 206. In 2000, respondent changed the name of the Hana Overseas Korean Club to "Hana World Center." In 2002, respondent began operating a bank in the United States under the name "Hana Bank." This enterprise amounted to respondent's first physical presence in the United States.
Petitioner was established in 1994 as a California corporation called Hana Financial. It began using that name and an associated trademark in commerce in 1995. In 1996, it obtained a federal trademark registration for a pyramid logo with the name "Hana Financial" for use in connection with financial services.
In 2007, petitioner sued respondent, alleging infringement of its "Hana Financial" mark. As relevant here, respondent denied infringement by invoking the tacking doctrine and claiming that it had priority. The District Court initially granted summary judgment to respondent on the infringement claim, but the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit reversed, holding that there were genuine issues of material fact as to priority. On remand, the infringement claim was tried before a jury. The District Court adopted in substantial part the jury instruction proposed by petitioner, and, without objection from petitioner, instructed the jury as follows:
"A party may claim priority in a mark based on the first use date of a similar but technically distinct mark where the previously used mark is the legal equivalent of the mark in question or indistinguishable therefrom such that consumers consider both as the same mark. This is called 'tacking.' The marks must create the same, continuing commercial impression, and the later mark should not materially differ from or alter the character of the mark attempted to be tacked." App. 173; see id.,at 140 (proposed instruction).
The jury returned a verdict in favor of respondent, and the District Court denied petitioner's motion for judgment as a matter of law.
The Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit affirmed. The court explained that, although tacking applies only in "exceptionally narrow circumstances," 735 F.3d 1158, 1160 (2013)(internal quotation marks omitted), it " 'requires a highly fact-sensitive inquiry' " that is "reserved for the jury," ibid.(quoting One Industries, LLC v. Jim O'Neal Distributing, Inc.,578 F.3d 1154, 1160 (C.A.9 2009)). The court acknowledged, however, that whether tacking should be decided by juries or judges "is the subject of a circuit split." 735 F.3d, at 1164, n. 5(noting that the Federal and Sixth Circuits "evaluate tacking as a question of law"); see Van Dyne-Crotty, Inc. v. Wear-Guard Corp.,926 F.2d 1156, 1159 (C.A.Fed.1991); Data Concepts, Inc. v. Digital Consulting, Inc.,150 F.3d 620, 623 (C.A.6 1998).
We granted certiorari, 573 U.S. ----, 134 S.Ct. 2842, 189 L.Ed.2d 805 (2014), and now affirm.
II
As discussed above, the general rule adopted by lower courts has been that two marks may be tacked when the original and revised marks are "legal equivalents." This term refers to two marks that "create the same, continuing commercial impression" so that consumers "consider both as the same mark."Van Dyne-Crotty, Inc.,926 F.2d, at 1159(internal quotation marks omitted); see, e.g.,George & Co., LLC v. Imagination Entertainment Ltd.,575 F.3d 383, 402 (C.A.4 2009); Brookfield Communications, Inc. v. West Coast Entertainment Corp.,174 F.3d 1036, 1047-1048 (C.A.9 1999); Data Concepts, Inc.,150 F.3d, at 623. "The commercial impression that a mark conveys must be viewed through the eyes of a consumer."
DuoProSS Meditech Corp. v. Inviro Medical Devices, Ltd.,695 F.3d 1247, 1253 (C.A.Fed.2012); see 3 J. McCarthy, Trademarks and Unfair Competition § 17:26, p. 17-71 (4th ed. 2014)(" 'Commercial impression,' like most issues in trademark law, should be determined from the perspective of the ordinary purchaser of these kinds of goods or services").
Application of a test that relies upon an ordinary consumer's understanding of the impression that a mark conveys falls comfortably within the ken of a jury. Indeed, we have long recognized across a variety of doctrinal contexts that, when the relevant question is how an ordinary person or community would make an assessment, the jury is generally the decisionmaker that ought to provide the fact-intensive answer. See, e.g., United States v. Gaudin,515 U.S. 506, 512, 115 S.Ct. 2310, 132 L.Ed.2d 444 (1995)(recognizing that " 'delicate assessments of the inferences a "reasonable [decisionmaker]" would draw ... [are] peculiarly one[s] for the trier of fact' " (quoting TSC Industries, Inc. v. Northway, Inc.,426 U.S. 438, 450, 96 S.Ct. 2126, 48 L.Ed.2d 757 (1976); first alteration in original)); id., at 450, n. 12, 96 S.Ct. 2126(observing that the jury has a "unique competence in applying the 'reasonable man' standard"); Hamling v. United States,418 U.S. 87, 104-105, 94 S.Ct. 2887, 41 L.Ed.2d 590 (1974)(emphasizing "the ability of the juror to ascertain the sense of the 'average person' " by drawing upon "his own knowledge of the views of the average person in the community or vicinage from which he comes" and his "knowledge of the propensities of a 'reasonable' person"); Railroad Co. v. Stout,17 Wall. 657, 664, 21 L.Ed. 745 (1874)("It is assumed that twelve men know more of the common affairs of life than does one man, [and] that they can draw wiser and safer conclusions from admitted facts thus occurring than can a single judge").
This is certainly not to say that a judge may never determine whether two marks may be tacked. If the facts warrant it, a judge may decide a tacking question on a motion for summary judgment or for judgment as a matter of law. See Fed. Rules Civ. Proc. 50, 56(a). And if the parties have opted to try their case before a judge, the judge may of course decide a tacking question in his or her factfinding capacity. We hold only that, when a jury trial has been requested and when the facts do not warrant entry of summary judgment or judgment as a matter of law, the question whether tacking is warranted must be decided by a jury.
III
Attempting to overcome our conclusion, petitioner offers four reasons why, in its view, tacking is a question of law that should be resolved by a judge. None persuades us.
Petitioner first observes that the "legal equivalents" test involves the application of a legal standard. See Brief for Petitioner 20. True enough, but "the application-of-legal-standard-to-fact sort of question ..., commonly called a 'mixed question of law and fact,' has typically been resolved by juries." Gaudin,515 U.S., at 512, 115 S.Ct. 2310; see id.,at 514, 115 S.Ct. 2310("[T]he jury's constitutional responsibility is not merely to determine the facts, but to apply the law to those facts and draw the ultimate conclusion ..."); Miller v. Fenton,474 U.S. 104, 113, 106 S.Ct. 445, 88 L.Ed.2d 405 (1985)("[A]n issue does not lose its factual character merely because its resolution is dispositive of the ultimate ... question"). The "mixed" analysis that takes place during the tacking inquiry is no different. And insofar as petitioner is concerned that a jury may improperly apply the relevant legal standard, the solution is to craft careful jury instructions that make that standard clear. Here, however, petitioner can hardly criticize the instruction the District Court gave the jury, as it was essentially the instruction petitioner proposed.
Second, petitioner argues that tacking determinations will "create new law that will guide future tacking disputes"-a task reserved for judges. Brief for Petitioner 21. It is not at all clear, however, why a tacking determination in a particular case will "create new law" any more than will a jury verdict in a tort case, a contract dispute, or a criminal proceeding. Petitioner insists that tacking questions "have to be" resolved by comparing two marks in a given case "against those addressed in other tacking cases," id.,at 22, but we do not agree. Of course, in deciding summary judgment motions, or in making rulings in bench trials, judges may look to past cases holding that trademark owners either were or were not entitled to tacking as a matter of law. But petitioner offers no support for the claim that tacking cases "have to be" resolved by reliance on precedent. Indeed, in many of the cases petitioner cites in support of this argument, the courts in question relied on precedent only to define the relevant legal standard. See, e.g.,Specht v. Google Inc.,758 F.Supp.2d 570, 583-585 (N.D.Ill.2010), aff'd, 747 F.3d 929 (C.A.7 2014); Children's Legal Servs. PLLC v. Kresch,2008 WL 1901245, at *1-*2 (E.D.Mich., Apr. 25, 2008), aff'd sub nom. Children's Legal Servs., P.L.L.C. v. Saiontz, Kirk & Miles, P.A.,2009 WL 1868809 (C.A.6, June 18, 2009).
Third, and related, petitioner worries that the predictability required for a functioning trademark system will be absent if tacking questions are assigned to juries. See Brief for Petitioner 25-27. But, again, the same could be said about the tort, contract, and criminal justice systems: In all of these areas, juries answer often-dispositive factual questions or make dispositive applications of legal standards to facts. The fact that another jury, hearing the same case, might reach a different conclusion may make the system "unpredictable," but it has never stopped us from employing juries in these analogous contexts. Petitioner has offered no reason why trademark tacking ought to be treated differently. Moreover, decisionmaking in fact-intensive disputes necessarily requires judgment calls. Regardless of whether those judgment calls are made by juries or judges, they necessarily involve some degree of uncertainty, particularly when they have to do with how reasonable persons would behave.
Finally, petitioner argues that, as a historical matter, judges have resolved tacking disputes. See Brief for Petitioner 30-35. But petitioner relies on cases in which judges have resolved tacking disputes in bench trials, at summary judgment, or the like. See, e.g., Drexel Enterprises, Inc. v. Richardson,312 F.2d 525, 526 (C.A.10 1962)("[This action] was tried without a jury"); Perfectform Corp. v. Perfect Brassiere Co.,256 F.2d 736, 738 (C.A.3 1958)("The district court dismissed the complaint");John Morrell & Co. v. Hauser Packing Co., 20 F.2d 713 (C.A.9 1927)("In the court below, there was a dismissal of both the bill and of defendant's counterclaim"); Beech-Nut Packing Co. v. P. Lorillard Co.,299 F. 834, 835 (D.N.J.1924)(equitable claims tried solely before a judge). As we have noted, it is undisputed that judges may resolve tacking disputes in those contexts. But recognizing as much does not gainsay our conclusion that, when a jury is to be empaneled and when the facts warrant neither summary judgment nor judgment as a matter of law, tacking is a question for the jury.
* * *
The Ninth Circuit correctly held that whether two marks may be tacked for purposes of determining priority is a question for the jury. Accordingly, the judgment of the Ninth Circuit is affirmed.
It is so ordered.
The parties do not question the existence of the tacking doctrine or this substantive standard.
Our decision in Markman v. Westview Instruments, Inc.,517 U.S. 370, 116 S.Ct. 1384, 134 L.Ed.2d 577 (1996), is not to the contrary. In Markman,we held that the task of construing patent terms falls to judges and not to juries. We held as much because "[t]he construction of written instruments is one of those things that judges often do and are likely to do better than jurors unburdened by training in exegesis." Id.,at 388, 116 S.Ct. 1384; see Teva Pharmaceuticals USA, Inc., v. Sandoz, Inc.,--- U.S. ----, 135 S.Ct. 831, ----, --- L.Ed.2d ----, 2015 WL 232131 (2015). The tacking inquiry, by contrast, involves a factual judgment about whether two marks give the same impression to consumers. Making that kind of judgment is, as discussed above, not "one of those things that judges often do" better than jurors.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | H | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Justice Powell
delivered the opinion of the Court.
This case presents the question whether a federal court may award injunctive relief against state officials on the basis of state law.
I — t
This litigation, here for the second time, concerns the conditions of care at petitioner Pennhurst State School and Hospital, a Pennsylvania institution for the care of the mentally retarded. See Pennhurst State School and Hospital v. Halderman, 451 U. S. 1 (1981). Although the litigation’s history is set forth in detail in our prior opinion, see id., at 5-10, it is necessary for purposes of this decision to review that history.
This suit originally was brought in 1974 by respondent Terri Lee Halderman, a resident of Pennhurst, in the District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. Ultimately, plaintiffs included a class consisting of all persons who were or might become residents of Pennhurst; the Pennsylvania Association for Retarded Citizens (PARC); and the United States. Defendants were Pennhurst and various Pennhurst officials; the Pennsylvania Department of Public Welfare and several of its officials; and various county commissioners, county mental retardation administrators, and other officials of five Pennsylvania counties surrounding Penn-hurst. Respondents’ amended complaint charged that conditions at Pennhurst violated the class members’ rights under the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments; §504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, 87 Stat. 394, 29 U. S. C. § 794; the Developmental^ Disabled Assistance and Bill of Rights Act, 89 Stat. 496, 42 U. S. C. §6001 et seqand the Pennsylvania Mental Health and Mental Retardation Act of 1966 (MH/MR Act), Pa. Stat. Ann., Tit. 50, §§4101-4704 (Purdon 1969 and Supp. 1983-1984). Both damages and injunctive relief were sought.
In 1977, following a lengthy trial, the District Court rendered its decision. Halderman v. Pennhurst State School and Hospital, 446 F. Supp. 1295. As noted in our prior opinion, the court’s findings were undisputed: “Conditions at Pennhurst are not only dangerous, with the residents often physically abused or drugged by staff members, but also inadequate for the ‘habilitation’ of the retarded. Indeed, the court found that the physicial, intellectual, and emotional skills of some residents have deteriorated at Pennhurst.” 451 U. S., at 7 (footnote omitted). The District Court held that these conditions violated each resident’s right to “minimally adequate habilitation” under the Due Process Clause and the MH/MR Act, see 446 F. Supp., at 1314-1318, 1322-1323; “freedom from harm” under the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments, see id., at 1320-1321; and “nondiscriminatory habilitation” under the Equal Protection Clause and § 504 of the Rehabilitation Act, see id., at 1321-1324. Furthermore, the court found that “due process demands that if a state undertakes the habilitation of a retarded person, it must do so in the least restrictive setting consistent with that individual’s habilitative needs.” Id., at 1319 (emphasis added). After concluding that the large size of Pennhurst prevented it from providing the necessary habilitation in the least restrictive environment, the court ordered that “immediate steps be taken to remove the retarded residents from Pennhurst.” Id., at 1325. Petitioners were ordered “to provide suitable community living arrangements” for the class members, id., at 1326, and the court appointed a Special Master “with the power and duty to plan, organize, direct, supervise and monitor the implementation of this and any further Orders of the Court.” Ibid.
The Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit affirmed most of the District Court’s judgment. Halderman v. Pennhurst State School and Hospital, 612 F. 2d 84 (1979) (en banc). It agreed that respondents had a right to habilitation in the least restrictive environment, but it grounded this right solely on the “bill of rights” provision in the Developmentally Disabled Assistance and Bill of Rights Act, 42 U. S. C. § 6010. See 612 F. 2d, at 95-100, 104-107. The court did not consider the constitutional issues or § 504 of the Rehabilitation Act, and while it affirmed the District Court’s holding that the MH/MR Act provides a right to adequate habilitation, see id., at 100-103, the court did not decide whether that state right encompassed a right to treatment in the least restrictive setting.
On the question of remedy, the Court of Appeals affirmed except as to the District Court’s order that Pennhurst be closed. The court observed that some patients would be unable to adjust to life outside an institution, and it determined that none of the legal provisions relied on by respondents precluded institutionalization. Id., at 114-115. It therefore remanded for “individual determinations by the [District Court], or by the Special Master, as to the appropriateness of an improved Pennhurst for each such patient,” guided by “a presumption in favor of placing individuals in [community living arrangements].” Ibid.
On remand the District Court established detailed procedures for determining the proper residential placement for each patient. A team consisting of the patient, his parents or guardian, and his case manager must establish an individual habilitation plan providing for habilitation of the patient in a designated community living arrangement. The plan is subject to review by the Special Master. A second master, called the Hearing Master, is available to conduct hearings, upon request by the resident, his parents, or his advocate, on the question whether the services of Pennhurst would be more beneficial to the resident than the community living arrangement provided in the resident’s plan. The Hearing Master then determines where the patient should reside, subject to possible review by the District Court. See App. 123a-134a (Order of Apr. 24, 1980).
This Court reversed the judgment of the Court of Appeals, finding that 42 U. S. C. § 6010 did not create any substantive rights. Pennhurst State School and Hospital v. Halderman, 451 U. S. 1 (1981). We remanded the case to the Court of Appeals to determine if the remedial order could be supported on the basis of state law, the Constitution, or § 504 of the Rehabilitation Act. See id., at 31. We also remanded for consideration of whether any relief was available under other provisions of the Developmentally Disabled Assistance and Bill of Rights Act. See id., at 27-30 (discussing 42 U. S. C. §§ 6011(a), 6063(b)(5) (1976 ed., Supp. V)).
On remand the Court of Appeals affirmed its prior judgment in its entirety. 673 F. 2d 647 (1982) (en banc). It determined that in a recent decision the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania had “spoken definitively” in holding that the MH/MR Act required the State to adopt the “least restrictive environment” approach for the care of the mentally retarded. Id., at 651 (citing In re Schmidt, 494 Pa. 86, 429 A. 2d 631 (1981)). The Court of Appeals concluded that this state statute fully supported its prior judgment, and therefore did not reach the remaining issues of federal law. It also rejected petitioners’ argument that the Eleventh Amendment barred a federal court from considering this pendent state-law claim. The court noted that the Amendment did not bar a federal court from granting prospective injunctive relief against state officials on the basis of federal claims, see 673 F. 2d, at 656 (citing Ex parte Young, 209 U. S. 123 (1908)), and concluded that the same result obtained with respect to a pendent state-law claim. It reasoned that because Siler v. Louisville & Nashville R. Co., 213 U. S. 175 (1909), an important case in the development of the doctrine of pendent jurisdiction, also involved state officials, “there cannot be... an Eleventh Amendment exception to that rule.” 673 F. 2d, at 658. Finally, the court rejected petitioners’ argument that it should have abstained from deciding the state-law claim under principles of comity, see id,., at 659-660, and refused to consider petitioners’ objections to the District Court’s use of a Special Master, see id., at 651, and n. 10. Three judges dissented in part, arguing that under principles of federalism and comity the establishment of a. Special Master to supervise compliance was an abuse of discretion. See id., at 662 (Seitz, C. J., joined by Hunter, J., dissenting in part); ibid. (Garth, J., concurring in part and dissenting as to relief). See also id., at 661 (Aldisert, J., concurring) (seriously questioning the propriety of the order appointing the Special Master, but concluding that a retroactive reversal of that order would be meaningless).
We granted certiorari, 457 U. S. 1131 (1982), and now reverse and remand.
II
Petitioners raise three challenges to the judgment of the Court of Appeals: (i) the Eleventh Amendment prohibited the District Court from ordering state officials to conform their conduct to state law; (ii) the doctrine of comity prohibited the District Court from issuing its injunctive relief; and (iii) the District Court abused its discretion in appointing two Masters to supervise the decisions of state officials in implementing state law. We need not reach the latter two issues, for we find the Eleventh Amendment challenge dispositive.
A
Article III, § 2, of the Constitution provides that the federal judicial power extends, inter alia, to controversies “between a State and Citizens of another State.” Relying on this language, this Court in 1793 assumed original jurisdiction over a suit brought by a citizen of South Carolina against the State of Georgia. Chisholm v. Georgia, 2 Dall. 419 (1793). The decision “created such a shock of surprise that the Eleventh Amendment was at once proposed and adopted.” Monaco v. Mississippi, 292 U. S. 313, 325 (1934). The Amendment provides:
“The Judicial power of the United States shall not be construed to extend to any suit in law or equity, commenced or prosecuted against one of the United States by Citizens of another State, or by Citizens or Subjects of any Foreign State.”
The Amendment’s language overruled the particular result in Chisholm, but this Court has recognized that its greater significance lies in its affirmation that the fundamental principle of sovereign immunity limits the grant of judicial authority in Art. III. Thus, in Hans v. Louisiana, 134 U. S. 1 (1890), the Court held that, despite the limited terms of the Eleventh Amendment, a federal court could not entertain a suit brought by a citizen against his own State. After reviewing the constitutional debates concerning the scope of Art. Ill, the Court determined that federal jurisdiction over suits against unconsenting States “was not contemplated by the Constitution when establishing the judicial power of the United States.” Id., at 15. See Monaco v. Mississippi, supra, at 322-323. In short, the principle of sovereign immunity is a constitutional limitation on the federal judicial power established in Art. Ill:
“That a State may not be sued without its consent is a fundamental rule of jurisprudence having so important a bearing upon the construction of the Constitution of the United States that it has become established by repeated decisions of this court that the entire judicial power granted by the Constitution does not embrace authority to entertain a suit brought by private parties against a State without consent given: not one brought by citizens of another State, or by citizens or subjects of a foreign State, because of the Eleventh Amendment; and not even one brought by its own citizens, because of the fundamental rule of which the Amendment is but an exemplification.” Ex parte State of New York, 256 U. S. 490, 497 (1921) (emphasis added).
A sovereign’s immunity may be waived, and the Court consistently has held that a State may consent to suit against it in federal court. See, e. g., Clark v. Barnard, 108 U. S. 436, 447 (1883). We have insisted, however, that the State’s consent be unequivocally expressed. See, e. g., Edelman v. Jordan, 415 U. S. 651, 673 (1974). Similarly, although Congress has power with respect to the rights protected by the Fourteenth Amendment to abrogate the Eleventh Amendment immunity, see Fitzpatrick v. Bitzer, 427 U. S. 445 (1976), we have required an unequivocal expression of congressional intent to “overturn the constitutionally guaranteed immunity of the several States.” Quern v. Jordan, 440 U. S. 332, 342 (1979) (holding that 42 U. S. C. § 1983 does not override States’ Eleventh Amendment immunity). Our reluctance to infer that a State’s immunity from suit in the federal courts has been negated stems from recognition of the vital role of the doctrine of sovereign immunity in our federal system. A State’s constitutional interest in immunity encompasses not merely whether it may be sued, but where it may be sued. As Justice Marshall well has noted, “[b]e-cause of the problems of federalism inherent in making one sovereign appear against its will in the courts of the other, a restriction upon the exercise of the federal judicial power has long been considered to be appropriate in a case such as this.” Employees v. Missouri Dept. of Public Health and Welfare, 411 U. S. 279, 294 (1973) (concurring in result). Accordingly, in deciding this case we must be guided by “[t]he principles of federalism that inform Eleventh Amendment doctrine.” Hutto v. Finney, 437 U. S. 678, 691 (1978).
B
This Court’s decisions thus establish that “an unconsenting State is immune from suits brought in federal courts by her own citizens as well as by citizens of another state.” Employees, supra, at 280. There may be a question, however, whether a particular suit in fact is a suit against a State. It is clear, of course, that in the absence of consent a suit in which the State or one of its agencies or departments is named as the defendant is proscribed by the Eleventh Amendment. See, e. g., Florida Dept. of Health and Rehabilitative Services v. Florida Nursing Home Assn., 450 U. S. 147 (1981) (per curiam); Alabama v. Pugh, 438 U. S. 781 (1978) (per curiam). This jurisdictional bar applies regardless of the nature of the relief sought. See, e. g., Missouri v. Fiske, 290 U. S. 18, 27 (1933) (“Expressly applying to suits in equity as well as at law, the Amendment necessarily embraces demands for the enforcement of equitable rights and the prosecution of equitable remedies when these are asserted and prosecuted by an individual against a State”).
When the suit is brought only against state officials, a question arises as to whether that suit is a suit against the State itself. Although prior decisions of this Court have not been entirely consistent on this issue, certain principles are well established. The Eleventh Amendment bars a suit against state officials when “the state is the real, substantial party in interest.” Ford Motor Co. v. Department of Treasury of Indiana, 323 U. S. 459, 464 (1945). See, e. g., In re Ayers, 123 U. S. 443, 487-492 (1887); Louisiana v. Jumel, 107 U. S. 711, 720-723, 727-728 (1883). Thus, “[t]he general rule is that relief sought nominally against an officer is in fact against the sovereign if the decree would operate against the latter.” Hawaii v. Gordon, 373 U. S. 57, 58 (1963) (per curiam). And, as when the State itself is named as the defendant, a suit against state officials that is in fact a suit against a State is barred regardless of whether it seeks damages or injunctive relief. See Cory v. White, 457 U. S. 85, 91 (1982).
The Court has recognized an important exception to this general rule: a suit challenging the constitutionality of a state official’s action is not one against the State. This was the holding in Ex parte Young, 209 U. S. 123 (1908), in which a federal court enjoined the Attorney General of the State of Minnesota from bringing suit to enforce a state statute that allegedly violated the Fourteenth Amendment. This Court held that the Eleventh Amendment did not prohibit issuance of this injunction. The theory of the case was that an unconstitutional enactment is “void” and therefore does not “impart to [the officer] any immunity from responsibility to the supreme authority of the United States.” Id., at 160. Since the State could not authorize the action, the officer was “stripped of his official or representative character and [was] subjected in his person to the consequences of his individual conduct.” Ibid.
While the rule permitting suits alleging conduct contrary to “the supreme authority of the United States” has survived, the theory of Young has not been provided an expansive interpretation. Thus, in Edelman v. Jordan, 415 U. S. 651 (1974), the Court emphasized that the Eleventh Amendment bars some forms of injunctive relief against state officials for violation of federal law. Id., at 666-667. In particular, Edelman held that when a plaintiff sues a state official alleging a violation of federal law, the federal court may award an injunction that governs the official’s future conduct, but not one that awards retroactive monetary relief. Under the theory of Young, such a suit would not be one against the State since the federal-law allegation would strip the state officer of his official authority. N evertheless, retroactive relief was barred by the Eleventh Amendment.
HH HH I — I
With these principles in mind, we now turn to the question whether the claim that petitioners violated state law in carrying out their official duties at Pennhurst is one against the State and therefore barred by the Eleventh Amendment. Respondents advance two principal arguments in support of the judgment below. First, they contend that under the doctrine of Edelman v. Jordan, supra, the suit is not against the State because the courts below ordered only prospective injunctive relief. Second, they assert that the state-law claim properly was decided under the doctrine of pendent jurisdiction. Respondents rely on decisions of this Court awarding relief against state officials on the basis of a pendent state-law claim. See, e. g., Siler v. Louisville & Nashville R. Co., 213 U. S., at 193.
A
We first address the contention that respondents’ state-law claim is not barred by the Eleventh Amendment because it seeks only prospective relief as defined in Edelman v. Jordan, supra. The Court of Appeals held that if the judgment below rested on federal law, it could be entered against petitioner state officials under the doctrine established in Edel-man and Young even though the prospective financial burden was substantial and ongoing. See 673 F. 2d, at 656. The court assumed, and respondents assert, that this reasoning applies as well when the official acts in violation of state law. This argument misconstrues the basis of the doctrine established in Young and Edelman.
As discussed above, the injunction in Young was justified, notwithstanding the obvious impact on the State itself, on the view that sovereign immunity does not apply because an official who acts unconstitutionally is “stripped of his official or representative character,” Young, 209 U. S., at 160. This rationale, of course, created the “well-recognized irony” that an official’s unconstitutional conduct constitutes state action under the Fourteenth Amendment but not the Eleventh Amendment. Florida Dept. of State v. Treasure Salvors, Inc., 458 U. S. 670, 685 (1982) (opinion of Stevens, J.). Nonetheless, the Young doctrine has been accepted as necessary to permit the federal courts to vindicate federal rights and hold state officials responsible to “the supreme authority of the United States.” Young, supra, at 160. As Justice Brennan has observed, “Ex parte Young was the culmination of efforts by this Court to harmonize the principles of the Eleventh Amendment with the effective supremacy of rights and powers secured elsewhere in the Constitution.” Perez v. Ledesma, 401 U. S. 82, 106 (1971) (concurring in part and dissenting in part). Our decisions repeatedly have emphasized that the Young doctrine rests on the need to promote the vindication of federal rights. See, e. g., Quern v. Jordan, 440 U. S., at 337; Scheuer v. Rhodes, 416 U. S. 232, 237 (1974); Georgia Railroad & Banking Co. v. Redwine, 342 U. S. 299, 304 (1952).
The Court also has recognized, however, that the need to promote the supremacy of federal law must be accommodated to the constitutional immunity of the States. This is the significance of Edelman v. Jordan, supra. We recognized that the prospective relief authorized by Young “has permitted the Civil War Amendments to the Constitution to serve as a sword, rather than merely a shield, for those whom they were designed to protect.” 415 U. S., at 664. But we declined to extend the fiction of Young to encompass retroactive relief, for to do so would effectively eliminate the constitutional immunity of the States. Accordingly, we concluded that although the difference between permissible and impermissible relief “will not in many instances be that between day and night,” 415 U. S., at 667, an award of retroactive relief necessarily “ ‘fall[s] afoul of the Eleventh Amendment if that basic constitutional provision is to be conceived of as having any present force.”’ Id., at 665 (quoting Rothstein v. Wyman, 467 P. 2d 226, 237 (CA2 1972) (McGowan, J., sitting by designation), cert. denied, 411 U. S. 921 (1973)). In sum, Edelman’s distinction between prospective and retroactive relief fulfills the underlying purpose of Ex parte Young while at the same time preserving to an important degree the constitutional immunity of the States.
This need to reconcile competing interests is wholly absent, however, when a plaintiff alleges that a state official has violated state law. In such a case the entire basis for the doctrine of Young and Edelman disappears. A federal court’s grant of relief against state officials on the basis of state law, whether prospective or retroactive, does not vindicate the supreme authority of federal law. On the contrary, it is difficult to think of a greater intrusion on state sovereignty than when a federal court instructs state officials on how to conform their conduct to state law. Such a result conflicts directly with the principles of federalism that underlie the Eleventh Amendment. We conclude that Young and Edelman are inapplicable in a suit against state officials on the basis of state law.
B
The contrary view of Justice Stevens’ dissent rests on fiction, is wrong on the law, and, most important, would emasculate the Eleventh Amendment. Under his view, an allegation that official conduct is contrary to a state statute would suffice to override the State’s protection under that Amendment. The theory is that such conduct is contrary to the official’s “instructions,” and thus ultra vires his authority. Accordingly, official action based on a reasonable interpretation of any statute might, if the interpretation turned out to be erroneous, provide the basis for injunctive relief against the actors in their official capacities. In this case, where officials of a major state department, clearly acting within the scope of their authority, were found not to have improved conditions in a state institution adequately under state law, the dissent’s result would be that the State itself has forfeited its constitutionally provided immunity.
The theory is out of touch with reality. The dissent does not dispute that the general criterion for determining when a suit is in fact against the sovereign is the effect of the relief sought. See supra, at 101; post, at 146, n. 29. According to the dissent, the relief sought and ordered here — which in effect was that a major state institution be closed and smaller state institutions be created and expansively funded — did not operate against the State. This view would make the law a pretense. No other court or judge in the 10-year history of this litigation has advanced this theory. And the dissent’s underlying view that the named defendants here were acting beyond and contrary to their authority cannot be reconciled with reality — or with the record. The District Court in this case held that the individual defendants “acted in the utmost good faith... within the sphere of their official responsibilities,” and therefore were entitled to immunity from damages. 446 F. Supp., at 1324 (emphasis added). The named defendants had nothing to gain personally from their conduct; they were not found to have acted willfully or even negligently. See ibid. The court expressly noted that the individual defendants “apparently took every means available to them to reduce the incidents of abuse and injury, but were constantly faced with staff shortages.” Ibid. It also found “that the individual defendants are dedicated professionals in the field of retardation who were given very little with which to accomplish the habilitation of the retarded at Pennhurst.” Ibid. As a result, all the relief ordered by the courts below was institutional and official in character. To the extent there was a violation of state law in this case, it is a case of the State itself not fulfilling its legislative promises.
The dissent bases its view on numerous cases from the turn of the century and earlier. These cases do not provide the support the dissent claims to find. Many are simply miscited. For example, with perhaps one exception, none of its Eleventh Amendment cases can be said to hold that injunctive relief could be ordered against state officials for failing to carry out their duties under state statutes. And the federal sovereign immunity cases the dissent relies on for analogy, while far from uniform, make clear that suit may not be predicated on violations of state statutes that command purely discretionary duties. Since it cannot be doubted that the statutes at issue here gave petitioners broad discretion in operating Pennhurst, see n. 11, supra; see also 446 F. Supp., at 1324, the conduct alleged in this case would not be ultra vires even under the standards of the dissent’s cases.
Thus, while there is language in the early cases that advances the authority-stripping theory advocated by the dissent, this theory had never been pressed as far as Justice Stevens would do in this case. And when the expansive approach of the dissent was advanced, this Court plainly and explicitly rejected it. In Larson v. Domestic & Foreign Commerce Corp., 337 U. S. 682 (1949), the Court was faced with the argument that an allegation that a Government official committed a tort sufficed to distinguish the official from the sovereign. Therefore, the argument went, a suit for an injunction to remedy the injury would not be against the sovereign. The Court rejected the argument, noting that it would make the doctrine of sovereign immunity superfluous. A plaintiff would need only to “claim an invasion of his legal rights” in order to override sovereign immunity. Id., at 693. In the Court’s view, the argument “confuse[d] the doctrine of sovereign immunity with the requirement that a plaintiff state a cause of action.” Id., at 692-693. The dissent’s theory suffers a like confusion. Under the dissent’s view, a plaintiff would need only to claim a denial of rights protected or provided by statute in order to override sovereign immunity. Except in rare cases it would make the constitutional doctrine of sovereign immunity a nullity.
The crucial element of the dissent’s theory was also the plaintiff’s central contention in Larson. It is that “[a] sovereign, like any other principal, cannot authorize its agent to violate the law,” so that when the agent does so he cannot be acting for the sovereign. Post, at 153; see also post, at 142, 148-149, 158; cf. Larson, supra, at 693-694 (“It is argued... that the commission of a tort cannot be authorized by the sovereign.... It is on this contention that the respondent’s position fundamentally rests...”). It is a view of agency law that the Court in Larson explicitly rejected. Larson thus made clear that, at least insofar as injunctive relief is sought, an error of law by state officers acting in their official capacities will not suffice to override the sovereign immunity of the State where the relief effectively is against it. 337 U. S., at 690, 695. Any resulting disadvantage to the plaintiff was “outweigh[ed] ” by “the necessity of permitting the Government to carry out its functions unhampered by direct judicial intervention.” Id., at 704. If anything, this public need is even greater when questions of federalism are involved. See supra, at 99-100.
The dissent in Larson made many of the arguments advanced by Justice Stevens’ dissent today, and asserted that many of the same cases were being overruled or ignored. See 337 U. S., at 723-728 (Frankfurter, J., dissenting). Those arguments were rejected, and the cases supporting them are moribund. Since Larson was decided in 1949, no opinion by any Member of this Court has cited the cases on which the dissent primarily relies for a proposition as broad as the language the dissent quotes. Many if not most of these cases have not been relied upon in an Eleventh Amendment context at all. Those that have been so cited have been relied upon only for propositions with which no one today quarrels. The plain fact is that the dissent’s broad theory, if it ever was accepted to the full extent to which it is now pressed, has not been the law for at least a generation.
The reason is obvious. Under the dissent’s view of the ultra vires doctrine, the Eleventh Amendment would have force only in the rare case in which a plaintiff foolishly attempts to sue the State in its own name, or where he cannot produce some state statute that has been violated to his asserted injury. Thus, the ultra vires doctrine, a narrow and questionable exception, would swallow the general rule that a suit is against the State if the relief will run against it. That result gives the dissent no pause presumably because of its view that the Eleventh Amendment and sovereign immunity “ ‘undoubtedly ru[n] counter to modern democratic notions of the moral responsibility of the State.’” Post, at 164, n. 48 (quoting Great Northern Life Insurance Co. v. Read, 322 U. S. 47, 59 (1944) (Frankfurter, J., dissenting)). This argument has not been adopted by this Court. See Great Northern Life Insurance Co. v. Read, supra, at 51 (“Efforts to force, through suits against officials, performance of promises by a state collide directly with the necessity that a sovereign must be free from judicial compulsion in the carrying out of its policies within the limits of the Constitution”); Larson, 337 U. S., at 704 (“The Government, as representative of the community as a whole, cannot be stopped in its tracks...”). Moreover, the argument substantially misses the point with respect to Eleventh Amendment sovereign immunity. As Justice Marshall has observed, the Eleventh Amendment’s restriction on the federal judicial power is based in large part on “the problems of federalism inherent in making one sovereign appear against its will in the courts of the other.” Employees v. Missouri Dept. of Public Health and Welfare, 411 U. S., at 294 (concurring in result). The dissent totally rejects the Eleventh Amendment’s basis in federalism.
C
The reasoning of our recent decisions on sovereign immunity thus leads to the conclusion that a federal suit against state officials on the basis of state law contravenes the Eleventh Amendment when — as here — the relief sought and ordered has an impact directly on the State itself. In reaching a contrary conclusion, the Court of Appeals relied principally on a separate line of cases dealing with pendent jurisdiction. The crucial point for the Court of Appeals was that this Court has granted relief against state officials on the basis of a pendent state-law claim. See 673 F. 2d, at 657-658. We therefore must consider the relationship between pendent jurisdiction and the Eleventh Amendment.
This Court long has held generally that when a federal court obtains jurisdiction over a federal claim, it may adjudicate other related claims over which the court otherwise would not have jurisdiction. See, e. g., Mine Workers v. Gibbs, 383 U. S. 715, 726 (1966); Osborn v. Bank of United States, 9 Wheat. 738, 819-823 (1824). The Court also has held that a federal court may resolve a case solely on the basis of a pendent state-law claim, see Siler, 213 U. S., at 192-193, and that in fact the court usually should do so in order to avoid federal constitutional questions, see id., at 193; Ashwander v. TV A, 297 U. S. 288, 347 (1936) (Brandeis, J., concurring) (“[I]f a case can be decided on either of two grounds, one involving a constitutional question, the other a question of statutory construction or general law, the Court will decide only the latter”). But pendent jurisdiction is a judge-made doctrine inferred from the general language of Art. III. The question presented is whether this doctrine may be viewed as displacing the explicit limitation on federal jurisdiction contained in the Eleventh Amendment.
As the Court of Appeals noted, in Siler and subsequent cases concerning pendent jurisdiction, relief was granted against state officials on the basis of state-law claims that were pendent to federal constitutional claims. In none of these cases, however, did the Court so much as mention the Eleventh Amendment in connection with the state-law claim. Rather, the Court appears to have assumed that once jurisdiction was established over the federal-law claim, the doctrine of pendent jurisdiction would establish power to hear the state-law claims as well. The Court has not addressed whether that doctrine has a different scope when applied to suits against the State. This is illustrated by Greene v. Louisville & Interurban R. Co., 244 U. S. 499 (1917), in which the plaintiff railroads sued state officials, alleging that certain tax assessments were excessive under the Fourteenth Amendment. The Court first rejected the officials’ argument that the Eleventh Amendment barred the federal constitutional claim. It held that Ex parte Young applied to all allegations challenging the constitutionality of official action, regardless of whether the state statute under which the officials purported to act was constitutional or unconstitutional. See 244 U. S., at 507. Having determined that the Eleventh Amendment did not deprive the federal court of jurisdiction over the Fourteenth Amendment question, the Court declared that the court’s jurisdiction extended “to the determination of all questions involved in the case, including questions of state law, irrespective of the disposition that may be made of the federal question, or whether it be found necessary to decide it at all.” Id., at 508. The case then was decided solely on state-law grounds. Accord, Louisville & Nashville R. Co. v. Greene, 244 U
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
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.
Me. Justice Powell
delivered the opinion of the Court.
The question is whether § 8 (b) (4) (ii) (B) of the National Labor Relations Act, 29 U. S. C. § 158 (b) (4) (ii) (B), forbids secondary picketing against a struck product when such picketing predictably encourages consumers to boycott a neutral party’s business.
I
Safeco Title Insurance Co. underwrites real estate title insurance in the State of Washington. It maintains close business relationships with five local title companies. The companies search land titles, perform escrow services, and sell title insurance. Over 90% of their gross incomes derives from the sale of Safeco insurance. Safeco has substahtial stockholdings in each title company, and at least one Safeco officer serves on each company’s board of directors. Safeco, however, has no control over the companies’ daily operations. It does not direct their personnel policies, and it never exchanges employees with them.
Local 1001 of the Retail Store Employees Union became the certified bargaining representative for certain Safeco employees in 1974. When contract negotiations between Safeco and the Union reached an impasse, the employees went on strike. The Union did not confine picketing to Safeco’s office in Seattle. The Union also picketed each of the five local title companies. The pickets carried signs declaring that Safeco had no contract with the Union, and they distributed handbills asking consumers to support the strike by canceling their Safeco policies.
Safeco and one of the title companies filed complaints with the National Labor Relations Board. They charged that the Union had engaged in an unfair labor practice by picketing in order to promote a secondary boycott against the title companies. The Board agreed. 226 N. L. R. B. 754 (1976). It found the title companies to be neutral in the dispute between Safeco and the Union. Id., at 756. The Board then concluded that the Union’s picketing violated § 8 (b) (4) (ii) (B) of the National Labor Relations Act. The Union had directed its appeal against Safeco insurance policies. But since the sale of those policies accounted for substantially all of the title companies’ business, the Board found that the Union’s action was “reasonably calculated to induce customers not to patronize the neutral parties at all.” 226 N. L. R. B., at 757. The Board therefore rejected the Union’s reliance upon NLRB v. Fruit Packers, 377 U. S. 58 (1964) (Tree Fruits), which held that §8 (b)(4)(ii)(B) allows secondary picketing against a struck product. It ordered the Union to cease picketing and to take limited corrective action.
The United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit set aside the Board’s order. 194 U. S. App. D. C. 400, 600 F. 2d 280 (1979) (en banc). The court agreed that the title companies were neutral parties entitled to the benefit of § 8 (b) (4) (ii) (B). 201 U. S. App. D. C. 147, 151, 627 F. 2d 1133, 1137 (1979). It held, however, that Tree Fruits leaves neutrals susceptible to whatever consequences may flow from secondary picketing against the consumption of products produced by an employer involved in a labor dispute. Even when product picketing predictably encourages consumers to boycott a neutral altogether, the court concluded, § 8 (b) (4) (ii) (B) provides no protection. 201 U. S. App. D. C., at 159-160, 627 F. 2d, at 1145-1146.
We granted a writ of certiorari to consider whether the Court of Appeals correctly understood § 8 (b) (4) (ii) (B) as interpreted in Tree Fruits. 444 U. S. 1011 (1980). Having concluded that the Court of Appeals misapplied the statute, we now reverse and remand for enforcement of the Board’s order.
II
Section 8 (b)(4) (ii) (B) of the National Labor Relations Act makes it “an unfair labor practice for a labor organization ... to threaten, coerce, or restrain” a person not party to a labor dispute “where ... an object thereof is . . . forcing or requiring [him] to cease using, selling, handling, transporting, or otherwise dealing in the products of any other producer ... or to cease doing business with any other person. . . ,”
In Tree Fruits, the Court held that § 8 (b) (4) (ii) (B) does not prohibit all peaceful picketing at secondary sites. There, a union striking certain Washington fruit packers picketed large supermarkets in order to persuade consumers not to buy Washington apples. Concerned that a broad ban against such picketing might run afoul of the First Amendment, the Court found the statute directed to an “ ‘isolated evil.’ ” The evil was use of secondary picketing “to persuade the customers of the secondary employer to cease trading with him in order to force him to cease dealing with, or to put pressure upon, the primary employer.” 377 U. S., at 63. Congress intended to protect secondary parties from pressures that might embroil them in the labor disputes of others, but not to shield them from business losses caused by a campaign that successfully persuades consumers “to boycott the primary employer’s goods.” Ibid. Thus, the Court drew a distinction between picketing “to shut off all trade with the secondary employer unless he aids the union in its dispute with the primary employer” and picketing that “only persuades his customers not to buy the struck product.” Id., at 70. The picketing in that case, which “merely follow [ed] the struck product,” did not “ ‘threaten, coerce, or restrain’ ” the secondary party within the meaning of § 8 (b)(4) (ii)(B). 377 U. S., at 72.
Although Tree Fruits suggested that secondary picketing against a struck product and secondary picketing against a neutral party were “poles apart,” id., at 70, the courts soon discovered that product picketing could have the same effect as an illegal secondary boycott. In Hoffman ex rel. NLRB v. Cement Masons Local 337, 468 F. 2d 1187 (CA9 1972), cert. denied, 411 U. S. 986 (1973), for example, a union embroiled with a general contractor picketed the housing subdivision that he had constructed for a real estate developer. Pickets sought to persuade prospective purchasers not to buy the contractor’s houses. The picketing was held illegal because purchasers “could reasonably expect that they were being asked not to transact any business whatsoever” with the neutral developer. 468 F. 2d, at 1192. “[W]hen a union’s interest in picketing a primary employer at a ‘one product’ site [directly conflicts] with the need to protect . . . neutral employers from the labor disputes of others,” Congress has determined that the neutrals’ interests should prevail. Id., at 1191.
Cement Masons highlights the critical difference between the picketing in this case and the picketing at issue in Tree Fruits. The product picketed in Tree Fruits was but one item among the many that made up the retailer’s trade. 377 U. S., at 60. If the appeal against such a product succeeds, the Court observed, it simply induces the neutral retailer to reduce his orders for the product or “to drop the item as a poor seller.” Id., at 73. The decline in sales attributable to consumer rejection of the struck product puts pressure upon the primary employer, and the marginal injury to the neutral retailer is purely incidental to the product boycott. The neutral therefore has little reason to become involved in the labor dispute. In this case, on the other hand, the title companies sell only the primary employer’s product and perform the services associated with it. Secondary picketing against consumption of the primary product leaves responsive consumers no realistic option other than to boycott the title companies altogether. If the appeal succeeds, each company “stops buying the struck product, not because of a falling demand, but in response to pressure designed to inflict injury on [its] business generally.” Thus, “the union does more than merely follow the struck product; it creates a separate dispute with the secondary employer.” Id., at 72. Such an expansion of labor discord was one of the evils that Congress intended § 8 (b) (4) (ii) (B) to prevent. 377 U. S., at 63-64.
As long as secondary picketing only discourages consumption of a struck product, incidental injury to the neutral is a natural consequence of an effective primary boycott. See id., at 72-73. But the Union’s secondary appeal against the central product sold by the title companies in this case is “reasonably calculated to induce customers not to patronize the neutral parties at all.” 226 N. L. It. B., at 757. The resulting injury to their businesses is distinctly different from the injury that the Court considered in Tree Fruits Product picketing that reasonably can be expected to threaten neutral parties with ruin or substantial loss simply does not square with the language or the purpose of § 8 (b)(4)(ii)(B). Since successful secondary picketing would put the title companies to a choice between their survival and the severance of their ties with Safeco, the picketing plainly violates the statutory ban on the coercion of neutrals with the object of “forcing or requiring [them] to cease . . . dealing in the [primary] produc[t] ... or to cease doing business with” the primary employer. § 8 (b) (4) (ii) (B); see Tree Fruits, 377 U. S., at 68.
Ill
The Court of Appeals suggested that application of § 8 (b) (4)(ii)(B) to the picketing in this case might violate the First Amendment. 201 U. S. App. D. C., at 161, 627 F. 2d, at 1147. We think not. Although the Court recognized in Tree Fruits that the Constitution might not permit “a broad ban against peaceful picketing,” the Court left no doubt that Congress may prohibit secondary picketing calculated “to persuade the customers of the secondary employer to cease trading with him in order to force him to cease dealing with, or to put pressure upon, the primary employer.” 377 U. S., at 63. Such picketing spreads labor discord by coercing a neutral party to join the fray. In Electrical Workers v. NLRB, 341 U. S. 694, 705 (1951), this Court expressly held that a prohibition on “picketing in furtherance of [such] unlawful objectives” did not offend the First Amendment. See American Radio Assn. v. Mobile S.S. Assn., 419 U. S. 215, 229-231 (1974); Teamsters v. Vogt, Inc., 354 U. S. 284 (1957). We perceive no reason to depart from that well-established understanding. As applied to picketing that predictably encourages consumers to boycott a secondary business, § 8 (b) (4) (ii) (B) imposes no impermissible restrictions upon constitutionally protected speech.
Accordingly, the judgment of the Court of Appeals is reversed, and the case is remanded with directions to enforce the National Labor Relations Board’s order.
So ordered.
Part III of the opinion is joined only by The Chief Justice, Mr. Justice Stewart, and Mr. Justice RehNQUist.
The title companies are Land Title Co. of Clark County, Land Title Co. of Cowlitz County, Land Title Co. of Kitsap County, Land Title Co. of Pierce County, and Land Title Co. of Snohomish County.
The picket signs read:
“SAFECO NONUNION DOES NOT EMPLOY MEMBERS OF OR HAVE CONTRACT WITH RETAIL STORE EMPLOYEES LOCAL 1001.”
The distribution of handbills has not been an issue in this case. Section 8 (b) (4) of the National Labor Relations Act does not prohibit “publicity, other than picketing, for the purpose of truthfully advising the public . . . that a product or products are produced by an employer with whom the labor organization has a primary dispute and are distributed by another employer. . . .” 61 Stat. 141, as amended, 73 Stat. 543, 29 U. S. C. § 158 (b) (4).
The parties waived intermediate proceedings before an administrative law judge and submitted the stipulated facts directly to the Board. 226 N. L. R. B., at 754.
The Union has not challenged the Court of Appeals’ determination that the title companies are neutral, secondary parties.
61 Stat. 141, as amended, 73 Stat. 542, 29 U. S. C. § 158 (b) (4) (ii) (B).
The so-called merged product cases also involve situations where an attempt to follow the struck product inevitably encourages an illegal boycott of the neutral party. See K & K Construction Co. v. NLRB, 592 F. 2d 1228, 1231-1234 (CA3 1979); American Bread Co. v. NLRB, 411 F. 2d 147, 154-155 (CA6 1969); Honolulu Typographical Union No. 37 v. NLRB, 131 U. S. App. D. C. 1, 3-4, 401 F. 2d 952, 954-955 (1968) ; Note, Consumer Picketing and the Single-Product Secondary Employer, 47 U. Chi. L. Rev. 112, 132-136 (1979).
See Local United Steelworkers (Dow Chemical Co.), 211 N. L. R. B. 649, 651-652 (1974), enf. denied, 173 U. S. App. D. C. 299, 524 F. 2d 853 (1975), vacated and remanded, 429 U. S. 807 (1976), complaint dism’d, 229 N. L. R. B. 302 (1977).
We do not disagree with Mr. Justice BreNnaüst’s dissenting view that successful secondary product picketing may have no greater effect upon a neutral than a legal primary boycott. Post, at 623. But when the neutral’s business depends upon the products of a particular primary employer, secondary product picketing can produce injury almost identical to the harm resulting from an illegal secondary boycott. See generally Duerr, Developing a Standard for Secondary Consumer Picketing, 26 Lab. L. J. 585 (1975). Congress intended § 8 (b) (4) (ii) (B) to protect neutrals from that type of coercion. Mr. Justice BrennaN’s view that the legality of secondary picketing should depend upon whether the pickets “urge only a boycott of the primary employer’s product,” post, at 622, would provide little or no protection. No well-advised union would allow secondary pickets to carry placards urging anything other than a product boycott. Section 8 (b) (4) (ii) (B) cannot bear a construction so inconsistent with the congressional intention to prevent neutrals from becoming innocent victims in contests between others.
The Union is responsible for the “foreseeable consequences” of its conduct. NLRB v. Operating Engineers, 400 U. S. 297, 304-305 (1971); see Radio Officers v. NLRB, 347 U. S. 17, 45 (1954). See also NLRB v. Denver Building Council, 341 U. S. 675, 689 (1951).
Representative Griffin, a sponsor of the Landrum-Griffin amendments that brought § 8 (b) (4) (ii) (B) into law, emphasized to the Congress that the statute would outlaw secondary picketing likely to coerce the neutral party. “If the purpose of the picketing,” he said, “is to coerce or to restrain the employer of that second establishment, to get him not to do business with the manufacturer — then such a boycott could be stopped.” 105 Cong. Rec. 15673 (1959), reprinted in 2 National Labor Relations Board, Legislative History of the Labor-Management Reporting and Disclosure Act of 1959, p. 1615 (1959).
Senator McClellan, who offered a bill quite similar to the statute actually adopted, noted that secondary picketing is particularly likely to coerce neutrals who have based their businesses upon one manufacturer’s products. He pointed out:
“[W]e have cases of merchants who for 20 years, 10 years, or for a long period of time, may have been handling a particular brand of product. A merchant may have built his business around the product, such as the John Deere plows or some kind of machinery from some other company. The merchant may have built up his trade entirely on that product.” 105 Cong. Rec. 6667 (1959), reprinted in 2 Legislative History, supra, at 1194.
The picketing in Tree Fruits and the picketing in this case are relatively extreme examples of the spectrum of conduct that the Board and the courts will encounter in complaints charging violations of § 8,(b) (4) (ii) (B). If secondary picketing were directed against a product representing a major portion of a neutral’s business, but significantly less than that represented by a single dominant product, neither Tree Fruits nor today’s decision necessarily would control. The critical question would be whether, by encouraging customers to reject the struck product, the secondary appeal is reasonably likely to threaten the neutral party with ruin or substantial loss. Resolution of the question in each ease will be entrusted to the Board’s expertise.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
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.
Chief Justice Rehnquist
delivered the opinion of the Court.
The issue presented in this case is whether a State that has not asserted jurisdiction over Indian lands under Public Law 280 may validly tax sales of goods to tribesmen and nonmembers occurring on land held in trust for a federally recognized Indian tribe. We conclude that under the doctrine of tribal sovereign immunity, the State may not tax such sales to Indians, but remains free to collect taxes on sales to nonmembers of the tribe.
Respondent, the Citizen Band Potawatomi Indian Tribe of Oklahoma (Potawatomis or Tribe), owns and operates a convenience store in Oklahoma on land held in trust for it by the Federal Government. For many years, the Potawatomis have sold cigarettes at the convenience store without collecting Oklahoma’s state cigarette tax on these sales. In 1987, petitioner, the Oklahoma Tax Commission (Oklahoma or Commission), served the Potawatomis with an assessment letter, demanding that they pay $2.7 million for taxes on cigarette sales occurring between 1982 and 1986. The Potawato-mis filed suit to enjoin the assessment in the United States District Court for the Western District of Oklahoma.
Oklahoma counterclaimed, asking the District Court to enforce its $2.7 million claim against the Tribe and to enjoin the Potawatomis from selling cigarettes in the future without collecting and remitting state taxes on those sales. The Pota-watomis moved to dismiss the counterclaim on the ground that the Tribe had not waived its sovereign immunity and therefore could not be sued by the State. The District Court denied the Potawatomis’ motion to dismiss and proceeded to trial. On the merits, the District Court concluded that the Commission lacked the authority to tax the on-reservation cigarette sales to tribal members or to tax the Tribe directly. It held, therefore, that the Tribe was immune from Oklahoma’s suit to collect past unpaid taxes directly from the Tribe. Nonetheless, the District Court held that Oklahoma could require the Tribe to collect taxes prospectively for on-reservation sales to nonmembers of the Tribe. Accordingly, the court ordered the Tribe to collect taxes on sales to non-tribal members, and to comply with all statutory recordkeep-ing requirements.
The Tribe appealed the District Court’s denial of its motion to dismiss and the court’s order requiring it to collect and remit taxes on sales to nonmembers. The United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit reversed. 888 F. 2d 1303 (1989). That court held that the District Court erred in entertaining Oklahoma’s counterclaims because the Potawa-tomis enjoy absolute sovereign immunity from suit, and had not waived that immunity by filing an action for injunctive relief. The Court of Appeals further held that Oklahoma lacked the authority to impose a tax on any sales that occur on the reservation, regardless of whether they are to tribesmen or nonmembers. It concluded that “because the convenience store is located on land over which the Potawatomis retain sovereign powers, Oklahoma has no authority to tax the store’s transactions unless Oklahoma has received an independent jurisdictional grant of authority from Congress.” Id., at 1306. Finding no independent jurisdictional grant of authority to tax the Potawatomis, the Court of Appeals ordered the District Court to grant the Potawatomis’ request for an injunction.
We granted certiorari to resolve an apparent conflict with this Court’s precedents and to clarify the law of sovereign immunity with respect to the collection of sales taxes on Indian lands. 498 U. S. 806 (1990). We now affirm in part and reverse in part.
I
Indian tribes are “domestic dependent nations” that exercise inherent sovereign authority over their members and territories. Cherokee Nation v. Georgia, 5 Pet. 1, 17 (1831). Suits against Indian tribes are thus barred by sovereign immunity absent a clear waiver by the tribe or congressional abrogation. Santa Clara Pueblo v. Martinez, 436 U. S. 49, 58 (1978). Petitioner acknowledges that Indian tribes generally enjoy sovereign immunity, but argues that the Potawato-mis waived their sovereign immunity by seeking an injunction against the Commission’s proposed tax assessment. It argues that, to the extent that the Commission’s counterclaims were “compulsory” under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 13(a), the District Court did not need any independent jurisdictional basis to hear those claims.
We rejected an identical contention over a half-century ago in United States v. United States Fidelity & Guaranty Co., 309 U. S. 506, 511-512 (1940). In that case, a surety bondholder claimed that a federal court had jurisdiction to hear its state-law counterclaim against an Indian Tribe because the Tribe’s initial action to enforce the bond constituted a waiver of sovereign immunity. We held that a tribe does not waive its sovereign immunity from actions that could not otherwise be brought against it merely because those actions were pleaded in a counterclaim to an action filed by the tribe. Id., at 513. “Possessing . . . immunity from direct suit, we are of the opinion [the Indian nations] possess a similar immunity from cross-suits.” Ibid. Oklahoma does not argue that it received congressional authorization to adjudicate a counterclaim against the Tribe, and the case is therefore controlled by Fidelity & Guaranty. We uphold the Court of Appeals’ determination that the Tribe did not waive its sovereign immunity merely by filing an action for injunctive relief.
Oklahoma offers an alternative, and more far-reaching, basis for reversing the Court of Appeals’ dismissal of its counterclaims. It urges this Court to construe more narrowly, or abandon entirely, the doctrine of tribal sovereign immunity. Oklahoma contends that the tribal sovereign immunity doctrine impermissibly burdens the administration of state tax laws. At the very least, Oklahoma proposes that the Court modify Fidelity & Guaranty, because tribal business activities such as cigarette sales are now so detached from traditional tribal interests that the tribal-sovereignty doctrine no longer makes sense in this context. The sovereignty doctrine, it maintains, should be limited to the tribal courts and the internal affairs of tribal government, because no purpose is served by insulating tribal business ventures from the authority of the States to administer their laws.
A doctrine of Indian tribal sovereign immunity was originally enunciated by this Court and has been reaffirmed in a number of cases. Turner v. United States, 248 U. S. 354, 358 (1919); Santa Clara Pueblo v. Martinez, supra, at 58. Congress has always been at liberty to dispense with such tribal immunity or to limit it. Although Congress has occasionally authorized limited classes of suits against Indian tribes, it has never authorized suits to enforce tax assessments. Instead, Congress has consistently reiterated its approval of the immunity doctrine. See, e. g., Indian Financing Act of 1974, 88 Stat. 77, 25 U. S. C. § 1451 et seq., and the Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act, 88 Stat. 2203, 25 U. S. C. § 450 et seq. These Acts reflect Congress’ desire to promote the “goal of Indian self-government, including its ‘overriding goal’ of encouraging tribal self-sufficiency and economic development.” California v. Cabazon Band of Mission Indians, 480 U. S. 202, 216 (1987). Under these circumstances, we are not disposed to modify the long-established principle of tribal sovereign immunity.
Finally, Oklahoma asserts that even if sovereign immunity applies to direct actions against tribes arising from activities on the reservation, that immunity should not apply to the facts of this case. The State contends that the Potawatomis’ cigarette sales do not, in fact, occur on a “reservation.” Relying upon our decision in Mescalero Apache Tribe v. Jones, 411 U. S. 145 (1973), Oklahoma argues that the tribal convenience store should be held subject to state tax laws because it does not operate on a formally designated “reservation,” but on land held in trust for the Potawatomis. Neither Mesca-lero nor any other precedent of this Court has ever drawn the distinction between tribal trust land and reservations that Oklahoma urges. In United States v. John, 437 U. S. 634 (1978), we stated that the test for determining whether land is Indian country does not turn upon whether that land is denominated “trust land” or “reservation.” Rather, we ask whether the area has been “‘validly set apart for the use of the Indians as such, under the superintendence of the Government.’” Id., at 648-649; see also United States v. McGowan, 302 U. S. 535, 539 (1938).
Mescalero is not to the contrary; that case involved a ski resort outside of the reservation boundaries operated by the Tribe under a 30-year lease from the Forest Service. We said that “[ajbsent express federal law to the contrary, Indians going beyond reservation boundaries have generally been held subject to nondiscriminatory state law otherwise applicable to all citizens of the State.” 411 U. S., at 148-149. Here, by contrast, the property in question is held by the Federal Government in trust for the benefit of the Potawa-tomis. As in John, we find that this trust land is “validly set apart” and thus qualifies as a reservation for tribal immunity purposes. 437 U. S., at 649.
II
Oklahoma attacks the conclusion of the Court of Appeals that the sovereign immunity of the Tribe prevents it from being liable for the collection of state taxes on the sale of cigarettes to nonmembers of the Tribe. The Tribe, in turn, argues that this issue is not properly before us. It observes that the only issue presented in its prayer for an injunction was whether Oklahoma could require it to pay the challenged assessment for previously uncollected taxes. The complaint did not challenge Oklahoma’s authority to require the Tribe to collect the sales tax prospectively, and thus, the Tribe argues, that question was never put in issue.
We do not agree. The Tribe’s complaint alleged that Oklahoma lacked authority to impose a sales tax directly upon the Tribe. The District Court held that the Tribe could be required to collect the tax on sales to nonmembers. The Court of Appeals reversed the decision of the District Court on this point. While neither of these courts need have reached that question, they both did. The question is fairly subsumed in the “questions presented” in the petition for certiorari, and both parties have briefed it. We have the authority to decide it and proceed to do so. See Vance v. Terrazas, 444 U. S. 252, 258-259, n. 5 (1980).
Although the doctrine of tribal sovereign immunity applies to the Potawatomis, that doctrine does not excuse a tribe from all obligations to assist in the collection of validly imposed state sales taxes. Washington v. Confederated Tribes of Colville Reservation, 447 U. S. 134 (1980). Oklahoma argues that the Potawatomis’ tribal immunity notwithstanding, it has the authority to tax sales of cigarettes to nonmembers of the Tribe at the Tribe’s convenience store. We agree. In Moe v. Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes, 425 U. S. 463 (1976), this Court held that Indian retailers on an Indian reservation may be required to collect all state taxes applicable to sales to non-Indians. We determined that requiring the tribal seller to collect these taxes was a minimal burden justified by the State’s interest in assuring the payment of these concededly lawful taxes. Id., at 483. “Without the simple expedient of having the retailer collect the sales tax from non-Indian purchasers, it is clear that wholesale violations of the law by the latter class will go virtually unchecked.” Id., at 482. Only four years later we reiterated this view, ruling that tribal sellers are obliged to collect and remit state taxes on sales to nonmembers at Indian smoke-shops on reservation lands. Colville, supra.
The Court of Appeals thought this case was distinguishable from Moe and Colville. It observed the State of Washington had asserted jurisdiction over civil causes of action in Indian country as permitted by Public Law 280. Pub. L. 280, 67 Stat. 588, 28 U. S. C. § 1360. The court contrasted Colville to this case, in which Oklahoma disclaimed jurisdiction over Indian lands upon entering the Union and did not reassert jurisdiction over these lands pursuant to Public Law 280. The Court of Appeals concluded that because Oklahoma did not elect to assert jurisdiction under Public Law 280, the Pota-watomis were immune from any requirement of Oklahoma state tax law.
Neither Moe nor Colville depended upon the State’s assertion of jurisdiction under Public Law 280. Those cases stand for the proposition that the doctrine of tribal sovereign immunity does not prevent a State from requiring Indian retailers doing business on tribal reservations to collect a state-imposed cigarette tax on their sales to nonmembers of the Tribe. Colville’s only reference to Public Law 280 relates to a concession that the statute did not furnish a basis for taxing sales to tribe members. 447 U. S., at 142, n. 8. Public Law 280 merely permits a State to assume jurisdiction over “civil causes of action” in Indian country. We have never held that Public Law 280 is independently sufficient to confer authority on a State to extend the full range of its regulatory authority, including taxation, over Indians and Indian reservations. Bryan v. Itasca County, 426 U. S. 373 (1976); see also Rice v. Rehner, 463 U. S. 713, 734, n. 18 (1983); Cabazon, 480 U. S., at 208-210, and n. 8. Thus, it is simply incorrect to conclude that Public Law 280 was the essential (yet unspoken) basis for this Court’s decision in Colville.
In view of our conclusion with respect to sovereign immunity of the Tribe from suit by the State, Oklahoma complains that, in effect, decisions such as Moe and Colville give them a right without any remedy. There is no doubt that sovereign immunity bars the State from pursuing the most efficient remedy, but we are not persuaded that it lacks any adequate alternatives. We have never held that individual agents or officers of a tribe are not liable for damages in actions brought by the State. See Ex parte Young, 209 U. S. 123 (1908). And under today’s decision, States may of course collect the sales tax from cigarette wholesalers, either by seizing unstamped cigarettes off the reservation, Colville, supra, at 161-162, or by assessing wholesalers who supplied unstamped cigarettes to the tribal stores, City Vending of Muskogee, Inc. v. Oklahoma Tax Comm’n, 898 F. 2d 122 (CA10 1990). States may also enter into agreements with the tribes to adopt a mutually satisfactory regime for the collection of this sort of tax. See 48 Stat. 987, as amended, 25 U. S. C. § 476. And if Oklahoma and other States similarly situated find that none of these alternatives produce the revenues to which they are entitled, they may of course seek appropriate legislation from Congress.
The judgment of the Court of Appeals is accordingly
Affirmed in part and reversed in part.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | B | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
■ Per Curiam.
The petition for a writ of certiorari is granted, judgment vacated and the case is remanded to the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan for a new trial should the Government seek to prosecute petitioners anew. Black v. United States, 385 U. S. 26.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
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.
In these two cases, the Secretary of the Interior and an association of nonprofit rural electric cooperatives have challenged the authority of the Federal Power Commission to grant to the respondent power company, VEPCO, a license to construct a hydroelectric generating station at Roanoke Rapids, North Carolina. They claim that Congress, by approving a comprehensive plan set out in the Flood Control Act of 1944 for improvement of the Roanoke River Basin, has withdrawn all eleven sites proposed for development in the plan, including Roanoke Rapids, from the licensing jurisdiction of the Commission and has reserved them for public construction. The underlying premise, that the plan approved by Congress presupposed federal development of all sites included in the plan, also underlies petitioners’ other main contention here, that the Commission’s concurrence in the plan constituted a determination by the Commission that the development of these water resources should be undertaken by the United States itself. Such a determination, they say, requires the Commission under § 7 (b) of the Federal Power Act, 41 Stat. 1067, as amended, 49 Stat. 842, 16 U. S. C. § 800 (b), to make investigations and submit its findings together with appropriate recommendations to Congress and in any event bars the Commission from approving applications for private construction of the project. Petitioners unsuccessfully raised these contentions, along with attacks on the Commission’s findings not pressed here, before the Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, which denied their petitions to set aside the Commission’s order granting a license to YEPCO. United States v. Federal Power Comm’n, 191 F. 2d 796. We granted certiorari, 343 U. S. 941. The cases present questions of importance in that they involve a conflict of view between two agencies of the Government having duties in relation to the development of national water resources. Determination of the issues may affect a substantial number of important potential sites for the development of hydroelectric power. Cf. Rules Sup. Ct. 38 (5)(b).
Both here and in the court below, petitioners’ standing to raise these issues has been questioned. The Secretary of the Interior points to his statutory duty to act as sole marketing agent of power developed at public hydroelectric projects and not required for the operation of the project; § 5 of the Flood Control Act of 1944 directs him to transmit and dispose of such power in a manner calculated to “encourage the most widespread use thereof at the lowest possible rates to consumers consistent with sound business principles.” 58 Stat. 890, 16 U. S. C. § 825s. This provision, it is said, announces a congressional policy for the guidance of the Secretary that would be disturbed by the respondent company’s plan; thus a specific interest of the Secretary, in addition to his more general duties relating to the conservation and utilization of the Nation’s water resources, is said to be adversely affected by the Commission’s order. The REA Association, an association of cooperatives, asserts that, as an organization of consumers entitled, along with “public bodies,” to a preference in sales by the Secretary under § 5, it has a substantial interest in the development of low-cost power at the Roanoke Rapids site and consequently in the kind of instrumentality, public or private, to which power development at this site is committed. Respondents say, however, that decisions of policy in the construction of power projects have been entrusted to the Commission, or at most also to the Secretary of the Army, under whom the Corps of Engineers performs its statutory functions of making surveys and constructing public works, and that the interests of petitioners arise only after a public project has been constructed and the Secretary of the Army has determined that there is excess power to be distributed and sold.
We hold that petitioners have standing. Differences of view, however, preclude a single opinion of the Court as to both petitioners. It would not further clarification of this complicated specialty of federal jurisdiction, the solution of whose problems is in any event more or less determined by the specific circumstances of individual situations, to set out the divergent grounds in support of standing in these cases.
Petitioners’ main contention, that Congress has, by a series of enactments to be construed as part of an evolving assumption by the Federal Government of comprehensive authority over navigable waters, reserved the Roanoke Rapids site for public development and so has placed it beyond the licensing power of the Federal Power Commission, requires us to consider with some particularity the steps by which plans for the Roanoke Rapids project have unfolded. Petitioners’ contention reduces itself to the claim that the authority of the agency to which Congress has delegated the responsibility for safeguarding the public interest in the private development of power resources has been revoked pro tanto by congressional action as to this particular site.
In 1927, the Army Engineers were authorized to make a specific survey of the Roanoke River by § 1 of the Rivers and Harbors Act, 44 Stat. 1010, 1015, which “adopted and authorized” enumerated “works of improvement” including “surveys in accordance with” H. R. Doc. No. 308, 69th Cong., 1st Sess. (1926). That document, a milestone in the development of integrated federal planning for the use of the Nation’s water resources, had recommended surveys of a large number of streams throughout the country, including the Roanoke River, “either for the preparation of plans for improvement to be undertaken by the Federal Government alone or in connection with private enterprise, or to secure adequate data to insure that waterway developments by private enterprise would fit into a general plan for the full utilization of the water resources of a stream.” H. R. Doc. No. 308, 69th Cong., 1st Sess. 4. The detailed survey of the Roanoke River was transmitted to Congress in 1934; in it the Chief of Engineers stated that a comprehensive plan for navigation and power, flood control or irrigation “is not economically justifiable at the present time,” H. R. Doc. No. 65, 74th Cong., 1st Sess. 2 (1935), and concurred in the judgment of the investigating engineer that “[t]here is no justification for any Federal expenditures for either flood control or power.” Id., at 53; cf. id., at 14-15.
In 1936, Congress enacted the Flood Control Act of 1936, 49 Stat. 1570, defining the public interest in flood control as follows: “It is hereby recognized that destructive floods upon the rivers of the United States... constitute a menace to national welfare; that it is the sense of Congress that flood control on navigable waters or their tributaries is a proper activity of the Federal Government...; that the Federal Government should improve or participate in the improvement of navigable waters or their tributaries, including watersheds thereof, for flood-control purposes if the benefits to whomsoever they may accrue are in excess of the estimated costs, and if the lives and social security of people are otherwise adversely affected.” 49 Stat. 1570, 33 U. S. C. § 701a. In the same Act, the Secretary of War was authorized to continue surveys at a number of localities, including “Reservoirs in Roanoke and Tar Rivers, North Carolina.” § 7, Act of 1936, 49 Stat. 1596. In § 6 of the Act, Congress provided that “the Government shall not be deemed to have entered upon any project for the improvement of any waterway mentioned in this Act until the project for the proposed work shall have been adopted by law.” 49 Stat. 1592.
Following a destructive flood on the Roanoke River in 1940, the House Committee on Flood Control adopted a resolution requesting reappraisal of the previous reports on the Roanoke River to determine “whether any improvements in the interests of flood control and allied purposes are advisable at this time.” See H. R. Doc. No. 650, 78th Cong., 2d Sess. 12 (1944). A similar resolution was adopted later by the House Committee on Rivers and Harbors, see ibid., and as a result, the Corps of Engineers submitted its recommendations in a report which became H. R. Doc. No. 650, 78th Cong., 2d Sess. (1944). This report recommended the comprehensive Roanoke Basin plan here in issue. The report proposed a system of eleven dams and reservoirs, eight of them on the Roanoke River, and recommended authorization of two of those projects, designated Buggs Island and Phil-pott, “as the initial step.” Id., at 2.
Petitioners rely most strongly on two features of this report for their claim that Congress has, by approving the plan outlined in the report, withdrawn all sites in the plan from the licensing jurisdiction of the Federal Power Commission. As the report moved up through the hierarchy of the Corps of Engineers, comments upon the plan were made by the different responsible officers. The detailed report of the investigating engineer estimated costs, including interest, on bases obviously contemplating federal financing. These figures were accepted in the comments of each forwarding officer. Further, the Chief of Engineers, in submitting the report, stated, “To safeguard the interests of navigation and flood control, the dams and power facilities should be constructed, operated, and maintained under the direction of the Secretary of War and the supervision of the Chief of Engineers.” Ibid. Neither the reports nor the comments of subordinates had contained any such suggestion or any engineering or other reasons why such a recommendation might be made, and the Chief of Engineers gave no reasons for his suggestion. Further, it is not clear from the context that the statement referred to all the projects and not simply to the two dams to be authorized, that is, the ones with flood-control features, or even that the words “under the direction... and the supervision” precluded construction by a private applicant; indeed, the order here granting the license specifically requires the licensee to “operate its project in such a manner as the Chief of Engineers, Corps of Engineers, Department of the Army, or his authorized representative, may prescribe.” We do not think these disconnected statements would justify us in saying that the report as it went to Congress plainly proposed that the Government construct all the projects in the plan. There are contrary indications in the report itself; particularly pertinent in the light of congressional practice is the strong emphasis put on the flood-control aspects of the two projects recommended for authorization. In any event, we do not have a recommendation for public construction that is clearly an integral part of the plan, and the decisive question is not what this or that isolated statement in the report or the comments thereon imply but how Congress may fairly be said to have received and read the report in the light of the legislative practice in relation to such public works.
It deserves mention that the Roanoke Rapids site, although comprehended in the plan and found to be the most desirable power site of all eleven units, was to be developed simply for the production of power. The District Engineer pointed out that the two projects recommended for early authorization would provide practically all the flood-control benefits to be derived from the plan ; installations at the two sites, Buggs Island and Philpott, would “eliminate over 90 percent of the flood losses to the two main flood-damage areas in the Roanoke River Basin.” Id., at 88. At those two sites were to be built multiple-purpose reservoirs for flood control, water power, and low-water regulation, while at the other nine sites, with one minor exception, there were simply to be power projects.
As is customary, the Federal Power Commission was asked to comment on the proposal; by letter to the Chief of Engineers dated May 3, 1944, the Commission suggested some technical changes but concurred substantially in the recommendations of the Engineers, “that the comprehensive development of the Roanoke River Basin, in general accordance with the plans prepared therefor by the district engineer consisting of 11 dam and reservoir projects with power, is desirable and that the Buggs Island and Philpott projects would constitute a desirable initial step in the development of the Roanoke River Basin.” Id., at 4.
The report was presented to Congress while the bill that became the Flood Control Act of 1944 was under consideration; although the House had already closed its hearings, the Senate Report proposed amending the bill to include provision for the Roanoke Basin, recommending “approval of the comprehensive plan and authorization for construction of the Buggs Island and Philpott Reservoirs in accordance with the recommendations of the Chief of Engineers.” S. Rep. No. 1030, 78th Cong., 2d Sess. 8.
The proposal was accepted, and § 10 of the Act contains a corresponding provision. It provides that “the following works of improvement... are hereby adopted and authorized.” Included in an omnibus listing of such “works of improvement” is the following: “The general plan for the comprehensive development” of the Roanoke Basin recommended in H. R. Doc. No. 650 “is approved” and construction of Buggs Island and Philpott is “hereby authorized substantially in accordance with the recommendations of the Chief of Engineers in that report at an estimated cost of $36,140,000.”
It is this statutory language that petitioners say withdrew the Roanoke Rapids site from the licensing jurisdiction of the Commission. They ask us to read the word “approved” as a reservation of the site for public construction and, by necessary implication, a withdrawal of the site from the Commission’s licensing authority. A flat “approval” of a plan clearly recommending public construction as an indispensable constituent of the plan might indeed have that effect, but, as indicated above, we do not find that the plan made any such recommendation.
A separate argument of petitioners is based in part on the language of a proviso commonly inserted in authorizations for flood-control surveys, that the Government shall not be deemed to have entered upon a project until the project is “adopted by law.” From this language petitioners infer that the Government’s entry upon a project so as to preclude private construction occurs when Congress adopts a project, and they ask us to say that such adoption occurred here when Congress “approved” the plan comprehending the Roanoke Rapids site. We do not think the word “approval” carries the implication of “adoption” or “authorization” by its own force. Read together with other legislative action concerning water resources and with the history of federal activity in that regard, congressional “approval” without more cannot be taken, we think, to indicate in this case more than a legislative finding that the proposed projects, no matter by whom they may be built, are desirable and consistent with congressional standards for the ordered development of the Nation’s water resources. Such a finding has meaning in conveying the congressional purpose and expressing a congressional attitude. Concretely it means that Congress has adopted a basic policy for the systematic development of a river basin. Decision is made on such questions as the locations of projects, the purposes they are to serve, their approximate size and the desirable order of construction; because of the necessary interrelationship of many technical engineering and economic features of the several dams in a single river basin, early choice among possible alternatives is imperative. The policy chosen by Congress when it approves a plan is, in the first place, directed to Congress itself in its appropriating function. Approval also tells the Federal Power Commission — the executant of congressional policy — how to exercise its authority in relation to the authorization of sites in the Roanoke Basin. The finding had utility in this case in the guidance it gave the Commission in determining whether a private applicant would adequately develop all the benefits that should be derived from the proposed site.
In so interpreting the language Congress has used, we gain some light from the action Congress has taken to set projects in motion following enactment of statutes “approving” a comprehensive plan and “authorizing” certain projects set out in the plan. For the Roanoke River Basin itself, although Buggs Island and Philpott were specifically “authorized” in the Flood Control Act of 1944, separate steps were taken by Congress to complete the authorization; “planning money” was appropriated, a “Definite Project Report” was received for Buggs Island, and then funds for construction of Buggs Island were appropriated. Equally illuminating is the procedure by which Congress recently set in motion plans to build a project “approved” exactly as was the Roanoke Rapids project. At approximately the same time as the engineering reports on the Roanoke River were submitted, a comparable report was submitted concerning the Savannah River, Georgia, and recommending a comprehensive plan much like the Roanoke River Basin plan. Like Buggs Island and Philpott in the Roanoke plan, Clark Hill in the Savannah plan was recommended for immediate authorization, “as the initial step.” See H. R. Doc. No. 657, 78th Cong., 2d Sess. 6. As the demand for power increased, other projects included in the plan were to follow, the first to be the Hartwell site. The Senate Report accepted this recommendation, S. Rep. No. 1030, 78th Cong., 2d Sess. 9-10, just as it had the Roanoke Basin recommendation, and called for “approval of the comprehensive plan and authorization for construction of the Clark Hill project.” Id., at 10. Section 10 of the Flood Control Act of 1944 contains a corresponding provision. 58 Stat. 894. Thus, the background as well as the precise terms of the provisions relating to projects in the Savannah River plan are closely parallel to those relating to the Roanoke projects. Recently, when further construction on the Savannah River was proposed and authorization of Hartwell, the site next in fine, was recommended, neither Congress nor the Engineers treated the earlier “approval” of the comprehensive plan as a final step making unnecessary other than automatic appropriations for Hartwell. Rather, hearings were held, see Hearings before House Committee on Public Works on H. R. 5472 (Title II), 81st Cong., 1st Sess. 37-85 (May 16, 1949), and a separate authorization for construction was included in the Rivers and Harbors Act of 1950, 64 Stat. 171.
Respondents further point out that at the same time hearings were held on the Hartwell project, there were also hearings on further construction in the Roanoke Basin, and the Corps of Engineers proposed the authorization of Smith Mountain, a project with minor flood-control benefits but not next in line under the plan as approved in the Flood Control Act of 1944. That plan had put the Roanoke Rapids site here involved and the Gaston site ahead of Smith Mountain. The reason given by the Engineers for changing the order of construction was that private applications, including the application here, had been made or contemplated for the Roanoke Rapids and Gaston sites. While we do not attach weight to subsequent statements by the Engineers that the Flood Control Act of 1944 did not preclude private construction of some projects in the plan, it is pertinent to note that a Committee of Congress responsible for water resources legislation was informed that an application was pending for private construction. Whether or not the Committee agreed that the Flood Control Act of 1944 allowed private construction of projects comprehended in plans there approved, in fact no action was taken by it to prevent the Commission from proceeding to hear the VEPCO application, although the Committee learned that the application was pending over a year and a half before the order was handed down by the Commission.
Whatever light these subsequent proceedings in Congress afford, both as to the Roanoke Basin and as to the comparable Hartwell site in the Savannah River plan, we find no solid ground for concluding that Congress has taken over the entire river basin for public development with such definiteness and finality so as to warrant us in holding that Congress has withdrawn as to this whole river basin its general grant of continuing authority to the Federal Power Commission to act as the responsible agent in exercising the licensing power of Congress. Extensive review of the need for integration of federal activities affecting waterways, see, e. g., Report of Secretary of War Stimson, H. R. Doc. No. 929, 62d Cong., 3d Sess. 32-35 (1912), and of the breadth of authority granted to the Commission by Congress in response to that need is hardly necessary to establish the role of the Commission in hydroelectric power development. See, e. g., First Iowa Coop. v. Power Comm’n, 328 U. S. 152, 180, 181, and cases cited. From the time that the importance of power sites was brought to public and congressional consciousness during the administration of President Theodore Roosevelt, the significant development has been the devising of a general power policy instead of ad hoc action by Congress, with all the difficulties and dangers of local pressures and logrolling to which such action gave rise. See the Yeto Messages of Presidents Roosevelt and Taft, e. g., 36 Cong. Rec. 3071 (Muscle Shoals, Ala., 1903); 42 Cong. Rec. 4698 (Rainy River, 1908); H. R. Doc. No. 1350, 60th Cong., 2d Sess. (James River, 1909); H. R. Doc. No. 899, 62d Cong., 2d sess. (White River, 1912); S. Doc. No. 949, 62d Cong., 2d Sess. (Coosa River, 1912). It soon became clear that indispensable to a wise national policy was the creation of a commission with functions and powers comparable to those of the Interstate Commerce Commission in the field of transportation. It took the usual time for such a commission to come into being, and the process was step-by-step. Originally Congress entrusted its policy to a commission composed of three Cabinet officers. 41 Stat. 1063. An agency so burdened with other duties was naturally found inadequate as the instrument of these important water-power policies. And so, in 1930, the Commission was reorganized as an expert body of five full-time commissioners. 46 Stat. 797, 16 U. S. C. § 792. These enactments expressed general policies and granted broad administrative and investigative power, making the Commission the permanent disinterested expert agency of Congress to carry out these policies. Cf. 41 Stat. 1065, as amended, 49 Stat. 839, 16 U. S. C. § 797; 3 Report of the President's Water Resources Policy Comm’n 501 (1950).
A principal responsibility of the Commission has always been that of determining whether private construction is consistent with the public interest. See, e. g., S. Rep. No. 180, 66th Cong., 1st Sess. 3. Express provision is made to charge the Commission with the task, of deciding whether construction ought to be undertaken by the United States itself. 41 Stat 1067, as amended, 49 Stat. 842, 16 U. S. C. § 800 (b). Further, even if private construction is to be allowed, approval of private applications requires a determination that the proposed project is “best adapted to a comprehensive plan” for water resources development. 41 Stat. 1068, as amended, 49 Stat. 842, 16 U. S. C. § 803 (a). Thus, congressional approval of a comprehensive plan can be read, as we think it should in this case, simply as saying that a plan such as that here, recommended by the Corps of Engineers for the fullest realization of the potential benefits in the river basin, should be accepted by the Commission as the comprehensive plan to be used in the application of these statutory provisions. That “approval” as such does not reserve all projects in the plan for public construction is perhaps further indicated by the fact that when Congress has wished to reserve particular sites for public construction, it has chosen to say so. See 41 Stat. 1353, 45 Stat. 1012, 45 Stat. 1062.
Of course it is not for us to intimate a preference between private or public construction at this site. Nor are we even asked to review the propriety of the Commission’s determination in this case that private construction is “in harmony with” the comprehensive plan for the Roanoke Basin. Re Virginia Electric & Power Co., 87 P. U. R. (N. S.) 469, 483. We are simply asked to decide whether Congress has withdrawn the power to decide this question from the Commission. To conclude that Congress has done so by approving a general plan for development that may be, and in this case wás, a plan for long-term development, would be to contract, by a tenuous chain of inferences, the broad standing powers of the Commission. Particularly relevant in this regard is the estimate that public development at this site would not in the normal course be undertaken for many years. See Examiner’s Decision of March 17, 1950, R., I, 109. Congress was of course aware that, by granting a license to private enterprise, the Federal Power Commission would not commit the site permanently to private development and preclude all further congressional action. The Commission would, as it did here, simply express its judgment that, at the time, private development of the site was consistent with the general conception of the way in which the Roanoke River Basin should be developed. For, at any time short of the fifty years in which a site automatically becomes available to the Government without compensation, the Government may determine that the public interest makes it more desirable that the project be operated publicly and has the right then, by appropriate steps, to take over the project. 41 Stat. 1071, as amended, 49 Stat. 844, 16 U. S. C. § 807. The purpose of Congress would have to be much more clearly manifested to justify us in inferring that Congress revoked the Commission’s power to decide whether a private license consonant with the general scheme of development for this river basin ought now to be granted in the public interest.
Our conclusion is in accord with the implications of the manifest reluctance of Congress to enter upon power projects having no flood-control or navigational benefits. It cannot be said that as unclear a term as “approval” was to have settled, for this entire river basin, a major controversy that has arisen again and again in connection with legislation authorizing public construction of hydroelectric projects. The declaration of policy in the Flood Control Act of 1936, supra, pp. 157-158, puts strong emphasis on the flood-control aspects of plans for sites that would also produce power; no change in this policy can be read into § 10 of the Flood Control Act of 1944. Cf., e. g., 90 Cong. Rec. 4126; id., at 4127. And the sponsor in the House of the Flood Control Act of 1944 stated in answer to a question: “... we have repeatedly stated during the debate that no project, reservoir, or dam, or other improvement is embraced in this bill unless it is primarily for flood control. If power can be developed as an incident, or if reclamation can be provided, they are cared for in the bill.” 90 Cong. Rec. 4199; cf. id., at 4202. In the light of this history and these specific declarations, it strains belief that “approval” of the comprehensive plan for the Roanoke Basin reserves all projects named in the plan for federal construction when the two projects that provided the chief flood-control features of the plan were the only ones specifically authorized.
Subordinate arguments are made, bearing partly on the power of the Commission to issue any license for private development and partly on the Commission’s exercise of its power in granting this license. The arguments involve technical engineering and economic details which it would serve no useful purpose to canvass here. Once recognizing, as we do, that the Commission was not deprived of its power to entertain this application for a license, we cannot say, within the limited scope of review open to us, that the Commission’s findings were not warranted. Judgment upon these conflicting engineering and economic issues is precisely that which the Commission exists to determine, so long as it cannot be said, as it cannot, that the judgment which it exercised had no basis in evidence and so was devoid of reason.
At the heart of these arguments is the fact that the Roanoke Rapids site is, under present estimates, the most desirable site for power in the Roanoke Basin. For that reason, as petitioners argue, removal of the Roanoke Rapids site from a government-operated system would result in loss to the Federal Government of the potential benefits of that site and a decrease, but only by the amount of the Roanoke Rapids profits, in the potential profits of the system as a whole. But it has never been suggested that such is the criterion under which the Commission is to determine whether a project ought to be undertaken by the United States, let alone that such considerations could demonstrate that Congress withdrew the Roanoke Rapids site from the licensing jurisdiction of the Commission. If it could be shown that the plan could not be executed successfully without the Roanoke Rapids site, it would be arguable that congressional approval of the plan presupposed that all units of the plan be centrally administered. The findings are to the contrary. The Commission has found that the proposed private project is consistent with the plan contained in the Flood Control Act of 1944, Re Virginia Electric & Power Co., supra, at 483; that there is no reason to believe that the “interest of the public at large will not be fully protected and promoted” by the issuance of this license, id., at 472; and that there was no showing that the Roanoke Rapids site would “at any time” be developed by the United States. Id., at 483. Further, there is express recognition of the possibility that the site may be benefited by government projects in operation and consequently of the fact that VEPCO may be required to compensate the Government for any such “headwater benefits” conferred. Id., at 477-478.
Finally, we do not find merit in the contention that the Commission was required by § 7 (b) of the Federal Power Act to recommend public construction of the project. As the report of the Corps of Engineers does not clearly recommend that all projects be constructed by the United States, the Commission’s concurrence in that report cannot provide a basis for invoking the provisions of § 7 (b). Section 7 (b) is a direction to the Commission not to approve a private application for a project “affecting” any development of water resources which, in the judgment of the Commission, should be undertaken by the United States itself. Petitioners in effect ask us to tell the Commission what it thought — to say to the Commission that it was its judgment that Roanoke Rapids, as well as all the other seven projects in the Roanoke plan not yet under consideration, should be built by the Government. It is not clear that the Commission’s concurrence in the general plan would have been much more than simple approval of the location of the dams, the purposes they would serve, and the engineering characteristics of the projects, even if the report had clearly recommended public construction. Primary responsibility for the enforcement of the provisions of §7 (b) must remain with the Commission; we cannot infer a judgment of the Commission that it never expressed and now specifically disavows.
For these reasons, we agree with the Court of Appeals that the Commission’s order must stand. In the bits and pieces of legislative history which we have set out, we find no justification for inferring that Congress withdrew the Commission’s authority regarding the Roanoke River Basin from the general authority given the Commission to grant licenses for private construction of hydroelectric projects with appropriate safeguards of the public interest. Whatever the merits of the controversy as to which agency — the Government or a private party— should construct this project, that question is not within our province.
Affirmed.
Section 6 of the Flood Control Act of 1938 authorized the Secretary of War to make surveys “for flood control” of the Smith River, a tributary of the Roanoke on which two of the eleven projects in the comprehensive Roanoke Basin plan are located. 52 Stat. 1223.
The full text of the provisions, so far as they are relevant, is as follows:
"Sec. 10. That the following works of improvement for the benefit of navigation and the control of destructive flood waters and other purposes are hereby adopted and authorized in the interest of the national security and with a view toward providing an adequate reservoir of useful and worthy public works for the post-war construction program, to be prosecuted under the direction of the Secretary of War and supervision of the Chief of Engineers in accordance with the plans in the respective reports hereinafter designated and subject to the conditions set forth therein: [Provisos omitted].
“RoaNOKE River BasiN
“The general plan for the comprehensive development of the Roanoke River Basin for flood control and other purposes recommended by the Chief of Engineers in House Document Numbered 650, Seventy-eighth Congress, second session, is approved and the construction of the Buggs Island Reservoir on the Roanoke River in Virginia and North Carolina, and the Philpott Reservoir on the Smith River in Virginia, are hereby authorized substantially in accordance with the recommendations of the Chief of Engineers in that report at an estimated cost of $36,140,000.” 58 Stat. 891-892, 894.
See, e. g., § 6 of the Flood Control Act of 1936, quoted p. 158, supra.
There is little force in the argument that the words “adopted and authorized” in § 10, see note 2, supra, apply to the Roanoke Rapids site. Not only is the specific provision as to the Roanoke Basin to control over the general, but that which is adopted and authorized is not “the following plans” but “the following works of improvement,” which patently refers to such projects as Buggs Island and Philpott, rather than to all sites named in a comprehensive plan. This answers that part of petitioners’ argument which relies on the language of § 10 speaking of prosecution of the projects “under the direction of the Secretary of War” when “budgetary requirements” permit. As a matter of language, apart from all other considerations, the “works of improvement” to which such language refers is better read as the projects authorized rather than as all projects named in plans that were approved.
The Rules of both the Senate and the House in 1944, as now, called for previous choice of policy through authorization by law before any item of appropriations might be included in a general appropriations bill. Rule XVI, Senate Manual, S. Doc. No. 239, 77th Cong., 2d Sess. 20; Rule XXI, Rules of the House of Representatives, H. R. Doc. No. 812, 77th Cong., 2d Sess. 384. The importance of this distinction in the context of authorization of power projects is brought out in the following colloquy between a representative of the Corps of Engineers and Chairman Whittington of the House Committee on Public Works:
“The ChairmaN.... Is not the word ‘approved’ an authorization for the plan but without appropriation, or without an authorization for the appropriation?
“What is the difference between approving and authorizing a plan?
“Colonel Gee. We have never construed the approval of the plan to carry with it the authorization to construct the elements of that plan.
“The Chairman. Nor do we.” Hearings before the House Committee on Public Works on H. R. 5472 (Title II), 81st Cong., 1st Sess. 42.
The general enacting provision, § 204, 64 Stat. 170, is substantially the same as § 10 of the Flood Control Act of 1944, supra, note 2. The specific provision as to the Savannah River is 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: | H | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Mr. Justice Brennan
delivered the opinion of the Court.
This reapportionment case was brought in the District Court of Hawaii by residents and qualified voters of the City and County of Honolulu, appellees in each of the three appeals consolidated here. They alleged that Hawaii’s legislative apportionment, was unconstitutional under our decisions in Reynolds v. Sims, 377 U. S. 533, and companion cases. William S. Richardson, Lieutenant Governor of Hawaii, also an appellee in all three appeals, was named defendant in his capacity as the state officer responsible for supervising state elections. John A. Burns, Governor of Hawaii, appellant in No. 318, intervened as a party plaintiff. Members of the State House of Representatives, appellants in No. 323, and members of the State Senate, appellants in No. 409, intervened as parties defendant.
Under the Hawaii Constitution, adopted in 1950 and put into effect upon admission to statehood in 1959, the State is divided into four major counties, referred to in the State Constitution as “basic areas.” Each county is made up of a group of islands, separated from each of the other counties by wide and deep ocean waters. The principal island of the City and County of Honolulu, the most populous county, is the island of Oahu. It is the State’s industrial center, principal tourist attraction, and site of most of the many federal military establishments located in the State. In 1960, 79% of the State’s population lived there. The three other counties, primarily rural and agricultural, are Hawaii County, Maui County, and Kauai County.
The apportionment article of the State Constitution was framed to assure that the three small counties would choose a controlling majority of the State Senate and that the population center, Oahu, would control the State House of Representatives. Thus, Art. Ill, § 2, of the State Constitution apportions a 25-member senate among six fixed senatorial districts, assigning a specified number of seats to each. Fifteen senate seats, a controlling majority, are allocated among Hawaii, Kauai and Maui Counties and 10 seats are assigned to Oahu. Alteration of this apportionment is made very difficult by a provision “that no constitutional amendment altering... the representation from any senatorial district in the senate shall become effective unless it shall also be approved by a majority of the votes tallied upon the question in each of a majority of the counties.” Hawaii Const., Art. XV, § 2, ¶ 6.
For the State House of Representatives, on the other hand, the State Constitution establishes 18 representative districts, 10 of which are on Oahu, and requires the Governor to apportion the 51-member body among these districts on the basis of the number of voters registered in each. The first apportionment occurred in 1959, just prior to statehood, and was based on registration figures for the 1958 territorial election. It produced 13 multi-member representative districts and five single-member districts, and allocated 36 representatives, a controlling majority, to Oahu. The Governor is required to reapportion the State decennially, a duty which may be enforced by mandamus from the State Supreme Court.
This apportionment scheme was first attacked in the Supreme Court of Hawaii, within a month after we decided Reynolds v. Sims. That court refused to pass on the validity of the apportionment at that time. It noted the imminence of the 1964 election and stated its belief that, consistent with the Hawaii Constitution, judicial proceedings should await legislative proposals for a constitutional amendment or a constitutional convention. Guntert v. Richardson, 47 Haw. 662, 394 P. 2d 444. Compare Reynolds v. Sims, 377 U. S., at 585. A special legislative session was then called by the Governor to consider reapportionment. It failed to act.
This suit was brought on August 13, 1964. A three-judge court was convened, as required by 28 U. S. C. §§2281, 2284 (1964 ed.). Interim relief was denied in view of the pendency of the 1964 elections and hearings were set for January 1965. The court published its first decision and order on February 17, 1965. 238 F. Supp. 468. That order declared all provisions of the apportionment plan contained in the Hawaii Constitution valid under the Equal Protection Clause except the mentioned provisions relating to the apportionment of the State Senate. These were affirmatively declared to be invalid and unconstitutional.
In the February 17 order the District Court decided not to fashion its own reapportionment plan for the senate. Nor did it instruct the legislature to reapportion the senate or to propose constitutional amendments for that purpose. Instead, it directed the legislature to submit to the electorate at an immediate special election the question, “Shall there be a convention to propose a revision of or amendments to the Constitution?” The legislature was also directed to establish the convention procedures according to a timetable the court set. The court retained jurisdiction for all purposes, including that of itself reapportioning the senate in the event of a negative vote on the question, failure of the convention to adopt a suitable amendment, or rejection by the electorate of the amendment adopted by the convention.
The court chose the convention route over the legislative route for two reasons. Under the Hawaii Constitution all elections necessary to adoption of amendments proposed by a constitutional convention may be held on a special basis. Legislative proposals, on the other hand, may be submitted only at a general election. In starting the machinery necessary for a convention, the court hoped that a valid permanent plan could be presented to the electorate and adopted before the next general election, to be held in 1966. The second reason was that the court doubted that the legislature would be able to agree on an amendment proposal for reapportioning the senate, in view of the failure of the previously called legislative special session to act.
The special elections necessary under the court’s order, however, entailed substantial expense. On motion of the intervening legislators, which showed substantial progress towards a legislative proposal for amendment, the court on March 9,1965, modified its order. As suggested by the parties, it suspended the February 17 order and instead required the legislature to enact three separate statutes before turning to regular legislative business. One statute was to propose an interim senate apportionment plan, using registered voters as a basis, to be submitted to the court. If approved, it would be adopted by the court as its plan for use in the 1966 general election. The second statute was to propose a constitutional amendment embodying pertinent provisions of the interim plan, to be submitted to the people for approval at that election. The third statute was to submit the question of calling a constitutional convention to the electorate at the 1966 general election.
Three statutes were enacted. H. B. 987, the only one of these measures before us, proposed an interim plan of apportionment for the senate. 1 Hawaii Sess. Laws 1965, Act 281. The plan followed the pattern for house apportionment. It established eight senatorial districts, five on Oahu. As required by the court’s order, the 25 senators were to be apportioned on the basis of registered voters. Using figures derived from registration for the 1964 general elections, Oahu was allocated 19 out of the 25 senators, a controlling majority.
Under the total apportionment scheme which resulted from this enactment, Oahu would not have any single-member districts in either the house or the senate. The distribution of registered voters in Oahu is such that Oahu’s 10 representative districts have two to six representatives each, and its five senatorial districts each would have either three or four senators. Hawaii County would be a single senatorial district represented by three senators and have five representative districts, four choosing a single representative and the fifth electing three. Maui County would be a single senatorial district electing two senators and have two representative districts, one electing four, and the other a single representative. Kauai County would be a single senatorial and a single representative district electing one senator and three representatives. Thus, Oahu with 79% of total population would elect 76% of the senate, 19 of 25 senators, and 71% of the house, 36 of 51 representatives.
The new senate apportionment scheme was submitted to the court immediately upon passage. By opinion and order of April 28, 1965, the District Court disapproved it, and reinstated the provision of its earlier order requiring immediate resort to the convention method. 240 F. Supp. 724. It expressly approved the use of the registered voters measure of population. Its disapproval was based on the legislative decison not to create single-member senatorial districts for Oahu but merely to increase the number of multi-member senatorial districts on that island from two to five. It was not contended that the apportionment failed to meet the standard of Reynolds v. Sims if the use of multi-member districts and the use of registered voters as the apportionment base did not offend the Equal Protection Clause.
In May 1965, the Governor filed a notice of appeal to this Court from certain provisions of the two orders and thereafter the participating senators and representatives also filed notices of appeal from parts of the orders. We noted probable jurisdiction and consolidated the appeals for argument. 382 U. S. 807. We set aside and vacate both orders and remand for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
I.
All parties concede the invalidity of the provisions of Art. Ill, § 2, apportioning the senate on the basis of geography rather than population, and of the provision of Art. XV, § 2, ¶ 6, requiring a majority vote of the electorate in each of a majority of the counties to amend senatorial apportionment established by the constitution. The District Court concluded that, as a matter of state law, the house and senate apportionment plans were severable. Compare Lucas v. Colorado General Assembly, 377 U. S. 713, 735. Even so, Maryland Committee v. Tawes, 377 U. S. 656, holds that a court in reviewing an apportionment plan must consider the scheme as a whole. Implicit in this principle is the further proposition that the body creating an apportionment plan in compliance with a judicial order should ordinarily be left free to devise proposals for apportionment on an overall basis. The Governor argues that the District Court committed “fundamental error” in preventing the Hawaii Legislature from engaging in such deliberations, and that for that reason alone the legislative product was inevitably tinged with constitutional error.
We agree that, once the District Court decided to permit legislative action, it could and should have made clear to the Hawaii Legislature that it could propose modification of the house as well as the senate plan, both as to the interim apportionment to be adopted under court order and as to proposals for permanent reapportionment through constitutional amendment. That approach would have enabled the legislature to channel its efforts to permanent rather than temporary change. Indeed, the failure to invite such thoroughgoing consideration was particularly unfortunate in connection with the court’s requirement in its order of March 9 that the Hawaii Legislature prepare constitutional amendments for a permanent apportionment plan. By directing that the permanent plan incorporate the interim reapportionment plan and by restricting the choices available to the legislature in adopting an interim plan, the court put significant restraints on the legislature’s deliberations about permanent apportionment. It seemed not only to limit the legislature to consideration of senate apportionment but also to require that a registered voters basis be used for that apportionment. These constraints, together with the District Court’s action in explicitly sustaining the constitutionality of the house apportionment in its order of February 17, may have limited the opportunities of the legislature to construct the total scheme of apportionment best suited to the State’s needs. Our decision in Reynolds v. Sims emphasized that “legislative reapportionment is primarily a matter for legislative consideration and determination, and that judicial relief becomes appropriate only when a legislature fails to reapportion according to federal constitutional requisites in a timely fashion after having had an adequate opportunity to do so.” 377 U. S., at 586. Until this point is reached, a State’s freedom of choice to devise substitutes for an apportionment plan found unconstitutional, either as a whole or in part, should not be restricted beyond the clear commands of the Equal Protection Clause.
We are dealing here, however, only with the interim plan. The State remains free to adopt other plans for apportionment, and the present interim plan will remain in effect for no longer time than is necessary to adopt a permanent plan. The 1966 general elections are imminent, and election machinery must be put into operation before further proceedings could be completed. In this context, the question of embarrassment of state legislative deliberations may be put aside. For present purposes, H. B. 987 may be treated together with the existing house apportionment as a new, overall proposal for interim apportionment. The only question for us is whether, viewing the resulting plan in its entirety and without regard to its history, it falls short of federal constitutional standards. We conclude for reasons to be stated that H. B. No. 987 and the existing house apportionment together constitute an interim legislative apportionment which has not been shown to fall short of federal standards. We direct the District Court to enter an order appropriate to adopt the plan as the court’s own for legislative apportionment applicable to the 1966 election, and thereafter until a constitutional permanent plan is adopted, constitutional deficiencies in the interim plan are shown, or another interim plan for reapportionment of the Hawaii Legislature suggested by the legislature is approved by the court.
II.
The April 28 opinion began analysis in terms of the interim senate apportionment plan’s effect upon representation in the State’s scheme of representation as a whole. The District Court was not concerned with population disparities, however, but with what it considered to be a difference in representational effectiveness between multi-member and single-member legislative districts. In an informal memorandum circulated among the parties in early April, the District Court had advised the legislature of its doubts concerning the validity of a multi-member senatorial districting plan, saying:
“We believe that the Senate should be redistricted into single senatorial districts, although we may approve two-member districts if and only if the legislature can affirmatively show substantial reasons therefor. There may very well be valid reasons for one or two 2-member districts in the neighboring islands but we perceive no justification whatsoever for other than single member districts on the Island of Oahu, particularly the heavily populated areas thereof.”
The opinion of April 28 clearly reveals that the court was still convinced that only single-member senatorial dis-tricting on Oahu would be appropriate. It felt, for example, that the legislature had “built monoliths” into the districting scheme by making the boundaries of the third senatorial district and the eighth representative district one and the same, thus enabling the same constituency to elect four representatives and three senators, and by fashioning the sixth senatorial district almost entirely from the fifteenth representative district, from which six representatives and four senators would be elected. It also felt that in setting up the senatorial districts on Oahu the legislature had not taken into account “community of interests, community of problems, socio-economic status, political and racial factors”; and, finally, that “the legislature’s adamant insistence on three and four-member senatorial districting was the conscious or unconscious— though not unnatural — reluctance of the affected senators to carve out single-member districts which thereafter would in all probability result in a political duel-to-the-death with a fellow and neighbor senator.” 240 F. Supp., at 730-731.
But the Equal Protection Clause does not require that at least one house of a bicameral state legislature consist of single-member legislative districts. See Fortson v. Dorsey, 379 U. S. 433. Where the requirements of Reynolds v. Sims are met, apportionment schemes including multi-member districts will constitute an invidious discrimination only if it can be shown that “designedly or otherwise, a multi-member constituency apportionment scheme, under the circumstances of a particular case, would operate to minimize or cancel out the voting strength of racial or political elements of the voting population.” Id., at 439.
It may be that this invidious effect can more easily be shown if, in contrast to the facts in Fortson, districts are large in relation to the total number of legislators, if districts are not appropriately subdistricted to assure distribution of legislators that are resident over the entire district, or if such districts characterize both houses of a bicameral legislature rather than one. But the demonstration that a particular multi-member scheme effects an invidious result must appear from evidence in the record. Cf. McGowan v. Maryland, 366 U. S. 420. That demonstration was not made here. In relying on conjecture as to the effects of multi-member districting rather than demonstrated fact, the court acted in a manner more appropriate to the body responsible for drawing up the districting plan. Speculations do not supply evidence that the multi-member districting was designed to have or had the invidious effect necessary to a judgment of the unconstitutionality of the districting. Indeed, while it would have been better had the court not insisted that the legislature “justify” its proposal, except insofar as it thus reserved to itself the ultimate decision of constitutionality vel non, the legislature did assign reasons for its choice. Once the District Court had decided, properly, not to impose its own senate apportionment but to allow the legislature to frame one, such judgments were exclusively for the legislature to make. They were subject to constitutional challenge only upon a demonstration that the interim apportionment, although made on a proper population basis, was designed to or would operate to minimize or cancel out the voting strength of racial or political elements of the voting population.
III.
The dispute over use of distribution according to registered voters as a basis for Hawaiian apportionment arises because of the sizable differences in results produced by that distribution in contrast to that produced by the distribution according to the State’s total population, as measured by the federal census figures. In 1960 Oahu’s share of Hawaii’s total population was 79%. Its share of persons actually registered was 73%. On the basis of total population, Oahu would be assigned 40 members of the 51-member house of representatives; on the basis of registered voters it would be entitled to 37 representatives. Probably because of uneven distribution of military residents — largely unregistered — -the differences among various districts on Oahu are even more striking. For example, on a total population basis, Oahu’s ninth and tenth representative districts would be entitled to 11 representatives, and the fifteenth and sixteenth representative districts would be entitled to eight. On a registered voter basis, however, the ninth and tenth districts claim, only six representatives and the fifteenth and sixteenth districts are entitled to 10.
The holding in Reynolds v. Sims, as we characterized it in the other cases decided on the same day, is that “both houses of a bicameral state legislature must be apportioned substantially on a population basis.” We start with the proposition that the Equal Protection Clause does not require the States to use total population figures derived from the federal census as the standard by which this substantial population equivalency is to be measured. Although total population figures were in fact the basis of comparison in that case and most of the others decided that day, our discussion carefully left open the question what population was being referred to. At several points, we discussed substantial equivalence in terms of voter population or citizen population, making no distinction between the acceptability of such a test and a test based on total population. Indeed, in WMCA, Inc. v. Lomenzo, 377 U. S. 633, decided the same day, we treated an apportionment based upon United States citizen population as presenting problems no different from apportionments using a total population measure. Neither in Reynolds v. Sims nor in any other decision has this Court suggested that the States are required to include aliens, transients, short-term or temporary residents, or persons denied the vote for conviction of crime, in the apportionment base by which their legislators are distributed and against which compliance with the Equal Protection Clause is to be measured. The decision to include or exclude any such group involves choices about the nature of representation with which we have been shown no constitutionally founded reason to interfere. Unless a choice is one the Constitution forbids, cf., e. g., Carrington v. Rash, 380 U. S. 89, the resulting apportionment base offends no constitutional bar, and compliance with the rule established in Reynolds v. Sims is to be measured thereby.
Use of a registered voter or actual voter basis presents an additional problem. Such a basis depends not only upon criteria such as govern state citizenship, but also upon the extent of political activity of those eligible to register and vote. Each is thus susceptible to improper influences by which those in political power might be able to perpetuate underrepresentation of groups constitutionally entitled to participate in the electoral process, or perpetuate a “ghost of prior malapportionment.” Moreover, “fluctuations in the number of registered voters in a given election may be sudden and substantial, caused by such fortuitous factors as a peculiarly controversial election issue, a particularly popular candidate, or even weather conditions.” Ellis v. Mayor & City Council of Baltimore, 352 F. 2d 123, 130 (C. A. 4th Cir. 1965). Such effects must be particularly a matter of concern where, as in the case of Hawaii apportionment, registration figures derived from a single election are made controlling for as long as 10 years. In view of these considerations, we hold that the present apportionment satisfies the Equal Protection Clause only because on this record it was found to have produced a distribution of legislators not substantially different from that which would have resulted from the use of a permissible population basis.
As the District Court noted, the 1950 constitutional convention discussed three possible measures, total population, state citizen population, and number of registered voters, in considering how the State House of Representatives should be apportioned. Apportionment under the Organic Act had been on the basis of citizen population; this had proved difficult to administer because statistics were not readily available. Total population was disfavored because the census tracts, by which it is determined and reported, did not necessarily comport with traditional local boundaries. Registered voters was chosen as a reasonable approximation of both citizen and total population — readily determinable, conveniently broken down by election district, and a measure which, as against total population, somewhat favored the other islands over Oahu. It-is fair to say that the convention report reflected that citizen population as much as total population was the basis against which a registered voters standard was compared.
Hawaii’s special population problems might well have led it to conclude that state citizen population rather than total population should be the basis for comparison. The District Court referred to the continuing presence in Hawaii of large numbers of the military: “Hawaii has become the United States’ military bastion for the entire Pacific and the military population in the State fluctuates violently as the Asiatic spots of trouble arise and disappear. If total population were to be the only acceptable criterion upon which legislative representation could be based, in Hawaii, grossly absurd and disastrous results would flow....” 238 F. Supp., at 474. Similarly, the court referred to the distortion in census figures attributable to “the large number of tourists who continually flow in and out of the State and who... for census purposes are initially at least, counted as part of Hawaii’s census population....” Id., at 475. (Footnote omitted.) Both the tourists and the military tend to be highly concentrated on Oahu and, indeed, are largely confined to particular regions of that island. Total population figures may thus constitute a substantially distorted reflection of the distribution of state citizenry. If so, a finding that registered voters distribution does not approximate total population distribution is insufficient to establish constitutional deficiency. It is enough if it appears that the distribution of registered voters approximates distribution of state citizens or another permissible population base.
Because state citizen population figures are hard to obtain or extrapolate, a comparison of the results which would be obtained by use of such figures with the results obtained by using registered voter figures is difficult. But the District Court found that military population of Oahu, and its distribution over that island, was sufficient to explain the already noted differences between total population and registered voters apportionments, both as among Hawaii’s four counties and as among Oahu’s representative districts. The District Court noted “that there is nothing in the State Constitution or the Hawaii statutes which per se excludes members of the armed forces from establishing their residence in Hawaii and thereafter becoming eligible to vote. This court finds no scheme in Hawaii’s Constitution or in the statutes implementing the exercise of franchise which is aimed at disenfranchising the military or any other group of citizens.” 238 F. Supp., at 475. No issue was raised in the proceedings before it that military men had been excluded improperly from the apportionment base. Moreover, the District Court stressed that Hawaii’s Constitution and laws actively encourage voter registration. A high proportion of the possible voting population is registered, and “strong drives to bring out the vote have resulted in a vote of from 88 to 93.6% of all registered voters during the elections of 1958, 1959, 1960 and 1962.” Id., at 476 (footnote omitted). In these circumstances, we find no demonstrated error in the District Court’s conclusion that the apportionment achieved by use of a registered voters basis substantially approximated that which would have appeared had state citizen population been the guide.
We are not to be understood as deciding that the validity of the registered voters basis as a measure has been established for all time or circumstances, in Hawaii or elsewhere. The District Court was careful to disclaim any holding that it was a “perfect basis.” We agree. It may well be that reapportionment more frequently than every 10 years, perhaps every four or eight years, would better avoid the hazards of its use. Use of presidential election year figures might both assure a high level of participation and reduce the likelihood that varying degrees of local interest in the outcome of the election would produce different patterns of political activity over the State. Other measures, such as a system of permanent personal registration, might also contribute to the stability and accuracy of the registered voters figure as an apportionment basis. Future litigation may reveal infirmities, temporary or permanent, not established by the present record. We hold that, with a view to its interim use, Hawaii’s registered voter basis does not on this record fall short of constitutional standards.
IV.
Our conclusion that the interim apportionment should apply to the 1966 election requires that the provisions of the order of February 17 mandating an immediate special election on the question of calling a constitutional convention should remain inoperative. The imminence of the 1966 elections precludes any further action pending that event. But the question remains what role the District Court has in bringing about a permanent reapportionment as promptly as reasonably may be after that election. We believe it should retain jurisdiction of the case to take such further proceedings as may be appropriate in the event a permanent reapportionment is not made effective. We note that the electorate will vote at the 1966 election on the question whether a constitutional convention should be convened. We see no reason, however, why the newly elected legislature should either be compelled to propose amendments or be precluded from proposing them. The legislature will doubtless find reason enough to act in the fact that the District Court will retain jurisdiction over the cause to take any action that may be appropriate pending the adoption of a permanent reapportionment which complies with constitutional standards. Such action may include further inquiry into the constitutionality of the present plan in its operation, consideration of substitute interim plans for apportioning the house and senate that might be submitted by the legislature in the event of failure of proposals for constitutional amendment, or judicial apportionment if the present plan is shown to be constitutionally deficient and no acceptable substitute is forthcoming.
The District Court is accordingly directed on remand to enter an appropriate order (1) adopting H. B. No. 987 and the existing house apportionment as an interim legislative apportionment for Hawaii and (2) retaining jurisdiction of the cause for all purposes.
Our judgment shall issue forthwith.
Vacated and remanded.
Mr. Justice Fortas took no part in the consideration or decision of this case.
WMCA, Inc. v. Lomenzo, 377 U. S. 633; Maryland Committee v. Tawes, 377 U. S. 656; Davis v. Mann, 377 U. S. 678; Roman v. Sincock, 377 U. S. 695; and Lucas v. Colorado General Assembly, 377 U. S. 713.
Kalawao, a Hansen’s disease treatment area, is considered a fifth county for some purposes. However, its residents are considered part of Maui County for political purposes, and vote in that county for state legislators. We therefore treat only the four major counties, or basic areas, in this opinion. The State’s 1960 population of 632,772 was divided among these four counties as follows: City and County of Honolulu, 500,409; Hawaii County, 61,332; Maui County, 42,855; and Kauai County, 28,176. The population of the small, outlying islands other than Oahu which comprise the City and County of Honolulu is negligible. We therefore refer to that county hereafter as Oahu.
The District Court found that “this proviso was specifically inserted in order to freeze representation in the senate, and it gave to the rural counties what amounted to the right of veto over any attempt to change the representative makeup of the senate.” 238 F. Supp. 468, 472.
Hawaii uses the method of equal proportions to distribute legislators, first among the four counties and then among the districts within each county. This is the same method as used in apportioning the members of the House of Representatives of the United States Congress. Complex mathematically, it determines a priority order in which legislators are to be assigned among various competing districts. The system is discussed in Schmeckebier, The Method of Equal Proportions, 17 Law & Contemp. Prob. 302 (1952). Use of this method will not necessarily result in a constitutional apportionment. It is the distribution of legislators rather than the method of distributing legislators that must satisfy the demands of the Equal Protection Clause. No claim is made, however, that the effect of applying the method in Hawaii in this case was to deny any person equal protection of the laws by creating representative districts substantially unequal in size.
The court doubted whether the legislature itself had authority under state law to adopt an interim apportionment plan, in view of the decision in Guntert v. Richardson, supra. The Hawaii Constitution authorizes the legislature to propose constitutional amendments to the electorate either upon passage by a two-thirds vote of both houses of the legislature or upon passage by a majority vote of both houses in each of two successive legislative sessions. The Hawaii Constitution also authorizes the legislature to submit to the people the question of calling a constitutional convention, either at a general election or at a special election called for that purpose. Hawaii Const., Art. XV, § 3.
Paragraph 4 of the court’s order provided:
“4. This court will not interfere with the convening or conducting of the business of the Third State Legislature in regular session in 1965, save and except that the parties herein are hereby enjoined from taking final action upon any legislation, except such actions as are necessary to organize the respective houses at such session and appropriate funds for the session, until legislation, pursuant to the provision of Article XV of said Constitution providing for the submission to the people of Hawaii, by special election to be held not later than August 1, 1965, the question: 'Shall there be a convention to propose a revision of or amendments to the Constitution?’, and for any and all acts required by law to implement such legislation, has been enacted into law. Such legislation shall also provide that if the vote be in the constitutional affirmative, then a special election shall be held not later than September 15, 1965 to elect delegates to the convention in the manner provided in the Constitution. Such legislation may include legislative action under Article XV, Section 2, 4th paragraph, of the Constitution. Such legislation shall further provide that the convention convene not later than October 15, 1965 and that it conclude its deliberation in time to submit its proposed constitutional amendments to the electorate of Hawaii at a special election to be held not later than January 30, 1966, including (but not limiting the convention thereto) provisions therein for reapportioning the Senate of Hawaii on a constitutionally valid basis. Such legislation shall also appropriate and make available funds for the expenses of such elections and convention.” 238 F. Supp., at 479.
H. B. 986, 1 Hawaii Sess. Laws 1965, Act 280, provides for submission to the electorate in the 1966 general election of the question whether a constitutional convention should be called. H. B. 773, 1 Hawaii Sess. Laws 1965, p. 483, proposing a constitutional amendment in the same form as the interim plan, was passed by only a majority vote in the senate and hence must be acted on again before it can be submitted to the people for adoption or rejection. See n. 5, supra. In view of the constraints placed on the legislature in adopting this proposal, we think the District Court on remand should make no attempt to require any further action on this measure. See Part I, infra.
The method of equal proportions was to be used for apportioning the senate as well as the house. See n. 4, supra.
On May 21, 1965, Me. Justice Douglas stayed this action pending our determination of these appeals.
We are not to be understood as agreeing with the District Court, insofar as it may have rested its decision on the view that use of the method of equal proportions itself saved the plan from constitutional challenge based on Reynolds v. Sims. 240 F. Supp., at 727. See n. 4, supra.
These notices were timely filed. The February 17 opinion was not formally entered until April 9, 1965. The second decision was dated and entered April 28, 1965. Notices of appeal were filed May 3 and 7, 1965. Whether judged by the date of entry, United States v. Hark, 320 U. S. 531; Fed. Rule Civ. Proc. 58, or by the fact that the order incorporated in the decision of February 17 was not finally made effective until the decision of April 28, United States v. Crescent Amusement Co., 323 U. S. 173, 177, the appeals from the decision announced February 17 were timely. 28 U. S. C. § 2101(b) (1964 ed.).
We have not overlooked the fact that the limitations were suggested by the legislators themselves. Nevertheless, consistently with Maryland Committee v. Tawes, the District Court should have indicated to the legislators that they possessed the same broad scope of inquiry as the court had said in its opinion of February 17 was open to a constitutional convention. It had suggested there that there might be appropriately considered by the convention:
“1. Whether [Hawaii] will continue to use registered voters as the apportionment basis, or change it to State citizen population eligible to vote (i. a., voter population), or citizen population, or total population.
“2. Whether it is better to have one or both houses of the legislature composed of single member representative districts, or to have and justify one or both houses composed, in whole or in part, of multi-member or floterial districts.
“3. Whether decennial reapportionment of either or both houses should be made on or before June 1st of the year preceding the Federal census — as is now the case — or on a date soon after the taking of such census.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | B | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Justice Scalia
delivered the opinion of the Court.
We decide whether a plaintiff who lacks any rights under an existing contractual relationship with the defendant, and who has not been prevented from entering into such a contractual relationship, may bring suit under Rev. Stat. § 1977, 42U.S. C. §1981.
I
Respondent John McDonald, a black man, is the sole shareholder and president of JWM Investments, Inc. (JWM), a corporation organized under Nevada law. He sued petitioners (collectively Domino’s) in the District Court for the District of Nevada, claiming violations of § 1981. The allegations of the complaint, which for present purposes we assume to be true, were as follows.
JWM and Domino’s entered into several contracts under which JWM was to construct four restaurants in the Las Vegas aréa, which would be leased to Domino’s. After the first restaurant was completed, Domino’s agent Debbie Pear refused to execute the estoppel certificates for JWM required by the contracts to facilitate JWM’s bank financing. The relationship between the parties further deteriorated when Pear persuaded the Las Vegas Valley Water District to change its records to show Domino’s, rather than JWM, as the owner of the land JWM had acquired for restaurant construction. McDonald had to go to the Water District to prove JWM’s ownership of the land. In the course of what were apparently many and fruitless discussions between McDonald and Pear, McDonald “explained that he intended to see [the contracts] through to completion,” even though Pear made clear that unless he agreed to back out of the contractual relationship, he would suffer serious consequences. App. to Pet. for Cert. 12-13. At one point Pear said to McDonald, “ 1 don’t like dealing with you people anyway,’ ” refusing to specify what she meant by “ ‘you people.’ ” Id., at 13. Pear threatened to use Domino’s attorneys to “bury” McDonald if he should sue. Ibid. The contracts'between Domino’s and JWM ultimately remained uncompleted.
At least in part because of the failed contracts, JWM filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. The trustee for JWM’s bankruptcy estate initiated an adversary proceeding against Domino’s for breach of contract. For whatever reason, the trustee chose not to assert a § 1981 claim alleging Domino’s interference with JWM’s right to make and enforce contracts. The breach-of-contract claim was settled for $45,000, and JWM gave Domino’s a complete release. Consequently, no further claims arising out of the same episode could be pursued on JWM’s behalf. While the bankruptcy proceedings were still ongoing, McDonald filed the present §1981 claim against Domino’s in his personal capacity.
The gravamen of McDonald’s complaint was that Domino’s had broken its contracts with JWM because of racial animus toward McDonald, and that the breach had harmed McDonald personally by causing him “to suffer monetary damages and damages for pain and suffering, emotional distress, and humiliation.” Id., at 16. The complaint demanded that Domino’s discharge its “obligations under the contracts which McDonald would have received, but for the discriminatory practices, including, but not limited to front pay, back pay and other lost benefits,” as well as “compensatory damages for pecuniary losses, including pain and suffering, emotional distress, mental anguish, and humiliation,” and punitive damages. Id., at 17.
Domino’s filed a motion to dismiss the complaint for failure to state a claim. It asserted that McDonald could bring no § 1981 claim against Domino’s because McDonald was party to no contract with Domino’s. The District Court granted the motion. It noted that Domino’s had “rel[ied] on the basic proposition that a corporation is a separate legal entity from its stockholders and officers,” id., at 6, and concluded that a corporation may have “standing to assert a §1981 claim” but that “a president or sole shareholder may not step into the shoes of the corporation and assert that claim personally,” id., at 7 (citing Guides, Ltd. v. Yarmouth Group Property Management, Inc., 295 F. 3d 1065, 1072-1073 (CA10 2002)).
The Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit reversed. It agreed that an “injury suffered only by the corporation” would not permit a shareholder to bring a § 1981 action. 107 Fed. Appx. 18 (2004). But relying on its earlier decision in Gomez v. Alexian Bros. Hospital of San Jose, 698 F. 2d 1019, 1021-1022 (1983), the Ninth Circuit concluded that when there are “injuries distinct from that of the corporation,” a nonparty like McDonald may nonetheless bring suit under § 1981. 107 Fed. Appx., at 18-19. The Court of Appeals acknowledged that this approach set it apart from other Circuits. Ibid. We granted certiorari. 544 U. S. 998 (2005).
hH
Among the many statutes that combat racial discrimination, § 1981, originally § 1 of the Civil Rights Act of 1866, 14 Stat. 27, has a specific function: It protects the equal right of “[a]ll persons within the jurisdiction of the United States” to “make and enforce contracts” without respect to race. 42 U. S. C. § 1981(a). The statute currently defines “make and enforce contracts” to “inelud[e] the making, performance, modification, and termination of contracts, and the enjoyment of all benefits, privileges, terms, and conditions of the contractual relationship.” § 1981(b).
McDonald argues that the statute must be read to give him a cause of action because he “made and enforced contracts” for JWM. On his reading of the text, “[i]f Domino’s refused to deal with the salesman for a pepperoni manufacturer because the salesman was black, that would violate the section 1981 right of the salesman to make a contract on behalf of his principal.” Brief for Respondent 12. We think not. The right to “make contracts” guaranteed by the statute was not the insignificant right to act as an agent for someone else’s contracting — any more than it was the insignificant right to act as amanuensis in writing out the agreement, and thus to “make” the contract in that sense. Rather, it was the right — denied in some States to blacks, as it was denied at common law to children — to give and receive contractual rights on one’s own behalf Common usage alone is enough to establish this, but the text of the statute makes this common meaning doubly clear by speaking of the right to “make and enforce” contracts. When the Civil Rights Act of 1866 was drafted, it was well known that “[i]n general a mere agent, who has no beneficial interest in a contract which he has made on behalf of his principal, cannot support an action thereon.” 1 S. Livermore, A Treatise on the Law of Principal and Agent 215 (1818).
Any claim brought under § 1981, therefore, must initially identify an impaired “contractual relationship,” § 1981(b), under which the plaintiff has rights. Such a contractual relationship need not already exist, because § 1981 protects the would-be contractor along with those who already have made contracts. We made this clear in Runyon v. McCrary, 427 U. S. 160 (1976), which subjected defendants to liability under § 1981 when, for racially motivated reasons, they prevented individuals who “sought to enter into contractual relationships” from doing so, id., at 172 (emphasis added). We have never retreated from what should be obvious from reading the text of the statute: Section 1981 offers relief when racial discrimination blocks the creation of a contractual relationship, as well as when racial discrimination impairs an existing contractual relationship, so long as the plaintiff has or would have rights under the existing or proposed contractual relationship.
Absent the requirement that the plaintiff himself must have rights under the contractual relátionship, § 1981 would become a strange remedial provision designed to fight racial animus in all of its noxious forms, but only if the animus and the hurt it produced were somehow connected to somebody’s contract. We have never read the statute in this unbounded — or rather, peculiarly bounded — way. See, e.g., Patterson v. McLean Credit Union, 491 U. S. 164, 176 (1989); Burnett v. Grattan, 468 U. S. 42, 44, n. 2 (1984); General Building Contractors Assn., Inc. v. Pennsylvania, 458 U. S. 375, 396 (1982).
Nor has Congress indicated that we should. We held in Patterson that the prior version of § 1981 did “not apply to conduct which occurs after the formation of a contract and which does not interfere with the right to enforce established contract obligations.” 491 U. S., at 171. In 1991, Congress amended the statute, see 105 Stat. 1071, adding § 1981(b), which defines “make and enforce” to bring postformation conduct, including discriminatory termination, within the scope of § 1981. See Jones v. R. R. Donnelley & Sons Co., 541 U. S. 369, 383 (2004). But while Congress revised Patterson’s, exclusion of postformation conduct, it let stand Patterson’s focus upon contract obligations. In fact, it positively reinforced that element by including in the new § 1981(b) reference to a “contractual relationship.”
McDonald’s complaint does identify a contractual relationship, the one between Domino’s and JWM. But it is fundamental corporation and agency law — indeed, it can be said to be the whole purpose of corporation and agency law — that the shareholder and contracting officer of a corporation has no rights and is exposed to no liability under the corporation’s contracts. McDonald now makes light of the law of corporations and of agency — arguing, for instance, that because he “negotiated, signed, performed, and sought to enforce the contract,” Domino’s was wrong to “insist that [the contract] somehow was not his ‘own.’ ” Brief for Respondent 4. This novel approach to the law contradicts McDonald’s own experience. Domino’s filed a proof of claim against JWM during its corporate bankruptcy; it did not proceed against McDonald personally. The corporate form and the rules of agency protected his personal assets, even though he “negotiated, signed, performed, and sought to enforce” contracts for JWM. The corporate form and the rules of agency similarly deny him rights under those contracts.
As an alternative to ignoring corporation and agency law, McDonald proposes a new test for § 1981 standing: Any person who is an “actual target” of discrimination, and who loses some benefit that would otherwise have inured to him had a contract not been impaired, may bring a suit. Under this theory, an individual is the “actual target” if he was the reason a defendant chose to impair its contractual relationship with a third party. McDonald’s formulation simply ignores the explicit statutory requirement that the plaintiff be the “perso[n]” whose “right... to make and enforce contracts,” § 1981(a), was “impaired],” § 1981(c), on account of race. It is just the statutory construction we have always rejected.
McDonald points to several of our prior cases involving plaintiffs whose status as contracting parties was unclear. Because they nonetheless prevailed, McDonald reasons, contractual privity cannot be a sine qua non of a § 1981 claim. In those cases, however, we did not discuss, much less decide, the privity question. In Shaare Tefila Congregation v. Cobb, 481 U. S. 615 (1987), we decided the narrow question whether Jews are a separate and protected race under § 1982. Id., at 618. Similarly, in Runyon, supra, the arguments and the opinion addressed “only two basic questions: whether §1981 prohibits private, commercially operated, nonsectarian schools from denying admission to prospective students because they are Negroes, and, if so, whether that federal law is constitutional as so applied.” Id., at 168 (footnote omitted). And in Goodman v. Lukens Steel Co., 482 U. S. 656 (1987), we decided only the two contested issues: that § 1981 was subject to the state personal injury limitations period, id., at 660-664, and that it violates Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and § 1981 for a union to decline to press black employees’ grievances under the governing collective-bargaining agreement, id., at 669. “The Court often grants certiorari to decide particular legal issues while assuming without deciding the validity of antecedent propositions, and such assumptions — even on jurisdictional issues — are not binding in future cases that directly raise the questions.” United States v. Verdugo-Urquidez, 494 U. S. 259, 272 (1990) (citations omitted).
McDonald resorts finally to policy arguments. Unless his reading of the statute prevails, he warns, many discriminatory acts will go unpunished. Corporations, for instance, may choose not to bring suit for the racially motivated contract breach. It is not likely to be a common occurrence that the victim of a contract breach will forgo a potent available remedy. Injured parties “usually will be the best proponents of their own rights,” Singleton v. Wulff, 428 U. S. 106, 114 (1976) (plurality opinion). And if and when “the holders of those rights ... do not wish to assert them,” id., at 113-114, third parties are not normally entitled to step into their shoes. Moreover, §1981 is only one of a multitude of civil rights statutes. Many of McDonald’s hypothetical examples of unpunished discrimination would in fact be reachable under Title VII — or even under general criminal law. See, e. g., Brief for Respondent 27 (concerning a scenario in which “Domino’s officials had beaten up McDonald in an attempt to intimidate him”). The most important response, however, is that nothing in the text of §1981 suggests that it was meant to provide an omnibus remedy for all racial injustice. If so, it would not have been limited to situations involving contracts. Trying to make it a cure-all not only goes beyond any expression of congressional intent but would produce satellite § 1981 litigation of immense scope. McDonald’s theory would permit class actions by all the minority employees of the nonbreaching party to a broken contract (or, for that matter, minority employees of any company failing to receive a contract award), alleging that the reason for the breach (or •for the refusal to contract) was racial animus against them.
Consistent with our prior case law, and as required by the plain text of the statute, we hold that a plaintiff cannot state a claim under §1981 unless he has (or would have) rights under the existing (or proposed) contract that he wishes “to make and enforce.” Section 1981 plaintiffs must identify injuries flowing from a racially motivated breach of their own contractual relationship, not of someone else’s. Because the District Court correctly recognized and applied these principles, the Ninth Circuit erred in reversing its judgment.
* * *
The judgment of the Ninth Circuit is accordingly
Reversed.
Justice Alito took no part in the consideration or decision of this case.
Since JWM settled its claims-and is not involved in this case, we have no occasion to determine whether, as a corporation, it could have brought suit under § 1981. We note, however, that the Courts of Appeals to have considered the issue have concluded that corporations may raise § 1981 claims. See, e. g., Hudson Valley Freedom Theater, Inc. v. Heimbach, 671 F. 2d 702, 706 (CA2 1982).
McDonald’s “pepperoni salesman” analogy is imprecise. It would better parallel the facts here if the analogy had been to a salesman unable to collect on accounts receivable because he was black, rather than to one who was unable to make the contract in the first place. The fundamental point, however, is the same: An individual seeking to make or enforce a contract under which he has rights will have a claim under 42 U. S. C. § 1981, while one seeking to make or enforce a contract under which someone else has rights will not.
We say “under which the plaintiff has rights” rather than “to which the plaintiff is a party” because we do not mean to exclude the possibility that a third-party intended beneficiary of a contract may have rights under § 1981. See, e. g., 2 Restatement (Second) of Contracts § 304, p. 448 (1979) (“A promise in a contract creates a duty in the promisor to any intended beneficiary to perform the promise, and the intended beneficiary may enforce the duty”). Neither do we mean to affirm that possibility. See, e. g., Blessing v. Freestone, 520 U. S. 329, 349 (1997) (Scalia, J., concurring) (“Until relatively recent times, the third-party beneficiary was generally regarded as a stranger to the contract, and could not sue upon it”). The issue is not before us here, McDonald having made no such claim.
McDonald also argues in his merits brief (for the first time) that we should affirm the Ninth Circuit’s judgment because Domino’s interfered with McDonald’s own contracts with JWM. Counsel for McDonald asserted at oral argument that this contention is not a new argument (see this Court’s Rule 15.2), but is a “sort of formulatio[n] of the same argument” that he had properly raised. Tr. of Oral Arg. 28. As such, it fails for the same reasons that the argument fails in its original incarnation. McDonald acknowledges that JWM did not breach any contractual obligation to him, see Brief for Respondent 44, and so any injury he may have received still derived from impairment of the contractual relationship between JWM and Domino’s, under which McDonald has no rights.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | B | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Mr. Justice Minton
delivered the opinion of the Court.
This is a case involving priority of federal tax liens and a lien of garnishment.
On March 8, 1952, fire destroyed certain property of Adams, engaged in a furniture business in Temple, Bell County, Texas. Respondent insurance company and another were the insurers. The insurance companies agreed on the amount of the loss, and they were to share the payment equally. Before the insurance money was paid, a creditor of Adams, the Sunnyland Wholesale Furniture Company, on April 8, 1952, sued Adams on an open account. At the same time, a writ of garnishment was issued and served upon the Liverpool & London & Globe Insurance Company, attaching the insurance funds due and owing Adams. On April 21,1952, the assessment lists covering the unpaid federal taxes of Adams and his wife for 1948 and 1950 were received in the office of the Collector of Internal Revenue for Texas. On April 26, 1952, notice of tax liens was filed in the office of the county clerk of Bell County, Texas, in favor of the United States for $10,417.57, with interest. Notice of the tax liens with warrants of distraint and notice of levy were served on the respondent insurance company. On June 20, 1952, judgment was entered against Adams in favor of Sunnyland for $2,516.70, with interest and costs. When the garnishee, the respondent insurance company, answered, it named the United States an additional party defendant and requested a determination of priorities of the gar-nisher and the United States, and asked for reasonable attorney's fees'. The amendment was allowed, and the United States was served with process to appear in the state court. On petition of the United States the inter-pleader action was removed to the Northern District of Texas, and the United States was dismissed as a party defendant and permitted to file its complaint for foreclosure of its tax liens. The respondent insurance company paid $7,500.39 into the registry of the court and asked for an attorney's fee of $500. The District Court held the lien of the garnisher superior to the liens of the United States for taxes and allowed the garnishee $500 for attorney’s fees. 107 F. Supp. 405. The Court of Appeals affirmed, one judge dissenting. 209 F. 2d 684. We granted certiorari, 347 U. S. 973.
The question of priorities is identical with that of United States v. Acri, ante, p. 211, and United States v. Security Trust Co., 340 U. S. 47. On the authority of those cases we hold the tax liens of the United States superior to the lien of the garnisher.
As to the attorney’s fee allowed the garnishee insurance company, Rule 677, Vernon’s Texas Rules of Civil Procedure, provides:
“Where the garnishee is discharged upon his answer, the costs of the proceeding, including a reasonable compensation to the garnishee, shall be taxed against the plaintiff; where the answer of the garnishee has not been controverted and the garnishee is held thereon, such costs shall be taxed against the defendant and included in the execution provided for in this section; where the answer is contested, the costs shall abide the issue of such contest.”
The District Court evidently found there was no contest between the insurance company and the other parties, and that the insurance company should be discharged with costs and allowance of a reasonable attorney’s fee of $500. It, therefore, ordered the clerk to issue a check to the insurance company, payable out of the funds paid into the court by it.
If the garnishment lien is not prior to the Government liens, and we have held that it is not, certainly fees allowed in that proceeding are not prior to the Government liens, and the authorization of the payment of the attorney’s fees prior to the Government liens was error. The costs and fees should be adjudged against the defendant, as provided by Rule 677.
The judgment 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.
Mr. Justice Douglas
delivered the opinion of the Court.
This suit, like its companion, United States v. Louisiana, ante, p. 699, decided this day, invokes our original jurisdiction under Art. Ill, § 2, Cl. 2 of the Constitution and puts into issue the conflicting claims of the parties to oil and other products under the bed of the ocean below low-water mark off the shores of Texas.
The complaint alleges that the United States was and is
“the owner in fee simple of, or possessed of paramount rights in, and full dominion and power over, the lands, minerals and other things underlying the Gulf of Mexico, lying seaward of the ordinary low-water mark on the coast of Texas and outside of the inland waters, extending seaward to the outer edge of the continental shelf and bounded on the east and southwest, respectively, by the eastern boundary of the State of Texas and the boundary between the United States and Mexico.”
The complaint is in other material respects identical with that filed against Louisiana. The prayer is for a decree adjudging and declaring the rights of the United States as against Texas in the above-described area, enjoining Texas and all persons claiming under it from continuing to trespass upon the area in violation of the rights of the United States, and requiring Texas to account to the United States for all money derived by it from the area subsequent to June 23, 1947.
Texas opposed the motion for leave to file the complaint on the grounds that the Attorney General was not authorized to bring the suit and that the suit, if brought, should be instituted in a District Court. And Texas, like Louisiana, moved to dismiss on the ground that since Texas had not consented to be sued, the Court had no original jurisdiction of the suit. After argument, we granted the motion for leave to file the complaint. 337 U. S. 902. Texas then moved to dismiss the complaint on the ground that the suit did not come within the original jurisdiction of the Court. She also moved for a more definite statement or for a bill of particulars and for an extension of time to answer. The United States then moved for judgment. These various motions were denied and Texas was granted thirty days to file an answer. 338 U. S. 806.
Texas in her answer, as later amended, renews her objection that this case is not one of which the Court has original jurisdiction; denies that the United States is or ever has been the owner of the lands, minerals, etc., underlying the Gulf of Mexico within the disputed area; denies that the United States is or ever has been possessed of paramount rights in or full dominion over the lands, minerals, etc., underlying the Gulf of Mexico within said area except the paramount power to control, improve, and regulate navigation which under the Commerce Clause the United States has over lands beneath all navigable waters and except the same dominion and paramount power which the United States has over uplands within the United States, whether privately or state owned; denies that these or any other paramount powers or rights of the United States include ownership or the right to take or develop or authorize the taking or developing of oil or other minerals in the area in dispute without compensation to Texas; denies that any paramount powers or rights of the United States include the right to control or to prevent the taking or developing of these minerals by Texas or her lessees except when necessary in the exercise of the paramount federal powers, as recognized by Texas, and when duly authorized by appropriate action of the Congress; admits that she claims rights, title, and interests in said lands, minerals, etc., and says that her rights include ownership and the right to take, use, lease, and develop these properties; admits that she has leased some of the lands in the area and received royalties from the lessees but denies that the United States is entitled to any of them; and denies that she has no title to or interest in any of the lands in the disputed area.
As an affirmative defense, Texas asserts that as an independent nation the Republic of Texas had open, adverse, and exclusive possession and exercised jurisdiction and control over the land, minerals, etc., underlying that part of the Gulf of Mexico within her boundaries established at three marine leagues from shore by her First Congress and acquiesced in by the United States and other major nations; that when Texas was annexed to the United States the claim and rights of Texas to this land, minerals, etc., were recognized and preserved in Texas; that Texas continued as a State to hold open, adverse and exclusive possession, jurisdiction and control of these lands, minerals, etc., without dispute, challenge or objection by the United States; that the United States has recognized and acquiesced in this claim and these rights; that Texas under the doctrine of prescription has established such title, ownership and sovereign rights in the area as preclude the granting of the relief prayed.
As a second affirmative defense, Texas alleges that there was an agreement between the United States and the Republic of Texas that upon annexation Texas would not cede to the United States but would retain all of the lands, minerals, etc., underlying that part of the Gulf of Mexico within the original boundaries of the Republic.
As a third affirmative defense, Texas asserts that the United States acknowledged and confirmed the three-league boundary of Texas in the Gulf of Mexico as declared, established, and maintained by the Republic of Texas and as retained by Texas under the annexation agreement.
Texas then moved for an order to take depositions of specified aged persons respecting the existence and extent of knowledge and use of subsoil minerals within the disputed area prior to and since the annexation of Texas, and the uses to which Texas has devoted parts of the area as bearing on her alleged prescriptive rights. Texas also moved for the appointment of a special master to take evidence and report to the Court.
The United States opposed these motions and in turn moved for judgment asserting that the defenses tendered by Texas were insufficient in law and that no issue of fact had been raised which could not be resolved by judicial notice. We set the case down for argument on that motion.
We are told that the considerations which give the Federal Government paramount rights in, and full dominion and power over, the marginal sea off the shores of California and Louisiana (see United States v. California, 332 U. S. 19; United States v. Louisiana, supra) should be equally controlling when we come to the marginal sea off the shores of Texas. It is argued that the national interests, national responsibilities, and national concerns which are the basis of the paramount rights of the National Government in one case would seem to be equally applicable in the other.
But there is a difference in this case which, Texas says, requires a different result. That difference is largely in the preadmission history of Texas.
The sum of the argument is that prior to annexation Texas had both dominium (ownership or proprietary rights) and imperium (governmental powers of regulation and control) as respects the lands, minerals and other products underlying the marginal sea. In the case of California we found that she, like the original thirteen colonies, never had dominium over that area. The first claim to the marginal sea was asserted by the National Government. We held that protection and control of it were indeed a function of national external sovereignty. 332 U. S. 31-34. The status of Texas, it is said, is different: Texas, when she came into the Union, retained the dominium over the marginal sea which she had previously acquired and transferred to the National Government only her powers of sovereignty — her imperium — over the marginal sea.
This argument leads into several chapters of Texas history.
The Republic of Texas was proclaimed by a convention on March 2, 1836. The United States and other nations formally recognized it. The Congress of Texas on December 19, 1836, passed an act defining the boundaries of the Republic. The southern boundary was described as follows: “beginning at the mouth of the Sabine river, and running west along the Gulf of Mexico three leagues from land, to the mouth of the Rio Grande.” Texas was admitted to the Union in 1845 “on an equal footing with the original States in all respects whatever.” Texas claims that during the period from 1836 to 1845 she had brought this marginal belt into her territory and subjected it to her domestic law which recognized ownership in minerals under coastal waters. This the United States contests. Texas also claims that under international law, as it had evolved by the 1840’s, the Republic of Texas as a sovereign nation became the owner of the bed and sub-soil of the marginal sea vis-á-vis other nations. Texas claims that the Republic of Texas acquired during that period the same interest in its marginal sea as the United States acquired in the marginal sea off California when it purchased from Mexico in 1848 the territory from which California was later formed. This the United States contests.
The Joint Resolution annexing Texas provided in part:
“Said State, when admitted into the Union, after ceding to the United States, all public edifices, fortifications, barracks, ports and harbors, navy and navy-yards, docks, magazines, arms, armaments, and all other property and means pertaining to the public defence belonging to said Republic of Texas, shall retain all the public funds, debts, taxes, and dues of every kind, which may belong to or be due and owing said republic; and shall also retain all the vacant and unappropriated lands lying within its limits, to be applied to the payment of the debts and liabilities of said Republic of Texas, and the residue of said lands, after discharging said debts and liabilities, to be disposed of as said State may direct; but in no event are said debts and liabilities to become a charge upon the Government of the United States.” (Italics added.)
The United States contends that the inclusion of fortifications, barracks, ports and harbors, navy and navy-yards, and docks in the cession clause of the Resolution demonstrates an intent to convey all interests of the Republic in the marginal sea, since most of these properties lie side by side with, and shade into, the marginal sea. It stresses the phrase in the Resolution “other property and means pertaining to the public defence.” It argues that possession by the United States in the lands underlying the marginal sea is a defense necessity. Texas maintains that the construction of the Resolution both by the United States and Texas has been restricted to properties which the Republic actually used at the time in the public defense.
The United States contends that the “vacant and unappropriated lands” which by the Resolution were retained by Texas do not include the marginal belt. It argues that the purpose of the clause, the circumstances of its inclusion, and the meaning of the words in Texas and federal usage give them a more restricted meaning. Texas replies that since the United States refused to assume the liabilities of the Republic, it was to have no claim to the assets of the Republic except the defense properties expressly ceded.
In the California case, neither party suggested the necessity for the introduction of evidence. 332 U. S. 24. But Texas makes an earnest plea to be heard on the facts as they bear on the circumstances of her history which, she says, sets her apart from the other States on this issue.
The Court in original actions, passing as it does on controversies between sovereigns which involve issues of high public importance, has always been liberal in allowing full development of the facts. United States v. Texas, 162 U. S. 1; Kansas v. Colorado, 185 U. S. 125, 144, 145, 147; Oklahoma v. Texas, 253 U. S. 465, 471. If there were a dispute as to the meaning of documents and the answer was to be found in diplomatic correspondence, contemporary construction, usage, international law and the like, introduction of evidence and a full hearing would be essential.
We conclude, however, that no such hearing is required in this case. We are of the view that the “equal footing” clause of the Joint Resolution admitting Texas to the Union disposes of the present phase of the controversy.
The “equal footing” clause has long been held to refer to political rights and to sovereignty. See Stearns v. Minnesota, 179 U. S. 223, 245. It does not, of course, include economic stature or standing. There has never been equality among the States in that sense. Some States when they entered the Union had within their boundaries tracts of land belonging to the Federal Government; others were sovereigns of their soil. Some had special agreements with the Federal Government governing property within their borders. See Stearns v. Minnesota, supra, pp. 243-245. Area, location, geology, and latitude have created great diversity in the economic aspects of the several States. The requirement of equal footing was designed not to wipe out those diversities but to create parity as respects political standing and sovereignty.
Yet the “equal footing” clause has long been held to have a direct effect on certain property rights. Thus the question early arose in controversies between the Federal Government and the States as to the ownership of the shores of navigable waters and the soils under them. It was consistently held that to deny to the States, admitted subsequent to the formation of the Union, ownership of this property would deny them admission on an equal footing with the original States, since the original States did not grant these properties to the United States but reserved them to themselves. See Pollard’s Lessee v. Hagan, 3 How. 212, 228-229; Mumford v. Wardwell, 6 Wall. 423, 436; Weber v. Harbor Comm’rs, 18 Wall. 57, 65-66; Knight v. U. S. Land Assn., 142 U. S. 161, 183; Shively v. Bowlby, 152 U. S. 1, 26; United States v. Mission Rock Co., 189 U. S. 391, 404. The theory of these decisions was aptly summarized by Mr. Justice Stone speaking for the Court in United States v. Oregon, 295 U. S. 1, 14 as follows:
“Dominion over navigable waters and property in the soil under them are so identified with the sovereign power of government that a presumption against their separation from sovereignty must be indulged, in construing either grants by the sovereign of the lands to be held in private ownership or transfer of sovereignty itself. See Massachusetts v. New York, 271 U. S. 65, 89. For that reason, upon the admission of a State to the Union, the title of the United States to lands underlying navigable waters within the States passes to it, as incident to the transfer to the State of local sovereignty, and is subject only to the paramount power of the United States to control such waters for purposes of navigation in interstate and foreign commerce.”
The “equal footing” clause, we hold, works the same way in the converse situation presented by this case. It negatives any implied, special limitation of any of the paramount powers of the United States in favor of a State. Texas prior to her admission was a Republic. We assume that as a Republic she had not only full sovereignty over the marginal sea but ownership of it, of the land underlying it, and of all the riches which it held. In other words, we assume that it then had the dominium and imperium in and over this belt which the United States now claims. When Texas came into the Union, she ceased to be an independent nation. She then became a sister State on an “equal footing” with all the other States. That act concededly entailed a relinquishment of some of her sovereignty. The United States then took her place as respects foreign commerce, the waging of war, the making of treaties, defense of the shores, and the like. In external affairs the United States became the sole and exclusive spokesman for the Nation. We hold that as an incident to the transfer of that sovereignty any claim that Texas may have had to the marginal sea was relinquished to the United States.
We stated the reasons for this in United States v. California, supra, p. 35, as follows:
“The three-mile rule is but a recognition of the necessity that a government next to the sea must be able to protect itself from dangers incident to its location. It must have powers of dominion and regulation in the interest of its revenues, its health, and the security of its people from wars waged on or too near its coasts. And insofar as the nation asserts its rights under international law, whatever of value may be discovered in the seas next to its shores and within its protective belt, will most naturally be appropriated for its use. But whatever any nation does in the open sea, which detracts from its common usefulness to nations, or which another nation may charge detracts from it, is a question for consideration among nations as such, and not their separate governmental units. What this Government does, or even what the states do, anywhere in the ocean, is a subject upon which the nation may enter into and assume treaty or similar international obligations. See United States v. Belmont, 301 U. S. 324, 331-332. The very oil about which the state and nation here contend might well become the subject of international dispute and settlement.”
And so although dominium and imperium are normally separable and separate, this is an instance where property interests are so subordinated to the rights of sovereignty as to follow sovereignty.
It is said that there is no necessity for it — that the sovereignty of the sea can be complete and unimpaired no matter if Texas owns the oil underlying it. Yet, as pointed out in United States v. California, once low-water mark is passed the international domain is reached. Property rights must then be so subordinated to political rights as in substance to coalesce and unite in the national sovereign. Today the controversy is over oil. Tomorrow it may be over some other substance or mineral or perhaps the bed of the ocean itself. If the property, whatever it may be, lies seaward of low-water mark, its use, disposition, management, and control involve national interests and national responsibilities. That is the source of national rights in it. Such is the rationale of the California decision, which we have applied to Louisiana’s case. The same result must be reached here if “equal footing” with the various States is to be achieved. Unless any claim or title which the Republic of Texas had to the marginal sea is subordinated to this full paramount power of the United States on admission, there is or may be in practical effect a subtraction in favor of Texas from the national sovereignty of the United States. Yet neither the original thirteen States (United States v. California, supra, pp. 31-32) nor California nor Louisiana enjoys such an advantage. The “equal footing” clause prevents extension of the sovereignty of a State into a domain of political and sovereign power of the United States from which the other States have been excluded, just as it prevents a contraction of sovereignty (Pollard’s Lessee v. Hagan, supra) which would produce inequality among the States. For equality of States means that they are not “less or greater, or different in dignity or power.” See Coyle v. Smith, 221 U. S. 559, 566. There is no need to take evidence to establish that meaning of “equal footing.”
Texas in 1941 sought to extend its boundary to a line in the Gulf of Mexico twenty-four marine miles beyond the three-mile limit and asserted ownership of the bed within that area. And in 1947 she put the extended boundary to the outer edge of the continental shelf.* The irrelevancy of these acts to the issue before us has been adequately demonstrated in United States v. Louisiana. The other contentions of Texas need not be detailed. They have been foreclosed by United States v. California and United States v. Louisiana.
The motions of Texas for an order to take depositions and for the appointment of a Special Master are denied. The motion of the United States for judgment is granted. The parties, or either of them, may before September 15, 1950, submit the form of decree to carry this opinion into effect.
So ordered.
Mr. Justice Jackson and Mr. Justice Clark took no part in the consideration or decision of this case.
Mr. Justice Reed,
with whom
Mr. Justice Minton joins, dissenting.
This case brings before us the application of United States v. California, 332 U. S. 19, to Texas. Insofar as Louisiana is concerned, I see no difference between its situation and that passed upon in the California case. Texas, however, presents a variation which requires a different result.
The California case determines, p. 36, that since “paramount rights run to the states in inland waters to the shoreward of the low water mark, the same rationale leads to the conclusion that national interests, responsibilities, and therefore national rights are paramount in waters lying to the seaward in the three-mile belt.” Thus the Court held, p. 39, that the Federal Government has power over that belt, an incident of which is “full dominion over the resources of the soil under that water area, including oil.” But that decision was based on the premise, pp. 32-34, that the three-mile belt had never belonged to California. The California case points out that it was the United States which had acquired this seacoast area for the Nation. Sovereignty over that area passed from Mexico to this country. The Court commented that similar belts along their shores were not owned by the original seacoast states. Since something akin to ownership of the similar area along the coasts of the original states was thought by the Court to have been obtained through an assertion of full dominion by the United States to this hitherto unclaimed portion of the earth’s surface, it was decided that a similar right in the California area was obtained by the United States. The contrary is true in the case of Texas. The Court concedes that, prior to the Resolution of Annexation, the United States recognized Texas ownership of the three-league area claimed by Texas.
The Court holds immaterial the fact of Texas’ original ownership of this marginal sea area, because Texas was admitted on an “equal footing” with the other states by the Resolution of Annexation. 5 Stat. 797. The scope of the “equal footing” doctrine, however, has been thought to embrace only political rights or those rights considered necessary attributes of state sovereignty. Thus this Court has held in a consistent line of decisions that, since the original states, as an incident of sovereignty, had ownership and dominion over lands under navigable waters within their jurisdiction, states subsequently admitted must be accorded equivalent ownership. E. g., Pollard’s Lessee v. Hagan, 3 How. 212; Martin v. Waddell, 16 Pet. 367. But it was an articulated premise of the California decision that the thirteen original states neither had asserted ownership nor had held dominion over the three-mile zone as an incident of sovereignty.
“Equal footing” has heretofore brought to a state the ownership of river beds, but never before has that phrase been interpreted to take away from a newly admitted state property that it had theretofore owned. I see no constitutional requirement that this should be done and I think the Resolution of Annexation left the marginal sea area in Texas. The Resolution expressly consented that Texas should retain all “the vacant and unappropriated lands lying within its limits.” An agreement of this kind is in accord with the holding of this Court that ordinarily lands may be the subject of compact between a state and the Nation. Stearns v. Minnesota, 179 U. S. 223, 245. The Court, however, does not decide whether or not “the vacant and unappropriated lands lying within its limits” (at the time of annexation) includes the land under the marginal sea. I think that it does include those lands. Cf. Hynes v. Grimes Packing Co., 337 U. S. 86, 110. At least we should permit evidence of its meaning.
Instead of deciding this question of cession, the Court relies upon the need for the United States to control the area seaward of low water because of its international responsibilities. It reasons that full dominion over the resources follows this paramount responsibility, and it refers to the California discussion of the point. 332 U. S. at 35. But the argument based on international responsibilities prevailed in the California case because the marginal sea area was staked out by the United States. The argument cannot reasonably be extended to Texas without a holding that Texas ceded that area to the United States.
The necessity for the United States to defend the land and to handle international affairs is not enough to transfer property rights in the marginal sea from Texas to the United States. Federal sovereignty is paramount within national boundaries, but federal ownership depends on taking possession, as the California case holds; on consent, as in the case of places for federal use; or on purchase, as in the case of Alaska or the Territory of Louisiana. The needs of defense and foreign affairs alone cannot transfer ownership of an ocean bed from a state to the Federal Government any more than they could transfer iron ore under uplands from state to federal ownership. National responsibility is no greater in respect to the marginal sea than it is toward every other particle of American territory. In my view, Texas owned the marginal area by virtue of its original proprietorship; it has not been shown to my satisfaction that it lost it by the terms of the Resolution of Annexation.
I would deny the United States motion for judgment.
Mr. Justice Frankfurter.
Time has not made the reasoning of United States v. California, 332 U. S. 19, more persuasive but the issue there decided is no longer open for me. It is relevant, however, to note that in rejecting California’s claim of ownership in the off-shore oil the Court carefully abstained from recognizing such claim of ownership by the United States. This was emphasized when the Court struck out the proprietary claim of the United States from the terms of the decree proposed by the United States in the California case.
I must leave it to those who deem the reasoning of that decision right to define its scope and apply it, particularly to the historically very different situation of Texas. As is made clear in the opinion of Mr. Justice Reed, the submerged lands now in controversy were part of the domain of Texas when she was on her own. The Court now decides that when Texas entered the Union she lost what she had and the United States acquired it. How that shift came to pass remains for me a puzzle.
1 Laws, Rep. of Texas, p. 6.
See the Resolution passed by the Senate March 1, 1837 (Cong. Globe, 24th Cong., 2d Sess., p. 270), the appropriation of a salary for a diplomatic agent to Texas (5 Stat. 170), and the confirmation of a charge d’affaires to the Republic in 1837. 5 Exec. Journ. 17.
See 2 Gammel’s Laws of Texas 655, 880, 886, 889, 905 for recognition by France, Great Britain, and The Netherlands.
1 Laws, Rep. of Texas, p. 133.
The traditional three-mile maritime belt is one marine league or three marine miles in width. One marine league is 3.45 English statute miles.
See Joint Resolution approved December 29, 1845, 9 Stat. 108.
Joint Resolution approved March 1, 1845, 5 Stat. 797.
The same idea was expressed somewhat differently by Mr. Justice Field in Weber v. Harbor Comm’rs, supra, pp. 65-66 as follows: “Although the title to the soil under the tidewaters of the bay was acquired by the United States by cession from Mexico, equally with the title to the upland, they held it only in trust for the future State. Upon the admission of California into the Union upon equal footing with the original States, absolute property in, and dominion and sovereignty over, all soils under the tidewaters within her limits passed to the State, with the consequent right to dispose of the title to any part of said soils in such manner as she might deem proper, subject only to the paramount right of navigation over the waters, so far as such navigation might be required by the necessities of commerce with foreign nations or among the several States, the regulation of which was vested in the General government.”
See the statement of Mr. Justice Field (then Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of California) in Moore v. Smaw, 17 Cal. 199, 218-219.
Act of May 16, 1941, L. Texas, 47th Leg., p. 454.
Act of May 23, 1947, L. Texas, 50th Leg., p. 451.
See the statement in the Court’s opinion as to the chapters of Texas history.
The decree proposed by the United States read in part:
“1. The United States of America is now,- and has been at all times pertinent hereto, possessed of paramount rights of proprietorship in, and full dominion and power over, the lands, minerals and other things underlying the Pacific Ocean . . .
The italicized words were omitted in the Court’s decree. 332 U. S. 804, 805.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
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.
Chief Justice Roberts
delivered the opinion of the Court.
The State of Washington allows its citizens to challenge state laws by referendum. Roughly four percent of Washington voters must sign a petition to place such a referendum on the ballot. That petition, which by law must include the names and addresses of the signers, is then submitted to the government for verification and canvassing, to ensure that only lawful signatures are counted. The Washington Public Records Act (PRA) authorizes private parties to obtain copies of government documents, and the State construes the PRA to cover submitted referendum petitions.
This case arises out of a state law extending certain benefits to same-sex couples, and a corresponding referendum petition to put that law to a popular vote. Respondent intervenors invoked the PRA to obtain copies of the petition, with the names and addresses of the signers. Certain petition signers and the petition sponsor objected, arguing that such public disclosure would violate their rights under the First Amendment.
The course of this litigation, however, has framed the legal question before us more broadly. The issue at this stage of the case is not whether disclosure of this particular petition would violate the First Amendment, but whether disclosure of referendum petitions in general would do so. We conclude that such disclosure does not as a general matter violate the First Amendment, and we therefore affirm the judgment of the Court of Appeals. We leave it to the lower courts to consider in the first instance the signers’ more focused claim concerning disclosure of the information on this particular petition, which is pending before the District Court.
I
The Washington Constitution reserves to the people the power to reject any bill, with a few limited exceptions not relevant here, through the referendum process. Wash. Const., Art. II, § 1(b). To initiate a referendum, proponents must file a petition with the secretary of state that contains valid signatures of registered Washington voters equal to or exceeding four percent of the votes cast for the office of Governor at the last gubernatorial election. §§ 1(b), (d). A valid submission requires not only a signature, but also the signer’s address and the county in which he is registered to vote. Wash. Rev. Code §29A.72.130 (2008).
In May 2009, Washington Governor Christine Gregoire signed into law Senate Bill 5688, which “expanded] the rights and responsibilities” of state-registered domestic partners, including same-sex domestic partners. 586 F. 3d 671, 675 (CA9 2009). That same month, Protect Marriage Washington, one of the petitioners here, was organized as a “State Political Committee” for the purpose of collecting the petition signatures necessary to place a referendum on the ballot, which would give the voters themselves an opportunity to vote on SB 5688. App. 8-9. If the referendum made it onto the ballot, Protect Marriage Washington planned to encourage voters to reject SB 5688. Id., at 7, 9.
On July 25, 2009, Protect Marriage Washington submitted to the secretary of state a petition containing over 137,000 signatures. See 586 F. 3d, at 675; Brief for Respondent Washington Families Standing Together 6. The secretary of state then began the verification and canvassing process, as required by Washington law, to ensure that only legal signatures were counted. Wash. Rev. Code §29A.72.230. Some 120,000 valid signatures were required to place the referendum on the ballot. Sam Reed, Washington Secretary of State, Certification of Referendum 71 (Sept. 2, 2009). The secretary of state determined that the petition contained a sufficient number of valid signatures, and the referendum (R-71) appeared on the November 2009 ballot. The voters approved SB 5688 by a margin of 53 percent to 47 percent.
The PRA, Wash. Rev. Code § 42.56.001 et seq. (2008), makes all “public records” available for public inspection and copying. §42.56.070(1). The Act defines “[pjublic record” as “any writing containing information relating to the conduct of government or the performance of any- governmental or proprietary function prepared, owned, used, or retained by any state or local agency.” §42.56.010(2). Washington takes the position that referendum petitions are “public records.” Brief for Respondent Reed 5.
By August 20, 2009, the secretary had received requests for copies of the R-71 petition from an individual and four entities, including Washington Coalition for Open Government (WCOG) and Washington Families Standing Together (WFST), two of the respondents here. 586 F. 3d, at 675. Two entities, WhoSigned.org and KnowThyNeighbor.org, issued a joint press release stating their intention.to post the names of the R-71 petition signers online, in a searchable format. See App. 11; 586 F. 3d, at 675.
The referendum petition sponsor and certain signers filed a complaint and a motion for a preliminary injunction in the United States District Court for the Western District of Washington, seeking to enjoin the secretary of state from publicly releasing any documents that would reveal the names and contact information of the R-71 petition signers. App. 4. Count I of the complaint alleges that “[t]he Public Records Act is unconstitutional as applied to referendum petitions.” Id., at 16. Count II of the complaint alleges that “the Public Records Act is unconstitutional as applied to the Referendum 71 petition because there is a reasonable probability that the signatories of the Referendum 71 petition will be subjected to threats, harassment, and reprisals.” Id., at 17. Determining that the PRA burdened core political speech, the District Court held that plaintiffs were likely to succeed on the merits of Count I and granted them a preliminary injunction on that count, enjoining release of the information on the petition. 661 F. Supp. 2d 1194, 1205-1206 (WD Wash. 2009).
The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit reversed. Reviewing only Count I of the complaint, the Court of Appeals held that plaintiffs were unlikely to succeed on their claim that the PRA is unconstitutional as applied to referendum petitions generally. It therefore reversed the District Court’s grant of the preliminary injunction. 586 F. 3d, at 681. We granted certiorari. 558 U. S. 1142 (2010).
II
It is important at the outset to define the scope of the challenge before us. As noted, Count I of the complaint contends that the PRA “violates the First Amendment as applied to referendum petitions.” App. 16. Count II asserts that the PRA “is unconstitutional as applied to the Referendum 71 petition.” Id., at 17. The District Court decision was based solely on Count I; the Court of Appeals decision reversing the District Court was similarly limited. 586 F. 3d, at 676, n. 6. Neither court addressed Count II.
The parties disagree about whether Count I is properly viewed as a facial or as-applied challenge. Compare Reply Brief for Petitioners 8 (“Count I expressly made an as-applied challenge”) with Brief for Respondent Reed 1 (“This is a facial challenge to Washington’s Public Records Act”). It obviously has characteristics of both: The claim is “as applied” in the sense that it does not seek to strike the PRA in all its applications, but only to the extent it covers referendum petitions. The claim is “facial” in that it is not limited to plaintiffs’ particular case, but challenges application of the law more broadly to all referendum petitions.
The label is not what matters. The important point is that plaintiffs’ claim and the relief that would follow — an injunction barring the secretary of state “from making referendum petitions available to the public,” App. 16 (Complaint Count I) — reach beyond the particular circumstances of these plaintiffs. They must therefore satisfy our standards for a facial challenge to the extent of that reach. See United States v. Stevens, 559 U. S. 460, 472-473 (2010).
III
A
The compelled disclosure of signatory information on referendum petitions is subject to review under the First Amendment. An individual expresses a view on a political matter when he signs a petition under Washington’s referendum procedure. In most cases, the individual’s signature will express the view that the law subject to the petition should be overturned. Even if the signer is agnostic as to the merits of the underlying law, his signature still expresses the political view that the question should be considered “by the whole electorate.” Meyer v. Grant, 486 U. S. 414, 421 (1988). In either case, the expression of a political view implicates a First Amendment right. The State, having “cho[sen] to tap the energy and the legitimizing power of the democratic process,. . . must accord the participants in that process the First Amendment rights that attach to their roles.” Republican Party of Minn. v. White, 536 U. S. 765, 788 (2002) (internal quotation marks and ellipsis omitted).
Respondents counter that signing a petition is a legally operative legislative act and therefore “does not involve any significant expressive element.” Brief for Respondent Reed 31. It is true that signing a referendum petition may ultimately have the legal consequence of requiring the secretary of state to place the referendum on the ballot. But we do not see how adding such legal effect to an expressive activity somehow deprives that activity of its expressive component, taking it outside the scope of the First Amendment. Respondents themselves implicitly recognize that the signature expresses a particular viewpoint, arguing that one purpose served by disclosure is to allow the public to engage signers in a debate on the merits of the underlying law. See, e. g., id., at 45; Brief for Respondent WCOG 49; Brief for Respondent WFST 58.
Petition signing remains expressive even when it has legal effect in the electoral process. But that is not to say that the electoral context is irrelevant to the nature of our First Amendment review. We allow States significant flexibility in implementing their own voting systems. See Burdick v. Takushi, 504 U. S. 428, 433-434 (1992). To the extent a regulation concerns the legal effect of a particular activity in that process, the government will be afforded substantial latitude to enforce that regulation. Also pertinent to our analysis is the fact that the PRA is not a prohibition on speech, but instead a disclosure requirement. “[Disclosure requirements may burden the ability to speak, but they . . . do not prevent anyone from speaking.” Citizens United v. Federal Election Comm’n, 558 U. S. 310, 366 (2010) (intern
We have a series of precedents considering First Amendment challenges to disclosure requirements in the electoral context. These precedents have reviewed such challenges under what has been termed “exacting scrutiny.” See, e. g., Buckley v. Valeo, 424 U. S. 1, 64 (1976) (per curiam) (“Since NAACP v. Alabama [ex rel. Patterson, 357 U. S. 449 (1958),] we have required that the subordinating interests of the State [offered to justify compelled disclosure] survive exacting scrutiny”); Citizens United, supra, at 366 (“The Court has subjected [disclosure] requirements to ‘exacting scrutiny’” (quoting Buckley, supra, at 64)); Davis v. Federal Election Comm’n, 554 U. S. 724, 744 (2008) (governmental interest in disclosure “‘must survive exacting scrutiny’” (quoting Buckley, supra, at 64)); Buckley v. American Constitutional Law Foundation, Inc., 525 U. S. 182, 204 (1999) (ACLF) (finding that disclosure rules “fail[ed] exacting scrutiny” (internal quotation marks omitted)).
That standard “requires a ‘substantial relation’ between the disclosure requirement and a ‘sufficiently important’ governmental interest.” Citizens United, supra, at 366-367 (quoting Buckley, supra, at 64, 66). To withstand this scrutiny, “the strength of the governmental interest must reflect the seriousness of the actual burden on First Amendment rights.” Davis, supra, at 744 (citing Buckley, supra, at 68, 71).
B
Respondents assert two interests to justify the burdens of compelled disclosure under the PRA on First Amendment rights: (1) preserving the integrity of the electoral process by combating fraud, detecting invalid signatures, and fostering government transparency and accountability; and (2) providing information to the electorate about who supports the petition. See, e. g., Brief for Respondent Reed 39-42, 44-45. Because we determine that the State’s interest in preserving the integrity of the electoral process suffices to defeat the argument that the PRA is unconstitutional with respect to referendum petitions in general, we need not, and do not, address the State’s “informational” interest.
The State’s interest in preserving the integrity of the electoral process is undoubtedly important. “States allowing ballot initiatives have considerable leeway to protect the integrity and reliability of the initiative process, as they have with respect to election processes generally.” ACLF, supra, at 191. The State’s interest is particularly strong with respect to efforts to root out fraud, which not only may produce fraudulent outcomes, but has a systemic effect as well: It “drives honest citizens out of the democratic process and breeds distrust of our government.” Purcell v. Gonzalez, 549 U. S. 1, 4 (2006) (per curiam)-, see also Crawford v. Marion County Election Bd., 553 U. S. 181, 196 (2008) (opinion of Stevens, J.). The threat of fraud in this context is not merely hypothetical; respondents and their amici cite a number of cases of petition-related fraud across the country to support the point. See Brief for Respondent Reed 43; Brief for State of Ohio et al. as Amici Curiae 22-24.
But the State’s interest in preserving electoral integrity is not limited to combating fraud. That interest extends to efforts to ferret out invalid signatures caused not by fraud but by simple mistake, such as duplicate signatures or signatures of individuals who are not registered to vote in the State. See Brief for Respondent Reed 42. That interest also extends more generally to promoting transparency and accountability in the electoral process, which the State argues is “essential to the proper functioning of a democracy.” Id., at 39.
Plaintiffs contend that the disclosure requirements of the PRA are not “sufficiently related” to the interest of protecting the integrity of the electoral process. Brief for Petitioners 51. They argue that disclosure is not necessary because the secretary of state is already charged with verifying and canvassing the names on a petition, advocates and opponents of a measure can observe that process, and any citizen can challenge the secretary’s actions in court. See Wash. Rev. Code §§29A.72.230, 29A.72.240. They also stress that existing criminal penalties reduce the danger of fraud in the petition process. See Brief for Petitioners 50; §§29A.84.210, 29A.84.230, 29A.84.250.
But the secretary’s verification and canvassing will not catch all invalid signatures: The job is large and difficult (the secretary ordinarily checks “only 3 to 5% of signatures,” Brief for Respondent WFST 54), and the secretary can make mistakes, too, see Brief for Respondent Reed 42. Public disclosure can help cure the inadequacies of the verification and canvassing process.
Disclosure also helps prevent certain types of petition fraud otherwise difficult to detect, such as outright forgery and “bait and switch” fraud, in which an individual signs the petition based on a misrepresentation of the underlying issue. See Brief for Respondent WFST 9-11, 53-54; cf. Brief for Massachusetts Gay and Lesbian Political Caucus et al. as Amici Curiae 18-22 (detailing “bait and switch” fraud in a petition drive in Massachusetts). The signer is in the best position to detect these types of fraud, and public disclosure can bring the issue to the signer’s attention.
Public disclosure thus helps ensure that the only signatures counted are those that should be, and that the only referenda placed on the ballot are those that garner enough valid signatures. Public disclosure also promotes transparency and accountability in the electoral process to an extent other measures cannot. In light of the foregoing, we reject plaintiffs’ argument and conclude that public disclosure of referendum petitions in general is substantially related to the important interest of preserving the integrity of the electoral process.
C
Plaintiffs’ more significant objection is that “the strength of the governmental interest” does not “reflect the seriousness of the actual burden on First Amendment rights.” Davis, 554 U. S., at 744 (citing Buckley, 424 U. S., at 68, 71); see, e. g., Brief for Petitioners 12-13, 30. According to plaintiffs, the objective of those seeking disclosure of the R-71 petition is not to prevent fraud, but to publicly identify those who had validly signed and to broadcast the signers’ political views on the subject of the petition. Plaintiffs allege, for example, that several groups plan to post the petitions in searchable form on the Internet, and then encourage other citizens to seek out the R-71 signers. See App. 11; Brief for Petitioners 8, 46-47.
Plaintiffs explain that once on the Internet, the petition signers’ names.and addresses “can be combined with publicly available phone numbers and maps,” in what will effectively become a blueprint for harassment and intimidation. Id., at 46. To support their claim that they will be subject to reprisals, plaintiffs cite examples from the history of a similar proposition in California, see, e. g., id., at 2-6, 31-32, and from the experience of one of the petition sponsors in this case, see App. 9.
In related contexts, we have explained that those resisting disclosure can prevail under the First Amendment if they can show “a reasonable probability that the compelled disclosure [of personal information] will subject them to threats, harassment, or reprisals from either Government officials or private parties.” Buckley, supra, at 74; see also Citizens United, 558 U. S., at 367. The question before us, however, is not whether PRA disclosure violates the First Amendment with respect to those who signed the R-71 petition, or other particularly controversial petitions. The question instead is whether such disclosure in general violates the First Amendment rights of those who sign referendum petitions.
The problem for plaintiffs is that their argument rests almost entirely on the specific harm they say would attend disclosure of the information on the R-71 petition, or on similarly controversial ones. See, e. g., Brief for Petitioners 10, 26-29, 46, 56. But typical referendum petitions “concern tax policy, revenue, budget, or other state law issues.” Brief for Respondent WFST 36 (listing referenda); see also App. 26 (stating that in recent years the State has received PRA requests for petitions supporting initiatives concerning limiting motor vehicle charges; government regulation of private property; energy resource use by certain electric utilities; long-term care services for the elderly and persons with disabilities; and state, county, and city revenue); id., at 26-27 (stating that in the past 20 years, referendum measures that have qualified for the ballot in the State concerned land-use regulation; unemployment insurance; charter public schools; and insurance coverage and benefits). Voters care about such issues, some quite deeply — but there is no reason to assume that any burdens imposed by disclosure of typical referendum petitions would be remotely like the burdens plaintiffs fear in this case.
Plaintiffs have offered little in response. They have provided us scant evidence or argument beyond the burdens they assert disclosure would impose on R-71 petition signers or the signers of other similarly controversial petitions. Indeed, what little plaintiffs do offer with respect to typical petitions in Washington hurts, not helps: Several other petitions in the State “have been subject to release in recent years,” plaintiffs tell us, Brief for Petitioners 50, but apparently that release has come without incident. Cf. Citizens United, supra, at 370 (“Citizens United has been disclosing its donors for years and has identified no instance of harassment or retaliation”).
Faced with the State’s unrebutted arguments that only modest burdens attend the disclosure of a typical petition, we must reject plaintiffs’ broad challenge to the PR A. In doing so, we note — as we have in other election law disclosure cases — that upholding the law against a broad-based challenge does not foreclose a litigant’s success in a narrower one. See Buckley, supra, at 74 (“minor parties” may be exempt from disclosure requirements if they can show “a reasonable probability that the compelled disclosure of a party’s contributors’ names will subject them to threats, harassment, or reprisals from either Government officials or private parties”); Citizens United, supra, at 370 (disclosure “would be unconstitutional as applied to an organization if there were a reasonable probability that the group’s members would face threats, harassment, or reprisals if their names were disclosed” (citing McConnell v. Federal Election Comm’n, 540 U. S. 93, 198 (2003))). The secretary of state acknowledges that plaintiffs may press the narrower challenge in Count II of their complaint in proceedings pending before the District Court. Brief for Respondent Reed 17.
* * *
We conclude that disclosure under the PRA would not violate the First Amendment with respect to referendum petitions in general and therefore affirm the judgment of the Court of Appeals.
It is so ordered.
Justice Scalia doubts whether petition signing is entitled to any First Amendment protection at all. Post, at 219 (opinion concurring in judgment). His skepticism is based on the view that petition signing has “legal effects” in the legislative process, while other aspects of political participation — with respect to which we have held there is a First Amendment interest, see supra, at 194-196 — do not. See post, at 221-222, and n. 3. That line is not as sharp as Justice Scalia would have it; he himself recognizes “the existence of a First Amendment interest in voting,” post, at 224, which of course also can have legal effect. The distinction becomes even fuzzier given that only some petition signing has legal effect, and any such legal effect attaches only well after the expressive act of signing, if the secretary determines that the petition satisfies the requirements for inclusion on the ballot. See post, at 221. Petitions that do not qualify for the ballot of course carry no legal effect.
Justice Thomas’s contrary assessment of the relationship between the disclosure of referendum petitions generally and the State’s interests in this ease is based on his determination that strict scrutiny applies, post, at 232 (dissenting opinion), rather than the standard of review that we have concluded is appropriate, see supra, at 196.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | E | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Justice Blackmun
delivered the opinion of the Court.
In this case we decide whether a payment received in settlement of a backpay claim under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 78 Stat. 253, as amended, 42 U. S. C. § 2000e et seq., is excludable from the recipient’s gross income under § 104(a)(2) of the federal Internal Revenue Code, 26 U. S. C. § 104(a)(2), as “damages received ... on account of personal injuries.”
I
The relevant facts are not in dispute. In 1984, Judy A. Hutcheson, an employee of the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA), filed a Title VII action in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Tennessee alleging that TVA had discriminated unlawfully in the payment of salaries on the basis of sex. The Office and Professional Employees International Union, which represented the affected employees, intervened. Among the represented employees were respondents Therese A. Burke, Cynthia R. Center, and Linda G. Gibbs.
The complaint alleged that TVA had increased the salaries of employees in certain male-dominated pay schedules, but had not increased the salaries of employees in certain female-dominated schedules. In addition, the complaint alleged that TVA had lowered salaries in some female-dominated schedules. App. in No. 90-5607 (CA6) (hereinafter App.), pp. 28-32 (Second Amended Complaint). The plaintiffs sought injunctive relief as well as backpay for all affected female employees. Id., at 33-34. The defendants filed a counterclaim against the union alleging, among other things, fraud, misrepresentation, and breach of contract. Id., at 35.
After the District Court denied cross-motions for summary judgment, the parties reached a settlement. TVA agreed to pay $4,200 to Hutcheson and a total of $5 million for the other affected employees, to be distributed under a formula based on length of service and rates of pay. Id., at 70-71, 76-77. Although TVA did not withhold taxes on the $4,200 for Hutcheson, it did withhold, pursuant to the agreement, federal income taxes on the amounts allocated to the other affected employees, including the three respondents here.
Respondents filed claims for refund of the taxes withheld from the settlement payments. The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) disallowed those claims. Respondents then brought a refund action in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Tennessee, claiming that the settlement payments should be excluded from their respective gross incomes under § 104(a)(2) of the Internal Revenue Code as “damages received (whether by suit or agreement and whether as lump sums or as periodic payments) on account of personal injuries or sickness.” The District Court ruled that, because respondents sought and obtained only back wages due them as a result of TVA’s discriminatory underpayments rather than compensatory or other damages, the settlement proceeds could not be excluded from gross income as “damages received ... on account of personal injuries.” 90-1 USTC ¶ 50,203 (1990).
The United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, by a divided vote, reversed. 929 F. 2d 1119 (1991). The Court of Appeals concluded that exclusion under § 104(a)(2) turns on whether the injury and the claim are “personal and tort-like in nature.” Id., at 1121. “If the answer is in the affirmative,” the court held, “then that is the beginning and end of the inquiry.” Id., at 1123 (internal quotation marks omitted). The court concluded that TVA’s unlawful sex discrimination constituted a personal, tort-like injury to respondents, and rejected the Government’s attempt to distinguish Title VII, which authorizes no compensatory or punitive damages, from other statutes thought to redress personal injuries. See id., at 1121-1123. Thus, the court held, the award of backpay pursuant to Title VII was excludable from gross income under § 104(a)(2).
The dissent in the Court of Appeals, 929 F. 2d, at 1124, took the view that the settlement of respondents’ claims for earned but unpaid wage differentials — wages that would have been paid and would have been subjected to tax absent TVA’s unlawful discrimination — did not constitute compensation for “loss due to a tort,” as required under § 104(a)(2). See id., at 1126.
We granted certiorari to resolve a conflict among the Courts of Appeals concerning the exclusion of Title VII backpay awards from gross income under § 104(a)(2). 602 U. S. 806 (1991).
II
A
The definition of gross income under the Internal Revenue Code sweeps broadly. Section 61(a), 26 U. S. C. § 61(a), provides that “gross income means all income from whatever source derived,” subject only to the exclusions specifically enumerated elsewhere in the Code. As this Court has recognized, Congress intended through § 61(a) and its statutory precursors to exert “the full measure of its taxing power,” Helvering v. Clifford, 309 U. S. 331, 334 (1940), and to bring within the definition of income any “accessio[n] to wealth.” Commissioner v. Glenshaw Glass Co., 348 U. S. 426, 431 (1955). There is no dispute that the settlement awards in this case would constitute gross income within the reach of § 61(a). See Brief for Respondents 9-10.
The question, however, is whether the awards qualify for special exclusion from gross income under § 104(a), which provides in relevant part that “gross income does not include — ”
“(2) the amount of any damages received (whether by suit or agreement and whether as lump sums or as periodic payments) on account of personal injuries or sickness ... .”
Neither the text nor the legislative history of § 104(a)(2) offers any explanation of the term “personal injuries.” Since 1960, however, IRS regulations formally have linked identification of a personal injury for purposes of § 104(a)(2) to traditional tort principles: “The term ‘damages received (whether by suit or agreement)’ means an amount received . . . through prosecution of a legal suit or action based upon tort or tort type rights, or through a settlement agreement entered into in lieu of such prosecution.” 26 CFR § 1.104-1(c) (1991). See Threlkeld v. Commissioner, 87 T. C. 1294, 1305 (1986) (“The essential element of an exclusion under section 104(a)(2) is that the income involved must derive from some sort of tort claim against the payor. ... As a result, common law tort law concepts are helpful in deciding whether a taxpayer is being compensated for a ‘personal injury’”) (internal quotation marks omitted), aff’d, 848 F. 2d 81 (CA6 1988).
A “tort” has been defined broadly as a “civil wrong, other than breach of contract, for which the court will provide a remedy in the form of an action for damages.” See W. Keeton, D. Dobbs, R. Keeton, & D. Owen, Prosser and Keeton on the Law of Torts 2 (1984). Remedial principles thus figure prominently in the definition and conceptualization of torts. See R. Heuston, Salmond on the Law of Torts 9 (12th ed. 1957) (noting that “an action for damages” is “an essential characteristic of every true tort,” and that, even where other relief, such as an injunction, may be available, “in all such cases it is solely by virtue of the right to damages that the wrong complained of is to be classed as a tort”). Indeed, one of the hallmarks of traditional tort liability is the availability of a broad range of damages to compensate the plaintiff “fairly for injuries caused by the violation of his legal rights.” Carey v. Piphus, 435 U. S. 247, 257 (1978). Although these damages often are described in compensatory terms, see Memphis Community School Dist. v. Stachura, 477 U. S. 299, 306 (1986), in many cases they are larger than the amount necessary to reimburse actual monetary loss sustained or even anticipated by the plaintiff, and thus redress intangible elements of injury that are “deemed important, even though not pecuniary in [their] immediate consequence[s].” D. Dobbs, Law of Remedies 136 (1973). Cf. Molzof v. United States, 502 U. S. 301, 306-307 (1992) (compensatory awards that exceed actual loss are not prohibited as “punitive” damages under the Federal Tort Claims Act).
For example, the victim of a physical injury may be permitted, under the relevant state law, to recover damages not only for lost wages, medical expenses, and diminished future earning capacity on account of the injury, but also for emotional distress and pain and suffering. See Dobbs, at 540-551; Threlkeld v. Commissioner, 87 T. C., at 1300. Similarly, the victim of a “dignitary” or nonphysical tort such as defamation may recover not only for any actual pecuniary loss (e. g., loss of business or customers), but for “impairment of reputation and standing in the community, personal humiliation, and mental anguish and suffering.” Gertz v. Robert Welch, Inc., 418 U. S. 323, 350 (1974). See also Dobbs, at 510-520. Furthermore, punitive or exemplary damages are generally available in those instances where the defendant’s misconduct was intentional or reckless. See id., at 204-208; Molzof v. United States, supra.
We thus agree with the Court of Appeals’ analysis insofar as it focused, for purposes of § 104(a)(2), on the nature of the claim underlying respondents’ damages award. See 929 F. 2d, at 1121; Threlkeld v. Commissioner, 87 T. C., at 1305. Respondents, for their part, agree that this is the appropriate inquiry, as does the dissent. See Brief for Respondents 9-12; post, at 250. In order to come within the § 104(a)(2) income exclusion, respondents therefore must show that Title VII, the legal basis for their recovery of backpay, redresses a tort-like personal injury in accord with the foregoing principles. We turn next to this inquiry.
B
Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 makes it an unlawful employment practice for an employer “to discriminate against any individual with respect to his compensation, terms, conditions, or privileges of employment, because of such individual’s race, color, religion, sex, or national origin.” 42 U. S. C. §2000e-2(a)(1). If administrative remedies are unsuccessful, an aggrieved employee may file suit in a district court, § 2000e-5(f)(1), although the Courts of Appeals have held that Title VII plaintiffs, unlike ordinary tort plaintiffs, are not entitled to a jury trial. See, e. g., Johnson v. Georgia Highway Express, Inc., 417 F. 2d 1122, 1125 (CA5 1969). See also Curtis v. Loether, 415 U. S. 189, 192-193 (1974) (describing availability of jury trials for common-law forms of action); id., at 196-197, n. 13 (citing Title VII cases). If the court finds that the employer has engaged in an unlawful employment practice, it may enjoin the practice and “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.” §2000e-5(g).
It is beyond question that discrimination in employment on the basis of sex, race, or any of the other classifications protected by Title VII is, as respondents argue and this Court consistently has held, an invidious practice that causes grave harm to its victims. See Brief for Respondents 35-39; Griggs v. Duke Power Co., 401 U. S. 424 (1971). The fact that employment discrimination causes harm to individuals does not automatically imply, however, that there exists a tort-like “personal injury” for purposes of federal income tax law.
Indeed, in contrast to the tort remedies for physical and nonphysical injuries discussed above, Title VII does not allow awards for compensatory or punitive damages; instead, it limits available remedies to backpay, injunctions, and other equitable relief. See §2000e-5(g); Patterson v. McLean Credit Union, 491 U. S. 164, 182, n. 4 (1989) (noting that a plaintiff in a Title VII action is “limited to a recovery of backpay”); Great American Fed. Sav. & Loan Assn. v. Novotny, 442 U. S. 366, 374-375 (1979); Sparrow v. Commissioner, 292 U. S. App. D. C. 259, 262-263, 949 F. 2d 434, 437-438 (1991) (collecting cases). An employee wrongfully discharged on the basis of sex thus may recover only an amount equal to the wages the employee would have earned from the date of discharge to the date of reinstatement, along with lost fringe benefits such as vacation pay and pension benefits; similarly, an employee wrongfully denied a promotion on the basis of sex, or, as in this case, wrongfully discriminated against in salary on the basis of sex, may recover only the differential between the appropriate pay and actual pay for services performed, as well as lost benefits.
The Court previously has observed that Title VII focuses on “legal injuries of an economic character,” see Albemarle Paper Co. v. Moody, 422 U. S. 405, 418 (1975), consisting specifically of the unlawful deprivation of full wages earned or due for services performed, or the unlawful deprivation of the opportunity to earn wages through wrongful termination. The remedy, correspondingly, consists of restoring victims, through backpay awards and injunctive relief, to the wage and employment positions they would have occupied absent the unlawful discrimination. See id., at 421 (citing 118 Cong. Rec. 7168 (1972)). Nothing in this remedial scheme purports to recompense a Title VII plaintiff for any of the other traditional harms associated with personal injury, such as pain and suffering, emotional distress, harm to reputation, or other consequential damages (e.g., a ruined credit rating). See Walker v. Ford Motor Co., 684 F. 2d 1355, 1364-1365, n. 16 (CA11 1982).
No doubt discrimination could constitute a “personal injury” for purposes of § 104(a)(2) if the relevant cause of action evidenced a tort-like conception of injury and remedy. Cf. Curtis v. Loether, 415 U. S., at 195-196, n. 10 (noting that “under the logic of the common law development of a law of insult and indignity, racial discrimination might be treated as a dignitary tort” (internal quotation marks omitted)). Indeed, the circumscribed remedies available under Title VII stand in marked contrast not only to those available under traditional tort law, but under other federal antidiscrimination statutes, as well. For example, Rev. Stat. § 1977, 42 U. S. C. § 1981, permits victims of race-based employment discrimination to obtain a jury trial at which “both equitable and legal relief, including compensatory and, under certain circumstances, punitive damages” may be awarded. Johnson v. Railway Express Agency, Inc., 421 U. S. 454, 460 (1975). The Court similarly has observed that Title VIII of the Civil Rights Act of 1968, whose fair housing provisions allow for jury trials and for awards of compensatory and punitive damages, “sounds basically in tort” and “contrasts sharply” with the relief available under Title VII. Curtis v. Loether, 415 U. S., at 195, 197; 42 U. S. C. § 3613(c).
Notwithstanding a common-law tradition of broad tort damages and the existence of other federal antidiscrimination statutes offering similarly broad remedies, Congress declined to recompense Title VII plaintiffs for anything beyond the wages properly due them — wages that, if paid in the ordinary course, would have been fully taxable. See L. Frolik, Federal Tax Aspects of Injury, Damage, and Loss 70 (1987). Thus, we cannot say that a statute such as Title VII, whose sole remedial focus is the award of back wages, redresses a tort-like personal injury within the meaning of § 104(a)(2) and the applicable regulations.
Accordingly, we hold that the backpay awards received by respondents in settlement of their Title VII claims are not excludable from gross income as “damages received ... on account of personal injuries” under § 104(a)(2). The judgment of the Court of Appeals is reversed.
It is so ordered.
The pretax figures for the three respondents ranged from $673 to $928; the federal income tax withheld ranged from $114 to $186. 90-1 USTC ¶ 50,203, p. 83,747 (1990). Although respondents also sought a refund of taxes withheld from their incomes pursuant to the Federal Insurance Contributions Act (FICA), 26 U. S. C. § 3101 et seq., neither the parties nor the courts below addressed the distinct analytical question whether back-pay received under Title VII constitutes “wages” subject to taxation for FICA purposes. See 26 U. S. C. § 3101(a) (imposing percentage tax on “wages”), § 3121(a) (defining “wages” as “all remuneration for employment”). Hence, we confine our analysis in this case to the federal income tax question.
The Civil Rights Act of 1991 recently amended Title'VII to authorize the recovery of compensatory and punitive damages in certain circumstances. See nn. 8 and 12, infra.
Compare the Sixth Circuit’s opinion in this ease with Sparrow v. Commissioner, 292 U. S. App. D. C. 259, 949 F. 2d 434 (1991) (Title VII backpay awards not excludable), and Thompson v. Commissioner, 866 F. 2d 709 (CA4 1989) (same). See also Johnston v. Harris County Flood Control Dist., 869 F. 2d 1565, 1579-1580 (CA5 1989) (noting, for purposes of district court consideration of tax liability in computing damages, that Title VII backpay awards may not be excluded under § 104(a)(2)), cert. denied, 493 U. S. 1019 (1990).
Section 104, entitled “Compensation for injuries or sickness,” provides similar exclusions from gross income for amounts received for personal injuries or sickness under worker’s compensation programs (§ 104(a)(1)), accident or health insurance (§ 104(a)(3)), and certain federal pension programs (§ 104(a)(4)).
See, e. g., H. R. Rep. No. 1337, 83d Cong., 2d Sess., 15 (1954); S. Rep. No. 1622, 83d Cong., 2d Sess., 15-16 (1954).
Although the IRS briefly interpreted §104(a)(2)’s statutory predecessor, § 213(b)(6) of the Revenue Act of 1918, 40 Stat. 1066, to restrict the scope of personal injuries to physical injuries, see S. 1384, 2 Cum. Bull. 71 (1920) (determining, on basis of statutory text and “history of the legislation” that “it appears more probable .. . that the term ‘personal injuries,’ as used therein means physical injuries only”); Knickerbocker, The Income Tax Treatment of Damages, 47 Cornell L. Q. 429, 431 (1962), the courts and the IRS long since have recognized that § 104(a)(2)’s reference to “personal injuries” encompasses, in accord with common judicial parlance and conceptions, see Black’s Law Dictionary 786 (6th ed. 1990); 1 S. Speiser, C. Krause, & A. Gans, American Law of Torts 6 (1983), nonphysical injuries to the individual, such as those affecting emotions, reputation, or character, as well. See, e. g., Rickel v. Commissioner, 900 F. 2d 655, 658 (CA3 1990) (noting that “it is judicially well-established that the meaning of ‘personal injuries’ in this context encompasses both nonphysical as well as physical injuries”); Roemer v. Commissioner, 716 F. 2d 693, 697 (CA9 1983) (noting that § 104(a)(2) “says nothing about physical injuries,” and that “[t]he ordinary meaning of a personal injury is not limited to a physical one”); Rev. Rule 85-98, 1985-2 Cum. Bull. 51 (holding that the § 104(a)(2) exclusion “makes no distinction between physical or emotional injuries”); 1972-2 Cum. Bull. 3, acquiescing in Seay v. Commissioner, 58 T. C. 32, 40 (1972) (holding that damages received for “personal embarrassment,” “mental strain,” and injury to “personal reputation” may be excluded under § 104(a)(2), and noting prior rulings regarding alienation of affections and defamation). See also B. Bittker & L. Lokken, Federal Taxation of Income, Estates and Gifts 13-11 (2d ed. 1989); Burke & Friel, Tax Treatment of Employment-Related Personal Injury Awards, 50 Mont. L. Rev. 13, 21 (1989).
Congress' 1989 amendment to § 104(a)(2) provides further support for the notion that “personal injuries” includes physical as well as nonphysical injuries. Congress rejected a bill that would have limited the § 104(a)(2) exclusion to cases involving “physical injury or physical sickness.” See H. R. Rep. No. 101-247, pp. 1354-1355 (1989) (describing proposed § 11641 of H. R. 3299, 101st Cong., 1st Sess. (1989)). At the same time, Congress amended § 104(a) to allow the exclusion of punitive damages only in cases involving “physical injury or physical sickness.” Pub. L. 101-239, § 7641(a), 103 Stat. 2379,26 U. S. C. § 104(a) (1988 ed., Supp. I). The enactment of this limited amendment addressing only punitive damages shows that Congress assumed that other damages (i. e., compensatory) would be excluded in cases of both physical and nonphysical injury.
Notwithstanding Justice Scalia’s contention in his separate opinion that the term “personal injuries” must be read as limited to “health”related injuries, see post, at 244, the foregoing authorities establish that § 104(a)(2) in fact encompasses a broad range of physical and nonphysical injuries to personal interests. Justice Scalia implicitly acknowledges that the plain meaning of the statutory phrase can support this well-established view. See post, at 243-244.
The dissent nonetheless contends that we “misapprehen[d] the nature of the inquiry required by § 104(a)(2) and the IRS regulation” by “[focusing on [the] remedies” available under Title VII. See post, at 249-250. As discussed above, however, the concept of a “tort” is inextricably bound up with remedies — specifically damages actions. Thus, we believe that consideration of the remedies available under Title VII is critical in determining the “nature of the statute” and the “type of claim” brought by respondents for purposes of § 104(a)(2). See post, at 250.
As discussed below, the Civil Rights Act of 1991, Pub. L. 102-166, 105 Stat. 1071, amended Title VII in significant respects. Respondents do not contend that these amendments apply to this case. See Tr. of Oral Arg. 35-36. We therefore examine the law as it existed prior to November 21, 1991, the effective date of the 1991 Act. See Pub. L. 102-166, § 402(a), 105 Stat. 1099. Unless otherwise indicated, all references are to the “unamended” Title VII.
Some courts have allowed Title VII plaintiffs who were wrongfully discharged and for whom reinstatement was not feasible to recover “front pay” or future lost earnings. See, e. g., Shore v. Federal Express Corp., 777 F. 2d 1155, 1158-1160 (CA6 1985).
Title VIPs remedial scheme was expressly modeled on the backpay provision of the National Labor Relations Act. See Albemarle Paper Co. v. Moody, 422 U.S. 405, 419-420, and n. 11 (1975); 29 U. S. C. § 160(c) (Board shall order persons to “cease and desist” from unfair labor practices and to take “affirmative action including reinstatement of employees with or without back pay”). This Court previously has held that backpay awarded under the Labor Act to an unlawfully discharged employee constitutes “wages” for purposes of the Social Security Act. See Social Security Board v. Nierotko, 327 U. S. 358 (1946).
Respondents’ attempts to prove that Title VII redresses a personal injury by relying on this Court’s characterizations of other antidiscrimination statutes are thus unpersuasive in light of those statutes’ differing remedial schemes. For example, respondents’ reliance on Goodman v. Lukens Steel Co., 482 U. S. 656 (1987), is misplaced, as that case involved the interpretation of § 1981. See Brief for Respondents 35-37. Respondents’ attempt to apply the Court’s statement in Curtis v. Loether, 415 U. S., at 195, that Title VIII “sounds basically in tort” to the Title VII context similarly fails. See Brief for Respondents 32. Indeed, Curtis itself distinguishes Title VII from Title VIII on a host of different grounds. See 415 U. S., at 196-197. The dissent commits the same error as respondents in attempting to analogize suits arising under Title VII to those involving other federal antidiscrimination statutes for purposes of § 104(a)(2). See post, at 250-252.
Respondents contend that Congress’ recent expansion of Title VII’s remedial scope supports their argument that Title VII claims are inherently tort-like in nature. See Brief for Respondents 34. Under the Civil Rights Act of 1991, victims of intentional discrimination are entitled to a jury trial, at which they may recover compensatory damages for “future pecuniary losses, emotional pain, suffering, inconvenience, mental anguish, loss of enjoyment of life, and other nonpecuniary losses,” as well as punitive damages. See Pub. L. 102-166, 105 Stat. 1073. Unlike respondents, however, we believe that Congress’ decision to permit jury trials and compensatory and punitive damages under the amended Act signals a marked change in its conception of the injury redressable by Title VII, and cannot be imported back into analysis of the statute as it existed at the time of this lawsuit. See, e. g., H. R. Rep. No. 102-40, pt. 1, pp. 64-65 (1991) (Report of Committee on Education and Labor) (“Monetary damages also are necessary to make discrimination victims whole for the terrible injury to their careers, to their mental and emotional health, and to their self-respect and dignity”); id., pt. 2, p. 25 (Report of Committee on the Judiciary) (“The limitation of relief under Title VII to equitable remedies often means that victims of intentional discrimination may not recover for the very real effects of the discrimination”).
Our holding that damages received in settlement of a Title VII claim are not properly excludable under § 104(a)(2) finds support in longstanding rulings of the IRS. See, e. g., Rev. Rule 72-341, 1972-2 Cum. Bull. 32 (payments by corporation to its employees in settlement of Title VII suit must be included in the employees’ gross income, as the payments “were based on compensation that they otherwise would have received”).
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
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 Marshall
delivered the opinion of the Court.
Petitioner was charged with criminal contempt of the United States District Court for the Western District of Oklahoma. The charge resulted from his violation of an injunction issued by that court at the request of the Securities and Exchange Commission. The injunction restrained petitioner from using interstate facilities in the sale of certain oil interests without having filed a registration statement with the Commission. Petitioner’s demand for a jury trial was denied. He was convicted, and the court suspended imposition of sentence and placed him on probation for three years. The Court of Appeals affirmed. Frank v. United States, 384 F. 2d 276 (C. A. 10th Cir. 1967). We granted certiorari, 392 U. S. 925 (1968), to determine whether petitioner was entitled to a jury trial. We conclude that he was not.
The Sixth Amendment to the Constitution gives defendants a right to a trial by jury in “all criminal prosecutions.” However, it has long been the rule that so-called “petty” offenses may be tried without a jury. See, e. g., District of Columbia v. Clawans, 300 U. S. 617 (1937). For purposes of the right to trial by jury, criminal contempt is treated just like all other criminal offenses. The defendant is entitled to a jury trial unless the particular offense can be classified as “petty.” Dyke v. Taylor Implement Mfg. Co., 391 U. S. 216 (1968); Bloom v. Illinois, 391 U. S. 194 (1968); Cheff v. Schnackenberg, 384 U. S. 373 (1966).
In determining whether a particular offense can be classified as “petty,” this Court has sought objective indications of the seriousness with which society regards the offense. District of Columbia v. Clawans, supra, at 628. The most relevant indication of the seriousness of an offense is the severity of the penalty authorized for its commission. Thus, in Clawans this Court held that a jury trial was not required in a prosecution for engaging in a certain business without a license, an offense carrying a maximum sentence of 90 days. Recently, we held that a jury trial was required in a state prosecution for simple battery, an offense carrying a possible prison sentence of two years. Duncan v. Louisiana, 391 U. S. 145 (1968).
In ordinary criminal prosecutions, the severity of the penalty authorized, not the penalty actually imposed, is the relevant criterion. In such cases, the legislature has included within the definition of the crime itself a judgment about the seriousness of the offense. See Duncan v. Louisiana, supra, at 162, n. 35. But a person may be found in contempt of court for a great many different types of offenses, ranging from disrespect for the court to acts otherwise criminal. Congress, perhaps in recognition of the scope of criminal contempt, has authorized courts to impose penalties but has not placed any specific limits on their discretion; it has not categorized contempts as “serious” or “petty.” 18 U. S. C. §§401, 402. Accordingly, this Court has held that in prosecutions for criminal contempt where no maximum penalty is authorized, the severity of the penalty actually imposed is the best indication of the seriousness of the particular offense. See, e. g., Cheff v. Schnackenberg, supra. Thus, this Court has held that sentences for criminal contempt of up to six months may constitutionally be imposed without a jury trial. Ibid.
The Government concedes that a jury trial would have been necessary in the present case if petitioner had received a sentence in excess of six months. Indeed, the Government concedes that petitioner may be sentenced to no more than six months if he violates the terms of his probation. However, the Government argues that petitioner’s actual penalty is one which may be imposed upon those convicted of otherwise petty offenses, and, thus, that a jury trial was not required in the present case. We agree.
Numerous federal and state statutory schemes allow significant periods of probation to be imposed for otherwise petty offenses. For example, under federal law, most offenders may be placed on probation for up to five years in lieu of or, in certain cases, in addition to a term of imprisonment. See 18 TJ. S. C. § 3651. Congress, in making the probation statute applicable to “any offense not punishable by death or life imprisonment,” clearly made it apply to petty, as well as more serious, offenses. In so doing, it did not indicate that the additional penalty of a term of probation was to place otherwise petty offenses in the “serious” category. In other words, Congress decided that petty offenses may be punished by any combination of penalties authorized by 18 U. S. C. § 1 and 18 U. S. C. § 3651. Therefore, the maximum penalty authorized in petty offense cases is not simply six months’ imprisonment and a $500 fine. A petty offender may be placed on probation for up to five years and, if the terms of probation are violated, he may then be imprisoned for six months. 18 U. S. C. § 3653.
In Cheff, this Court undertook to categorize criminal contempts for purposes of the right to trial by jury. In the exercise of its supervisory power over the lower federal courts, the Court decided by analogy to 18 U. S. C. § 1 that penalties not exceeding those authorized for petty offenses could be imposed in criminal contempt cases without affording the right to a jury trial. We think the analogy used in Cheff should apply equally here. Penalties presently authorized by Congress for petty offenses, including a term on probation, may be imposed in federal criminal contempt cases without a jury trial. Probation is, of course, a significant infringement of personal freedom, but it is certainly less onerous a restraint than jail itself. In noncontempt cases, Congress has not viewed the possibility of five years’ probation as onerous enough to make an otherwise petty offense “serious.” This Court is ill-equipped to make a contrary determination for contempt cases. As this Court said in Clawans, “[d]oubts must be resolved, not subjectively by recourse of the judge to his own sympathy and emotions, but by objective standards such as may be observed in the laws and practices of the community taken as a gauge of its social and ethical judgments.” 300 U. S., at 628.
Petitioner’s sentence is within the limits of the congressional definition of petty offenses. Accordingly, it was not error to deny him a jury trial.
Affirmed.
Me. Justice Hablan and Mr. Justice Stewart, adhering to the views expressed in the dissenting opinion of Mr. Justice Harlan in Bloom v. Illinois, 391 U. S. 194, 215, and in Part I of Mr. Justice Harlan’s separate opinion in Cheff v. Schnackenberg, 384 U. S. 373, 380, but considering themselves bound by the decisions of the Court in those cases, join in the above opinion on these premises.
Congress has provided for a jury trial in certain cases of criminal contempt. See, e. g., 18 U. S. C. §§ 402, 3691, 3692. Section 3691 provides for a jury trial in contempts involving willful disobedience of court orders where the “act or thing done or omitted also constitutes a criminal offense under any Act of Congress, or under the laws of any state The present case falls within an exception to that rule for eases involving disobedience of any court order “entered in any suit or action brought or prosecuted in the name of, or on behalf of, the United States.”
If the statute creating the offense specifies a maximum penalty, then of course that penalty is the relevant criterion. See Dyke v. Taylor Implement Mfg. Co., 391 U. S. 216 (1968).
The Court in Cheff relied on 18 U. S. C. § 1, which defines a petty offense as “[a]ny misdemeanor, the penalty for which does not exceed imprisonment for a period of six months or a fine of not more than $500, or both . . . .”
If imposition of sentence is suspended, the court may upon revocation of probation “impose any sentence which might originally have been imposed.” 18 U. S. C. § 3653. Under Cheff, that sentence would be limited to six months’ imprisonment.
“[W]e are constrained, to view the [contempt] proceedings here as equivalent to a procedure to prosecute a petty offense, which under our decisions does not require a jury trial. . . . According to 18 U. S. C. § 1 (1964 ed.), ‘[a]ny misdemeanor, the penalty for which does not exceed imprisonment for a period of six months’ is a ‘petty offense.’ Since Cheff received a sentence of six months’ imprisonment . . . , and since the nature of criminal contempt, an offense sui generis, does not, of itself, warrant treatment otherwise . . . , Cheff’s offense can be treated only as ‘petty’ in the eyes of the statute and our prior decisions. We conclude therefore that Cheff was properly convicted without a jury.” Cheff v. Schnackenberg, supra, at 379-380.
Petitioner is required to make monthly reports to his probation officer, associate only with law-abiding persons, maintain reasonable hours, work regularly, report all job changes to his probation officer, and not leave the probation district without the permission of his probation officer.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
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 Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act (EMTALA), as added by § 9121(b) of the Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1985, 100 Stat. 164, and as amended, 42 U. S. C. § 1395dd, places obligations of screening and stabilization upon hospitals and emergency rooms that receive patients suffering from an “emergency medical condition.” The Court of Appeals held that in order to recover in a suit alleging a violation of § 1395dd(b), a plaintiff must prove that the hospital acted with an improper motive in failing to stabilize her. Finding no support for such a requirement in the text of the statute, we reverse.
Section 1395dd(a) imposes a “[m]edieal screening requirement” upon hospitals with emergency departments: “[I]f any individual . . . comes to the emergency department and a request is made on the individual’s behalf for examination or treatment for a medical condition, the hospital must provide for an appropriate medical screening examination within the capability of the hospital’s emergency department.” 42 U. S. C. § 1395dd(a). Section 1395dd(b), entitled “Necessary stabilizing treatment for emergency medical conditions and labor,” provides in relevant part as follows:
“(1) In general
“If any individual (whether or not eligible for benefits under this subehapter) comes to a hospital and the hospital determines that the individual has an emergency medical condition, the hospital must provide either—
“(A) within the staff and facilities available at the hospital, for such further medical examination and such treatment as may be required to stabilize the medical condition, or
“(B) for transfer of the individual to another medical facility in accordance with subsection (e) of this section....”
Section 1395dd(e) generally restricts transfers of unstabi-lized patients, and § 1395dd(d) authorizes both civil fines and a private cause of action for violations of the statute.
Wanda Johnson was run over by a truck in May 1992, and was rushed to respondent’s hospital, the Humana Hospital-University of Louisville, in Louisville, Kentucky (Humana). Johnson had been severely injured and had suffered serious injuries to her brain, spine, right leg, and pelvis. After about six weeks’ stay at Humana, during which time Johnson’s health remained in a volatile state, respondent’s agents arranged for her transfer to the Crestview Health Care Facility, across the river in Indiana. Johnson was transferred to Crestview on July 24,1992, but upon arrival at that facility, her condition deteriorated significantly. Johnson was taken to the Midwest Medical Center, also in Indiana, where she remained for many months and incurred substantial medical expenses as a result of her deterioration. Johnson applied for financial assistance under Indiana’s Medicaid program, but her application was rejected on the ground that she had failed to satisfy Indiana’s residency requirements. Petitioner Jane Roberts, Johnson’s guardian, then filed this federal action under § 1395dd(d) as codified, alleging violations of § 1395dd(b).
The District Court granted summary judgment for respondent on the grounds that petitioner had failed to show that “‘either the medical opinion that Johnson was stable or the decision to authorize her transfer was caused by an improper motive.’ ” 111 F. 3d 405,407 (CA6 1997). The Court of Appeals affirmed, holding that in order to state a claim in an EMTALA suit alleging a violation of § 1395dd(b)'s stabilization requirement, a plaintiff must show that the hospital’s inappropriate stabilization resulted from an improper motive such as one involving the indigency, race, or sex of the patient. Id, at 411. In order to decide whether subsection (b) imposes such a requirement, we granted certiorari, 524 U. S. 915 (1998), and now reverse.
The Court of Appeals' holding — that proof of improper motive was necessary for recovery under § 1395dd(b)’s stabilization requirement — extended earlier Circuit precedent deciding that the “appropriate medical screening” duty under § 1395dd(a) also required proof of an improper motive. See Cleland v. Bronson Health Care Group, Inc., 917 F. 2d 266 (CA6 1990). The Court of Appeals in Cleland was concerned that Congress’ use of the word “appropriate” in § 1395dd(a) might be interpreted incorrectly to permit federal liability under EMTALA for any violation covered by state malpractice law. Id, at 271. Accordingly, rather than interpret EMTALA so as to cover “at a minimum, the full panoply of state malpractice law, and at a maximum, ... a guarantee of a successful result” in medical treatment, ibid., the Court of Appeals read § 1395dd(a)’s “appropriate medical screening” duty as requiring a plaintiff to show an improper reason why he or she received “less than standard attention [upon arrival]... at the emergency room,” id., at 272.
Unlike the provision of EMTALA at issue in Cleland, § 1395dd(a), the provision at issue in this case, § 1395dd(b), contains no requirement of appropriateness. Subsection (b)(1)(A) requires instead the provision of “such further medical examination and such treatment as may be required to stabilize the medical condition.” 42 TJ. S. C. § 1395dd(b)(l)(A). The question of the correctness of the Cleland court’s reading of § 1395dd(a)’s “appropriate medical screening” requirement is not before us, and we express no opinion on it here. But there is no question that the text of §1395dd(b) does not require an “appropriate” stabilization, nor can it reasonably be read to require an improper motive. This fact is conceded by respondent, which notes in its brief that “the ‘motive’ test adopted by the court below . . . lacks support in any of the traditional sources of statutory construction.” Brief for Respondent 17. Although the concession of a point on appeal by respondent is by no means dispositive of a legal issue, we take it as further indication of the correctness of our decision today, and hold that §1395dd(b) contains no express or implied “improper motive” requirement.
Although respondent presents two alternative grounds for the affirmance of the decision below, we decline to address these claims at this stage in the litigation. The Court granted certiorari on only the EMTALA issue, and these claims do not appear to have been sufficiently developed below for us to assess them in any event. Accordingly, we reverse the Court of Appeals’ holding that the District Court’s grant of summary judgment was proper and remand the case for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
We note, however, that Cleland’s interpretation of subsection (a) is in conflict with the law of other Circuits which do not read subsection (a) as imposing an improper motive requirement. See Summers v. Baptist Med. Center Arkadelphia, 91 F. 3d 1132, 1137-1138 (CA8 1996) (en banc); Correa v. Hospital San Francisco, 69 F. 3d 1184, 1193-1194 (CA1 1995); Repp v. Anadarko Munic. Hospital, 43 F. 3d 519, 522 (CA10 1994); Power v. Arlington Hospital Assn., 42 F. 3d 851, 857 (CA4 1994); Gatewood v. Washington Healthcare Corp., 933 F. 2d 1037, 1041 (CADC 1991).
Respondent argues that the record demonstrates that it did not have actual knowledge of the patient’s condition, and that the hospital properly-screened Johnson, which terminated its duty under EMTALA. We express no opinion as to the factual correctness or legal dispositiveness of these claims, and leave their resolution to the courts below 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: | H | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Mr. Chief Justice Warren
delivered the opinion of the Court.
This is a trademark case arising under the Lanham Act (60 Stat. 427, 15 U. S. C. §§ 1051-1127) in which our sole concern is with the relief that may be granted when deliberate infringement of a valid trademark has been established. The question is whether federal courts have power in that context to award reasonable attorney’s fees as a separate element of recovery in light of § 35 of the Act which enumerates the available compefisatory remedies.
The scope of petitioners’ trademark and the fact of respondents’ infringement were determined by the Court of- Appeals for the Ninth Circuit at an earlier stage of this litigation. 314 F. 2d 149, cert. denied, 374 U. S. 830 (1963). The case was then remanded to the District Court for the Southern District of California which, after noting that the Court. of Appeals had characterized respondents’ infringing activities as deliberate, entered its own finding to that effect. In accord with prior rulings of certain courts of appeals and district courts that attorney’s fees could be recovered if deliberate or willful infringement were established, the District Court awarded petitioners $60,000 after determining that such sum constituted reasonable attorney’s fees for prosecution of this litigation. Respondents sought an immediate interlocutory appeal although petitioners’ rights to an accounting and other relief remained for determination. The Court of Appeals first dismissed the appeal as premature, but after the District Court issued a certificate under 28 U. S. C. § 1292 (b) authorization was granted. Sifting en banc the Court of Appeals reversed the award of attorney’s fees, holding that under the Lanham Act federal courts are without power to make such awards. 359 F. 2d 156 (1966). We granted cer-tiorari to resolve the conflict between that holding and the prior decisions of federal courts upon which the District Court had relied. 385 U. S. 809 (1966). For the reasons elaborated below, we affirm.
As early as 1278, the courts of England were authorized to award counsel fees to successful plaintiffs in litigation. Similarly, since 1607 English courts have been empowered to award counsel fees to defendants, in all actions where such awards might be made to plaintiffs. Rules governing administration of these and related provisions have developed over the years. It is now customary in England; after litigation- of substantive claims has terminated, to conduct separate hearings before special “taxing Masters” in order to determine the appropriateness and the size of an award of counsel fees. To prevent the ancillary proceedings from becoming unduly protracted .and burdensome, fees which may be included in an award are usually prescribed, even including the amounts that may be recovered for letters drafted on behalf of a client.
Although some American commentators have urged adoption of the English practice in this country, our courts have generally resisted any .movement in that direction. The rule here has long been that attorney’s fees are not ordinarily recoverable in the absence of a statute or enforceable contract providing therefor. This Court first announced that rule in Arcambel v. Wiseman, 3 Dall. 306 (1796), and adhered to it in later decisions. See, e. g., Hauenstein v. Lynham, 100 U. S. 483 (1880); Stewart v. Sonneborn, 98 U. S. 187 (1879); Oelrichs v. Spain, 15 Wall. 211 (1872); Day v. Woodworth, 13 How. 363 (1852). In support of the American rule, it has been argued that since litigation is at best uncertain one should not be penalized for merely defending or prosecuting a lawsuit, and that the poor might be unjustly discouraged from instituting actions to vindicate their rights if the penalty for losing included the fees of their opponents’ counsel. Cf. Farmer v. Arabian American Oil Co., 379 U. S. 227, at 235 (1964); id., at 236-239 (concurring opinion of Mr. Justice Goldberg). Also, the time, expense, and difficulties of proof inherent in litigating the question of what constitutes reasonable attorney’s fees would pose substantial burdens for judicial administration. Oelrichs v. Spain, supra, at 231.
Limited exceptions to the American rule have, of course, developed. They have been sanctioned by this Court when overriding considerations of justice seemed to compel such a result. In appropriate circumstances, we have held, an admiralty plaintiff may be awarded counsel fees as an item of compensatory damages (not as a separate cost to be taxed). Vaughan v. Atkinson, 369 U. S. 527 (1962). And in a civil contempt action occasioned by willful disobedience of a court order an award of attorney’s fees may be authorized as part of the fine to- be levied on the defendant. Toledo Scale Co. v. Computing Scale Co., 261 U. S. 399, 426-428 (1923). the case upon which petitioners here place their principal reliance— Sprague v. Ticonic National Bank, 307 U. S. 161 (1939)— involved yet another exception. That exception had previously been applied in cases where a plaintiff traced or created a common fund for the benefit of others as well as himself. Central Railroad & Banking Co. v. Pettus, 113 U. S. 116 (1885); Trustees v. Greenough, 105 U. S. 527 (1882). In that situation to have allowed the others to obtain full benefit from the plaintiff’s efforts without requiring contribution or charging the common fund for attorney’s fees would have been to enrich, the others unjustly at the expense of the plaintiff. Sprague itself involved a variation of the common-fund situation where, although the plaintiff had not in a technical sense sued for the benefit, of others or to create a common fund, the stare decisis effect of the judgment obtained by the plaintiff established as a matter of law the right of a discernible class of persons to collect upon similar claims. The Court held that the general equity power “to do equity in a particular situation” supported an award of attorney’s fees under such circumstances for the same reasons that underlay the common-fund decisions.
The recognized exceptions to the general rule were not, however, developed in the context of statutory causes of action for which the legislature had prescribed intricate remedies. Trademark actions under the Lanham Act do occur in such a setting. For, in the Lanham Act, Congress meticulously detailed the remedies available to a plaintiff who proves that his valid trademark has been infringed. It provided not only for injunctive relief, but also for compensatory recovery measured by the profits that accrued to the defendant by virtue of his infringement, the costs of the action, and damages which may be trebled in appropriate circumstances. Petitioners have advanced' the proposition that the authority to award- “costs of the action” taken together with the introductory phrase “subject to the principles of equity” should be deemed implicit authority for an award of attorney’s fees in light of the reference in Sprague to the general equity power. But none of the considerations which supported the exception secognized in Sprague aré present here. Moreover, since, with the exception of the docket fee provided by 28 U. S. C. § 1923 (a), the statutory definition of the term “costs” does not include attorney’s fees, acceptance of petitioners’ argument would require us to ascribe to Congress a purpose to vary the meaning of that term without either statutory language or legislative history to support the unusual construction. When a cause of action has been created by a statute which expressly provides the remedies for vindication of the cause, other remedies should not readily be implied. Philp v. Nock, 17 Wall. 460 (1873); Teese v. Huntingdon, 23 How. 2 (1860); cf. Day v. Woodworth, 13 How. 363 (1852). Congress has overturned the specific consequence of Philp and Teese by expressly allowing recovery of attorney’s fees in p&tent cases and has selectively provided a similar remedy in connection with various other statutory causes of action. But several attempts to introduce such a provision into the Lanham Act have failed of enactment. We therefore must conclude that Congress intended § 35 of the Lanham Act to mark the boundaries of the power to award monetary relief in cases arising under the Act. A judicially created compensatory refnedy in addition to the express statutory remedies is inappropriate in this-context. Affirmed
Section 35 of the Lanham Act, 15 U. S. C. § 1117:
“When a violation of any right of the registrant of a mark registered in the Patent Office shall have been established in any civil action arising under this chapter, the plaintiff shall bé entitled, subject to the provisions of sections 1111 and 1114 of this title, and subject to the principles of equity, to recover (1) defendant’s profits, (2) any damages sustained by the plaintiff, and (3) the costs of the action. ... In assessing damages the court may enter judgment, according to the circumstances of the case, for any sum above the amount found as actual damages, not exceeding three times such amount. If the court shall find that the amount of the recovery based on profits is either inadequate or excessive the court may in its discretion enter judgment for such sum as the court shall find to be just, according to the circumstances of the case. Such sum in either of'the above circumstances shall constitute compensation and not a penalty.”
The Fleisehmann Distilling Corporation owns the American distribution rights to Scotch whiskey sold under the trademark “Black & White.” Its co-petitioner is James Buchanan & Co., Ltd., owner and registrant of the trademark.
Maier Brewing Company, the principal respondent, is an independent brewery which marketed a beer under the label “Black & White” through its co-respondent, Ralphs Grocery Company.
E. g., Baker v. Simmons Co., 325 F. 2d 580 (C. A. 1st Cir. 1963); Wolfe v. National Lead Co., 272 F. 2d 867 (C. A. 9th Cir. 1959); Keller Products v. Rubber Linings Corp., 213 F. 2d 382 (C. A. 7th Cir. 1954); Century Distilling Co. v. Continental Distilling Corp., 205 F. 2d 140 (C. A. 3d Cir. 1953); Admiral Corp. v. Penco, Inc., 203 F. 2d 517 (C. A. 2d Cir. 1953). As the Court of Appeals in this ease pointed out, the decisions upholding awards of attorney’s fees under the Lanham Act in most instances merely state the conclusion that attorney’s fees are recoverable and cite prior case authority, often commencing with a pre-Lanham Act decision—Aladdin Mfg. Co. v. Mantle Lamp Co., 116 F. 2d 708 (C. A. 7th Cir. 1941).
E. g., Youthform Co. v. R. H. Macy & Co., 153 F. Supp. 87 (D. C. N. D. Ga. 1957); Williamson-Dickie Mfg. Co. v. Davis Mfg. Co., 149 F. Supp. 852 (D. C. E. D. Pa. 1957); Francis H. Leggett & Co. v. Premier Packing Co., 140 F. Supp. 328 (D. C. Mass. 1956); Singer Mfg. Co. v. Singer Upholstering & Sewing Co., 130 F. Supp. 205 (D. C. W. D. Pa. 1955).
“When a district judge, in making in a civil action an order not otherwise appealable under this section, shall be of . the opinion that such order involves a controlling question of law as to which there is substantial ground for difference of opinion and that an immediate appeal from the order may materially advance the ultimate termination of the litigation, he shall so state in writing in such order. The Court of Appeals may thereupon, in its discretion, permit an appeal to be taken from such order, if application is made to it within ten days after the entry of the order . . . .”
Statute of Gloucester, 1278, 6 Edw. 1, c. 1. This statute, which expressly mént-ioned only “the costs of his writ purchased,” was from the outset liberally construed to encompass all legal costs of suit, including counsel fees. Goodhart, Costs, 38 Yale L. J. 849, 852 (1929).
Statute of Westminster, 1607, 4 Jac. 1, c. 3.
See generally McCormick, Damages §60 (1935); Goodhart, Costs, 38 Yale L. J. 849-872 (1929) (passim).
Ehrenzweig, Reimbursement of Counsel Fees and the Great Society, 54 Calif. L. Rev. 792 (1966); McCormick, Counsel Fees and Other Expenses of Litigation as an Element of Damages, 15 Minn. L. Rev. 619 (1931); Stoebuck, Counsel Fees Included in Costs: A Logical Development, 38 Colo. L. Rev. 202 (1966); Note, 65 Mich. L. Rev. 593 (1967).
28 U. S. C. §1923 (a), which is derived from the Fee Bill of 1853, 10 Stat. 161, might be termed a “general exception.” It provides for recovery of nominal sums known as “Attorney’s and proctor’s docket fees.” In ordinary litigation and “on trial or final hearing” the sum recoverable under this provision is $20, to be taxed as part of the costs defined by 28 U. S. C. § 1920.
Section 34 of the Lanham Act, 60 Stat. 439, 15 U. S. C. § 1116.
Section 35 of the Lanham Act, 60 Stat. 439, 15 U. S. C. § 1117 (quoted, supra, n. 1).
See n. 11, supra.
28 U. S. C. § 1920 provides:
“A judge or clerk of any court of the United States may tax as costs the following:
“(1) Fees of the clerk and marshal;
“(2) Fees of the court reporter for all or any part of the stenographic transcript necessarily obtained for use in the case;
“(3) Fees and disbursements for printing and witnesses;
“(4) Fees for exemplification and copies of papers necessarily obtained for use in the'case;
“(5) Docket fees under section 1923 of this title.
“A bill of costs shall be filed in the case and, upon allowance, included in the judgment or decree.”
35 U. S. C. § 285. This provision was enacted in 1946, as was the Lanham Act. 60 Stat. 778. It was revised in 1952, so as to limit such recovery to “exceptional cases.” 66 Stat. 813.
See, e. g., Clayton Act, § 4, 38 Stat. 731, 15 U. S. C. § 15; Communications Act of 1934, § 206, 48 Stat. 1072, 47 U. S. C. § 206; Copyright Act, 17 U. S. C. § 116; Fair Labor Standards Act, § 16 (b), 52 Stat. 1069, 29 U. S. C. § 216 (b); Interstate Commerce Act, § 16, 34 Stat. 590, 49 U. S. C. § 16 (2); Packers and Stockyards Act, § 309 (f), 42 Stat. 166, 7 U. S. C. § 210 (f); Perishable Agricultural Commodities Act, § 7 (b), 46 Stat. 535, 7 U. S. C. § 499g (b); Railway Labor Act, § 3 First (p), 48 Stat. 1192, 45 U. S. C. § 153 First (p); Securities Act of 1933, § 11 (e), 48 Stat. 907, 15 U. S. C. § 77k (e); Securities Exchange Act of 1934, §§ 9 (e), 18 (a), 48 Stat. 890, 897, 15 U. S. C. §§ 78i (e), 78r (a); Servicemen’s Readjustment Act, 38 U. S. C. § 1822 (b); Trust Indenture Act, § 323 (a), 53 Stat. 1176, 15 U. S. C. § 77www (a). See also Fed. Rules Civ. Proc. 37 (a) and 56 (g).
S. 2540, 83d Cong., 1st Sess., § 25 (1953), containing a provision for recovery of attorney’s fees, passed the Senate but failed of enactment in the House of Representatives. The Report accompanying the bill stated that the provision was intended to parallel the then recent addition to the patent statute. (See n. 16, supra.) A similar provision was embodied in H. R. 7734, 84th Cong., 1st Sess., §25 (1955), which also died after passing the originating House.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | F | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Per Curiam.
The petition for a writ of certiorari is granted. The respondent consented to the entry by the National Labor Relations Board of an order directing it to cease and desist from certain practices as regards membership of its employees in a named labor organization “or any other labor organization of its employees.” The respondent further waived all defenses to the entry by the Court of Appeals of a decree enforcing said order. The Court of Appeals, sua sponte, struck the words “or any other labor organization of its employees” wherever they appeared in the Board’s order. 281 F. 2d 797. The judgment of the Court of Appeals is reversed and the case is remanded with directions that a judgment be entered which affirms and enforces the Board order. Labor Board v. Ochoa Fertilizer Corp., ante, p. 318.
Mr. Justice Douglas dissents.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | I | sc_issuearea |
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Justice Ginsburg
delivered the opinion of the Court, except as to footnote 14.
It is the general rule under United States patent law that no infringement occurs when a patented product is made and sold in another country. There is an exception. Section 271(f) of the Patent Act, adopted in 1984, provides that infringement does occur when one “supplies... from the United States,” for “combination” abroad, a patented invention’s “components.” 35 U. S. C. § 271(f)(1). This case concerns the applicability of § 271(f) to computer software first sent from the United States to a foreign manufacturer on a master disk, or by electronic transmission, then copied by the foreign recipient for installation on computers made and sold abroad.
AT&T holds a patent on an apparatus for digitally encoding and compressing recorded speech. Microsoft’s Windows operating system, it is conceded, has the potential to infringe AT&T’s patent, because Windows incorporates software code that, when installed, enables a computer to process speech in the manner claimed by that patent. It bears emphasis, however, that uninstalled Windows software does not infringe AT&T’s patent any more than a computer standing alone does; instead, the patent is infringed only when a computer is loaded with Windows and is thereby rendered capable of performing as the patented speech processor. The question before us: Does Microsoft’s liability extend to computers made in another country when loaded with Windows software copied abroad from a master disk or electronic transmission dispatched by Microsoft from the United States? Our answer is “No.”
The master disk or electronic transmission Microsoft sends from the United States is never installed on any of the foreign-made computers in question. Instead, copies made abroad are used for installation. Because Microsoft does not export from the United States the copies actually installed, it does not “suppl[y]... from the United States” “components” of the relevant computers, and therefore is not liable under § 271(f) as currently written.
Plausible arguments can be made for and against extending § 271(f) to the conduct charged in this case as infringing AT&T’s patent. Recognizing that § 271(f) is an exception to the general rule that our patent law does not apply extraterritorially, we resist giving the language in which Congress cast § 271(f) an expansive interpretation. Our decision leaves to Congress’ informed judgment any adjustment of § 271(f) it deems necessary or proper.
I
Our decision some 35 years ago in Deepsouth Packing Co. v. Laitram Corp., 406 U. S. 518 (1972), a case about a shrimp deveining machine, led Congress to enact § 271(f). In that case, Laitram, holder of a patent on the time-and-expense-saving machine, sued Deepsouth, manufacturer of an infringing deveiner. Deepsouth conceded that the Patent Act barred it from making and selling its deveining machine in the United States, but sought to salvage a portion of its business: Nothing in United States patent law, Deepsouth urged, stopped it from making in the United States the parts of its deveiner, as opposed to the machine itself, and selling those parts to foreign buyers for assembly and use abroad. Id., at 522-524. We agreed.
Interpreting our patent law as then written, we reiterated in Deepsouth that it was “not an infringement to make or use a patented product outside of the United States.” Id., at 527; see 35 U. S. C. §271(a) (1970 ed.) (“[W]hoever without authority makes, uses or sells any patented invention, within the United States during the term of the patent therefor, infringes the patent.”). Deepsouth’s foreign buyers did not infringe Laitram’s patent, we held, because they assembled and used the deveining machines outside the United States. Deepsouth, we therefore concluded, could not be charged with inducing or contributing to an infringement. 406 U. S., at 526-527. Nor could Deepsouth be held liable as a direct infringer, for it did not make, sell, or use the patented invention — the fully assembled deveining machine — within the United States. The parts of the machine were not themselves patented, we noted, hence export of those parts, unassembled, did not rank as an infringement of Laitram’s patent. Id., at 527-529.
Laitram had argued in Deepsouth that resistance to extension of the patent privilege to cover exported parts “derived from too narrow and technical an interpretation of the [Patent Act].” Id., at 529. Rejecting that argument, we referred to prior decisions holding that “a combination patent protects only against the operable assembly of the whole and not the manufacture of its parts.” Id., at 528. Congress’ codification of patent law, we said, signaled no intention to broaden the scope of the privilege. Id., at 530 (“When, as here, the Constitution is permissive, the sign of how far Congress has chosen to go can come only from Congress.”). And we again emphasized that
“[o]ur patent system makes no claim to extraterritorial effect; these acts of Congress do not, and were not intended to, operate beyond the limits of the United States; and we correspondingly reject the claims of others to such control over our markets.” Id., at 531 (quoting Brown v. Duchesne, 19 How. 183, 195 (1857)).
Absent “a clear congressional indication of intent,” we stated, courts had no warrant to stop the manufacture and sale of the parts of patented inventions for assembly and use abroad. 406 U. S., at 532.
Focusing its attention on Deepsouth, Congress enacted § 271(f). See Patent Law Amendments Act of 1984, §101, 98 Stat. 3383; Fisch & Allen, The Application of Domestic Patent Law to Exported Software: 35 U. S. C. §271(f), 25 U. Pa. J. Int’l Econ. L. 557, 565 (2004) (hereinafter Fisch & Allen) (“Congress specifically intended § 271(f) as a response to the Supreme Court’s decision in Deepsouth”). The provision expands the definition of infringement to include supplying from the United States a patented invention’s components:
“(1) Whoever without authority supplies or causes to be supplied in or from the United States all or a substantial portion of the components of a patented invention, where such components are uncombined in whole or in part, in such manner as to actively induce the combination of such components outside of the United States in a manner that would infringe the patent if such combination occurred within the United States, shall be liable as an infringer.
“(2) Whoever without authority supplies or causes to be supplied in or from the United States any component of a patented invention that is especially made or especially adapted for use in the invention and not a staple article or commodity of commerce suitable for substantial noninfringing use, where such component is uneombined in whole or in part, knowing that such component is so made or adapted and intending that such component will be combined outside of the United States in a manner that would infringe the patent if such combination occurred within the United States, shall be liable as an infringer.” 35 U. S. C. § 271(f).
II
Windows is designed, authored, and tested at Microsoft’s Redmond, Washington, headquarters. Microsoft sells Windows to end users and computer manufacturers, both foreign and domestic. Purchasing manufacturers install the software onto the computers they sell. Microsoft sends to each of the foreign manufacturers a master version of Windows, either on a disk or via encrypted electronic transmission. The manufacturer uses the master version to generate copies. Those copies, not the master sent by Microsoft, are installed on the foreign manufacturer’s computers. Once assembly is complete, the foreign-made computers are sold to users abroad. App. to Pet. for Cert. 45a-46a.
AT&T’s patent (’580 patent) is for an apparatus (as relevant here, a computer) capable of digitally encoding and compressing recorded speech. Windows, the parties agree, contains software that enables a computer to process speech in the manner claimed by the ’580 patent. In 2001, AT&T filed an infringement suit in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, charging Microsoft with liability for domestic and foreign installations of Windows.
Neither Windows software (e. g., in a box on the shelf) nor a computer standing alone (i e., without Windows installed) infringes AT&T’s patent. Infringement occurs only when Windows is installed on a computer, thereby rendering it capable of performing as the patented speech processor. Microsoft stipulated that by installing Windows on its own computers during the software development process, it directly infringed the ’580 patent. Microsoft further acknowledged that by licensing copies of Windows to manufacturers of computers sold in the United States, it induced infringement of AT&T’s patent. Id., at 42a; Brief for Petitioner 3-4; Brief for Respondent 9, 19.
Microsoft denied, however, any liability based on the master disks and electronic transmissions it dispatched to foreign manufacturers, thus joining issue with AT&T. By sending Windows to foreign manufacturers, AT&T contended, Microsoft “supplie[d]... from the United States,” for “combination” abroad, “components” of AT&T’s patented speech processor; accordingly, AT&T urged, Microsoft was liable under § 271(f). See supra, at 445 (reproducing text of § 271(f)). Microsoft responded that unincorporated software, because it is intangible information, cannot be typed a “component” of an invention under § 271(f). In any event, Microsoft urged, the foreign-generated copies of Windows actually installed abroad were not “supplie[d]... from the United States.” Rejecting these responses, the District Court held Microsoft liable under § 271(f). 71 USPQ 2d 1118 (SDNY 2004). On appeal, a divided panel of the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit affirmed. 414 F. 3d 1366 (2005). We granted certiorari, 549 U. S. 991 (2006), and now reverse.
Ill
A
This case poses two questions: First, when, or in what form, does software qualify as a “component” under § 271(f)? Second, were “components” of the foreign-made computers involved in this case “supplie[d]” by Microsoft “from the United States”?
As to the first question, no one in this litigation argues that software can never rank as a “component” under § 271(f). The parties disagree, however, over the stage at which software becomes a component. Software, the “set of instructions, known as code, that directs a computer to perform specified functions or operations,” Fantasy Sports Properties, Inc. v. SportsLine.com, Inc., 287 F. 3d 1108, 1118 (CA Fed. 2002), can be conceptualized in (at least) two ways. One can speak of software in the abstract: the instructions themselves detached from any medium. (An analogy: The notes of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony.) One can alternatively envision a tangible “copy” of software, the instructions encoded on a medium such as a CD-ROM. (Sheet music for Beethoven’s Ninth.) AT&T argues that software in the abstract, not simply a particular copy of software, qualifies as a “component” under § 271(f). Microsoft and the United States argue that only a copy of software, not software in the abstract, can be a component.
The significance of these diverse views becomes apparent when we turn to the second question: Were components of the foreign-made computers involved in this case “supplied]” by Microsoft “from the United States”? If the relevant components are the copies of Windows actually installed on the foreign computers, AT&T could not persuasively argue that those components, though generated abroad, were “supplied]... from the United States” as § 271(f) requires for liability to attach. If, on the other hand, Windows in the abstract qualifies as a component within § 271(f)’s compass, it would not matter that the master copies of Windows software dispatched from the United States were not themselves installed abroad as working parts of the foreign computers.
With this explanation of the relationship between the two questions in view, we further consider the twin inquiries.
B
First, when, or in what form, does software become a “component” under § 271(f)? We construe §271(f)’s terms “in accordance with [their] ordinary or natural meaning.” FDIC v. Meyer, 510 U. S. 471,476 (1994). Section 271(f) applies to the supply abroad of the “components of a patented invention, where such components are uncombined in whole or in part, in such manner as to actively induce the combination of such components.” § 271(f)(1) (emphasis added). The provision thus applies only to “such components” as are combined to form the “patented invention” at issue. The patented invention here is AT&T’s speech-processing computer.
Until it is expressed as a computer-readable “copy,” e. g., on a CD-ROM, Windows software — indeed any software detached from an activating medium — remains uncombinable. It cannot be inserted into a CD-ROM drive or downloaded from the Internet; it cannot be installed or executed on a computer. Abstract software code is an idea without physical embodiment, and as such, it does not match §271(f)’s categorization: “components” amenable to “combination.” Windows abstracted from a tangible copy no doubt is information — a detailed set of instructions — and thus might be compared to a blueprint (or anything containing design information, e. g., a schematic, template, or prototype). A blueprint may contain precise instructions for the construction and combination of the components of a patented device, but it is not itself a combinable component of that device. AT&T and its amid do not suggest otherwise. Cf. Pellegrini v. Analog Devices, Inc., 375 F. 3d 1113, 1117-1119 (CA Fed. 2004) (transmission abroad of instructions for production of patented computer chips not covered by § 271(f)).
AT&T urges that software, at least when expressed as machine-readable object code, is distinguishable from design information presented in a blueprint. Software, unlike a blueprint, is “modular”; it is a stand-alone product developed and marketed “for use on many different types of computer hardware and in conjunction with many other types of software.” Brief for Respondent 5; Tr. of Oral Arg. 46. Software’s modularity persists even after installation; it can be updated or removed (deleted) without affecting the hardware on which it is installed. Ibid. Software, unlike a blueprint, is also “dynamic.” Ibid. After a device has been built according to a blueprint’s instructions, the blueprint’s work is done (as AT&T puts it, the blueprint’s instructions have been “exhausted,” ibid.). Software’s instructions, in contrast, are contained in and continuously performed by a computer. Brief for Respondent 27-28; Tr. of Oral Arg. 46. See also Bolas Technologies Inc. v. Microsoft Corp., 399 F. 3d 1325, 1339 (CA Fed. 2005) (“[S]oftware code... drives the functional nucleus of the finished computer product.” (quoting Imagexpo, L. L. C. v. Microsoft Corp., 299 F. Supp. 2d 550, 553 (EB Va. 2003))).
The distinctions advanced by AT&T do not persuade us to characterize software, uncoupled from a medium, as a combinable component. Blueprints too, or any design information for that matter, can be independently developed, bought, and sold. If the point of AT&T’s argument is that we do not see blueprints lining stores’ shelves, the same observation may be made about software in the abstract: What retailers sell, and consumers buy, are copies of software. Likewise, before software can be contained in and continuously performed by a computer, before it can be updated or deleted, an actual, physical copy of the software must be delivered by CD-ROM or some other means capable of interfacing with the computer.
Because it is so easy to encode software’s instructions onto a medium that can be read by a computer, AT&T intimates, that extra step should not play a decisive role under § 271(f). But the extra step is what renders the software a usable, combinable part of a computer; easy or not, the copy-producing step is essential. Moreover, many tools may be used easily and inexpensively to generate the parts of a device. A machine for making sprockets might be used by a manufacturer to produce tens of thousands of sprockets an hour. That does not make the machine a “component” of the tens of thousands of devices in which the sprockets are incorporated, at least not under any ordinary understanding of the term “component.” Congress, of course, might have included within § 271(f)’s compass, for example, not only combinable “components” of a patented invention, but also “information, instructions, or tools from which those components readily may be generated.” It did not. In sum, a copy of Windows, not Windows in the abstract, qualifies as a “component” under § 271(f).
C
The next question, has Microsoft “supplie[d]... from the United States” components of the computers here involved? Under a conventional reading of §271(f)’s text, the answer would be “No,” for the foreign-made copies of Windows actually installed on the computers were “supplie[d]” from places outside the United States. The Federal Circuit majority concluded, however, that “for software ‘components,’ the act of copying is subsumed in the act of ‘supplying.’ ” 414 F. 3d, at 1370. A master sent abroad, the majority observed, differs not at all from the exact copies, easily, inexpensively, and swiftly generated from the master; hence “sending a single copy abroad with the intent that it be replicated invokes § 271(f) liability for th[e] foreign-made copies.” Ibid.; cf. post, at 464 (Stevens, J., dissenting) (“[A] master disk is the functional equivalent of a warehouse of components... that Microsoft fully expects to be incorporated into foreign-manufactured computers.”).
Judge Rader, dissenting, noted that “supplying” is ordinarily understood to mean an activity separate and distinct from any subsequent “copying, replicating, or reproducing— in effect manufacturing.” 414 F. 3d, at 1372-1373 (internal quotation marks omitted); see id., at 1373 (“[Cjopying and supplying are separate acts with different consequences— particularly when the ‘supplying’ occurs in the United States and the copying occurs in Düsseldorf or Tokyo. As a matter of logic, one cannot supply one hundred components of a patented invention without first making one hundred copies of the component...He further observed: “The only true difference between making and supplying software components and physical components [of other patented inventions] is that copies of software components are easier to make and transport.” Id., at 1374. But nothing in §271(f)’s text, Judge Rader maintained, renders ease of copying a relevant, no less decisive, factor in triggering liability for infringement. See ibid. We agree.
Section 271(f) prohibits the supply of components “from the United States... in such manner as to actively induce the combination of suck components.” § 271(f)(1) (emphasis added). Under this formulation, the very components supplied from the United States, and not copies thereof, trigger § 271(f) liability when combined abroad to form the patented invention at issue. Here, as we have repeatedly noted, see supra, at 441, 442, 445-446, the copies of Windows actually installed on the foreign computers were not themselves supplied from the United States. Indeed, those copies did not exist until they were generated by third parties outside the United States. Copying software abroad, all might agree, is indeed easy and inexpensive. But the same could be said of other items: “Keys or machine parts might be copied from a master; chemical or biological substances might be created by reproduction; and paper products might be made by electronic copying and printing.” Brief for United States as Amicus Curiae 24. See also supra, at 451-452 (rejecting argument similarly based on ease of copying in construing “component”). Section 271(f) contains no instruction to gauge when duplication is easy and cheap enough to deem a copy in fact made abroad nevertheless “supplie[d]... from the United States.” The absence of anything addressing copying in the statutory text weighs against a judicial determination that replication abroad of a master dispatched from the United States “supplies” the foreign-made copies from the United States within the intendment of § 271(f).
D
Any doubt that Microsoft’s conduct falls outside § 271(f)’s compass would be resolved by the presumption against extraterritoriality, on which we have already touched. See supra, at 442,444. The presumption that United States law governs domestically but does not rule the world applies with particular force in patent law. The traditional understanding that our patent law “operate[s] only domestically and d[oes] not extend to foreign activities,” Fisch & Allen 559, is embedded in the Patent Act itself, which provides that a patent confers exclusive rights in an invention within the United States. 35 U. S. G. § 154(a)(1) (patentee’s rights over invention apply to manufacture, use, or sale “throughout the United States” and to importation “into the United States”). See Deepsouth, 406 U. S., at 531 (“Our patent system makes no claim to extraterritorial effect”; our legislation “d[oes] not, and [was] not intended to, operate beyond the limits of the United States, and we correspondingly reject the claims of others to such control over our markets.” (quoting Brown, 19 How., at 195)).
As a principle of general application, moreover, we have stated that courts should “assume that legislators take account of the legitimate sovereign interests of other nations when they write American laws.” F. Hoffmann-La Roche Ltd v. Empagran S. A., 542 U. S. 155, 164 (2004); see EEOC v. Arabian American Oil Co., 499 U. S. 244, 248 (1991). Thus, the United States accurately conveyed in this case: “Foreign conduct is [generally] the domain of foreign law,” and in the area here involved, in particular, foreign law “may embody different policy judgments about the relative rights of inventors, competitors, and the public in patented inventions.” Brief for United States as Amicus Curiae 28. Applied to this case, the presumption tugs strongly against construction of § 271(f) to encompass as a “component” not only a physical copy of software, but also software’s intangible code, and to render “supplie[d]... from the United States” not only exported copies of software, but also duplicates made abroad.
AT&T argues that the presumption is inapplicable because Congress enacted § 271(f) specifically to extend the reach of United States patent law to cover certain activity abroad. But as this Court has explained, “the presumption is not defeated... just because [a statute] specifically addresses [an] issue of extraterritorial application,” Smith v. United States, 507 U. S. 197, 204 (1993); it remains instructive in determining the extent of the statutory exception, see Empagran, 542 U. S., at 161-162, 164-165; Smith, 507 U. S., at 204.
AT&T alternately contends that the presumption holds no sway here given that § 271(f), by its terms, applies only to domestic conduct, i. e., to the supply of a patented invention’s components “from the United States.” § 271(f)(1). AT&T’s reading, however, “converts a single act of supply from the United States into a springboard for liability each time a copy of the software is subsequently made [abroad] and combined with computer hardware [abroad] for sale [abroad.]” Brief for United States as Amicus Curiae 29; see 414 F. 3d, at 1373, 1375 (Rader, J., dissenting). In short, foreign law alone, not United States law, currently governs the manufacture and sale of components of patented inventions in foreign countries. If AT&T desires to prevent copying in foreign countries, its remedy today lies in obtaining and enforcing foreign patents. See Deepsouth, 406 U. S., at 531.
IV
AT&T urges that reading § 271(f) to cover only those copies of software actually dispatched from the United States creates a “loophole” for software makers. Liability for infringing a United States patent could be avoided, as Microsoft’s practice shows, by an easily arranged circumvention: Instead of making installation copies of software in the United States, the copies can be made abroad, swiftly and at small cost, by generating them from a master supplied from the United States. The Federal Circuit majority found AT&T’s plea compelling:
“Were we to hold that Microsoft’s supply by exportation of the master versions of the Windows® software — specifically for the purpose of foreign replication — avoids infringement, we would be subverting the remedial nature of § 271(f), permitting a technical avoidance of the statute by ignoring the advances in a field of technology — and its associated industry practices — that developed after the enactment of § 271(f).... Section 271(f), if it is to remain effective, must therefore be interpreted in a manner that is appropriate to the nature of the technology at issue.” 414 F. 3d, at 1371.
While the majority’s concern is understandable, we are not persuaded that dynamic judicial interpretation of § 271(f) is in order. The “loophole,” in our judgment, is properly left for Congress to consider, and to close if it finds such action warranted.
There is no dispute, we note again, that § 271(f) is inapplicable to the export of design tools — blueprints, schematics, templates, and prototypes — all of which may provide the information required to construct and combine overseas the components of inventions patented under United States law. See supra, at 449-452. We have no license to attribute to Congress an unstated intention to place the information Microsoft dispatched from the United States in a separate category.
Section 271(f) was a direct response to a gap in our patent law revealed by this Court’s Deepsouth decision. See supra, at 444, and n. 3. The facts of that case were undeniably at the fore when § 271(f) was in the congressional hopper. In Deepsouth, the items exported were kits containing all the physical, readily assemblable parts of a shrimp deveining machine (not an intangible set of instructions), and those parts themselves (not foreign-made copies of them) would be combined abroad by foreign buyers. Having attended to the gap made evident in Deepsouth, Congress did not address other arguable gaps: Section 271(f) does not identify as an infringing act conduct in the United States that facilitates making a component of a patented invention outside the United States; nor does the provision check “supplying]... from the United States” information, instructions, or other materials needed to make copies abroad. Given that Congress did not home in on the loophole AT&T describes, and in view of the expanded extraterritorial thrust AT&T’s reading of § 271(f) entails, our precedent leads us to leave in Congress’ court the patent-protective determination AT&T seeks. Cf. Sony Corp. of America v. Universal City Studios, Inc., 464 U. S. 417, 431 (1984) (“In a case like this, in which Congress has not plainly marked our course, we must be circumspect in construing the scope of rights created by a legislative enactment which never contemplated such a calculus of interests.”).
Congress is doubtless aware of the ease with which software (and other electronic media) can be copied, and has not left the matter untouched. In 1998, Congress addressed “the ease with which pirates could copy and distribute a copyrightable work in digital form.” Universal City Studios, Inc. v. Corley, 273 F. 3d 429, 435 (CA2 2001). The resulting measure, the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, 17 U. S. C. § 1201 et seq., “backed with legal sanctions the efforts of copyright owners to protect their works from piracy behind digital walls such as encryption codes or password protections.” Universal City Studios, 273 F. 3d, at 435. If the patent law is to be adjusted better “to account for the realities of software distribution,” 414 F. 3d, at 1370, the alteration should be made after focused legislative consideration, and not by the Judiciary forecasting Congress’ likely disposition.
* * *
For the reasons stated, the judgment of the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit is
Reversed.
The Chief Justice took no part in the consideration or decision of this case.
Deepsouth shipped its deveining equipment “to foreign customers in three separate boxes, each containing only parts of the l3/4-ton machines, yet the whole [was] assemblable in less than one hour.” Deepsouth Packing Co. v. Laitram Corp., 406 U. S. 518, 524 (1972).
See 35 U. S. C. § 271(b) (1970 ed.) (“Whoever actively induces infringement of a patent shall be liable as an infringer.”); § 271(c) (rendering liable as a contributory infringer anyone who sells or imports a “component” of a patented 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 non-infringing use”).
See also, e. g., Eatent Law Amendments of 1984, S. Rep. No. 98-663, pp. 2-3 (1984) (describing §271(f) as “a response to the Supreme Court’s 1972 Deepsouth decision which interpreted the patent law not to make it infringement where the final assembly and sale is abroad”); Section-by-Section Analysis of H. R. 6286,130 Cong. Rec. 28069 (1984) (“This proposal responds to the United States Supreme Court decision in Deepsouth... concerning the need for a legislative solution to close a loophole in [the] patent law.”).
Microsoft also distributes Windows to foreign manufacturers indirectly, by sending a master version to an authorized foreign “replicator”; the replicator then makes copies and ships them to the manufacturers. App. to Eet. for Cert. 45a-46a.
See 35 U. S. C. § 271(a) (“[Wjhoever without authority makes, uses, offers to sell, or sells any patented invention, within the United States or imports into the United States any patented invention during the term of the patent therefor, infringes the patent.”).
See § 271(b) (“Whoever actively induces infringement of a patent shall be liable as an infringer.”).
The record leaves unclear which paragraph of § 271(f) AT&T’s claim invokes. While there are differences between § 271(f)(1) and (f)(2), see, e. g., infra, at 458, n. 18, the parties do not suggest that those differences are outcome determinative. Cf. infra, at 454, n. 16 (explaining why both paragraphs yield the same result). For clarity’s sake, we focus our analysis on the text of § 271(f)(1).
Microsoft and the United States stress that to count as a component, the copy of software must be expressed as “object code.” “Software in the form in which it is written and understood by humans is called ‘source code.’ To be functional, however, software must be converted (or ‘compiled’) into its machine-usable version,” a sequence of binary number instructions typed “object code.” Brief for United States as Amicus Curiae 4, n. 1; 71 USEQ 2d 1118, 1119, n. 5 (SDNY 2004) (recounting Microsoft’s description of the software development process). It is stipulated that object code was on the master disks and electronic transmissions Microsoft dispatched from the United States.
On this view of “component,” the copies of Windows on the master disks and electronic transmissions that Microsoft sent from the United States could not themselves serve as a basis for liability, because those copies were not installed on the foreign manufacturers’ computers. See § 271(f)(1) (encompassing only those components “combin[ed]... outside of the United States in a manner that would infringe the patent if such combination occurred within the United States”).
The Federal Circuit panel in this case, relying on that court’s prior decision in Eolas Technologies Inc. v. Microsoft Corp., 399 F. 3d 1325 (2005), held that software qualifies as a component under § 271(f). We are unable to determine, however, whether the Federal Circuit panels regarded as a component software in the abstract, or a copy of software.
“Component” is commonly defined as “a constituent part,” “element,” or “ingredient.” Webster’s Third New International Dictionary of the English Language 466 (1981).
The dissent, embracing AT&T’s argument, contends that, “unlike a blueprint that merely instructs a user how to do something, software actually causes infringing conduct to occur.” Post, at 464 (opinion of Stevens, J.). We have emphasized, however, that Windows can “caus[e] infringing conduct to occur” — i.e., function as part of AT&T’s speech-processing computer — only when expressed as a computer-readable copy. Abstracted from a usable copy, Windows code is intangible, uncombinable information, more like notes of music in the head of a composer than “a roller that causes a player piano to produce sound.” Ibid.
We need not address whether software in the abstract, or any other intangible, can ever be a component under § 271(f). If an intangible method or process, for instance, qualifies as a “patented invention” under § 271(f) (a question as to which we express no opinion), the combinable components of that invention might be intangible as well. The invention before us, however, AT&T’s speech-processing computer, is a tangible thing.
In a footnote, Microsoft suggests that even a disk shipped from the United States, and used to install Windows directly on a foreign computer, would not give rise to liability under § 271(f) if the disk were removed after installation. See Brief for Petitioner 37, n. 11; cf. post, at 460, 461-462 (Auto, J., concurring in part). We need not and do not reach that issue here.
The dissent analogizes Microsoft’s supply of master versions of Windows abroad to “the export of an inventory of... knives to be warehoused until used to complete the assembly of an infringing machine.” Post, at 463. But as we have underscore
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | H | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Justice O’Connor
delivered the opinion of the Court.
The State of Minnesota authorizes its public employees to bargain collectively over terms and conditions of employment. It also requires public employers to engage in official exchanges of views with their professional employees on policy questions relating to employment but outside the scope of mandatory bargaining. If professional employees forming an appropriate bargaining unit have selected an exclusive representative for mandatory bargaining, their employer may exchange views on nonmandatory subjects only with the exclusive representative. The question presented in these cases is whether this restriction on participation in the nonmandatory-subject exchange process violates the constitutional rights of professional employees within the bargaining unit who are not members of the exclusive representative and who may disagree with its views. We hold that it does not.
I
A
In 1971, the Minnesota Legislature adopted the Public Employment Labor Relations Act (PELRA), Minn. Stat. § 179.61 et seq. (1982), to establish “orderly and constructive relationships between all public employers and their employees....” § 179.61. The public employers covered by the law are, broadly speaking, the State and its political subdivisions, agencies, and instrumentalities. §179.63. In its amended form, as in its original form, PELRA provides for the division of public employees into appropriate bargaining units and establishes a procedure, based on majority support within a unit, for the designation of an exclusive bargaining agent for that unit. §§179.67,179.71,179.741. The statute requires public employers to “meet and negotiate” with exclusive representatives concerning the “terms and conditions of employment,” which the statute defines to mean “the hours of employment, the compensation therefor..., and the employer’s personnel policies affecting the working conditions of the employees.” §§179.63, 179.67, 179.71. The employer’s and employees’ representatives must seek an agreement in good faith. § 179.63, subd. 16.
PELRA also grants professional employees, such as college faculty, the right to “meet and confer” with their employers on matters related to employment that are outside the scope of mandatory negotiations. §§179.63, 179.65. This provision rests on the recognition that “professional employees possess knowledge, expertise, and dedication which is helpful and necessary to the operation and quality of public services and which may assist public employers in developing their policies.” § 179.73. The statute declares it to be the State’s policy to “encourage close cooperation between public employers and professional employees” by providing for “meet and confer” sessions on all employment-related questions not subject to mandatory bargaining. Ibid. There is no statutory provision concerning the “meet and confer” process, however, that requires good-faith efforts to reach agreement. See Minneapolis Federation of Teachers Local 59 v. Minneapolis Special School Dist. No. 1, 258 N. W. 2d 802, 804, n. 2 (Minn. 1977).
PELRA requires professional employees to select a representative to “meet and confer” with their public employer. Minn. Stat. § 179.73 (1982). If professional employees in an appropriate bargaining unit have an exclusive representative to “meet and negotiate” with their employer, that representative serves as the “meet and confer” representative as well. Indeed, the employer may neither “meet and negotiate” nor “meet and confer” with any members of that bargaining unit except through their exclusive representative. §179.66, subd. 7. This restriction, however, does not prevent professional employees from submitting advice or recommendations to their employer as part of their work assignment. Ibid. Moreover, nothing in PELRA restricts the right of any public employee to speak on any “matter related to the conditions or compensation of public employment or their betterment” as long as doing so “is not designed to and does not interfere with the full faithful and proper performance of the duties of employment or circumvent the rights of the exclusive representative if there be one.” § 179.65, subd. 1.
B
Appellant Minnesota State Board for Community Colleges (State Board) operates the Minnesota community college system. At the time of trial, the system comprised 18 institutions located throughout the State. Each community college is administered by a president, who reports, through the chancellor of the system, to the State Board.
Prior to 1971, Minnesota’s community colleges were governed in a variety of ways. On some campuses, faculty had a strong voice in administrative policymaking, expressed through organizations such as faculty senates. On other campuses, the administration consulted very little with the faculty. Irrespective of the level of faculty involvement in governance, however, the administrations of the colleges retained final authority to make policy.
Following enactment of PELRA, appellant Minnesota Community College Faculty Association (MCCFA) was designated the exclusive representative of the faculty of the State’s community colleges, which had been deemed a single bargaining unit. MCCFA has “met and negotiated” and “met and conferred” with the State Board since 1971. The result has been the negotiation of successive collective-bargaining agreements in the intervening years and, in order to implement the “meet and confer” provision, a restructuring of governance practices in the community college system.
On the state level, MCCFA and the Board established “meet and confer” committees to discuss questions of policy applicable to the entire system. On the campus level, the MCCFA chapters and the college administrations created local “meet and confer” committees — also referred to as “exchange of views” committees — to discuss questions of policy applicable only to the campus. The committees on both levels have discussed such topics as the selection and evaluation of administrators, academic accreditation, student affairs, curriculum, and fiscal planning — all policy matters within the control of the college administrations and the State Board. App. to Juris. Statement A-49.
The State Board considers the views expressed by the statewide faculty “meet and confer” committees to be the faculty’s official collective position. It recognizes, however, that not every instructor agrees with the official faculty view on every policy question. Not every instructor in the bargaining unit is a member of MCCFA, and MCCFA has selected only its own members to represent it on “meet and confer” committees. Accordingly, all faculty have been free to communicate to the State Board and to local administrations their views on questions within the coverage of the statutory “meet and confer” provision. Id., at A-50, A-52. They have frequently done so. With the possible exception of a brief period of adjustment to the new governance structure, during which some administrators were reluctant to communicate informally with faculty, individual faculty members have not been impeded by either MCCFA or college administrators in the communication of their views on policy questions. Id., at A-50. Nor has PELRA ever been construed to impede such communication.
c
Appellees are 20 Minnesota community college faculty instructors who are not members of MCCFA. In December 1974, they filed suit in the United States District Court for the District of Minnesota, challenging the constitutionality of MCCFA’s exclusive representation of community college faculty in both the “meet and negotiate” and “meet and confer” processes. A three-judge District Court was convened to hear the case. A Special Master appointed by the court conducted the trial in 1980 and submitted recommended findings of fact in early 1981. Id., at A-54 to A-81. The three-judge District Court issued its findings of fact in late 1981, id., at A-32 to A-54, and its decision on the legal claims in early 1982, 571 F. Supp. 1.
The court rejected appellees’ attack on the constitutionality of exclusive representation in bargaining over terms and conditions of employment, relying chiefly on Abood v. Detroit Board of Education, 431 U. S. 209 (1977). The court agreed with appellees, however, that PELRA, as applied in the community college system, infringes First and Fourteenth Amendment speech and associational rights of faculty who do not wish to join MCCFA. By granting MCCFA the right to select the faculty representatives for the “meet and confer” committees and by permitting MCCFA to select only its own members, the court held, PELRA unconstitutionally deprives non-MCCFA instructors of “a fair opportunity to participate in the selection of governance representatives.” 571 F. Supp., at 10. The court granted declaratory relief in accordance with its holdings and enjoined MCCFA from selecting “meet and confer” representatives without providing all faculty the fair opportunity that its selection practice had unconstitutionally denied.
Appellees, the State Board, and MCCFA all filed appeals with this Court, invoking jurisdiction under 28 U. S. C. § 1253. The Court summarily affirmed the judgment insofar as the District Court held the “meet and negotiate” provisions of PELRA to be valid. Knight v. Minnesota Community College Faculty Assn., 460 U. S. 1048 (1983). The Court thus rejected appellees’ argument, based on A. L. A. Scheckter Poultry Corp. v. United States, 295 U. S. 495 (1935), and on Carter v. Carter Coal Co., 298 U. S. 238 (1936), that PELRA unconstitutionally delegated legislative authority to private parties. The Court’s summary affirmance also rejected the constitutional attack on PELRA’s restriction to the exclusive representative of participation in the “meet and negotiate” process.
On March 28, 1983, the Court noted probable jurisdiction in the appeals by the Board and MCCFA. 460 U. S. 1050. Several weeks later, following an election held pursuant to a newly established scheme for selecting “meet and confer” representatives, the three-judge District Court modified its injunction to require a specific voting system for the selection of faculty “meet and confer” representatives. This Court permitted appellants to add to their appeal a challenge to this new relief. 462 U. S. 1104 (1983). We now reverse the District Court’s holding that the “meet and confer” provisions of PELRA deprive appellees of their constitutional rights.
n
>
Appellees do not and could not claim that they have been unconstitutionally denied access to a public forum. A “meet and confer” session is obviously not a public forum. It is a fundamental principle of First Amendment doctrine, articulated most recently in Perry Education Assn. v. Perry Local Educators’ Assn., 460 U. S. 37, 45-46 (1983), that for government property to be a public forum, it must by long tradition or by government designation be open to the public at large for assembly and speech. Minnesota college administration meetings convened to obtain faculty advice on policy questions have neither by long tradition nor by government designation been open for general public participation. The District Court did not so find, 571 F. Supp., at 9, and appel-lees do not contend otherwise.
The rights at issue in these cases are accordingly wholly unlike those at stake in Madison Joint School District No. 8 v. Wisconsin Employment Relations Comm’n, 429 U. S. 167 (1976). The Court in that case upheld a claim of access to a public forum, applying standard public-forum First Amendment analysis. See Perry Education Assn. v. Perry Local Educators’ Assn., supra, at 45 (citing Madison Joint School District as an example of a case involving a “forum generally open to the public” for expressive activity). The school board meetings at issue there were “opened [as] a forum for direct citizen involvement,” 429 U. S., at 175, and “public participation [was] permitted,” id., at 169. The First Amendment was violated when the meetings were suddenly closed to one segment of the public even though they otherwise remained open for participation by the public at large. These cases, by contrast, involve no selective closure of a generally open forum, and hence any reliance on the Madison case would be misplaced.
Indeed, the claim in these cases is not even a claim of access to a nonpublic forum, such as the school mail system at issue in Perry Education Assn. A private organization there claimed a right of access to government property for use in speaking to potentially willing listeners among a group of private individuals and public officials not acting in an official capacity. The organization claimed no right to have anyone, public or private, attend to its message. See also United States Postal Service v. Greenburgh Civic Assns., 453 U. S. 114 (1981) (postal letterbox); Greer v. Spock, 424 U. S. 828 (1976) (military base); Lehman v. City of Shaker Heights, 418 U. S. 298 (1974) (advertising space on municipal bus); Adderley v. Florida, 385 U. S. 39 (1966) (county jail). Ap-pellees here make a claim quite different from those made in the nonpublic-forum cases. They do not contend that certain government property has been closed to them for use in communicating with private individuals or public officials not acting as such who might be willing to listen to them. Rather, they claim an entitlement to a government audience for their views.
“Meet and confer” sessions are occasions for public employers, acting solely as instrumentalities of the State, to receive policy advice from their professional employees. Minnesota has simply restricted the class of persons to whom it will listen in its making of policy. Thus, appellees’ principal claim is that they have a right to force officers of the State acting in an official policymaking capacity to listen to them in a particular formal setting. The nonpublic-forum cases concern government’s authority to provide assistance to certain persons in communicating with other persons who would not, as listeners, be acting for the government. As the discussion below makes clear, the claim that government is constitutionally obliged to listen to appellees involves entirely different considerations from those on which resolution of nonpublic-forum cases turn. Hence, the nonpublic-forum cases are largely irrelevant to assessing appellees’ novel constitutional claim.
The District Court agreed with appellees’ claim to the extent that it was limited to faculty participation in governance of institutions of higher education. The court reasoned that “issues in higher education have a special character.” 571 F. Supp., at 8. Tradition and public policy support the right of faculty to participate in policymaking in higher education, the court stated, and the “right of expression by faculty members also holds a special place under our Constitution.” Id., at 8-9. Because of the “vital concern for academic freedom,” the District Court concluded, “when the state compels creation of a representative governance system in higher education and utilizes that forum for ongoing debate and resolution of virtually all issues outside the scope of collective bargaining, it must afford every faculty member a fair opportunity to participate in the selection of governance representatives.” Id., at 9-10.
This conclusion is erroneous. Appellees have no constitutional right to force the government to listen to their views. They have no such right as members of the public, as government employees, or as instructors in an institution of higher education.
1
The Constitution does not grant to members of the public generally a right to be heard by public bodies making decisions of policy. In Bi-Metallic Investment Co. v. State Board of Equalization, 239 U. S. 441 (1915), this Court rejected a claim to such a right founded on the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Speaking for the Court, Justice Holmes explained:
“Where a rule of conduct applies to more than a few people it is impracticable that every one should have a direct voice in its adoption. The Constitution does not require all public acts to be done in town meeting or an assembly of the whole. General statutes within the state power are passed that affect the person or property of individuals, sometimes to the point of ruin, without giving them a chance to be heard. Their rights are protected in the only way that they can be in a complex society, by their power, immediate or remote, over those who make the rule.” Id., at 445.
In Madison Joint School District No. 8 v. Wisconsin Employment Relations Comm’n, which sustained a First Amendment challenge to a restriction on access to a public forum, the Court recognized the soundness of Justice Holmes’ reasoning outside the due process context. The Court stated: “Plainly, public bodies may confine their meetings to specified subject matter and may hold nonpublic sessions to transact business.” 429 U. S., at 175, n. 8.
Policymaking organs in our system of government have never operated under a constitutional constraint requiring them to afford every interested member of the public an opportunity to present testimony before any policy is adopted. Legislatures throughout the Nation, including Congress, frequently enact bills on which no hearings have been held or on which testimony has been received from only a select group. Executive agencies likewise make policy decisions of widespread application without permitting unrestricted public testimony. Public officials at all levels of government daily make policy decisions based only on the advice they decide they need and choose to hear. To recognize a constitutional right to participate directly in government policymaking would work a revolution in existing government practices.
Not least among the reasons for refusing to recognize such a right is the impossibility of its judicial definition and enforcement. Both federalism and separation-of-powers concerns would be implicated in the massive intrusion into state and federal policymaking that recognition of the claimed right would entail. Moreover, the pragmatic considerations identified by Justice Holmes in Bi-Metallic Investment Co. v. State Board of Equalization, supra, are as weighty today as they were in 1915. Government makes so many policy decisions affecting so many people that it would likely grind to a halt were policymaking constrained by constitutional requirements on whose voices must be heard. “There must be a limit to individual argument in such matters if government is to go on.” Id., at 445. Absent statutory restrictions, the State must be free to consult or not to consult whomever it pleases.
However wise or practicable various levels of public participation in various kinds of policy decisions may be, this Court has never held, and nothing in the Constitution suggests it should hold, that government must provide for such participation. In Bi-Metallic the Court rejected due process as a source of an obligation to listen. Nothing in the First Amendment or in this Court’s case law interpreting it suggests that the rights to speak, associate, and petition require government policymakers to listen or respond to individuals’ communications on public issues. Indeed, in Smith v. Arkansas State Highway Employees, 441 U. S. 463, 464-466 (1979), the Court rejected the suggestion. No other constitutional provision has been advanced as a source of such a requirement. Nor, finally, can the structure of government established and approved by the Constitution provide the source. It is inherent in a republican form of government that direct public participation in government policymaking is limited. See The Federalist No. 10 (J. Madison). Disagreement with public policy and disapproval of officials’ responsiveness, as Justice Holmes suggested in Bi-Metallic, supra, is to be registered principally at the polls.
2
Appellees thus have no constitutional right as members of the public to a government audience for their policy views. As public employees, of course, they have a special interest in public policies relating to their employment. Minnesota’s statutory scheme for public-employment labor relations recognizes as much. Appellees’ status as public employees, however, gives them no special constitutional right to a voice in the making of policy by their government employer.
In Smith v. Arkansas State Highway Employees, supra, a public employees’ union argued that its First Amendment rights were abridged because the public employer required employees’ grievances to be filed directly with the employer and refused to recognize the union’s communications concerning its members’ grievances. The Court rejected the argument.
“The public employee surely can associate, and speak freely and petition openly, and he is protected by the First Amendment from retaliation for doing so. See Pickering v. Board of Education, 391 U. S. 563, 574-575 (1968); Shelton v. Tucker, 364 U. S. 479 (1960). But the First Amendment does not impose any affirmative obligation on the government to listen, to respond or, in this context, to recognize the association and bargain with it.” Id., at 465 (footnote omitted).
The Court acknowledged that “[t]he First Amendment protects the right of an individual to speak freely, to advocate ideas, to associate with others, and to petition his government for redress of grievances.” Id., at 464. The government had not infringed any of those rights, the Court concluded. “[A]ll that the [government] has done in its challenged conduct is simply to ignore the union. That it is free to do.” Id., at 466.
The conduct challenged here is the converse of that challenged in Smith. There the government listened only to individual employees and not to the union. Here the government “meets and confers” with the union and not with individual employees. The applicable constitutional principles are identical to those that controlled in Smith. When government makes general policy, it is under no greater constitutional obligation to listen to any specially affected class than it is to listen to the public at large.
3
The academic setting of the policymaking at issue in these cases does not alter this conclusion. To be sure, there is a strong, if not universal or uniform, tradition of faculty participation in school governance, and there are numerous policy arguments to support such participation. See American Association for Higher Education — National Education Association, Faculty Participation in Academic Governance (1967); Brief for American Association of University Professors as Amicus Curiae 3-10. But this Court has never recognized a constitutional right of faculty to participate in policymaking in academic institutions.
In several cases the Court has recognized that infringement of the rights of speech and association guaranteed by the First and Fourteenth Amendments “ ‘in the case of teachers brings the safeguards of those amendments vividly into operation.’” Shelton v. Tucker, 364 U. S. 479, 487 (1960) (quoting Wieman v. Updegraff, 344 U. S. 183, 195 (1952) (Frankfurter, J., concurring)). Those cases, however, involved individuals’ rights to express their views and to associate with others for communicative purposes. See, e. g., Keyishian v. Board of Regents of University of New York, 385 U. S. 589 (1967); Shelton v. Tucker, supra; Sweezy v. New Hampshire, 354 U. S. 234 (1957). These rights do not entail any government obligation to listen. Smith v. Arkan sas State Highway Employees, 441 U. S. 463 (1979). Even assuming that speech rights guaranteed by the First Amendment take on a special meaning in an academic setting, they do not require government to allow teachers employed by it to participate in institutional policymaking. Faculty involvement in academic governance has much to recommend it as a matter of academic policy, but it finds no basis in the Constitution.
B
Although there is no constitutional right to participate in academic governance, the First Amendment guarantees the right both to speak and to associate. Appellees’ speech and associational rights, however, have not been infringed by Minnesota’s restriction of participation in “meet and confer” sessions to the faculty’s exclusive representative. The State has in no way restrained appellees’ freedom to speak on any education-related issue or their freedom to associate or not to associate with whom they please, including the exclusive representative. Nor has the State attempted to suppress any ideas.
It is doubtless true that the unique status of the exclusive representative in the “meet and confer” process amplifies its voice in the policymaking process. But that amplification no more impairs individual instructors’ constitutional freedom to speak than the amplification of individual voices impaired the union’s freedom to speak in Smith v. Arkansas State Highway Employees, supra. Moreover, the exclusive representative’s unique role in “meet and negotiate” sessions amplifies its voice as much as its unique role in “meet and confer” sessions, yet the Court summarily affirmed the District Court’s approval of that role in these cases. Amplification of the sort claimed is inherent in government’s freedom to choose its advisers. A person’s right to speak is not infringed when government simply ignores that person while listening to others.
Nor is appellees’ right to speak infringed by the ability of MCCFA to “retaliate” for protected speech, as the District Court put it, by refusing to appoint them to the “meet and confer” committees. The State of Minnesota seeks to obtain MCCFA’s views on policy questions, and MCCFA has simply chosen representatives who share its views on the issues to be discussed with the State. MCCFA’s ability to “retaliate” by not selecting those who dissent from its views no more unconstitutionally inhibits appellees’ speech than voters’ power to reject a candidate for office inhibits the candidate’s speech. See Branti v. Finkel, 445 U. S. 507, 533 (1980) (POWELL, J., dissenting).
Similarly, appellees’ associational freedom has not been impaired. Appellees are free to form whatever advocacy groups they like. They are not required to become members of MCCFA, and they do not challenge the monetary contribution they are required to make to support MCCFA’s representation activities. Appellees may well feel some pressure to join the exclusive representative in order to give them the opportunity to serve on the “meet and confer” committees or to give them a voice in the representative’s adoption of positions on particular issues. That pressure, however, is no different from the pressure they may feel to join MCCFA because of its unique status in the “meet and negotiate” process, a status the Court has summarily approved. Moreover, the pressure is no different from the pressure to join a majority party that persons in the minority always feel. Such pressure is inherent in our system of government; it does not create an unconstitutional inhibition on associational freedom.
c
Unable to demonstrate an infringement of any First Amendment right, appellees contend that their exclusion from “meet and confer” sessions denies them equal protection of the laws in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment. This final argument is meritless. The interest of appellees that is affected — the interest in a government audience for their policy views — finds no special protection in the Constitution. There being no other reason to invoke heightened scrutiny, the challenged state action “need only rationally further a legitimate state purpose” to be valid under the Equal Protection Clause. Perry Education Assn. v. Perry Local Educators’ Assn., 460 U. S., at 54. PELRA certainly meets that standard. The State has a legitimate interest in ensuring that its public employers hear one, and only one, voice presenting the majority view of its professional employees on employment-related policy questions, whatever other advice they may receive on those questions. Permitting selection of the “meet and confer” representatives to be made by the exclusive representative, which has its unique status by virtue of majority support within the bargaining unit, is a rational means of serving that interest.
If it is rational for the State to give the exclusive representative a unique role in the “meet and negotiate” process, as the summary affirmance in appellees’ appeal in this litigation presupposes, it is rational for the State to do the same in the “meet and confer” process. The goal of reaching agreement makes it imperative for an employer to have before it only one collective view of its employees when “negotiating.” See Abood v. Detroit Board of Education, 431 U. S., at 224. Similarly, the goal of basing policy decisions on consideration of the majority view of its employees makes it reasonable for an employer to give only the exclusive representative a particular formal setting in which to offer advice on policy. Ap-pellees’ equal protection challenge accordingly fails.
hH I — 1 t — t
The District Court erred in holding that appellees had been unconstitutionally denied an opportunity to participate in their public employer’s making of policy. Whatever the wisdom of Minnesota’s statutory scheme for professional employee consultation on employment-related policy, in academic or other settings, the scheme violates no provision of the Constitution. The judgment of the District Court is therefore
Reversed.
MCCFA is affiliated with the Minnesota Education Association (MEA) and the National Education Association (NEA), also appellants in these eases.
Since 1980, the “community college instructional unit” has been defined by statute. Minn. Stat. § 179.741 (1982).
Indeed, both the Board and the local administrations have regularly made efforts to supplement the “official” advice with other, unofficial communications. Prior to each on-campus Board meeting, the Board has made itself available to persons who wish to express their views individually or in groups. In addition, many faculty members have met with or written to the Board or the system’s chancellor to communicate their individual views. On the local level, college presidents have used a variety of means to solicit opinions from their instructors and students, including making themselves available at collegewide “town meetings” or at commons areas, hosting luncheons and breakfasts, appearing at faculty meetings, and inviting faculty advice through maintenance of an “open-door” policy. See App. A-57, A-61 to A-64, A-83 to A-84, A-99 to A-103. Thus, while the “meet and confer” process gives weight to an official collective faculty position as formulated by the faculty’s exclusive representative, all instructors have ample opportunity to express their views to their employer on subjects within the purview of the “meet and confer” process.
The repeated suggestions in Justice Stevens’ dissent that the state employer and state employees have been prohibited or deterred by the statute from talking with each other on policy questions, e. g., post, at 302-307, 310-311, 312, 322, misunderstand the statute and are flatly contradicted by the District Court’s findings. All that the statute prohibits is the formal exchange of views called a “meet and confer” session. It in no way impairs the ability of individual employees or groups of employees to express their views to their employer outside that formal context, and there has been no suggestion in these cases that, after an initial period of adjustment to PELRA, any such communication of views has ever been restrained because it was challenged as constituting a formal “meet and confer” session. None of the testimony selectively quoted by Justice Stevens’ dissent recites a single instance of such restraint, and the quoted passages make clear that the prohibition on the employer’s holding “meet and confer” sessions with anyone but the exclusive representative has been understood to bar only a certain type of formal exchange, not other exchanges of views. E. g., post, at 305, n. 6, 307, n. 9.
Indeed, the District Court made the following findings of fact: “[A]ll faculty have the right to informally communicate their individual views to administrators and [the State Board] and MCCFA have never attempted to deny or abridge such rights.” App. to Juris. Statement A-50. “The right of all faculty, both members and nonmembers of MCCFA, to communicate informally and individually with administrative officials has not been impaired....” Id., at A-52. “The plaintiffs have failed to demonstrate any direct, indirect, actual or potential impairment of their associational and free speech rights, except as indicated in [three findings].” Ibid. Those findings were that plaintiffs are impaired in their ability to participate in the “meet and confer” process by their nonmembership in MCCFA, that some plaintiffs felt pressure to join MCCFA because of this reduced opportunity to participate in the “meet and confer” process, and that free speech contrary to MCCFA positions could potentially be chilled by MCCFA’s authority to select “meet and confer” representatives. Id., at A-51 to A-52. “The plaintiffs have not demonstrated,” however, “that any faculty member’s exercise of free speech has been impaired in practice by virtue of this potential inhibition.” Id., at A-52. In short, the District Court found that the only restriction on asserted speech rights was the restriction on the opportunity of nonmembers of MCCFA to participate in “meet and confer” sessions.
The Board and MCCFA established a new process for selecting “meet and confer” representatives and held the prescribed election before this Court noted probable jurisdiction. The new process allowed each faculty member to nominate candidates, to run for election, and to vote for each vacancy on both state and local committees. For a voter’s ballot to be counted, though, the voter had to cast votes for as many candidates as there were slots to be filled. Only MCCFA members ran for the statewide committees. At the local level, several non-MCCFA instructors ran for office, and MCCFA ran slates of candidates at each institution. Only MCCFA members were elected.
Upon appellees’ motion for further relief, the District Court ruled that the new selection scheme failed to provide appellees “the opportunity to participate meaningfully in the meet and confer process.” App. A-192. The court ordered that new elections be conducted using a cumulative voting system, under which voters could concentrate their multiple votes on a particular candidate, thereby enhancing the possibility that a non-MCCFA candidate would be elected.
Appellants challenge the District Court’s modified order of relief separate and apart from its holding that PELRA is unconstitutional as applied. In light of our disposition on the issue of PELRA’s constitutionality, we need not address the validity of the District Court’s remedy.
Justice Stevens’ dissent suggests that somehow the Constitution itself opened the school board meeting as a public forum. Post, at 319, n. 28. To the extent that the suggestion is that something other than government designation or long tradition can make government property a public forum, it is a radical departure from elementary First Amendment doctrine. Justice Stevens offers no indication of what he would substitute for the current test.
Justice Stevens’ dissent also states that the First Amendment prohibits “the exclusion of persons from access to the organs of government based on [a] desire to give one side a monopoly in expressing its views.” Ibid. Presumably, the President and every other public official and governmental body would be required to select the group they listen to on policy questions without regard to viewpoint. The suggestion is discussed at greater length infra, at 283-285, but merely to state it is to see that it has shocking implications for our political system wholly unsupported by anything this Court has ever held.
Even supposing that a state official acting on behalf of the State in a policymaking capacity could raise a First Amendment objection to the State’s instructions concerning how he conducted his official activity, there is no such claim in these cases. Moreover, appellees have no standing to raise any such claim on behalf of community college administrators.
Police Department of Chicago v. Mosley, 408 U. S. 92 (1972), is an equal protection version of a nonpublic-forum case. The plaintiffs in Mosley sought access to government property for use in communicating to potentially willing listeners among a group of private individuals or public officials not acting in an official capacity. It has no more relevance to the claim of appellees in these cases than do the First Amendment nonpublic-forum cases.
Although an individual employee may have certain due process rights that a union does not have, these cases involve no claimed deprivation of life, liberty, or property without due process.
Justice Stevens’ discussion of the right to “a meaningful opportunity to express one’s views” and of First Amendment associational rights is beside the point. Post, at 308-314. Such rights, whatever their scope, entail no government obligation to listen, and that is what is claimed by appellees. Smith v. Arkansas State Highway Employees, 441 U. S. 463, 464-466 (1979). None of the cases cited by Justice Stevens even considers, let alone supports, a right
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
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.
These are motions for stay of an injunction by a three-judge District Court which nullified a series of enactments of the State of Louisiana. The scope of these enactments and the basis on which they were found in conflict with the Constitution of the United States are not matters of doubt. The nub of the decision of the three-judge court is this:
“The conclusion is clear that interposition is not a constitutional doctrine. If taken seriously, it is illegal defiance of constitutional authority.” United States v. Louisiana, 188 F. Supp. 916, 926.
The main basis for challenging this ruling is that the State of Louisiana “has interposed itself in the field, of public education over which it has exclusive control.” This objection is without substance, as we held, upon full consideration, in Cooper v. Aaron, 358 U. S. 1. The others are likewise without merit.
Accordingly, the motions for stay are denied.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | B | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Justice O’Connor
announced the judgment of the Court and delivered the opinion of the Court with respect to Parts I, II-A, II-B, and III, and an opinion with respect to parts II-C and II-D, in which The Chief Justice, Justice White, and Justice Scalia join.
This case requires us to decide what evidentiary standards should be applied under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 78 Stat. 253, as amended, 42 U. S. C. §2000e et seq., in determining whether an employer’s practice of committing promotion decisions to -the subjective discretion of supervisory employees has led to illegal discrimination.
I
Petitioner Clara Watson, who is black, was hired by respondent Fort Worth Bank and Trust (the Bank) as a proof operator in August 1973. In January 1976, Watson was promoted to a position as teller in the Bank’s drive-in facility. In February 1980, she sought to become supervisor of the tellers in the main lobby; a white male, however, was selected for this job. Watson then sought a position as supervisor of the drive-in bank, but this position was given to a white female. In February 1981, after, Watson had served for about a year as a commercial teller in the Bank’s main lobby, and informally as assistant to the supervisor of tellers, the man holding that position was promoted. • Watson applied for the vacancy, but the white female who was the supervisor of the drive-in bank was selected instead. Watson then applied for the vacancy created at the drive-in; a white male was selected for that job. The Bank, which has about 80 employees, had not developed precise and formal criteria for evaluating candidates for the positions for which Watson unsuccessfully applied. It relied instead on the subjective judgment of supervisors who were acquainted with the candidates and with the nature of the jobs to be filled. All the supervisors inv-olved in denying Watson the four promotions at issue were white.
Watson filed a discrimination charge with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC). After exhausting her administrative remedies, she filed this lawsuit in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Texas. She alleged that the Bank had unlawfully discriminated against blacks in hiring, compensation, initial placement, promotions,' terminations, and other terms and conditions of employment. On Watson’s motion under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 23, the District Court certified a class consisting of “blacks who applied to or were employed by [respondent] on or after October* 21, 1979 or- who may submit employment applications to [respondent] in the future.” App. 190. The District Court later decertified this broad class because it concluded, in light of the evidence presented at trial, that there was not a common question of law or fact uniting the groups of applicants and employees. After splitting the class along this line, the court found that the class of black employees did not meet the numerosity requirement of Rule 23(a); accordingly, this subclass was decertified. The court also concluded that Watson was not an adequate representative of the applicant class because her promotion claims were not typical of the claims of the member's-of that group. Because Watson had proceeded zealously on behalf of the job applicants, however, the court werrt on to address the merits of their claims. It concluded that Watson had failed to establish a prima facie case of racial discrimination in hiring: the percentage of blacks irr the Bank's work force approximated the percentage of blacks in the metropolitan area where the Bank is located. App. 199-202.
The District Court addressed Watson’s individual claims under the evidentiary standards that apply irr a discriminatory treatment case. See McDonnell Douglas Corp. v. Green, 411 U. S. 792 (1973), and Texas Dept. of Community Affairs v. Burdine, 450 U. S. 248 (1981). It concluded, on the evidence presented at trial, that Watson had established a prima facie case of employment discrimination, but that the Bank had met its rebuttal burden by presenting legitimate and nondiscriminatory reasons for each of the challenged promotion decisions. The court also concluded that Watson had failed to show that these reasons were pretexts for racial discrimination. Accordingly, the action was dismissed. App. 195-197, 203.
A divided panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit affirmed in part. 798 F. 2d 791 (1986). The majority concluded that there was no abuse of discretion in the District Court’s class decertification decisions. In order to avoid unfair prejudice to members of the class of black job applicants, however, the Court of Appeals vacated the portion of the judgment affecting them and remanded with instructions to dismiss those claims without prejudice. The majority affirmed the District Court’s conclusion that Watson had failed to prove her claim of racial discrimination under the standards set out in McDonnell Douglas, supra, and Burdine, supra.
Watson argued that the District Court had erred in failing to apply “disparate impact” analysis to her claims of discrimination in promotion. Relying on Fifth Circuit precedent, the majority of the Court of Appeals panel held that “a Title VII challenge to an allegedly discretionary promotion system is properly analyzed under the disparate treatment model rather than the disparate impact model.” 798 F. 2d, at 797. Other Courts of Appeals have held that disparate impact analysis may be applied to hiring or promotion systems that involve the use of “discretionary” or “subjective” criteria. See, e. g., Atonio v. Wards Cove Packing Co., 810 F. 2d 1477 (CA9) (en banc), on return to panel, 827 F. 2d 439. (1987), cert denied, No. 87-1388, 485 U. S. 989 (1988), cert. pending, No. 87-1387; Griffin v. Carlin, 755 F. 2d 1516, 1522-1525 (CA11 1985). Cf. Segar v. Smith, 238 U. S. App. D. C. 103, 738 F. 2d 1249(1984), cert. denied, 471 U. S. 1115 (1985). We granted certiorari to resolve the conflict. 483 U. S. 1004 (1987).
II
A
Section 703 of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U. S. C. §20Q0e-2, provides:
“(a) It shall be an unlawful employment practice for an employer—
“(1) to fail or refuse to hire or to discharge any individual, or otherwise to discriminate against any individual with respect to his compensation, terms, conditions, or privileges of employment, because of such individual’s race, color, religion, sex, or national origin; or
. “(2) to limit, segregate, or classify his employees or applicants for employment in any way which would deprive or tend to deprive any individual of employment opportunities or otherwise adversely affect his status as an. employee, because of such individual’s race, color, religion, sex, or national origin.
“(h) Notwithstanding any other provision of this sub-chapter, it shall not be an unlawful employment practice for an employer... to give and to act upon the results of any professionally developed ability test provided that such test, its administration or action upon the results is not designed, intended or used to discriminate because of race, color, religion, sex or national origin....”
Several of our decisions have dealt with the evidentiary standards that apply when an individual alleges that an employer has treated that particular person less favorably than others beeause of the plaintiff’s race, color, religion, sex, or national origin. In such “disparate treatment” cases,' which involve “the most easily understood type of discrimination,” Teamsters v. United States, 431 U. S. 324, 335, n. 15 (1977), the plaintiff is required to' prove that the defendant had a discriminatory intent or motive. In order to facilitate the orderly consideration of relevant evidence, we have devised a series of shifting evidentiary burdens that are “intended'progressively to sharpen the inquiry into the elusive factual question of intentional discrimination.” Texas Dept. of Community Affairs v. Burdine, 450 U. S., at 255, n. 8. Under that scheme, a prima facie case is ordinarily established by proof that the employer, after having rejected the plaintiff’s application for a job or promotion, continued to seek applicants with qualifications similar to the plaintiff’s. Id., at 253, and n. 6. The burden of proving a prima facie case is “not onerous,” id., at 253, and the employer in turn may rebut it simply by producing some evidence that it had legitimate, noncliscriminatory reasons for the decision. Id., at 254-255. If the defendant carries this burden of production, the plaintiff must prove by a preponderance of all the evidence in the case that the legitimate reasons offered by the defendant were a pretext for discrimination. Id., at 253, 255, n. 10. We have cautioned that these shifting burdens are meant only to aid courts and litigants in arranging the presentation of evidence: “The ultimate burden of persuading the trier of fact that the defendant intentionally discriminated against the plaintiff remains at all times with the plaintiff.” Id., at 253. See also United States Postal Service Bd. of Governors v. Aikens, 460 U. S. 711, 715 (1983).
In Griggs v. Duke Power Co., 401 U. S. 424 (1971), this Court held that a plaintiff need not necessarily prove intentional discrimination in order top establish that an employer has violated § 703.' In certain cases, facially neutral employr ment practices that have significant adverse effects on protected groups have been held to violate the Act without proof that the employer adopted those practices-with-a discriminatory intent. The factual issues- and the character of the evidence are inevitably somewhat different when the plaintiff is-exempted”from the need to prove intentional discrimination. See Burdine, supra, at 252, n. 5; see also United States Postal Service Bd. of Governors v. Aikens, supra, at 713, n. 1; McDonnell Douglas, 411 U. S., at 802, n. 14; Teamsters, supra, at 335-336, n. 15. The evidence in these “disparate impact” cases usually focuses on statistical disparities, rather, than specific incidents, and on competing explanations for.those disparities.
The distinguishing features of the factual issues that typically dominate in disparate impact cases do not imply that the ultimate legal issue is different than in cases where dispárate treatment analysis is used. See, e. g., Washington v. Davis, 426 U. S. 229, 253-254 (1976) (Stevens, J.. concurring). Nor do we think it is appropriate to hold a defendant liable for unintentional discrimination on the basis of less evidence than is required to prove intentional discrimination. Rather, the necessary premise of the disparate impact approach is that some employment practices, adopted without a deliberately discriminatory motive, may in operation be functionally equivalent to intentional discrimination.
Perhaps the most obvious examples of such functional equivalence have been found where facially neutral job requirements necessarily operated to perpetuate the effects of intentional discrimination that occurred before Title VII was enacted. In Griggs itself,, for example, the employer had a history of overt racial discrimination that predated the enactment of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. 401 U. S., at 426-428; Such conduct had apparently ceased thereafter, but the-employer continued to follow employment policies that had “a markedly disproportionate” adverse effect on blacks. Id., at 428-429. Cf. Teamsters, supra, at 349, and n, 32. The Griggs Court found that these policies, which involved the use of general aptitude tests and a high school diploma requirement, were not demonstrably related to the jobs for which they were used. 401 U. S., at 431-432. Believing that diplomas and tests could become “masters of reality,” id., at 433, which would perpetuate the effects of pre-Act discrimination, the Court concluded that such practices could not be defended simply on the basis of their facial neutrality or on the basis of the employer’s lack of discriminatory intent.
This Court has repeatedly reaffirmed the principle that some facially neutral employment practices may violate Title VII even in the absence of a demonstrated discriminatory intent. We have not limited this principle to cases in which the challenged practice served to perpetuate the effects of pre-Act intentional discrimination. Each of our subsequent decisions, however, like Griggs itself, involved standardized employment tests or criteria. See, e. g., Albemarle Paper Co. v. Moody, 422 U. S. 405 (1975) (written aptitude tests); Washington v. Davis, supra (written test of verbal skills); Dothard v. Rawlinson, 433 U. S. 321 (1977) (height and weight requirements); New York City Transit Authority v. Beazer, 440 U. S. 568 (1979) (rule against employing drug addicts); Connecticut v. Teal, 457 U. S. 440 (1982) (written examination). In contrast, we have consistently used conventional disparate treatment theory, in which proof of intent to discriminate is required, to review hiring and promotion decisions that were based on the exercise of personal judgment or the application of inherently subjective criteria. See, e. g., McDonnell Douglas Corp. v. Green, supra (discretionary decision not to rehire individual who engaged in criminal acts against employer while laid off); Furnco Construction Corp. v. Waters, 438 U. S. 567 (1978) (hiring decisions based on personal knowledge of candidates and recommendations); Texas Dept. of Community Affairs v. Burdine, supra (discretionary decision to fire individual who was said not to get along with co-workers); United States Postal Serv ice Bd. of Governors v. Aikens, 460 U. S., at 715 (discretion-ary promotion decision).
Our decisions have not addressed the question whether disparate impact analysis may be applied to cases in which subjective criteria are used to make employment decisions. As noted above, the Courts of Appeals are in conflict on the issue. In order to resolve this conflict, we must determine whether the reasons that support the use of disparate impact analysis apply to subjective employment practices, and whether such analysis can be applied in this new context under workable evidentiary standards..
B
The parties present us with stark and uninviting alternatives. Petitioner contends that subjective selection methods are at least as likely to havé discriminatory effects as are the kind of objective tests at issue in Griggs and our other disparate impact cases. Furthermore, she argues, if disparate impact analysis is confined to objective tests, employers will be able to substitute subjective criteria having substantially identical effects, and Griggs will become a dead letter. Respondent and the United States (appearing as amicus curiae) argue that conventional disparate treatment analysis is adequate to accomplish Congress’ purpose in enacting Title VII. They also argue that subjective selection practices would be so impossibly difficult to defend under disparate impact analysis that employers would be forced to adopt numerical quotas in order to avoid liability.
We are persuaded that our decisions in Griggs and succeeding cases could largely be nullified if disparate impact analysis were applied only to standardized selection practices. However one might distinguish “subjective” from “objective” criteria, it is apparent that selection systems that combine both types would generally have to be considered subjective in nature. Thus, for example, if the employer in Griggs had consistently preferred applicánts who had a high school diploma and who passed the company’s general aptitude test, its selection system could nonetheless have been considered “subjective’’ if it also included brief interviews with the candidates. So long as an employer refrained from making standardized criteria absolutely determinative, it would remain free to give such tests almost as much weight as it chose without risking a disparate impact challenge. If we announced a rule that allowed employers so easily to insulate themselves from liability under Griggs, disparate impact analysis might effectively be abolished.
We are also persuaded that disparate impact analysis is in principle no less applicable to subjective employment criteria than to objective or standardized tests. In either case, a facially neutral practice, adopted without discriminatory intent, may have effects that are indistinguishable from intentionally discriminatory practices. It is true, to be sure, that an employer’s policy of leaving promotion decisions to the unchecked discretion of lower level supervisors should itself raise no inference of discriminatory conduct. Especially in relatively small businesses like respondent’s, it may be customary and quite reasonable simply to delegate employment decisions to those employees who are most familiar with the jobs to be filled and with the candidates for those jobs. It does not follow, however, that the particular supervisors to whom this discretion is delegated always act without discriminatory intent. Furthermore, even if one assumed that any such discrimination can be adequately policed through disparate treatment analysis, the problem of subconscious stereotypes and prejudices would remain. In this case, for example, petitioner was apparently told at one point that the teller position was a big responsibility. with “a lot of money... for blacks to have to count.” App. 7. Such remarks may not prove discriminatory intent, but they do suggest a lingering form of the problem that Title VII was enacted to combat. If an employer's undisciplined system of subjective decisionmaking has precisely the same effects as a system pervaded by impermissible intentional discrimination, it is difficult to see why Title VII’s proscription against discriminatory actions should not apply. In both circumstances, the employer’s practices may be said to “adversely affect [an individual’s] status as an employee, because of such individual’s race, color, religion, sex, or national origin.” 42-U. S. C. § 2000e-2(a)(2). We conclude, accordingly, that subjective or discretionary employment practices may be analyzed under the disparate impact approach in appropriate cases.
C
Having decided that disparate impact analysis may in principle be applied to subjective as well as to objective practices, we turn to the evidentiary standards that should apply in such cases. It is here that the concerns raised by respondent have their greatest force. • Respondent contends that a plaintiff may establish a prima facie case of disparate impact through the use of bare statistics, and that the defendant can rebut this statistical showing only by justifying the challenged practice in terms of “business necessity,” Griggs, 401 U. S., at 431, or “job relatedness,” Albemarle Paper Co., 422 U. S., at 426. Standardized tests and criteria, like those at issue in our previous disparate impact cases, can often be justified through formal “validation studies,” which seek to determine whether discrete selection criteria predict actual on-the-job performance. See generally id., at 429-436. Respondent warns, however, that “validating” subjective selection criteria in this way is impracticable. Some qualities — for example, common sense, good judgment, originality, ambition, loyalty, and tact — cannot be measured accurately through standardized testing techniques. Moreover, success at many jobs in which such qualities are crucial cannot itself be measured directly. Opinions often differ when managers and supervisors are evaluated, and the same can be said for many jobs that involve close cooperation with one’s co-workers or complex and subtle tasks like the provision of professional services or personal counseling. Because of these difficulties, we are told, employers will find it impossible to eliminate subjective selection criteria and impossibly expensive to defend such practices in litigation. Respondent insists, and the United States agrees, that employers’ only alternative will be to adopt surreptitious quota systems in order to ensure that no plaintiff can establish a statistical prima facie case.
We agree that the inevitable focus on statistics in disparate impact cases could put undue pressure on employers to adopt inappropriate prophylactic measures. It is completely unrealistic to assume that unlawful discrimination is the sole cause of people failing to gravitate to jobs and employers in accord with the laws of chance. See Sheet Metal Workers v. EEOC, 478 U. S. 421, 489 (1986) (O’Connor, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part). It would be equally unrealistic to suppose that employers can eliminate, or discover and explain, the myriad of innocent causes that may leád to statistical imbalances in the composition of their work forces. Congress has specifically provided that employers are not required to avoid “disparate impact” as such:
“Nothing contained in [Title VII] shall be interpreted to require any employer... to grant preferential treatment to any individual or to any group because of the race, color, religion, sex, or national origin of such individual or group on account of an imbalance which may exist with respect to the total number or percentage of persons of any race, color, religion, sex, or national origin employed by any employer... in comparison with the total number or percentage of persons of such race, color, religion, sex, or national origin in any community, State, section, or other area, or in the available'work force in any community, State, section, or other area.” 42 U. S. C. §2000e-2(j).
Preferential treatment and the use of quotas by public employers subject to Title VII can violate the Constitution, see, e. g., Wygant v. Jackson Bd. of Education, 476 U. S. 267 (1986), and it has long been recognized that legal rules leaving any class of employers with “little choice” but to adopt such measures would be.“far from the intent of Title VII.” Albemarle Paper Co., supra, at 449 (Blackmun, J., concurring in judgment). Respondent and the United States are thus correct when they argue that extending disparate impact analysis to subjective employment practices has the potential to create a Hobson’s choice for employers and thus to lead in practice to perverse results. If quotas and preferential treatment become the only cost-effective means of avoiding expensive litigation and potentially catastrophic liability, such measures will be widely adopted. The prudent employer will be careful to ensure that its programs are discussed in euphemistic terms, but will be equally careful to ensure that the quotas are met. Allowing the evolution of disparate impact analysis to lead to this result would be contrary to Congress’ clearly expressed intent, and it should not be the effect of our decision today.
D
We do not believe that disparate impact theory need have any chilling effect on legitimate business practices. We rec.ognize, however, that today’s extension of that theory into the context of subjective selection practices could increase the risk that employers will be given incentives to adopt quotas or to engage in preferential treatment. Because Congress has so clearly and emphatically expressed its intent that Title VII not lead to this result, 42 U. S. C. § 2000e-2(j), we think it imperative to explain in some detail why the evi-dentiary standards that apply in these cases should serve as adequate safeguards against the danger that Congress recognized. Our previous decisions offer guidance, but today’s extension of disparate impact analysis calls for a fresh and somewhat closer examination of the constraints that operate to keep that analysis within its proper bounds.
First, we note that the plaintiff’s burden in establishing a prima facie case goes beyond the need to show that there are statistical disparities in the employer’s work force. The plaintiff must begin by identifying the specific employment practice that is challenged. Although this has been relatively easy to do in challenges to standardized tests, it may sometimes be more difficult when subjective selection criteria are at issue. Especially in cases where an employer combines subjective criteria with the use of more rigid standardized rules or tests, the plaintiff is in our view responsible for isolating and identifying the specific employment practices that are allegedly responsible for any observed statistical disparities. Cf. Connecticut v. Teal, 457 U. S. 440 (1982).
Once the employment practice at issue has been identified, causation must be proved; that is, the plaintiff must offer statistical evidence of a kind and degree sufficient to show that the practice in question has caused the exclusion of applicants for jobs or promotions because of their membership in a protected group. Our formulations, which have never been framed in terms of any rigid mathematical formula, have consistently stressed that statistical disparities must be sufficiently substantial that they raise such an inference of causation. In Griggs, for example, we examined “requirements [that] operate[d] to disqualify Negroes at a substantially higher rate than white applicants.” 401 U. S., at 426. Similarly, we said in Albemarle Paper Co. that plaintiffs are required to show “that the tests in question select applicants for hire or promotion in a racial pattern significantly different from that of the pool of applicants.” 422 U. S., at 425. Later cases have framed the test in similar terms. See, e. g., Washington v. Davis, 426 U. S., at 246-247 (“hiring and promotion practices disqualifying substantially disproportionate numbers of blacks”); Dothard, 433 U. S., at 329 (employment standards that “select applicants for hire in a significantly discriminatory pattern”); Beazer, 440 U. S., at 584 (“statistical evidence showing that an employment practice has the effect of denying the members of one race equal access to. employment opportunities”); Teal, supra, at 446 (“significantly discriminatory.impact”).
Nor are courts or defendants obliged to assume that plaintiffs’ statistical evidence is reliable. “If the employer discerns fallacies or deficiencies in the data offered by the plaintiff, he is free to adduce countervailing evidence of his own.” Dothard, 438 U. S., at 331. See also id., at 338-339 (Rehn-QUIST, J., concurring in result and concurring in part) (“If the defendants in a Title VII suit believe there to be any reason to discredit plaintiffs’ statistics that does not appear on their face, the opportunity to challenge them is available to the defendants just as in any other lawsuit. They may endeavor to impeach the reliability of the statistical evidence, they may offer rebutting evidence, or they may disparage in arguments or in briefs the probative weight which the plaintiffs’ evidence should be accorded”). Without attempting to catalog all the weaknesses that may be found in such evidence, we may note that typical examples include small or incomplete data sets and inadequate statistical techniques. See, e. g., Fudge v. Providence Fire Dept., 766 F. 2d 650, 656-659 (CA1 1985). Similarly, statistics based on an applicant pool containing individuals lacking minimal qualifications for the job would be of little probative value. See, e. g., Hazelwood School Dist. v. United States, 433 U. S. 299, 308 (1977) (“[P]roper comparison was between the racial composition of [the employer’s] teaching staff and the racial composition of the qualified public school teacher population in the relevant labor market”) (footnote omitted). Other kinds of deficiencies in' facially plausible statistical evidence may emerge from the facts of particular cases. See, e. g., Carroll v. Sears, Roebuck & Co., 708 F. 2d 183, 189 (CA5 1983) (“The flaw in the plaintiffs’ proof was its failure to establish the required causal connection between the challenged employment practice (testing) and discrimination in the work force. Because the test does not have a cut-off and is only one of many factors in decisions to hire or promote, the fact that blacks score lower does not automatically result in disqualification of disproportionate numbers of blacks as in cases involving cutoffs”) (citation omitted); Contreras v. Los Angeles, 656 F. 2d 1267, 1273-1274 (CA9 1981) (probative value of statistics impeached by evidence that plaintiffs failed a written examination at a disproportionately high rate because they did not study seriously for it), cert. denied, 455 U. S. 1021 (1982).
A second constraint on the application of disparate impact theory lies in the nature of the “business necessity” or “job relatedness” defense. Although we have said that an employer has “the burden of showing that any given requirement must have a manifest relationship to the employment in question,” Griggs, 401 U. S., at 432, such a formulation should not be interpreted as implying that the ultimate burden of proof can be shifted to the defendant. On the contrary, the ultimate burden of proving that discrimination against a protected group has been caused by a specific employment practice remains with the plaintiff at all times. Thus, when a plaintiff has made out a prima facie case of disparate impact, and when the defendant has met its burden of producing evidence that its employment practices are based on legitimate business reasons, the plaintiff must “show that other tests or selection devices, without a similarly undesirable racial effect, would also serve the employer’s legitimate interest in efficient and trustworthy workmanship.” Albemarle Paper Co., 422 U. S., at 425 (citation omitted; internal quotation marks omitted). Factors such as the cost or other burdens of proposed alternative selection devices are relevant in determining whether they would be equally as effective as the challenged practice in serving the employer’s legitimate business goals. The same factors would also be relevant in determining whether the challenged practice has operated as the functional equivalent of a pretext for discriminatory treatment. Cf. ibid.
Our cases make it clear that employers are not required, even when defending standardized or objective tests, to introduce formal “validation studies” showing that particular criteria predict actual on-the-job performance. In Beazer, for example, the Court considered it obvious that “legitimate employment goals of safety and efficiency” permitted the exclusion of methadone users from employment with the New York City Transit Authority; the Court indicated that the “manifest relationship” test was satisfied even with respect to non-safety-sensitive jobs because those legitimate goals were “significantly served by” the exclusionary rule at issue in that case even though the rule was not required by those goals. 440 U. S., at 587, n. 31. Similarly, in Washington v. Davis, the Court held that the “job relatedness” requirement was satisfied when the employer demonstrated that a written test was related to success at a police training academy “wholly aside from [the test’s] possible relationship to actual performance as a police officer.” 426 U. S., at 250. See also id., at 256 (Stevens, j., concurring) (“[A]s a matter of law, it is permissible for the police department to use a test for the purpose of predicting ability to master a training program even if the test does not otherwise predict ability to perform on the job”).
In the context of subjective or discretionary employment decisions, the employer will often find it easier than in the case of standardized tests to produce evidence of a “manifest rélationship to the employment in question.” It is self-evident that many jobs, for example those involving managerial responsibilities, réquire personal qualities that have never been considered amenable to standardized testing. In evaltiatingclaims that discretionary employment practices are insufficiently related to legitimate business purposes, it must be borne in mind that “[cjourts are generally less competent than employers to restructure business practices, and unless mandated to do so by Congress they should not attempt it.” Furnco Construction Corp. v. Waters, 438 U. S., at 578. See also Zahorik v. Cornell University, 729 F. 2d 85, 96 (CA2 1984) (“[The] criteria [used by a university to award tenure], however difficult to apply and however much disagreement they generate in particular cases, are job related.... It would be a most radical interpretation of Title VII for a court to enjoin use of an historically settled process and plainly relevant criteria largely because they lead to decisions which are difficult for a court to review”). In sum, the high standards of proof in disparate impact cases are sufficient in our view to avoid giving employers incentives to modify any normal and legitimate practices by introducing quotas or preferential treatment.
Ill
We granted certiorari to determine whether the court below properly held disparate impact analysis inapplicable to a subjective or discretionary promotion system, and we now hold that such analysis may be applied. We express no opinion as to the other rulings of the Court of Appeals.
Neither the District Court nor the Court of Appeals has evaluated the statistical evidence to determine whether petitioner made out a prima facie case of discriminatory promotion practices under disparate impact theory. It may be that the relevant data base is too small to permit any meaningful statistical analysis, but we leave the Court of Appeals to decide in the first instance, on the basis of the record and the principles announced today, whether this case can be resolved without further proceedings in the District Court. The judgment of the Court of Appeals is vacated, and the case is remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
Justice Kennedy took no part in the consideration or decision of this case.
The dissenting judge argued that the District Court had abused its discretion in decertifying the broad class of black employees and applicants. He also argued that Watson had succeeded in proving that the Bank had discriminated against this class, and that the case should be remanded so that appropriate relief could be ordered. 798 F. 2d, at 800-815.
Both concurrences agree that we should, for the first time, approve the use of disparate impact analysis in evaluating subjective selection practices. Unlike Justice Stevens, we believe that this step requires usTo provide the lower courts with appropriate evidentiary guidelines, as we have previously done for disparate treatment cases. Moreover, we do not believe that each verbal formulation used in prior opinions to describe the evidentary standards in disparate impact cases is automatically applicable in light of today’s decision. Cf. post, at 1000-1001, 1005-1006 (Black-MUN, J., concurring in part and concurring in judgment). Congress expressly provided that Title VII not be read to require preferential treatment or numerical quotas. 42 U. S. C. §2000e-2(j). This congressional mandate requires in our view that a decision to extend the reach of disparate impact theory be accompanied by safeguards against the result that Congress clearly said it did not intend.
Faced with the task of applying these general statements to particular cases, the lower courts have sometimes looked for more specific direction in the EEOC’s Uniform Guidelines on Employee Selection Procedures, 29 CFR pt. 1607 (1987). See, e. g., Bushey v. New York State Civil Service Comm’n, 733 F. 2d 220, 225-226 (CA2 1984), cert. denied, 469 U. S. 1117 (1985); Firefighters Institute v. St. Louis, 616 F. 2d 350, 356-357 (CA8 1980), cert. denied sub nom. St. Louis v. United States, 452 U. S. 938 (1981). These Guidelines have adopted an enforcement rule under which adverse impact will not ordinarily be inferred unless the members of a particular race, sex, or ethnic group are selected at a rate that is less than four-fifths of the rate at which the group with the highest rate is selected. 29 CFR § 1607.4(D) (1987). This enforcement standard has been criticized on technical grounds, see, e. g., Boardman & Vining, The Role of Probative Statistics in Employment Discrimination Cases, 46 Law & Contemp. Prob., No. 4, pp. 189,205-207 (1983); Shoben,- Differential Pass-Fail Rates in Employment Testing: Statistical Proof Under Title VII, 91 Harv. L. Rev. 793, 805-811 (1978), and it has hot provided more than a rule of thumb 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: | B | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Justice Rehnquist
delivered the opinion of the Court.
In Parrott v. Taylor, 451 U. S. 527 (1981), a state prisoner sued under 42 U. S. C. § 1983, claiming that prison officials had negligently deprived him of his property without due process of law. After deciding that § 1983 contains no independent state-of-mind requirement, we concluded that although petitioner had been “deprived” of property within the meaning of the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, the State’s postdeprivation tort remedy provided the process that was due. Petitioner’s claim in this case, which also rests on an alleged Fourteenth Amendment “deprivation” caused by the negligent conduct of a prison official, leads us to reconsider our statement in Parrott that “the alleged loss, even though negligently caused, amounted to a deprivation.” Id., at 536-537. We conclude that the Due Process Clause is simply not implicated by a negligent act of an official causing unintended loss of or injury to life, liberty, or property.
In this § 1983 action, petitioner seeks to recover damages for back and ankle injuries allegedly sustained when he fell on a prison stairway. He claims that, while an inmate at the city jail in Richmond, Virginia, he slipped on a pillow negligently left on the stairs by respondent, a correctional deputy stationed at the jail. Respondent’s negligence, the argument runs, “deprived” petitioner of his “liberty” interest in freedom from bodily injury, see Ingraham v. Wright, 430 U. S. 651, 673 (1977); because respondent maintains that he is entitled to the defense of sovereign immunity in a state tort suit, petitioner is without an “adequate” state remedy, cf. Hudson v. Palmer, 468 U. S. 517, 534-536 (1984). Accordingly, the deprivation of liberty was without “due process of law.”
The District Court granted respondent’s motion for summary judgment. A panel of the Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit affirmed, concluding that even if respondent could make out an immunity defense in state court, petitioner would not be deprived of a meaningful opportunity to present his case. 720 F. 2d 792 (1983). On rehearing, the en banc Court of Appeals affirmed the judgment of the District Court, but under reasoning different from that of the panel. 748 F. 2d 229 (1984). First, a 5-4 majority ruled that negligent infliction of bodily injury, unlike the negligent loss of property in Parratt, does not constitute a deprivation of any interest protected by the Due Process Clause. The majority therefore believed that the postdeprivation process mandated by Parratt for property losses was not required. Second, the en banc court unanimously decided that even if a prisoner is entitled to some remedy for personal injuries attributable to the negligence of state officials, Parratt would bar petitioner’s claim if the State provided an adequate postdeprivation remedy. Finally, a 6-3 majority concluded that petitioner had an adequate remedy in state court, even though respondent asserted that he would rely on sovereign immunity as a defense in a state suit. The majority apparently believed that respondent’s sovereign immunity defense would fail under Virginia law.
Because of the inconsistent approaches taken by lower courts in determining when tortious conduct by state officials rises to the level of a constitutional tort, see Jackson v. Joliet, 465 U. S. 1049, 1050 (1984) (White, J., dissenting from denial of certiorari) (collecting cases), and the apparent lack of adequate guidance from this Court, we granted certiorari. 469 U. S. 1207 (1985). We now affirm.
In Parratt v. Taylor, we granted certiorari, as we had twice before, “to decide whether mere negligence will support a claim for relief under §1983.” 451 U. S., at 532. After examining the language, legislative history, and prior interpretations of the statute, we concluded that § 1983, unlike its criminal counterpart, 18 U. S. C. §242, contains no state-of-mind requirement independent of that necessary to state a violation of the underlying constitutional right. Id., at 534-535. .We adhere to that conclusion. But in any given § 1983 suit, the plaintiff must still prove a violation of the underlying constitutional right; and depending on the right, merely negligent conduct may not be enough to state a claim. See, e. g., Arlington Heights v. Metropolitan Housing Dev. Corp., 429 U. S. 252 (1977) (invidious discriminatory purpose required for claim of racial discrimination under the Equal Protection Clause); Estelle v. Gamble, 429 U. S. 97, 105 (1976) (“deliberate indifference” to prisoner’s serious illness or injury sufficient to constitute cruel and unusual punishment under the Eighth Amendment).
In Parratt, before concluding that Nebraska’s tort remedy provided all the process that was due, we said that the loss of the prisoner’s hobby kit, “even though negligently caused, amounted to a deprivation [under the Due Process Clause].” 451 U. S., at 536-537. Justice Powell, concurring in the result, criticized the majority for “pass[ing] over” this important question of the state of mind required to constitute a “deprivation” of property. Id., at 547. He argued that negligent acts by state officials, though causing loss of property, are not actionable under the Due Process Clause. To Justice Powell, mere negligence could not “wor[k] a deprivation in the constitutional sense.” Id., at 548 (emphasis in original). Not only does the word “deprive” in the Due Process Clause connote more than a negligent act, but we should not “open the federal courts to lawsuits where there has been no affirmative abuse of power.” Id., at 548-549; see also id., at 545 (Stewart, J., concurring) (“To hold that this kind of loss is a deprivation of property within the meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment seems not only to trivialize, but grossly to distort the meaning and intent of the Constitution”). Upon reflection, we agree and overrule Parratt to the extent that it states that mere lack of due care by a state official may “deprive” an individual of life, liberty, or property under the Fourteenth Amendment.
The Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment provides: “[N]or shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.” Historically, this guarantee of due process has been applied to deliberate decisions of government officials to deprive a person of life, liberty, or property. E. g., Davidson v. New Orleans, 96 U. S. 97 (1878) (assessment of real estate); Rochin v. California, 342 U. S. 165 (1952) (stomach pumping); Bell v. Burson, 402 U. S. 535 (1971) (suspension of driver’s license); Ingraham v. Wright, 430 U. S. 651 (1977) (paddling student); Hudson v. Palmer, 468 U. S. 517 (1984) (intentional destruction of inmate’s property). No decision of this Court before Parratt supported the view that negligent conduct by a state official, even though causing injury, constitutes a deprivation under the Due Process Clause. This history reflects the traditional and common-sense notion that the Due Process Clause, like its forebear in the Magna Carta, see Corwin, The Doctrine of Due Process of Law Before the Civil War, 24 Harv. L. Rev. 366, 368 (1911), was “‘intended to secure the individual from the arbitrary exercise of the powers of government,’” Hurtado v. California, 110 U. S. 516, 527 (1884) (quoting Bank of Columbia v. Okely, 4 Wheat. 235, 244 (1819)). See also Wolff v. McDonnell, 418 U. S. 539, 558 (1974) (“The touchstone of due process is protection of the individual against arbitrary action of government, Dent v. West Virginia, 129 U. S. 114, 123 (1889)”); Parratt, supra, at 549 (Powell, J., concurring in result). By requiring the government to follow appropriate procedures when its agents decide to “deprive any person of life, liberty, or property,” the Due Process Clause promotes fairness in such decisions. And by barring certain government actions regardless of the fairness of the procedures used to implement them, e. g., Rochin, supra, it serves to prevent governmental power from being “used for purposes of oppression,” Murray’s Les see v. Hoboken Land & Improvement Co., 18 How. 272, 277 (1856) (discussing Due Process Clause of Fifth Amendment).
We think that the actions of prison custodians in leaving a pillow on the prison stairs, or mislaying an inmate’s property, are quite remote from the concerns just discussed. Far from an abuse of power, lack of due care suggests no more than a failure to measure up to the conduct of a reasonable person. To hold that injury caused by such conduct is a deprivation within the meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment would trivialize the centuries-old principle of due process of law.
The Fourteenth Amendment is a part of a Constitution generally designed to allocate governing authority among the Branches of the Federal Government and between that Government and the States, and to secure certain individual rights against both State and Federal Government. When dealing with a claim that such a document creates a right in prisoners to sue a government official because he negligently created an unsafe condition in the prison, we bear in mind Chief Justice Marshall’s admonition that “we must never forget, that it is a constitution we are expounding,” McCulloch v. Maryland, 4 Wheat. 316, 407 (1819) (emphasis in original). Our Constitution deals with the large concerns of the governors and the governed, but it does not purport to supplant traditional tort law in laying down rules of conduct to regulate liability for injuries that attend living together in society. We have previously rejected reasoning that “‘would make of the Fourteenth Amendment a font of tort law to be superimposed upon whatever systems may already be administered by the States,’” Paul v. Davis, 424 U. S. 693, 701 (1976), quoted in Parratt v. Taylor, 451 U. S., at 544.
The only tie between the facts of this case and anything governmental in nature is the fact that respondent was a sheriff’s deputy at the Richmond city jail and petitioner was an inmate confined in that jail. But while the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment obviously speaks to some facets of this relationship, see, e. g., Wolff v. McDon nell, swpra, we do not believe its protections are triggered by lack of due care by prison officials. “Medical malpractice does not become a constitutional violation merely because the victim is a prisoner,” Estelle v. Gamble, 429 U. S. 97, 106 (1976), and “false imprisonment does not become a violation of the Fourteenth Amendment merely because the defendant is a state official.” Baker v. McCollan, 443 U. S. 137, 146 (1979). Where a government official’s act causing injury to life, liberty, or property is merely negligent, “no procedure for compensation is constitutionally required.” Parratt, swpra, at 548 (Powell, J., concurring in result) (emphasis added).
That injuries inflicted by governmental negligence are not addressed by the United States Constitution is not to say that they may not raise significant legal concerns and lead to the creation of protectible legal interests. The enactment of tort claim statutes, for example, reflects the view that injuries caused by such negligence should generally be redressed. It is no reflection on either the breadth of the United States Constitution or the importance of traditional tort law to say that they do not address the same concerns.
In support of his claim that negligent conduct can give rise to a due process “deprivation,” petitioner makes several arguments, none of which we find persuasive. He states, for example, that “it is almost certain that some negligence claims are within § 1983,” and cites as an example the failure of a State to comply with the procedural requirements of Wolff v. McDonnell, supra, before depriving an inmate of good-time credit. We think the relevant action of the prison officials in that situation is their deliberate decision to deprive the inmate of good-time credit, not their hypothetically negligent failure to accord him the procedural protections of the Due Process Clause. But we need not rule out the possibility that there are other constitutional provisions that would be violated by mere lack of care in order to hold, as we do, that such conduct does not implicate the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
Petitioner also suggests that artful litigants, undeterred by a requirement that they plead more than mere negligence, will often be able to allege sufficient facts to support a claim of intentional deprivation. In the instant case, for example, petitioner notes that he could have alleged that the pillow was left on the stairs with the intention of harming him. This invitation to “artful” pleading, petitioner contends, would engender sticky (and needless) disputes over what is fairly pleaded. What’s more, requiring complainants to allege something more than negligence would raise serious questions about what “more” than negligence — intent, recklessness, or “gross negligence” — is required, and indeed about what these elusive terms mean. See Reply Brief for Petitioner 9 (“what terms like willful, wanton, reckless or gross negligence mean” has “left the finest scholars puzzled”). But even if accurate, petitioner’s observations do not carry the day. In the first place, many branches of the law abound in nice distinctions that may be troublesome but have been thought nonetheless necessary:
“I do not think we need trouble ourselves with the thought that my view depends upon differences of degree. The whole law does so as soon as it is civilized.” LeRoy Fibre Co. v. Chicago, M. & St. P. R. Co., 232 U. S. 340, 354 (1914) (Holmes, J., partially concurring).
More important, the difference between one end of the spectrum — negligence—and the other — intent—is abundantly clear. See 0. Holmes, The Common Law 3 (1923). In any event, we decline to trivialize the Due Process Clause in an effort to simplify constitutional litigation.
Finally, citing South v. Maryland, 18 How. 396 (1856), petitioner argues that respondent’s conduct, even if merely negligent, breached a sheriff’s “special duty of care” for those in his custody. Reply Brief for Petitioner 14. The Due Process Clause, petitioner notes, “was intended to give Americans at least the protection against governmental power that they had enjoyed as Englishmen against the power of the crown.” Ingraham v. Wright, 430 U. S., at 672-673. And South v. Maryland suggests that one such protection was the right to recover against a sheriff for breach of his ministerial duty to provide for the safety of prisoners in his custody. 18 How., at 402-403. Due process demands that the State protect those whom it incarcerates by exercising reasonable care to assure their safety and by compensating them for negligently inflicted injury.
We disagree. We read South v. Maryland, supra, an action brought under federal diversity jurisdiction on a Maryland sheriff’s bond, as stating no more than what this Court thought to be the principles of common law and Maryland law applicable to that case; it is not cast at all in terms of constitutional law, and indeed could not have been, since at the time it was rendered there was no due process clause applicable to the States. Petitioner’s citation to Ingraham v. Wright does not support the notion that all common-law duties owed by government actors were somehow constitutionalized by the Fourteenth Amendment. Jailers may owe a special duty of care to those in their custody under state tort law, see Restatement (Second) of Torts § 314A(4) (1965), but for the reasons previously stated we reject the contention that the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment embraces such a tort law concept. Petitioner alleges that he was injured by the negligence of respondent, a custodial official at the city jail. Whatever other provisions of state law or general jurisprudence he may rightly invoke, the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution does not afford him a remedy.
Affirmed.
Justice Marshall concurs in the result.
Justice Blackmun, concurring in the judgment.
I concur in the judgment. See my opinion in dissent in Davidson v. Cannon, post, p. 349.
Accordingly, we need not decide whether, as petitioner contends, the possibility of a sovereign immunity defense in a Virginia tort suit would render that remedy “inadequate” under Parratt and Hudson v. Palmer, 468 U. S. 517 (1984).
See, e. g., the Virginia Tort Claims Act, Va. Code §8.01-195.1 et seq. (1984), which applies only to actions accruing on or after July 1, 1982, and hence is inapplicable to this case.
Despite Ms claim about what he might have pleaded, petitioner concedes that respondent was at most negligent. Accordingly, this case affords us no occasion to consider whether something less than intentional conduct, such as recklessness or “gross negligence,” is enough to trigger the protections of the Due Process Clause.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | 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 Marshall
delivered the opinion of the Court.
Respondent brought this action in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Tennessee, challenging the termination of his employment as a technician with the Tennessee Air National Guard as violative of the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Petitioners are the defendants below — the State of Tennessee and its Governor, the Tennessee Air National Guard, and various officials of the Tennessee Air National Guard.
The National Guard Technicians Act of 1968 provides generally that a National Guard technician, who is a full-time civilian employee of the National Guard, must be a member of the National Guard, and that a technician who is separated from the Guard “shall be promptly separated from his technician employment.” 32 U. S. C. §§ 709 (b), (e)(1). The same section of the Act provides that “a technician may, at any time, be separated from his technician employment for cause.” § 709 (e) (3). On December 8, 1972, respondent was discharged from the Tennessee Air National Guard for the stated reason that his term of enlistment had expired. Five days later respondent was notified by his commander that his employment as a technician would be terminated in 30 days because he was no longer a member of the Guard.
Respondent concedes the validity of the statutory requirement that a technician maintain his status as a member of the National Guard. Accordingly, the focus of his claims is petitioners’ refusal to permit his re-enlistment. In his complaint respondent alleged that prior to December 8 he had attempted, without success, to re-enlist in the Guard. He further alleged that his request for a hearing before the board charged with making a recommendation on his re-enlistment was denied, that he was never supplied a copy of any charges against him, and that the only reason he ever received for the refusal of his requested re-enlistment was a general one that it was not in the best interest of the Guard to allow him to re-enlist. In fact, respondent alleged, the reason he was denied re-enlistment was to effect his discharge as a technician without the necessity of affording him the administrative recourse he would have had if he had been terminated as a technician directly and “for cause” under § 709 (e)(3). Liberally construed, the complaint then asserted three constitutional claims: (1) that the mechanism by which respondent was refused re-enlistment denied him procedural due process; (2) that the “alleged discretion” vested in his commander to decide whéther his re-enlistment was in the best interest of the Guard does not comport with due process because of the lack of “any objective or ascertainable standards or criteria” to guide the exercise of that discretion; and (3) that the denial of re-enlistment was arbitrary and capricious, and therefore violative of due process.
The District Court dismissed the complaint on the ground that the denial of re-enlistment was a military action not subject to review by a civilian court. The Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit reversed. It apparently agreed with the District Court that a decision to refuse re-enlistment in the Guard would ordinarily be nonreviewable in a civil court. But the Court of Appeals held that respondent should be given the opportunity to prove that his denial of, re-enlistment was based not on any military considerations, but on a desire to terminate his technician employment in such a way as to circumvent § 709 (e) (3)'s requirement of “cause,” which would have been applicable if his technician employment had been terminated directly. “In order for [§709 (e)(3)] to have meaning,” the court concluded, “the unreviewable discretion of Guard officials to permit or refuse re-enlistments must not extend to decisions which are made for the purpose of affecting a guardsman's technician employment.” 514 F. 2d 130, 133 (1975). In other words, the court held that if a denial of re-enlistment reflects no more than a desire to terminate employment as a technician, cause must be shown under §709 (e)(3). And from this the court concluded that there was a genuine issue as to whether respondent had a property interest in continued employment sufficient to support his due process contentions. We granted certiorari. 423 U. S. 821 (1975).
We do not agree with the Court of Appeals that § 709 (e) (3) has any application to this case. Subsection (3) of § 709 (e) provides only one of several bases for the termination of a technician’s employment. As already indicated, subsection (1) requires that a technician “who is separated from the National Guard or ceases to hold the military grade specified for his position . . . shall be promptly separated from his technician employment.” Subsection (2) provides that a technician “who fails to meet . . . military security standards . . . may be separated from his employment as a technician and concurrently discharged from the National Guard.” And subsection (3), to repeat, provides additionally that “a technician may, at any time, be separated from his technician employment for cause.” There is nothing in the language or structure of §709 (e), or in its legislative history, to suggest that subsection (3)’s requirement of cause was intended to qualify subsection (l)’s mandate that termination of employment accompany separation from the Guard. Nor is there anything to- suggest that subsection (3) was intended to have any bearing on whether one is separated from the Guard. Indeed, the relevant House and Senate committee reports summarize the three subsections as providing “for termination of civilian employment upon loss of Guard membership, failure to meet military security standards, or separation for cause.” H. R. Rep. No. 1823, 90th Cong., 2d Sess., 3 (1968); S. Rep. No. 1446, 90th Cong., 2d Sess., 3 (1968) (emphasis added). See also H. R. Rep. No. 1823, p. 8; S. Rep. No. 1446, p. 7. The clear and sole import of subsection (3), then, is that if a technician remains a member of the National Guard and is otherwise eligible for continued employment under subsections (1) and (2), he may nevertheless be discharged for cause. There can be no significance, therefore, to the claim that the denial of re-enlistment to respondent was designed to circumvent the requirements of § 709 (e)(3). Nor can §709 (e)(3) provide the foundation for any due process claim in this case, since the property interest it creates in continued employment is confined, in all events, to the guardsman’s term of enlistment.
The judgment of the Court of Appeals is
Reversed.
The Secretary of the Army or the Air Force, in this case the Air Force, may by regulation exempt technicians from the requirement of membership in the Guard. 32 U. S. C. § 709 (b). The Senate and House committee reports contemplated the exemption of about 5% of the technicians — principally secretaries, clerk-typists, and security guards. H. R. Rep. No. 1823, 90th Cong., 2d Sess., 6 (1968); S. Rep. No. 1446, 90th Cong., 2d Sess., 5 (1968). Respondent has not been exempted from the requirement of Guard membership.
The complaint also included a general assertion of discrimination in violation of the Equal Protection Clause. Never adequately alleged, and not considered by the District Court or the Court of Appeals, this assertion is not before us.
Respondent asserts in his brief that he had a property interest in the form of a legitimate expectation of re-enlistment and continued employment. See Perry v. Sindermann. 408 U. S. 593, 599-603 (1972). This assertion was not pleaded in respondent’s complaint, was not considered by the District Court or the Court of Appeals, and accordingly 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: | 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 Reed
delivered the opinion of the Court.
The United States sought an injunction under §§ 1 and 4 of the Sherman Act in the District Court against continuance of violations of that Act by an allegedly unlawful combination or conspiracy between appellees, through contracts, to restrain interstate trade in certain patented electrical devices. The restraint alleged arose from a cross-license arrangement between the patent owners, Line Material' Company and Southern States Equipment Corporation, to fix the sale price of the devices, to which arrangement the other appellees, licensees to make and vend, adhered by supplemental contracts.
The District Court, 64 F. Supp. 970, dismissed the complaint as to all defendants upon its conclusion that the rule of United States v. General Electric Co., 272 U. S. 476, was controlling. That case approved as lawful a pat-entee’s license to make and vend which required the licensee in its sales of the patented devices to conform to the licensor’s sale price schedule. Appeal was taken directly to this Court, 32 Stat. 823, and probable jurisdiction noted here on October 21, 1946. We have jurisdiction.
I. The Facts.
The challenged arrangements center around three product patents, which are useful in protecting an electric circuit from the dangers incident to a short circuit or other overload. Two of them are dropout fuse cutouts and the third is a housing suitable for use with any cutout. Dropout fuse cutouts may be used without any housing. The District Court found that 40.77% of all cutouts manufactured and sold by these defendants were produced under these patents. This was substantially all the dropout fuse cutouts made in the United States. There are competitive devices that perform the same functions manufactured by appellees and others under different patents than those here involved.
The dominant patent, No. 2,150,102, in the field of dropout fuse cutouts with double jointed hinge construction was issued March 7, 1939, to the Southern States Equipment Corporation, assignee, on an application of George N. Lemmon. This patent reads upon a patent No. 2,176,227, reissued December 21, 1943, Re. 22,412, issued October 17, 1939 to Line Material Company, as-signee, on an application by Schultz and Steinmayer. The housing patent No. 1,781,876, reissued March 31, 1931, as Re. 18,020, and again February 5, 1935, as Re. 19,449, was issued November 18, 1930 to Line, assignee, on an application by W. D. Kyle. The Kyle patent covers a wet-process porcelain box with great dielectric strength, which may be economically constructed and has been commercially successful. We give no weight to the presence of the Kyle patent in the licenses.
The applications for the Lemmon and Schultz patents were pending simultaneously. They were declared in interference and a contest resulted. The decision of the Patent Office awarding dominant claims to Southern and subservient claims to Line on the Lemmon and the Schultz applications made it impossible for any manufacturer to use both patents when later issued without some cross-licensing arrangement. Cf. Temco Electric Motor Co. v. Apco Mfg. Co., 275 U. S. 319, 328. Only when both patents could be lawfully used by a single maker could the public or the patentees obtain the full benefit of the efficiency and economy of the inventions. Negotiations were started by Line which eventuated in the challenged arrangements.
The first definitive document was a bilateral, royalty-free, cross-license agreement of May 23, 1938, between Southern and Line after the Patent Office award but before the patents issued. This, so far as here pertinent, was a license to Southern by Line to make and vend the prospective Schultz patented apparatus with the exclusive right to grant licenses or sublicenses to others. Line also granted Southern the right to make and vend but not to sublicense the Kyle patent. Southern licensed Line to make and vend but not to sublicense the prospective Lemmon patent for defined equipment which included the Schultz apparatus. Sublicense royalties and expenses were to be divided between Line and Southern. Although a memorandum of agreement of January 12, 1938, between the parties had no such requirement, Line agreed to sell equipment covered by the Southern patent at prices not less than those fixed by Southern. Southern made the same agreement for equipment covered solely by the Line patent. No requirement for price limitation upon sales by other manufacturers under license was included.
Six of the other manufacturers here involved were advised by Line by letter, dated June 13,1938, that Southern had authority to grant licenses under the Schultz prospective patent. On October 3, 1938, Kearney took from Southern a license to practice the Lemmon and Schultz patents. The license had a price, term and condition of sale clause, governed by Southern’s prices, which bound Kearney to maintain the prices on its sales of devices covered by the patents. On October 7, 1938, the five other manufacturers mentioned above were offered by Southern the same contract as the standard licensor’s agreement. The Kearney contract was discussed at Chicago in October, 1938, by all of the above manufacturers except Railway. Pacific also participated. It never was enforced. The first patent involved in this case did not issue until March, 1939. Those manufacturers who were making double jointed open and enclosed dropout cutouts wanted to and did explore cooperatively (F. F. 15) the validity of the patents. They failed to find a satisfactory basis for attack. They were faced with infringement suits. Other reasons developed for the refusal of the six manufacturers to accept the Kearney form contracts (F. F. 16 & 17) unnecessary to detail here. One reason was that the prospective sublicensees preferred Line to Southern as licensor because of the fact that Line, as owner and manufacturer, would license the Kyle patent. New arrangements were proposed for the licensees. After mutual discussion between the licensees and patentees, these new agreements were submitted. A finding to which no objection is made states:
“On October 24, 1939, General Electric, Westinghouse, Kearney, Matthews, Schweitzer and Conrad, and Railway met with Line in Chicago and jointly discussed drafts of the proposed license agreements under the Lemmon, Schultz, and Kyle patents. Thereafter, identical sets of revised licenses were sent by Line to General Electric, Westinghouse, Matthews, Schweitzer and Conrad, and the attorneys for Railway and Kearney.”
A form for a proposed licensing agreement that contained the essential elements of the price provision ultimately included in the licenses had been circulated among prospective licensees by Line by letters under date of October 6,1939.
To meet the various objections of the future licensees, the agreement of May 23, 1938, between Southern and Line was revised as of January 12, 1940. Except for the substitution of Line for Southern as licensor of other manufacturers, it follows generally the form of the earlier agreement. There were royalty-free cross-licenses of the Schultz and Lemmon patents substantially as before. Line was given the exclusive right to grant sublicenses to others for Lemmon. Southern retained the privilege, royalty free, of making and vending the Kyle patent, also. Southern bound itself to maintain prices, so long as Line required other licensees to do so. Even if it be assumed that the proper interpretation of the Line-Southern agreement permitted Southern to manufacture under its own Lemmon patent without price control, the practical result is that Southern does have its price for its products fixed because the only commercially successful fabrication is under a combination of the Lemmon and Schultz patents. Findings of Fact 7 and 10.
The price maintenance feature was reflected in all the licenses to make and vend granted by Line, under the Line-Southern contract, to the other appellees. There were variations in the price provisions that are not significant for the issues of this case. A fair example appears below. The execution of these sublicenses by the other appellees, except Johnson and Royal, followed within a year. Licenses were executed by the two on June 15, 1943, and March 24, 1944, respectively. After August 1, 1940, since a number of the appellees had executed the license contracts, two consultations of the licensees and the patentees were held to classify the products of the various licensees in comparison with the licensor’s devices. The trial judge found that prices were not’ discussed. These were fixed by Line without discussion with or advice from any other appellee. There can be no doubt, however, that each licensee knew of the proposed price provisions in the licenses of other licensees from the circulation of proposed form of license on October 6, 1939, subsequent consultations among the licensees and an escrow agreement, fulfilled July 11, 1940. That agreement was entered into after General Electric took its license and required for fulfillment the acceptance of identical licenses by Matthews, Kearney and Railway. The licenses that were the subject of the escrow contained the price provisions of General Electric’s license. This awareness by each signer of the price provisions in prior contracts is conceded by appellees’ brief. A price schedule became effective January 18, 1941. Thereafter, all the appellees tried to maintain prices. Where there was accidental variation, Line wrote the licensee calling attention to the failure.
The licenses were the result of arm’s length bargaining in each instance. Price limitation was actively opposed in toto or restriction of its scope sought by several of the licensees, including General Electric, the largest producer of the patented appliances. A number tried energetically to find substitutes for the devices. All the licensees, however, were forced to accept the terms or cease manufacture. By accepting they secured release from claims for past infringement through a provision to that effect in the license. The patentees through the licenses sought system in their royalty collections and pecuniary reward for their patent monopoly. Undoubtedly one purpose of the arrangements was to make possible the use by each manufacturer of the Lemmon and Schultz patents. These patents in separate hands produced a deadlock. Lem-mon by his basic patent “blocked” Schultz’s improvement. Cross-licenses furnished appellees a solution.
On consideration of the agreements and the circumstances surrounding their negotiation and execution, the District Court found that the arrangements, as a whole, were made in good faith, to make possible the manufacture by all appellees of the patented devices, to gain a legitimate return to the patentees on the inventions; and that, apart from the written agreements, there was no undertaking between the appellees or any of them to fix prices. Being convinced, as we indicated at the first of this opinion, that the General Electric case controlled and permitted such price arrangements as are disclosed in the contracts, the District Court dismissed the complaint. The Government attacks the rationale of the General Electric case and urges that it be overruled, limited and explained or differentiated.
II. The General Electric Case.
That case was decided in 1926 by a unanimous Court, Chief Justice Taft writing. It involved a bill in equity to enjoin further violations of the Sherman Act. While violations of the Act by agreements fixing the resale price of patented articles (incandescent light bulbs) sold to dealers also were alleged in the bill, so far as here material the pertinent alleged violation was an agreement between General Electric and Westinghouse Company through which Westinghouse was licensed to manufacture lamps under a number of General Electric’s patents, including a patent on the use of tungsten filament in the bulb, on condition that it should sell them at prices fixed by the licensor. On considering an objection to the fixing of prices on bulbs with a tungsten filament, the price agreement was upheld as a valid exercise of patent rights by the licensor.
Speaking of the arrangement, this Court said: “If the patentee... licenses the selling of the articles [by a licensee to make], may he limit the selling by limiting the method of sale and the price? We think he may do so, provided the conditions of sale are normally and reasonably adapted to secure pecuniary reward for the pat-entee’s monopoly.” P. 490. This proviso must be read as directed at agreements between a patentee and a licensee to make and vend. The original context of the words just quoted makes clear that they carry no implication of approval of all a patentee’s contracts which tend to increase earnings on patents. The opinion recognizes the fixed rule that a sale of the patented article puts control of the purchaser’s resale price beyond the power of the patentee. P. 489. Compare United States v. Univis Lens Co., 316 U. S. 241. Nor can anything be found in the General Electric case which will serve as a basis to argue otherwise than that the precise terms of the grant define the limits of a patentee’s monopoly and the area in which the patentee is freed from competition of price, service, quality or otherwise. Compare Mercoid Corporation v. Mid-Continent Inv. Co., 320 U. S. 661, 665, 666; United States v. Masonite Corp., 316 U. S. 265, 277-78, 280; Motion Picture Patents Co. v. Universal Film Mfg. Co., 243 U. S. 502, 510.
General Electric is a case that has provoked criticism and approval. It had only bare recognition in Ethyl Gasoline Corp. v. United States, 309 U. S. 436, 456. That case emphasized the rule against the extension of the patent monopoly, p. 456, to resale prices or to avoid competition among buyers. Pages 457-58. We found it unnecessary to reconsider the rule in United States v. Masonite Corp., 316 U. S. 265, 277, although the arrangement there was for sale of patented articles at fixed prices by dealers whom the patentee claimed were del credere agents. As we concluded the patent privilege was exhausted by a transfer of the articles to certain agents who were part of the sales organization of competitors, discussion of the price-fixing limitation was not required. In Katzinger Co. v. Chicago Mfg. Co., 329 U. S. 394, 398, where a suit was brought to recover royalties on a license with price limitations, this Court refused to examine the General Electric rule because of the claimed illegality of the Katz-inger patent. If the patent were invalid, the price-fixing agreement would be unlawful. We affirmed the action of the Circuit Court of Appeals in remanding the case to the District Court to determine the validity of the patent. The General Electric case was cited with approval in Carbice Corp. v. American Patents Development Corp., 283 U. S. 27, 31. Other courts have explained or distinguished the General Electric rule. As a reason for asking this Court to reexamine the rule of the General Electric case, the Government states that price maintenance under patents through various types of agreements is involved in certain pending cases. Furthermore, the point is made that there is such a “host of difficult and unsettled questions” arising from the General Electric holding that the simplest solution is to overrule the precedent on the power of a patentee to establish sale prices of a licensee to make and vend a patented article.
Such a liquidation of the doctrine of a patentee’s power to determine a licensee’s sale price of a patented article would solve problems arising from its adoption. Since 1902, however, when Bement v. National Harrow Co., 186 U. S. 70, was decided, a patentee has been able to control his licensee’s sale price within the limits of the patent monopoly. Litigation that the rule has engendered proves that business arrangements have been repeatedly, even though hesitatingly, made in reliance upon the contractors’ interpretation of its meaning. Ap-pellees urge that Congress has taken no steps to modify the rule. Such legislative attitude is to be weighed with the counterbalancing fact that the rule of the General Electric case grew out of a judicial determination. The writer accepts the rule of the General Electric case as interpreted by the third subdivision of this opinion. As a majority of the Court does not agree with that position, the case cannot be reaffirmed on that basis. Neither is there a majority to overrule General Electric. In these circumstances, we must proceed to determine the issues on the assumption that General Electric continues as a precedent. Furthermore, we do not think it wise to undertake to explain, further than the facts of this case require, our views as to the applicability of patent price limitation in the various situations listed by the Government. On that assumption where a conspiracy to restrain trade or an effort to monopolize is not involved, a patentee may license another to make and vend the patented device with a provision that the licensee’s sale price shall be fixed by the patentee. The assumption is stated in this way so as to leave aside the many variables of the General Electric rule that may arise. For example, there may be an aggregation of patents to obtain dominance in a patent field, broad or narrow, or a patent may be used as a peg upon which to attach contracts with former or prospective competitors, touching business relations other than the making and vending of patented devices. Compare United States v. United States Gypsum Co., post, p. 364, decided today; United States v. Masonite Corp., 316 U. S. 265.
It may be helpful to specify certain points that either are not contested or are not decided in this case. The agreements, if illegal, restrain interstate commerce contrary to the Sherman Act. No issue of monopoly is involved. (F. F. 31.) Cf. American Tobacco Co. v. United States, 328 U. S. 781, 788. That is to say, the complaint charges restraint of trade under § 1 and does not charge “monopoly” under § 2 of the Sherman Act, so that we need not deal with the problems of consolidation, merger, purchase of competitors or size of business as tending toward attaining monopoly. See United States v. United Shoe Machinery Co., 247 U. S. 32, 44-55; United States v. Aluminum Co. of America, 148 F. 2d 416, 427-31; United States v. American Tobacco Co., 221 U. S. 106, 181-83; United States v. United States Steel Corp., 251 U. S. 417, 451. We are not dealing with a charge of monopoly or restraint because of the aggregation of patents, by pooling or purchase, by an owner or owners, in a single industry or field. See United States v. United Shoe Machinery Co., 247 U. S. 32. Within the limits of the patentee’s rights under his patent, monopoly of the process or product by him is authorized by the patent statutes. It is stipulated by the United States that the validity of the patents is not in issue. With these points laid aside, we proceed to the issues presented by this record.
III. The Determination of the Issue.
Under the above-mentioned assumption as to General Electric, the ultimate question for our decision on this appeal may be stated, succinctly and abstractly, to be as to whether in the light of the prohibition of § 1 of the Sherman Act, note 1, supra, two or more patentees in the same patent field may legally combine their valid patent monopolies to secure mutual benefits for themselves through contractual agreements, between themselves and other licensees, for control of the sale price of the patented devices.
The appellees urge that the findings of the District Court, quoted in note 13 supra, stand as barriers to a con-elusion here that § 1 of the Sherman Act has been violated by the licenses. Since there was material evidence to support the District Court’s finding of the evidentiary facts and the Court necessarily weighed the credibility of the witnesses and the probative value of their testimony to establish appellees’ contentions, appellees insist that the inferences or conclusions as to violations of the Sherman Act, drawn by the District Court, must be accepted by us. As to the evidentiary facts heretofore stated, there is no dispute. From them the District Court made findings of fact Nos. 32 to 36, inclusive, here-inbefore set out in note 13. Even though we accept, as we do, these findings on preliminary facts as correct, the last sentence in findings 32 and 34 crumbles their asserted bar to an examination by us as to whether the agreements are violative of the Sherman Act. Those sentences are to the effect that there was an agreement to fix prices between all parties in the language of the contracts as set out in notes 8 and 9 supra. If the patent rights do not empower the patentees to fix sale prices for others, the agreements do violate the Act. The previous summary in this opinion of the agreements which compose these arrangements demonstrates that the agreements were intended to and did fix prices on the patented devices. Compare Interstate Circuit v. United States, 306 U. S. 208, 226. While Line’s sublicenses to others than General Electric, note 9, gave to Line the power which it exercised to fix prices only for devices embodying its own Schultz patent, the sublicense agreements licensed the use of the dominant Lemmon patent. As the Schultz patent could not be practiced without the Lemmon, the result of the agreement between Southern and Line for Line’s sublicensing of the Lemmon patent was to combine in Line’s hands the authority to fix the prices of the commercially successful devices embodying both the Schultz and Lemmon patents. Thus, though the sublicenses in terms followed the pattern of General Electric in fixing prices only on Line’s own patents, the additional right given to Line by the license agreement of January 12, 1940, between Southern and Line, to be the exclusive licensor of the dominant Lemmon patent, made its price fixing of its own Schultz devices effective over devices embodying also the necessary Lemmon patent. See note 9. By the patentees’ agreement the dominant Lemmon and the subservient Schultz patents were combined to fix prices. In the absence of patent or other statutory authorization, a contract to fix or maintain prices in interstate commerce has long been recognized as illegal per se under the Sherman Act. This is true whether the fixed price is reasonable or unreasonable. It is also true whether it is a price agreement between producers for sale or between producer and distributor for resale.
It is equally well settled that the possession of a valid patent or patents does not give the patentee any exemption from the provisions of the Sherman Act beyond the limits of the patent monopoly. By aggregating patents in one control, the holder of the patents cannot escape the prohibitions of the Sherman Act. See Standard Sanitary Mfg. Co. v. United States, 226 U. S. 20; United States v. United States Cypsum Co., post, p. 364. During its term, a valid patent excludes all except its owner from the use of the protected process or product. United States v. United Shoe Machinery Co., 247 U. S. 32, 58; Special Equipment Co. v. Coe, 324 U. S. 370, 378. This monopoly may be enjoyed exclusively by the patentee or he may assign the patent “or any interest therein” to others. Rev. Stat. § 4898, as amended 55 Stat. 634. As we have pointed out, a patentee may license others to make and vend his invention and collect a royalty therefor. Thus we have a statutory monopoly by the patent and by the Sherman Act a prohibition, not only of monopoly or attempt to monopolize, but of every agreement in restraint of trade. Public policy has condemned monopolies for centuries. The Case of Monopolies, Darcy v. Allein, 11 Co. Rep. 84-b. See United States v. Aluminum Co. of America, 148 F. 2d 416, 428-49. See Employment Act of 1946, § 2, 60 Stat. 23. Our Constitution allows patents. Art. I, § 8, cl. 8. The progress of our economy has often been said to owe much to the stimulus to invention given by the rewards allowed by patent legislation. The Sherman Act was enacted to prevent restraints of commerce but has been interpreted as recognizing that patent grants were an exception. Bement v. National Harrow Co., supra, 92, 21 Cong. Rec. 2457. Public service organizations, governmental and private, aside, our economy is built largely upon competition in quality and prices. Associated Press v. United States, 326 U. S 1, 12-14. Validation by Congress of agreements to exclude competition is unusual. Monopoly is a protean threat to fair prices. It is a tantalizing objective to any business compelled to meet the efforts of competitors to supply the market. Perhaps no single fact manifests the power and will to monopolize more than price control of the article monopolized. There can be no clearer evidence of restraint of trade. Whatever may be the evil social effect of cutthroat competition on producers and consumers through the lowering of labor standards and the quality of the produce and the obliteration of the marginal to the benefit of the surviving and low-cost producers, the advantages of competition in opening rewards to management, in encouraging initiative, in giving labor in each industry an opportunity to choose employment conditions and consumers a selection of product and price, have been considered to overbalance the disadvantages. The strength of size alone, the disappearance of small business are ever-present dangers in competition. Despite possible advantages to a stable economy from efficient cartels with firm or fixed prices for products, it is crystal clear from the legislative history and accepted judicial interpretations of the Sherman Act that competition on prices is the rule of congressional purpose and that, where exceptions are made, Congress should make them. The monopoly granted by the patent laws is a statutory exception to this freedom for competition and consistently has been construed as limited to the patent grant. Ethyl Gasoline Corp. v. United States, 309 U. S. 436, 452, 455; United States v. Univis Lens Co., 316 U. S. 241; Hartford-Empire Co. v. United States, 323 U. S. 386. It is not the monopoly of the patent that is invalid. It is the improper use of that monopoly.
The development of patents by separate corporations or by cooperating units of an industry through an organized research group is a well known phenomenon. However far advanced over the lone inventor’s experimentation this method of seeking improvement in the practices of the arts and sciences may be, there can be no objection, on the score of illegality, either to the mere size of such a group or the thoroughness of its research. It may be true, as Carlyle said, that “Genius is an infinite capacity for taking pains.” Certainly the doctrine that control of prices, outside the limits of a patent monopoly, violates the Sherman Act is as well understood by Congress as by all other interested parties.
We are thus called upon to make an adjustment between the lawful restraint on trade of the patent monopoly and the illegal restraint prohibited broadly by the Sherman Act. That adjustment has already reached the point, as the precedents now stand, that a patentee may validly license a competitor to make and vend with a price limitation under the General Electric case and that the grant of patent rights is the limit of freedom from competition under the cases first cited at note 22.
With the postulates in mind that price limitations on patented devices beyond the limits of a patent monopoly violate the Sherman Act and that patent grants are to be construed strictly, the question of the legal effect of the price limitations in these agreements may be readily answered. Nothing in the patent statute specifically gives a right to fix the price at which a licensee may vend the patented article. 35 U. S. C. §§ 40, 47. While the General Electric case holds that a patentee may, under certain conditions, lawfully control the price the licensee of his several patents may charge for the patented device, no case of this Court has construed the patent and anti-monopoly statutes to permit separate owners of separate patents by cross-licenses or other arrangements to fix the prices to be charged by them and their licensees for their respective products. Where two or more patentees with competitive, non-infringing patents combine them and fix prices on all devices produced under any of the patents, competition is impeded to a greater degree than-where a single patentee fixes prices for his licensees. The struggle for profit is less acute. Even when, as here, the devices are not commercially competitive because the subservient patent cannot be practiced without consent of the dominant, the statement holds good. The stimulus to seek competitive inventions is reduced by the mutually advantageous price-fixing arrangement. Compare, as to acts by a single entity and those done in combination with others, Swift & Co. v. United States, 196 U. S. 375, 396; United States v. Reading Co., 226 U. S. 324, 357; Eastern States Lumber Dealers’ Assn. v. United States, 234 U. S. 600; Binderup v. Pathé Exchange, 263 U. S. 291. The merging of the benefits of price fixing under the patents restrains trade in violation of the Sherman Act in the same way as would the fixing of prices between producers of nonpatentable goods.
If the objection is made that a price agreement between a patentee and a licensee equally restrains trade, the answer is not that there is no restraint in such an arrangement but, when the validity of the General Electric case is assumed, that reasonable restraint accords with the patent monopoly granted by the patent law. Where a patentee undertakes to exploit his patent by price fixing through agreements with anyone,' he must give consideration to the limitations of the Sherman Act on such action. The patent statutes give an exclusive right to the patentee to make, use and vend and to assign any interest in this monopoly to others. The General Electric case construes that as giving a right to a patentee to license another to make and vend at a fixed price. There is no suggestion in the patent statutes of authority to combine with other patent owners to fix prices on articles covered by the respective patents. As the Sherman Act prohibits agreements to fix prices, any arrangement between patentees runs afoul of that prohibition and is outside the patent monopoly.
We turn now to the situation here presented of an agreement where one of the patentees is authorized to fix prices under the patents. The argument of respondents is that if a patentee may contract with his licensee to fix prices, it is logical to permit any number of patentees to combine their patents and authorize one patentee to fix prices for any number of licensees. In this present agreement Southern and Line have entered into an arrangement by which Line is authorized to and has fixed prices for devices produced under the Lemmon and Schultz patents. It seems to us, however, that such argument fails to take into account the cumulative effect of such multiple agreements in establishing an intention to restrain. The obvious purpose and effect of the agreement was to enable Line to fix prices for the patented devices. Even where the agreements to fix prices are limited to a small number of patentees, we are of the opinion that it crosses the barrier erected by the Sherman Act against restraint of trade though the restraint is by patentees and their licensees.
As early as 1912, in Standard Sanitary Mfg. Co. v. United States, 226 U. S. 20, this Court unanimously condemned price limitation under pooled patent licenses. As the arrangement was coupled with an agreement for limitation on jobbers’ resale prices, the case may be said to be indecisive on patent license agreements for price control of a product without the jobber’s resale provision. No such distinction appears in the opinion. This Court has not departed from that condemnation of price fixing. Even in Standard Oil Co. v. United States, 283 U. S. 163, where an arrangement by which the patentees pooled their oil cracking patents and divided among themselves royalties from licensees fixed by the pooling contracts was upheld, the theory was reiterated that a price limitation for the product was unlawful per se. Pp. 170, 173, 175. Of course, if a purpose or plan to monopolize or restrain trade is found, the arrangement is unlawful. P. 174. The Government’s contention in that case that the limitation on royalties in itself violated the Sherman Act by fixing an element in the price was dismissed because the Court was of the view that controlled royalties were effective as price regulators only when the pat-entees dominated the industry. P. 174. This domination was thought by this Court not to have been proven.
When a plan for the patentee to fix the sale prices of patented synthetic hardboard on sales made through formerly competing manufacturers and distributors, designated as del credere agents, came before this Court on allegations that the plan was in violation of the Sherman Act, we invalidated the scheme. We said that the pat-entee could not use its competitor’s sales organization as its own agents so as to control prices. The patent monopoly, under such circumstances, we said, was exhausted on disposition of the product to the distributor. We reasoned that such an arrangement was a restriction on our free economy, “a powerful inducement to abandon competition,” and that it derogated “from the general law [against price limitation] beyond the necessary requirements of the patent statute.” United States v. Masonite Corp., 316 U. S. 265, 281, 280.
We think that this general rule against price limitation clearly applies in the circumstances of this case. Even if a patentee has a right in the absence of a purpose to restrain or monopolize trade, to fix prices on a licensee’s sale of the patented product in order to exploit properly his invention or inventions, when patentees join in an agreement as here to maintain prices on their several products, that agreement, however advantageous it may be to stimulate the broader use of patents, is unlawful per se under the Sherman Act. It is more than an exploitation of patents. There is the vice that patentees have combined to fix prices on patented products. It is not the cross-licensing to promote efficient production which is unlawful. There is nothing unlawful in the requirement that a licensee should pay a royalty to compensate the patentee for the invention and the use of the patent. The unlawful element is the use of the control that such cross-licensing gives to fix prices. The mere fact that a patentee uses his patent as whole or part consideration in a contract by which he and another or other patentees in the same patent field arrange for the practice of any patent involved in such a way that royalties or other earnings or benefits from the patent or patents are shared among the patentees, parties to the agreement, subjects that contract to the prohibitions of the Sherman Act whenever the selling price, for things produced under a patent involved, is fixed by the contract or a license authorized by the contract. Licensees under the contract who as here enter into license arrangements, with price-fixing provisions, with knowledge of the contract, are equally subject to the prohibitions.
The decree of the District Court is reversed and the case is remanded for the entry of an appropriate decree in accordance with this opinion.
Mr. Justice Jackson took no part in the consideration or decision of this case.
26 Stat. 209, as amended by 36 Stat. 1167:
“Sec. 1. 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, is hereby declared to be illegal....”
“Sec. 4. The several district courts of the United States are invested with jurisdiction to prevent and restrain violations of this act; and it shall be the duty of the several district attorneys of the United States, in their respective districts, under the direction of the Attorney-General, to institute proceedings in equity to prevent and restrain such violations....”
The names of appellees and the abbreviations hereinafter used as well as the percentage of production of the dropout fuse devices manufactured under the patents are listed below:
Appellee Abbrev
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | H | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Justice Marshall
delivered the opinion of the Court.
The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC or Commission) has statutory authority to conduct nonpublic investigations into possible violations of the securities laws and, in the course thereof, to issue subpoenas to obtain relevant information. The question before us is whether the Commission must notify the “target” of such an investigation when it issues a subpoena to a third party.
r — i
This case represents one shard of a prolonged investigation by the SEC into the affairs of respondent Harry F. Magnu-son and persons and firms with whom he has dealt. The investigation began in 1980, when the Commission’s staff reported to the Commission that information in their possession tended to show that Magnuson and others had been trading in the stock of specified mining companies in a manner vio-lative of the registration, reporting, and antifraud provisions of the Securities Act of 1933 and the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. In response, the Commission issued a Formal Order of Investigation authorizing employees of its Seattle Regional Office to initiate a “private investigation” into the transactions in question and, if necessary, to subpoena testimony and documents “deemed relevant or material to the inquiry.” Complaint, Exhibit A, pp. 3-4.
Acting on that authority, members of the Commission staff subpoenaed financial records in the possession of respondent Jerry T. O’Brien, Inc. (O’Brien), a broker-dealer firm, and respondent Pennaluna & Co. (Pennaluna). O’Brien voluntarily complied, but Pennaluna refused to disgorge the requested materials. Soon thereafter, in response to several inquiries by O’Brien’s counsel, a member of the SEC staff informed O’Brien that it was a “subject” of the investigation.
O’Brien, Pennaluna, and their respective owners promptly filed a suit in the District Court for the Eastern District of Washington, seeking to enjoin the Commission’s investigation and to prevent Magnuson from complying with subpoenas that had been issued to him. Magnuson filed a cross-claim, also seeking to block portions of the investigation. O’Brien then filed motions seeking authority to depose the Commission’s officers and to conduct expedited discovery into the Commission’s files.
The District Court denied respondents’ discovery motions and soon thereafter dismissed their claims for injunctive relief. Jerry T. O’Brien, Inc. v. SEC, No. C-81-546 (ED Wash., Jan. 20, 1982). The principal ground for the court’s decision was that respondents would have a full opportunity to assert their objections to the basis and scope of the SEC’s investigation if and when the Commission instituted a subpoena enforcement action. The court did, however, rule that the Commission’s outstanding subpoenas met the requirements outlined in United States v. Powell, 379 U. S. 48 (1964), for determining whether an administrative summons is judicially enforceable. Specifically, the District Court held that the Commission had a legitimate purpose in issuing the subpoenas, that the requested information was relevant and was not already in the Commission’s possession, and that the issuance of the subpoenas comported with pertinent procedural requirements.
Following the District Court’s decision, the SEC issued several subpoenas to third parties. In response, Magnuson and O’Brien renewed their request to the District Court for injunctive relief, accompanying the request with a motion, pursuant to Rule 62(c) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, for a stay pending appeal. For the first time, respondents expressly sought notice of the subpoenas issued by the Commission to third parties. Reasoning that respondents lacked standing to challenge voluntary compliance with subpoenas by third parties, and that, in any subsequent proceeding brought by the SEC, respondents could move to suppress evidence the Commission had obtained from third parties through abusive subpoenas, the District Court denied the requested relief. Jerry T. O’Brien, Inc. v. SEC, No. C-81-546 (ED Wash., Mar. 25, 1982).
A panel of the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit affirmed the District Court’s denial of injunctive relief with regard to the subpoenas directed at respondents themselves, agreeing with the lower court that respondents had an adequate remedy at law for challenging those subpoenas. 704 F. 2d 1065, 1066-1067 (1983). However, the Court of Appeals reversed the District Court’s denial of respondents’ request for notice of subpoenas issued to third parties. In the Court of Appeals’ view, “targets” of SEC investigations “have a right to be investigated consistently with the Powell standards.” Id., at 1068. To enable targets to enforce this right, the court held that they must be notified of subpoenas issued to others. Id., at 1069.
The Court of Appeals denied the Commission’s request for rehearing and rejected its suggestion for rehearing en banc. 719 F. 2d 300 (1983). Judge Kennedy, joined by four other judges, dissented from the rejection, arguing that the panel decision was unprecedented and threatened the ability of the SEC and other agencies to conduct nonpublic investigations into possible violations of federal law. Ibid.
We granted certiorari because of the importance of the issue presented. 464 U. S. 1038 (1984). We now reverse.
1 — I h-l
Congress has vested the SEC with broad authority to conduct investigations into possible violations of the federal securities laws and to demand production of evidence relevant to such investigations. E. g., 15 U. S. C. §§77s(b), 78u(a), (b). Subpoenas issued by the Commission are not self-enforcing, and the recipients thereof are not subject to penalty for refusal to obey. But the Commission is authorized to bring suit in federal court to compel compliance with its process. E. g., 15 U. S. C. §§77v(b), 78u(c).
No provision in the complex of statutes governing the SEC’s investigative power expressly obliges the Commission to notify the “target” of an investigation when it issues a subpoena to a third party. If such an obligation is to be imposed on the Commission, therefore, it must be derived from one of three sources: a constitutional provision; an understanding on the part of Congress, inferable from the structure of the securities laws, regarding how the SEC should conduct its inquiries; or the general standards governing judicial enforcement of administrative subpoenas enunciated in United States v. Powell, 379 U. S. 48 (1964), and its progeny. Examination of these three potential bases for the Court of Appeals’ ruling leaves us unpersuaded that the notice requirement fashioned by that court is warranted.
A
Our prior cases foreclose any constitutional argument respondents might make in defense of the judgment below. The opinion of the Court in Hannah v. Larche, 363 U. S. 420 (1960), leaves no doubt that neither the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment nor the Confrontation Clause of the Sixth Amendment is offended when a federal administrative agency, without notifying a person under investigation, uses its subpoena power to gather evidence adverse to him. The Due Process Clause is not implicated under such circumstances because an administrative investigation adjudicates no legal rights, id., at 440-443, and the Confrontation Clause does not come into play until the initiation of criminal proceedings, id., at 440, n. 16. These principles plainly cover an inquiry by the SEC into possible violations of the securities laws.
It is also settled that a person inculpated by materials sought by a subpoena issued to a third party cannot seek shelter in the Self-Incrimination Clause of the Fifth Amendment. The rationale of this doctrine is that the Constitution proscribes only compelled self-incrimination, and, whatever may be the pressures exerted upon the person to whom a subpoena is directed, the subpoena surely does not “compel” anyone else to be a witness against himself. Fisher v. United States, 425 U. S. 391, 397 (1976); Couch v. United States, 409 U. S. 322, 328-329 (1973). If the “target” of an investigation by the SEC has no Fifth Amendment right to challenge enforcement of a subpoena directed at a third party, he clearly can assert no derivative right to notice when the Commission issues such a subpoena.
Finally, respondents cannot invoke the Fourth Amendment in support of the Court of Appeals’ decision. It is established that, when a person communicates information to a third party even on the understanding that the communication is confidential, he cannot object if the third party conveys that information or records thereof to law enforcement authorities. United States v. Miller, 425 U. S. 435, 443 (1976). Relying on that principle, the Court has held that a customer of a bank cannot challenge on Fourth Amendment grounds the admission into evidence in a criminal prosecution of financial records obtained by the Government from his bank pursuant to allegedly defective subpoenas, despite the fact that he was given no notice of the subpoenas. Id., at 443, and n. 5. See also Donaldson v. United States, 400 U. S. 517, 522 (1971) (Internal Revenue summons directed to third party does not trench upon any interests protected by the Fourth Amendment). These rulings disable respondents from arguing that notice of subpoenas issued to third parties is necessary to allow a target to prevent an unconstitutional search or seizure of his papers.
B
The language and structure of the statutes administered by the Commission afford respondents no greater aid. The provisions vesting the SEC with the power to issue and seek enforcement of subpoenas are expansive. For example, § 19(b) of the Securities Act of 1933, 48 Stat. 85-86, empowers the SEC to conduct investigations “which, in the opinion of the Commission, are necessary and proper for the enforcement” of the Act and to “require the production of any books, papers, or other documents which the Commission deems relevant or material to the inquiry.” 15 U. S. C. §77s(b). Similarly, §§ 21(a) and 21(b) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, 48 Stat. 899, 900, authorize the Commission to “make such investigations as it deems necessary to determine whether any person has violated, is violating, or is about to violate any provision of this chapter [or] the rules or regulations thereunder” and to demand to see any papers “the Commission deems relevant or material to the inquiry.” 15 U. S. C. §§78u(a), (b).
More generally, both statutes vest the SEC with “power to make such rules and regulations as may be necessary or appropriate to implement [their] provisions . . . .” 15 U. S. C. §§ 77s(a), 78w(a)(l). Relying on this authority, the SEC has promulgated a variety of rules governing its investigations, one of which provides that, “[u]nless otherwise ordered by the Commission, all formal investigative proceedings shall be non-public.” 17 CFR §203.5 (1983). In other words, the Commission has formally adopted the policy of not routinely informing anyone, including targets, of the existence and progress of its investigations. To our knowledge, Congress has never questioned this exercise by the Commission of its statutory power. And, in another context, we have held that rulemaking authority comparable to that enjoyed by the SEC is broad enough to empower an agency to “establish standards for determining whether to conduct an investigation publicly or in private.” FCC v. Schreiber, 381 U. S. 279, 292 (1965).
It appears, in short, that Congress intended to vest the SEC with considerable discretion in determining when and how to investigate possible violations of the statutes administered by the Commission. We discern no evidence that Congress wished or expected that the Commission would adopt any particular procedures for notifying “targets” of investigations when it sought information from third parties.
The inference that the relief sought by respondents is not necessary to give effect to congressional intent is reinforced by the fact that, in one special context, Congress has imposed on the Commission an obligation to notify persons directly affected by its subpoenas. In 1978, in response to this Court’s decision in United States v. Miller, supra, Congress enacted the Right to Financial Privacy Act, 92 Stat. 3697,12 U. S. C. § 3401 et seq. That statute accords customers of banks and similar financial institutions certain rights to be notified of and to challenge in court administrative subpoenas of financial records in the possession of the banks. The most salient feature of the Act is the narrow scope of the entitlements it creates. Thus, it carefully limits the kinds of customers to whom it applies, §§3401(4), (5), and the types of records they may seek to protect, §3401(2). A customer’s ability to challenge a subpoena is cabined by strict procedural requirements. For example, he must assert his claim within a short period of time, § 3410(a), and cannot appeal an adverse determination until the Government has completed its investigation, § 3410(d). Perhaps most importantly, the statute is drafted in a fashion that minimizes the risk that customers’ objections to subpoenas will delay or frustrate agency investigations. Thus, a court presented with such a challenge is required to rule upon it within seven days of the Government’s response, § 3410(b), and the pertinent statutes of limitations are tolled while the claim is pending, § 3419. Since 1980, the SEC has been subject to the constraints of the Right to Financial Privacy Act. Pub. L. 96-433, § 3, 94 Stat. 1855, 15 U. S. C. §78u(h)(l). When it made the statute applicable to the SEC, however, Congress empowered the Commission in prescribed circumstances to seek ex parte orders authorizing it to delay notifying bank customers when it subpoenas information about them, thereby further curtailing the ability of persons under investigation to impede the agency’s inquiries. 15 U. S. C. §78u(h)(2).
Considerable insight into the legislators’ conception of the scope of the SEC’s investigatory power can be gleaned from the foregoing developments. We know that Congress recently had occasion to consider the authority of the SEC and other agencies to issue and enforce administrative subpoenas without notifying the persons whose affairs may be exposed thereby. In response, Congress enacted a set of carefully tailored limitations on the agencies’ power, designed “to strike a balance between customers’ right of privacy and the need of law enforcement agencies to obtain financial records pursuant to legitimate investigations.” H. R. Rep. No. 95-1383, p. 33 (1978). The manner in which Congress dealt with this problem teaches us two things. First, it seems apparent that Congress assumed that the SEC was not and would not be subject to a general obligation to notify “targets” of its investigations whenever it issued administrative subpoenas. Second, the complexity and subtlety of the procedures embodied in the Right to Financial Privacy Act suggest that Congress would find troubling the crude and unqualified notification requirement ordered by the Court of Appeals.
C
The last of the three potential footings for the remedy sought by respondents is some other entitlement that would be effectuated thereby. Respondents seek to derive such an entitlement from a combination of our prior decisions. Distilled, their argument is as follows: A subpoena issued by the SEC must comport with the standards set forth in our decision in United States v. Powell, 379 U. S., at 57-58. Not only the recipient of an SEC subpoena, but also any person who would be affected by compliance therewith, has a substantive right, under Powell, to insist that those standards are met. A target of an SEC investigation may assert the foregoing right in two ways. First, relying on Reisman v. Caplin, 375 U. S. 440, 445 (1964), and Donaldson v. United States, 400 U. S., at 529, the target may seek permissive intervention in an enforcement action brought by the Commission against the subpoena recipient. Second, if the recipient of the subpoena threatens voluntarily to turn over the requested information, the target “might restrain compliance” by the recipient, thereby forcing the Commission to institute an enforcement suit. See Reisman v. Caplin, supra, at 450. A target can avail himself of these options only if he is aware of the existence of subpoenas directed at others. To ensure that ignorance does not prevent a target from asserting his rights, respondents conclude, the Commission must notify him when it issues a subpoena to a third party.
There are several tenuous links in respondents’ argument. Especially debatable are the proposition that a target has a substantive right to be investigated in a manner consistent with the Powell standards and the assertion that a target may obtain a restraining order preventing voluntary compliance by a third party with an administrative subpoena. Certainly we have never before expressly so held. For the present, however, we may assume, arguendo, that a target enjoys each of the substantive and procedural rights identified by respondents. Nevertheless, we conclude that it would be inappropriate to elaborate upon those entitlements by mandating notification of targets whenever the Commission issues subpoenas.
Two considerations underlie our decision on this issue. First, administration of the notice requirement advocated by respondents would be highly burdensome for both the Commission and the courts. The most obvious difficulty would involve identification of the persons and organizations that should be considered “targets” of investigations. The SEC often undertakes investigations into suspicious securities transactions without any knowledge of which of the parties involved may have violated the law. To notify all potential wrongdoers in such a situation of the issuance of each subpoena would be virtually impossible. The Commission would thus be obliged to determine the point at which enough evidence had been assembled to focus suspicion on a manageable subset of the participants in the transaction, thereby lending them the status of “targets” and entitling them to notice of the outstanding subpoenas directed at others. The complexity of that task is apparent. Even in cases in which the Commission could identify with reasonable ease the principal targets of its inquiry, another problem would arise. In such circumstances, a person not considered a target by the Commission could contend that he deserved that status and therefore should be given notice of subpoenas issued to others. To assess a claim of this sort, a district court would be obliged to conduct some kind of hearing to determine the scope and thrust of the ongoing investigation. Implementation of this new remedy would drain the resources of the judiciary as well as the Commission.
Second, the imposition of a notice requirement on the SEC would substantially increase the ability of persons who have something to hide to impede legitimate investigations by the Commission. A target given notice of every subpoena issued to third parties would be able to discourage the recipients from complying, and then further delay disclosure of damaging information by seeking intervention in all enforcement actions brought by the Commission. More seriously, the understanding of the progress of an SEC inquiry that would flow from knowledge of which persons had received subpoenas would enable an unscrupulous target to destroy or alter documents, intimidate witnesses, or transfer securities or funds so that they could not be reached by the Government. Especially in the context of securities regulation, where speed in locating and halting violations of the law is so important, we would be loathe to place such potent weapons in the hands of persons with a desire to keep the Commission at bay.
We acknowledge that our ruling may have the effect in practice of preventing some persons under investigation by the SEC from asserting objections to subpoenas issued by the Commission to third parties for improper reasons. However, to accept respondents’ proposal “would unwarrantedly cast doubt upon and stultify the [Commission’s] every investigatory move,” Donaldson v. United States, 400 U. S., at 531. Particularly in view of Congress’ manifest disinclination to require the Commission to notify targets whenever it seeks information from others, see supra, at 746-747, we refuse so to curb the Commission’s exercise of its statutory power.
Ill
Nothing in this opinion should be construed to imply that it would be improper for the SEC to inform a target that it has issued a subpoena to someone else. But, for the reasons indicated above, we decline to curtail the Commission’s discretion to determine when such notice would be appropriate and when it would not. 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.
A Formal Order of Investigation is issued by the Commission only after its staff has conducted a preliminary inquiry, in the course of which “no process is issued [nor] testimony compelled.” 17 CFR § 202.5(a) (1983). The purposes of such an order seem to be to define the scope of the ensuing investigation and to establish limits within which the staff may resort to compulsory process. See H. R. Rep. No. 96-1321, pt. 1, p. 2 (1980).
The relationships between O'Brien, Pennaluna, and their individual owners are not fully elucidated by the papers before us. Because, for the purposes of this litigation, the interests of all of these respondents are identical, hereinafter they will be referred to collectively as O’Brien, except when divergence in their treatment by the courts below requires that they be differentiated.
The principal bases of O’Brien’s suit were that the SEC’s Formal Order of Investigation was defective, that the investigation did not have a valid purpose, that the Commission should have afforded the subjects of the investigation a chance to comment upon it, and that the issues around which the ease revolved had been litigated and settled in another proceeding. Complaint 9-15.
During the pendency of the suit, the Commission, at the District Court’s request, refrained from seeking enforcement of its outstanding subpoenas.
Because no subpoenas were then outstanding against Jerry T. O’Brien, Inc., or O’Brien in his personal capacity, the District Court declined to determine whether the Commission had complied with the Powell standards in demanding records from those respondents.
The District Court granted respondents a brief stay to enable them to petition the Court of Appeals for a longer stay pending disposition of the appeal, but the Court of Appeals refused to enjoin the Commission from proceeding with its investigation. The SEC then filed various subpoena enforcement actions. The Commission has prevailed in at least one of those suits, SEC v. Magnuson, No. 82-1178-Z (Mass., Aug. 11, 1982) (enforcing subpoenas to Magnuson family members); another is still pending, see SEC v. Magnuson, et al., No. C-82-282-RJM (ED Wash., filed Apr. 19, 1982). Cf. Magnuson v. SEC, No. 82-2042 (Idaho, July 27, 1982) (rejecting motion by Magnuson and his wife to quash subpoenas directed to a financial institution).
Because respondents have not cross-petitioned, the validity of the Court of Appeals’ ruling on the merits of respondents’ claims for injunctive relief with regard to the subpoenas directed at themselves is not before us.
The provisions cited in the text are the pertinent provisions of the Securities Act of 1933 and the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, respectively. In conducting the investigation that gives rise to this case, the Commission relied solely on those Acts. Many other statutes administered by the SEC contain similar provisions. See 15 U. S. C. § 79r (Public Utility Holding Company Act of 1935); 15 U. S. C. §77uuu(a) (Trust Indenture Act of 1939); 15 U. S. C. §§ 80a-41(a), (b) (Investment Company Act of 1940); 15 U. S. C. §§ 80b-9(a), (b) (Investment Advisers Act of 1940).
The analogous enforcement provisions for the other statutes administered by the Commission are: 15 U. S. C. § 79r(d) (Public Utility Holding Company Act of 1935); 15 U. S. C. § 77uuu(a) (incorporating by reference 15 U. S. C. §77v(b)) (Trust Indenture Act of 1939); 15 U. S. C. §80a-41(c) (Investment Company Act of 1940); 15 U. S. C. § 80b-9(c) (Investment Advisers Act of 1940).
Cf. United States v. Doe, 465 U. S. 605, 612-613 (1984).
It should be noted that any Fourth Amendment claims that might be asserted by respondents are substantially weaker than those of the bank customer in Miller because respondents, unlike the customer, cannot argue that the subpoena recipients were required by law to keep the records in question. Cf. 425 U. S., at 455-456 (Marshall, J., dissenting).
Cf. Donovan v. Lone Steer, Inc., 464 U. S. 408, 414-415 (1984) (discussing the Fourth Amendment rights of the recipient of an administrative subpoena).
The other statutes administered by the SEC contain similarly broad delegations of investigatory power. See the provisions cited in n. 8, supra.
In practice, virtually all investigations conducted by the Commission are nonpublic. See 3 L. Loss, Securities Regulation 1955 (2d ed. 1961); SEC, Report of the Advisory Committee on Enforcement Policies and Practices 18 (1972).
See H. R. Rep. No. 95-1383, p. 34 (1978) (the purpose of the statute is to fill the gap left by the ruling in Miller that a bank customer has “no standing under the Constitution to contest Government access to financial records”).
In this regard, it is noteworthy that the pertinent congressional Committees expressed their desire that the judiciary not supplement the remedies created by the statute with any implied causes of action. See H. R. Rep. No. 96-1321, pt. 1, p. 10 (1980); H. R. Rep. No. 95-1383, pp. 54, 56, 225, 230 (1978).
The significance of these two lessons is not that they illuminate Congress’ intent when it enacted or when it subsequently amended the crucial provisions vesting the Commission with investigatory authority, see supra, at 743-744. Rather, they inform our determination whether adoption of the remedy proposed by respondents would comport with or disrupt the system of statutes governing the issuance and trading of securities, as that system has been modified and refined by Congress in the years since 1933. In this regard, our inquiry is analogous to the kind of analysis contemplated by the third of the four factors we consider when deciding whether it would be appropriate to create a private right of action as an adjunct to a right created by statute: “[I]s it consistent with the underlying purposes of the legislative scheme to imply such a remedy . . . ?” See, e. g., Cannon v. University of Chicago, 441 U. S. 677, 688, n. 9, 703-708 (1979); Cort v. Ash, 422 U. S. 66, 78 (1975).
The holding of Powell was that the Commissioner of Internal Revenue need not demonstrate probable cause in order to secure judicial enforcement of a summons issued pursuant to §7602 of the Internal Revenue Code. The Court then went on to sketch the requirements that the Commissioner would be obliged to satisfy:
“He must show that the investigation will be conducted pursuant to a legitimate purpose, that the inquiry may be relevant to that purpose, that the information sought is not already within the Commissioner’s possession, and that the administrative steps required by the Code have been followed .... [A] court may not permit its process to be abused. Such an abuse would take place if the summons had been issued for an improper purpose, such as to harass the taxpayer or to put pressure on him to settle a collateral dispute, or for any other purpose reflecting on the good faith of the particular investigation.” 379 U. S., at 57-58 (footnote omitted).
See United States v. LaSalle National Bank, 437 U. S. 298, 313-314 (1978). Some lower courts have held or assumed that the SEC must satisfy these standards in order to obtain enforcement of its subpoenas. E. g., SEC v. ESM Government Securities, Inc., 645 F. 2d 310, 313-314 (CA5 1981). But cf. In re EEOC, 709 F. 2d 392, 398, n. 2 (CA5 1983). Respondents contend that the obligation of an agency to follow pertinent “administrative steps” means in this context that any subpoena issued under the auspices of the SEC must come within the purview of a Formal Order of Investigation, see n. 1, supra. Because of the manner in which we dispose of this case, we have no occasion to pass upon respondents’ characterization or application of our decision in Powell.
In Reisman, the Court indicated in dictum that “both parties summoned [under § 7602] and those affected by a disclosure may appear or intervene before the District Court and challenge the summons by asserting their constitutional or other claims.” 375 U. S., at 445; see id., at 449. Our decision in Donaldson made clear that the right of a third party to intervene in an enforcement action “is permissive only and is not mandatory,” 400 U. S., at 529, and that determination whether intervention should be granted in a particular case requires “[t]he usual process of balancing opposing equities,” id., at 530.
Neither the pertinent statutes nor the Commission’s regulations define the term “target,” so either the Commission or the courts would be obliged at the outset to develop a working definition of the term.
So, for example, the Commission is sometimes called upon to investigate unusually active trading in the stock of a company during the period immediately preceding a tender offer for that stock. In such a case, the Commission may have no idea which (if any) of the thousands of purchasers had improper access to inside information.
Cf. 704 F. 2d 1065, 1069 (CA9 1983) (case below) (“The target’s right could be asserted ... by other appropriate district court proceedings”).
This remedy would also have the effect of laying bare the state of the Commission’s knowledge and intentions midway through investigations. For the reasons sketched below, such exposure could significantly hamper the Commission’s efforts to police violations of the securities laws.
See PepsiCo v. SEC, 563 F. Supp. 828, 832 (SDNY 1983) (To impose a notification requirement on the SEC “would necessarily permit all targets — and presumably all potential targets — effectively to monitor the course and conduct of agency investigations. Experience and common sense should establish that such a power would be greatly abused . . .”); cf. NLRB v. Robbins Tire & Rubber Co., 437 U. S. 214, 239 (1978) (citing the risk that employers or unions would attempt to “coerce or intimidate employees and others who have given statements” as a reason for holding exempt from disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act statements made to the National Labor Relations Board).
Cf. United States v. Arthur Young & Co., 465 U. S. 805, 816 (1984) (“ ‘[A]bsent unambiguous directions from Congress,’ ” the summons power conferred on the Internal Revenue Service by statute should not be restricted by the courts) (quoting United States v. Bisceglia, 420 U. S. 141, 150 (1975)).
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
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 an opinion, Parts I, II, and IV of which are the opinion of the Court, and Part III of which is a dissenting opinion.
The Arizona Supreme Court ruled in this case that respondent Oreste Fulminante’s confession, received in evidence at his trial for murder, had been coerced and that its use against him was barred by the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution. The court also held that the harmless-error rule could not be used to save the conviction. We affirm the judgment of the Arizona court, although for different reasons than those upon which that court relied.
I
Early in the morning of September 14, 1982, Fulminante called the Mesa, Arizona, Police Department to report that his 11-year-old stepdaughter, Jeneane Michelle Hunt, was missing. He had been caring for Jeneane while his wife, Jeneane’s mother, was in the hospital. Two days later, Je-neane’s body was found in the desert east of Mesa. She had been shot twice in the head at close range with a large caliber weapon, and a ligature was around her neck. Because of the decomposed condition of the body, it was impossible to tell whether she had been sexually assaulted.
Fulminante’s statements to police concerning Jeneane’s disappearance and his relationship with her contained a number of inconsistencies, and he became a suspect in her killing. When no charges were filed against him, Fulminante left Arizona for New Jersey. Fulminante was later convicted in New Jersey on federal charges of possession of a firearm by a felon.
Fulminante was incarcerated in the Ray Brook Federal Correctional Institution in New York. There he became friends with another inmate, Anthony Sarivola, then serving a 60-day sentence for extortion. The two men came to spend several hours a day together. Sarivola, a former police officer, had been involved in loansharking for organized crime but then became a paid informant for the Federal Bureau of Investigation. While at Ray Brook, he masqueraded as an organized crime figure. After becoming friends with Ful-minante, Sarivola heard a rumor that Fulminante was suspected of killing a child in Arizona. Sarivola then raised the subject with Fulminante in several conversations, but Ful-minante repeatedly denied any involvement in Jeneane’s death. During one conversation, he told Sarivola that Jeneane had been killed by bikers looking for drugs; on another occasion, he said he did not know what had happened. Sarivola passed this information on to an agent of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, who instructed Sarivola to find out more.
Sarivola learned more one evening in October 1983, as he and Fulminante walked together around the prison track. Sarivola said that he knew Fulminante was “starting to get some tough treatment and whatnot” from other inmates because of the rumor. App. 83. Sarivola offered to protect Fulminante from his fellow inmates, but told him, “ ‘You have to tell me about it,’ you know. I mean, in other words, ‘For me to give you any help.’ ” Ibid. Fulminante then admitted to Sarivola that he had driven Jeneane to the desert on his motorcycle, where he choked her, sexually assaulted her, and made her beg for her life, before shooting her twice in the head. Id., at 84-85.
Sarivola was released from prison in November 1983. Fulminante was released the following May, only to be arrested the next month for another weapons violation. On September 4, 1984, Fulminante was indicted in Arizona for the first-degree murder of Jeneane.
Prior to trial, Fulminante moved to suppress the statement he had given Sarivola in prison, as well as a second confession he had given to Donna Sarivola, then Anthony Sarivola’s fiancée and later his wife, following his May 1984 release from prison. He asserted that the confession to Sarivola was coerced, and that the second confession was the “fruit” of the first. Id., at 6-8. Following the hearing, the trial court denied the motion to suppress, specifically finding that, based on the stipulated facts, the confessions were voluntary. Id., at 44, 63. The State introduced both confessions as evidence at trial, and on December 19, 1985, Fulminante was convicted of Jeneane’s murder. He was subsequently sentenced to death.
Fulminante appealed, arguing, among other things, that his confession to Sarivola was the product of coercion and that its admission at trial violated his rights to due process under the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution. After considering the evidence at trial as well as the stipulated facts before the trial court on the motion to suppress, the Arizona Supreme Court held that the confession was coerced, but initially determined that the admission of the confession at trial was harmless error, because of the overwhelming nature of the evidence against Fulminante. 161 Ariz. 237, 778 P. 2d 602 (1988). Upon Fulminante’s motion for reconsideration, however, the court ruled that this Court’s precedent precluded the use of the harmless-error analysis in the case of a coerced confession. Id., at 262, 778 P. 2d, at 627. The court therefore reversed the conviction and ordered that Fulminante be retried without the use of the confession to Sarivola. Because of differing views in the state and federal courts over whether the admission at trial of a coerced confession is subject to a harmless-error analysis, we granted the State’s petition for certiorari, 494 U. S. 1055 (1990). Although a majority of this Court finds that such a confession is subject to a harmless-error analysis, for the reasons set forth below, we affirm the judgment of the Arizona court.
II
We deal first with the State’s contention that the court below erred in holding Fulminante’s confession to have been coerced. The State argues that it is the totality of the circumstances that determines whether Fulminante’s confession was coerced, cf. Schneckloth v. Bustamonte, 412 U. S. 218, 226 (1973), but contends that rather than apply this standard, the Arizona court applied a “but for” test, under which the court found that but for the promise given by Sarivola, Fulminante would not have confessed. Brief for Petitioner 14-15. In support of this argument, the State points to the Arizona court’s reference to Bram v. United States, 168 U. S. 532 (1897). Although the Court noted in Bram that a confession cannot be obtained by “‘any direct or implied promises, however slight, nor by the exertion of any improper influence,’” id., at 542-543 (quoting 3 H. Smith & A. Keep, Russell on Crimes and Misdemeanors 478 (6th ed. 1896)), it is clear that this passage from Bram, which under current precedent does not state the standard for determining the voluntariness of a confession, was not relied on by the Arizona court in reaching its conclusion. Rather, the court cited this language as part of a longer quotation from an Arizona case which accurately described the State’s burden of proof for establishing voluntariness. See 161 Ariz., at 244, 778 P. 2d, at 609 (citing State v. Thomas, 148 Ariz. 225, 227, 714 P. 2d 395, 397 (1986); Malloy v. Hogan, 378 U. S. 1, 7 (1964); and Bram, supra, at 542-543). Indeed, the Arizona Supreme Court stated that a “determination regarding the voluntariness of a confession... must be viewed in a totality of the circumstances,” 161 Ariz., at 243, 778 P. 2d, at 608, and under that standard plainly found that Fulminante’s statement to Sarivola had been coerced.
In applying the totality of the circumstances test to determine that the confession to Sarivola was coerced, the Arizona Supreme Court focused on a number of relevant facts. First, the court noted that “because [Fulminante] was an alleged child murderer, he was in danger of physical harm at the hands of other inmates.” Ibid. In addition, Sarivola was aware that Fulminante had been receiving “ ‘rough treatment from the guys.’” Id., at 244, n. 1, 778 P. 2d, at 609, n. 1. Using his knowledge of these threats, Sarivola offered to protect Fulminante in exchange for a confession to Je-neane’s murder, id., at 243, 778 P. 2d, at 608, and “[i]n response to Sarivola’s offer of protection, [Fulminante] confessed.” Id., at 244, 778 P. 2d, at 609. Agreeing with Ful-minante that “Sarivola’s promise was ‘extremely coercive,’” id., at 243, 778 P. 2d, at 608, the Arizona court declared: “[T]he confession was obtained as a direct result of extreme coercion and was tendered in the belief that the defendant’s life was in jeopardy if he did not confess. This is a true coerced confession in every sense of the word.” Id., at 262, 778 P. 2d, at 627.
We normally give great deference to the factual findings of the state court. Davis v. North Carolina, 384 U. S. 737, 741 (1966); Haynes v. Washington, 373 U. S. 503, 515 (1963); Culombe v. Connecticut, 367 U. S. 568, 603-604 (1961). Nevertheless, “the ultimate issue of ‘voluntariness’ is a legal question requiring independent federal determination.” Miller v. Fenton, 474 U. S. 104, 110 (1985). See also Mincey v. Arizona, 437 U. S. 385, 398 (1978); Davis, supra, at 741-742; Haynes, supra, at 515; Chambers v. Florida, 309 U. S. 227, 228-229 (1940).
Although the question is a close one, we agree with the Arizona Supreme Court’s conclusion that Fulminante’s confession was coerced. The Arizona Supreme Court found a credible threat of physical violence unless Fulminante confessed. Our cases have made clear that a finding of coercion need not depend upon actual violence by a government agent; a credible threat is sufficient. As we have said, “coercion can be mental as well as physical, and... the blood of the accused is not the only hallmark of an unconstitutional inquisition.” Blackburn v. Alabama, 361 U. S. 199, 206 (1960). See also Culombe, supra, at 584; Reck v. Pate, 367 U. S. 433, 440-441 (1961); Rogers v. Richmond, 365 U. S. 534, 540 (1961); Payne v. Arkansas, 356 U. S. 560, 561 (1958); Watts v. Indiana, 338 U. S. 49, 52 (1949). As in Payne, where the Court found that a confession was coerced because the interrogating police officer had promised that if the accused confessed, the officer would protect the accused from an angry mob outside the jailhouse door, 356 U. S., at 564-565, 567, so too here, the Arizona Supreme Court found that it was fear of physical violence, absent protection from his friend (and Government agent) Sarivola, which motivated Fulminante to confess. Accepting the Arizona court’s finding, permissible on this record, that there was a credible threat of physical violence, we agree with its conclusion that Fulminante’s will was overborne in such a way as to render his confession the product of coercion.
1 — 1 > — I
Four of us, Justices Marshall, Blackmun, Stevens, and myself, would affirm the judgment of the Arizona Supreme Court on the ground that the harmless-error rule is inapplicable to erroneously admitted coerced confessions. We thus disagree with the Justices who have a contrary view.
The majority today abandons what until now the Court has regarded as the “axiomatic [proposition] that a defendant in a criminal case is deprived of due process of law if his conviction is founded, in whole or in part, upon an involuntary confession, without regard for the truth or falsity of the confession, Rogers v. Richmond, 365 U. S. 534 [(1961)], and even though there is ample evidence aside from the confession to support the conviction. Malinski v. New York, 324 U. S. 401 [(1945)]; Stroble v. California, 343 U. S. 181 [(1952)]; Payne v. Arkansas, 356 U. S. 560.” Jackson v. Denno, 378 U. S. 368, 376 (1964). The Court has repeatedly stressed that the view that the admission of a coerced confession can be harmless error because of the other evidence to support the verdict is “an impermissible doctrine,” Lynumn v. Illinois, 372 U. S. 528, 537 (1963); for “the admission in evidence, over objection, of the coerced confession vitiates the judgment because it violates the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment,” Payne, supra, at 568. See also Rose v. Clark, 478 U. S. 570, 578, n. 6 (1986); New Jersey v. Portash, 440 U. S. 450, 459 (1979); Lego v. Twomey, 404 U. S. 477, 483 (1972); Chapman v. California, 386 U. S. 18, 23, and n. 8 (1967); Haynes v. Washington, supra, at 518; Blackburn v. Alabama, supra, at 206; Spano v. New York, 360 U. S. 315, 324 (1959); Brown v. Allen, 344 U. S. 443, 475 (1953); Stroble v. California, 343 U. S. 181, 190 (1952); Gallegos v. Nebraska, 342 U. S. 55, 63 (1951); Haley v. Ohio, 332 U. S. 596, 599 (1948); Malinski v. New York, 324 U. S. 401, 404 (1945); Lyons v. Oklahoma, 322 U. S. 596, 597, n. 1 (1944). As the decisions in Haynes and Payne, supra, show, the rule was the same even when another confession of the defendant had been properly admitted into evidence. Today, a majority of the Court, without any justification, cf. Arizona v. Rumsey, 467 U. S. 203, 212 (1984), overrules this vast body of precedent without a word and in so doing dislodges one of the fundamental tenets of our criminal justice system.
In extending to coerced confessions the harmless-error rule of Chapman v. California, supra, the majority declares that because the Court has applied that analysis to numerous other “trial errors,” there is no reason that it should not apply to an error of this nature as well. The four of us remain convinced, however, that we should abide by our cases that have refused to apply the harmless-error rule to coerced confessions, for a coerced confession is fundamentally different from other types of erroneously admitted evidence to which the rule has been applied. Indeed, as the majority concedes, Chapman itself recognized that prior cases “have indicated that there are some constitutional rights so basic to a fair trial that their infraction can never be treated as harmless error,” and it placed in that category the constitutional rule against using a defendant’s coerced confession against him at his criminal trial. 386 U. S., at 23, and n. 8 (emphasis added). Moreover, cases since Chapman have reiterated the rule that using a defendant’s coerced confession against him is a denial of due process of law regardless of the other evidence in the record aside from the confession. Lego v. Twomey, supra, at 483; Mincey v. Arizona, 437 U. S., at 398; New Jersey v. Portash, supra, at 459; Rose v. Clark, supra, at-577, 578, and n. 6.
Chapman specifically noted three constitutional errors that could not be categorized as harmless error: using a coerced confession against a defendant in a criminal trial, depriving a defendant of counsel, and trying a defendant before a biased judge. The majority attempts to distinguish the use of a coerced confession from the other two errors listed in Chapman first by distorting the decision in Payne, and then by drawing a meaningless dichotomy between “trial errors” and “structural defects” in the trial process. Viewing Payne as merely rejecting a test whereby the admission of a coerced confession could stand if there were “sufficient evidence,” other than the confession, to support the conviction, the majority suggests that the Court in Payne might have reached a different result had it been considering a harmless-error test. Post, at 309 (opinion of Rehnquist, C. J.). It is clear, though, that in Payne the Court recognized that regardless of the amount of other evidence, “the admission in evidence, over objection, of the coerced confession vitiates the judgment,” because “where, as here, a coerced confession constitutes a part of the evidence before the jury and a general verdict is returned, no one can say what credit and weight the jury gave to the confession.” 356 U. S., at 568. The inability to assess its effect on a conviction causes the admission at trial of a coerced confession to “defy analysis by ‘harmless-error’ standards,” cf. post, at 309 (opinion of Rehnquist, C. J.), just as certainly as do deprivation of counsel and trial before a biased judge.
The majority also attempts to distinguish “trial errors” which occur “during the presentation of the case to the jury,” post, at 307, and which it deems susceptible to harmless-error analysis, from “structural defects in the constitution of the trial mechanism,” post, at 309, which the majority concedes cannot be so analyzed. This effort fails, for our jurisprudence on harmless error has not classified so neatly the errors at issue. For example, we have held susceptible to harmless-error analysis the failure to instruct the jury on the presumption of innocence, Kentucky v. Whorton, 441 U. S. 786 (1979), while finding it impossible to analyze in terms of harmless error the failure to instruct a jury on the reasonable-doubt standard, Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U. S. 307, 320, n. 14 (1979). These cases cannot be reconciled by labeling the former “trial error” and the latter not, for both concern the exact same stage in the trial proceedings. Rather, these cases can be reconciled only by considering the nature of the right at issue and the effect of an error upon the trial. A jury instruction on the presumption of innocence is not constitutionally required in every case to satisfy due process, because such an instruction merely offers an additional safeguard beyond that provided by the constitutionally required instruction on reasonable doubt. See Whorton, supra, at 789; Taylor v. Kentucky, 436 U. S. 478, 488-490 (1978). While it may be possible to analyze as harmless the omission of a presumption of innocence instruction when the required reasonable-doubt instruction has been given, it is impossible to assess the effect on the jury of the omission of the more fundamental instruction on reasonable doubt. In addition, omission of a reasonable-doubt instruction, though a “trial error,” distorts the very structure of the trial because it creates the risk that the jury will convict the defendant even if the State has not met its required burden of proof. Cf. Cool v. United States, 409 U. S. 100, 104 (1972); In re Winship, 397 U. S. 358, 364 (1970).
These same concerns counsel against applying harmless-error analysis to the admission of a coerced confession. A defendant’s confession is “probably the most probative and damaging evidence that can be admitted against him,” Cruz v. New York, 481 U. S. 186, 195 (1987) (White, J., dissenting), so damaging that a jury should not be expected to ignore it even if told to do so, Bruton v. United States, 391 U. S. 123, 140 (1968) (White, J., dissenting), and because in any event it is impossible to know what credit and weight the jury gave to the confession. Cf. Payne, supra, at 568. Concededly, this reason is insufficient to justify a per se bar to the use of any confession. Thus, Milton v. Wainwright, 407 U. S. 371 (1972), applied harmless-error analysis to a confession obtained and introduced in circumstances that violated the defendant’s Sixth Amendment right to counsel. Similarly, the Courts of Appeals have held that the introduction of incriminating statements taken from defendants in violation of Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U. S. 436 (1966), is subject to treatment as harmless error.
Nevertheless, in declaring that it is “impossible to create a meaningful distinction between confessions elicited in violation of the Sixth Amendment and those in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment,” post, at 312 (opinion of Rehnquist, C. J.), the majority overlooks the obvious. Neither Milton v. Wainwright nor any of the other cases upon which the majority relies involved a defendant’s coerced confession, nor were there present in these cases the distinctive reasons underlying the exclusion of coerced incriminating statements of the defendant. First, some coerced confessions may be untrustworthy. Jackson v. Denno, 378 U. S., at 385-386; Spano v. New York, 360 U. S., at 320. Consequently, admission of coerced confessions may distort the truth-seeking function of the trial upon which the majority focuses. More importantly, however, the use of coerced confessions, “whether true or false,” is forbidden “because the methods used to extract them offend an underlying principle in the enforcement of our criminal law: that ours is an accusatorial and not an inquisitorial system — a system in which the State must establish guilt by evidence independently and freely secured and may not by coercion prove its charge against an accused out of his own mouth,” Rogers v. Richmond, 365 U. S., at 540-541; see also Lego, 404 U. S., at 485. This reflects the “strongly felt attitude of our society that important human values are sacrificed where an agency of the government, in the course of securing a conviction, wrings a confession out of an accused against his will,” Blackburn v. Alabama, 361 U. S., at 206-207, as well as “the deep-rooted feeling that the police must obey the law while enforcing the law; that in the end life and liberty can be as much endangered from illegal methods used to convict those thought to be criminals as from the actual criminals themselves,” Spano, supra, at 320-321. Thus, permitting a coerced confession to be part of the evidence on which a jury is free to base its verdict of guilty is inconsistent with the thesis that ours is not an inquisitorial system of criminal justice. Cf. Chambers v. Florida, 309 U. S., at 235-238.
As the majority concedes, there are other constitutional errors that invalidate a conviction even though there may be no reasonable doubt that the defendant is guilty and would be convicted absent the trial error. For example, a judge in a criminal trial “is prohibited from entering a judgment of conviction or directing the jury to come forward with such a verdict, see Sparf & Hansen v. United States, 156 U. S. 51, 105 (1895); Carpenters v. United States, 330 U. S. 395, 408 (1947), regardless of how overwhelmingly the evidence may point in that direction.” United States v. Martin Linen Supply Co., 430 U. S. 564, 572-573 (1977). A defendant is entitled to counsel at trial, Gideon v. Wainwright, 372 U. S. 335 (1963), and as Chapman recognized, violating this right can never be harmless error. 386 U. S., at 23, and n. 8. See also White v. Maryland, 373 U. S. 59 (1963), where a conviction was set aside because the defendant had not had counsel at a preliminary hearing without regard to the showing of prejudice. In Vasquez v. Hillery, 474 U. S. 254 (1986), a defendant was found guilty beyond reasonable doubt, but the conviction had been set aside because of the unlawful exclusion of members of the defendant’s race from the grand jury that indicted him, despite overwhelming evidence of his guilt. The error at the grand jury stage struck at fundamental values of our society and “undermine[d] the structural integrity of the criminal tribunal itself, and [was] not amenable to harmless-error review.” Id., at 263-264. Vasquez, like Chapman, also noted that rule of automatic reversal when a defendant is tried before a judge with a financial interest in the outcome, Tumey v. Ohio, 273 U. S. 510, 535 (1927), despite a lack of any indication that bias influenced the decision. Waller v. Georgia, 467 U. S. 39, 49 (1984), recognized that violation of the guarantee of a public trial required reversal without any showing of prejudice and even though the values of a public trial may be intangible and unprovable in any particular case.
The search for truth is indeed central to our system of justice, but “certain constitutional rights are not, and should not be, subject to harmless-error analysis because those rights protect important values that are unrelated to the truth-seeking function of the trial.” Rose v. Clark, 478 U. S., at 587 (Stevens, J., concurring in judgment). The right of a defendant not to have his coerced confession used against him is among those rights, for using a coerced confession “abort[s] the basic trial process” and “render[s] a trial fundamentally unfair.” Id., at 577, 578, n. 6.
For the foregoing reasons the four of us would adhere to the consistent line of authority that has recognized as a basic tenet of our criminal justice system, before and after both Miranda and Chapman, the prohibition against using a defendant’s coerced confession against him at his criminal trial. Stare decisis is “of fundamental importance to the rule of law,” Welch v. Texas Dept. of Highways and Public Transportation, 483 U. S. 468, 494 (1987); the majority offers no convincing reason for overturning our long line of decisions requiring the exclusion of coerced confessions.
HH <J
Since five Justices have determined that harmless-error analysis applies to coerced confessions, it becomes necessary to evaluate under that ruling the admissibility of Fulmi-nante’s confession to Sarivola. Cf. Pennsylvania v. Union Gas Co., 491 U. S. 1, 45 (1989) (White, J., concurring in judgment in part and dissenting in part); id., at 57 (O’Connor, J., dissenting). Chapman v. California, 386 U. S., at 24, made clear that “before a federal constitutional error can be held harmless, the court must be able to declare a belief that it was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt. ” The Court has the power to review the record de novo in order to determine an error’s harmlessness. See ibid.; Satterwhite v. Texas, 486 U. S., at 258. In so doing, it must be determined whether the State has met its burden of demonstrating that the admission of the confession to Sarivola did not contribute to Fulminante’s conviction. Chapman, supra, at 26. Five of us are of the view that the State has not carried its burden and accordingly affirm the judgment of the court below reversing respondent’s conviction.
A confession is like no other evidence. Indeed, “the defendant’s own confession is probably the most probative and damaging evidence that can be admitted against him.... [T]he admissions of a defendant come from the actor himself, the most knowledgeable and unimpeachable source of information about his past conduct. Certainly, confessions have profound impact on the jury, so much so that we may justifiably doubt its ability to put them out of mind even if told to do so.” Bruton v. United States, 391 U. S., at 139-140 (White, J., dissenting). See also Cruz v. New York, 481 U. S., at 195 (White, J., dissenting) (citing Bruton). While some statements by a defendant may concern isolated aspects of the crime or may be incriminating only when linked to other evidence, a full confession in which the defendant discloses the motive for and means of the crime may tempt the jury to rely upon that evidence alone in reaching its decision. In the case of a coerced confession such as that given by Fulminante to Sarivola, the risk that the confession is unreliable, coupled with the profound impact that the confession has upon the jury, requires a reviewing court to exercise extreme caution before determining that the admission of the confession at trial was harmless.
In the Arizona Supreme Court’s initial opinion, in which it determined that harmless-error analysis could be applied to the confession, the court found that the admissible second confession to Donna Sarivola rendered the first confession to Anthony Sarivola cumulative. 161 Ariz., at 245-246, 778 P. 2d, at 610-611. The court also noted that circumstantial physical evidence concerning the wounds, the ligature around Jeneane’s neck, the location of the body, and the presence of motorcycle tracks at the scene corroborated the second confession. Ibid. The court concluded that “due to the overwhelming evidence adduced from the second confession, if there had not been a first confession, the jury would still have had the same basic evidence to convict” Fulminante. Id., at 246, 778 P. 2d, at 611.
We have a quite different evaluation of the evidence. Our review of the record leads us to conclude that the State has failed to meet its burden of establishing, beyond a reasonable doubt, that the admission of Fulminante’s confession to Anthony Sarivola was harmless error. Three considerations compel this result.
First, the transcript discloses that both the trial court and the State recognized that a successful prosecution depended on the jury believing the two confessions. Absent the confessions, it is unlikely that Fulminante would have been prosecuted at all, because the physical evidence from the scene and other circumstantial evidence would have been insufficient to convict. Indeed, no indictment was filed until nearly two years after the murder. App. 2. Although the police had suspected Fulminante from the beginning, as the prosecutor acknowledged in his opening statement to the jury, “[W]hat brings us to Court, what makes this case fileable, and prosecutable and triable is that later, Mr. Fulminante confesses this crime to Anthony Sarivola and later, to Donna Sarivola, his wife. ” Id., at 65-66. After trial began, during a renewed hearing on Fulminante’s motion to suppress, the trial court opined, “You know, I think from what little I know about this trial, the character of this man [Sarivola] for truthfulness or untruthfulness and his credibility is the centerpiece of this case, is it not?” The prosecutor responded, “It’s very important, there’s no doubt.” Id., at 62. Finally, in his closing argument, the prosecutor prefaced his discussion of the two confessions by conceding: “[W]e have a lot of [circumstantial] evidence that indicates that this is our suspect, this is the fellow that did it, but it’s a little short as far as saying that it’s proof that he actually put the gun to the girl’s head and killed her. So it’s a little short of that. We recognize that.” 10 Tr. 75 (Dec. 17, 1985).
Second, the jury’s assessment of the confession to Donna Sarivola could easily have depended in large part on the presence of the confession to Anthony Sarivola. Absent the admission at trial of the first confession, the jurors might have found Donna Sarivola’s story unbelievable. Fulminante’s confession to Donna Sarivola allegedly occurred in May 1984, on the day he was released from Ray Brook, as she and Anthony Sarivola drove Fulminante from New York to Pennsylvania. Donna Sarivola testified that Fulminante, whom she had never before met, confessed in detail about Jeneane’s brutal murder in response to her casual question concerning why he was going to visit friends in Pennsylvania instead of returning to his family in Arizona. App. 167-168. Although she testified that she was “disgusted” by Fulmi-nante's disclosures, id., at 169, she stated that she took no steps to notify authorities of what she had learned, id., at 172-173. In fact, she claimed that she barely discussed the matter with Anthony Sarivola, who was in the car and overheard Fulminante’s entire conversation with Donna. Id., at 174-175. Despite her disgust for Fulminante, Donna Sari-vola later went on a second trip with him. Id., at 173-174. Although Sarivola informed authorities that he had driven Fulminante to Pennsylvania, he did not mention Donna’s presence in the car or her conversation with Fulminante. Id., at 159-161. Only when questioned by authorities in June 1985 did Anthony Sarivola belatedly recall the confession to Donna more than a year before, and only then did he ask if she would be willing to discuss the matter with authorities. Id., at 90-92.
Although some of the details in the confession to Donna Sarivola were corroborated by circumstantial evidence, many, including details that Jeneane was choked and sexually assaulted, were not. Id., at 186-188. As to other aspects of the second confession, including Fulminante’s motive and state of mind, the only corroborating evidence was the first confession to Anthony Sarivola. No. CR 142821 (Super. Ct. Maricopa County, Ariz., Feb. 11, 1986), pp. 3-4. Thus, contrary to what the Arizona Supreme Court found, it is clear that the jury might have believed that the two confessions reinforced and corroborated each other. For this reason, one confession was not merely cumulative of the other. While in some cases two confessions, delivered on different occasions to different listeners
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
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.
We granted certiorari to resolve the question whether consistently with our decision in Monell v. New York City Dept. of Social Services, 436 U. S. 658 (1978), a municipality can be held liable under 42 U. S. C. § 1983 for inadequate training of its employees. 475 U. S. 1064 (1986). In addressing that issue, we anticipated that we would be able to reach the “fairly included” related question, see this Court’s Rule 21.1(a), whether more than negligence in training is required in order to establish such liability.
The case having now been fully briefed and orally argued, we conclude that we cannot reach the negligence question. Although petitioner city of Springfield argues here that a heightened negligence standard does not suffice under Monell’s requirement of a municipal policy, it appears that in the District Court petitioner did not object to the jury instruction stating that gross negligence would suffice, App. 234-235, and indeed proposed its own instruction to the same effect. Id., at 28. Nor did it argue for a higher standard than gross negligence in the Court of Appeals. Brief for Defendant-Appellant and Reply Brief for Defendant-Appellant in No. 85-1078 (CA1). It has informed us of no special circumstances explaining its failure to preserve this question.
We ordinarily will not decide questions not raised or litigated in the lower courts. See California v. Taylor, 353 U. S. 553, 556, n. 2 (1957). That rule has special force where the party seeking to argue the issue has failed to object to a jury instruction, since Rule 51 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure provides that “[n]o party may assign as error the giving . . . [of] an instruction unless he objects thereto before the jury retires to consider its verdict.” Here, our inability to reach the negligence issue makes this case an inappropriate vehicle for resolving the inadequate training question, because of the close interrelationship between the two matters, and the other questions presented are not of sufficient importance to warrant our review independently.
The dissent argues that we need not concern ourselves about Springfield’s failure to preserve this issue, because it was passed on by the Court of Appeals below. Post, at 263-266. There is doubtless no jurisdictional bar to our reaching it, whether or not the Court of Appeals did so. See Carlson v. Green, 446 U. S. 14, 17, n. 2 (1980). We think, however, that there would be considerable prudential objection to reversing a judgment because of instructions that petitioner accepted, and indeed itself requested. That the Court of Appeals was fortunate enough to entertain the issue without reaching that outcome would not justify our running the same risk. In any event, we disagree with the dissent’s reading of the Court of Appeals’ opinion, and do not believe that it pursued the extraordinary course of considering this issue — which petitioner had not even raised in its arguments to that court — any more than we are inclined to do so. See 777 F. 2d 801, 804, 809-810 (CA1 1985). (We refrain from elaborating upon the latter point, since it is of no general application.)
Unlike Oklahoma City v. Tuttle, 471 U. S. 808 (1985), this case does not present a proper occasion for us to exercise our discretion to decide an issue despite petitioner’s failure to preserve it. In Tuttle, the issue in question was explicitly-set forth in the petition for certiorari, id., at 814, n. 2, and was not objected to in respondent’s brief in opposition to cer-tiorari or in respondent’s merits brief. Id., at 815. In addition, the issue had been fully briefed and argued in the Court of Appeals. Ibid. Here, by contrast, respondent’s failure to object at the petition stage is unsurprising, because the petition did not explicitly present the negligence question, and it had not been addressed below. It would be unreasonable to require a respondent on pain of waiver to object at the cer-tiorari stage not only to the petitioner’s failure to preserve the questions actually presented, but also to his failure to preserve any questions fairly included within the questions presented but uncontested earlier. Respondent strenuously objected to petitioner’s raising this question at the first point that she was on notice that it was at issue in this case — in her response to petitioner’s brief on the merits in No. 85-1078.
For these reasons, we have concluded that the writ should be dismissed as improvidently granted. See Belcher v. Stengel, 429 U. S. 118 (1976) (per curiam).
It is so ordered.
We also granted certiorari on two other questions: whether the “single incident” rule of Oklahoma City v. Tuttle, 471 U. S. 808 (1985), is limited in application to one act by one officer, and whether a policy of inadequate training may be inferred from the conduct of several police officers during a single incident absent evidence of prior misconduct in the department or a conscious decision by policymakers.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
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 SCALIAdelivered the opinion of the Court.
Petitioner Robert Mitchell Jennings was sentenced to death for capital murder. He applied for federal habeas corpus relief on three theories of ineffective assistance of counsel, prevailing on two. The State appealed, and Jennings defended his writ on all three theories. We consider whether Jennings was permitted to pursue the theory that the District Court had rejected without taking a cross-appeal or obtaining a certificate of appealability.
I
In July 1988, petitioner Robert Mitchell Jennings entered an adult bookstore to commit a robbery. Officer Elston Howard, by unhappy coincidence, was at the same establishment to arrest the store's clerk. Undeterred, Jennings shot Howard four times, robbed the store, and escaped. Howard died from his wounds.
Howard was merely the most recent victim of Jennings' criminality. The State adjudicated Jennings a delinquent at 14, convicted him of aggravated robbery at 17, and of additional aggravated robberies at 20. He murdered Officer Howard only two months after his most recent release from prison.
Jennings was arrested, tried, and convicted of capital murder, and the State sought the death penalty. During the punishment phase, the State introduced evidence of Jennings' lengthy and violent criminal history. Jennings' attorney called only the prison chaplain, who testified about Jennings' improvement and that Jennings was not "incorrigible." Jennings' attorney acknowledged the difficulty of his sentencing defense in his closing remarks, commenting that he could not "quarrel with" a death sentence, but was nonetheless pleading for mercy for his client. The jury returned a special verdict, consistent with Texas law, that Jennings acted deliberately in the murder and that he would present a continuing threat to society. The trial court sentenced Jennings to death. Texas courts affirmed Jennings' conviction and sentence and denied postconviction relief. Jennings v. State, No. AP-70911 (Tex.Crim.App., Jan. 20, 1993); Ex parte Jennings,2008 WL 5049911 (Tex.Crim.App., Nov. 26, 2008).
Jennings applied for federal habeas corpus relief, asserting, as relevant here, three theories of ineffective assistance of counsel in the punishment phase of his trial. Jennings first claimed trial counsel was ineffective for failing to present evidence of his disadvantaged background, including that his conception was the product of his mother's rape, that his mother was only 17 when he was born, and that he grew up in poverty. Jennings offered his mother and sister as witnesses.
Jennings next argued that trial counsel was ineffective for failure to investigate and to present evidence of Jennings' low intelligence and organic brain damage. His trial attorney admitted in affidavit that he failed to review the case files from Jennings' prior convictions, which contained a report suggesting Jennings suffered from mild mental retardationand mild organic brain dysfunction. (The report also suggested that Jennings malingered, feigning mental illness in order to delay proceedings.) Jennings argued that trial counsel should have examined Jennings' prior case files, investigated Jennings' mental health problems, and presented evidence of mental impairmentin the punishment phase.
Finally, Jennings argued that counsel was constitutionally ineffective for stating that he could not "quarrel with" a death sentence. According to Jennings, this remark expressed resignation to-even the propriety of-a death sentence.
Jennings cited our decision in Wiggins v. Smith, 539 U.S. 510, 123 S.Ct. 2527, 156 L.Ed.2d 471 (2003), as establishing constitutional ineffectiveness when counsel fails to investigate or to introduce substantial mitigating evidence in a sentencing proceeding. Though he did not cite our decision in Smith v. Spisak, 558 U.S. 139, 130 S.Ct. 676, 175 L.Ed.2d 595 (2010), he also argued that counsel's closing remarks amounted to constitutional ineffectiveness. The parties referred to these alleged errors as the "Wigginserrors" and the "Spisakerror"; we use the same terminology.
The federal habeas court granted Jennings relief on both of his Wigginstheories, but denied relief on his Spisaktheory. Jennings v. Thaler, 2012 WL 1440387 (S.D.Tex., Apr. 23, 2012). The court ordered that the State "shall release Jennings from custody unless, within 120 days, the State of Texas grants Jennings a new sentencing hearing or resentences him to a term of imprisonment as provided by Texas law at the time of Jennings['] crime." Id.,at *7.
The State appealed, attacking both Wigginstheories (viz., trial counsel's failure to present evidence of a deprived background and failure to investigate evidence of mental impairment). Jennings argued before the Fifth Circuit that the District Court correctly found constitutional ineffectiveness on both Wigginstheories, and argued again that trial counsel performed ineffectively under his Spisaktheory. The Fifth Circuit reversed the grant of habeas corpus under the two Wigginstheories and rendered judgment for the State. 537 Fed.Appx. 326, 334-335 (2013). The court determined that it lacked jurisdiction over Jennings' Spisaktheory. Id., at 338-339. Implicitly concluding that raising this argument required taking a cross-appeal, the panel noted that Jennings failed to file a timely notice of appeal, see Fed. Rule App. Proc. 4(a)(1)(A), and failed to obtain a certificate of appealability as required by 28 U.S.C. § 2253(c). Section 2253(c)provides, as relevant here, that "[u]nless a circuit justice or judge issues a certificate of appealability, an appeal may not be taken to the court of appeals from... the final order in a habeas corpus proceeding."
We granted certiorari, 572 U.S. ----, 134 S.Ct. 1539, 188 L.Ed.2d 556 (2014), to decide whether Jennings was required to file a notice of cross-appeal and seek a certificate of appealability to pursue his Spisaktheory.
II
The rules governing the argumentation permissible for appellees urging the affirmance of judgment are familiar, though this case shows that familiarity and clarity do not go hand-in-hand.
A
An appellee who does not take a cross-appeal may "urge in support of a decree any matter appearing before the record, although his argument may involve an attack upon the reasoning of the lower court." United States v. American Railway Express Co.,265 U.S. 425, 435, 44 S.Ct. 560, 68 L.Ed. 1087 (1924). But an appellee who does not cross-appeal may not "attack the decree with a view either to enlarging his own rights thereunder or of lessening the rights of his adversary." Ibid.Since Jennings did not cross-appeal the denial of his Spisaktheory, we must determine whether urging that theory sought to enlarge his rights or lessen the State's under the District Court's judgment granting habeas relief.
The District Court's opinion, in its section labeled "Order," commanded the State to "release Jennings from custody unless, within 120 days, the State of Texas grants Jennings a new sentencing hearing or resentences him to a term of imprisonment as provided by Texas law at the time of Jennings['] crime." 2012 WL 1440387, at *7. The District Court's corresponding entry of judgment contained similar language. App. 35. The intuitive answer to the question whether Jennings' new theory expands these rights is straightforward: Jennings' rights under the judgment were what the judgment provided-release, resentencing, or commutation within a fixed time, at the State's option; the Spisaktheory would give him the same. Similarly, the State's rights under the judgment were to retain Jennings in custody pending resentencing or to commute his sentence; the Spisaktheory would allow no less.
The State objects to this straightforward result. A conditional writ of habeas corpus, it argues, does not merely entitle a successful petitioner to retrial (or resentencing), but it entitles him to retrial (or resentencing) without the challenged errors. Because each basis for habeas relief imposes an additional implied obligation on the State (not to repeat that error), each basis asserted by a successful petitioner seeks to lessen the State's rights at retrial, and therefore each additional basis requires a cross-appeal.
This is an unusual position, and one contrary to the manner in which courts ordinarily behave. Courts reduce their opinions and verdicts to judgments precisely to define the rights and liabilities of the parties. Parties seeking to enforce a foreign court's decree do not attempt to domesticate an opinion; they domesticate a judgment. Restatement (Third) of Foreign Relations Law of the United States §§ 481-482 (1987). A prevailing party seeks to enforce not a district court's reasoning, but the court's judgment. Rogers v. Hill, 289 U.S. 582, 587, 53 S.Ct. 731, 77 L.Ed. 1385 (1933). This Court, like all federal appellate courts, does not review lower courts' opinions, but their judgments. Chevron, U.S.A., Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc., 467 U.S. 837, 842, 104 S.Ct. 2778, 81 L.Ed.2d 694 (1984). And so a rule that contravenes this structure, that makes the opinion part of the judgment, is peculiar-especially when it is applied to impose extrajudgment obligations on a sovereign State.
The State's argument might have force in a case where a district court explicitlyimposes (or the appellee asks the appellate court explicitly to impose) a condition governing the details of the retrial. But that case is not before us. The implications of the State's position make clear why such orders are atypical, and why we should not infer such conditions from silence. Construing every federal grant of habeas corpus as carrying an attendant list of unstated acts (or omissions) that the state court must perform (or not perform) would substantially transform conditional habeas corpus relief from an opportunity "to replace an invalid judgment with a valid one,"Wilkinson v. Dotson,544 U.S. 74, 87, 125 S.Ct. 1242, 161 L.Ed.2d 253(SCALIA, J., concurring), to a general grant of supervisory authority over state trial courts.
In a variation on the same theme, the dissent posits that, apart from implied terms, a habeas petitioner who successfully defends a judgment on an alternative ground hasexpanded his rights under the judgment, because he has changed the judgment's issue-preclusive effects. This theory confuses a party's rights under a judgment-here, the right to release, resentencing, or commutation, at the State's option-with preclusive effects that the judgment might have in future proceedings. That makes nonsense of American Railway. Wheneveran appellee successfully defends a judgment on an alternative ground, he changes what would otherwise be the judgment's issue-preclusive effects. Thereafter, issue preclusion no longer attaches to the ground on which the trial court decided the case, and instead attaches to the alternative ground on which the appellate court affirmed the judgment. Restatement (Second) of Judgments § 27 (1982). Thus, making alteration of issue-preclusive effects the touchstone of necessity for cross-appeal would require cross-appeal for everydefense of a judgment on alternative grounds. That is, of course, the polar opposite of the rule we established in American Railway.
Under the habeas court's judgment, Jennings was entitled, at the State's option, to either release, resentencing, or commutation of his sentence. Any potential claim that would have entitled Jennings to a new sentencing proceeding could have been advanced to "urge... support" of the judgment within the meaning of American Railway.265 U.S., at 435, 44 S.Ct. 560. The dissent and the State contend that applying American Railwayin this fashion will lead to a proliferation of frivolous appellate defenses in habeas cases. If so, that is a problem that can only be solved by Congress. Until it does so, we think it appropriate to adhere to the usual law of appeals.
We think, however, that the danger is exaggerated. To begin with, not all defenses will qualify. A habeas applicant who has won resentencing would be required to take a cross-appeal in order to raise a rejected claim that would result in a new trial. Similarly, even if a habeas applicant has won retrial below, a claim that his conduct was constitutionally beyond the power of the State to punish would require cross-appeal. And even a successful applicant doing no more than defending his judgment on appeal is confined to those alternative grounds present in the record: he may not simply argue anyalternative basis, regardless of its origin. Ibid.
Moreover, successful habeas applicants have an incentive to defend their habeas grants effectively, an objective that is not furthered by diverting an appellate court's attention from a meritorious defense to a frivolous one. The dissent gives two examples of habeas petitioners who raised numerous ostensibly frivolous claims. Post,at 807. They prove nothing except the dissent's inability to substantiate its claim that our holding will foster the presentation of frivolous alternative grounds for affirmance. For both examples involved habeas petitioners who lost before the magistrate and were casting about for any basis that might justify a writ. We are talking here about habeas petitioners who have won before the district court. The notion that they can often be expected to dilute their defense of the (by-definition-nonfrivolous) basis for their victory by dragging in frivolous alternative grounds to support it is thoroughly implausible. Indeed, as the State and Jennings agree, it is rare that a habeas petitioner successful in the district court will even be called upon to defend his writ on appeal.
And finally, we doubt that any more judicial time will be wasted in rejection of frivolous claims made in defense of judgment on an appeal already taken than would be wasted in rejection of similar claims made in (what the State and dissent would require) a separate proceeding for a certificate of appealability. To be sure, as the dissent points out, post,at 807, the certificate ruling will be made by just one judge rather than three; but that judge will always be required to consider and rule on the alternative grounds, whereas the three-judge court entertaining the government's habeas appeal will not reach the alternative grounds unless it rejects the ground relied on by the lower court. Not to mention the fact that in an already-pending appeal the court can give the back of its hand to frivolous claims en passant,whereas the certificate process requires the opening and disposition of a separate proceeding.
In the end, the dissent tries to evade American Railwayby asserting that habeas corpus is "unique." Post,at 805 - 806. There are undoubtedly some differences between writs of habeas corpus and other judgments-most notably, that habeas proceedings traditionally ignored the claim-preclusive effect of earlier adjudications.
But the reality that some thingsabout habeas are different does not mean that everythingabout habeas is different. The dissent must justify why the particular distinction it urges here-abandonment of the usual American Railwayrule-is an appropriate one. It cannot.
B
The State also advances what could be termed a corollary to the American Railwayrule. Citing Helvering v. Pfeiffer,302 U.S. 247, 58 S.Ct. 159, 82 L.Ed. 231 (1937), and Alexander v. Cosden Pipe Line Co.,290 U.S. 484, 54 S.Ct. 292, 78 L.Ed. 452 (1934), the State insists that a cross-appeal is necessary not only for Jennings to enlarge his rights under the District Court's judgment, but also to attack the District Court's ruling rejecting his Spisaktheory, even if Jennings' rights under the court's judgment would remain undisturbed.
The view of Pfeifferand Alexanderadvanced by the State would put these cases in considerable tension with our oft-reaffirmed holding in American Railway. And it is not the correct view. Both Pfeifferand Alexanderarose from disputes between the Commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service and taxpayers regarding multiple discrete federal tax liabilities. Pfeiffer, supra,at 248, 58 S.Ct. 159; Alexander, supra,at 486, 54 S.Ct. 292. In Pfeiffer,the Commissioner prevailed before the Board of Tax Appeals on his contention that a dividend was taxable, but lost a similar claim against a cash payment. Only the taxpayer sought the Second Circuit's review, and the taxpayer prevailed on the dividend liability. 302 U.S., at 249, 58 S.Ct. 159. In Alexander, the taxpayer sought refund of four tax liabilities; the taxpayer won on all four. Only the Commissioner appealed to the Tenth Circuit, and that court affirmed two of the refunds, eliminated a third, and reduced a fourth. Pfeiffer, supra,at 248-249, 58 S.Ct. 159; Alexander, supra,at 486, 54 S.Ct. 292. The Commissioner sought our review in both cases; we refused to entertain the Commissioner's arguments regarding the cash payment in Pfeiffer,or the taxpayer's regarding the eliminated and reduced claims in Alexander, citing American Railway.
The State argues that these holdings expanded the need for cross-appeal, beyond merely those arguments that would enlarge rights under the judgment, to those arguments that revisit a lower court's disposition of an issue on which a judgment rests. For, the State argues, the rejected arguments would not necessarilyhave expanded the Commissioner's or the taxpayer's rights; if some of the points on which the respective appellee won below were rejected on appeal, his new arguments might do no more than preserve the amount assessed.
But this view of Pfeifferand Alexanderdistorts American Railway.American Railwaydoes not merely require a cross-appeal where a party, if fully successful on his new arguments, would certainly obtain greater relief than provided below; it requires cross-appeal if the party's arguments are presented "with a vieweither to enlarging his own rights thereunder or of lessening the rights of his adversary." 265 U.S., at 435, 44 S.Ct. 560. In Pfeifferand Alexanderthe assertion of additional tax liabilities or defenses, respectively, necessarily sought to enlarge or to reduce the Commissioner's rights, even if, under some combination of issues affirmed and reversed, one possibility would have produced no more than the same tax obligations pronounced by the judgment below.
Once we have rejected the State's-and dissent's-theories of implied terms in conditional writs, Jennings' Spisaktheory sought the same relief awarded under his Wigginstheories: a new sentencing hearing. Whether prevailing on a single theory or all three, Jennings sought the same, indivisible relief. This occurred in neither Pfeiffernor Alexander, and we decline to view those cases as contradicting our " 'inveterate and certain' " rule in American Railway. Greenlaw v. United States,554 U.S. 237, 245, 128 S.Ct. 2559, 171 L.Ed.2d 399 (2008).
C
Finally, the State urges that even if Jennings was not required to take a cross-appeal by American Railway,Pfeiffer,and Alexander, he was required to obtain a certificate of appealability. We disagree.
Section 2253(c) of Title 28provides that "an appeal may not be taken to the court of appeals" without a certificate of appealability, which itself requires "a substantial showing of the denial of a constitutional right." It is unclear whether this requirement applies to a habeas petitioner seeking to cross-appeal in a case that is already before a court of appeals. Section 2253(c)performs an important gate-keeping function, but once a State has properly noticed an appeal of the grant of habeas relief, the court of appeals must hear the case, and "there are no remaining gates to be guarded." Szabo v. Walls,313 F.3d 392, 398 (C.A.7 2002)(Easterbrook, J.).
But we need not decide that question now, since it is clear that § 2253(c)applies only when "an appeal" is "taken to the court of appeals." Whether or not this embraces a cross-appeal, it assuredly does not embrace the defense of a judgment on alternative grounds. Congress enacted § 2253(c)against the well-known, if not entirely sharp, distinction between defending a judgment on appeal and taking a cross-appeal. Nothing in the statute justifies ignoring that distinction.
The dissent laments that this result frustrates AEDPA's purpose of preventing "frivolous appeals." Post, at 806. It can indulge that lament only by insisting that the defense of an appealed judgment on alternative grounds is itself an appeal. The two are not the same. The statutory text at issue here addresses the "tak[ing]" of an appeal, not "the making of arguments in defense of a judgment from which appeal has been taken." Extending the certificate of appealability requirement from the former to the latter is beyond the power of the courts.
* * *
Because Jennings' Spisaktheory would neither have enlarged his rights nor diminished the State's rights under the District Court's judgment, he was required neither to take a cross-appeal nor to obtain a certificate of appealability. We reverse the judgment of the Fifth Circuit and remand the case for consideration of Jennings' Spisakclaim.
It is so ordered.
Justice THOMAS, with whom Justice KENNEDYand Justice ALITOjoin, dissenting.
The Court holds today that a prisoner who obtains an order for his release unless the State grants him a new sentencing proceeding may, as an appellee, raise any alternative argument rejected below that could have resulted in a similar order. In doing so, the majority mistakenly equates a judgment granting a conditional-release order with an ordinary civil judgment. I respectfully dissent.
I
Title 28 U.S.C. § 2253(c)(1)(A), as amended by the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 (AEDPA), provides in relevant part: "Unless a circuit justice or judge issues a certificate of appealability, an appeal may not be taken to the court of appeals from... the final order in a habeas corpus proceeding in which the detention complained of arises out of process issued by a State court." Further, "[a] certificate of appealability may issue... only if the applicant has made a substantial showing of the denial of a constitutional right," and the certificate must "indicate which specific issue or issues satisfy [that] showing." §§ 2253(c)(2),(3). Because Jennings did not obtain a certificate of appealability (COA), we must consider whether, by raising his "cross-point," he took an appeal within the meaning of AEDPA.
I agree with the majority that if a habeas petitioner takes what is, in substance or in form, a cross-appeal to the Court of Appeals, then he must obtain a COA. The failure to obtain a COA is a jurisdictional bar to review. See Gonzalez v. Thaler,565 U.S. ----, ----, 132 S.Ct. 641, 649-650, 181 L.Ed.2d 619 (2012). The critical question the Court faces is whether Jennings' "cross-point" was in fact a cross-appeal.
II
A
The majority correctly identifies the rule we apply to determine whether a party has taken a cross-appeal, United States v. American Railway Express Co.,265 U.S. 425, 435, 44 S.Ct. 560, 68 L.Ed. 1087 (1924), but then fails to apply it in accordance with the history of the writ of habeas corpus, our precedents concerning conditional-release orders, and traditional principles governing equitable relief. Each of these guides supports the conclusion that a prisoner who obtains a conditional-release order allowing the State to resentence him in a new proceeding is entitled, if the State elects that option, to a new sentencing proceeding free of the specific constitutional violation identified by the district court. Because a conditional-release order embodies this specific right, an appellee's attempt to add additional errors is an attempt to modify or expand his rights under the judgment.
For most of its existence, the writ of habeas corpus was understood far more narrowly than it is today. See Wright v. West,505 U.S. 277, 285-287, 112 S.Ct. 2482, 120 L.Ed.2d 225 (1992)(opinion of THOMAS, J.). Originally, it played only a procedural role: It issued as of right when a prisoner showed probable cause to believe he was being held illegally-that is, without a conviction entered by a court of competent jurisdiction over the prisoner-and obligated the warden to file a "return" identifying the grounds of imprisonment. W. Church, A Treatise on the Writ of Habeas Corpus §§ 94, 122 (rev. 2d ed. 1893) (hereinafter Church). The "grant of the writ decided nothing except that there was a case calling for an answer by the gaoler." Goddard, A Note on Habeas Corpus, 65 L.Q. Rev. 30, 34 (1949). And the court's ultimate decision on the matter was limited to confirming the legality of the prisoner's confinement or ordering his immediate discharge. See Church §§ 130, 131.
The writ today, by contrast, is invoked to justify broad federal review of state criminal proceedings for constitutional violations. And, when a district court issues the writ, it usually enters a conditional-release order, offering the State a choice between immediate release or a retrial (or resentencing) within a defined period of time. See Wilkinson v. Dotson,544 U.S. 74, 86-87, 125 S.Ct. 1242, 161 L.Ed.2d 253 (2005)(SCALIA, J., concurring).
The purpose of a conditional-release order is to afford the State an opportunity to remedy the specific constitutional violation identified by the district court. Since its inception over a century ago, we have treated a conditional-release order as entitling a habeas petitioner not just to a new proceeding, but to a new proceeding that cures the specific defect identified by the district court. One of our earliest precedents contemplating such an order is In re Bonner,151 U.S. 242, 259-260, 14 S.Ct. 323, 38 L.Ed. 149 (1894). That case involved a prisoner who had been lawfully convicted, but unlawfully ordered to serve his federal sentence in a state penitentiary. Id.,at 254-255, 260, 14 S.Ct. 323. Invoking its "power to control and direct the form of judgment to be entered in cases brought up before it on habeas corpus," the Court ordered the delay of discharge to allow the prisoner to be "taken before the court where the judgment was rendered, that the defectsfor want of jurisdiction which are the subject of complaintin that judgment may be corrected." Id.,at 261, 14 S.Ct. 323(emphasis added); see also Magwood v. Patterson,561 U.S. 320, 347, 130 S.Ct. 2788, 177 L.Ed.2d 592 (2010)(KENNEDY, J., joined by, inter alios,ALITO, J., dissenting) ("[A] conditional grant of relief... allows the state court to correct an error that occurred at the original sentencing"). That understanding of habeas judgments has prevailed in an unbroken line of precedent. See Richmond v. Lewis,506 U.S. 40, 52, 113 S.Ct. 528, 121 L.Ed.2d 411 (1992); Hilton v. Braunskill,481 U.S. 770, 775, 107 S.Ct. 2113, 95 L.Ed.2d 724 (1987); Dowd v. United States ex rel. Cook,340 U.S. 206, 209-210, 71 S.Ct. 262, 95 L.Ed. 215 (1951); Mahler v. Eby,264 U.S. 32, 46, 44 S.Ct. 283, 68 L.Ed. 549 (1924). Cf. Dotson, supra,at 86, 125 S.Ct. 1242(SCALIA, J., concurring) ("[T]he conditional writ serves only to 'delay the release... in order to provide the State an opportunity to correct the constitutional violation' " (quoting Braunskill,supra,at 775, 107 S.Ct. 2113)).
When the State fails to cure the specific constitutional violation identified by the district court, the habeas petitioner is entitled to release. That is because the prevailing habeas petitioner has shown that his conviction or sentencing proceeding was unconstitutional and that he is therefore "actually entitled to release." Dotson,544 U.S., at 86, 125 S.Ct. 1242(SCALIA, J., concurring). "Conditional writs enable habeas courts to give States time to replace an invalid judgment with a valid one, and the consequence when they fail to do so is always release."Id.,at 87, 125 S.Ct. 1242. But that entitlement to release is tied to the constitutional violation identified by the Court. A State committing a new constitutional violation during the new sentencing proceeding will not be required to release the habeas petitioner under the old order. Cf. Magwood, supra,at 339, 130 S.Ct. 2788(explaining that a habeas petitioner who obtains a new sentencing proceeding on the basis of one error may subsequently raise, in a first habeas application, other errors repeated in that proceeding).
A habeas petitioner's rights under the conditional-release order are thus defined by the violation that justified its entry, not by the wording of the order. Pitchess v. Davis,421 U.S. 482, 95 S.Ct. 1748, 44 L.Ed.2d 317 (1975)(per curiam), makes that clear. Davisinvolved a prisoner who had obtained habeas relief because the prosecutor had failed to disclose a material and exculpatory laboratory report, in violation of Brady v. Maryland,373 U.S. 83, 83 S.Ct. 1194, 10 L.Ed.2d 215 (1963). 421 U.S., at 483, 95 S.Ct. 1748. When the State moved to retry him, the prisoner discovered that the State had destroyed some of the physical evidence used against him at his initial trial.
Id.,at 484, 95 S.Ct. 1748. The District Court granted the prisoner's motion to convert its initial conditional-release order into an unconditional order. Id.,at 485, 95 S.Ct. 1748. After the Court of Appeals affirmed that decision, this Court granted certiorari and reversed. Id.,at 486, 490, 95 S.Ct. 1748. Although the conditional-release order provided only that the prisoner should be released unless the State moved to retry him within 60 days, Davis v. Pitchess,388 F.Supp. 105, 114 (C.D.Cal.1974), the Court read that conditional-release order to require the State to "provid[e] respondent with the laboratory report," in addition to moving to retry him within 60 days, Davis,421 U.S., at 483, 95 S.Ct. 1748(emphasis added). Because the order did not address the separate issue of the physical evidence, the Court refused to allow the District Court to use its destruction as a basis for converting the conditional-release order to an unconditional order.
That decision makes sense when considered in light of traditional principles of equitable relief. "This Court has frequently rested its habeas decisions on equitable principles." Withrow v. Williams,507 U.S. 680, 717, 113 S.Ct. 1745, 123 L.Ed.2d 407 (1993)(SCALIA, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part). (Such principles remain relevant after AEDPA's enactment when they are consistent with the statutory scheme Congress adopted. See, e.g., McQuiggin v. Perkins,569 U.S. ----, ---- - ----, 133 S.Ct. 1924, 1928-1929, 185 L.Ed.2d 1019 (2013)(SCALIA, J., dissenting).) And the Court has frequently recognized that an equitable "remedy must... be limited to the inadequacy that produced" the asserted injury. Lewis v. Casey,518 U.S. 343, 357, 116 S.Ct. 2174, 135 L.Ed.2d 606 (1996). Thus, a conditional-release order will not "permit a federal habeas court to maintain a continuing supervision over a retrial conducted pursuant to a conditional writ granted by the habeas court." Davis,421 U.S., at 490, 95 S.Ct. 1748. But neither will a conditional-release order permit a State to hold a prisoner under a new judgment infected by the same constitutional violation that justified the order's entry in the first place. See Dotson,supra,at 87, 125 S.Ct. 1242(SCALIA, J., concurring); Harvest v. Castro,531 F.3d 737, 750 (C.A.9 2008); Phifer v. Warden,53 F.3d 859, 864-865 (C.A.7 1995). Such an interpretation of habeas judgments would render the writ hollow.
The history of the writ of habeas corpus, the treatment of conditional-release orders, and traditional principles of equitable relief resolve the dispute at issue here. A habeas petitioner awarded a conditional-release order based on an error at his sentencing proceeding is entitled, under that order, to a new proceeding without the specific constitutional violation identified by the district court. Raising any other constitutional violation on appeal would be an attempt to modify the prisoner's rights flowing from that order.
B
Given these principles, the judgment of the Court of Appeals should be affirmed. Jennings prevailed in the District Court on two theories of ineffective assistance of counsel and lost on another. The District Court entered a conditional-release order instructing the State to release Jennings unless it granted Jennings a new sentencing hearing within 120 days or commuted his sentence. Ante, at 798 - 799. Under this Court's precedents, that general order embodies a specific instruction to the State with respect to a new sentencing proceeding: resentence Jennings without the two identified Wigginserrors. See ante,at 797 - 798 (citing Wiggins v. Smith,539 U.S. 510, 123 S.Ct. 2527, 156 L.Ed.2d 471 (2003)). The State's failure to comply with that order would justify Jennings' release.
Jennings attempted, through his cross-point, to expand his rights under the judgment when he attempted to alter the instruction to the State-adding an additional instruction about a Spisakerror-and, accordingly, the grounds upon which he could obtain immediate release. See ante,at 797 - 798 (citing Smith v. Spisak,558 U.S. 139, 130 S.Ct. 676, 175 L.Ed.2d 595 (2010)). Jennings' cross-point was in substance a cross-appeal for which he needed to obtain a COA.
III
A
The majority makes no attempt to reconcile its decision with the history of conditional-release orders, our precedents, or traditional limitations on equitable relief. Nor
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
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.
Petitioner presents a novel case. Admitting that he was lawfully inducted into the Army, he asks the courts, by habeas corpus, to discharge him because he has not been assigned to the specialized duties nor given the commissioned rank to which he claims to be entitled by the circumstances of his induction. The petitioner had passed the ages liable to induction except under the Universal Military Training and Service Act, 50 U. S. C. App. § 454 (i)(1)(A), which authorizes conscription of certain “medical and allied specialist categories.” The statute sets up a priority system for calling such specialists, the first liable being those who received professional training at government expense during World War II and who have served less than ninety days since completion of such training. As a doctor who had received training under this program, Orloff was subject to this provision and was called up pursuant to it.
His petition alleged that he was illegally restrained of his liberty because he was liable for service only as a doctor but, after induction, had been given neither rank nor duties appropriate to that profession and so was entitled to be discharged. He alleged that under Army regulations and practice one can serve as a doctor only as a commissioned officer and that he applied for but had not received such an appointment. He also alleged that he had requested assignment of physician's duties, with or without a commission, but that this also had been denied him.
The return to the order to show cause asserted that Orloff was lawfully inducted and therefore the court is without jurisdiction of the subject matter. An affidavit by Colonel Willoughby set forth that the petitioner, after sixteen weeks of Army medical service training following his induction, was awarded a “potential military occupation specialty” as a medical laboratory technician. Appointment as an officer in the Army Medical Corps Reserve, he said, was still under consideration. It also asserted that under his induction he was liable for training and service under military jurisdiction and was subject to military orders and service the same as any other inducted person.
Answering the petition for habeas corpus, the respondent raised as affirmative defenses that petitioner was subject to military command and that both the subject matter and the person of the petitioner were under the exclusive jurisdiction of the President of the United States as Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces, and that petitioner had failed to exhaust his administrative remedies. Respondent further stated that his application for a commission still was being processed by military authorities “because of particular statements made by petitioner in his application concerning prior membership or association with certain organizations designated by the Attorney General of the United States on October 30, 1950 pursuant to Executive Order 9835,” that the court was without jurisdiction, and that habeas-corpus does not lie for the purpose of the case.
By way of traverse, Orloff set forth in detail his qualifications as a physician and psychiatrist and alleged that the medical laboratory technician status was not a doctor’s work and required no more than a four-month training of a layman in the medical field service school. This, he claims, is not within the medical specialist category for which he was conscripted. He asserted that he was willing to serve as a medical specialist, that is, as a medical doctor, and had offered his services as a doctor in the grade or rank of private but had been advised that he could serve as a doctor only upon being commissioned.
Upon such pleadings the cause proceeded to hearing. Petitioner’s counsel told the trial court that no question was involved as to the Army’s granting or not granting a commission and that petitioner was not asking anybody to give anybody else a commission, but he claimed to be entitled to discharge until the Army was prepared to use his services as a doctor. It was admitted that petitioner had made no request of respondent for a discharge. Evidence was taken indicating that the specialty to which Orloff had been assigned was not that usual for a physician. The trial judge concluded that the law does not require a person drafted under the “medical and allied specialist categories” to be assigned doctor’s functions and those only, and interpreted the law that a doctor inducted under the statute was in the same status, so far as his obedience to orders is concerned, as if he had been inducted under other conscription statutes and could not insist on being used in the medical category. He therefore denied the writ.
On appeal, as the Court of Appeals pointed out, the case was argued and briefed by the Government on the broad theory that under the statute doctors could be drafted and used for any purpose the Army saw fit, that duty assignment for such inductees was a matter of military discretion. The court agreed and on that ground affirmed.
We granted certiorari, and in this Court the parties changed positions as nimbly as if dancing a quadrille. The Government here admits that the petitioner is entitled to duties generally within a doctor’s field and says that he now has been assigned to such. The petitioner denies that he yet has duties that fully satisfy that requirement. Notwithstanding his position before the trial court, he further says that anyway he must be commissioned and wants this Court to order him commissioned or discharged.
In its present posture, questions presented are, first, whether to accept the Government’s concession that one inducted as a medical specialist must be used as such; second, whether petitioner, as matter of law, is entitled to a.commission; third, whether the federal courts, by habeas corpus, have power to discharge a lawfully mustered member of the Armed Forces because of alleged discriminatory or illegal treatment in assignment of duties.
1. This Court, of course, is not bound to accept the Government’s concession that the courts below erred on a question of law. They accepted the Government’s argument as then made and, if they were right in doing so, we should affirm. We think, however, that the Government is well advised in confessing error and that candid reversal of its position is commendable. We understand that the Army accepts and is governing itself by the Government’s present interpretation of its duty toward those conscripted because of professional skills. To separate particular professional groups from the generality of the citizenship and render them liable to military service only because of their expert callings and, after induction, to divert them from the class of work for which they were conscripted would raise questions not only of bad faith but of unlawful discrimination. We agree that the statute should be interpreted to obligate the Army to classify specially inducted professional personnel for duty within the categories which rendered them liable to induction. It is not conceded, however, that particular duty orders within the general field are subject to judicial review by habeas corpus.
2. We cannot comply with the appellant’s insistence that we order him to be commissioned or discharged. We assume that he is correct in stating that it has been a uniform practice to commission Army doctors; indeed, until 1950 Congress provided that the Army Medical Corps should consist of . . commissioned officers below the grade of brigadier general.” 10 U. S. C. A. § 91. But in 1950 Congress repealed § 91 and substituted in its place the following language: “[The Medical Corps] . . . shall consist of Regular Army officers appointed and commissioned therein and such other members of the Army as may be assigned thereto by the Secretary of the Army . . . .” 10 U. S. C. § 81-1. 10 U. S. C. § 94 provides that medical officers of the Army may be assigned by the Secretary of the Army to such duties as the interests of the service demand. Thus, neither in the language of the Universal Military Training and Service Act nor of the Army Reorganization Act referred to above is there any implication that all personnel inducted under the Doctor’s Draft Act and assigned to the Medical Corps be either commissioned or discharged.
Petitioner, by his concessions on the hearing to the effect that the question of a commission was not involved, may have avoided a full litigation of the facts which lie back of his noncommissioned status, but enough appears to make plain that there was cause for refusing him a commission.
It appears that just before petitioner was inducted he applied for and was granted a commission as captain in the Medical Corps, United States Air Force Reserve. When he refused to execute the loyalty certificate prescribed for commissioned officers, his appointment was revoked and he was discharged. This petitioner refused information as to his membership in or association with organizations designated by the Attorney General as subversive or which advocated overthrow of the Government by force and violence. He gave as his reason that “as a matter of conscience, I object to filling out the loyalty certificate because it involves an inquisition into my personal beliefs and views. Moreover, the inquiry into organizational affiliations employs the principle of guilt by association, to which I am vigorously opposed. Further, it is my understanding that all the organizations were listed by the Attorney General without notice or hearing which has caused the Supreme Court to invalidate it.”
After he was inducted, petitioner applied for another commission and filed the required loyalty certificate but again refused to supply the requested information. He stated, “I have attended public meetings of the Civil Rights Congress and the National Council of American-Soviet Friendship. In 1943, I co-authored a radio play for the latter organization. Over a period of 7% months I attended classes at the Jefferson School of Social Sciences (ending in the Spring of 1950). With respect to any other organizations contained on the annexed list I am compelled to claim my Federal Constitutional Privilege. However, I have never considered myself an organizational member of any of the aforesaid.” As to the question “Are you now or have you ever been a member of the Communist Party, U. S. A. or any Communist Organization?” he said, “Federal constitutional privilege is claimed.”
The petitioner appears to be under the misconception that a commission is not only a matter of right, but is to be had upon his own terms.
The President commissions all Army officers. 5 U. S. C. § 11. We have held that, except one hold his appointment by virtue of a commission from the President, he is not an officer of the Army. United States v. Mouat, 124 U. S. 303. Congress has authorized the President alone to appoint Army officers in grades up to and including that of colonel, above which the advice and consent of the Senate is required. 55 Stat. 728, as amended, 57 Stat. 380.
It is obvious that the commissioning of officers in the Army is a matter of discretion within the province of the President as Commander in Chief. Whatever control courts have exerted over tenure or compensation under an appointment, they have never assumed by any process to control the appointing power either in civilian or military positions.
Petitioner, like every conscript, was inducted as a private. To obtain a change of that status requires appointment by or under authority of the President. It is true that the appointment he seeks is one that long and consistent practice seems never to have denied to one serving as an Army doctor; one, too, that Congress in authorizing the draft of doctors probably contemplated normally would be forthcoming. But, if he is the first to be denied a commission, it may also be that he is the first doctor to haggle about questions concerning his loyalty. It does not appear to us that it is the President who breaks faith with Congress and the doctors of America. We are not easily convinced that the whole military establishment is out of step except Orloff.
The President’s commission to Army officers recites that “reposing special trust and confidence in the patriotism, valor, fidelity and abilities” of the appointee he is named to the specified rank during the pleasure of the President. Could this Court, whatever power it might have in the matter, rationally hold that the President must, or even ought to, issue the certificate to one who will not answer whether he is a member of the Communist Party?
It is argued that Orloff is being punished for having claimed a privilege which the Constitution guarantees. No one, at least no one on this Court which has repeatedly sustained assertion by Communists of the privilege against self-incrimination, questions or doubts Orloff’s right to withhold facts about himself on this ground. No one believes he can be punished for doing so. But the question is whether he can at the same time take the position that to tell the truth about himself might incriminate him and that even so the President must appoint him to a post of honor and trust. We have no hesitation in answering that question “No.”
It is not our view of Orloff’s fitness that governs. Regardless of what we individually may think of the usefulness of loyalty oaths or the validity of the Attorney General’s list of subversive organizations, we cannot doubt that the President of the United States, before certifying his confidence in an officer and appointing him to a commissioned rank, has the right to learn whatever facts the President thinks may affect his fitness. Perhaps we would not ask some of these questions, or we might ask others, but if there had never been an Attorney General’s list the President would be within his rights in asking any questions he saw fit about the habits, associations and attitudes of the applicant for his trust and honor. Whether Orloff deserves appointment is not for judges to say and it would be idle, or worse, to remand this case to the lower courts on any question concerning his claim to a commission.
3. This leaves the question as to whether one lawfully inducted may have habeas corpus to obtain a judicial review of his assignments to duty. The Government has conceded that it was the legal duty of the Army to assign Orloff to duties falling within “medical and allied specialist categories.” However, within the area covered by this concession there are many varieties of particular duties. The classification to which petitioner belonged for inductive purposes was defined by statute to be “medical and allied specialist categories.” This class includes not merely doctors and psychiatrists but other medical technicians, and, while the duties must be within this category, a large area of discretion as to particular duties must be left to commanding officers. The petitioner obtained basic medical education at the expense of the Government. In private life he has pursued a specialty. But the very essence of compulsory service is the subordination of the desires and interests of the individual to the needs of the service. A conscripted doctor may have pursued the specialty of obstetrics, but in the Army, which might have limited use for his specialty, could he refuse other service within the general medical category?
Each doctor in the Army cannot be entitled to choose his own duties, and the Government concession does not extend to an admission that duties cannot be prescribed by the military authorities or that they are subject to review and determination by the judiciary.
The nature of this issue is pointed up by the controversy that survives the changes the parties have made in their positions in this Court. It is admitted that Orloff is now assigned to medical duties in the treatment of patients within the psychiatric field. He is not allowed functions that pertain to commissioned officers, but, apart from that, he is restricted from administering certain drugs and treatments said to induce or facilitate a state of hypnotism. Orloff claims this as his professional prerogative, because in private practice he would be free to administer such treatments. The Government says, however, that because of doubts about his loyalty he is not allowed to administer such drugs since his patients may be officers in possession of important military information which he could draw out from them while they were under the influence of the drugs. Of course, if it were the function or duty of the judiciary to resolve such a controversy, this case should be returned to the District Court to take evidence as to all issues involved.
However, we are convinced that it is not within the power of this Court by habeas corpus to determine whether specific assignments to duty fall within the basic classification of petitioner. It is surely not necessary that one physician be permitted to cover the whole field within the medical classification, nor would we expect that a physician is exempt from occasional or incidental duties not strictly medical. In these there must be a wide latitude allowed to those in command.
We know that from top to bottom of the Army the complaint is often made, and sometimes with justification, that there is discrimination, favoritism or other objectionable handling of men. But judges are not given the task of running the Army. The responsibility for setting up channels through which such grievances can be considered and fairly settled rests upon the Congress and upon the President of the United States and his subordinates. The military constitutes a specialized community governed by a separate discipline from that of the civilian. Orderly government requires that the judiciary be as scrupulous not to interfere with legitimate Army matters as the Army must be scrupulous not to intervene in judicial matters. While the courts have found occasion to determine whether one has been lawfully inducted and is therefore within the jurisdiction of the Army and subject to its orders, we have found no case where this Court has assumed to revise duty orders as to one lawfully in the service.
But the proceeding being in habeas corpus, petitioner urges that, if we may not order him commissioned or his duties redefined, we may hold that in default of granting his requests he may be discharged from the Army. Nothing appears to convince us that he is held in the Army unlawfully, and, that being the case, we cannot go into the discriminatory character of his orders. Discrimination is unavoidable in the Army. Some must be assigned to dangerous missions; others find soft spots. Courts are presumably under as great a duty to entertain the complaints of any of the thousands of soldiers as we are to entertain those of Orloff. The effect of entertaining a proceeding for judicial discharge from the Army is shown from this case. Orloff was ordered sent to the Ear East Command, where the United States is now engaged in combat. By reason of these proceedings, he has remained in the United States and successfully avoided foreign service until his period of induction is almost past. Presumably, some doctor willing to tell whether he was a member of the Communist Party has been required to go to the Far East in his place. It is not difficult to see that the exercise of such jurisdiction as is here urged would be a disruptive force as to affairs peculiarly within the jurisdiction of the military authorities.
We see nothing to be accomplished by returning this case for further litigation. The judgment is
Affirmed.
195 F. 2d 209.
344 TJ. S. 873.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | B | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Mr. Justice Harlan
delivered the opinion of the Court.
The United States brought, this action against the respondent taxpayer for the collection of a deficiency in taxes for the year 1946, and statutory interest thereon. The respondent defended on the ground that the action could not be maintained because. the Commissioner of Internal Revenue had never issued to the taxpayer a notice of deficiency (commonly known as a “90-day letter”) for the amount in question. This defense was based on § 272 (a)(1) of the Internal Revenue Code of 1939, 53 Stat. 82, as amended, providing in pertinent part as follows:
“If in the case of any taxpayer, the Commissioner determines that there is a deficiency in respect of the tax imposed by this chapter, the Commissioner is authorized to send notice of such deficiency to the taxpayer by registered mail. Within ninety days after such notice is mailed . . . the taxpayer may file a„ petition with the Tax Court of the United States for a redetermination of the deficiency. No assessment of a deficiency in respect of the tax imposed by this chapter and no distraint or proceeding in court for its collection shall be made, begun, or prosecuted until such notice has been mailed to the taxpayer, nor until the expiration of such ninety-day period, nor, if a petition has béen filed with the Tax Court, until the decision of the Tax Court has become final. . . .”
The Government relied on the admitted fact that respondent had executed a Treasury Department form waiving the restrictions on assessment and collection of the deficiency sued for, and on § 272 (d) of the 1939 Code, 53 Stat. 83, said to authorize such a waiver, which provides:
“The taxpayer shall at any time have the right, by a signed notice in writing filed with the Commissioner, to waive the restrictions provided in subsection (a) of this section on the assessment and collection of the whole or any part of the deficiency.”
The District Court held that the waiver was not .effective because a 90-day letter had not been issued, and that § 272 (a) therefore barred the action. The Court of Appeals affirmed, 263 F. 2d 382, and in view of contrary decisions in the First and Sixth Circuits, we granted cer- • tiorari. 359 U. S. 988. For reasons hereafter stated we think the court below was in error.
■ We start with the language of § 272 '(d). By its terms, . the right of waiver is to be available “at any time,” and is applicable to “the restrictions” contained in § 272 (a). Those restrictions include the prohibitions on assessment and collection of a deficiency prior to the mailing of a 90-day letter, no less than' the same prohibitions relating to the period following the issuancé of such a letter during which a petition for a redetermination of a' deficiency may be filed or is awaiting decision of the Tax Court.
Respondent seeks to support the-view that these provisions should be read as applying only to the period following the issuance of the 90-day letter by noting that § 272 (d) is limited to waivers of restrictions on the assessment and collection of “the deficiency,” and asserting that “the deficiency” does not come into existence, as it were, until a 90-day better has been mailed. This reading of the statute is said to follow from the first sentence of §272 (a)(1):
“If in the case of any' taxpayer, the Commissioner determines that there is a deficiency in respect of the tax imposed by this chapter, the Commissioner is authorized to send notice of such deficiency to the taxpayer by registered mail.”
A deficiency, it is argued, is npt “determined” until the statutory notice has been issued. We cannot accept any such fine-spun refinements. The plain sense of this pro-visión contemplates, first, a determination, and then the sending of a notice. No persuasive reason appears for artificially engrafting upon the statutory terms excessively formal conditions. Nor do we find any force in the argument that because a determination and assessment of additional deficiencies may follow upon one already made, “the deficiency” referred to in § 272. (d) must be taken as limited to one previously determined.
. Section 272 (d) does not on its face therefore support the view that a waiver of the restrictions on assessment and collection, of a tax is effective only if filed after the issüance of a 90-day letter. We think a similar conclu-. sion follows from an examination of the legislative history of the relevant statutory enactments.
In creating the Tax Court (originally known as the Board of Tax Appeals), Congress provided a forum in which taxpayers could obtain an “independent review of the Commissioner of Internal Revenue’s determination of additional income . . . taxes by the Board in advance of their paying the tax found by the Commissioner to be due.” Old Colony Trust Co. v. Commissioner, 279 U. S. 716, 721. Section 274 (a) of the Revenue Act of 1924, 43 Stat. 297, and the Revenue Act of 1926, § 274 (a), 44 Stat. 55 (the predecessors of § 272 (a) of the 1939 Code), disabled the Commissioner from assessing or collecting any deficiency úntil a notice of such deficiency had been issued, and for 60 (later amended to 90) days thereafter, or, in the event that a taxpayer took an appeal to the Board of Tax Appeals within such period, until that body had rendered a final decision. However, even, though a taxpayer did not wish to contest the Commissioner's determination of a deficiency before the Board, interest on such deficiency continued to accrue from the original due date of the. tax until the time for seeking Board review had run, such interest being thereafter collectible upon assessment of the tax. Revenue Act of 1924, § 274'(f), 43 Stat. 297.
To meet this situation, the 1926 Revenue Act added, in § 274 (d), 44 Stat. 56, the waiver provisions re-enacted as § 272 (d) of the 1939 Code. At the same time, Congress provided, in § 274 (j) (the predecessor of § 292 of the 1939 Code), that the filing of a waiver as provided for by subsection (d) should stop the running of interest on the deficiency upon the expiration, of 30 days from such filing or upon the assessment of such deficiency, whichever the earlier. The relation between the two sections of the 1926 Act, and between the comparable sections of the 1939 Code as well, is clear: (1) a waiver is-provided for in § 274 (d) [1939 Code, § 272 (d)] “[i]n order to permit the taxpayer to pay the tax and stop the running of interest,” S. Rep. No. 52, 69th Cong., 1st Sess., p. 27; (2) the Commissioner is thereupon permitted to assess and collect the tax free of the restrictions contained in § ^74 fa) [1939 Code, § 272 (a)]; and (3) the taxpayer is protected against the continued running of interest, due. to delay in assessment, by the 30-day cutoff provided for by § 274 (j) [1939 Code, § 292].
We can find in this history and the purpose it discloses no warrant for inferring that it was intended that a taxpayer should be without power to stop the running of interest against him until a formal notice of deficiency has been issued. Yet, as will appear, such is the necessary effect of respondent’s position. Major reliance is placed on a passage in the Senate Committee Report on the 1926 Act:
“In order to permit the taxpayer to pay the tax and stop the running of interest, the committee recommends in section 274 (d) of the bill that the taxpayer at any time be permitted to waive in writing the restrictions on the commissioner against assessing and collecting the tax, but without taking away the right of the taxpayer to take the case to the board.” S.'Rep. No. 52, 69th Cong., 1st Sess., p. 27.
Respondent claims that the last clause of this passage should be taken as indicating that § 274 (d),-reenacted as § 272 (d) of the 1939 Code, does not sanction waivers prior to the issuance of a 90-day letter, because it is that event which brought the Board’s, and now brings the Tax Court’s, jurisdiction to review deficiencies into play. To read the passage — the obscurity of which has previously been judicially noted — so as to apply the clause in question to waivers executed before the issuance of a notice of deficiency would require a holding that, despite a waiver, the issuance by the Commissioner of a notice of deficiency remains a prerequisite to assessment and collection. But since, as the taxpayer acknowledges, it is inconceivable that a waiver would be effective to stop the running of interest, and at the same time be ineffective to permit .the Government immediately to assess and collect the. deficiency to which the waiver referred, the necessary result of respondent’s reading of the Senate Committee Report would be to infer that a taxpayer was to be without power to stop the running of interest until a formal notice of deficiency had issued, often involving not inconsiderable periods of-deláy. *, Such an inference does not jibe either with the "right” the statute gives a taxpayer to file a waiver “at any time,” or with the purposes of the waiver provisions. Moreover, had Congress desired to require the issuance of a notice of deficiency prior to assessment and collection in all circumstances, it more likely would have accomplished that result directly, as it did in the instance of jeopardy assessments. See Revenue Act of 1926, § 279 (b), 44 Stat. 59 (now § 6861 (b) of the 1954 Code).
Nor do we think that subsequent legislative develop- , ments change the view we have of the statute. Several years after the enactment of the 1926 statute, the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit expressed views similar to those which formed the basis for the decision below. Mutual Lumber Co. v. Poe, 66 F. 2d 904; McCarthy Co. v. Commissioner, 80 F. 2d 618. In 1938, Congress considered various suggested revisions in the revenue statutes, and a House of Representatives'Subcommittee rec- . ommended an express repudiation of those decisions. This recommendation was not adopted, and from tlie fail- c ure to act, respondent would have us infer an acceptance by Congress of the Ninth Circuit’s position. Such non-actioirby Congress affords the most dubious foundation for drawing positive inferences. Moreover, the -Subcommittee’s discussion, which is set out in full in the margin, does not support the meaning sought to be derived from it. • While certain isolated passages can be so read, taken as a whole what the Subcommittee said appears to us to espouse the position that the Commissioner’s long-standing interpretation of the statute was correct, and that ■ clarification was called for only because of the doubts caused by the Ninth Circuit’s decisions, which this Court had. declined to review. 290 U. S. 706, 298 U. S. 655. Whether Congress thought the proposal unwise, as respondent argues, or unnecessary, we cannot tell; accordingly, no inference can properly be drawn.from the failure of the Congress to act.
; Finally, we are similarly unable to find support for respondent’s position in the history of the 1954 Code. While the recodification settled (for taxable years covered by that Act) the question before us by expressly authorizing a waiver prior- to the janee of a 90-day letter, the-reports contain no clear statement as to Con- ■ gress’ view of then existing law. What light there is, however, tends to favor the Government’s contentions. The new statute amended another subsection of the section containing the waiver provision, and the reports refer to that amendment as the “only material change from existing law.” Respondent argues that the change regarding waiver was probably thought not “material.” Inferences from legislative history cannot rest on so slender a reed. Moreover, the views of a subsequent Congress form a hazardous basis for inferring the intent of an earlier one. See United States v. United Mine Workers, 330 U. S. 258, 282.
The legislative history, then, does not call for a result contrary to that indicated by the language of the Act. We hold that a waiver given pursuant to § 272 (d) of the Internal Revenue Code of 1939 or its predecessor sections, although executed prior to the issuance of a notice of deficiency, is a fully effective instrument.
Reversed and remanded.
The waiver was executed on United States Treasury Form 870, entitled “Waiver of Restrictions on Assessment and Collection of Deficiency in Tax,” and read, in relevant part, as follows:
“Pursuant to the provisions of Section 272 (d) of the Internal Revenue Code, and/or the corresponding provisions of prior internal revenue laws, the restrictions provided in Section 272 (a) of the Internal Revenue Code, and/or the corresponding provisions of prior internal revenue laws, are hereby waived and consent is given to the assessment and collection of the following deficiency or deficiencies in tax:”
Associated, Mutuals v. Delaney, 176 F. 2d 179, 182-184; Moore v. Cleveland R. Co., 108 F. 2d 656, 658-660. See also Roos v. United States, 90 Ct. Cl. 482, 31 F. Supp. 144.
See Moore v. Cleveland R. Co., supra, at 659, analyzing § 271 (a) of the Code, 53 Stat. 82, defining a “deficiency."
Section 292 of the 1939 Code, 53 Stat. 88, which is in all respects material here identical with its 1926 counterpart, provided, in pertinent part:
“Interest upon the amount determined as a deficiency shall be assessed at the same time as the deficiency, shall be paid upon notice and demand from the collector, and shall' be collected as a .part of the tax, at the rate of 6 per centum per annum from the dáte -prescribed for the payment of the tax ... to the date the deficiency is assessed, or, in the case of a waivér under section 272 (d), to the thirtieth day after the filing of such waiver, or to the date the deficiency is assessed whichever is the earlier” ■
See Moore v. Cleveland R.' Co., supra, at 659-660.
Associated Mutuals v. Delaney, supra, at 183.- Even respondent’s interpretation of the.passage would not, however, give literal effect to its language, for a taxpayer would not “at any time be permitted .to waive” the restrictions on assessment and collection of a deficiency, but could do so only after the issuance of a notice of deficiency.
“In order to enable the Government to collect admitted deficiencies in an orderly and expeditions manner without the delay necessarily involved in the issuance of a formal notice of deficiency, and also to enable taxpayers to curtail the interest period on such deficiencies by permitting the Government to make an earlier assessment of the tax than otherwise would be possible, the Bureau of' Internal Revenue has entered into cooperative agreements with taxpayers.
“It has been a practice of long standing in the Bureau to endeavor to secure the signed agreement of a taxpayer to additional taxes proposed by an internal-revenue agent as the result of a field investigation, and also to taxes* proposed in letters from the Commissioner mailed as preliminaries to the issuance of the formal notice of deficiency authorized in section 272 (a), Revenue Act of 1936, and cor-responding provisions of prior acts. It has further been the practice to regard such a signed agreement as a valid waiver under section 272 (d), Revenue Act of 1936, and corresponding provisions of prior acts, for the purpose of computing interest on the deficiencies agreed to in accordance with section 292, Revenue Act of 1936, and corresponding provisions of prior act's. That is, interest on a deficiency so agreed to would be computed to the date of assessment or to the thirtieth day after the filing of such agreement, whichever ■ was the earlier. In the great majority of such cases the assessment is made within 30 days after the agreement is procured, thereby making collection of such deficiencies more nearly concurrent with their discovery than would-be the case if formal notice were required to be given'
■ “As a result of two decisions of the Circuit Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit (Mutual Lumber Co. v. Poe, 66 F. 2d 906, certiorari denied Jan. 6, 1936; McCarthy Co. v. Commissioner, 80 F. 2d 618, certiorari denied Apr. 6, 1936), a valid waiver cannot be given by a taxpayer prior to the formal determination by the Commissioner, as evidenced by a 60- or 90-day letter, that there is a deficiency in tax.
“Your subcommittee while feeling that the language of the statute is already sufficiently clear, feels compelled, in view of the action of the Supreme Court in denying certiorari, to recommend (Recommendation No. 47) that an amendment be inserted to insure the validity of waivers given before the mailing of the deficiency letter, such amendment to provide that the taxpayer 'shall have the right .at any -time after a deficiency is proposed in any manner that the Commissioher may. direct, whether before or after the sending of the notice of deficiency as provided in subsection (a) of that section, to waive by á feigned notice in writing, any and all restrictions or conditions, however imposed, on. the immediate assessment and collection of the whole or any part of the deficiency so proposed.
■ “It is believed that the proposed amendment will furnish a clear and unquestionable statutory basis for a long-established and satisfactorily functioning departmental procedure. It will be conducive to the. early settlement of controverted issues without necessity for litigation, while at the same time retaining for the taxpayer his present privilege of paying deficiencies under appeal and thereby terminating the running of- deficiency interest.” Report of a Subcommittee of the House Committee- on Ways and Means, on Proposed Revision of the Revenue Laws, 1938, 75th Cong., 3d Sess.,- pp. 53^54.
Section 6213 (d) of the 1954 Code reads as follows:
“The taxpayer shall at..any time (whether or not a notice, of deficiency has been issued) have the right, by a. signed .notice in writing filed with the Secretary or his delegate, to waive the restrictions provided in subsection (a) on the-assessment and collection of the whole or any parbof the deficiency.” '" -
H. R. Rep. No. 1337, 83d Cong., 2d Sess., p. A405:
“Section 6818. Restrictions applicable to deficiencies; petition to Tax Court.
“The only material change from existing law is made in subsection (b) (3) of this section, which contains a new provision providing that any amount paid as a tax, or in respect of a tax, may be assessed upon the receipt of such payment notwithstanding the restrictions on assessment contained in subsection (a).” See also, to the same effect, S. Rep. No./1622, 83d Cong., 2d Sess., p. 573.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
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.
Petitioner was convicted of committing a direct contempt of a judge of the District Court Division of the Forsyth County, North Carolina, General Court of Justice. He was sentenced to 30 days in jail as summary punishment authorized by General Statutes of North Carolina §1 5-1 (1) and 5-6. He sought habeas corpus in the Superior Court Division of the General Court. That court denied relief after hearing oral argument but without receiving evidence. Both the North Carolina Court of Appeals and the North Carolina Supreme Court denied review by certiorari.
Neither the order of the District Court nor the judgment of the Superior Court details the events leading to the conviction. The petition recites these events, however, and the State’s response does not challenge the accuracy of the recital. Petitioner’s trial on a charge of carrying a concealed weapon was scheduled for March 8, 1971, in the District Court at Winston-Salem. Petitioner appeared and filed a written motion for continuance by reason of another trial engagement of his retained counsel in Charlotte. The trial judge denied the motion and proceeded with the trial. Without benefit of counsel petitioner attempted to defend himself. In summation following the close of the evidence petitioner made statements that the court was biased and had prejudged the case and that petitioner was a political prisoner. The trial judge adjudged petitioner in contempt for these statements. The court’s order recites that “[t]he Court at this point informed the [petitioner] that he was in contempt as the Court felt that these remarks were very disrespectful and tended to subvert and prevent justice,” and further recites that “[t]he Court concludes on the foregoing facts that the conduct of the [petitioner] and the words spoken by him in the presence of the Court were contemptuous, that they reflected on the integrity of the Court and tended to subvert and prevent justice.”
The order also recites, “As the defendant was being removed from the courtroom by deputy sheriff [following the contempt adjudication], he spoke out and called the undersigned presiding judge a M-F-.” This language in a courtroom is, of course, reprehensible and cannot be tolerated. But this was not relied upon by either the District Court or the Superior Court for the conviction and sentence and the State defends the conviction in this Court without any reference to it. We therefore also lay it aside for the purpose of our decision.
The Superior Court had the District Court order before it but no other evidence. The Superior Court judgment tracks the statutory language in reciting that petitioner’s statements “directly tended to interrupt its proceedings and to impair the respect due the District Court’s authority,” and, further, the District Court’s conclusion that the statements “ ‘reflected on the integrity of the Court and tended to subvert and prevent justice’ amounted to a finding by the District Court that the words were wilful and intentionally used and that the words used tended to interrupt the Court’s proceedings and to impair the respect due its authority.”
We hold that in the context of this case petitioner’s statements in summation did not constitute criminal contempt. The court’s denial of the continuance forced petitioner to argue his own cause. He was therefore clearly entitled to as much latitude in conducting his defense as we have held is enjoyed by counsel vigorously espousing a client’s cause. In re McConnell, 370 U. S. 230 (1962). There is no indication, and the State does not argue, that petitioner’s statements were uttered in a boisterous tone or in any wise actually disrupted the court proceeding. Therefore, “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. The danger must not be remote or even probable; it must immediately imperil .... [T]he law of contempt is not made for the protection of judges who may be sensitive to the winds of public opinion. Judges are supposed to be men of fortitude, able to thrive in a hardy climate.” Craig v. Harney, 331 U. S. 367, 376 (1947). “Trial courts . . . must be on guard against confusing offenses to their sensibilities with obstruction to the administration of justice.” Brown v. United States, 356 U. S. 148, 153 (1958).
The reversal of this conviction is necessarily required under our holding in Holt v. Virginia, 381 U. S. 131 (1965). There attorneys filed motions that the trial judge recuse himself and for a change of venue, alleging that the judge was biased. The motion for change of venue alleged that the judge intimidated and harassed the attorneys’ client. The court adjudged the attorneys in contempt for filing these motions. We reversed for reasons also applicable here:
“It is not charged that petitioners here disobeyed any valid court order, talked loudly, acted boisterously, or attempted to prevent the judge or any other officer of the court from carrying on his court duties. Their convictions rest on nothing whatever except allegations made in motions for change of venue and disqualification of Judge Holladay because of alleged bias on his part.” Id., at 136.
The petition for certiorari is granted and the judgment is reversed.
It is so ordered.
Section 5-1 (1) makes punishable for contempt “[disorderly, contemptuous, or insolent behavior committed during the sitting of any court of justice, in immediate view and presence of the court, and directly tending to interrupt its proceedings, or to impair the respect due to its authority.”
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | A | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Justice Stevens
delivered the opinion of the Court.
Petitioner (Texaco) sold gasoline directly to respondents and several other retailers in Spokane, Washington, at its retail tank wagon (RTW) prices while it granted substantial discounts to two distributors. During the period between 1972 and 1981, the stations supplied by the two distributors increased their sales volume dramatically, while respondents’ sales suffered a corresponding decline. Respondents filed an action against Texaco under the Robinson-Patman Act amendment to the Clayton Act (Act), 38 Stat. 730, as amended, 49 Stat. 1526, 15 U. S. C. § 13, alleging that the distributor discounts violated § 2(a) of the Act, 15 U. S. C. § 13(a). Respondents recovered treble damages, and the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit affirmed the judgment. 842 F. 2d 1034 (1988). We granted certiorari, 490 U. S. 1105 (1989), to consider Texaco’s contention that legitimate functional discounts do not violate the Act because a seller is not responsible for its customers’ independent resale pricing decisions. While we agree with the basic thrust of Texaco’s argument, we conclude that in this case it is foreclosed by the facts of record.
I
Given the jury’s general verdict in favor of respondents, disputed questions of fact have been resolved in their favor. There seems, moreover, to be no serious doubt about the character of the market, Texaco’s pricing practices, or the relative importance of Texaco’s direct sales to retailers (“throughput” business) and its sales to distributors. The principal disputes at trial related to questions of causation and damages.
Respondents are 12 independent Texaco retailers. They displayed the Texaco trademark, accepted Texaco credit cards, and bought their gasoline products directly from Texaco. Texaco delivered the gasoline to respondents’ stations.
The retail gasoline market in Spokane was highly competitive throughout the damages period, which ran from 1972 to 1981. Stations marketing the nationally advertised Texaco gasoline competed with other major brands as well as with stations featuring independent brands. Moreover, although discounted prices at a nearby Texaco station would have the most obvious impact on a respondent’s trade, the cross-city traffic patterns and relatively small size of Spokane produced a citywide competitive market. See, e. g., App. 244, 283-291. Texaco’s throughput sales in the Spokane market declined from a monthly volume of 569,269 gallons in 1970 to 389,557 gallons in 1975. Id., at 487-488. Texaco’s independent retailers’ share of the market for Texaco gas declined from 76% to 49%. Ibid. Seven of the respondents’ stations were out of business by the end of 1978. Id., at 22-23, Record 501.
Respondents tried unsuccessfully to increase their ability to compete with lower priced stations. Some tried converting from full service to self-service stations. See, e. g., App. 55-56. Two of the respondents sought to buy their own tank trucks and haul their gasoline from Texaco’s supply point, but Texaco vetoed that proposal. Id., at 38-41, 59.
While the independent retailers struggled, two Spokane gasoline distributors supplied by Texaco prospered. Gull Oil Company (Gull) had its headquarters in Seattle and distributed petroleum products in four Western States under its own name. Id., at 94-95. In Spokane it purchased its gas from Texaco at prices that ranged from 60 to 40 below Texaco’s RTW price. Id., at 31-32. Gull resold that product under its own name; the fact that it was being supplied by Texaco was not known by either the public or the respondents. See, e. g., id., at 256. In Spokane, Gull supplied about 15 stations; some were “consignment stations” and some were “commission stations.” In both situations Gull retained title to the gasoline until it was pumped into a motorist’s tank. In the consignment stations, the station operator set the retail prices, but in the commission stations Gull set the prices and paid the operator a commission. Its policy was to price its gasoline at a penny less than the prevailing price for major brands. Gull employed two truckdrivers in Spokane who picked up product at Texaco’s bulk plant and delivered it to the Gull stations. It also employed one supervisor in Spokane. Apart from its trucks and investment in retail facilities, Gull apparently owned no assets in that market. Id., at 96-109, 504-512. At least with respect to the commission stations, Gull is fairly characterized as a retailer of gasoline throughout the relevant period.
The Dompier Oil Company (Dompier) started business in 1954 selling Quaker State Motor Oil. In 1960 it became a full line distributor of Texaco products, and by the mid-1970’s its sales of gasoline represented over three-quarters of its business. Id., at 114-115. Dompier purchased Texaco gasoline at prices of 3.95¢ to 3.65¢ below the RTW price. Dompier thus paid a higher price than Gull, but Dompier, unlike Gull, resold its gas under the Texaco brand names. Id., at 24, 29-30. It supplied about 8 to 10 Spokane retail stations. In the period prior to October 1974, two of those stations were owned by the president of Dompier but the others were independently operated. See, e. g., id., at 119-121, 147-148. In the early 1970’s, Texaco representatives encouraged Dompier to enter the retail business directly, and in 1974 and 1975 it acquired four stations. Id., at 114-135, 483-503. Dompier’s president estimated at trial that the share of its total gasoline sales made at retail during the middle 1970's was “[p]robably 84 to 90 percent.” Id., at 115.
Like Gull, Dompier picked up Texaco’s product at the Texaco bulk plant and delivered directly to retail outlets. Unlike Gull, Dompier owned a bulk storage facility, but it was seldom used because its capacity was less than that of many retail stations. Again unlike Gull, Dompier received from Texaco the equivalent of the common carrier rate for delivering the gasoline product to the retail outlets. Thus, in addition to its discount from the RTW price, Dompier made a profit on its hauling function. Id., at 123-131, 186-192, 411-413.
The stations supplied by Dompier regularly sold at retail at lower prices than respondents’. Even before Dompier directly entered the retail business in 1974, its customers were selling to consumers at prices barely above the RTW price. Id., at 329-338; Record 315, 1250-1251. Dompier’s sales volume increased continuously and substantially throughout the relevant period. Between 1970 and 1975 its monthly sales volume increased from 155,152 gallons to 462,956 gallons; this represented an increase from 20.7% to almost 50% of Texaco’s sales in Spokane. App. 487-488.
There was ample evidence that Texaco executives were well aware of Dompier’s dramatic growth and believed that it was attributable to “the magnitude of the distributor discount and the hauling allowance.” See also, e. g., id., at 213-223, 407-413. In response to complaints from individual respondents about Dompier’s aggressive pricing, however, Texaco representatives professed that they “couldn’t understand it.” Record 401-404.
H HH
Respondents filed suit against Texaco in July 1976. After a 4-week trial, the jury awarded damages measured by the difference between the RTW price and the price paid by Dompier. As we subsequently decided in J. Truett Payne Co. v. Chrysler Motors Corp., 451 U. S. 557 (1981), this measure of damages was improper. Accordingly, although it rejected Texaco’s defenses on the issue of liability, the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit remanded the case for a new trial. Hasbrouck v. Texaco, Inc., 663 F. 2d 930 (1981), cert. denied, 459 U. S. 828 (1982).
At the second trial, Texaco contended that the special prices to Gull and Dompier were justified by cost savings, were the product of a good-faith attempt to meet competition, and were lawful “functional discounts.” The District Court withheld the cost justification defense from the jury because it was not supported by the evidence and the jury rejected the other defenses. It awarded respondents actual damages of $449,900. The jury apparently credited the testimony of respondents’ expert witness who had estimated what the respondents’ profits would have been if they had paid the same prices as the four stations owned by Dompier. See 634 F. Supp. 34, 43 (ED Wash. 1985); 842 F. 2d, at 1043-1044.
In Texaco’s motion for judgment notwithstanding the verdict, it claimed as a matter of law that its functional discounts did not adversely affect competition within the meaning of the Act because any injury to respondents was attributable to decisions made independently by Dompier. The District Court denied the motion. In an opinion supplementing its oral ruling denying Texaco’s motion for a directed verdict, the Court assumed, arguendo, that Dompier was entitled to a functional discount, even on the gas that was sold at retail, but nevertheless concluded that the “presumed legality of functional discounts” had been rebutted by evidence that the amount of the discounts to Gull and Dompier was not reasonably related to the cost of any function that they performed. 634 F. Supp., at 37-38, and n. 4.
The Court of Appeals affirmed. It reasoned:
“As the Supreme Court long ago made clear, and recently reaffirmed, there may be a Robinson-Patman violation even if the favored and disfavored buyers do not compete, so long as the customers of the favored buyer compete with the disfavored buyer or its customers. Morton Salt, 334 U. S. at 43-44... ; Perkins v. Standard Oil Co., 395 U. S. 642, 646-47... (1969); Falls City Indus., Inc. v. Vanco Beverages, Inc., 460 U. S. 428, 434-35... (1983). Despite the fact that Dompier and Gull, at least in their capacities as wholesalers, did not compete directly with Hasbrouck, a section 2(a) violation may occur if (1) the discount they received was not cost-based and (2) all or a portion of it was passed on by them to customers of theirs who competed with Hasbrouck. Morton Salt, 334 U. S. at 43-44... ; Perkins v. Standard Oil, 395 U. S. at 648-49... ; see 3 E. Kintner & J. Bauer, supra, § 22.14.
“Hasbrouck presented ample evidence to demonstrate that... the services performed by Gull and Dompier were insubstantial and did not justify the functional discount.” 842 F. 2d, at 1039.
The Court of Appeals concluded its analysis by observing:
“To hold that price discrimination between a wholesaler and a retailer could never violate the Robinson-Patman Act would leave immune from antitrust scrutiny a discriminatory pricing procedure that can effectively serve to harm competition. We think such a result would be contrary to the objectives of the Robinson-Patman Act.” Id., at 1040 (emphasis in original).
III
It is appropriate to begin our consideration of the legal status of functional discounts by examining the language of the Act. Section 2(a) provides in part:
“It shall be unlawful for any person engaged in commerce, in the course of such commerce, either directly or indirectly, to discriminate in price between different purchasers of commodities of like grade and quality, where either or any of the purchases involved in such discrimination are in commerce, where such commodities are sold for use, consumption, or resale within the United States or any Territory thereof or the District of Columbia or any insular possession or other place under the jurisdiction of the United States, and where the effect of such discrimination may be substantially to lessen competition or tend to create a monopoly in any line of commerce, or to injure, destroy, or prevent competition with any person who either grants or knowingly receives the benefit of such discrimination, or with customers of either of them... 15 U. S. C. § 13(a).
The Act contains no express reference to functional discounts. It does contain two affirmative defenses that provide protection for two categories of discounts—those that are justified by savings in the seller’s cost of manufacture, delivery, or sale, and those that represent a good-faith response to the equally low prices of a competitor. Standard Oil Co. v. FTC, 340 U. S. 231, 250 (1951). As the case comes to us, neither of those defenses is available to Texaco.
In order to establish a violation of the Act, respondents had the burden of proving four facts: (1) that Texaco’s sales to Gull and Dompier were made in interstate commerce; (2) that the gasoline sold to them was of the same grade and quality as that sold to respondents; (3) that Texaco discriminated in price as between Gull and Dompier on the one hand and respondents on the other; and (4) that the discrimination had a prohibited effect on competition. 15 U. S. C. § 13(a). Moreover, for each respondent to recover damages, he had the burden of proving the extent of his actual injuries. J. Truett Payne, 451 U. S., at 562.
The first two elements of respondents’ case are not disputed in this Court, and we do not understand Texaco to be challenging the sufficiency of respondents’ proof of damages. Texaco does argue, however, that although it charged different prices, it did not “discriminate in price” within the meaning of the Act, and that, at least to the extent that Gull and Dompier acted as wholesalers, the price differentials did not injure competition. We consider the two arguments separately.
IV
Texaco’s first argument would create a blanket exemption for all functional discounts. Indeed, carried to its logical conclusion, it would exempt all price differentials except those given to competing purchasers. The primary basis for Texaco’s argument is the following comment by Congressman Utterback, an active sponsor of the Act:
“In its meaning as simple English, a discrimination is more than a mere difference. Underlying the meaning of the word is the idea that some relationship exists between the parties to the discrimination which entitles them to equal treatment, whereby the difference granted to one casts some burden or disadvantage upon the other. If the two are competing in the resale of the goods concerned, that relationship exists. Where, also, the price to one is so low as to involve a sacrifice of some part of the seller’s necessary costs and profit as applied to that business, it leaves that deficit inevitably to be made up in higher prices to his other customers; and there, too, a relationship may exist upon which to base the charge of discrimination. But where no such relationship exists, where the goods are sold in different markets and the conditions affecting those markets set different price levels for them, the sale to different customers at those different prices would not constitute a discrimination within the meaning of this bill.” 80 Cong. Rec. 9416 (1936).
We have previously considered this excerpt from the legislative history and have refused to draw from it the conclusion which Texaco proposes. FTC v. Anheuser-Busch, Inc., 363 U. S. 536, 547-551 (1960). Although the excerpt does support Texaco’s argument, we remain persuaded that the argument is foreclosed by the text of the Act itself. In the context of a statute that plainly reveals a concern with competitive consequences at different levels of distribution, and carefully defines specific affirmative defenses, it would be anomalous to assume that the Congress intended the term “discriminate” to have such a limited meaning. In Anheuser-Busch we rejected an argument identical to Texaco’s in the context of a claim that a seller’s price differential had injured its own competitors—a so-called “primary line” claim. The reasons we gave for our decision in Anheuser-Busch apply here as well. After quoting Congressman Utterback’s statement in full, we wrote:
“The trouble with respondent’s arguments is not that they are necessarily irrelevant in a § 2(a) proceeding, but that they are misdirected when the issue under consideration is solely whether there has been a price discrimination. We are convinced that, whatever may be said with respect to the rest of §§2(a) and 2(b)—and we say nothing here—there are no overtones of business buccaneering in the §2(a) phrase ‘discriminate in price.’ Rather, a price discrimination within the meaning of that provision is merely a price difference.” Id., at 549.
After noting that this view was consistent with our precedents, we added:
“[T]he statute itself spells out the conditions which make a price difference illegal or legal, and we would derange this integrated statutory scheme were we to read other conditions into the law by means of the nondirective phrase, ‘discriminate in price.’ Not only would such action be contrary to what we conceive to be the meaning of the statute, but, perhaps because of this, it would be thoroughly undesirable. As one commentator has succinctly put it, ‘Inevitably every legal controversy over any price difference would shift from the detailed governing provisions —“injury,” cost justification, “meeting competition,” etc.—over into the “discrimination” concept for ad hoc resolution divorced from specifically pertinent statutory text.’ Rowe, Price Differentials and Product Differentiation: The Issues Under the Robinson-Patman Act, 66 Yale L. J. 1, 38.” Id., at 650-561.
Since we have already decided that a price discrimination within the meaning of § 2(a) “is merely a price difference,” we must reject Texaco’s first argument.
V
In FTC v. Morton Salt Co., 334 U. S. 37, 46-47 (1948), we held that an injury to competition may be inferred from evidence that some purchasers had to pay their supplier “substantially more for their goods than their competitors had to pay.” See also Falls City Industries, Inc. v. Vanco Beverage, Inc., 460 U. S. 428, 435-436 (1983). Texaco, supported by the United States and the Federal Trade Commission as amici curiae (the Government), argues that this presumption should not apply to differences between prices charged to wholesalers and those charged to retailers. Moreover, they argue that it would be inconsistent with fundamental antitrust policies to construe the Act as requiring a seller to control his customers’ resale prices. The seller should not be held liable for the independent pricing decisions of his customers. As the Government correctly notes, Brief for United States et. al. as Amici Curiae 21-22 (filed Aug. 3, 1989), this argument endorses the position advocated 35 years ago in the Report of the Attorney General’s National Committee to Study the Antitrust Laws (1955).
After observing that suppliers ought not to be held liable for the independent pricing decisions of their buyers, and that without functional discounts distributors might go uncompensated for services they performed, the Committee wrote:
“The Committee recommends, therefore, that suppliers granting functional discounts either to single-function or to integrated buyers should not be held responsible for any consequences of their customers’ pricing tactics. Price cutting at the resale level is not in fact, and should not be held in law, ‘the effect of’ a differential that merely accords due recognition and reimbursement for actual marketing functions. The price cutting of a customer who receives this type of differential results from his own independent decision to lower price and operate at a lower profit margin per unit. The legality or illegality of this price cutting must be judged by the usual legal tests. In any event, consequent injury or lack of injury should not be the supplier’s legal concern.
“On the other hand, the law should tolerate no subterfuge. For instance, where a wholesaler-retailer buys only part of his goods as a wholesaler, he must not claim a functional discount on all. Only to the extent that a buyer actually performs certain functions, assuming all the risk, investment, and costs involved, should he legally qualify for a functional discount. Hence a distributor should be eligible for a discount corresponding to any part of the function he actually performs on that part of the goods for which he performs it.” Id., at 208.
We generally agree with this description of the legal status of functional discounts. A supplier need not satisfy the rigorous requirements of the cost justification defense in order to prove that a particular functional discount is reasonable and accordingly did not cause any substantial lessening of competition between a wholesaler’s customers and the supplier’s direct customers. The record in this case, however, adequately supports the finding that Texaco violated the Act.
The hypothetical predicate for the Committee’s entire discussion of functional discounts is a price differential “that merely accords due recognition and reimbursement for actual marketing functions.” Such a discount is not illegal. In this case, however, both the District Court and the Court of Appeals concluded that even without viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to respondents, there was no substantial evidence indicating that the discounts to Gull and Dompier constituted a reasonable reimbursement for the value to Texaco of their actual marketing functions. 842 F. 2d, at 1039; 634 F. Supp., at 37, 38. Indeed, Dompier was separately compensated for its hauling function, and neither Gull nor Dompier maintained any significant storage facilities.
Despite this extraordinary absence of evidence to connect the discount to any savings enjoyed by Texaco, Texaco contends that the decision of the Court of Appeals cannot be affirmed without departing “from established precedent, from practicality, and from Congressional intent.” Brief for Petitioner 14. This argument assumes that holding suppliers liable for a gratuitous functional discount is somehow a novel practice. That assumption is flawed.
As we have already observed, the “due recognition and reimbursement” concept endorsed in the Attorney General’s Committee’s study would not countenance a functional discount completely untethered to either the supplier’s savings or the wholesaler’s costs. The longstanding principle that functional discounts provide no safe harbor from the Act is likewise evident from the practice of the Federal Trade Commission, which has, while permitting legitimate functional discounts, proceeded against those discounts which appeared to be subterfuges to avoid the Act’s restrictions. See, e. g., In re Sherwin Williams Co., 36 F. T. C. 25, 70-71 (1943) (finding a violation of the Act by paint manufacturers who granted “functional or special discounts to some of their dealer-distributors on the purchases of such dealer-distributors which are resold by such dealer-distributors directly to the consumer through their retail departments or branch stores wholly owned by them”); In re Ruberoid Co., 46 F. T. C. 379, 386, ¶ 5 (1950) (liability appropriate when functional designations do not always indicate accurately “the functions actually performed by such purchasers”), aff’d, 189 F. 2d 893 (CA2 1951), rev’d on rehearing, 191 F. 2d 294, aff’d, 343 U. S. 470 (1952). See also, e. g., In re Doubleday & Co., 52 F. T. C. 169, 209 (1955) (“[T]he Commission should tolerate no subterfuge. Only to the extent that a buyer actually performs certain functions, assuming all the risks and costs involved, should he qualify for a compensating discount. The amount of the discount should be reasonably related to the expenses assumed by the buyer”); In re General Foods Corp., 52 F. T. C. 798, 824-825 (1956) (“A seller is not forbidden to sell at different prices to buyers in different functional classes and orders have been issued permitting lower prices to one functional class as against another, provided that injury to commerce as contemplated in the law does not result,” but “[t]o hold that the rendering of special services ipso facto [creates] a separate functional classification would be to read Section 2(d) out of the Act”); In re Boise Cascade Corp., 107 F. T. C. 76, 212, 214-215 (1986) (regardless of whether the FTC has judged functional discounts by reference to the supplier’s savings or the buyer’s costs, the FTC has recognized that “functional discounts may usually be granted to customers who operate at different levels of trade, and thus do not compete with each other, without risk of secondary line competitive injury under the Act”), rev’d on other grounds, 267 U. S. App. D. C. 124, 837 F. 2d 1127 (1988). Cf. FLM Collision Parts, Inc. v. Ford Motor Co., 543 F. 2d 1019, 1027 (CA2 1976) (“We do not suggest or imply that, if a manufacturer grants a price discount or allowance to its wholesalers (whether or not labelled ‘incentive’), which has the purpose or effect of defeating the objectives of the Act, § 2(a)’s language may not be construed to defeat it”); C. Edwards, Price Discrimination Law 286-348 (1959) (analyzing cases).
Most of these cases involved discounts made questionable because offered to “complex types of distributors” whose “functions became scrambled.” Doubleday & Co., 52 F. T. C., at 208. This fact is predictable: Manufacturers will more likely be able to effectuate tertiary line price discrimination through functional discounts to a secondary line buyer when the favored distributor is vertically integrated. Nevertheless, this general tendency does not preclude the possibility that a seller may pursue a price discrimination strategy despite the absence of any discrete mechanism for allocating the favorable price discrepancy between secondary and tertiary line recipients.
Indeed, far from constituting a novel basis for liability under the Act, the fact pattern here reflects conduct similar to that which gave rise to Perkins v. Standard Oil Co. of Cal., 395 U. S. 642 (1969). Perkins purchased gas from Standard, and was both a distributor and a retailer. He asserted that his retail business had been damaged through two violations of the Act by Standard: First, Standard had sold directly to its own retailers at a price below that charged to Perkins; and, second, Standard had sold to another distributor, Signal, which sold gas to Western Hyway, which in turn sold gas to Regal, a retailer in competition with Perkins. The question presented was whether the Act—which refers to discriminators, purchasers, and their customers—covered injuries to competition between purchasers and the customers of customers of purchasers. Id., at 646-647. We held that a limitation excluding such “fourth level” competition would be “wholly an artificial one.” Id., at 647. We reasoned that from “Perkins’ point of view, the competitive harm done him by Standard is certainly no less because of the presence of an additional link in this particular distribution chain from the producer to the retailer.” The same may justly be said in this case. The additional link in the distribution chain does not insulate Texaco from liability if Texaco’s excessive discount otherwise violated the Act.
Nor should any reader of the commentary on functional discounts be much surprised by today’s result. Commentators have disagreed about the extent to which functional discounts are generally or presumptively allowable under the Robinson-Patman Act. They nevertheless tend to agree that in exceptional cases what is nominally a functional discount may be an unjustifiable price discrimination entirely within the coverage of the Act. Others, like Frederick Rowe, have asserted the legitimacy of functional discounts in more sweeping terms, but even Rowe concedes the existence of an “exception to the general rule.” Rowe 174, n. 7; id., at 195-205.
We conclude that the commentators’ analysis, like the reasoning in Perkins and like the Federal Trade Commission’s practice, renders implausible Texaco’s contention that holding it liable here involves some departure from established understandings. Perhaps respondents’ case against Texaco rests more squarely than do most functional discount cases upon direct evidence of the seller’s intent to pass a price advantage through an intermediary. This difference, however, hardly cuts in Texaco’s favor. In any event, the evidence produced by respondents also shows the scrambled functions which have more frequently signaled the illegitimacy under the Act of what is alleged to be a permissible functional discount. Both Gull and Dompier received the full discount on all their purchases even though most of their volume was resold directly to consumers. The extra margin on those sales obviously enabled them to price aggressively in both their retail and their wholesale marketing. To the extent that Dompier and Gull competed with respondents in the retail market, the presumption of adverse effect on competition recognized in the Morton Salt case becomes all the more appropriate. Their competitive advantage in that market also constitutes evidence tending to rebut any presumption of legality that would otherwise apply to their wholesale sales.
The evidence indicates, moreover, that Texaco affirmatively encouraged Dompier to expand its retail business and that Texaco was fully informed about the persistent and marketwide consequences of its own pricing policies. Indeed, its own executives recognized that the dramatic impact on the market was almost entirely attributable to the magnitude of the distributor discount and the hauling allowance. Yet at the same time that Texaco was encouraging Dompier to integrate downward, and supplying Dompier with a generous discount useful to such integration, Texaco was inhibiting upward integration by the respondents: Two of the respondents sought permission from Texaco to haul their own fuel using their own tank wagons, but Texaco refused. The special facts of this case thus make it peculiarly difficult for Texaco to claim that it is being held liable for the independent pricing decisions of Gull or Dompier.
As we recognized in Falls City Industries, “the competitive injury component of a Robinson-Patman Act violation is not limited to the injury to competition between the favored and the disfavored purchaser; it also encompasses the injury to competition between their customers.” 460 U. S., at 436. This conclusion is compelled by the statutory language, which specifically encompasses not only the adverse effect of price discrimination on persons who either grant or knowingly receive the benefit of such discrimination, but also on “customers of either of them.” Such indirect competitive effects surely may not be presumed automatically in every functional discount setting, and, indeed, one would expect that most functional discounts will be legitimate discounts which do not cause harm to competition. At the least, a functional discount that constitutes a reasonable reimbursement for the purchasers’ actual marketing functions will not violate the Act. When a functional discount is legitimate, the inference of injury to competition recognized in the Morton Salt case will simply not arise. Yet it is also true that not every functional discount is entitled to a judgment of legitimacy, and that it will sometimes be possible to produce evidence showing that a particular functional discount caused a price discrimination of the sort the Act prohibits. When such anti-competitive effects are proved—as we believe they were in this case—they are covered by the Act.
VI
At the trial respondents introduced evidence describing the diversion of their customers to specific stations supplied by Dompier. Respondents’ expert testimony on damages also focused on the diversion of trade to specific Dompier-supplied stations. The expert testimony analyzed the entire damages period, which ran from 1972 and 1981 and included a period prior to 1974 when Dompier did not own any retail stations (although the jury might reasonably have found that Dompier controlled the Red Carpet stations owned by its president from the outset of the damages period). Moreover, respondents offered no direct testimony of any diversion to Gull and testified that they did not even know that Gull was being supplied by Texaco. Texaco contends that by basing the damages award upon an extrapolation from data applicable to Dompier-supplied stations, respondents necessarily based the award upon the consequences of pricing decisions made by independent customers of Dompier. Texaco argues that the damages award must therefore be judged excessive as a matter of law.
Even if we were to agree with Texaco that Dompier was not a retailer throughout the damages period, we could not accept Texaco’s argument. Texaco’s theory improperly blurs the distinction between the liability and the damages issues. The proof established that Texaco’s lower prices to Gull and Dompier were discriminatory throughout the entire 9-year period; that at least Gull, and apparently Dompier as well, was selling at retail during that entire period; that the discounts substantially affected competition throughout the entire market; and that they injured each of the respondents. There is no doubt that respondents’ proof of a continuing violation of the Act throughout the 9-year period was sufficient. Proof of the specific amount of their damages was necessarily less precise. Even if some portion of some of respondents’ injuries may be attributable to the conduct of independent retailers, the expert testimony nevertheless provided a sufficient basis for an acceptable estimate of the amount of damages. We have held that a plaintiff may not recover damages merely by showing a violation of the Act; rather, the plaintiff must also “make some showing of actual injury attributable to something the antitrust laws were designed to prevent. Perkins v. Standard Oil Co., 395 U. S. 642, 648 (1969) (plaintiff ‘must, of course, be able to show a causal connection between the price discrimination in violation of the Act and the injury suffered’).” J. Truett Payne Co. v. Chrysler Motors Corp., 451 U. S., at 562. At the same time, however, we reaffirmed our “traditional rule excusing antitrust plaintiffs from an unduly rigorous standard of proving antitrust injury.” Id., at 565. See also Zenith Radio Corp. v. Hazeltine Research, Inc., 395 U. S. 100, 123-124 (1969); Bigelow v. RKO Radio Pictures, Inc., 327 U. S. 251, 264-265 (1946). Moreover, as we have noted, Texaco did not object to the instructions to the jury on the damages issue. A possible flaw in the jury’s calculation of the amount of damages would not be an appropriate basis for granting Texaco’s motion for a judgment notwithstanding the verdict.
The judgment is affirmed.
It is so ordered.
“Q. Did you have any conversations with Texaco during this period of time encouraging you to—Dompier Oil Company to change its emphasis and to move into the retail business? A. Yes, we did.
“Q. Would you tell the jury about that? [A.] Well, at various times Texaco encouraged us to begin supplying retail service stations. In the early Seventies they did that, and then as time went on, they encouraged us to own the stations that we were supplying; in other words, to try to control our own retail business. And beginning about 1974—we did purchase a station in ’74 and some more in ’75 and we began operating those as company operations with salaried company employees.” Id., at 116-117.
“Q. That would have been a rate—that if you had hired a common carrier to haul the product for you, you would have paid them to haul it? A.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | H | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Me. Justice Brennan
announced the judgment of the Court and an opinion in which The Chief Justice and Mr. Justice- Blackmun join.
In a series of cases beginning with New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, 376 U. S. 254 (1964), the Court has considered the limitations upon state libel laws imposed by the constitutional guarantees of freedom of speech and of the press. New York Times held that in a civil libel action by a public official against a newspaper those.guarantees required clear and convincing proof that a defamatory falsehood alleged as libel was uttered with “knowledge that it was false or with reckless disregard of whether it was false or not.” Id., at 280. The same requirement was later held to apply to “public figures” who sued in libel on the basis of alleged defamatory falsehoods. The several cases considered since New York Times involved actions of “public officials” or “public figures,” usually, but not always, against newspapers or magazines. Common to all the cases was a defamatory falsehood in the report of an event of “public or general interest.” The instant case presents the question whether the New York Times’ knowing-or-reckless-falsity standard applies in a state civil libel action brought not by a “public official” or a “public figure” but by a private individual for a defamatory falsehood uttered in.a news broadcast by a radio station about the individual’s involvement in an event of public or general interest. The District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania held that the New York Times standard did not apply and that Pennsylvania law determined respondent’s liability in this diversity case, 289 F. Supp. 737 (1968). The Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit held that the New York Times standard did apply and reversed the judgment for damages awarded to petitioner by the jury. 415 F. 2d 892 (1969). We granted cer-tiorari, 397 U. S. 904 (1970). We agree with the Court of Appeals and affirm that court’s judgment.
I
In 1963, petitioner was a distributor of nudist magazines in the Philadelphia metropolitan area. During the fall of that year, in response to citizen complaints, the Special Investigations Squad of the Philadelphia Police Department- initiated a series of enforcement actions under the city’s obscenity laws. The police, under the command of Captain Ferguson, purchased various magazines, from more than 20 newsstands throughout the city. Based upon Captain Ferguson’s determination that the magazines were obscene, police on October 1, 1963, arrested most of the newsstand operators on charges of selling obscene material. While the police were making an arrest at one newsstand, petitioner arrived to deliver some of his nudist magazines and was immediately arrested along with the newsboy. Three days later, on October 4, the police obtained a warrant to search petitioner’s home and the rented barn he used as a warehouse, and seized the inventory of magazines and books found at these locations. Upon learning of the seizures, petitioner, who had been released on bail after his first arrest, surrendered to the police and was arrested for a second time.
Following the second arrest, • Captain Ferguson telephoned respondent’s radio station WIP and another local radio station, a wire service, and a local newspaper to inform them of the raid on petitioner’s home and of his arrest. W.IP broadcast news'reports every half hour to the Philadelphia metropolitan area. These news programs ran either five or ten minutes and generally contained from six to twenty different items that averaged about thirty seconds each. WIP’s 6 p. m. broadcast on October 4, 1963, included the following item :
“City Cracks Down on Smut Merchants
“The Special Investigations Squad raided the home of George Rosenbloom in the 1800 block of Vesta Street this afternoon. Police confiscated 1,000 allegedly obscene books at Rosenbloom’s home and arrested him on charges of possession of obscene literature. The Special Investigations Squad also raided a barn in the 20 Hundred block of Welsh Road near Bustleton Avenue and confiscated 3,000 obscene books. Capt. Ferguson says he believes they have hit the supply of a main distributor of obscene material in Philadelphia.”
This report was rebroadcast in substantially the same ■form at 6:30 p. m., but at 8 p. m. when the item was broadcast for the third time, WIP corrected the third sentence to read “reportedly obscene.” News of petitioner’s arrest was broadcast five more times in the following twelve hours, but each report described the seized books as “allegedly” or “reportedly” obscene. From October 5 to October 21, WIP broadcast no further reports relating to petitioner.
On October 16 petitioner brought an action in Federal District Court against various city and police officials and against several local news media. The suit alleged that the magazines petitioner distributed were not obscene and sought injunctive relief prohibiting further police interference with his business as well as further publicity of the earlier arrests. The second series of allegedly defamatory broadcasts related to WIP’s news reports of the lawsuit. There were ten broadcasts on October 21, two on October 25, and one on November 1. None mentioned petitioner by name. The first at 6:30 a. m. on October 21 was pretty much like those that followed:
“Federal District Judge Lord, will hear arguments today from two publishers and a distributor all seeking an injunction against Philadelphia Police Commissioner Howard Leary... District Attorney James C. Crumlish... a local television station and a newspaper... ordering them to lay off the smut literature racket.
“The girlie-book peddlers say the police crackdown and continued reference to their borderline literature as smut or filth is hurting their business. Judge Lord refused to issue a temporary injunction when he was first 'approached. Today he’ll decide the issue. It will set a precedent... and if the injunction is not granted... it could signal an even more intense effort to rid the city of pornography.”
On October 27, petitioner went to WIP’s studios after hearing from a friend that the station had broadcast news about his lawsuit. Using a lobby telephone to talk with a part-time newscaster, petitioner inquired what stories WIP had broadcast about him. The newscaster asked him’to be more specific about dates and times. Petitioner then asked for the noon news broadcast on October 21, 1963, which the newscaster read to him over the phone; it was similar to the above 6:30 a. m. broadcast. According to petitioner, the ensuing interchange was brief. Petitioner told the newscaster that his magazines were “found to be completely legal and legitimate by the United States Supreme Court.” When the newscaster replied the district attorney had said the magazines were obscene, petitioner countered that he had a public statement of the district attorney declaring the magazines legal. At that point, petitioner testified, “the telephone conversation was terminated... He just hung up.” Petitioner apparently made no request for a retraction or correction, and none was forthcoming. WIP’s final report on petitioner’s lawsuit — the only one after petitioner’s unsatisfactory conversation at the station — occurred on November 1 after the station had checked the story with the judge involved.
II
In May 1964 a jury acquitted petitioner in state court of the criminal obscenity charges under instructions of the trial judge that, as a matter of law, the nudist magazines distributed by petitioner were not obscene. Following his acquittal, petitioner filed this diversity action in District Court seeking damages under Pennsylvania's libel law. Petitioner alleged that WIP's unqualified characterization of the books seized as “obscene” in the 6 and 6:30 p. m. broadcasts of October 4, describing his arrest, constituted libel per se and was proved false by petitioner’s subsequent acquittal. In addition, he alleged that the broadcasts in the second series describing his court suit for injunctive relief were also false and de: famatory in that WIP characterized petitioner and his business associates as “smut distributors” and “girlie-book peddlers” and, further, falsely characterized the suit as an attempt to force the defendants “to lay off the smut literature racket.”
At the trial WIP’s defenses were truth and privilege. WIP’s news director testified that his eight-man staff of reporters prepared their own' newscasts and broadcast their material themselves, and that material for the news programs usually came either from the wire services, or from telephone tips. None of the writers or broadcasters involved in preparing thé broadcasts, in this casé testified. The news director’s recollection was that the primary source of information for the first series of broadcasts about petitioner’s arrest was Captain Ferguson, but that, to the director’s knowledge, the station did not have any further verification. Captain Ferguson testified that he had informed WIP and other media of the police action and that WIP had accurately broadcast what he told the station. The evidence regarding WIP’s investigation of petitioner’s lawsuit in the second series of broadcasts was even more sparse. The news director testified that he was “sure we would check with the District Attorney’s office also and. with the Police Départment,” but “it would be difficult for me to specifically state what additional corroboration we had.” In general, he testified that WIP’s half-hour deadlines required it to rely on wire-service copy and oral reports from previously reliable sources subject to the general policy that “we will contact as many sources as we possibly can on any kind of a story.”
Ill
Pennsylvania’s libel law tracks almost precisely the Restatement (First) of Torts provisions on the subject. Pennsylvania holds actionable any unprivileged “malicious” publication of matter which tends to harm a person’s reputation and expose him to public hatred, contempt, or ridicule. Schnabel v. Meredith, 378 Pa. 609, 107 A. 2d 860 (1954); Restatement of Torts §§ 558, 559 (1938). Pennsylvania law recognizes truth as a complete defense to a libel action. Schonek v. WJAC, Inc., 436 Pa. 78, 84, 258 A. 2d 504, 507 (1969); Restatement of Torts § 582. It recognizes an absolute immunity for defamatory statements made by high state officials, even if published with an improper motive, actual malice, or knowing falsity. Montgomery v. Philadelphia, 392 Pa. 178, 140 A. 2d 100 (1958); Restatement of Torts § 591, and it recognizes a conditional privilege for news media to report judicial, administrative, or legislative proceedings if the account is fair and accurate, and not published solely for the purpose of causing harm to the person defamed, even, though the official information is false or inaccurate. Sciandra v. Lynett, 409 Pa. 595, 600-601, 187 A. 2d 586, 588-589 (1963); Restatement of Torts § 611. The conditional privilege of the news media may be defeated, however, by “ ‘want of reasonable care and diligence to ascertain the truth, before giving currency to an untrue communication.’ The failure to employ such, ‘reasonable care and diligence’ can destroy a privilege which otherwise would protect the utterer of the communication.” Purcell v. Westinghouse Broadcasting Co., 411 Pa. 167, 179, 191 A. 2d 662, 668 (1963). Pennsylvania has also enacted verbatim the Restatement’s provisions on burden of proof, which place the burden of proof for the affirmative defenses of truth and privilege upon the defendant.
At the close of the evidence, the District Court denied respondent's motion for a directed verdict and charged the jury, in conformity with Pennsylvania law, that four findings were necessary to return a verdict for petitioner: (1) that one or.more of the broadcasts were defamatory; (2) that a reasonable listener would conclude that the defamatory statement referred to petitioner; (3) that WIP had forfeited its privilege to report official proceedings fairly and accurately, either because it intended to injure the plaintiff personally or because it exercised the privilege unreasonably and without reasonable care; and (4) that the reporting was false. The jury was instructed that petitioner had the burden of proof on the first three issues, but that respondent had the burden of. proving that the reporting was true. The jury was further instructed that “as a matter of law” petitioner was not entitled to actual damages claimed for loss of business “not because it wouldn’t ordinarily be but because there has been evidence that this same subject matter was the subject” of broadcasts over other television and radio stations and of newspaper reports, “so if there was any business lost... we have no proof... that [it] resulted directly from the broadcasts by WIP....” App. 331a. On the question of punitive damages, the judge gave the following instruction:
“[I]f you find that this publication arose from a bad motive or malice toward the plaintiff, or if you find that it was published with reckless indifference to the truth, if you find that it was not true, you would be entitled to award punitive damages, and punitive damages are awarded as a deterrent from future conduct of the same sort.
“They really are awarded only for outrageous conduct, as I.have said, with a bad motive or with reckless disregard of the interests of others, and before you would award punitive damages you must find that these broadcasts were published with a bad motive or with reckless disregard of the rights of others, or reckless indifference to the rights of others...
The jury returned a verdict for petitioner and awarded $25,000 in general damages, and $725,000 in punitive damages. The District Court reduced the punitive damages award, to $250,000 on remittitur, but denied respondent’s motion for judgment n. o. v. In reversing, the Court of Appeals emphasized that the broadcasts concerned matters of public interest and that they involved “hot news” prepared under deadline pressure. The Court of Appeals concluded that “the fact that plaintiff was not a public figure cannot be accorded decisive importance if the recognized important guarantees of the First Amendment are to be adequately implemented.” 415 F. 2d, at 896. For that reason, the court held that the New York Times standard applied and; further, directed that judgment be entered for respondent, holding that, as a matter of law, petitioner’s evidence did not meét that standard.
IV
Petitioner concedes that the police campaign to enforce the obscenity laws was an issue of public interest, and, therefore, that the constitutional guarantees for freedom of speech and press imposed limits upon Pennsylvania’s power to apply its libel laws to compel respondent to compensate him in damages for the alleged.defamatory falsehoods broadcast about his involvement. As.noted, the narrow question he raises is whether, because he is not a “public official” or a “public figure” but a private individual, those limits required that he prove that the falsehoods resulted from a failure of respondent to exercise reasonable care, or required that he prove that the falsehoods were broadcast with knowledge of their falsity or with- reckless disregard of whether they were false or not. That question must be answered against the background of the functions of the constitutional guar-, antees for freedom of expression. Rosenblatt v. Baer, 383 U. S. 75, at 84-85, n. 10 (1966).
Self-governance in the United States presupposes far more than knowledge and debate about the strictly official activities of various levels of government. The commitment of the country to the institution of private property, protected by the Due Process and Just Compensation Clauses in the Constitution, places in private hands vast areas of economic and social power that vitally affect the nature and quality of life in the Nation. Our efforts to live and work together in a free society not completely dominated by governmental regulation necessarily encompass far more than politics in a narrow sense. “The guarantees for speech and press are not the preserve of political expression or comment upon public affairs.” Time, Inc. v. Hill, 385 U. S. 374, 388 (1967). “Freedom of discussion, if it would fulfill its historic function in this nation, must embrace all issues about which information is needed or appropriate to enable the members of society to cope with the exigencies of their ■period.” Thornhill v. Alabama, 310 U. S. 88, 102 (1940).
Although the limitations upon civil libel actions, first held in New York Times to be required by the First Amendment, were applied in that case in the context of defamatory falsehoods about the official conduct of a public official, later decisions have disclosed the artificiality, in terms of the public’s interest, of a simple distinction between “public” and “private” individuals or institutions:
“Increasingly in this country, the distinctions between governmental and private sectors are blurred.... In many situations, policy determinations which traditionally were channeled through formal political institutions are now originated and implemented through a complex array of boards, committees, commissions, corporations, and associaw tions, some only loosely connected with the Government. This blending of positions and power has also occurred in the case of individuals so that many who do not hold public office at the moment, are nevertheless intimately involved in the resolution of important public questions....
“... Our citizenry has a legitimate and substantial interest in the conduct of such persons, and freedom of the press to engage in uninhibited debate about their involvement in public issues and events is as crucial as it is in the case of ‘public officials.’ ” Curtis Publishing Co. v. Butts, 388 U. S. 130, 163-164 (1967) (Warren, C. J., concurring in result).
Moreover, the constitutional protection was not intended to be limited to matters bearing broadly on issues of responsible government. “[T]he Founders.. ~ felt that a free press would advance ‘truth, science, morality, and arts in general’ as well as responsible government.” Id., at 147 (opinion of Harlan, J.). Comments in other cases reiterate this judgment that the First Amendment extends to myriad matters of public interest. In Time, Inc. v. Hill, supra, we had “no doubt that the... opening of a new play linked to an actual incident, is a matter of public interest,” 385 U. S., at 388, which was entitled to constitutional protection. Butts held that an alleged “fix” of a college football game was a public issue. Associated Press v. Walker, 388 U. S. 130 (1967), a companion case to Butts, established that the public had a similar interest in the events and personalities involved in federal efforts to enforce a court decree ordering the enrollment of a Negro student in the University of Mississippi. Thus, these cases underscore the vitality, as well as the scope, of the “profound national commitment to the principle that debate on public issues should be uninhibited, robust, and wide-open.” New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, 376 U. S., at 270-271 (emphasis added).
If a matter is a subject of public or general interest, it cannot suddenly become less so merely because a private individual is involved, or because in some sense the individual did not “voluntarily” choose to become involved. The public’s primary interest is in the event; the public focus is on the conduct of the participant and the content, effect, and significance of the conduct, not the participant’s prior anonymity or notoriety. The present case illustrates the point. The community has a vital interest in the proper enforcement of its criminal laws, particularly in an area such as obscenity where a number of highly important values are potentially in conflict: the'public has an interest both in seeing that the criminal law is adequately enforced and in assuring •that the law is not used unconstitutionally to suppress free expression. Whether the person involved is a famous large-scale magazine distributor or a “private” businessman running a corner newsstand has no relevance in ascertaining whether the public has an interest in the issue. We honor the commitment to robust debate on public issues, which is embodied in the First Amendment, by extending constitutional protection to all discussion and communication involving matters of public or general concern, without regard to whether the persons involved are famous or anonymous.
Our Brother White agrees that the protection afforded by the First Amendment depends upon whether the issúe involved in the publication is an issue of public or general concern. He would, however, confine our holding to the situation raised by the facts in this case, that is', limit it to issues involving “official actions of public servants.” In our view that might be misleading. It is clear that there has emerged from our cases decided since New York Times the concept that the First Amendment’s impact upon state libel laws derives not so much from whether the plaintiff is a “public official,” “public figure,” or “private individual,” as it derives from the question whether the allegedly defamatory publication concerns a matter of public or general interest. See T. Emerson, The System of Freedom of Expression 531-532, 540 (1970). In that circumstance we think the time has come forthrightly to announce that the determinant whether the First Amendment applies to state libel actions is whether the utterance involved concerns an issue of public or general concern, albeit leaving the delineation of the reach of that term to future cases. As our Brother White observes, that is not a problem in this case, since police arrest of a person for distributing allegedly obscene magazines clearly constitutes an issue of public or general interest.
V
We turn then to the question to be decided. Petitioner’s argument that the Constitution should be held to require that the private individual prove only that the publisher failed to exercise “reasonable care” in publishing defamatory falsehoods proceeds along two lines. First, he argues that the private individual, unlike the public figure, does not have access to the media to counter the defamatory material and that- the private individual, unlike the public figure, has not assumed the risk of defamation by thrusting himself into the public arena. Second, petitioner focuses on the important values served by the law of defamation in preventing and redressing attacks upon reputation.
We have recognized' the force of petitioner’s arguments, Time, Inc. v. Hill, supra, at 391, and we adhere to the caution expressed in that case against “blind application” of the New York Times standard. Id., at 390. Analysis of the particular factors involved, however, convinces us that petitioner’s arguments cannot be reconciled with the purposes of the. First Amendment, with our cases, and with the traditional doctrines of libel law itself. Drawing a. distinction between “public” and “private” figures makes no sense in terms of the First Amendment guarantees. The New York Times standard was applied to libel of a public official or'public figure to give effect to the Amendment’s function to encourage ventilatidn of public issues, not because the public official has any less interest in protecting his reputation than an individual in private life. While the argument that public figures need less protection because they can command media attention to counter criticism may be true for some very prominent people, even then it is the rare case where the denial overtakes the original charge. Denials, retractions, and corrections are not “hot” news, and rarely receive the prominence of the original story. When the public official or public figure is- a minor functionary, or- has left the position that put him in the public eye, see Rosenblatt v. Baer, supra, the argument loses all of its force. In the vast majority of libels involving public officials or public figüres, the ability to respond through the media will depend on the same complex factor on which the ability of a private individual depends: the unpredictable event of the media’s continuing interest in the story. Thus the unproved, and highly improbable, generalization that aif as yet undefined class of “public figures” involved in matters of public concern will be better able to respond through the media than private individuals also involved in such matters seems toa insubstantial a reed on which to rest a constitutional distinction-. Furthermore, in First Amendment terms, the cure seems far worse than the disease. If the States fear that private citizens will not be able to respond adequately to publicity involving them, the solution lies in the.direction 'of ensuring their ability to. respond, rather than in' stifling public discussion of matters of public concern.
Further reflection over the years since New York Times was decided persuades us that the view of the “public official” or “public "figure” as assuming the risk of defamation by voluntarily thrusting himself into the public eye bears little relationship either to the values protected by the First Amendment or to the nature of our -society. We have recognized that “[e]xposure of the self to others in varying degrees is a concomitant of life in a civilized community.” Time, Inc. v. Hill, supra, at 388. Voluntarily or not, we are all “public” men to some degree. Conversely, some aspects of the lives of even the most, public men fall outside the area of matters of public or general concern. See n. 12, supra; Griswold v. Connecticut, 381 U. S. 479 (1965). Thus, the idea that certain “public” figures have voluntarily exposed their entire lives to public inspection, while private individuals have kept theirs carefully shrouded from public view is, at best, a legal fiction. In any event, such a distinction could easily produce the paradoxical result of dampening discussion of issues of public or general concern because they happen to involve private citizens while extending constitutional encouragement to discussion of aspects of the lives of “public figures” that are not in the area of public or general concern.
General references to the values protected by the law of libel conceal important distinctions. Traditional arguments suggest that libel law protects two separate interests of the individual: first, his desire to preserve a certain privacy around his personality from unwarranted intrusion, and, second^ -a desire to preserve his public good name and reputation. See Rosenblatt v. Baer, 383 U. S., at 92 (Stewart, J., concurring). The individual’s interest in privacy — in preventing. unwarranted intrusion upon the private aspects of his life— is not involved in this case, or even in the class of cases under consideration, since, by hypothesis, the individual is involved in matters of public or general concern. In the present case, however, petitioner’s business reputation is involved, and thus the relevant interests protected by state libel law áre petitioner’s public reputation and good name.
These áre important interests. Consonant with the libel laws of most of the States, however, Pennsylvania’s libel law subordinates these interests of the individual in a number of circumstances. Thus, high government officials are immune from liability — absolutely privileged — even if they publish defamatory. material from an improper motive, with actual malice,, and with knowledge of its falsity. Montgomery v. Philadelphia, 392 Pa. 178, 140 A. 2d 100 (1958). This absolute privilege attaches to judges,.attorneys at law in connection with ¿ 'judicial proceeding, parties and witnesses to judicial proceedings, Congressmen and state legislátors, and high national and state executive officials. Restatement of Torts §§ 585-592. Moreover, a conditional privilege allows newspapers to report the false defamatory material originally published under the absolute privileges listed above, if done, accurately. Sciandra v. Lynett, 409 Pa. 595, 187 A. 2d 586 (1963).
Even without the presence,, of a specific constitutional command, therefore, Pennsylvania libel law recognizes that society’s interest in protecting individual reputation often yields to other important social goals. In this case, the vital needs of freedom of the press and freedom of speech persuade us that allowing private citizens to obtain damage judgments on the basis of a jury determination that a publisher probably failed to use reasonable care would not provide adequate “breathing space” for these great freedoms. Reasonable care is an “elusive standard” that “would place on the press the intolerable burden of guessing how a jury might assess the reasonableness of steps taken by it to verify the accuracy of every reference to a name, picture or portrait.” Time, Inc. v. Hill, 385 U. S., at 389. Fear of guessing wrong must inevitably cause self-censorship and thus create the danger that the legitimate utterance will be deterred, Cf. Speiser v. Randall, 357 U. S. 513, 526 (1958).
Moreover, we ordinarily decide civil litigation by the preponderance of the evidence. Indeed, the judge instructed the jury to decide the present case by that standard. In the normal civil suit where this standard is employed, “we view it as no more serious in general for there to be an erroneous verdict in the defendant’s favor than for there to be an erroneous verdict in the plaintiff’s favor.” In re Winship, 397 U. S. 358, 371 (1970) (Harlan, J., concurring). In libel cases, however, we view an erroneous verdict for the plaintiff as most serious. Not only does it mulct the, defendant for an innocent misstatement — the three-quarter-million-dollar jury verdict in this case could rest on such an error — but the possibility of such error, even beyond the vagueness of the negligence standard itself, would create a strong impetus toward self-censorship, which the First Amendment cannot tolerate. These dangers for freedom of speech and press led us to reject the reasonable-man standard of liability as “simply, inconsistent” with. our national commitment under the First Amendment when sought to be applied to the. conduct of a political campaign. Monitor Patriot Co., v. Roy, 401 U. S. 265, 276 (1971). The same considerations lead us to reject that standard here.
We are aware thát the press has, on occasion, grossly abused the freedom it is given by the Constitution. All must deplore such excesses. In. an,ideal world, the responsibility of the press would match the freedom and public trust given it. But from the earliest days of our history,, this free society, dependent as it is for its survival ■upon a vigorous free press, has tolerated some abuse. In 1799, James Madison'made the point in quoting (and adopting) John Marshall’s answer to Talleyrand’s complaints about American newspapers, American State Papers, 2 Foreign Relations 196 (U. S. Cong. 1832):
“ ‘Among those principles deemed sacred in America, among.those sacred rights considered as forming the bulwark of their liberty, which.the Government contemplates with awful reverence and would approach only with the most cautious circumspection, there is no one of which the. importance is more deeply impressed on the public mind than the liberty of the press. That this liberty is often carried to excess; that it has sometimes degenerated.into licentiousness,.is seen and lamented, but the remedy has not yet been discovered. Perhaps it is an evil inseparable from the good with which it is allied; perhaps it is a shopt which cannot be stripped from ■the stalk without wounding vitally the plant from which it is torn. However desirable those measures might be which might correct without enslaving the ■press, they have never yet been devised in America! ” 6 Writings of James Madison, 1790-1802, p. 336 (Gu Hunt ed. 1906) (emphasis in original).
- This Court has recognized this imperative: “[T]o insure the ascertainment and publication of the.truth about public affairs, it is essential that the First Amendment protect some erroneous publications as well as true ones.” St. Amant v. Thompson, 390 U. S. 727, 732 (1968). We thus hold that, a libel action, as here, by a private individual against a licensed radio station for a defamatory falsehood in a newscast relating to his involvement in an event of public or general concern may be sustained only upon clear and convincing proof that the defamatory falsehood was published with knowledge that it was false or with reckless disregard of whether it was false or not. Calculated falsehood, of course, falls outside “the fruitful exercise of the right of free speech.” Garrison v. Louisiana, 379 U. S. 64, 75 (1964).
Our Brothers Harlan and Marshall reject the knowing-or-reekless-falsehood standard in favor of a test that would require, at least, that the person defamed establish that the publisher negligently failed to ascertain ihe truth of his story; they would also limit any recovery to “actual” damages. For the reasons we have stated, the negligence standard gives insufficient breathing space to First Amendment values. Limiting recovery to actual damages has the same defects. In the first instance, that standard, too, leaves the First Amendment, insufficient elbow room within which to function. It is not simply the possibility of á judgment for damages that results in self-censorship. The very possibility of having to engage in litigation, an expensive and protracted process, is threat enough to cause discussion and debate to “steer far wider of the unlawful zone” thereby keeping protected discussion from public cognizance. Speiser v. Randall, 357 U. S., at 526. Cf. Blonder-Tongue Laboratories, Inc. v. University of Illinois Foundation, 402 U. S. 313, 334-339 (1971). Too, a small newspaper suffers equally from a substantial damage award, whether the label of the award be “actual” or “punitive.”
The real thrust of Brothers Harlan’s and Marshall’s position, however, is their assertion that their proposal will not “constitutionalize” the factfinding process. But this clearly is not the way their test would work in practice. Their approach means only that factfinding will shift from an inquiry into whether the defamatory statements were knowingly or recklessly uttered to the inquiry whether they were negligently uttered, and if so, to an inquiry whether plaintiff suffered “actual” damages. This latter inquiry will involve judges even more deeply in factfinding. Would the mere announcement by a state legislature that embarrassment and pain and suffering are measurable actual losses mean that such damages may be awarded in libel actions? No matter how the problem is approached, this Court would ultimately have to fashion constitutional definitions of “negligence” and of “actual damages.”
Aside from these particularized considerations, we have repeatedly recognized that courts- may not avoid an excursion into factfinding in this aréa simply because it is time consuming or difficult. We stated in Pennekamp v. Florida, 328 U. S. 331, 335 (1946), that:
“The Constitution has imposed upon this Court final authority to determine the meaning and application of those words of that instrument which require interpretation to resolve judicial issues. With that responsibility, we are compelled to examine for ourselves the statements in issue and the circumstances under which they were made to see whether or not they...' are of a character which the principles. of the First Amendment, as adopted by the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, protect.” (Footnote omitted.)
Clearly, then, this Court has an “obligation to test challenged judgments against the guarantees of the First and Fourteenth Amendments,” and in doing so “this Court cannot avoid making an independent constitutional judgment on. the facts of the case.” Jacobellis v. Ohio, 378 U. S. 184, 190 (1964), The simple fact is that First Amendment questions of “constitutional fact” compel this Court’s de novo review. See Edwards v. South Carolina, 372 U. S. 229, 235 (1963); Blackburn v. Alabama, 361 U. S. 199, 205 n. 5 (1960).
VI
Petitioner argues that the instructions on punitive damages either cured or rendered harmless the instructions permitting an award of general damages based on a finding of failure of WIP to exercise reasonable care. We have doubts of the merits of the
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | C | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Mr. Justice Stewart
delivered the opinion of the Court.
The 1970 election for the office of United States Senator was the closest in Indiana history. The incumbent, Senator R. Vance Hartke (Hartke), was declared the winner by a plurality of 4,383 votes — a margin of approximately one vote per state precinct. On November 16, 1970, 13 days after the election, the Indiana Secretary of State certified to the Governor that Hartke had been re-elected. On the following day, candidate Richard L. Roudebush (Roudebush) filed in the Superior Court of Marion County a timely petition for a recount. Hartke moved in that court to dismiss the petition, arguing that the state recount procedure conflicted with the Indiana and Federal Constitutions. On December 1, the state court denied the motion to dismiss and granted the petition for a recount. It appointed a three-man recount commission and directed it to begin its task on December 8.
Hartke then filed a complaint in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Indiana asking for an injunction against the recount. He invoked federal jurisdiction under 28 U. S. C. § 1343 (3) and claimed that the recount was prohibited by Art. I, § 5, of the Constitution of the United States, which delegates to the Senate the power to judge the elections, returns, and qualifications of its members. A single district judge issued an order temporarily restraining the recount pending decision by a three-judge district court. The Attorney General of Indiana then moved successfully to intervene as a defendant, and a three-judge court was convened pursuant to 28 U. S. C. § 2284. After taking testimony and hearing argument, the court ruled in Hartke’s favor and issued an interlocutory injunction, 321 F. Supp. 1370, one judge dissenting. Roudebush and the Attorney General both brought direct appeals to this Court.
On January 21, 1971, shortly after the jurisdictional statements were filed, the Senate administered the oath of office to Hartke, who had been issued a certificate of election by the Governor. Hartke was seated, however, “without prejudice to the outcome of an appeal pending in the Supreme Court of the United States, and without prejudice to the outcome of any recount that the Supreme Court might order . ...” Following the Senate’s decision to seat him, Hartke moved to dismiss the appeals as moot. We consolidated both appeals and postponed further consideration of questions of jurisdiction to the hearing of the cause on the merits. 401 U. S. 972.
I
We consider first the claim that these appeals are moot. This claim is based upon the proposition, as stated in appellee Hartke’s brief, that the “basic issue” before the Court is “whether appellee Hartke or appellant Roude-bush is entitled to the office of United States Senator from Indiana.” Since the Senate has now seated Hartke, and since this Court is without power to alter the Senate’s judgment, it follows, the argument goes, that the cause is moot.
The difficulty with this argument is that it is based on an erroneous statement of the “basic issue.” Which candidate is entitled to be seated in the Senate is, to be sure, a non justiciable political question — a question that would not have been the business of this Court even before the Senate acted. The actual question before us, however, is a different one. It is whether an Indiana recount of the votes in the 1970 election is a valid exercise of the State’s power, under Art. I, § 4, to prescribe the times, places, and manner of holding elections, or is a forbidden infringement upon the Senate’s power under Art. I, § 5.
That question is not moot, because the Senate has postponed making a final determination of who is entitled to the office of Senator, pending the outcome of this lawsuit. Once this case is resolved and the Senate is assured that it has received the final Indiana tally, the Senate will be free to make an unconditional and final judgment under Art. I, § 5. Until that judgment is made, this controversy remains alive, and we are obliged to consider it.
II
It is the position of the appellants that, quite apart from the merits of the controversy, the three-judge District Court was barred from issuing an injunction by reason of 28 U. S. C. § 2283, which prohibits a federal court from enjoining state court proceedings except in a few specific instances. This argument has weight, of course, only if the Indiana statutory recount procedure is a “proceeding in a State court” within the meaning of § 2283. This Court has said of a predecessor to § 2283, “The provision expresses on its face the duty of ‘hands off’ by the federal courts in the use of the injunction to stay litigation in a state court.” More recently, we characterized the statute as designed to assure “the maintenance of state judicial systems for the decision of legal controversies.”
We have in the past recognized that not every state court function involves “litigation” or “legal controversies.” In the case of Prentis v. Atlantic Coast Line R. Co., 211 U. S. 210, the Court reviewed a federal injunction preventing a state commission from fixing passenger rail rates. The Court assumed that the commission had the powers of a state court and that the predecessor of § 2283 governed any attempt by a federal court to enjoin the exercise of the commission’s judicial powers. Nevertheless, the Court concluded that rate-making could be enjoined because it was legislative in nature. Hence, the Court held that § 2283 does not restrict a federal court from enjoining a state court when it is involved in a nonjudicial function.
To determine whether an Indiana court engages in a judicial function in connection with an election recount, we turn to the law of that State. In Indiana every candidate has a right to a recount and can obtain one by merely filing a timely petition in the circuit or superior court of the appropriate county. If the petition is correct as to form, the state court “shall . . . grant such petition . . . and order the recount . . . .” When it grants a petition, the court is required to appoint three commissioners to carry out the recount. Once these appointments are made, the Indiana court has no other responsibilities or powers.
The exercise of these limited responsibilities does not constitute a court proceeding under § 2283 within the test of Prentis: “A judicial inquiry investigates, declares and enforces liabilities as they stand on present or past facts and under laws supposed already to exist. That is its purpose and end.” 211 U. S., at 226. The state courts’ duties in connection with a recount may be characterized as ministerial, or perhaps administrative, but they clearly do not fall within this definition of a “judicial inquiry.” The process of determining that the recount petition is correct as to form — that it contains the proper information, such as the names and addresses of all candidates, and is timely filed — is clearly not a judicial proceeding. Nonjudicial functionaries continually make similar determinations in the processing of all kinds of applications.
And finally, Hartke’s complaint in this cause did not ask the three-judge federal court to restrain the action of the Indiana court as such. It did not seek to enjoin the state court from ruling on the formal correctness of the petition; it did not even seek to enjoin the state court’s appointive function. It sought, rather, to enjoin the recount commission from proceeding after the court had appointed the members of the commission.
We conclude that the three-judge District Court was not prohibited by § 2283 from issuing and had power under 28 U. S. C. § 2281 to issue, an injunction in this cause.
Ill
We turn, therefore, to the merits of the District Court’s decision. The Indiana Election Code calls for the vote to be initially counted, in each precinct, by an election board. After recording the voting machine totals, the board seals the machines. Paper ballots, including absentee ballots, are then counted and tallied. Counted ballots are placed in a bag and sealed. Ballots that bear distinguishing marks or are mutilated or do not clearly reveal the voter’s choice are not counted. These rejected ballots are sealed in a separate bag. Both bags are preserved for six months and may not be opened except in the case of a recount.
If a recount is conducted in any county, the voting machine tallies are checked and the sealed bags containing the paper ballots are opened. The recount commission may make new and independent determinations as to which ballots shall be counted. In other words, it may reject ballots initially counted and count ballots initially rejected. Disputes within the commission are settled by a majority vote. When the commission finishes its task it seals the ballots it counted in one bag, and the ballots it rejected in another. Once the recount is completed, all previous returns are superseded.
The District Court held these procedures to be contrary to the Constitution in two ways. First, the court found that in making judgments as to which ballots to count, the recount commission would be judging the qualifications of a member of the Senate. It held this would be a usurpation of a power that only the Senate could exercise. Second, it found that the Indiana ballots and other election paraphernalia would be essential evidence that the Senate might need to consider in judging Hartke’s qualifications. The court feared that the recount might endanger the integrity of those materials and increase the hazard of their accidental destruction. Thus, the court held that, even if the commission would not be usurping the Senate’s exclusive power, it would be hindering the Senate’s exercise of that power.
We cannot agree with the District Court on either ground. Unless Congress acts, Art. I, § 4, empowers the States to regulate the conduct of senatorial elections. This Court has recognized the breadth of those powers: “It cannot be doubted that these comprehensive words embrace authority to provide a complete code for congressional elections, not only as to times and places, but in relation to notices, registration, supervision of voting, protection of voters, prevention of fraud and corrupt practices, counting of votes, duties of inspectors and canvassers, and making and publication of election returns; in short, to enact the numerous requirements as to procedure and safeguards which experience shows are necessary in order to enforce the fundamental right involved.” Smiley v. Holm, 285 U. S. 355, 366.
Indiana has found, along with many other States, that one procedure necessary to guard against irregularity and error in the tabulation of votes is the availability of a recount. Despite the fact that a certificate of election may be issued to the leading candidate within 30 days after the election, the results are not final if a candidate’s option to compel a recount is exercised. A recount is an integral part of the Indiana electoral process and is within the ambit of the broad powers delegated to the States by Art. I, § 4.
It is true that a State’s verification of the accuracy of election results pursuant to its Art. I, § 4, powers is not totally separable from the Senate’s power to judge elections and returns. But a recount can be said to “usurp” the Senate’s function only if it frustrates the Senate’s ability to make an independent final judgment. A recount does not prevent the Senate from independently evaluating the election any more than the initial count does. The Senate is free to accept or reject the apparent winner in either count, and, if it chooses, to conduct its own recount.
It would be no more than speculation to assume that the Indiana recount procedure would impair such an independent evaluation by the Senate. The District Court’s holding was based on a finding that a recount would increase the probability of election fraud and accidental destruction of ballots. But there is no reason to suppose that a court-appointed recount commission would be less honest or conscientious in the performance of its duties than the precinct election boards that initially counted the ballots.
For the reasons expressed, we conclude that Art. I, § 5, of the Constitution, does not prohibit Indiana from conducting a recount of the 1970 election ballots for United States Senator. Accordingly, the judgment of the District Court is reversed.
It is so ordered.
Mr. Justice Powell and Mr. Justice Rehnquist took no part in the consideration or decision of these cases.
Roudebush filed similar petitions in 10 other counties. Recounts in all 11 counties have been postponed, pending the outcome of this cause.
Title 28 U. S. C. § 1343 provides:
“The district courts shall have original jurisdiction of any civil action authorized by law to be commenced by any person:
“(3) To redress the deprivation, under color of any State law, statute, ordinance, regulation, custom or usage, of any right, privilege or immunity secured by the Constitution of the United States or by any Act of Congress providing for equal rights of citizens or of all persons within the jurisdiction of the United States.”
The District Court apparently viewed the suit as substantively based upon 42 U. S. C. § 1983, which authorizes a civil action on the part of a person deprived, under color of state law, “of any rights, privileges, or immunities secured by the Constitution . . .
U. S. Const., Art. I, § 5, provides in pertinent part:
“Each House shall be the Judge of the Elections, Returns and Qualifications of its own Members . . . .”
Direct appeals from such interlocutory orders are authorized by 28 U. S. C. § 1253.
117 Cong. Rec. 6.
See Reed v. County Comm’rs, 277 U. S. 376, 388: “[The Senate] is the judge of the elections, returns and qualifications of its members. Art. I, § 5. It is fully empowered, and may determine such matters without the aid of the House of Representatives or the Executive or Judicial Department.”
Powell v. McCormack, 395 U. S. 486.
U. S. Const., Art. I, §4, provides in pertinent part:
“The Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof; but the Congress may at any time by Law make or alter such Regulations, except as to the Places of chusing Senators.”
See Powell v. McCormack, supra, at 496.
Title 28 U. S. C. §2283 provides:
“A court of the United States may not grant an injunction to stay proceedings in a State court except as expressly authorized by Act of Congress, or where necessary in aid of its jurisdiction, or to protect or effectuate its judgments.”
The statute dates from 1793. Act of Mar. 2, 1793, § 5, 1 Stat. 334.
Toucey v. New York Life Ins. Co., 314 U. S. 118, 132. (Emphasis supplied.)
Atlantic Coast Line R. Co. v. Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers, 398 U. S. 281, 285. (Emphasis supplied.)
See Hill v. Martin, 296 U. S. 393, 398.
Ind. Ann. Stat. §§ 29-5401 through 29-5417. The election recount provisions of some other States appear to give the state courts a broader function. See, e. g., Conn. Gen. Stat. Rev. § 9-323 ; Va. Code Ann. §24-277.1 (1969).
The role of the Indiana courts in this connection is not unlike that of the state court in the case of Public Service Co. of Northern Illinois v. Corboy, 250 U. S. 153. A state statute there authorized property owners to petition a state court to establish a drainage district and to construct a drainage ditch. To assist in the planning of a ditch, the state court was empowered to appoint a drainage commissioner. The commissioner served on a commission that submitted plans for construction. The state court could either accept or reject these submissions. If it approved plans, the court allocated funds and supervised construction. Applying Prentis, this Court held that these activities were not judicial, and that enjoining the construction of a drainage ditch was not enjoining a state court “proceeding.” See also Central Electric & Gas Co. v. City of Stromsburg, 192 F. Supp. 280, aff’d, 289 F. 2d 217 (federal court could enjoin a state court’s appointment of an appraiser pursuant to a state statute); Central R. Co. of New Jersey v. Martin, 19 F. Supp. 82, aff’d sub nom. Lehigh Valley R. Co. v. Martin, 100 F. 2d 139 (federal court could enjoin ministerial act of state judge, pursuant to state statute, converting a state tax into a lien against the taxpayer) ; Weil v. Calhoun, 25 F. 865 (federal court could enjoin a state ordinary, having the powers of a probate judge, from declaring the results of a county election).
The only injunctive relief sought in Hartke’s amended complaint was “that the court permanently restrain and enjoin the defendants and restraining and enjoining the defendants Samuel Walker, John R. Hammond and Duge Butler [the recount commissioners) from convening and commencing a recount, and the defendant Richard L. Roudebush and all persons acting in his behalf or in concert with him [from] taking any further action to use said machinery and procedures to carry forward a recount of the vote for the office of United States Senator in the general election of November 3, 1970.” An interlocutory injunction against- the same defendants was also sought.
Ind. Ann. Stat. §§ 29-5201 through 29-5220.
Ind. Ann. Stat. §§ 29-5401 through 29-5417.
The District Court cited three cases decided by the Indiana Supreme Court as authority for its rulings. State ex rel. Batchelet v. Dekalb Circuit Court, 248 Ind. 481, 229 N. E. 2d 798; State ex rel. Beaman v. Circuit Court of Pike County, 229 Ind. 190, 96 N. E. 2d 671; State ex rel. Acker v. Reeves, 229 Ind. 126, 95 N. E. 2d 838. These cases held that the Indiana Constitution prohibited recounts in certain state elections. They do not address the federal constitutional question at issue in this cause.
See n. 8, supra.
The Secretary of State is required by statute to certify to the Governor the leading candidate as duly elected “as soon as he shall receive” certified statements from the counties. The statutory period for receiving those statements is 26 days. The Governor is required to give a certificate of election to each certified candidate. Ind. Ann. Stat. §§29-5306 through 29-5309.
A petition for a recount may be filed 15 days after the election is held. §29-5403. The petition cannot be granted nor the recount commission appointed by the court for another 25 days. § 29-5409. The recount may not commence until at least five days after the commission is appointed. §29-5411. Additional time elapses before the results are made final and the appropriate persons are notified. Thus, the recount is unlikely to be completed before the Governor becomes obligated by statute to issue a certificate of election based on the initial count. Nevertheless, the recount supersedes the initial count even though a certificate of election may have been issued. § 29-5415.
The Senate’s power to judge the qualifications of its members is limited to the qualifications expressly set forth in the Constitution. Powell v. McCormack, 395 U. S. 486. One of those qualifications is that a Senator be elected by the people of his State. U. S. Const., Amend. XVII.
The Senate itself has recounted the votes in close elections in States where there was no recount procedure. E. g., O’Conor v. Markey, Senate Election, Expulsion and Censure Cases from 1789 to 1960, S. Doe. No. 71, 87th Cong., 2d Sess., 144 (1962).
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
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.
Out of respect for finality, comity, and the orderly administration of justice, a federal court will not entertain a procedurally defaulted constitutional claim in a petition for habeas corpus absent a showing of cause and prejudice to excuse the default. We have recognized a narrow exception to the general rule when the habeas applicant can demonstrate that the alleged constitutional error has resulted in the conviction of one who is actually innocent of the underlying offense or, in the capital sentencing context, of the aggravating circumstances rendering the inmate eligible for the death penalty. Murray v. Carrier, 477 U. S. 478 (1986); Sawyer v. Whitley, 505 U. S. 333 (1992). The question before us is whether this exception applies where an applicant asserts “actual innocence” of a noncapital sentence. Because the District Court failed first to consider alternative grounds for relief urged by respondent, grounds that might obviate any need to reach the actual innocence question, we vacate the judgment and remand.
I
In 1997, respondent Michael Wayne Haley was arrested after stealing a calculator from a local Wal-Mart and attempting to exchange it for other merchandise. Respondent was charged with, and found guilty at trial of, theft of property valued at less than $1,500, which, because respondent already had two prior theft convictions, was a “state jail felony” punishable by a maximum of two years in prison. App. 8; Tex. Penal Code Ann. § 31.03(e)(4)(D) (Supp. 2004). The State also charged respondent as a habitual felony offender. The indictment alleged that respondent had two prior felony convictions and that the first — a 1991 conviction for delivery of amphetamine — “became final prior to the commission” of the second — a 1992 robbery. App. 9. The timing of the first conviction and the second offense is significant: Under Texas’ habitual offender statute, only a defendant convicted of a felony who “has previously been finally convicted of two felonies, and the second previous felony conviction is for an offense that occurred subsequent to the first previous conviction having become final,... shall be punished for a second-degree felony.” § 12.42(a)(2) (emphasis added). A second degree felony carries a minimum sentence of 2 and a maximum sentence of 20 yeárs in prison. § 12.33(a) (2003).
Texas provides for bifurcated trials in habitual offender cases. Tex. Code Crim. Proc. Ann., Art. 37.07, § 3 (Vernon Supp. 2004). If a defendant is found guilty of the substantive offense, the State, at a separate penalty hearing, must prove the habitual offender allegations beyond a reasonable doubt. Ibid. During the penalty phase of respondent’s trial, the State introduced records showing that respondent had been convicted of delivery of amphetamine on October 18,1991, and attempted robbery on September 9,1992. The record of the second conviction, however, showed that respondent had committed the robbery on October 15, 1991— three days before his first conviction became final. Neither the prosecutor, nor the defense attorney, nor the witness tendered by the State to authenticate the records, nor the trial judge, nor the jury, noticed the 3-day discrepancy. Indeed, the defense attorney chose not to cross-examine the State’s witness or to put on any evidence.
The jury returned a verdict of guilty on the habitual offender charge and recommended a sentence of I6V2 years; the court followed the recommendation. Respondent appealed. Appellate counsel did not mention the 3-day discrepancy nor challenge the sufficiency of the penalty-phase evidence to support the habitual offender enhancement. The State Court of Appeals affirmed respondent’s conviction and sentence; the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals refused respondent’s petition for discretionary review.
Respondent thereafter sought state postconviction relief, arguing for the first time that he was ineligible for the habitual offender enhancement based on the timing of his second conviction. App. 83, 87-88. The state habeas court refused to consider the merits of that claim because respondent had not raised it, as required by state procedural law, either at trial or on direct appeal. Id., at 107, 108. The state habeas court rejected respondent’s related ineffective assistance of counsel claim, saying only that “counsel was not ineffective” for failing to object to or to appeal the enhancement. Id., at 108. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals summarily denied respondent’s state habeas application. Id., at 109.
In August 2000, respondent filed a timely pro se application for a federal writ of habeas corpus pursuant to 28 U. S. C. § 2254, renewing his sufficiency of the evidence and ineffective assistance of counsel claims. App. 110, 118-119; id., at 122, 124, 126-127. The State conceded that respondent was “correct in his assertion that the enhancement paragraphs as alleged in the indictment do not satisfy section 12.42(a)(2) of the Texas Penal Code.” Id., at 132, 140. Rather than agree to resentencing, however, the State argued that respondent had procedurally defaulted the sufficiency of the evidence claim by failing to raise it before the state trial court or on direct appeal. Id., at 142-144. The Magistrate Judge, to whom the habeas application had been referred, recommended excusing the procedural default and granting the sufficiency of the evidence claim because respondent was “ ‘actually innocent’ of a sentence for a second-degree felony.” Haley v. Director, Texas Dept. of Criminal Justice, Institutions Div., Civ. No. 6:00cv518 (ED Tex., Sept. 13, 2001), p. 10, App. to Pet. for Cert. 49a (citing Sones v. Hargett, 61 F. 3d 410, 419 (CA5 1995)). Because she recommended relief on the erroneous enhancement claim, the Magistrate Judge did not address respondent’s related ineffective assistance of counsel challenges. App. to Pet. for Cert. 50a-52a. The District Court adopted the Magistrate Judge’s report, granted the application, and ordered the State to re-sentence respondent “without the improper enhancement.” Id., at 36a-37a (Oct. 27, 2001).
The Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit affirmed, holding narrowly that the actual innocence exception “applies to noncapital sentencing procedures involving a career or habitual felony offender.” Haley v. Cockrell, 306 F. 3d 257, 264 (2002). The Fifth Circuit thus joined the Fourth Circuit in holding that the exception should not extend beyond allegedly erroneous recidivist enhancements to other claims of noncapital factual sentencing error: “[T]o broaden the exception further would ‘swallow’ the ‘cause portion of the cause and prejudice requirement’ and it ‘would conflict squarely with Supreme Court authority indicating that generally more than prejudice must exist to excuse a procedural default.’ ” Id., at 266 (quoting United States v. Mikalajunas, 186 F. 3d 490, 494-495 (CA4 1999)). Finding the exception satisfied, the panel then granted relief on the merits of respondent’s otherwise defaulted sufficiency of the evidence claim. In so doing, the panel assumed that challenges to the sufficiency of noncapital sentencing evidence are cognizable on federal habeas under Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U. S. 307 (1979). 306 F. 3d, at 266-267 (citing French v. Estelle, 692 F. 2d 1021, 1024-1025 (CA5 1982)).
The Fifth Circuit’s decision exacerbated a growing divergence of opinion in the Courts of Appeals regarding the availability and scope of the actual innocence exception in the noncapital sentencing context. Compare Embrey v. Hershberger, 131 F. 3d 739 (CA8 1997) (en banc) (no actual innocence exception for noncapital sentencing error); Reid v. Oklahoma, 101 F. 3d 628 (CA10 1996) (same), with Spence v. Superintendent, Great Meadow Correctional Facility, 219 F. 3d 162 (CA2 2000) (actual innocence exception applies in noncapital sentencing context when error is related to finding of predicate act forming the basis for enhancement), and Mikalajunas, supra (actual innocence exception applies in noncapital sentencing context where error relates to a recidivist enhancement). We granted the State’s request for. a writ of certiorari, 540 U. S. 945 (2003), and now vacate and remand.
II
The procedural default doctrine, like the abuse of writ doctrine, “refers to a complex and evolving body of equitable principles informed and controlled by historical usage, statutory developments, and judicial decisions.” McCleskey v. Zant, 499 U. S. 467, 489 (1991). A corollary to the habeas statute’s exhaustion requirement, the doctrine has its roots in the general principle that federal courts will not disturb state court judgments based on adequate and independent state law procedural grounds. Wainwright v. Sykes, 433 U. S. 72, 81 (1977); Brown v. Allen, 344 U. S. 443, 486-487 (1953). But, while an adequate and independent state procedural disposition strips this Court of certiorari jurisdiction to review a state court’s judgment, it provides only a strong prudential reason, grounded in “considerations of comity and concerns for the orderly administration of criminal justice,” not to pass upon a defaulted constitutional claim presented for federal habeas review. Francis v. Henderson, 425 U. S. 536, 538-539 (1976); see also Fay v. Noia, 372 U. S. 391, 399 (1963) (“[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”). That being the case, we have recognized an equitable exception to the bar when a habeas applicant can demonstrate cause and prejudice for the procedural default. Wainwright, supra, at 87. The cause and prejudice requirement shows due regard for States’ finality and comity interests while ensuring that “fundamental fairness [remains] the central concern of the writ of habeas corpus.” Strickland v. Washington, 466 U. S. 668, 697 (1984).
The cause and prejudice standard is not a perfect safeguard against fundamental miscarriages of justice. Murray v. Carrier, 477 U. S. 478 (1986), thus recognized a narrow exception to the cause requirement where a constitutional violation has “probably resulted” in the conviction of one who is “actually innocent” of the substantive offense. Id., at 496; accord, Schlup v. Delo, 513 U. S. 298 (1995). We subsequently extended this exception to claims of capital sentencing error in Sawyer v. Whitley, 505 U. S. 333 (1992). Acknowledging that the concept of “ ‘actual innocence’ ” did not translate neatly into the capital sentencing context, we limited the exception to cases in which the applicant could show “by clear and convincing evidence that, but for a constitutional error, no reasonable juror would have found the petitioner eligible for the death penalty under the applicable state law.” Id., at 336.
We are asked in the present case to extend the actual innocence exception to procedural default of constitutional claims challenging noncapital sentencing error. We decline to answer the question in the posture of this case and instead hold that a federal court faced with allegations of actual innocence, whether of the sentence or of the crime charged, must first address all nondefaulted claims for comparable relief and other grounds for cause to excuse the procedural default.
This avoidance principle was implicit in Carrier itself, where we expressed confidence that, “for the most part, Victims of a fundamental miscarriage of justice will meet the cause-and-prejudice standard.’” 477 U. S., at 495-496 (quoting Engle v. Isaac, 456 U. S. 107, 135 (1982)). Our confidence was bolstered by the availability of ineffective assistance of counsel claims — either as a ground for cause or as a freestanding claim for relief — to safeguard against miscarriages of justice. The existence of such safeguards, we observed, “may properly inform this Court’s judgment in determining ‘[w]hat standards should govern the exercise of the habeas court’s equitable discretion’ with respect to procedurally defaulted claims.” Carrier, supra, at 496 (quoting Reed v. Ross, 468 U. S. 1, 9 (1984)).
Petitioner here conceded at oral argument that respondent has a viable and “significant” ineffective assistance of counsel claim. Tr. of Oral Arg. 18 (“[W]e agree at this point there is a very significant argument of ineffective assistance of counsel”); see also id., at 7 (agreeing “not [to] raise any procedural impediment” to consideration of the merits of respondent’s ineffective assistance claim on remand). Success on the merits would give respondent all of the relief that he seeks — i. e., resentencing. It would also provide cause to excuse the procedural default of his sufficiency of the evidence claim. Carrier, supra, at 488.
Contrary to the dissent’s view, see post, at 397 (opinion of Stevens, J.), it is precisely because the various exceptions to the procedural default doctrine are judge-made rules that courts as their stewards must exercise restraint, adding to or expanding them only when necessary. To hold otherwise would be to license district courts to riddle the cause and prejudice standard with ad hoc exceptions whenever they perceive an error to be “clear” or departure from the rules expedient. Such an approach, not the rule of restraint adopted here, would have the unhappy effect of prolonging the pendency of federal habeas applications as each new exception is tested in the courts of appeals. And because petitioner has assured us that the State will not seek to reincar-cerate respondent during the pendency of his ineffective assistance claim, Tr. of Oral Arg. 52 (“[T]he state is willing to allow the ineffective assistance case to be litigated before proceeding to reincarcerate [respondent]”), the negative consequences for respondent of our judgment to vacate and remand in this case are minimal.
While availability of other remedies alone would be sufficient justification for a general rule of avoidance, the many threshold legal questions often accompanying claims of actual innocence provide additional reason for restraint. For instance, citing Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U. S. 307 (1979), respondent here seeks to bring through the actual innocence gateway his constitutional claim that the State’s penalty-phase evidence was insufficient to support the recidivist enhancement. But the constitutional hook in Jackson was In re Winship, 397 U. S. 358 (1970), in which we held that due process requires proof of each element of a criminal offense beyond a reasonable doubt. We have not extended Winship’s protections to proof of prior convictions used to support recidivist enhancements. Almendarez-Torres v. United States, 523 U. S. 224 (1998); see also Apprendi v. New Jersey, 530 U. S. 466, 488-490 (2000) (reserving judgment as to the validity of Almendarez-Torres); Monge v. California, 524 U. S. 721, 734 (1998) (Double Jeopardy Clause does not preclude retrial on a prior conviction used to support recidivist enhancement). Respondent contends that Almendarez-Torres should be overruled or, in the alternative, that it does not apply because the recidivist statute at issue required the jury to find not only the existence of his prior convictions but also the additional fact that they were sequential. Brief for Respondent 30-31. These difficult constitutional questions, simply assumed away by the dissent, see post, at 397 (citing Jackson, supra, and Thompson v. Louisville, 362 U. S. 199 (1960)), are to be avoided if possible.
To be sure, not all claims of actual innocence will involve threshold constitutional issues. Even so, as this case and the briefing illustrate, such claims are likely to present equally difficult questions regarding the scope of the actual innocence exception itself. Whether and to what extent the exception extends to noncapital sentencing error is just one example. The judgment of the Court of Appeals is vacated, and the case is remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | A | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Mr. Justice Clark
delivered the opinion of the Court.
Petitioner, a longshoreman, was injured while unloading the M/Y Carib, of Dominican registry, when a shackle broke causing one of the ship’s booms to fall upon and severely injure him. He brought this suit in admiralty to recover damages resulting from the unsea-worthy condition of the ship. The libel was in rem against the Carib and in personam against respondent Pichirilo, her owner. The defense was that the Carib had been demised to petitioner’s employer, Bordas & Company, at all times pertinent hereto, including the time when the unseaworthy condition arose. The United States District Court for the District of Puerto Rico, where the Carib lay, held against the ship and the respondent Pichirilo, finding there was no such demise, and judgment for $30,000 was awarded. The Court of Appeals reversed, holding that the Carib was under a demise to petitioner’s employer, which relieved the owner of personal responsibility for unseaworthiness, and that the Carib was not liable in rem because no personal responsibility could be visited upon either the owner or the charterer. 290 F. 2d 812. There being a conflict on the latter point between the Courts of Appeals, see Grillea v. United States, 232 F. 2d 919 (C. A. 2d Cir. 1956), we granted certiorari, 368 U. S. 895. Concluding that the District Court’s findings relative to the operative facts of a demise charter party were not clearly erroneous, we hold that the Court of Appeals erred in reversing its judgment.
To create a demise the owner of the vessel must completely and exclusively relinquish “possession, command, and navigation” thereof to the demisee. United States v. Shea, 152 U. S. 178 (1894); Leary v. United States, 14 Wall. 607 (1872); Reed v. United States, 11 Wall. 591 (1871). See generally Gilmore & Black, The Law of Admiralty, 215-219; Robinson, Admiralty, 593-601; Scrutton, Charterparties (16th ed., McNair & Mocatta), 4r-7. It is therefore tantamount to, though just short of, an outright transfer of ownership. However, anything short of such a complete transfer is a time or voyage charter party of not a charter party at all. While a demise may bring about a change in the respective legal obligations of the owner and demisee, ibid., we need not decide here whether it reheves the owner of his traditional duty to maintain a seaworthy vessel, for under our view of the record the trial court’s determination that there was no demise charter party must stand.
The owner who attempts to escape his normal liability for the unseaworthiness of his vessel on the ground that he has temporarily been relieved of this obligation has the burden of establishing the facts which give rise to such relief. Thus, assuming arguendo that a demise charter party would isolate the owner from liability, the owner has the burden of showing such a charter. This burden is heavy, for courts are reluctant to find a demise when the dealings between the parties are consistent with any lesser relationship. E. g., Reed v. United States, supra, at 601. To establish a demise the owner in the instant case offered only the testimony of the director-partner of the claimed' demisee, petitioner’s employer. He testified that his company had complete control over and responsibility for the operation of the Carib, in consideration of which, the owner was paid $200 monthly. He explained that his company’s agreement with the owner was “a kind of charter, because it does not comply with the regular provisions of a charter party. I pay the seamen, food, repair, maintenance, drydocking; which in a regular charter party are excluded.” To negate the existence of a demise the petitioner offered the deposition of the Captain of the Carib, who.testified simply that he was employed by the owner. On the basis of this evidence the trial court found that the owner “was at all times mentioned in the libel ... in possession and control of the vessel M/V ‘CARIB.’ ” In addition that court pointed out that the only witness offered to prove the existence of a demise had admitted there was no charter and that the Captain of the vessel had testified he was working for the owner, not Bordas & Co. The Court of Appeals in reversing thought the trial court had been misled as to the legal significance of the testimony and that this, as opposed to a refusal to believe the testimony of the owner’s witness, had prompted it to conclude there was no charter.
It is true, as the Court of Appeals pointed out, that the equivocation by the witness for the owner on the nature of his company’s arrangement is not inconsistent with the existence of a demise charter party, for the very elements he thought made the arrangement “a kind of charter” are inherent in a demise charter party. See authorities cited, p. 699, supra> And it is equally true the fact that the Captain is employed by the owner is not fatal to the creation of a demise charter party, for a vessel can be demised complete with captain if he is subject to the orders of the demisee during the period of the demise. United States v. Shea, supra, at 190; Robinson, op. cit., supra, 594-595. If we were convinced, as was the Court of Appeals, that the trial court’s action was colored by a misunderstanding of such legal principles, we would have to remand, as the Court of Appeals should have, for further findings by the trial court on the credibility of the owner’s witness. E. g., Kweskin v. Finkelstein, 223 F. 2d 677, 679 (C. A. 7th Cir. 1955). However, we have concluded that the trial court clearly disbelieved the testimony offered by respondent to establish a demise charter party. The trial judge not only found that respondent was in complete possession and control of the vessel, which in and of itself indicates disbelief in the witness’ testimony, but upon the conclusion of the trial pointedly stated that he did not “believe that Bordas is the operator of the boat.” This factual finding, rather than being tainted by an admission as to the legal relationship between the parties, appears to flow from the court’s interpretation of the Captain’s testimony. And to the extent this finding was based on such testimony, it cannot be said to have been influenced by an erroneous concept of a demise charter party. For as we read the record the Captain’s testimony was sufficiently ambiguous for the trial court to reasonably construe it — as the court did— as saying he remained subject to the owner’s control during the period of the alleged demise. Viewed in this light the testimony, of course, negates the existence of a demise. The determination of the factual content of ambiguous testimony is for the trial court, and such determination can be set aside on review only if “clearly erroneous.” United States v. National Association of Real Estate Boards, 339 U. S. 485, 495-496 (1950).
The “clearly erroneous” rule of civil actions is applicable to suits in admiralty in general, McAllister v. United States, 348 U. S. 19, 20 (1954); see Roper v. United States, 368 U. S. 20, 23 (1961), and to the existence of the operative facts of a demise charter party in particular, Gardner v. The Calvert, 253 F. 2d 395, 399 (C. A. 3d Cir. 1958). Under this rule an appellate court cannot upset a trial court’s factual findings unless it “is left with the definite and firm conviction that a mistake has been committed.” United States v. United States Gypsum Co., 333 U. S. 364, 395 (1948). A refusal to credit the uncorroborated testimony of the director-partner, who obviously was not disinterested in the outcome of the litigation, would not be considered clearly erroneous. See, e. g., United States v. Oregon State Medical Society, 343 U. S. 326, 339 (1952); Mayer v. Zim Israel Navigation Co., 289 F. 2d 562, 563 (C. A. 2d Cir. 1960). This is especially so when such testimony is prompted by leading questions as was the case here. A fortiori the refusal to accept such testimony, disputed as it was by the testimony of the Captain, cannot be considered clearly erroneous.
Since the trial court’s determination that there was no demise charter party is not clearly erroneous, its holding that the owner is liable in personam and the vessel in rem must be reinstated. The case is therefore remanded to the Court of Appeals for further proceedings consistent with this opinion including the resolution of any questions it might have left unanswered on the assumption that there was no liability.
Reversed and remanded.
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.
Since the alleged charterer was petitioner’s employer, its liability to him was statutorily limited by the Puerto Rico Workmen’s Accident Compensation Act. 11 L. P. R. A. § 21.
After certiorari was granted in this case, the Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, faced with a demise to the longshoreman’s employer, aligned itself in toto with the position of the Court of Appeals for the First Circuit. Reed v. The Yaka, 307 F. 2d 203 (1962).
Similarly, we do not pass on whether the vessel can be held liable in rem when neither the demisee nor the owner is personally liable.
Our view of the case makes it unnecessary to determine whether a demise charter party can be created without a written document.
At one point the judge interrupted the direct examination of the witness to point out he could not “give any credit to a witness answering leading questions.”
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | H | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Justice THOMAS delivered the opinion of the Court.
This case, now before us for the third time, requires us to decide whether the Constitution permits a State to be sued by a private party without its consent in the courts of a different State. We hold that it does not and overrule our decision to the contrary in Nevada v. Hall, 440 U.S. 410, 99 S.Ct. 1182, 59 L.Ed.2d 416 (1979).
I
In the early 1990s, respondent Gilbert Hyatt earned substantial income from a technology patent for a computer formed on a single integrated circuit chip. Although Hyatt's claim was later canceled, see Hyatt v. Boone, 146 F. 3d 1348 (C.A. Fed. 1998), his royalties in the interim totaled millions of dollars. Prior to receiving the patent, Hyatt had been a long-time resident of California. But in 1991, Hyatt sold his house in California and rented an apartment, registered to vote, obtained insurance, opened a bank account, and acquired a driver's license in Nevada. When he filed his 1991 and 1992 tax returns, he claimed Nevada-which collects no personal income tax, see Nev. Const., Art. 10, § 1 (9)-as his primary place of residence.
Petitioner Franchise Tax Board of California (Board), the state agency responsible for assessing personal income tax, suspected that Hyatt's move was a sham. Thus, in 1993, the Board launched an audit to determine whether Hyatt underpaid his 1991 and 1992 state income taxes by misrepresenting his residency. In the course of the audit, employees of the Board traveled to Nevada to conduct interviews with Hyatt's estranged family members and shared his personal information with business contacts. In total, the Board sent more than 100 letters and demands for information to third parties. The Board ultimately concluded that Hyatt had not moved to Nevada until April 1992 and owed California more than $ 10 million in back taxes, interest, and penalties. Hyatt protested the audit before the Board, which upheld the audit after an 11-year administrative proceeding. The appeal of that decision remains pending before the California Office of Tax Appeals.
In 1998, Hyatt sued the Board in Nevada state court for torts he alleged the agency committed during the audit. After the trial court denied in part the Board's motion for summary judgment, the Board petitioned the Nevada Supreme Court for a writ of mandamus ordering dismissal on the ground that the State of California was immune from suit. The Board argued that, under the Full Faith and Credit Clause, Nevada courts must apply California's statute immunizing the Board from liability for all injuries caused by its tax collection. See U.S. Const., Art. IV, § 1 ; Cal. Govt. Code Ann. § 860.2 (West 1995). The Nevada Supreme Court rejected that argument and held that, under general principles of comity, the Board was entitled to the same immunity that Nevada law afforded Nevada agencies-that is, immunity for negligent but not intentional torts. We granted certiorari and unanimously affirmed, holding that the Full Faith and Credit Clause did not prohibit Nevada from applying its own immunity law to the case. Franchise Tax Bd. of Cal. v. Hyatt, 538 U.S. 488, 498-499, 123 S.Ct. 1683, 155 L.Ed.2d 702 (2003) ( Hyatt I ). Because the Board did not ask us to overrule Nevadav.Hall, supra, we did not revisit that decision. Hyatt I, supra, at 497, 123 S.Ct. 1683.
On remand, the trial court conducted a 4-month jury trial that culminated in a verdict for Hyatt that, with prejudgment interest and costs, exceeded $ 490 million. On appeal, the Nevada Supreme Court rejected most of the damages awarded by the lower court, upholding only a $ 1 million judgment on one of Hyatt's claims and remanding for a new damages trial on another. Although the court recognized that tort liability for Nevada state agencies was capped at $ 50,000 under state law, it nonetheless held that Nevada public policy precluded it from applying that limitation to the California agency in this case. We again granted certiorari and this time reversed, holding that the Full Faith and Credit Clause required Nevada courts to grant the Board the same immunity that Nevada agencies enjoy. Franchise Tax Bd. of Cal.v.Hyatt, 578 U.S. ----, ---- - ----, 136 S.Ct. 1277, 1280-1283, 194 L.Ed.2d 431 (2016) ( HyattII ). Although the question was briefed and argued, the Court was equally divided on whether to overrule Hall and thus affirmed the jurisdiction of the Nevada Supreme Court. Hyatt II, supra, at ----, 136 S.Ct. at 1278. On remand, the Nevada Supreme Court instructed the trial court to enter damages in accordance with the statutory cap for Nevada agencies. 133 Nev. ----, 407 P. 3d 717 (2017).
We granted, for a third time, the Board's petition for certiorari, 585 U.S. ----, 138 S.Ct. 2710, 201 L.Ed.2d 1095 (2018). The sole question presented is whether Nevadav.Hall should be overruled.
II
Nevadav.Hall is contrary to our constitutional design and the understanding of sovereign immunity shared by the States that ratified the Constitution. Stare decisis does not compel continued adherence to this erroneous precedent. We therefore overrule Hall and hold that States retain their sovereign immunity from private suits brought in the courts of other States.
A
Hall held that the Constitution does not bar private suits against a State in the courts of another State. 440 U.S. at 416-421, 99 S.Ct. 1182. The opinion conceded that States were immune from such actions at the time of the founding, but it nonetheless concluded that nothing "implicit in the Constitution" requires States "to adhere to the sovereign-immunity doctrine as it prevailed when the Constitution was adopted." Id., at 417-418, 424-427, 99 S.Ct. 1182. Instead, the Court concluded that the Founders assumed that "prevailing notions of comity would provide adequate protection against the unlikely prospect of an attempt by the courts of one State to assert jurisdiction over another." Id., at 419, 99 S.Ct. 1182. The Court's view rested primarily on the idea that the States maintained sovereign immunity vis-à-vis each other in the same way that foreign nations do, meaning that immunity is available only if the forum State "voluntar[ily]" decides "to respect the dignity of the [defendant State] as a matter of comity." Id., at 416, 99 S.Ct. 1182 ; see also id., at 424-427, 99 S.Ct. 1182.
The Hall majority was unpersuaded that the Constitution implicitly altered the relationship between the States. In the Court's view, the ratification debates, the Eleventh Amendment, and our sovereign-immunity precedents did not bear on the question because they "concerned questions of federal-court jurisdiction." Id., at 420, 99 S.Ct. 1182. The Court also found unpersuasive the fact that the Constitution delineates several limitations on States' authority, such as Article I powers granted exclusively to Congress and Article IV requirements imposed on States. Id., at 425, 99 S.Ct. 1182. Despite acknowledging "that ours is not a union of 50 wholly independent sovereigns," Hall inferred from the lack of an express sovereign immunity granted to the States and from the Tenth Amendment that the States retained the power in their own courts to deny immunity to other States. Ibid.
Chief Justice Burger, Justice Blackmun, and Justice Rehnquist dissented.
B
Hall's determination that the Constitution does not contemplate sovereign immunity for each State in a sister State's courts misreads the historical record and misapprehends the "implicit ordering of relationships within the federal system necessary to make the Constitution a workable governing charter and to give each provision within that document the full effect intended by the Framers." Id., at 433, 99 S.Ct. 1182 (Rehnquist, J., dissenting). As Chief Justice Marshall explained, the Founders did not state every postulate on which they formed our Republic-"we must never forget, that it is a constitution we are expounding." McCulloch v. Maryland, 4 Wheat. 316, 407, 4 L.Ed. 579 (1819). And although the Constitution assumes that the States retain their sovereign immunity except as otherwise provided, it also fundamentally adjusts the States' relationship with each other and curtails their ability, as sovereigns, to decline to recognize each other's immunity.
1
After independence, the States considered themselves fully sovereign nations. As the Colonies proclaimed in 1776, they were "Free and Independent States" with "full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do." Declaration of Independence ¶4. Under international law, then, independence "entitled" the Colonies "to all the rights and powers of sovereign states." McIlvaine v. Coxe's Lessee, 4 Cranch 209, 212, 2 L.Ed. 598 (1808).
"An integral component" of the States' sovereignty was "their immunity from private suits." Federal Maritime Comm'n v. South Carolina Ports Authority, 535 U.S. 743, 751-752, 122 S.Ct. 1864, 152 L.Ed.2d 962 (2002) ; see Alden v. Maine, 527 U.S. 706, 713, 119 S.Ct. 2240, 144 L.Ed.2d 636 (1999) ("[A]s the Constitution's structure, its history, and the authoritative interpretations by this Court make clear, the States' immunity from suit is a fundamental aspect of the sovereignty which the States enjoyed before the ratification of the Constitution, and which they retain today..."). This fundamental aspect of the States' "inviolable sovereignty" was well established and widely accepted at the founding. The Federalist No. 39, p. 245 (C. Rossiter ed. 1961) (J. Madison); see Alden, supra, at 715-716, 119 S.Ct. 2240 ("[T]he doctrine that a sovereign could not be sued without its consent was universal in the States when the Constitution was drafted and ratified"). As Alexander Hamilton explained:
"It is inherent in the nature of sovereignty not to be amenable to the suit of an individual without its consent. This is the general sense and the general practice of mankind; and the exemption, as one of the attributes of sovereignty, is now enjoyed by the government of every State in the Union." The Federalist No. 81, at 487 (emphasis deleted).
The Founders believed that both "common law sovereign immunity" and "law-of-nations sovereign immunity" prevented States from being amenable to process in any court without their consent. See Pfander, Rethinking the Supreme Court's Original Jurisdiction in State-Party Cases, 82 Cal. L. Rev. 555, 581-588 (1994) ; see also Nelson, Sovereign Immunity as a Doctrine of Personal Jurisdiction, 115 Harv. L. Rev. 1559, 1574-1579 (2002). The common-law rule was that "no suit or action can be brought against the king, even in civil matters, because no court can have jurisdiction over him." 1 W. Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England 235 (1765) (Blackstone). The law-of-nations rule followed from the "perfect equality and absolute independence of sovereigns" under that body of international law. Schooner Exchange v. McFaddon, 7 Cranch 116, 137, 3 L.Ed. 287 (1812) ; see C. Phillipson, Wheaton's Elements of International Law 261 (5th ed. 1916) (recognizing that sovereigns "enjoy equality before international law"); 1 J. Kent, Commentaries on American Law 20 (G. Comstock ed. 1867). According to the founding era's foremost expert on the law of nations, "[i]t does not... belong to any foreign power to take cognisance of the administration of [another] sovereign, to set himself up for a judge of his conduct, and to oblige him to alter it." 2 E. de Vattel, The Law of Nations § 55, p. 155 (J. Chitty ed. 1883). The sovereign is "exemp[t]... from all [foreign] jurisdiction." 4 id., § 108, at 486.
The founding generation thus took as given that States could not be haled involuntarily before each other's courts. See Woolhandler, Interstate Sovereign Immunity, 2006 S. Ct. Rev. 249, 254-259. This understanding is perhaps best illustrated by preratification examples. In 1781, a creditor named Simon Nathan tried to recover a debt that Virginia allegedly owed him by attaching some of its property in Philadelphia. James Madison and other Virginia delegates to the Confederation Congress responded by sending a communique to Pennsylvania requesting that its executive branch have the action dismissed. See Letter from Virginia Delegates to Supreme Executive Council of Pennsylvania (July 9, 1781), in 3 The Papers of James Madison, 184-185 (W. Hutchinson & W. Rachal eds. 1963). As Madison framed it, the Commonwealth's property could not be attached by process issuing from a court of "any other State in the Union." Id., at 184. To permit otherwise would require Virginia to "abandon its Sovereignty by descending to answer before the Tribunal of another Power." Ibid. Pennsylvania Attorney General William Bradford intervened, urging the Court of Common Pleas to dismiss the action. See Nathan v. Virginia, 1 Dall. 77, 78, 1 L.Ed. 44 (C. P. Phila. Cty. 1781). According to Bradford, the suit violated international law because "all sovereigns are in a state of equality and independence, exempt from each other's jurisdiction." Ibid. "[A]ll jurisdiction implies superiority over the party," Bradford argued, "but there could be no superiority" between the States, and thus no jurisdiction, because the States were "perfect[ly] equa[l]" and "entire[ly] independen[t]." Ibid. The court agreed and refused to grant Nathan the writ of attachment. Id., at 80.
Similarly, a Pennsylvania Admiralty Court that very same year dismissed a libel action against a South Carolina warship, brought by its crew to recover unpaid wages. The court reasoned that the vessel was owned by a "sovereign independent state." Moitez v. The South Carolina, 17 F. Cas. 574 (No. 9697) (1781).
The Founders were well aware of the international-law immunity principles behind these cases. Federalists and Antifederalists alike agreed in their preratification debates that States could not be sued in the courts of other States. One Federalist, who argued that Article III would waive the States' immunity in federal court, admitted that the waiver was desirable because of the "impossibility of calling a sovereign state before the jurisdiction of another sovereign state." 3 Debates on the Constitution 549 (J. Elliot ed. 1876) (Pendleton) (Elliot's Debates). Two of the most prominent Antifederalists-Federal Farmer and Brutus-disagreed with the Federalists about the desirability of a federal forum in which States could be sued, but did so for the very reason that the States had previously been "subject to no such actions" in any court and were not "oblige[d]" "to answer to an individual in a court of law." Federal Farmer No. 3 (Oct. 10, 1787), in 4 The Founders' Constitution 227 (P. Kurland & R. Lerner eds. 1987). They found it "humiliating and degrading" that a State might have to answer "the suit of an individual." Brutus No. 13 (Feb. 21, 1788), in id., at 238.
In short, at the time of the founding, it was well settled that States were immune under both the common law and the law of nations. The Constitution's use of the term "States" reflects both of these kinds of traditional immunity. And the States retained these aspects of sovereignty, "except as altered by the plan of the Convention or certain constitutional Amendments." Alden, 527 U.S. at 713, 119 S.Ct. 2240.
2
One constitutional provision that abrogated certain aspects of this traditional immunity was Article III, which provided a neutral federal forum in which the States agreed to be amenable to suits brought by other States. Art. III, § 2; see Alden, supra, at 755, 119 S.Ct. 2240. "The establishment of a permanent tribunal with adequate authority to determine controversies between the States, in place of an inadequate scheme of arbitration, was essential to the peace of the Union." Principality of Monaco v. Mississippi, 292 U.S. 313, 328, 54 S.Ct. 745, 78 L.Ed. 1282 (1934). As James Madison explained during the Convention debates, "there can be no impropriety in referring such disputes" between coequal sovereigns to a superior tribunal. Elliot's Debates 532.
The States, in ratifying the Constitution, similarly surrendered a portion of their immunity by consenting to suits brought against them by the United States in federal courts. See Monaco, supra, at 328, 54 S.Ct. 745 ; Federal Maritime Comm'n, 535 U.S. at 752, 122 S.Ct. 1864. "While that jurisdiction is not conferred by the Constitution in express words, it is inherent in the constitutional plan." Monaco, supra, at 329, 54 S.Ct. 745. Given that "all jurisdiction implies superiority of power," Blackstone 235, the only forums in which the States have consented to suits by one another and by the Federal Government are Article III courts. See Federal Maritime Comm'n, supra, at 752, 122 S.Ct. 1864.
The Antifederalists worried that Article III went even further by extending the federal judicial power over controversies "between a State and Citizens of another State." They suggested that this provision implicitly waived the States' sovereign immunity against private suits in federal courts. But "[t]he leading advocates of the Constitution assured the people in no uncertain terms" that this reading was incorrect. Alden, 527 U.S. at 716, 119 S.Ct. 2240 ; see id., at 716-718, 119 S.Ct. 2240 (citing arguments by Hamilton, Madison, and John Marshall). According to Madison:
"[A federal court's] jurisdiction in controversies between a state and citizens of another state is much objected to, and perhaps without reason. It is not in the power of individuals to call any state into court. The only operation it can have, is that, if a state should wish to bring a suit against a citizen, it must be brought before the federal court. This will give satisfaction to individuals, as it will prevent citizens, on whom a state may have a claim, being dissatisfied with the state courts." Elliot's Debates 533.
John Marshall echoed these sentiments:
"With respect to disputes between a state and the citizens of another state, its jurisdiction has been decried with unusual vehemence. I hope no gentleman will think that a state will be called at the bar of the federal court.... The intent is, to enable states to recover claims of individuals residing in other states. I contend this construction is warranted by the words." Id., at 555 (emphasis in original).
Not long after the founding, however, the Antifederalists' fears were realized. In Chisholm v. Georgia, 2 Dall. 419, 1 L.Ed. 440 (1793), the Court held that Article III allowed the very suits that the "Madison-Marshall-Hamilton triumvirate" insisted it did not. Hall, 440 U.S. at 437, 99 S.Ct. 1182 (Rehnquist, J., dissenting). That decision precipitated an immediate "furor" and "uproar" across the country. 1 J. Goebel, Antecedents and Beginnings to 1801, History of the Supreme Court of the United States 734, 737 (1971); see id., at 734-741. Congress and the States accordingly acted swiftly to remedy the Court's blunder by drafting and ratifying the Eleventh Amendment. See Edelman v. Jordan, 415 U.S. 651, 660-662, 94 S.Ct. 1347, 39 L.Ed.2d 662 (1974) ; see also Federal Maritime Comm'n, supra, at 753, 122 S.Ct. 1864 (acknowledging that Chisholm was incorrect); Alden, supra, at 721-722, 119 S.Ct. 2240 (same).
The Eleventh Amendment confirmed that the Constitution was not meant to "rais[e] up" any suits against the States that were "anomalous and unheard of when the Constitution was adopted." Hans v. Louisiana, 134 U.S. 1, 18, 10 S.Ct. 504, 33 L.Ed. 842 (1890). Although the terms of that Amendment address only "the specific provisions of the Constitution that had raised concerns during the ratification debates and formed the basis of the Chisholm decision," the "natural inference" from its speedy adoption is that "the Constitution was understood, in light of its history and structure, to preserve the States' traditional immunity from private suits." Alden, supra, at 723-724, 119 S.Ct. 2240. We have often emphasized that "[t]he Amendment is rooted in a recognition that the States, although a union, maintain certain attributes of sovereignty, including sovereign immunity." Puerto Rico Aqueduct and Sewer Authority v. Metcalf & Eddy, Inc., 506 U.S. 139, 146, 113 S.Ct. 684, 121 L.Ed.2d 605 (1993). In proposing the Amendment, "Congress acted not to change but to restore the original constitutional design." Alden, 527 U.S. at 722, 119 S.Ct. 2240. The "sovereign immunity of the States," we have said, "neither derives from, nor is limited by, the terms of the Eleventh Amendment." Id., at 713, 119 S.Ct. 2240.
Consistent with this understanding of state sovereign immunity, this Court has held that the Constitution bars suits against nonconsenting States in a wide range of cases. See, e.g., Federal Maritime Comm'n, supra (actions by private parties before federal administrative agencies); Alden, supra (suits by private parties against a State in its own courts); Blatchford v. Native Village of Noatak, 501 U.S. 775, 111 S.Ct. 2578, 115 L.Ed.2d 686 (1991) (suits by Indian tribes in federal court); Monaco, 292 U.S. 313, 54 S.Ct. 745 (suits by foreign states in federal court); Ex parte New York, 256 U.S. 490, 41 S.Ct. 588, 65 L.Ed. 1057 (1921) (admiralty suits by private parties in federal court); Smith v. Reeves, 178 U.S. 436, 20 S.Ct. 919, 44 L.Ed. 1140 (1900) (suits by federal corporations in federal court).
3
Despite this historical evidence that interstate sovereign immunity is preserved in the constitutional design, Hyatt insists that such immunity exists only as a "matter of comity" and can be disregarded by the forum State. Hall, supra, at 416, 99 S.Ct. 1182. He reasons that, before the Constitution was ratified, the States had the power of fully independent nations to deny immunity to fellow sovereigns; thus, the States must retain that power today with respect to each other because "nothing in the Constitution or formation of the Union altered that balance among the still-sovereign states." Brief for Respondent 14. Like the majority in Hall, he relies primarily on our early foreign immunity decisions. For instance, he cites Schooner Exchangev.McFaddon, in which the Court dismissed a libel action against a French warship docked in Philadelphia because, under the law of nations, a sovereign's warships entering the ports of a friendly nation are exempt from the jurisdiction of its courts. 7 Cranch at 145-146. But whether the host nation respects that sovereign immunity, Chief Justice Marshall noted, is for the host nation to decide, for "[t]he jurisdiction of [a] nation within its own territory is necessarily exclusive and absolute" and "is susceptible of no limitation not imposed by itself." Id., at 136. Similar reasoning is found in The Santissima Trinidad, 7 Wheat. 283, 353, 5 L.Ed. 454 (1822), where Justice Story noted that the host nation's consent to provide immunity "may be withdrawn upon notice at any time, without just offence."
The problem with Hyatt's argument is that the Constitution affirmatively altered the relationships between the States, so that they no longer relate to each other solely as foreign sovereigns. Each State's equal dignity and sovereignty under the Constitution implies certain constitutional "limitation[s] on the sovereignty of all of its sister States." World-Wide Volkswagen Corp. v. Woodson, 444 U.S. 286, 293, 100 S.Ct. 580, 62 L.Ed.2d 490 (1980). One such limitation is the inability of one State to hale another into its courts without the latter's consent. The Constitution does not merely allow States to afford each other immunity as a matter of comity; it embeds interstate sovereign immunity within the constitutional design. Numerous provisions reflect this reality.
To begin, Article I divests the States of the traditional diplomatic and military tools that foreign sovereigns possess. Specifically, the States can no longer prevent or remedy departures from customary international law because the Constitution deprives them of the independent power to lay imposts or duties on imports and exports, to enter into treaties or compacts, and to wage war. Compare Art. I, § 10, with Declaration of Independence ¶4 (asserting the power to "levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, [and] establish Commerce"); see Kansas v. Colorado, 185 U.S. 125, 143, 22 S.Ct. 552, 46 L.Ed. 838 (1902).
Article IV also imposes duties on the States not required by international law. The Court's Full Faith and Credit Clause precedents, for example, demand that state-court judgments be accorded full effect in other States and preclude States from "adopt[ing] any policy of hostility to the public Acts" of other States. Hyatt II, 578 U.S., at ----, 136 S.Ct., at 1281 (internal quotation marks omitted); see Art. IV, § 1. States must also afford citizens of each State "all Privileges and Immunities of Citizens in the several States" and honor extradition requests upon "Demand of the executive Authority of the State" from which the fugitive fled. Art. IV, § 2. Foreign sovereigns cannot demand these kinds of reciprocal responsibilities absent consent or compact. But the Constitution imposes them as part of its transformation of the States from a loose league of friendship into a perpetual Union based on the "fundamental principle of equal sovereignty among the States." Shelby County v. Holder, 570 U.S. 529, 544, 133 S.Ct. 2612, 186 L.Ed.2d 651 (2013) (emphasis in original and internal quotation marks omitted).
The Constitution also reflects implicit alterations to the States' relationships with each other, confirming that they are no longer fully independent nations. See New Hampshire v. Louisiana, 108 U.S. 76, 90, 2 S.Ct. 176, 27 L.Ed. 656 (1883). For example, States may not supply rules of decision governing "disputes implicating the[ir] conflicting rights." Texas Industries, Inc. v. Radcliff Materials, Inc., 451 U.S. 630, 641, 101 S.Ct. 2061, 68 L.Ed.2d 500 (1981). Thus, no State can apply its own law to interstate disputes over borders, Cissna v. Tennessee, 246 U.S. 289, 295, 38 S.Ct. 306, 62 L.Ed. 720 (1918), water rights, Hinderlider v. La Plata River & Cherry Creek Ditch Co., 304 U.S. 92, 110, 58 S.Ct. 803, 82 L.Ed. 1202 (1938), or the interpretation of interstate compacts, Petty v. Tennessee-Missouri Bridge Comm'n, 359 U.S. 275, 278-279, 79 S.Ct. 785, 3 L.Ed.2d 804 (1959). The States would have had the raw power to apply their own law to such matters before they entered the Union, but the Constitution implicitly forbids that exercise of power because the "interstate... nature of the controversy makes it inappropriate for state law to control." Texas Industries, supra, at 641, 101 S.Ct. 2061. Some subjects that were decided by pure "political power" before ratification now turn on federal "rules of law." Rhode Island v. Massachusetts, 12 Pet. 657, 737, 9 L.Ed. 1233 (1838). See Clark, Federal Common Law: A Structural Reinterpretation, 144 U. Pa. L. Rev. 1245, 1322-1331 (1996).
Interstate sovereign immunity is similarly integral to the structure of the Constitution. Like a dispute over borders or water rights, a State's assertion of compulsory judicial process over another State involves a direct conflict between sovereigns. The Constitution implicitly strips States of any power they once had to refuse each other sovereign immunity, just as it denies them the power to resolve border disputes by political means. Interstate immunity, in other words, is "implied as an essential component of federalism." Hall, 440 U.S. at 430-431, 99 S.Ct. 1182 (Blackmun, J., dissenting).
Hyatt argues that we should find no right to sovereign immunity in another State's courts because no constitutional provision explicitly grants that immunity. But this is precisely the type of "ahistorical literalism" that we have rejected when "interpreting the scope of the States' sovereign immunity since the discredited decision in Chisholm." Alden, 527 U.S. at 730, 119 S.Ct. 2240 ; see id., at 736, 119 S.Ct. 2240 ("[T]he bare text of the Amendment is not an exhaustive description of the States' constitutional immunity from suit"). In light of our constitutional structure, the historical understanding of state immunity, and the swift enactment of the Eleventh Amendment after the Court departed from this understanding in Chisholm, "[i]t is not rational to suppose that the sovereign power should be dragged before a court." Elliot's Debates 555 (Marshall). Indeed, the spirited historical debate over Article III courts and the immediate reaction to Chisholm make little sense if the Eleventh Amendment were the only source of sovereign immunity and private suits against the States could already be brought in "partial, local tribunals." Elliot's Debates 532 (Madison). Nor would the Founders have objected so strenuously to a neutral federal forum for private suits against States if they were open to a State being sued in a different State's courts. Hyatt's view thus inverts the Founders' concerns about state-court parochialism. Hall, supra, at 439, 99 S.Ct. 1182 (Rehnquist, J., dissenting).
Moreover, Hyatt's ahistorical literalism proves too much. There are many other constitutional doctrines that are not spelled out in the Constitution but are nevertheless implicit in its structure and supported by historical practice-including, for example, judicial review, Marbury v. Madison, 1 Cranch 137, 176-180, 2 L.Ed. 60 (1803) ; intergovernmental tax immunity, McCulloch, 4 Wheat. at 435-436 ; executive privilege, United States v. Nixon, 418 U.S. 683, 705-706, 94 S.Ct. 3090, 41 L.Ed.2d 1039 (1974) ; executive immunity, Nixon v. Fitzgerald, 457 U.S. 731, 755-758, 102 S.Ct. 2690, 73 L.Ed.2d 349 (1982) ; and the President's removal power, Myers v. United States, 272 U.S. 52, 163-164, 47 S.Ct. 21, 71 L.Ed. 160 (1926). Like these doctrines, the States' sovereign immunity is a historically rooted principle embedded in the text and structure of the Constitution.
C
With the historical record and precedent against him, Hyatt defends Hall on the basis of stare decisis. But stare decisis is " 'not an inexorable command,' " Pearson v. Callahan, 555 U.S. 223, 233, 129 S.Ct. 808, 172 L.Ed.2d 565 (2009), and we have held that it is "at its weakest when we interpret the Constitution because our interpretation can be altered only by constitutional amendment," Agostini v. Felton, 521 U.S. 203, 235, 117 S.Ct. 1997, 138 L.Ed.2d 391 (1997). The Court's precedents identify a number of factors to consider, four of which warrant mention here: the quality of the decision's reasoning; its consistency with related decisions; legal developments since the decision; and reliance on the decision. See Janusv.State, County, and Municipal Employees, 585 U.S. ----, ---- - ----, 138 S.Ct. 2448, 2478-2479, 201 L.Ed.2d 924 (2018) ; United States v. Gaudin, 515 U.S. 506, 521, 115 S.Ct. 2310, 132 L.Ed.2d 444 (1995).
The first three factors support our decision to overrule Hall. We have already explained that Hall failed to account for the historical understanding of state sovereign immunity and that it failed to consider how the deprivation of traditional diplomatic tools reordered the States' relationships with one another. We have also demonstrated that Hall stands as an outlier in our sovereign-immunity jurisprudence, particularly when compared to more recent decisions.
As to the fourth factor, we acknowledge
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
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.
This is a civil antitrust action charging a price-fixing agreement in violation of § 1 of the Sherman Act. 26 Stat. 209, as amended, 15 U. S. C. § 1. The District Court dismissed the complaint. 273 F. Supp. 18. The case is here on appeal, 15 U. S. C. § 29; and we noted probable jurisdiction. 390 U. S. 1022.
The case as proved is unlike any other price decisions we have rendered. There was here an exchange of price information but no agreement to adhere to a price schedule as in Sugar Institute v. United States, 297 U. S. 553, or United States v. Socony-Vacuum Oil Co., 310 U. S. 150. There was here an exchange of information concerning specific sales to identified customers, not a statistical report on the average cost to all members, without identifying the parties to specific transactions, as in Maple Flooring Mfrs. Assn. v. United States, 268 U. S. 563. While there was present here, as in Cement Mfrs. Protective Assn. v. United States, 268 U. S. 588, an exchange of prices to specific customers, there was absent the controlling circumstance, viz., that cement manufacturers, to protect themselves from delivering to contractors more cement than was needed for a specific job and thus receiving a lower price, exchanged price information as a means of protecting their legal rights from fraudulent inducements to deliver more cement than needed for a specific job.
Here all that was present was a request by each defendant of its competitor for information as to the most recent price charged or quoted, whenever it needed such information and whenever it was not available from another source. Each defendant on receiving that request usually furnished the data with the expectation that it would be furnished reciprocal information when it wanted it. That concerted action is of course sufficient to establish the combination or conspiracy, the initial ingredient of a violation of § 1 of the Sherman Act.
There was of course freedom to withdraw from the agreement. But the fact remains that when a defendant requested and received price information, it was affirming its willingness to furnish such information in return.
There was to be sure an infrequency and irregularity of price exchanges between the defendants; and often the data were available from the records of the defendants or from the customers themselves. Yet the essence of the agreement was to furnish price information whenever requested.
Moreover, although the most recent price charged or quoted was sometimes fragmentary, each defendant had the manuals with which it could compute the price charged by a competitor on a specific order to a specific customer.
Further, the price quoted was the current price which a customer would need to pay in order to obtain products from the defendant furnishing the data.
The defendants account for about 90% of the shipment of corrugated containers from plants in the Southeastern United States. While containers vary as to dimensions, weight, color, and so on, they are substantially identical, no matter who produces them, when made to particular specifications. The prices paid depend on price alternatives. Suppliers when seeking new or additional business or keeping old customers, do not exceed a competitor’s price. It is common for purchasers to buy from two or more suppliers concurrently. A defendant supplying a customer with containers would usually quote the same price on additional orders, unless costs had changed. Yet where a competitor was charging a particular price, a defendant would normally quote the same price or even a lower price.
The exchange of price information seemed to have the effect of keeping prices within a fairly narrow ambit. Capacity has exceeded the demand from 1955 to 1963, the period covered by the complaint, and the trend of corrugated container prices has been downward. Yet despite this excess capacity and the downward trend of prices, the industry has expanded in the Southeast from 30 manufacturers with 49 plants to 51 manufacturers with 98 plants. An abundance of raw materials and machinery makes entry into the industry easy with an investment of $50,000 to $75,000.
The result of this reciprocal exchange of prices was to stabilize prices though at a downward level. Knowledge of a competitor’s price usually meant matching that price. The continuation of some price competition is not fatal to the Government’s case. The limitation or reduction of price competition brings the case within the ban, for as we held in United States v. Socony-Vacuum Oil Co., supra, at 224, n. 59, interference with the setting of price by free market forces is unlawful per se. Price information exchanged in some markets may have no effect on a truly competitive price. But the corrugated container industry is dominated by relatively few sellers. The product is fungible and the competition for sales is price. The demand is inelastic, as buyers place orders only for immediate, short-run needs. The exchange of price data tends toward price uniformity. For a lower price does not mean a larger share of the available business but a sharing of the existing business at a lower return. Stabilizing prices as well as raising them is within the ban of § 1 of the Sherman Act. As we said in United States v. Socony-Vacuum Oil Co., supra, at 223, “in terms of market operations stabilization is but one form of manipulation.” The inferences are irresistible that the exchange of price information has had an anticompetitive effect in the industry, chilling the vigor of price competition. The agreement in the present case, though somewhat casual, is analogous to those in American Column & Lumber Co. v. United States, 257 U. S. 377, and United States v. American Linseed Oil Co., 262 U. S. 371.
Price is too critical, too sensitive a control to allow it to be used even in an informal manner to restrain competition.
Reversed.
Section 1 provides:
“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, is hereby declared to be illegal.”
This is obviously quite different from the parallel business behavior condoned in Theatre Enterprises, Inc. v. Paramount Film Distributing Corp., 346 U. S. 537.
The American Column case was a sophisticated and well-supervised plan for the exchange of price information between competitors with the idea of keeping prices reasonably stable and of putting an end to cutthroat competition. There were no sanctions except financial interest and business honor. But the purpose of the plan being to increase prices, it was held to fall within the ban of the Sherman Act.
Another elaborate plan for the exchange of price data among competitors was involved in American Linseed Oil; and informal sanctions were used to establish "modem co-operative business methods.” The arrangement was declared illegal because its “necessary tendency” was to suppress competition. 262 U. S., at 389.
Thorstein Veblen in The Theory of Business Enterprise (1904) makes clear how the overabundance of a commodity creates a business appetite to regulate or control prices or output or both. Measures short of monopoly may have “a salutary effect,” as for example a degree of control or supervision over prices not obtainable while the parties “stood on their old footing of severalty.” But that relief is apt to be “only transient,” for as the costs of production decline and growth of the industry “catches up with the gain in economy,” the need for further controls or restraints increases. And so the restless, never-ending search for price control and other types of restraint.
We held in United States v. Socony-Vacuum Oil Co., 310 U. S. 150, that all forms of price-fixing are per se violations of the Sherman Act.
“The elimination of so-called competitive evils is no legal justification for such buying programs. The elimination of such conditions was sought primarily for its effect on the price structures. Fairer competitive prices, it is claimed, resulted when distress gasoline was removed from the market. But such defense is typical of the protestations usually made in price-fixing cases. Ruinous competition, financial disaster, evils of price cutting and the like appear throughout our history as ostensible justifications for price-fixing. If the so-called competitive abuses were to be appraised here, the reasonableness of prices would necessarily become an issue in every price-fixing case. In that event the Sherman Act would soon be emasculated; its philosophy would be supplanted by one which is wholly alien to a system of free competition; it would not be the charter of freedom which its framers intended.” 310 U. S., at 220-221.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
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 White
delivered the opinion of the Court.
The issue in this litigation is whether a labor union commits an unfair labor practice when it disciplines a member who is a supervisory employee for crossing the union’s picket line during a strike and performing his regular supervisory duties, which include the adjustment of grievances.
I
Respondent Writers Guild of America, West, Inc. (hereafter respondent), represents persons hired to perform writing functions for employers engaged in the production of motion pictures and television films, and in 1973 had contracts with certain petitioners that were about to expire. Petitioner in No. 76-1153 is the Association of Motion Picture and Television Producers, Inc., whose members are engaged in the production of motion pictures and television films. Petitioner represents its members in the negotiation and administration of collective-bargaining contracts. The three television networks, NBC, CBS, and ABC, petitioners in No. 76-1121, are also engaged in the production of television films and negotiate and administer collective-bargaining contracts. In March 1973, respondent engaged in a strike against both of these groups of petitioners, picketed the various premises, and issued strike rules that it enforced against its own members. It is this action which gave rise to this case.
Among respondent’s members are a substantial number of persons who were engaged by petitioners primarily to perform executive and supervisory functions including the selection and direction of writers and including certain limited writing duties. These persons are referred to as “hyphenates” and include various categories of producers, directors, and story editors. Although the primary function of hyphenates is not to write, they do perform minor writing tasks (referred to in the contract as “A to H” functions) that are an integral part of their primary duties and that expressly are not covered by the contracts between petitioners and respondent. Only in the event hyphenates are assigned or employed by petitioners to perform additional writing services are the rates for such services governed by the collective-bargaining contracts with respondent. In connection with the performance of their regular, primary duties, which, with the limited exception noted, do not include writing services, many, but not all, hyphenates are represented by labor organizations other than respondent. Some of the contracts between these other organizations and petitioners contained no-strike clauses when the events involved herein occurred. Certain hyphenates were pressured by these other labor organizations to honor these no-strike pledges by reporting to work.
Respondent, meanwhile, was preparing its own kinds of pressure to keep the hyphenates from working. In preparation for the strike, respondent issued and distributed to its members, including the hyphenates, some 31 strike rules. The rules, among other things, forbade any act prejudicial to the welfare of respondent such as conduct tending to defeat a strike or to weaken its effectiveness (Rule 1); prohibited all members “from crossing a picket line which is established by the Guild at any entrance” of a struck premises (Rule 12); forbade the entry of any struck premises for certain purposes and required notice to respondent when entry was made for other purposes (Rule 13); and obliged members to accept picket duty when assigned by respondent (Rule 28). Another rule (Rule 30), rescinded midway in the strike, provided that no member could work with any individual, including the writer-executive, who had violated union strike rules. The strike rules' applicability to hyphenates was made clear in Rule 24: “All members, regardless of the capacity in which they are working, are bound by all strike rules and regulations in the same manner and to the same extent as members who confine their efforts to writing.” The rules were widely publicized, and respondent repeatedly emphasized, orally and in writing, that it would enforce the rules against hyphenates. Nor could a hyphenate escape those strictures by resigning, for it was respondent’s policy, once the strike was under way, not to permit withdrawal from the union, then or for six months following the completion of negotiations.
Petitioners, however, informed the hyphenates that petitioners’ operations were continuing and that the hyphenates were expected to report for work and perform their regular supervisory functions. Petitioners were careful to assure that hyphenates would not be requested to perform writing duties covered by the union contract.
Some hyphenates went to work, informing their employers, as respondent knew, that they would perform only their primary duties as producer, director, or story editor. Others refrained from reporting for work. Between April 6 and November 8, 1973, respondent notified more than 30 hyphenates who returned to work that they had been charged with violating one or more of the strike rules. Most often, the charges related to Rules 1, 12, and 13. Various disciplinary trials ensued. In these proceedings, the evidence was that the hyphenates who returned to duty performed only the normal functions of the supervisory positions for which they were employed. There was no proof that hyphenates performed any work covered by the recently terminated contracts between petitioners and respondent. As the Administrative Law Judge observed, respondent “for the most part professed little or no interest in what kind of work was done during the strike” by the hyphenates who chose to work. Between June 25 and September 28, 1973, various penalties were imposed by respondent as the result of these disciplinary proceedings. The penalties included expulsions, suspensions, and quite substantial fines.
Meanwhile, the Association and network petitioners had filed unfair labor practice charges, and the General Counsel of the National Labor Relations Board had issued complaints against respondent charging violations of §8 (b)(1)(B) of the National Labor Relations Act, 61 Stat. 141, 29 U. S. C. § 158 (b) (1)(B), which provides that “[i]t shall be an unfair labor practice for a labor organization... to restrain or coerce... an employer in the selection of his representatives for the purposes of collective bargaining or the adjustment of grievances.” Extensive hearings followed, the Administrative Law Judge ultimately recommending that the charges be sustained and making findings and conclusions that were adopted by the National Labor Relations Board.
These findings included an analysis of the primary functions for which the hyphenates were employed. It was concluded that all of the producers, directors, and story editors involved were employed to perform supervisory functions and were supervisors within the meaning of § 2 (11) of the Act, 29 U. S. C. § 152 (11). It was also found that the hyphenates in each of these categories regularly had the authority and the task of adjusting grievances. “It is clear, as has been found, that the normal performance of the hyphenates’ primary functions involves the adjustment of employee grievances, and, in the case of producers on distant location, to engage in collective bargaining with labor organizations.” Furthermore, the record indicated that “during the strike, where the situation arose, the hyphenates dealt with grievances of employees who worked during the strike, or, in any event, were available to deal with such matters in their normal capacities when and if such grievances arose.” It was also found that the hyphenates who reported for duty during the strike performed only their primary functions and did not engage in writing or do any work that had been covered by respondent’s collective-bargaining contract. Significantly, none of the hyphenates was charged with violating the strike rule forbidding the performance of writing functions for a struck employer. During the disciplinary hearings, respondent was “not concerned with what work the hyphenates did when working during the strike,” although it would have been quite easy to determine these facts from testimony of union writers about what work was found completed upon their return.
The ultimate factual conclusions of the Administrative Law Judge were that the hyphenates were supervisors "selected by their employers to adjust grievances”; that in issuing strike rules and engaging in other conduct designed to compel the hyphenates to refrain from working respondent had “restrained and coerced the hyphenates from performing managerial and supervisory services for their employers during the strike, including the adjustment of employee grievances and participation in collective bargaining,” and had thus “coerced and restrained those employers in the selection of representatives for collective bargaining and the adjustment of grievances within the meaning of Section 8 (b)(1)(B)”; and that by charging, trying, and disciplining the hyphenates who chose to work and who, the Administrative Law Judge found, “performed managerial and supervisory functions including the adjustment of grievances on collective bargaining as required, and did not perform rank and file work,” respondent “further coerced and restrained the employers” within the meaning of § 8 (b)(1) (B).
In arriving at these conclusions, the Administrative Law Judge rejected the claim that Florida Power & Light Co. v. Electrical Workers, 417 U. S. 790 (1974) (FP&L), required a contrary result, saying that respondent’s conduct “violated the plain meaning of the statute without the necessity of resort to statutory exegesis.”
On exceptions and supporting briefs, a majority of a three-member panel of the Board, except in one respect, adopted as its own the rulings, findings, and conclusions of the Administrative Law Judge. The Board also reasoned that FP&L, which involved supervisors who performed bargaining-unit work, did not extend to cases where union discipline was imposed upon supervisors who performed only their ordinary supervisorial functions (including the adjustment of grievances). The Board relied upon two of its cases decided subsequent to FP&L: Chicago Typographical Union No. 16 (Hammond Publishers, Inc.), 216 N. L. R. B. 903 (1975); New York Typographical Union No. 6, International Typographical Union, AFL-CIO (Daily Racing Form, a subsidiary of Triangle Publishers, Inc.), 216 N. L. R. B. 896 (1975).
On application to review by the networks and the Board’s application to enforce, a divided panel of the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit denied enforcement in a brief per curiam opinion indicating that, like the dissenting member of the Board, it considered FP&L, supra, to bar the results reached by the Board in this case. 547 F. 2d 159 (1976). We granted the petitions for certiorari of the Board as well as of the Association and the networks because of an apparent conflict between the decision below and decisions in other Courts of Appeals and because of the recurring nature of the issue. 430 U. S. 982(1977).
II
As the Court has set out in greater detail in its comprehensive review of § 8 (b) (1) (B) in FP&L, the prohibition against restraining or coercing an employer in the selection of his bargaining representative was, until 1968, applied primarily to pressures exerted by the union directly upon the employer to force him into a multiemployer bargaining unit or otherwise to dictate or control the choice of his representative for the purpose of collective bargaining or adjusting grievances in the course of administering an existing contract. In San Francisco-0akland Mailers’ Union No. 18, International Typographical Union (Northwest Publications, Inc.), 172 N. L. R. B. 2173 (1968), however, the Board applied the section to prohibit union discipline of one of its member-supervisors for the manner in which he had performed his supervisory task of grievance adjustment. Although the union “sought the substitution of attitudes rather than persons, and may have exerted its pressures upon the [employer] by indirect rather than direct means,” the ultimate fact was that the pressure interfered with the employer’s control over his representative. “Realistically, the Employer would have to replace its foremen or face de facto nonrepresentation by them.” Oakland Mailers, supra, at 2173.
The application of the section to indirect coercion of employers through pressure applied to supervisory personnel continued to evolve until the FP&L and Illinois Bell cases reached the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit and then this Court. In each of those cases, the union disciplined supervisor-members who had performed rank-and-file work behind a union picket line during a strike. In a companion case to Illinois Bell, upon which Illinois Bell explicitly relied, the Board found an infraction of § 8 (b) (1)(B), broadly construing its purpose “to assure to the employer that its selected collective-bargaining representatives will be completely faithful to its desires” and holding that this could not be achieved “if the union has an effective method, union disciplinary action, by which it can pressure such representatives to deviate from the interests of the employer.” In like fashion, in FP.&L, the Board held that fining supervisors for doing rank-and-file work during a work stoppage “struck at the loyalty an employer should be able to expect from its representatives for the adjustment of grievances and therefore restrained and coerced employers in their selection of such representatives.”
The Court of Appeals overturned both decisions of the Board, holding that although the section could be properly applied to union efforts to discipline supervisors for their performance as collective-bargaining or grievance-adjustment representatives, it could not reasonably be applied to prohibit union discipline of supervisors crossing picket lines to perform bargaining-unit work: “When a supervisor forsakes his supervisory role to do rank-and-file work ordinarily the domain of nonsupervisory employees, he is no longer acting as a management representative and no longer merits any immunity from discipline.” 159 U. S. App. D. C., at 286, 487 F. 2d, at 1157.
This Court affirmed the judgment of the Court of Appeals:
“The conclusion is thus inescapable that a union's discipline of one of its members who is a supervisory employee can constitute a violation of § 8 (b)(1)(B) only when that discipline may adversely affect the supervisor’s conduct in performing the duties of, and acting in his capacity as, grievance adjuster or collective bargainer on behalf of the employer.” 417 U. S., at 804-805.
The Court thus rejected the claim that “even if the effect of [union] discipline did not carry over to the performance of the supervisor’s grievance adjustment or collective bargaining functions,” it was enough to show that the result would be “to deprive the employer of the full allegiance of, and control over, a representative he has selected for grievance adjustment or collective bargaining purposes.” Id., at 807. Assuming without deciding that the Board’s decision in Oakland Mailers fell within the outer reaches of § 8 (b) (1) (B.), the Court concluded that the Illinois Bell and FP&L decisions did not, because it was “certain that these supervisors were not engaged in collective bargaining or grievance adjustment, or in any activities related thereto, when they crossed union picket lines during an economic strike to engage in rank-and-file struck work.” 417 U. S., at 805.
Subsequent to FP&L, in applying §8 (b)(1)(B) to cases involving union discipline of supervisor-members, the Board directed its attention, as it understood FP&L to require, to the question whether the discipline may adversely affect the supervisor’s conduct in performing his grievance-adjustment or collective-bargaining duties on behalf of the employer. In Hammond Publishers, supra, and Triangle Publishers, supra, the Board held that it was an unfair practice under § 8 (b)(1)(B) for a union to discipline a supervisor-member whose regular duties included the adjustment of grievances for crossing a picket line to perform his regular functions during a strike. See also Wisconsin River Valley Dist. Council (Skippy Enterprises, Inc.), 218 N. L. R. B. 1063 (1975). These cases rested on the Board’s conclusion that such discipline imposed on the supervisor would have a “carryover” effect and would influence the supervisor in the performance of his adjustment functions after the strike and hence interfere with and coerce the employer in the choice of his grievance representative. See Triangle, 216 N. L. R. B., at 897; Hammond, 216 N. L. R. B., at 904. The Triangle decision was not challenged in the courts, but Hammond was enforced, 176 U. S. App. D. C. 240, 539 F. 2d 242 (1976), as was Skippy Enterprises, 532 F. 2d 47 (CA7 1976).
III
This case was tried to the Administrative Law Judge prior to the issuance of this Court's decision in FP&L, but hearings continued and the record was not closed until after the Court of Appeals’ final decision in that case; and the FP&L opinion here was handed down on June 24, 1974, some three months before the Administrative Law Judge issued his recommended decision. As we have already indicated, the findings of the Administrative Law Judge, accepted by the Board, were that the hyphenates’ regular supervisory duties included the performance of grievance adjustment; that the employer insisted that hyphenates return to work but only to perform supervisory, not rank-and-file, duties; and that the hypen-ates who reported did only supervisory work and had the authority to adjust grievances which they did when the occasion arose. After analyzing this Court's pronouncements in FP&L, the Administrative Law Judge rejected the claim that union discipline of a supervisor-member for working during a strike can never be a § 8 (b) (1) (B) violation and went on to hold that under the test prescribed by FP&L, there was a violation here. His conclusions were that through its strike rules and other pressures “designed to compel such hyphenates from going to work during the strike,” regardless of the tasks that they might perform, the union had “restrained and coerced the hyphenates from performing managerial and supervisory services for their employers during the strike, including the adjustment of employee grievances and participation in collective bargaining....” By “coercing or restraining” hyphenates from going in to do their normal work, which included grievance adjustment, or in the case of producers, on distant location, the task of collective bargaining, the union had “actually coerced and restrained their employers from selecting those persons as the employers' representatives for the adjustment of grievances and for collective bargaining during the strike.” He also concluded that by charging, trying, and disciplining those hyphenates who did report for work and by “threatening to blacklist in perpetuity... [and] to drive [them] out of the industry,” the union had coerced and restrained these hyphenates from performing their regular duties in the normal manner, including the adjustment of grievances and collective bargaining. The employer, in turn, had been further coerced and restrained in the free selection of those hyphenates as his collective-bargaining and grievance-adjustment representatives.
The Administrative Law Judge thus found the section violated according to the test as elaborated in FP&L because, by keeping hyphenates from work, the union had deprived the employer of any opportunity to select those particular supervisors as his grievance-adjusting or collective-bargaining representatives and because disciplining and threatening those supervisors who had reported for duty deprived the employer of fully effective §8 (b)(1)(B) representatives. Although the Board embraced these findings and conclusions of the Administrative Law Judge, it also found that the disciplinary-action taken by the union against those hyphenates who crossed the picket line was an unfair practice under § 8 (b) (1)(B) as that section had been construed in Hammond and Triangle and that threats of such illegal discipline against others also violated the section.
IV
We cannot agree with what appears to be the fundamental position of the Court of Appeals and the union that under §8 (b)(1)(B), as the section was construed in FP&L, it is never an unfair practice for a union to discipline a supervisor-member for working during a strike, regardless of the work that he may perform behind the picket line. The opinion in FP&L expressly refrained from questioning Oakland Mailers or the proposition that an employer could be coerced or restrained within the meaning of §8 (b)(1)(B) not only by picketing or other direct actions aimed at him but also by debilitating discipline imposed on his collective-bargaining or grievance-adjustment representative. Indeed, after focusing on the purposes of the section, the Court in FP&L delineated the boundaries of when that “carryover” effect would violate § 8 (b) (1) (B) : whenever such discipline may adversely affect the supervisor’s conduct in his capacity as a grievance adjustor or collective bargainer. In these situations — that is, when such impact might be felt — the employer would be deprived of the full services of his representatives and hence would be restrained and coerced in his selection of those representatives.
Furthermore, because this was the test prescribed and employed by the Court to adjudicate the very situation where union discipline was imposed for crossing a picket line, it is unlikely that the Court anticipated that the test could never be satisfied in such disciplinary cases, that it could never be true that the sanction could or would affect the supervisor's collective-bargaining or grievance-adjustment functions, or that the employer in such circumstances could never be restrained or coerced in the selection of his representatives.
This is not to say that every effort by a union to discipline a supervisor for crossing a picket line to do supervisory rather than rank-and-file work would satisfy the standards specified by FP&L, or that on facts present here there is necessarily a violation of §8(b)(l)(B). But we are of the view that the Board correctly understood FP&L to mean that in ruling upon a § 8 (b)(1)(B) charge growing out of union discipline of a supervisory member who elects to work during a strike, it may- — indeed, it must — inquire whether the sanction may adversely affect the supervisor’s performance of his collective-bargaining or grievance-adjustment tasks and thereby coerce or restrain the employer contrary to §8 (b)(1)(B). The Board addressed those issues here, and if its ultimate factual conclusions in this regard are capable of withstanding judicial review, it seems to us that its construction of the section fairly recognizes and respects the outer boundaries established by FP&L, and represents an “acceptable reading of the statutory language and a reasonable implementation of the purposes of the relevant statutory sections.” NLRB v. Iron Workers, 434 U. S. 335, 341 (1978).
Respondent objects that this construction of the Act imper-missibly intrudes on the union’s right to resort to economic sanctions during a strike. However, an employer also has economic rights during a strike, and the statute declares that, in the unrestrained freedom to select a grievance-adjustment and collective-bargaining representative, the employer’s rights dominate. Ample leeway is already accorded to a union in permitting it to discipline any member, even a supervisor, for performing struck work — to carry that power over to the case of purely supervisory work is an inappropriate extension and interference with the employer’s prerogative. The Board has so ruled, and as the Court has often observed, “ ‘[t]he function of striking [the] balance to effectuate national labor policy is often a difficult and delicate responsibility, which the Congress committed primarily to the National Labor Relations Board, subject to limited judicial review.’ ” NLRB v. Iron Workers, supra, at 350, quoting NLRB v. Truck Drivers, 353 U. S. 87, 96 (1957); NLRB v. Insurance Agents, 361 U. S. 477, 499 (1960). Here, in adjudicating as it did the intertwining interests of union, employer, and supervisor-member during an economic strike, we cannot say that the Board has moved into a new area of regulation not committed to it by Congress, ibid., or conclude that the role assumed by the Board is “fundamentally inconsistent with the structure of the Act and the function of the sections relied upon.” American Ship Building Co. v. NLRB, 380 U. S. 300, 318 (1965); NLRB v. Iron Workers, supra.
Y
We are also unpersuaded that the Board’s findings and conclusions are infirm on any of the grounds submitted. First, it is urged that there was an insufficient showing and insufficient findings that any hyphenates were coerced or restrained from reporting for work. But the Administrative Law Judge carefully detailed the strike rules that he expressly found were designed and enforced with the intent of restraining hyphenates from going to work and from performing the normal duties of their positions, which included the adjustment of grievances. It was also found that the hyphenates were especially vulnerable to pressure from the union and that many of them were actually restrained and prevented from performing their normal duties, including the adjustment of grievances. These are sufficiently clear findings that union pressures kept many hyphenates from the job, and, on the record before us, it approaches the frivolous to argue that there is insufficient evidence to support them. It also follows, as the Administrative Law Judge and the Board concluded, that as to those hyphenates whom the union kept from work, the employer was restrained and coerced within the meaning of § 8 (b)(1)(B) by being totally deprived of the opportunity to choose these particular supervisors as his collective-bargaining or grievance-adjustment representatives during the strike.
Second, as to those hyphenates who reported for work, it is strenuously urged that there is no basis for concluding that the discipline imposed upon them would adversely affect the performance of their grievance-adjustment duties either during or after the strike. Again, however, we are unwilling to differ with the Board in these respects. The inquiry whether union conduct would or might adversely affect the performance of the hyphenates' grievance-adjustment duties is, as petitioners assert, necessarily a matter of probabilities, and its resolution depends much on what experience would suggest are the justifiable inferences from the known facts. This seems to us to be peculiarly the kind of determination that Congress has assigned to the Board:
“An administrative agency with power after hearings to determine on the evidence in adversary proceedings whether violations of statutory commands have occurred may infer within the limits of the inquiry from the proven facts such conclusions as reasonably may be based upon the facts proven. One of the purposes which lead to the creation of such boards is to have decisions based upon evidential facts under the particular statute made by experienced officials with an adequate appreciation of the complexities of the subject which is entrusted to their administration.” Republic Aviation Corp. v. NLRB, 324 U. S. 793, 800 (1945); Radio Officers v. NLRB, 347 U. S. 17, 48-49 (1954).
See also NLRB v. Erie Resistor Corp., 373 U. S. 221, 227 (1963); Teamsters v. NLRB, 365 U. S. 667, 675 (1961). The Board’s findings are “entitled to the greatest deference in recognition of its special competence in dealing with labor problems.” American Ship Building Co. v. NLRB, supra, at 316.
Furthermore, it does not strike us as groundless or lacking substantial evidence for the Board to conclude on this record that the discipline imposed would have the necessary adverse effect. Strike rules were distributed in February; the strikes against the Association began on March 4 and terminated June 24; the strikes against the networks began on March 29 and ended on July 12. Between April 6 and November 8— both during and after the strikes — some 31 hyphenates who had worked during the strikes were charged with violating union rules, 15 hearings had been held prior to the closing of evidence in November 1973, and from June 25 to September 28, very substantial penalties were imposed in 10 cases although 9 have already been reduced on appeal. These penalties were widely publicized at the time of their imposition. Other charges were pending and remained to be tried when the record was closed in this case.
These penalties were meted out at least in part because the accused hyphenates had complied with the orders of their employers by reporting for work and performing only their normal supervisory functions, including the adjustment of grievances, during the strike. Hyphenates who worked were thus faced not only with threats but also with the actuality of charges, trial, and severe discipline simply because they were working at their normal jobs. And if this were not enough, they were threatened with a union blacklist that might drive them from the industry. How long such hyphenates would remain on the job under such pressure was a matter no one, particularly the employer, could predict.
Moreover, after the strike, with the writers back at work, the hyphenates who had worked during the strike still faced charges and trials or were appealing large fines and long suspensions. At the same time, they were expected to perform their regular supervisory duties and to adjust grievances whenever the occasion demanded, functions requiring them to deal with the same union which was considering the appeal of their personal sanctions. As to these supervisors, who had felt the union’s wrath, not for doing rank-and-file work contrary to union rules, but for performing only their primary supervisory duties during the strike and who were in a continuing controversy with the union, it was not untenable for the Board to conclude that these disciplined hyphenates had a diminished capacity to carry out their grievance-adjustment duties effectively and that the employer was deprived of the full range of services from his supervisors. Such a hyphenate might be tempted to give the union side of a grievance a more favorable slant while the threat of discipline remained, or while his own appeal of a union sanction was pending. At the very least, the employer could not be certain that a fined hyphenate would willingly answer the employer’s call to duty during a subsequent work stoppage, particularly if it occurred in the near future. For an employer in these circumstances to insure having satisfactory collective-bargaining and grievance-adjustment services would require a change in his representative.
As the Board has construed the Act from Oakland Mailers to Triangle, Hammond, and the cases now before us, such a likely impact on the employer constitutes sufficient restraint and coercion in connection with the selection of collective-bargaining and grievance-adjustment representatives to violate § 8 (b) (1) (B). In FP&L the Court declined the invitation to overrule Oakland Mailers, and we do so again. Union pressure on supervisors can affect either their willingness to serve as grievance adjustors or collective bargainers, or the manner in which they fulfill these functions; and either effect impermissibly coerces the employer in his choice of representative.
Third, it is further urged that union discipline could not adversely affect a supervisor’s later performance of his § 8 (b)(1) (B) duties because the employer could require him to leave the union and thus free himself from further threats of union discipline. This submission has little force in this case, since, as the Administrative Law Judge found, the union’s known policy was not to permit a member to resign during a strike and for a period of six months thereafter. For the entire period to which the Board’s findings were addressed, hyphenates could not terminate their membership, and the employer’s only recourse would have been to replace them as his grievance representatives.
Carried to its logical end, this submission is simply another argument that union sanctions applied to supervisor-members who work during a strike can never violate §8 (b)(1)(B), because the employer could always insist that his supervisors either terminate union affiliation or face discharge. Yet, as we have noted, the test posited by this Court in FP.&L plainly recognizes the possibility of a § 8 (b)(1)(B) violation arising from union fines imposed during a strike. Moreover, if the argument were to be accepted, indirect pressures on the employer by sanctioning supervisor-members for the manner in which they perform their grievance-adjusting function (as in Oakland Mailers) would never be a violation because the supervisor could, at the employer’s request, escape from union threats and sanctions. The Board’s construction of the Act is to the contrary, however, and, as we have said, we are not prepared at this juncture to override it.
Because we have concluded that the Board’s construction of § 8 (b)(1) (B) is not an unreasonable reading of its language or inconsistent with its purposes, and because we cannot say that the Board’s findings lacked substantial evidence, we must reverse the judgment of the Court of Appeals.
So ordered.
Executive producers, with the help of producers and associate producers, have the primary responsibility for the production of films for motion pictures or for television. The responsibility begins with the idea or concept for the film or the series and carries through to the post-production stages after filming. Directors are in personal charge of the principal photography of the film. They are responsible for the employment of crew and actors and effectively direct such employees. Story editors, story consultants, script consultants, executive story editors, and executive story consultants principally assist the producer in the highly important function of dealing with scripts and writers. They have individual judgment, initiative, and responsibility, and their tasks are clearly supervisory. Approximately SO hyphenate members of respondent were principally employed as producers of one kind or another, approximately 15 were directors, and another 15 were in the story editor category.
The finding of the Administrative Law Judge in this regard was:
“The important point is that when these executives and supervisors perform those functions excluded from the Respondent’s bargaining agreements they thereby perform functions which the parties have acknowledged do not constitute work reserved to Respondent’s non-hyphenate members under the agreements, but rather are accepted as a normal part of the duties and responsibilities of the executives and supervisors (as herein-above discussed) employed by the employers involved.” (Footnote omitted.) App. to Pet. for Cert, in No. 76-1162, p. 35a.
The contract provided that performance of any “A to H” writing “shall not constitute such person a writer hereunder.” Id., at 33a.
Rule 13 provided:
“Members are prohibited from entering the premises of any struck producer for the purpose of discussion of the sale of material or contract of employment, regardless of the time it is to take effect. Members are also prohibited from entering the premises of any struck producer for the purpose of viewing any film.... [S]hould a member find it necessary to visit the premises of a struck producer for any reason apart from the foregoing he should inform the Guild in advance of the nature of such prospective visit.” Id., at 36a-37a.
Rule 30 provided:
“No member shall work with any individual, including a writer-executive who has been suspended from Guild membership by reason of his violation of strike rules, or has been found by the Council to have violated strike rules, in the event no disciplinary action was instituted against such person.” Id., at 38a.
After the issuance of the initial complaint in this case, Rule 30 was rescinded by respondent in a letter to all of its members, which stated, among other things, that “because the old rule could be misconstrued to mean that the Guild was maintaining an improper sanction, a matter of anathema to this Guild, the Board of Directors rescinded old Rule 30....” The assessment of the Administrative Law Judge was:
“In particular, by threatening to blacklist in perpetuity such hyphenates who worked during the strike, the rules threatened to drive these hyphenates out of the industry. Though the mandatory effect of the rule was rescinded... there are other indications that Respondent's actions encourage a voluntary blacklist.... [T]he fact is that Respondent did suggest it, and it is now impossible to disentangle the consequences flowing from its actions.” Id., at 69a-70a.
The Administrative Law Judge found that a typical notice of charges against a hyphenate contained the following:
“Specifically,, you are charged with: (1) having crossed the Guild’s picket lines... during the months of March, April, May and June 1973, without
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
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 Marshall
delivered the opinion of the Court.
On July 13, 1966, the United States filed a civil antitrust suit against Phillips Petroleum Co. (Phillips) and petitioner Tidewater Oil Co. (Tidewater). The complaint alleged that Phillips’ acquisition of certain assets and operations of Tidewater violated § 7 of the Clayton Act, 38 Stat. 731, as amended, 15 U. S. C. § 18. The District Court denied the United States’ motion for a temporary restraining order to prevent consummation of the acquisition, and its subsequent motion for a preliminary injunction to require either rescission of the acquisition or maintenance by Phillips of the going-concern value of the transferred assets and operations.
Petitioner continued as a party to the suit during some five years of pretrial discovery and preparation. Then in April 1971, following the Government’s announcement that it was ready for trial, petitioner moved to be dismissed as a party. The District Court denied the motion, but found that it involved “a controlling question of law as to which there is substantial ground for difference of opinion and that an immediate appeal from [the] order may materially advance the ultimate termination of this litigation.” It therefore certified “its order denying defendant’s motion to dismiss for interlocutory appeal under Section 1292 (b) of Title 28 of the United States Code.” As required by the statute, Tidewater then applied to the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit for leave to prosecute the appeal. That court, however, denied the application relying solely on its previous decision in United States v. FMC Corp., 321 F. 2d 534 (1963). There an attempt was made to appeal an interlocutory order denying a preliminary injunction in a Government civil antitrust case. Notwithstanding that 28 U. S. C. § 1292 (a)(1) provides for an appeal of right to the courts of appeals from an order granting or denying preliminary injunctions, the Ninth Circuit held that it lacked jurisdiction over such an appeal in a Government civil antitrust case because of § 2 of the Expediting Act of 1903, 32 Stat. 823, as amended, 15 U. S. C. § 29, which provides that “[i]n every civil action brought in any district court of the United States under any of [the Antitrust] Acts, wherein the United States is complainant, an appeal from the final judgment of the district court will lie only to the Supreme Court.” In this case, then, the Court of Appeals extended its prior ruling to interlocutory orders within § 1292 (b). Because this decision raises an important question of federal appellate jurisdiction and because a conflict among the circuits subsequently developed on this question, we granted cer-tiorari. For the reasons that follow, we affirm the decision of the Court of Appeals.
I
To determine the relevance of 28 U. S. C. § 1292 (b) for Government civil antitrust cases, it is necessary first to consider the original purpose of § 2 of the Expediting Act and the over half-century of experience with that section in the context of interlocutory appeals provisions that preceded the enactment of § 1292 (b) in 1958.
In an effort to “expedite [certain] litigation of great and general importance,” 36 Cong. Rec. 1679 (remarks of Sen. Fairbanks), Congress enacted § 2 of the Expediting Act in 1903 to withdraw all intermediate appellate jurisdiction in Government civil antitrust cases. At the time of the passage of the Expediting Act, the then recently established circuit courts of appeals had jurisdiction under the Evarts Act over an appeal not only from a “final decision” but also from “an interlocutory order or decree” granting or continuing an injunction or appointing a receiver “in a cause in which an appeal from a final decree may he taken... to the circuit court of appeals.’’ Hence, by lodging exclusive appellate jurisdiction over the “final judgment of the district court” in this Court, the Expediting Act necessarily eliminated court of appeals jurisdiction over appeals from interlocutory, as well as final, decrees in Government civil antitrust cases.
Congress thus initially determined to speed appellate review by channeling appeals in Expediting Act cases directly to this Court and to avoid the delay inherent in piecemeal appeal by conditioning appeal upon the presence of a “final judgment.” But mere speed in the disposition of Government civil antitrust cases was not Congress’ only concern; that result might have been achieved simply by establishing procedures for the expeditious handling of such cases in the courts of appeals. Congress was also intent upon facilitating review by this Court “of a class of antitrust cases deemed particularly important.” Because of the importance of uniform interpretation of the antitrust law, which was still in its infancy in 1903, it is understandable that Congress chose to establish this special appellate procedure for Government civil antitrust cases, which were thought generally to involve issues of wide importance.
During the 25 years following the enactment of the Expediting Act, Congress amended the Evarts Act provision governing interlocutory appeals to the courts of appeals on four separate occasions — in 1906, 1911, 1925, and 1928. It can be argued that on its face the very first of these amendments once again made interlocutory appeals available to the courts of appeals in Government civil antitrust cases and that the language of each successive amendment, where relevant, perpetuated that state of affairs. But, while the clear meaning of statutory language is not to be ignored, “words are inexact tools at best,” Harrison v. Northern Trust Co., 317 U. S. 476, 479 (1943), and hence it is essential that we place the words of a statute in their proper context by resort to the legislative history. Nowhere is this better illustrated than in this case. For we find it inconceivable that Congress, having purposefully withdrawn the jurisdiction of the courts of appeals in certain antitrust cases in 1903, would re-establish it in the same cases — but only for interlocutory orders — just three years later in 1906, without making any reference to that purpose. Yet no mention of either the Expediting Act or Government civil antitrust cases is to be found in the legislative history of the 1906 amendment to the interlocutory appeals provision — or, for that matter, in that of the successive amendments insofar as they are relevant; rather, for each amendment some purpose wholly unrelated to Expediting Act cases is apparent from the relevant legislative materials. In light of this, we find it impossible to ascribe to Congress an intent to impair the original exclusivity of this Court’s jurisdiction under § 2 through any of these amendments to the interlocutory appeals provision.
This clearly was the view of the seven members of the unanimous Court in United States v. California Cooperative Canneries, 279 U. S. 553 (1929). There, in rejecting the argument that an appeal lay to the court of appeals from an order denying a motion to intervene in a Government civil antitrust case, the Court stated:
“[The Evarts Act] provisions governing appeals in general were amended by the Expediting Act so that in suits in equity under the Anti-Trust Act ‘in which the United States is complainant,’ the appeal should be direct to this Court from the final decree in the trial court. Thus, Congress limited the right of review to an appeal from the decree which disposed of all matters... ; and it precluded the possibility of an appeal to either [this Court or the court of appeals] from an interlocutory decree.” Id., at 558 (emphasis added).
And a decade and a half later, in Allen Calculators v. National Cash Register Co., 322 U. S. 137, 142 (1944), the Court reiterated “that jurisdiction to review District Court decrees was not vested in the Circuit Courts of Appeals but solely in this court, and [the Expediting Act] limited the right of appeal to final decrees.” It is true that interlocutory orders in Government civil antitrust cases were subsequently held reviewable by way of extraordinary writs under the All Writs Act, 28 U. S. C. § 1651 (a), but application for the extraordinary writ must be made to this Court where “sole appellate jurisdiction lies” in such cases. United States Alkali Export Assn. v. United States, 325 U. S. 196, 201-203 (1945); De Beers Consolidated Mines v. United States, 325 U. S. 212, 217 (1945).
The wording of the interlocutory appeals provision was again altered in the 1948 revision of the Judicial Code. The result — after certain subsequent minor changes not here relevant — was the present 28 U. S. C. § 1292 (a) (1), which allows “[ijnterlocutory orders of the district courts... granting, continuing, modifying, refusing or dissolving injunctions...” to be appealed to the courts of appeals “except where a direct review may he had in the Supreme Court.” (Emphasis added.) This final clause is susceptible of two plausible constructions that yield opposite results in cases subject to the Expediting Act. A direct review of interlocutory orders in Government civil antitrust cases clearly may be had in this Court, thus barring resort to § 1292 (a)(1) — or so it would seem. But direct review may not be had when the interlocutory order is entered since there is no “final judgment,” the predicate of an appeal under the Expediting Act. Therefore, were the final clause construed as directed only at the present availability of review in this Court, it would not, on its face, bar an interlocutory appeal. However, the function of the Revisers of the 1948 Code was generally limited to that of consolidation and codification. Consequently, a well-established principle governing the interpretation of provisions altered in the 1948 revision is that “no change is to be presumed unless clearly expressed.” Fourco Glass Co. v. Transmirra Products Corp., 353 U. S. 222, 228 (1957). We find no such clear expression here. To the contrary, the Revisers’ Notes fail to reveal any intention to expand the scope of the pre-existing jurisdiction of the courts of appeals over interlocutory appeals; the new § 1292 is described merely as a consolidation of a number of previously separate code provisions — including the general interlocutory appeals provision — “with necessary changes in phraseology to effect the consolidation.”
In sum, then, our examination of the history and evolution of the present § 1292 (a) (1) — the direct descendant of the original interlocutory appeals provision contained in the Evarts Act — has convinced us that at least up to the passage of § 1292 (b) in 1958, Congress had not impaired the original exclusivity of this Court’s jurisdiction under § 2 of the Expediting Act. As is usually true of questions of statutory construction, the issue is not totally free from doubt. Yet, in the last analysis, whatever ambiguity may exist in the lengthy history of the original interlocutory appeals provision relative to the Expediting Act, it results primarily from the absence of any consideration of Government civil antitrust cases in that history and thus emphasizes the extent to which appellate jurisdiction in such cases has long been viewed as a peculiarly distinct matter. Cf. United States Alkali Export Assn. v. United States, 325 U. S., at 202-203. Certainly, this conclusion finds substantial support in our prior decisions in which we have consistently interpreted our appellate jurisdiction under § 2 as exclusive.
II
With this background, the question becomes what effect, if any, the enactment of § 1292 (b) in 1958 had upon this Court's theretofore exclusive appellate jurisdiction in Government civil antitrust cases. Section 1292 (b) provides in relevant part:
“When a district judge, in making in a civil action an order not otherwise appealable under this section, shall be of the opinion that such order involves a controlling question of law as to which there is substantial ground for difference of opinion and that an immediate appeal from the order may materially advance the ultimate termination of the litigation, he shall so state in writing in such order. The Court of Appeals may thereupon, in its discretion, permit an appeal to be taken from such order, if application is made to it within ten days after the entry of the order....”
At the outset petitioner contends that there is simply no conflict between this provision and § 2 of the Expediting Act. It suggests that “civil action” must be read as an all-inclusive phrase that covers, inter alia, Government civil antitrust eases. At the same time, it points out that § 1292 (b) is concerned only with interlocutory orders, while the Expediting Act deals only with final judgments. Thus, petitioner concludes that the enactment of § 1292 (b) made discretionary interlocutory appeals available where none had previously existed, and that the two statutes are in complete harmony with one another.
Such a facile argument could also be made to support the contention that § 1292 (a)(1) can be invoked in Expediting Act cases — were it not for the fact that, as we have already seen, § 2 does not merely apply solely to a “final judgment” but also limits the right of appeal to a “final judgment.” Likewise, we can hardly accept petitioner’s suggestion that when Congress enacted § 1292 (b), it wrote upon a clean slate insofar as appeals from interlocutory orders in Expediting Act cases are concerned. Nor do we find in § 1292 (b) the “sharp break with the traditional policy” of limited availability of interlocutory appeal so apparent to the dissent. The new provision hardly created a general right of interlocutory appeal; rather, it only extended the availability of such appeals to a limited group of orders — not previously covered by § 1292 (a) — that involve “a controlling question of law” the immediate appeal of which “may materially advance the ultimate termination of the litigation.” In short, the consistent construction that had been accorded § 2 prior to the enactment of § 1292 (b) cannot simply be ignored in determining the impact of that section on Government civil antitrust cases, cf. Universal Interpretive Shuttle Corp. v. Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Comm’n, 393 U. S. 186, 191-194 (1968). Acceptance of petitioner’s contention would require us to conclude that § 1292 (b) was intended to revise the policies underlying the Expediting Act for the first time — that it was intended as the first departure from the purposes of avoiding piecemeal appeal and of limiting review of important questions of antitrust law to this Court. We have been unable to discern any such intention.
The legislative history associated with § 1292 (b) contains no mention of cases within the Expediting Act. Reference, to be sure, was made to antitrust cases, but it is clear on the face of these statements that they refer only to private treble-damages actions. In fact, rather than indicating that § 1292 (b) was intended to apply to antitrust cases subject to final review in this Court under the Expediting Act, the legislative history strongly suggests an essentially contrary conclusion: the subsection was intended to apply only to interlocutory orders, “not otherwise appealable under” § 1292 (a), in civil actions in which the courts of appeals would have jurisdiction over an appeal from the final judgment under 28 U. S. C. § 1291. For instance, in explaining the proposed statute, the Senate Report on § 1292 (b) states:
“The bill results from a growing awareness of the need for expedition of cases pending before the district courts. Many cases which are filed in the Federal district courts require the district judge to entertain motions at an early stage in the proceedings which, if determined, against the plaintiff, result in a final order which would then be appealable to the circuit courts of appeals of the United States. However, such motions, if determined in the plaintiff’s favor, are interlocutory since they do not end the litigation and are not therefore, under existing provisions of law, appealable.”
This is hardly supportive of petitioner’s position, and yet throughout the legislative materials the focus similarly remains on interlocutory orders in civil cases that would be appealable to the courts of appeals upon final judgment.
Petitioner’s case is further weakened by the extraordinary result that acceptance of its position would yield. Section 1292 (a) provides for an appeal as a matter of right from a number of specified types of interlocutory orders — in particular, interlocutory orders granting or denying injunctions. Those interlocutory orders not within subsection (a), however, were made appeal-able in § 1292 (b), subject to the judgment and discretion of the district court and the court of appeals. Greater importance obviously was attached to those types of interlocutory orders specified in subsection (a) than to those covered by (b). Nevertheless, petitioner would have us conclude that Congress intended to establish court of appeals jurisdiction for all interlocutory orders in Expediting Act cases, except those orders for which an appeal of right is provided in § 1292 (a)(1). As the Government notes, such a result would effectively turn § 1292 on its head. Consistent with the evident thrust of the statute’s legislative history, the much more sensible conclusion is that § 1292 (b) was intended to establish jurisdiction in the courts of appeals to review interlocutory orders, other than those specified in § 1292 (a), in civil cases in which they would have jurisdiction were the judgments final.
At the foundation of the petitioner’s position in this case is the contention that § 1292 (b) is the panacea for the special burdens imposed on this Court by § 2 of the Expediting Act. Both the Court and various individual Members have on occasion commented that “[w]hatever may have been the wisdom of the Expediting Act in providing direct appeals in antitrust cases at the time of its enactment in 1903, time has proven it unsatisfactory,” for “[djirect appeals not only place a great burden on the Court but also deprive us of the valuable assistance of the Courts of Appeals.” United States v. Singer Mfg. Co., 374 U. S. 174, 175 n. 1 (1963); see Ford Motor Co. v. United States, 405 U. S. 562, 595 n. 5 (1972) (Burger, C. J., concurring in part and dissenting in part); United States v. Borden Co., 370 U. S. 460, 477n. (1962) (Harlan, J., dissenting); Brown Shoe Co. v. United States, 370 U. S. 294, 355 (1962) (Clark, J., concurring); id., at 364-365 (Harlan, J., dissenting in part and concurring in part). Further, in light of the present size of our docket, direct review “seldom results in much expedition” since we normally must examine the entire record and resolve all questions however unsubstantial. Id., at 355 (Clark, J., concurring); see id., at 364 (Harlan, J., dissenting in part and concurring in part); United States v. Borden Co., supra, at 477 n. (Harlan, J., dissenting). Our action today should not be construed as a retreat from these previous remarks. On the contrary, we remain convinced that under present circumstances the Expediting Act fails to hasten substantially the final disposition of important antitrust actions while it unjustifiably burdens this Court with inadequately sifted records and with cases that could be disposed of by review in the courts of appeals. Uniformity in the interpretation and administration of the antitrust laws continues to be an important consideration. But such uniformity could be adequately ensured by the availability of review in this Court on certiorari of cases involving issues of general importance — together with the “[ljimited expediting of such cases, under the discretion of this Court,” Ford Motor Co. v. United States, supra, at 595 n. 5 (Burger, C. J., concurring in part and dissenting in part), where time is a factor. The simple fact is that “[t]he legal issues in most [Government] civil antitrust cases are no longer so novel or unsettled as to make them especially appropriate for initial appellate consideration by this Court, as compared with those in a variety of other areas of federal law,” Brown Shoe Co. v. United States, supra, at 364 (Harlan, J., dissenting in part and concurring in part). Yet, despite all of these criticisms, our personal views as to the wisdom of § 2 are, of course, no basis for disregarding what we are bound to recognize as the plain and unaltered intent of Congress to require that appeals in Government civil antitrust cases be taken only from final judgments and only to this Court.
In any event, petitioner has failed to convince us that permitting appeals under § 1292 (b) would provide a meaningful solution — if any solution at all — to the various problems created for the Court by the Expediting Act. In the first place, the availability of interlocutory appeals under § 1292 (b) would not reduce the number of Government civil antitrust cases that could be brought. to this Court on direct appeal upon the entrance of a final judgment. Nor would it reduce the number of issues subject to review by this Court; any issue determined on interlocutory appeal would normally be open to consideration on final appeal, and doubtless some party would raise an issue appealed under § 1292 (b) since it must have involved “a controlling question of law.” Also, there would be the added problem of applications for certiorari following a certified appeal in Expediting Act cases. By definition, the issue will be a substantial one and, where the appellate decision is questionable, it would be necessary to decide whether to grant certiorari, which might require the Court to consider a particular case, on two separate occasions, or to deny certiorari, which might mean allowing the district court to proceed to final judgment on an erroneous basis. Given the potential waste of limited judicial resources — those either of this Court or of the district court — associated with each choice, neither can be considered attractive. Finally, in emphasizing the value of the screening function that court of appeals review would provide in Expediting Act cases, we have consistently focused upon the lengthy records and complex factual issues common to such cases. Yet, as is illustrated by this very case, in which the certified question relates to a motion to dismiss a party, questions that would be presented to the courts of appeals under § 1292 (b) would often involve threshold procedural issues not requiring extensive analysis of the record. With respect to such issues the screening function performed by intermediate appellate review is of far less significance than it would be with respect to questions of, say, relevant market, competition, or agreement. But these latter questions can be properly decided only after full development of the evidence, and it is therefore doubtful at best that interlocutory appeals would aid this Court in dealing with them on final review.
Nor are we even certain that the expeditious termination of litigation in the district courts — the express purpose of § 1292 (b) — would be materially advanced in the context of Government civil antitrust cases by acceptance of petitioner’s contention. Permitting interlocutory appeals under § 1292 (b) in Expediting Act eases would result in an anomalous situation: the court of appeals would have jurisdiction over certain interlocutory orders but not over the final judgment, which would be appealable only to this Court. An interlocutory appeal taken under § 1292 (b) must, of course, involve “a controlling question of law” the immediate appeal of which “may materially advance the ultimate termination of the litigation.” In the normal case, the decision of such a question on interlocutory appeal is final since the same court reviews the final judgment, and the likelihood of review in this Court on certiorari is very small. Here, however, the decision of the court of appeals on the interlocutory order would essentially be only an advisory opinion to the district court since the issue would usually be open to relitigation on appeal of the final judgment to this Court. The net result would be added work for the courts of appeals, with no assurance that there would ultimately be a saving of district court time.
Ill
Hence, we conclude that § 1292 (b) did not establish jurisdiction in the Court of Appeals over interlocutory orders in Expediting Act cases. The exclusive nature of the jurisdiction created in § 2 of the Expediting Act has consistently been recognized by this Court, and we hold today that that exclusivity remains unimpaired. Despite our interest in a restructuring of our jurisdiction under the Expediting Act, we are neither willing nor able to adopt the ungainly half measure offered by the petitioner in this case.
Affirmed.
Mr. Justice White joins the Court’s opinion except for the advisory to Congress reflecting one view of the relative merits of the Expediting Act.
Tidewater then transferred title to its Western Marketing and Manufacturing Division to Phillips.
Tidewater merged with Getty- Oil Co. on September 30, 1967. It has never been contended that that merger altered Tidewater’s legal status in this case.
In its motion to be dismissed, Tidewater contended “that Section 7 of the Clayton Act is directed only against the acquiring corporation and not against the seller, that the sale of assets by defendant Tidewater Oil Company to Phillips Petroleum Company has long ago been consummated, that no relief is obtainable against Tidewater Oil Company, and that its presence in the suit is no longer necessary or appropriate.”
Subsequent to the decision by the Ninth Circuit in this case, the Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit held that § 1292 (b) could be used to take an interlocutory appeal in a Government civil antitrust case. See Fisons Ltd. v. United States, 458 F. 2d 1241, 1244-1248, cert. denied, 405 U. S. 1041 (1972). The only other court of appeals to consider the question, the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, reached the same result as the Ninth Circuit in this case. See Farbenfabriken Bayer, A. G. v. United States, 1968 CCH Trade Cas. ¶ 72,570, cert. denied, 393 U. S. 959 (1968); Glaxo Group, Ltd. v. United States, Misc. No. 3261 (June 25, 1968).
405 U. S. 986 (1972). We had originally denied certiorari, 404 U. S.941 (1971).
Act of Sept. 2, 1958, Pub. L. 85-919, 72 Stat. 1770.
See also Shenandoah Valley Broadcasting v. ASCAP, 375 U. S. 39, 40 (1963), modified, 375 U. S. 994 (1964).
Section 1 of the Expediting Act, 15 U. S. C. §28, requires that a three-judge district court be convened to hear any Governitíent civil antitrust case that the Attorney General certifies to be of “general public importance.” See also 49 U. S. C. § 44. This three-judge court provision is also a reflection of the “great importance” attached to Government civil antitrust cases and was intended to provide a mechanism for full consideration of such cases by a panel of judges “before presentation to the Supreme Court as if heard by the United States circuit court of appeals.” H. R. Rep. No. 3020, 57th Cong., 2d Sess., 2 (1903). But this provision has been seldom used.
Act of Feb. 11, 1903, § 2, 32 Stat. 823, as amended, Act of Mar. 3, 1911, §291, 36 Stat. 1167; Act of June 9, 1944, c. 239, 58 Stat. 272; Act of June 25, 1948, § 17, 62 Stat. 989. As originally enacted, the statute read in relevant part as follows:
“That in every suit in equity pending or hereafter brought in any circuit court of the United States under any of said Acts, wherein the United States is complainant,... an appeal from the final decree of the circuit court will lie only to the Supreme Court and must be taken within sixty days from the entry thereof
There is no contention here that the very minor changes in wording effected by the subsequent amendments and codifications of the statute in any way altered the original meaning of the Act.
Act of Mar. 3, 1891, § 2, 26 Stat. 826.
Act of Mar. 3, 1891, §6, 26 Stat. 828.
Act of June 6, 1900, c. 803, 31 Stat. 660, amending Act of Mar. 3, 1891, § 7, 26 Stat. 828, as amended, Act of Feb. 18, 1895, 28 Stat. 666 (emphasis added).
In United States v. California Cooperative Canneries. 279 U. S. 553, 558 (1929), Mr. Justice Brandéis, speaking for the Court, detailed the causes of delay that prompted the Expediting Act:
“Congress sought by the Expediting Act to ensure speedy disposition of suits in equity brought by the United States under the Anti-Trust Act. Before the passage of the Expediting Act the opportunities for delay were many. From a final decree in the trial court under the Anti-Trust Act an appeal lay to the Circuit Court of Appeals; and six months were allowed for taking the appeal. From the judgment of the Court of Appeals an appeal lay to this Court; and one year was allowed for taking that appeal. Act of March 3, 1891, c. 517, §§ 6, 11, 26 Stat. 826, 828, 829. See United States v. E. C. Knight Co., 60 Fed. 306; 60 Fed. 934; 156 U. S. 1; United States v. Trans-Missouri Freight Association, 53 Fed. 440; 58 Fed. 58; 166 U. S. 290. Moreover, there might be an appeal to the Circuit Court of Appeals from a decree granting or denying an interlocutory injunction, Act of June 6, 1900, c. 803, 31 Stat. 660.”
See also United States Alkali Export Assn. v. United States, 325 U. S. 196, 203 (1945).
United States v. Cities Service Co., 410 F. 2d 662, 664 (CA1 1969); see Brown Shoe Co. v. United States, 370 U. S. 294, 364 (1962) (Harlan, J., dissenting in part and concurring in part); 36 Cong. Rec. 1679 (remarks of Sen. Fairbanks); cf. n. 7, supra.
Act of July 2,1890, c. 647, 26 Stat. 209.
In saying this, we are not to be understood as necessarily accepting today an important premise that underlies § 2 — namely, that the courts of appeals, subject to review on certiorari in this Court, are incapable of providing the uniformity of interpretation necessary to the administration of the antitrust laws. See infra, at 170. In 1903, the courts of appeals had been in existence for only 12 years and various reservations about them had not yet been dispelled. See F. Frankfurter & J. Landis, The Business of the Supreme Court 258 (1927). Since that time, we have had over a half-century of experience with the courts of appeals — including experience in the field of private antitrust litigation — which has resolved any initial doubts. See ibid.
Act of Apr. 14, 1906, c. 1627, 34 Stat. 116.
Act of Mar. 3, 1911, § 129, 36 Stat. 1134.
Act of Feb. 13,1925, amending § 129, 43 Stat. 937.
Act of Apr. 11, 1928, c. 354, 45 Stat. 422.
The 1906 amendment removed the limitation on interlocutory appeal to causes "in which an appeal from a final decree may be taken... to the circuit court of appeals” and provided simply that such an appeal may be taken to the court of appeals “in any cause.” Act of Apr. 14, 1906, c. 1627, 34 Stat. 116. In codifying the Evarts Act interlocutory appeals provision in 1911, “in any cause” was struck, and the provision was amended to allow the courts of appeals to entertain appeals from interlocutory orders “notwithstanding an appeal in such case might, upon final decree under the statutes regulating the same, be taken directly to the Supreme Court.” Act of Mar. 3, 1911, § 129, 36 Stat. 1134. Finally, the famous Judges’ Bill of 1925, in turn struck the “notwithstanding” language, with the result that the codified provision, § 129, simply allowed an appeal to be “taken from [an] interlocutory order or decree [granting or denying an injunction or appointing a receiver] to the circuit court of appeals....” Act of Feb. 13, 1925, amending § 129, 43 Stat. 937.
The 1928 amendment is completely without relevance here since it merely extended the applicability of the statute to interlocutory orders issued by the District Courts of Alaska, Hawaii, the Virgin Islands, and the Canal Zone. Act of Apr. 11, 1928, c. 354, 45 Stat. 422.
See S. Rep. No. 2192, 59th Cong., 1st Sess. (1906): H. R. Rep. No. 542, 59th Cong., 1st Sess. (1906); 40 Cong. Rec. 1723, 1742, 4429, 4856-4857, 5056.
As to the 1911 amendment, see S. Rep. No. 388, 61st Cong., 2d Sess., pt. 1, p. 53 (1910); H. R. Doc. No. 783, 61st Cong., 2d Sess., 57 (1910); H. R. Rep. No. 818, 61st Cong., 2d Sess. (1910); S. Doc. No. 848, 61st Cong., 3d Sess. (1911); 45 Cong. Rec. 4001. As to the 1925 amendment, see S. Rep. No. 362, 68th Cong., 1st Sess., 3 (1924); H. R. Rep. No. 1075, 68th Cong., 2d Sess., 4-5 (1925); Hearing on S. 2060 and S. 2061 before a Subcommittee of the Senate Committee ón the Judiciary,
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
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 Breyer
delivered the opinion of the Court.
In this case we primarily consider whether the Fifth and Sixth Amendments require federal prosecutors, before entering into a binding plea agreement with a criminal defendant, to disclose “impeachment information relating to any informants or other witnesses.” App. to Pet. for Cert. 46a. We hold that the Constitution does not require that disclosure.
I
After immigration agents found 30 kilograms of marijuana in Angela Ruiz’s luggage, federal prosecutors offered her what is known in the Southern District of California as a “fast track” plea bargain. That bargain — standard in that district — asks a defendant to waive indictment, trial, and an appeal. In return, the Government agrees to recommend to the sentencing judge a two-level departure downward from the otherwise applicable United States Sentencing Guidelines sentence. In Ruiz’s case, a two-level departure downward would have shortened the ordinary Guidelines-specified 18-to-24-month sentencing range by 6 months, to 12-to-18 months. 241 F. 3d 1157, 1161 (2001).
The prosecutors’ proposed plea agreement contains a set of detailed terms. Among other things, it specifies that “any [known] information establishing the factual innocence of the defendant” “has been, turned over to the defendant,” and it acknowledges the Government’s “continuing duty to provide such information.” App. to Pet. for Cert. 45a-46a. At the same time it requires that the defendant “waiv[e] the right” to receive “impeachment information relating to any informants or other witnesses” as well as the right to receive information supporting any affirmative defense the defendant raises if the case goes to trial. Id., at 46a. Because Ruiz would not agree to this last-mentioned waiver, the prosecutors withdrew their bargaining offer. The Government then indicted Ruiz for unlawful drug possession. And despite the absence of any agreement, Ruiz ultimately pleaded guilty.
At sentencing, Ruiz asked the judge to grant her the same two-level downward departure that the Government would have recommended had she accepted the “fast track” agreement. The Government opposed her request, and the District Court denied it, imposing a standard Guideline sentence instead. 241 F. 3d, at 1161.
Relying on 18 U. S. C. § 3742, see infra, at 627, 628-629, Ruiz appealed her sentence to the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. The Ninth Circuit vacated the District Court’s sentencing determination. The Ninth Circuit pointed out that the Constitution requires prosecutors to make certain impeachment information available to a defendant before trial. 241 F. 3d, at 1166. It decided that this obligation entitles defendants to receive that same information before they enter into a plea agreement. Id., at 1164. The Ninth Circuit also decided that the Constitution prohibits defendants from waiving their right to that information. Id., at 1165-1166. And it held that the prosecutors’ standard “fast track” plea agreement was unlawful because it insisted upon that waiver. Id., at 1167. The Ninth Circuit remanded the case so that the District Court could decide any related factual disputes and determine an appropriate remedy. Id., at 1169.
The Government sought certiorari. It stressed what it considered serious adverse practical implications of the Ninth Circuit’s constitutional holding. And it added that the holding is unique among courts of appeals. Pet. for Cert. 8. We granted the Government’s petition. 534 U. S. 1074 (2002).
II
At the outset, we note that a question of statutory jurisdiction potentially blocks our consideration of the Ninth Circuit’s constitutional holding. The relevant statute says that a
“defendant may file a notice of appeal... for review ... if the sentence
“(1) was imposed in violation of law;
“(2) was imposed as a result of an incorrect application of the sentencing guidelines; or
“(3) is greater than [the Guideline] specified [sentence] .. .; or
“(4) was imposed for an offense for which there is no sentencing guideline and is plainly unreasonable.” 18 U. S. C. § 3742(a).
Every Circuit has held that this statute does not authorize a defendant to appeal a sentence where the ground for appeal consists of a claim that the district court abused its discretion in refusing to depart. See, e. g., United States v. Conway, 81 F. 3d 15, 16 (CA1 1996); United States v. Lawal, 17 F. 3d 560, 562 (CA2 1994); United States v. Powell, 269 F. 3d 175, 179 (CA3 2001); United States v. Ivester, 75 F. 3d 182, 183 (CA4 1996); United States v. Cooper, 274 F. 3d 230, 248 (CA5 2001); United States v. Scott, 74 F. 3d 107, 112 (CA6 1996); United States v. Byrd, 263 F. 3d 705, 707 (CA7 2001); United States v. Mora-Higuera, 269 F. 3d 905, 913 (CA8 2001); United States v. Garcia-Garcia, 927 F. 2d 489, 490 (CA9 1991); United States v. Coddington, 118 F. 3d 1439, 1441 (CA10 1997); United States v. Calderon, 127 F. 3d 1314, 1342 (CA11 1997); In re Sealed Case No. 98-3116, 199 F. 3d 488, 491-492 (CADC 1999).
The statute does, however, authorize an appeal from a sentence that “was imposed in violation of law.” Two quite different theories might support appellate jurisdiction pursuant to that provision. First, as the Court of Appeals recognized, if the District Court’s sentencing decision rested on a mistaken belief that it lacked the legal power to grant a departure, the quoted provision would apply. 241 F. 3d, at 1162, n. 2. Our reading of the record, however, convinces us that the District Judge correctly understood that he had such discretion but decided not to exercise it. We therefore reject that basis for finding appellate jurisdiction. Second, if respondent’s constitutional claim, discussed in Part III, infra, were sound, her sentence would have been “imposed in violation of law.” Thus, if she had prevailed on the merits, her victory would also have confirmed the jurisdiction of the Court of Appeals.
Although we ultimately conclude that respondent’s sentence was not “imposed in violation of law” and therefore that § 3742(a)(1) does not authorize an appeal in a case of this kind, it is familiar law that a federal court always has jurisdiction to determine its own jurisdiction. See United States v. Mine Workers, 330 U. S. 258, 291 (1947). In order to make that determination, it was necessary for the Ninth Circuit to address the merits. We therefore hold that appellate jurisdiction was proper.
III
The constitutional question concerns a federal criminal defendant’s waiver of the right to receive from prosecutors exculpatory impeachment material — a right that the Constitution provides as part of its basic “fair trial” guarantee. See U. S. Const., Arndts. 5, 6. See also Brady v. Maryland, 373 U. S. 83, 87 (1963) (Due process requires prosecutors to “avoi[d] ... an unfair trial” by making available “upon request” evidence “favorable to an accused . . . where the evidence is material either to guilt or to punishment”); United States v. Agurs, 427 U. S. 97, 112-113 (1976) (defense request unnecessary); Kyles v. Whitley, 514 U. S. 419, 435 (1995) (exculpatory evidence is evidence the suppression of which would “undermine confidence in the verdict”); Giglio v. United States, 405 U. S. 150, 154 (1972) (exculpatory evidence includes “evidence affecting” witness “credibility,” where the witness’ “reliability” is likely “determinative of guilt or innocence”).
When a defendant pleads guilty he or she, of course, forgoes not only a fair trial, but also other accompanying constitutional guarantees. Boykin v. Alabama, 395 U. S. 238, 243 (1969) (pleading guilty implicates the Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination, the Sixth Amendment right to confront one’s accusers, and the Sixth Amendment right to trial by jury). Given the seriousness of the matter, the Constitution insists, among other things, that the defendant enter a guilty plea that is “voluntary” and that the defendant must make related waivers “knowing[ly], intelligently], [and] with sufficient awareness of the relevant circumstances and likely consequences.” Brady v. United States, 397 U. S. 742, 748 (1970); see also Boykin, supra, at 242.
In this case, the Ninth Circuit in effect held that a guilty plea is not “voluntary” (and that the defendant could not, by pleading guilty, waive her right to a fair trial) unless the prosecutors first made the same disclosure of material impeachment information that the prosecutors would have had to make had the defendant insisted upon a trial. We must decide whether the Constitution requires that preguilty plea disclosure of impeachment information. We conclude that it does not.
First, impeachment information is special in relation to the fairness of a trial, not in respect to whether a plea is voluntary (“knowing,” “intelligent,” and “sufficient[ly] aware”). Of course, the more information the defendant has, the more aware he is of the likely consequences of a plea, waiver, or decision, and the wiser that decision will likely be. But the Constitution does not require the prosecutor to share all useful information with the defendant. Weatherford v. Bursey, 429 U. S. 545, 559 (1977) (“There is no general constitutional right to discovery in a criminal case”). And the law ordinarily considers a waiver knowing, intelligent, and sufficiently aware if the defendant fully understands the nature of the right and how it would likely apply in general in the circumstances — even though the defendant may not know the specific detailed consequences of invoking it. A defendant, for example, may waive his right to remain silent, his right to a jury trial, or his right to counsel even if the defendant does not know the specific questions the authorities intend to ask, who will likely serve on the jury, or the particular lawyer the State might otherwise provide. Cf. Colorado v. Spring, 479 U. S. 564, 573-575 (1987) (Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination waived when defendant received standard Miranda warnings regarding the nature of the right but not told the specific interrogation questions to be asked).
It is particularly difficult to characterize impeachment information as critical information of which the defendant must always be aware prior to pleading guilty given the random way in which such information may, or may not, help a particular defendant. The degree of help that impeachment information can provide will depend upon the defendant’s own independent knowledge of the prosecution’s potential case — a matter that the Constitution does not require prosecutors to disclose.
Second, we have found no legal authority embodied either in this Court’s past cases or in cases from other circuits that provides significant support for the Ninth Circuit’s decision. To the contrary, this Court has found that the Constitution, in respect to a defendant’s awareness of relevant circumstances, does not require complete knowledge of the relevant circumstances, but permits a court to accept a guilty plea, with its accompanying waiver of various constitutional rights, despite various forms of misapprehension under which a defendant might labor. See Brady v. United States, 397 U. S., at 757 (defendant “misapprehended the quality of the State’s case”); ibid, (defendant misapprehended “the likely penalties”); ibid, (defendant failed to “anticipate” a change in the law regarding relevant “punishments”); McMann v. Richardson, 397 U. S. 759, 770 (1970) (counsel “misjudged the admissibility” of a “confession”); United States v. Broce, 488 U. S. 563, 573 (1989) (counsel failed to point out a potential defense); Tollett v. Henderson, 411 U. S. 258, 267 (1973) (counsel failed to find a potential constitutional infirmity in grand jury proceedings). It is difficult to distinguish, in terms of importance, (1) a defendant’s ignorance of grounds for impeachment of potential witnesses at a possible future trial from (2) the varying forms of ignorance at issue in these cases.
Third, due process considerations, the very considerations that led this Court to find trial-related rights to exculpatory and impeachment information in Brady and Giglio, argue against the existence of the “right” that the Ninth Circuit found here. This Court has said that due process considerations include not only (1) the nature of the private interest at stake, but also (2) the value of the additional safeguard, and (8) the adverse impact of the requirement upon the Government’s interests. Ake v. Oklahoma, 470 U. S. 68, 77 (1985). Here, as we have just pointed out, the added value of the Ninth Circuit’s “right” to a defendant is often limited, for it depends upon the defendant’s independent awareness of the details of the Government’s case. And in any case, as the proposed plea agreement at issue here specifies, the Government will provide “any information establishing the factual innocence of the defendant” regardless. That fact, along with other guilty-plea safeguards, see Fed. Rule Crim. Proc. 11, diminishes the force of Ruiz’s concern that, in the absence of impeachment information, innocent individuals, accused of crimes, will plead guilty. Cf. McCarthy v. United States, 394 U. S. 459, 465-467 (1969) (discussing Rule ll’s role in protecting a defendant’s constitutional rights).
At the same time, a constitutional obligation to provide impeachment information during plea bargaining, prior to entry of a guilty plea, could seriously interfere with the Government’s interest in securing those guilty pleas that are factually justified, desired by defendants, and help to secure the efficient administration of justice. The Ninth Circuit’s rule risks premature disclosure of Government witness information, which, the Government tells us, could “disrupt ongoing investigations” and expose prospective witnesses to serious harm. Brief for United States 25. Cf. Amendments to Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure: Hearings before the Subcommittee on Criminal Justice of the House Committee on the Judiciary, 94th Cong., 1st Sess., 92 (1975) (statement of John C. Keeney, Acting Assistant Attorney General, Criminal Div., Dept, of Justice) (opposing mandated witness disclosure three days before trial because of documented instances of witness intimidation). And the careful tailoring that characterizes most legal Government witness disclosure requirements suggests recognition by both Congress and the Federal Rules Committees that such concerns are valid. See, e. g., 18 U. S. C. § 3432 (witness list disclosure required in capital cases three days before trial with exceptions); § 3500 (Government witness statements ordinarily subject to discovery only after testimony given); Fed. Rule Crim. Proe. 16(a)(2) (embodies limitations of 18 U. S. C. §3500). Compare 156 F. R. D. 460, 461-462 (1994) (congressional proposal to significantly broaden §3500) with 167 F. R. D. 221, 223, n. (judicial conference opposing congressional proposal).
Consequently, the Ninth Circuit’s requirement could force the Government to abandon its “general practice” of not “disclosing] to a defendant pleading guilty information that would reveal the identities of cooperating informants, undercover investigators, or other prospective witnesses.” Brief for United States 25. It could require the Government to devote substantially more resources to trial preparation prior to plea bargaining, thereby depriving the plea-bargaining process of its main resource-saving advantages. Or it could lead the Government instead to abandon its heavy reliance upon plea bargaining in a vast number — 90% or more — of federal criminal cases. We cannot say that the Constitution’s due process requirement demands so radical a change in the criminal justice process in order to achieve so comparatively small a constitutional benefit.
These considerations, taken together, lead us to conclude that the Constitution does not require the Government to disclose material impeachment evidence prior to entering a plea agreement with a criminal defendant.
In addition, we note that the “fast track” plea agreement requires a defendant to waive her right to receive information the Government has regarding any “affirmative defense” she raises at trial. App. to Pet. for Cert. 46a. We do not believe the Constitution here requires provision of this information to the defendant prior to plea bargaining — for most (though not all) of the reasons previously stated. That is to say, in the context of this agreement, the need for this information is more closely related to the fairness of a trial than to the voluntariness of the plea; the value in terms of the defendant’s added awareness of relevant circumstances is ordinarily limited; yet the added burden imposed upon the Government by requiring its provision well in advance of trial (often before trial preparation begins) can be serious, thereby significantly interfering with the administration of the plea-bargaining process.
For these reasons the judgment of the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit 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: | A | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Justice Blackmun
announced the judgment of the Court and delivered the opinion of the Court with respect to Parts III-A, IV, and V, an opinion with respect to Parts I and II, in which Justice Stevens and Justice O’Connor join, an opinion with respect to Part III-B, in which Justice Stevens joins, an opinion with respect to Part VII, in which Justice O’Connor joins, and an opinion with respect to Part VI.
This litigation concerns the constitutionality of two recurring holiday displays located on public property in downtown Pittsburgh. The first is a creche placed on the Grand Staircase of the Allegheny County Courthouse. The second is a Chanukah menorah placed just outside the City-County Building, next to a Christmas tree and a sign saluting liberty. The Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit ruled that each display violates the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment because each has the impermissible effect of endorsing religion. 842 F. 2d 655 (1988). We agree that the creche display has that unconstitutional effect but reverse the Court of Appeals’ judgment regarding the menorah display.
The county courthouse is owned by Allegheny County and is its seat of government. It houses the offices of the county commissioners, controller, treasurer, sheriff, and clerk of court. Civil and criminal trials are held there. App. 69. The “main,” “most beautiful,” and “most public” part of the courthouse is its Grand Staircase, set into one arch and surrounded by others, with arched windows serving as a backdrop. Id., at 157-158; see Joint Exhibit Volume (JEV) 31.
Since 1981, the county has permitted the Holy Name Society, a Roman Catholic group, to display a creche in the county courthouse during the Christmas holiday season. App. 164. Christmas, we note perhaps needlessly, is the holiday when Christians celebrate the birth of Jesus of Nazareth, whom they believe to be the Messiah. Western churches have celebrated Christmas Day on December 25 since the fourth century. As observed in this Nation, Christmas has a secular, as well as a religious, dimension.
The creche in the county courthouse, like other creches, is a visual representation of the scene in the manger in Bethlehem shortly after the birth of Jesus, as described in the Gospels of Luke and Matthew. The creche includes figures of the infant Jesus, Mary, Joseph, farm animals, shepherds, and wise men, all placed in or before a wooden representation of a manger, which has at its crest an angel bearing a banner that proclaims “Gloria in Excelsis Deo!”
During the 1986-1987 holiday season, the creche was on display on the Grand Staircase from November 26 to January 9. App. 15, 59. It had a wooden fence on three sides and bore a plaque stating: “This Display Donated by the Holy Name Society.” Sometime during the week of December 2, the county placed red and white poinsettia plants around the fence. Id., at 96. The county also placed a small evergreen tree, decorated with a red bow, behind each of the two end-posts of the fence. Id., at 204; JEV 7. These trees stood alongside the manger backdrop and were slightly shorter than it was. The angel thus was at the apex of the creche display. Altogether, the creche, the fence, the poinsettias, and the trees occupied a substantial amount of space on the Grand Staircase. No figures of Santa Claus or other decorations appeared on the Grand Staircase. App. 188. Cf. Lynch v. Donnelly, 465 U. S. 668, 671 (1984). Appendix A at the end of this opinion is a photograph of the display.
The county uses the creche as the setting for its annual Christmas-carol program. See JEV 36. During the 1986 season, the county invited high school choirs and other musical groups to perform during weekday lunch hours from December 3 through December 23. The county dedicated this program to world peace and to the families of prisoners-of-war and of persons missing in action in Southeast Asia. App. 160; JEV 30.
Near the Grand Staircase is an area of the county courthouse known as the “gallery forum” used for art and other cultural exhibits. App. 163. The creche, with its fence- and-floral frame, however, was distinct and not connected with any exhibit in the gallery forum. See Tr. of Oral Arg. 7 (the forum was “not any kind of an integral part of the Christmas display”); see also JEV 32-34. In addition, various departments and offices within the county courthouse had their own Christmas decorations, but these also are not visible from the Grand Staircase. App. 167.
B
The City-County Building is separate and a block removed from the county courthouse and, as the name implies, is jointly owned by the city of Pittsburgh and Allegheny County. The city’s portion of the building houses the city’s principal offices, including the mayor’s. Id., at 17. The city is responsible for the building’s Grant Street entrance which has three rounded arches supported by columns. Id., at 194, 207.
For a number of years, the city has had a large Christmas tree under the middle arch outside the Grant Street entrance. Following this practice, city employees on November 17, 1986, erected a 45-foot tree under the middle arch and decorated it with lights and ornaments. Id., at 218-219. A few days later, the city placed at the foot of the tree a sign bearing the mayor’s name and entitled “Salute to Liberty.” Beneath the title, the sign stated:
“During this holiday season, the city of Pittsburgh salutes liberty. Let these festive lights remind us that we are the keepers of the flame of liberty and our legacy of freedom.” JEV 41.
At least since 1982, the city has expanded its Grant Street holiday display to include a symbolic representation of Chanukah, an 8-day Jewish holiday that begins on the 25th day of the Jewish lunar month of Kislev. App. 138. The 25th of Kislev usually occurs in December, and thus Chanukah is the annual Jewish holiday that falls closest to Christmas Day each year. In 1986, Chanukah began at sundown on December 26. Id., at 138-139.
According to Jewish tradition, on the 25th of Kislev in 164 B.C.E. (before the common era (165 B.C.)), the Maccabees rededicated the Temple of Jerusalem after recapturing it from the Greeks, or, more accurately, from the Greek-influenced Seleucid Empire, in the course of a political rebellion. Id., at 138. Chanukah is the holiday which celebrates that event. The early history of the celebration of Chanukah is unclear; it appears that the holiday’s central ritual — the lighting of lamps — was well established long before a single explanation of that ritual took hold.
The Talmud explains the lamplighting ritual as a commemoration of an event that occurred during the rededication of the Temple. The Temple housed a seven-branch menorah, which was to be kept burning continuously. Id., at 139, 144. When the Maccabees rededicated the Temple, they had only enough oil to last for one day. But, according to the Talmud, the oil miraculously lasted for eight days (the length of time it took to obtain additional oil). Id., at 139. To celebrate and publicly proclaim this miracle, the Talmud prescribes that it is a mitzvah (i. e., a religious deed or commandment), id., at 140, for Jews to place a lamp with eight lights just outside the entrance to their homes or in a front window during the eight days of Chanukah. Id., at 147. Where practicality or safety from persecution so requires, the lamp may be placed in a window or inside the home. The Talmud also ordains certain blessings to be recited each night of Chanukah before lighting the lamp. One such benediction has been translated into English as “We are blessing God who has sanctified us and commanded us with mitzvot and has told us to light the candles of Hanukkah.” Id., at 306.
Although Jewish law does not contain any rule regarding the shape or substance of a Chanukah lamp (or “hanuk-kiyyah”), id., at 146, 238, it became customary to evoke the memory of the Temple menorah. Id., at 139, 144. The Temple menorah was of a tree-and-branch design; it had a central candlestick with six branches. Id., at 259. In contrast, a Chanukah menorah of tree-and-branch design has eight branches — one for each day of the holiday — plus a ninth to hold the shamash (an extra candle used to light the other eight). Id., at 144. Also in contrast to the Temple menorah, the Chanukah menorah is not a sanctified object; it need not be treated with special care.
Lighting the menorah is the primary tradition associated with Chanukah, but the holiday is marked by other traditions as well. One custom among some Jews is to give children Chanukah gelt, or money. Another is for the children to gamble their gelt using a dreidel, a top with four sides. Each of the four sides contains a Hebrew letter; together the four letters abbreviate a phrase that refers to the Chanukah miracle. Id., at 241-242.
Chanukah, like Christmas, is a cultural event as well as a religious holiday. Id., at 143. Indeed, the Chanukah story always has had a political or national, as well as a religious, dimension: it tells of national heroism in addition to divine intervention. Also, Chanukah, like Christmas, is a winter holiday; according to some historians, it was associated in ancient times with the winter solstice. Just as some Americans celebrate Christmas without regard to its religious significance, some nonreligious American Jews celebrate Chanukah as an expression of ethnic identity, and “as a cultural or national event, rather than as a specifically religious event.” Ibid.
The cultural significance of Chanukah varies with the setting in which the holiday is celebrated. In contemporary Israel, the nationalist and military aspects of the Chanukah story receive special emphasis. In this country, the tradition of giving Chanukah gelt has taken on greater importance because of the temporal proximity of Chanukah to Christmas. Indeed, some have suggested that the proximity of Christmas accounts for the social prominence of Chanukah in this country. Whatever the reason, Chanukah is observed by American Jews to an extent greater than its religious importance would indicate: in the hierarchy of Jewish holidays, Chanukah ranks fairly low in religious significance. This socially heightened status of Chanukah reflects its cultural or secular dimension.
On December 22 of the 1986 holiday season, the city placed at the Grant Street entrance to the City-County Building an 18-foot Chanukah menorah of an abstract tree-and-branch design. The menorah was placed next to the city’s 45-foot Christmas tree, against one of the columns that supports the arch into which the tree was set. The menorah is owned by Chabad, a Jewish group, but is stored, erected, and removed each year by the city. Id., at 290; see also Brief for Petitioner in No. 88-96, p. 4. The tree, the sign, and the menorah were all removed on January 13. App. 58, 220-221. Appendix B, p. 622, is a photograph of the tree, the sign, and the menorah. App. 212; JEV 40.
I — I I — I
This litigation began on December 10, 1986, when respondents, the Greater Pittsburgh Chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union and seven local residents, filed suit against the county and the city, seeking permanently to enjoin the county from displaying the creche in the county courthouse and the city from displaying the menorah in front of the City-County Building. Respondents claim that the displays of the creche and the menorah each violate the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment, made applicable to state governments by the Fourteenth Amendment. See Wallace v. Jaffree, 472 U. S. 38, 48-55 (1985). Chabad was permitted to intervene to defend the display of its menorah.
On May 8, 1987, the District Court denied respondents’ request for a permanent injunction. Relying on Lynch v. Donnelly, 465 U. S. 668 (1984), the court stated that “the creche was but part of the holiday decoration of the stairwell and a foreground for the highschool choirs which entertained each day at noon.” App. to Pet. for Cert, in No. 87-2050, p. 4a. Regarding the menorah, the court concluded that “it was but an insignificant part of another holiday display.” Ibid. The court also found that “the displays had a secular purpose” and “did not create an excessive entanglement of government with religion.” Id., at 5a.
Respondents appealed, and a divided panel of the Court of Appeals reversed. 842 F. 2d 655 (CA3 1988). Distinguishing Lynch v. Donnelly, the panel majority determined that the creche and the menorah must be understood as endorsing Christianity and Judaism. The court observed: “Each display was located at or in a public building devoted to core functions of government.” 842 F. 2d, at 662. The court also stated: “Further, while the menorah was placed near a Christmas tree, neither the creche nor the menorah can reasonably be deemed to have been subsumed by a larger display of non-religious items.” Ibid. Because the impermissible effect of endorsing religion was a sufficient basis for holding each display to be in violation of the Establishment Clause under Lemon v. Kurtzman, 403 U. S. 602 (1971), the Court of Appeals did not consider whether either one had an impermissible purpose or resulted in an unconstitutional entanglement between government and religion.
The dissenting judge stated that the creche, “accompanied by poinsettia plants and evergreens, does not violate the Establishment Clause simply because plastic Santa Clauses or reindeer are absent.” 842 F. 2d, at 670. As to the menorah, he asserted: “Including a reference to Chanukah did no more than broaden the commemoration of the holiday season and stress the notion of sharing its joy.” Id., at 670-671.
Rehearing en banc was denied by a 6-to-5 vote. See App. to Pet. for Cert, in No. 87-2050, p. 45a. The county, the city, and Chabad each filed a petition for certiorari. We granted all three petitions. 488 U. S. 816 (1988).
rH I — I
A
This Nation is heir to a history and tradition of religious diversity that dates from the settlement of the North American Continent. Sectarian differences among various Christian denominations were central to the origins of our Republic. Since then, adherents of religions too numerous to name have made the United States their home, as have those whose beliefs expressly exclude religion.
Precisely because of the religious diversity that is our national heritage, the Founders added to the Constitution a Bill of Rights, the very first words of which declare: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof... Perhaps in the early days of the Republic these words were understood to protect only the diversity within Christianity, but today they are recognized as guaranteeing religious liberty and equality to “the infidel, the atheist, or the adherent of a non-Christian faith such as Islam or Judaism.” Wallace v. Jaffree, 472 U. S., at 52. It is settled law that no government official in this Nation may violate these fundamental constitutional rights regarding matters of conscience. Id., at 49.
In the course of adjudicating specific cases, this Court has come to understand the Establishment Clause to mean that government may not promote or affiliate itself with any religious doctrine or organization, may not discriminate among persons on the basis of their religious beliefs and practices, may not delegate a governmental power to a religious institution, and may not involve itself too deeply in such an institution’s affairs. Although “the myriad, subtle ways in which Establishment Clause values can be eroded,” Lynch v. Donnelly, 465 U. S., at 694 (O’Connor, J., concurring), are not susceptible to a single verbal formulation, this Court has attempted to encapsulate the essential precepts of the Establishment Clause. Thus, in Everson v. Board of Education of Ewing, 330 U. S. 1 (1947), the Court gave this often-repeated summary:
“The ‘establishment of religion’ clause of the First Amendment means at least this: Neither a state nor the Federal Government can set up a church. Neither can pass laws which aid one religion, aid all religions, or prefer one religion over another. Neither can force nor influence a person to go to or remain away from church against his will or force him to profess a belief or disbelief in any religion. No person can be punished for entertaining or professing religious beliefs or disbeliefs, for church attendance or non-attendance. No tax in any amount, large or small, can be levied to support any religious activities or institutions, whatever they may be called, or whatever form they may adopt to teach or practice religion. Neither a state nor the Federal Government can, openly or secretly, participate in the affairs of any religious organizations or groups and vice versa.” Id., at 15-16.
In Lemon v. Kurtzman, supra, the Court sought to refine these principles by focusing on three “tests” for determining whether a government practice violates the Establishment Clause. Under the Lemon analysis, a statute or practice which touches upon religion, if it is to be permissible under the Establishment Clause, must have a secular purpose; it must neither advance nor inhibit religion in its principal or primary effect; and it must not foster an excessive entanglement with religion. 403 U. S., at 612-613. This trilogy of tests has been applied regularly in the Court’s later Establishment Clause cases.
Our subsequent decisions further have refined the definition of governmental action that unconstitutionally advances religion. In recent years, we have paid particularly close attention to whether the challenged governmental practice either has the purpose or effect of “endorsing” religion, a concern that has long had a place in our Establishment Clause jurisprudence. See Engel v. Vitale, 370 U. S. 421, 436 (1962). Thus, in Wallace v. Jaffree, 472 U. S., at 60, the Court held unconstitutional Alabama’s moment-of-silence statute because it was “enacted... for the sole purpose of expressing the State’s endorsement of prayer activities.” The Court similarly invalidated Louisiana’s “Creationism Act” because it “endorses religion” in its purpose. Edwards v. Aguillard, 482 U. S. 578, 593 (1987). And the educational program in School Dist. of Grand Rapids v. Ball, 473 U. S. 373, 389-392 (1985), was held to violate the Establishment Clause because of its “endorsement” effect. See also Texas Monthly, Inc. v. Bullock, 489 U. S. 1, 17 (1989) (plurality opinion) (tax exemption limited to religious periodicals “effectively endorses religious belief”).
Of course, the word “endorsement” is not self-defining. Rather, it derives its meaning from other words that this Court has found useful over the years in interpreting the Establishment Clause. Thus, it has been noted that the prohibition against governmental endorsement of religion “preclude[s] government from conveying or attempting to convey a message that religion or a particular religious belief is favored or preferred.” Wallace v. Jaffree, 472 U. S., at 70 (O’Connor, J., concurring in judgment) (emphasis added). Accord, Texas Monthly, Inc. v. Bullock, 489 U. S., at 27, 28 (separate opinion concurring in judgment) (reaffirming that “government may not favor religious belief over disbelief” or adopt a “preference for the dissemination of religious ideas”); Edwards v. Aguillard, 482 U. S., at 593 (“preference” for particular religious beliefs constitutes an endorsement of religion); Abington School District v. Schempp, 374 U. S. 203, 305 (1963) (Goldberg, J., concurring) (“The fullest realization of true religious liberty requires that government... effect no favoritism among sects or between religion and nonre-ligion”). Moreover, the term “endorsement” is closely linked to the term “promotion,” Lynch v. Donnelly, 465 U. S., at 691 (O’Connor, J., concurring), and this Court long since has held that government “may not... promote one religion or religious theory against another or even against the militant opposite,” Epperson v. Arkansas, 393 U. S. 97, 104 (1968). See also Wallace v. Jaffree, 472 U. S., at 59-60 (using the concepts of endorsement, promotion, and favoritism interchangeably).
Whether the key word is “endorsement,” “favoritism,” or “promotion,” the essential principle remains the same. The Establishment Clause, at the very least, prohibits government from appearing to take a position on questions of religious belief or from “making adherence to a religion relevant in any way to a person’s standing in the political community.” Lynch v. Donnelly, 465 U. S., at 687 (O’Connor, J., concurring).
B
We have had occasion in the past to apply Establishment Clause principles to the government’s display of objects with religious significance. In Stone v. Graham, 449 U. S. 39 (1980), we held that the display of a copy of the Ten Commandments on the walls of public classrooms violates the Establishment Clause. Closer to the facts of this litigation is Lynch v. Donnelly, supra, in which we considered whether the city of Pawtucket, R. I., had violated the Establishment Clause by including a creche in its annual Christmas display, located in a private park within the downtown shopping district. By a 5-to-4 decision in that difficult case, the Court upheld inclusion of the creche in the Pawtucket display, holding, inter alia, that the inclusion of the creche did not have the impermissible effect of advancing or promoting religion.
The rationale of the majority opinion in Lynch is none too clear: the opinion contains two strands, neither of which provides guidance for decision in subsequent cases. First, the opinion states that the inclusion of the creche in the display was “no more an advancement or endorsement of religion” than other “endorsements” this Court has approved in the past, 465 U. S., at 683 — but the opinion offers no discernible measure for distinguishing between permissible and impermissible endorsements. Second, the opinion observes that any benefit the government’s display of the creche gave to religion was no more than “indirect, remote, and incidental,” ibid, — without saying how or why.
Although Justice O’Connor joined the majority opinion in Lynch, she wrote a concurrence that differs in significant respects from the majority opinion. The main difference is that the concurrence provides a sound analytical framework for evaluating governmental use of religious symbols.
First and foremost, the concurrence squarely rejects any notion that this Court will tolerate some government endorsement of religion. Rather, the concurrence recognizes any endorsement of religion as “invalid,” id., at 690, because it “sends a message to nonadherents that they are outsiders, not full members of the political community, and an accompanying message to adherents that they are insiders, favored members of the political community,” id., at 688.
Second, the concurrence articulates a method for determining whether the government’s use of an object with religious meaning has the effect of endorsing religion. The effect of the display depends upon the message that the government’s practice communicates: the question is “what viewers may fairly understand to be the purpose of the display.” Id., at 692. That inquiry, of necessity, turns upon the context in which the contested object appears: “[A] typical museum setting, though not neutralizing the religious content of a religious painting, negates any message of endorsement of that content.” Ibid. The concurrence thus emphasizes that the constitutionality of the creche in that case depended upon its “particular physical setting,” ibid., and further observes: “Every government practice must be judged in its unique circumstances to determine whether it [endorses] religion,” id., at 694.
The concurrence applied this mode of analysis to the Paw-tucket creche, seen in the context of that city’s holiday celebration as a whole. In addition to the creche, the city’s display contained: a Santa Claus house with a live Santa distributing candy; reindeer pulling Santa’s sleigh; a live 40-foot Christmas tree strung with lights; statues of carolers in old-fashioned dress; candy-striped poles; a “talking” wishing well; a large banner proclaiming “SEASONS GREETINGS”; a miniature “village” with several houses and a church; and various “cut-out” figures, including those of a clown, a dancing elephant, a robot, and a teddy bear. See 525 F. Supp. 1150, 1155 (RI 1981). The concurrence concluded that both because the creche is “a traditional symbol” of Christmas, a holiday with strong secular elements, and because the creche was “displayed along with purely secular symbols,” the creche’s setting “changes what viewers may fairly understand to be the purpose of the display” and “negates any message of endorsement” of “the Christian beliefs represented by the creche.” 465 U. S., at 692.
The four Lynch dissenters agreed with the concurrence that the controlling question was “whether Pawtucket ha[d] run afoul of the Establishment Clause by endorsing religion through its display of the creche.” Id., at 698, n. 3 (Brennan, J., dissenting). The dissenters also agreed with the general proposition that the context in which the government uses a religious symbol is relevant for determining the answer to that question. Id., at 705-706. They simply reached a different answer: the dissenters concluded that the other elements of the Pawtucket display did not negate the endorsement of Christian faith caused by the presence of the creche. They viewed the inclusion of the creche in the city’s overall display as placing “the government’s imprimatur of approval on the particular religious beliefs exemplified by the creche.” Id., at 701. Thus, they stated: “The effect on minority religious groups, as well as on those who may reject all religion, is to convey the message that their views are not similarly worthy of public recognition nor entitled to public support.” Ibid.
Thus, despite divergence at the bottom line, the five Justices in concurrence and dissent in Lynch agreed upon the relevant constitutional principles: the government’s use of religious symbolism is unconstitutional if it has the effect of endorsing religious beliefs, and the effect of the government’s use of religious symbolism depends upon its context. These general principles are sound, and have been adopted by the Court in subsequent cases. Since Lynch, the Court has made clear that, when evaluating the effect of government conduct under the Establishment Clause, we must ascertain whether “the challenged governmental action is sufficiently likely to be perceived by adherents of the controlling denominations as an endorsement, and by the nonadherents as a disapproval, of their individual religious choices.” Grand Rapids, 473 U. S., at 390. Accordingly, our present task is to determine whether the display of the creche and the menorah, in their respective “particular physical settings,” has the effect of endorsing or disapproving religious beliefs.
r-n
We turn first to the county’s creche display. There is no doubt, of course, that the creche itself is capable of communicating a religious message. See Lynch, 465 U. S., at 685 (majority opinion); id., at 692 (O’Connor, J., concurring); id., at 701 (Brennan, J., dissenting); id., at 727 (Black-mun, J., dissenting). Indeed, the creche in this lawsuit uses words, as well as the picture of the Nativity scene, to make its religious meaning unmistakably clear. “Glory to God in the Highest!” says the angel in the creche — Glory to God because of the birth of Jesus. This praise to God in Christian terms is indisputably religious — indeed sectarian — just as it is when said in the Gospel or in a church service.
Under the Court’s holding in Lynch, the effect of a creche display turns on its setting. Here, unlike in Lynch, nothing in the context of the display detracts from the creche’s religious message. The Lynch display comprised a series of figures and objects, each group of which had its own focal point. Santa’s house and his reindeer were objects of attention separate from the creche, and had their specific visual story to tell. Similarly, whatever a “talking” wishing well may be, it obviously was a center of attention separate from the creche. Here, in contrast, the creche stands alone: it is the single element of the display on the Grand Staircase.
The floral decoration surrounding the creche cannot be viewed as somehow equivalent to the secular symbols in the overall Lynch display. The floral frame, like all good frames, serves only to draw one’s attention to the message inside the frame. The floral decoration surrounding the creche contributes to, rather than detracts from, the endorsement of religion conveyed by the creche. It is as if the county had allowed the Holy Name Society to display a cross on the Grand Staircase at Easter, and the county had surrounded the cross with Easter lilies. The county could not say that surrounding the cross with traditional flowers of the season would negate the endorsement of Christianity conveyed by the cross on the Grand Staircase. Its contention that the traditional Christmas greens negate the endorsement effect of the creche fares no better.
Nor does the fact that the creche was the setting for the county’s annual Christmas-carol program diminish its religious meaning. First, the carol program in 1986 lasted only from December 3 to December 23 and occupied at most one hour a day. JEV 28. The effect of the creche on those who viewed it when the choirs were not singing — the vast majority of the time — cannot be negated by the presence of the choir program. Second, because some of the carols performed at the site of the creche were religious in nature, those carols were more likely to augment the religious quality of the scene than to secularize it.
Furthermore, the creche sits on the Grand Staircase, the “main” and “most beautiful part” of the building that is the seat of county government. App. 157. No viewer could reasonably think that it occupies this location without the support and approval of the government. Thus, by permitting the “display of the creche in this particular physical setting,” Lynch, 465 U. S., at 692 (O’Connor, J., concurring), the county sends an unmistakable message that it supports and promotes the Christian praise to God that is the creche’s religious message.
The fact that the creche bears a sign disclosing its ownership by a Roman Catholic organization does not alter this conclusion. On the contrary, the sign simply demonstrates that the government is endorsing the religious message of that organization, rather than communicating a message of its own. But the Establishment Clause does not limit only the religious content of the government’s own communications. It also prohibits the government’s support and promotion of religious communications by religious organizations. See, e. g., Texas Monthly, Inc. v. Bullock, 489 U. S. 1 (1989) (government support of the distribution of religious messages by religious organizations violates the Establishment Clause). Indeed, the very concept of “endorsement” conveys the sense of promoting someone else’s message. Thus, by prohibiting government endorsement of religion, the Establishment Clause prohibits precisely what occurred here: the government’s lending its support to the communication of a religious organization’s religious message.
Finally, the county argues that it is sufficient to validate the display of the creche on the Grand Staircase that the display celebrates Christmas, and Christmas is a national holiday. This argument-obviously proves too much. It would allow the celebration of the Eucharist inside a courthouse on Christmas Eve. While the county may have doubts about the constitutional status of celebrating the Eucharist inside the courthouse under the government’s auspices, see Tr. of Oral Arg. 8-9, this Court does not. The government may acknowledge Christmas as a cultural phenomenon, but under the First Amendment it may not observe it as a Christian holy day by suggesting that people praise God for the birth of Jesus.
In sum, Lynch teaches that government may celebrate Christmas in some manner and form, but not in a way that endorses Christian doctrine. Here, Allegheny County has transgressed this line. It has chosen to celebrate Christmas in a way that has the effect of endorsing a patently Christian message: Glory to God for the birth of Jesus Christ. Under Lynch, and the rest of our cases, nothing more is required to demonstrate a violation of the Establishment Clause. The display of the creche in this context, therefore, must be permanently enjoined.
V
Justice Kennedy and the three Justices who join him would find the display of the creche consistent with the Establishment Clause. He argues that this conclusion necessarily follows from the Court’s decision in Marsh v. Chambers, 463 U. S. 783 (1983), which sustained the constitutionality of legislative prayer. Post, at 665. He also asserts that the creche, even in this setting, poses “no realistic risk” of “representing] an effort to proselytize,” post, at 664, having repudiated the Court’s endorsement inquiry in favor of a “proselytization” approach. The Court’s analysis of the creche, he contends, “reflects an unjustified hostility toward religion.” Post, at 655.
Justice Kennedy’s reasons for permitting the creche on the Grand Staircase and his condemnation of the Court’s reasons for deciding otherwise are so far reaching in their implications that they require a response in some depth.
A
In Marsh, the Court relied specifically on the fact that Congress authorized legislative prayer at the same time that it produced the Bill of Rights. See n. 46, supra. Justice Kennedy, however, argues that Marsh legitimates all “practices with no greater potential for an establishment of religion” than those “accepted traditions dating back to the Founding.” Post, at 670, 669. Otherwise, the Justice asserts, such practices as our national motto (“In God We Trust”) and our Pledge of Allegiance (with the phrase “under God,” added in 1954, Pub. L. 396, 68 Stat. 249) are in danger of invalidity.
Our previous opinions have considered in dicta the motto and the pledge, characterizing them as consistent with the proposition that government may not communicate an endorsement of religious belief. Lynch, 465 U.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
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 Blackmun
delivered the opinion of the Court.
I
Respondent Darrell Burch brought this suit under 42 U. S. C. §1983 (1982 ed.) against the 11 petitioners, who are physicians, administrators, and staff members at Florida State Hospital (FSH) in Chattahoochee, and others. Respondent alleges that petitioners deprived him of his liberty, without due process of law, by admitting him to FSH as a “voluntary” mental patient when he was incompetent to give informed consent to his admission. Burch contends that in his case petitioners should have afforded him procedural safeguards required by the Constitution before involuntary commitment of a mentally ill person, and that petitioners’ failure to do so violated his due process rights.
Petitioners argue that Burch’s complaint failed to state a claim under § 1983 because, in their view, it alleged only a random, unauthorized violation of the Florida statutes governing admission of mental patients. Theii? argument rests on Parratt v. Taylor, 451 U. S. 527 (1981) (overruled in part not relevant here, by Daniels v. Williams, 474 U. S. 327, 330-331 (1986)), and Hudson v. Palmer, 468 U. S. 517 (1984), where this Court held that a deprivation of a constitutionally protected property interest caused by a state employee’s random, unauthorized conduct does not give rise to a § 1983 procedural due process claim, unless the State fails to provide an adequate postdeprivation remedy. The Court in those two cases reasoned that in a situation where the State cannot predict and guard in advance against a deprivation, a postdeprivation tort remedy is all the process the State can be expected to provide, and is constitutionally sufficient.
In the District Court, petitioners did not file an answer to Burch’s complaint. They moved, instead, for dismissal under Rule 12(b)(6) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. The court granted that motion, pointing out that Burch did not contend that Florida’s statutory procedure for mental health placement was inadequate to ensure due process, but only that petitioners failed to follow the state procedure. Since the State could not have anticipated or prevented this unauthorized deprivation of Burch’s liberty, the District Court reasoned, there was no feasible predeprivation remedy, and, under Parratt and Hudson, the State’s postdeprivation tort remedies provided Burch with all the process that was due him.
On appeal, an Eleventh Circuit panel affirmed the dismissal; it, too, relied on Parratt and Hudson. Burch v. Apalachee Community Mental Health Services, Inc., 804 F. 2d 1549 (1986). The Court of Appeals, however, upon its own motion, ordered rehearing en banc. 812 F. 2d 1339 (1987). On that rehearing, the Eleventh Circuit reversed the District Court and remanded the case. 840 F. 2d 797 (1988). Since Burch did not challenge the constitutional adequacy of Florida’s statutory procedure, the court assumed that that procedure constituted the process he was due. Id., at 801, n. 8. A plurality concluded that Parratt did not apply because the State could have provided predeprivation remedies. 840 F. 2d, at 801-802. The State had given petitioners the authority to deprive Burch of his liberty, by letting them determine whether he had given informed consent to admission. Petitioners, in the plurality’s view, were acting as the State, and since they were in a position to give Burch a hearing, and failed to do so, the State itself was in a position to provide predeprivation process, and failed to do so. Five judges dissented on the ground that the case was controlled by Parratt and Hudson. 840 F. 2d, at 810-814.
This Court granted certiorari to resolve the conflict — so evident in the divided views of the judges of the Eleventh Circuit — that has arisen in the Courts of Appeals over the proper scope of the Parratt rule. 489 U. S. 1064 (1989).
Because this case concerns the propriety of a Rule 12(b)(6) dismissal, the question before us is a narrow one. We decide only whether the Parratt rule necessarily means that Burch’s complaint fails to allege any deprivation of due process, because he was constitutionally entitled to nothing more than what he received — an opportunity to sue petitioners in tort for his allegedly unlawful confinement. The broader questions of what procedural safeguards the Due Process Clause requires in the context of an admission to a mental hospital, and whether Florida’s statutes meet these constitutional requirements, are not presented in this case. Burch did not frame his action as a challenge to the constitutional adequacy of Florida’s mental health statutes. Both before the Eleventh Circuit and in his brief here, he disavowed any challenge to the statutes themselves and restricted his claim to the contention that petitioners’ failure to provide constitutionally adequate safeguards in his case violated his due process rights.
II
A
For purposes of review of a Rule 12(b)(6) dismissal, the factual allegations of Burch’s complaint are taken as true. Burch’s complaint, and the medical records and forms attached to it as exhibits, provide the following factual background:
On December 7, 1981, Burch was found wandering along a Florida highway, appearing to be hurt and disoriented. He was taken to Apalachee Community Mental Health Services (ACMHS) in Tallahassee. ACMHS is a private mental health care facility designated by the State to receive patients suffering from mental illness. Its staff in their evaluation forms stated that, upon his arrival at ACMHS, Burch was hallucinating, confused, and psychotic and believed he was “in heaven.” Exhibit B-l to Complaint. His face and chest were bruised and bloodied, suggesting that he had fallen or had been attacked. Burch was asked to sign forms giving his consent to admission and treatment. He did so. He remained at ACMHS for three days, during which time the facility’s staff diagnosed his condition as paranoid schizophrenia and gave him psychotropic medication. On December 10, the staff found that Burch was “in need of longer-term stabilization,” Exhibit B-2 to Complaint, and referred him to FSH, a public hospital owned and operated by the State as a mental health treatment facility. Later that day, Burch signed forms requesting admission and authorizing treatment at FSH. Exhibits C-l and C-2 to Complaint. He was then taken to FSH by a county sheriff.
Upon his arrival at FSH, Burch signed other forms for voluntary admission and treatment. One form, entitled “Request for Voluntary Admission,” recited that the patient requests admission for “observation, diagnosis, care and treatment of [my] mental condition,” and that the patient, if admitted, agrees “to accept such treatment as may be prescribed by members of the medical and psychiatric staff in accordance with the provisions of expressed and informed consent.” Exhibit E-l to Complaint. Two of the petitioners, Janet V. Potter and Marjorie R. Parker, signed this form as witnesses. Potter is an accredited records technician; Parker’s job title does not appear on the form.
On December 23, Burch signed a form entitled “Authorization for Treatment.” This form stated that he authorized “the professional staff of [FSH] to administer treatment, except electroconvulsive treatment”; that he had been informed of “the purpose of treatment; common side effects thereof; alternative treatment modalities; approximate length of care”; and of his power to revoke consent to treatment; and that he had read and fully understood the Authorization. Exhibit E-5 to Complaint. Petitioner Zinermon, a staff physician at FSH, signed the form as the witness.
On December 10, Doctor Zinermon wrote a “progress note” indicating that Burch was “refusing to cooperate,” would not answer questions, “appears distressed and confused,” and “related that medication has been helpful.” Exhibit F-8 to Complaint. A nursing assessment form dated December 11 stated that Burch was confused and unable to state the reason for his hospitalization and still believed that “[t]his is heaven.” Exhibits F-3 and F-4 to Complaint. Petitioner Zinermon on December 29 made a further report on Burch’s condition, stating that, on admission, Burch had been “disoriented, semi-mute, confused and bizarre in appearance and thought,” “not cooperative to the initial interview,” and “extremely psychotic, appeared to be paranoid and hallucinating.” The doctor’s report also stated that Burch remained disoriented, delusional, and psychotic. Exhibit F-5 to Complaint.
Burch remained at FSH until May 7, 1982, five months after his initial admission to ACMHS. During that time, no hearing was held regarding his hospitalization and treatment.
After his release, Burch complained that he had been admitted inappropriately to FHS and did not remember signing a voluntary admission form. His complaint reached the Florida Human Rights Advocacy Committee of the State’s Department of Health and Rehabilitation Services (Committee). The Committee investigated and replied to Burch by letter dated April 4, 1984. The letter stated that Burch in fact had signed a voluntary admission form, but that there was “documentation that you were heavily medicated and disoriented on admission and... you were probably not competent to be signing legal documents.” Exhibit G to Complaint. The letter also stated that, at a meeting of the Committee with FSH staff on August 4, 1983, “hospital administration was made aware that they were very likely asking medicated clients to make decisions at a time when they were not mentally competent.” Ibid.
In February 1985, Burch.filed a complaint in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Florida. He alleged, among other things, that ACMHS and the 11 individual petitioners, acting under color of Florida law, and “by and through the authority of their respective positions as employees at FSH... as part of their regular and official employment at FSH, took part in admitting Plaintiff to FSH as a ‘voluntary’ patient.” App. to Pet. for Cert. 200. Specifically, he alleged:
“Defendants, and each of them, knew or should have known that Plaintiff was incapable of voluntary, knowing, understanding and informed consent to admission and treatment at FSH.' See Exhibit G attached hereto and incorporated herein. [] Nonetheless, Defendants, and each of them, seized Plaintiff and against Plaintiff’s will confined and imprisoned him and subjected him to involuntary commitment and treatment for the period from December 10, 1981, to May 7, 1982. For said period of 149 days, Plaintiff was without the benefit of counsel and no hearing of any sort was held at which he could have challenged his involuntary admission and treatment at FSH.
“... Defendants, and each of them, deprived Plaintiff of his liberty without due process of law in contravention of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. Defendants acted with willful, wanton and reckless disregard of and indifference to Plaintiff’s Constitutionally guaranteed right to due process of law.” Id., at 201-202.
B
Burch’s complaint thus alleges that he was admitted to and detained at FSH for five months under Florida’s statutory provisions for “voluntary” admission. These provisions are part of a comprehensive statutory scheme under which a person may be admitted to a mental hospital in several different ways.
First, Florida provides for short-term emergency admission. If there is reason to believe that a person is mentally ill and likely “to injure himself or others” or is in “need of care or treatment and lacks sufficient capacity to make a responsible application on his own behalf,” he may immediately be detained for up to 48 hours. Fla. Stat. §394.463(l)(a) (1981). A mental health professional, a law enforcement officer, or a judge may effect an emergency admission. After 48 hours, the patient is to be released unless he “voluntarily gives express and informed consent to evaluation or treatment,” or a proceeding for court-ordered evaluation or involuntary placement is initiated. §394.463(l)(d).
Second, under a court order a person may be detained at a mental health facility for up to five days for evaluation, if he is likely “to injure himself or others” or if he is in “need of care or treatment which, if not provided, may result in neglect or refusal to care for himself and... such neglect or refusal poses a real and present threat of substantial harm to his well-being.” § 394.463(2)(a). Anyone may petition for a court-ordered evaluation of a person alleged to meet these criteria. After five days, the patient is to be released unless he gives “express and informed consent” to admission and treatment, or unless involuntary placement proceedings are initiated. § 394.463(2)(e).
Third, a person may be detained as an involuntary patient, if he meets the same criteria as for evaluation, and if the facility administrator and two mental health professionals recommend involuntary placement. §§ 394.467(1) and (2). Before involuntary placement, the patient has a right to notice, a judicial hearing, appointed counsel, access to medical records and personnel, and an independent expert examination. § 394.467(3). If the court determines that the patient meets the criteria for involuntary placement, it then decides whether the patient is competent to consent to treatment. If not, the court appoints a guardian advocate to make treatment decisions. §394.467(3)(a). After six months, the facility must either release the patient, or seek a court order for continued placement by stating the reasons therefor, summarizing the patient’s treatment to that point, and submitting a plan for future treatment. §§394.467(3) and (4).
Finally, a person may be admitted as a voluntary patient. Mental hospitals may admit for treatment any adult “making application by express and informed consent,” if he is “found to show evidence of mental illness and to be suitable for treatment.” §394.465(l)(a). “Express and informed consent” is defined as “consent voluntarily given in writing after sufficient explanation and disclosure... to enable the person... to make a knowing and willful decision without any element of force, fraud, deceit, duress, or other form of constraint or coercion.” §394.455(22). A voluntary patient may request discharge at any time. If he does, the facility administrator must either release him within three days or initiate the involuntary placement process. §394.465(2)(a). At the time of his admission and each six months thereafter, a voluntary patient and his legal guardian or representatives must be notified in writing of the right to apply for a discharge. §394.465(3).
Burch, in apparent compliance with §394.465(1), was admitted by signing forms applying for voluntary admission. He alleges, however, that petitioners violated this statute in admitting him as a voluntary patient, because they knew or should have known that he was incapable of making an informed decision as to his admission. He claims that he was entitled to receive the procedural safeguards provided by Florida’s involuntary placement procedure, and that petitioners violated his due process rights by failing to initiate this procedure. The question presented is whether these allegations suffice to state a claim under § 1983, in light of Parratt and Hudson.
Ill
A
To understand the background against which this question arises, we return to the interpretation of § 1983 articulated in Monroe v. Pape, 365 U. S. 167 (1961) (overruled in part not relevant here, by Monell v. New York City Dept. of Social Services, 436 U. S. 658, 664-689 (1978)). In Monroe, this Court rejected the view that § 1983 applies only to violations of constitutional rights that are authorized by state law, and does not reach abuses of state authority that are forbidden by the State’s statutes or Constitution or are torts under the State’s common law. It explained that § 1983 was intended not only to “override” discriminatory or otherwise unconstitutional state laws, and to provide a remedy for violations of civil rights “where state law was inadequate,” but also to provide a federal remedy “where the state remedy, though adequate in theory, was not available in practice.” 365 U. S., at 173-174. The Court said:
“It is no answer that the State has a law which if enforced would give relief. The federal remedy is supplementary to the state remedy, and the latter need not be first sought and refused before the federal one is invoked.” Id., at 183.
Thus, overlapping state remedies are generally irrelevant to the question of the existence of a cause of action under § 1983. A plaintiff, for example, may bring a §1983 action for an unlawful search and seizure despite the fact that the search and seizure violated the State’s Constitution or statutes, and despite the fact that there are common-law remedies for trespass and conversion. As was noted in Monroe, in many cases there is “no quarrel with the state laws on the books,” id., at 176; instead, the problem is the way those laws are or are not implemented by state officials.
This general rule applies in a straightforward way to two of the three kinds of § 1983 claims that may be brought against the State under the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. First, the Clause incorporates many of the specific protections defined in the Bill of Rights. A plaintiff may bring suit under § 1983 for state officials’ violation of his rights to, e. g., freedom of speech or freedom from unreasonable searches and seizures. Second, the Due Process Clause contains a substantive component that bars certain arbitrary, wrongful government actions “regardless of the fairness of the procedures used to implement them.” Daniels v. Williams, 474 U. S., at 331. As to these two types of claims, the constitutional violation actionable under §1983 is complete when the wrongful action is taken. Id., at 338 (Stevens, J., concurring in judgments). A plaintiff, under Monroe v. Pape, may invoke § 1983 regardless of any state-tort remedy that might be available to compensate him for the deprivation of these rights.
The Due Process Clause also encompasses a third type of protection, a guarantee of fair procedure. A § 1983 action may be brought for a violation of procedural due process, but here the existence of state remedies is relevant in a special sense. In procedural due process claims, the deprivation by state action of a constitutionally protected interest in “life, liberty, or property” is not in itself unconstitutional; what is unconstitutional is the deprivation of such an interest without due process of law. Parratt, 451 U. S., at 537; Carey v. Piphus, 435 U. S. 247, 259 (1978) (“Procedural due process rules are meant to protect persons not from the deprivation, but from the mistaken or unjustified deprivation of life, liberty, or property”). The constitutional violation actionable under §1983 is not complete when the deprivation occurs; it is not complete unless and until the State fails to provide due process. Therefore, to determine whether a constitutional violation has occurred, it is necessary to ask what process the State provided, and whether it was constitutionally adequate. This inquiry would examine the procedural safeguards built into the statutory or administrative procedure of effecting the deprivation, and any remedies for erroneous deprivations provided by statute or tort law.
In this case, Burch does not claim that his confinement at FSH violated any of the specific guarantees of the Bill of Rights. Burch’s complaint could be read to include a substantive due process claim, but that issue was not raised in the petition for certiorari, and we express no view on whether the facts Burch alleges could give rise to such a claim. The claim at issue falls within the third, or procedural, category of § 1983 claims based on the Due Process Clause.
B
Due process, as this Court often has said, is a flexible concept that varies with the particular situation. To determine what procedural protections the Constitution requires in a particular case, we weigh several factors:
“First, the private interest that will be affected by the official action; second, the risk of an erroneous deprivation of such interest through the procedures used, and the probable value, if any, of additional or substitute procedural safeguards; and finally, the Government’s interest, including the function involved and the fiscal and administrative burdens that the additional or substitute procedural requirement would entail.” Mathews v. Eldridge, 424 U. S. 319, 335 (1976).
Applying this test, the Court usually has held that the Constitution requires some kind of a hearing before the State deprives a person of liberty or property. See, e. g., Cleveland Board of Education v. Loudermill, 470 U. S. 532, 542 (1985) (“i[T]he root requirement’ of the Due Process Clause” is “ That an individual be given an opportunity for a hearing before he is deprived of any significant protected interest’”; hearing required before termination of employment (emphasis in original)); Parham v. J. R., 442 U. S. 584, 606-607 (1979) (determination by neutral physician whether statutory admission standard is met required before confinement of child in mental hospital); Memphis Light, Gas & Water Div. v. Craft, 436 U. S. 1, 18 (1978) (hearing required before cutting off utility service); Goss v. Lopez, 419 U. S. 565, 579 (1975) (at minimum, due process requires “some kind of notice and... some kind of hearing” (emphasis in original); informal hearing required before suspension of students from public school); Wolff v. McDonnell, 418 U. S. 539, 557-558 (1974) (hearing required before forfeiture of prisoner’s good-time credits); Fuentes v. Shevin, 407 U. S. 67, 80-84 (1972) (hearing required before issuance of writ allowing repossession of property); Goldberg v. Kelly, 397 U. S. 254, 264 (1970) (hearing required before termination of welfare benefits).
In some circumstances, however, the Court has held that a statutory provision for a postdeprivation hearing, or a common-law tort remedy for erroneous deprivation, satisfies due process. See, e. g., Logan v. Zimmerman Brush Co., 455 U. S. 422, 436 (1982) (“ ‘[T]he necessity of quick action by the State or the impracticality of providing any predeprivation process’” may mean that a postdeprivation remedy is constitutionally adequate, quoting Parratt, 451 U. S., at 539); Memphis Light, 436 U. S., at 19 (“[W]here the potential length or severity of the deprivation does not indicate a likelihood of serious loss and where the procedures... are sufficiently reliable to minimize the risk of erroneous determination,” a prior hearing may not be required); Ingraham v. Wright, 430 U. S. 651, 682 (1977) (hearing not required before corporal punishment of junior high school students); Mitchell v. W. T. Grant Co., 416 U. S. 600, 619-620 (1974) (hearing not required before issuance of writ to sequester debtor’s property).
This is where the Pan-att rule comes into play. Parratt and Hudson represent a special case of the general Mathews v. Eldridge analysis, in which postdeprivation tort remedies are all the process that is due, simply because they are the only remedies the State could be expected to provide. In Parratt, a state prisoner brought a § 1983 action because prison employees negligently had lost materials he had ordered by mail. The prisoner did not dispute that he had a postdeprivation remedy. Under state law, a tort-claim procedure was available by which he could have recovered the value of the materials. 451 U. S., at 543-544. This Court ruled that the tort remedy was all the process the prisoner was due, because any predeprivation procedural safeguards that the State did provide, or could have provided, would not address the risk of this kind of deprivation. The very nature of a negligent loss of property made it impossible for the State to predict such deprivations and provide predeprivation process. The Court explained:
“The justifications which we have found sufficient to uphold takings of property without any predeprivation process are applicable to a situation such as the present one involving a tortious loss of a prisoner’s property as a result of a random and unauthorized act by a state employee. In such a case, the loss is not a result of some established state procedure and the State cannot predict precisely when the loss will occur. It is difficult to conceive of how the State could provide a meaningful hearing before the deprivation takes place.” Id., at 541.
Given these special circumstances, it was clear that the State, by making available a tort remedy that could adequately redress the loss, had given the prisoner the process he was due. Thus, Parratt is not an exception to the Mathews balancing test, but rather an application of that test to the unusual case in which one of the variables in the Mathews equation — the value of predeprivation safeguards — is negligible in preventing the kind of deprivation at issue. Therefore, no matter how significant the private interest at stake and the risk of its erroneous deprivation, see Mathews, 424 U. S., at 335, the State cannot be required constitutionally to do the impossible by providing predeprivation process.
In Hudson, the Court extended this reasoning to an intentional deprivation of property. A prisoner alleged that, during a search of his prison cell, a guard deliberately and maliciously destroyed some of his property, including legal papers. Again, there was a tort remedy by which the prisoner could have been compensated. 468 U. S., at 534-535. In Hudson, as in Parratt, the state official was not acting pursuant to any established state procedure, but, instead, was apparently pursuing a random, unauthorized personal vendetta against the prisoner. 468 U. S., at 521, n. 2, 532. The Court pointed out: “The state can no more anticipate and control in advance the random and unauthorized intentional conduct of its employees than it can anticipate similar negligent conduct.” Id., at 533. Of course, the fact that the guard’s conduct was intentional meant that he himself could “foresee” the wrongful deprivation and could prevent it simply by refraining from his misconduct. Nonetheless, the Court found that an individual state employee’s ability to foresee the deprivation is “of no consequence,” because the proper inquiry under Parratt is “whether the state is in a position to provide for predeprivation process.” 468 U. S., at 534 (emphasis added).
C
Petitioners argue that the dismissal under Rule 12(b)(6) was proper because, as in Parratt and Hudson, the State could not possibly have provided predeprivation process to prevent the kind of “random, unauthorized” wrongful deprivation of liberty Burch alleges, so the postdeprivation remedies provided by Florida’s statutory and common law necessarily are all the process Burch was due.
Before turning to that issue, however, we must address a threshold question raised by Burch. He argues that Parratt and Hudson cannot apply to his situation, because those cases are limited to deprivations of property, not liberty.
Burch alleges that he was deprived of his liberty interest in avoiding confinement in a mental hospital without either informed consent or the procedural safeguards of the involuntary placement process. Petitioners do not seriously dispute that there is a substantial liberty interest in avoiding confinement in a mental hospital. See Vitek v. Jones, 445 U. S. 480, 491-492 (1980) (commitment to mental hospital entails “ ‘a massive curtailment of liberty,’ ” and requires due process protection); Parham v. J. R., 442 U. S., at 600 (there is a “substantial liberty interest in not being confined unnecessarily for medical treatment”); Addington v. Texas, 441 U. S. 418, 425 (1979) (“[C]ivil commitment for any purpose constitutes a significant deprivation of liberty that requires due process protection”); Jackson v. Indiana, 406 U. S. 715, 738 (1972) (due process requires at least that the nature and duration of commitment to a mental hospital “bear some reasonable relation to the purpose” of the commitment). Burch’s confinement at FSH for five months without a hearing or any other procedure to determine either that he validly had consented to admission, or that he met the statutory standard for involuntary placement, clearly infringes on this liberty interest.
Burch argues that postdeprivation tort remedies are never constitutionally adequate for a deprivation of liberty, as opposed to property, so the Parratt rule cannot apply to this case. We, however, do not find support in precedent for a categorical distinction between a deprivation of liberty and one of property. See Lynch v. Household Finance Corp., 405 U. S. 538, 552 (1972) (“[T]he dichotomy between personal liberties and property rights is a false one”); Wolff, 418 U. S., at 557-558 (a hearing is generally required before final deprivation of property interests, and “a person’s liberty is equally protected”). In Parratt itself, the Court said, 451 U. S., at 542, that its analysis was “quite consistent with the approach taken” in Ingraham v. Wright, 430 U. S. 651 (1977), a liberty interest case.
It is true that Parratt and Hudson concerned deprivations of property. It is also true that Burch’s interest in avoiding five months’ confinement is of an order different from inmate Parratt’s interest in mail-order materials valued at $23.50. But the reasoning of Parratt and Hudson emphasizes the State’s inability to provide predeprivation process because of the random and unpredictable nature of the deprivation, not the fact that only property losses were at stake. In situations where the State feasibly can provide a predeprivation hearing before taking property, it generally must do so regardless of the adequacy of a postdeprivation tort remedy to compensate for the taking. See Loudermill, 470 U. S., at 542; Memphis Light, 436 U. S., at 18; Fuentes, 407 U. S., at 80-84; Goldberg, 397 U. S., at 264. Conversely, in situations where a predeprivation hearing is unduly burdensome in proportion to the liberty interest at stake, see Ingraham, 430 U. S., at 682, or where the State is truly unable to anticipate and prevent a random deprivation of a liberty interest, post-deprivation remedies might satisfy due process. Thus, the fact that a deprivation of liberty is involved in this case does not automatically preclude application of the Parratt rule.
To determine whether, as petitioners contend, the Parratt rule necessarily precludes § 1983 liability in this case, we must ask whether predeprivation procedural safeguards could address the risk of deprivations of the kind Burch alleges. To do this, we examine the risk involved. The risk is that some persons who come into Florida’s mental health facilities will apparently be willing to sign forms authorizing admission and treatment, but will be incompetent to give the “express and informed consent” required for voluntary placement under §394.465(l)(a). Indeed, the very nature of mental illness makes it foreseeable that a person needing mental health care will be unable to understand any proffered “explanation and disclosure of the subject matter” of the forms that person is asked to sign, and will be unable “to make a knowing and willful decision” whether to consent to admission. §394.455(22) (definition of informed consent). A person who is willing to sign forms but is incapable of making an informed decision is, by the same token, unlikely to benefit from the voluntary patient’s statutory right to request discharge. See §394.465(2)(a). Such a person thus is in danger of being confined indefinitely without benefit of the procedural safeguards of the involuntary placement process, a process specifically designed to protect persons incapable of looking after their own interests. See §§394.467(2) and (3) (providing for notice, judicial hearing, counsel, examination by independent expert, appointment of guardian advocate, etc.).
Persons who are mentally ill and incapable of giving informed consent to admission would not necessarily meet the statutory standard for involuntary placement, which requires either that they are likely to injure themselves or others, or that their neglect or refusal to care for themselves threatens their well-being. See §'394.467(l)(b). The involuntary placement process serves to guard against the confinement of a person who, though mentally ill, is harmless and can live safely outside an institution. Confinement of such a person not only violates Florida law, but also is unconstitutional. O’Connor v. Donaldson, 422 U. S. 563, 575 (1975) (there is no constitutional basis for confining mentally ill persons involuntarily “if they are dangerous to no one and can live safely in freedom”). Thus, it is at least possible that if Burch had had an involuntary placement hearing, he would not have been found to meet the statutory standard for involuntary placement and would not have been confined at FSH. Moreover, even assuming that Burch would have met the statutory requirements for involuntary placement, he still could have been harmed by being deprived of other protections built into the involuntary placement procedure, such as the appointment of a guardian advocate to make treatment decisions and periodic judicial review of placement. §§ 394.467(3) and (4).
The very risks created by the application of the informed-consent requirement to the special context of mental health care are borne out by the facts alleged in this case. It appears from the exhibits accompanying Burch’s complaint that he was simply given admission forms to sign by clerical workers, and, after he signed, was considered a voluntary patient. Burch alleges that petitioners knew or should have known that he was incapable of informed consent. This allegation is supported, at least as to petitioner Zinermon, by the psychiatrist’s admission notes, described above, on Burch’s mental state. Thus, the way in which Burch allegedly was admitted to FSH certainly did not ensure compliance with the statutory standard for voluntary admission.
We now consider whether predeprivation safeguards would have any value in guarding against the kind of deprivation Burch allegedly suffered. Petitioners urge that here, as in Parratt and Hudson, such procedures could have no value at all, because the State cannot prevent its officials from making random and unauthorized errors in the admission process. We disagree.
The Florida statutes, of course, do not allow incompetent persons to be admitted as “voluntary” patients. But the statutes do not direct any member of the facility staff to determine whether a person is competent to give consent, nor to initiate the involuntary placement procedure for every incompetent patient. A patient who is willing to sign forms but incapable of informed consent certainly cannot be relied on to protest his “voluntary” admission and demand that the involuntary placement procedure be followed. The staff are the only persons in a position to take notice of any misuse of the voluntary admission process and to ensure that the proper procedure is followed.
Florida chose to delegate to petitioners a broad power to admit patients to FSH, i. e., to effect what, in the absence of informed consent, is a substantial deprivation of liberty. Because petitioners had state authority to deprive persons of liberty, the Constitution imposed on them the State’s concomitant duty to see that no deprivation occurs without adequate procedural protections.
It may be permissible constitutionally for a State to have a statutory scheme like Florida’s, which gives
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | B | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Justice KAGAN delivered the opinion of the Court.
The Constitution entrusts States with the job of designing congressional districts. But it also imposes an important constraint: A State may not use race as the predominant factor in drawing district lines unless it has a compelling reason. In this case, a three-judge District Court ruled that North Carolina officials violated that bar when they created two districts whose voting-age populations were majority black. Applying a deferential standard of review to the factual findings underlying that decision, we affirm.
I
A
The Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment limits racial gerrymanders in legislative districting plans. It prevents a State, in the absence of "sufficient justification," from "separating its citizens into different voting districts on the basis of race." Bethune-Hill v. Virginia State Bd. of Elections, 580 U.S. ----, ----, 137 S.Ct. 788, 797, 197 L.Ed.2d 85 (2017) (internal quotation marks and alteration omitted). When a voter sues state officials for drawing such race-based lines, our decisions call for a two-step analysis.
First, the plaintiff must prove that "race was the predominant factor motivating the legislature's decision to place a significant number of voters within or without a particular district." Miller v. Johnson, 515 U.S. 900, 916, 115 S.Ct. 2475, 132 L.Ed.2d 762 (1995). That entails demonstrating that the legislature "subordinated" other factors-compactness, respect for political subdivisions, partisan advantage, what have you-to "racial considerations." Ibid. The plaintiff may make the required showing through "direct evidence" of legislative intent, "circumstantial evidence of a district's shape and demographics," or a mix of both. Ibid.
Second, if racial considerations predominated over others, the design of the district must withstand strict scrutiny. See Bethune-Hill, 580 U.S., at ----, 137 S.Ct., at 800. The burden thus shifts to the State to prove that its race-based sorting of voters serves a "compelling interest" and is "narrowly tailored" to that end. Ibid. This Court has long assumed that one compelling interest is complying with operative provisions of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 (VRA or Act), 79 Stat. 437, as amended, 52 U.S.C. § 10301 et seq. See, e.g., Shaw v. Hunt, 517 U.S. 899, 915, 116 S.Ct. 1894, 135 L.Ed.2d 207 (1996) (Shaw II ).
Two provisions of the VRA-§ 2 and § 5-are involved in this case. §§ 10301, 10304. Section 2 prohibits any "standard, practice, or procedure" that "results in a denial or abridgement of the right... to vote on account of race." § 10301(a). We have construed that ban to extend to "vote dilution"-brought about, most relevantly here, by the "dispersal of [a group's members] into districts in which they constitute an ineffective minority of voters." Thornburg v. Gingles, 478 U.S. 30, 46, n. 11, 106 S.Ct. 2752, 92 L.Ed.2d 25 (1986). Section 5, at the time of the districting in dispute, worked through a different mechanism. Before this Court invalidated its coverage formula, see Shelby County v. Holder, 570 U.S. ----, 133 S.Ct. 2612, 186 L.Ed.2d 651 (2013), that section required certain jurisdictions (including various North Carolina counties) to pre-clear voting changes with the Department of Justice, so as to forestall "retrogression" in the ability of racial minorities to elect their preferred candidates, Beer v. United States, 425 U.S. 130, 141, 96 S.Ct. 1357, 47 L.Ed.2d 629 (1976).
When a State invokes the VRA to justify race-based districting, it must show (to meet the "narrow tailoring" requirement) that it had "a strong basis in evidence" for concluding that the statute required its action. Alabama Legislative Black Caucus v. Alabama, 575 U.S. ----, ----, 135 S.Ct. 1257, 1274, 191 L.Ed.2d 314 (2015). Or said otherwise, the State must establish that it had "good reasons" to think that it would transgress the Act if it did not draw race-based district lines. Ibid. That "strong basis" (or "good reasons") standard gives States "breathing room" to adopt reasonable compliance measures that may prove, in perfect hindsight, not to have been needed. Bethune-Hill, 580 U.S., at ----, 137 S.Ct., at 802.
A district court's assessment of a districting plan, in accordance with the two-step inquiry just described, warrants significant deference on appeal to this Court. We of course retain full power to correct a court's errors of law, at either stage of the analysis. But the court's findings of fact-most notably, as to whether racial considerations predominated in drawing district lines-are subject to review only for clear error. See Fed. Rule Civ. Proc. 52(a)(6) ; Easley v. Cromartie, 532 U.S. 234, 242, 121 S.Ct. 1452, 149 L.Ed.2d 430 (2001) (Cromartie II ); id., at 259, 121 S.Ct. 1452 (THOMAS, J., dissenting). Under that standard, we may not reverse just because we "would have decided the [matter] differently." Anderson v. Bessemer City, 470 U.S. 564, 573, 105 S.Ct. 1504, 84 L.Ed.2d 518 (1985). A finding that is "plausible" in light of the full record-even if another is equally or more so-must govern. Id., at 574, 105 S.Ct. 1504.
B
This case concerns North Carolina's most recent redrawing of two congressional districts, both of which have long included substantial populations of black voters. In its current incarnation, District 1 is anchored in the northeastern part of the State, with appendages stretching both south and west (the latter into Durham). District 12 begins in the south-central part of the State (where it takes in a large part of Charlotte) and then travels northeast, zig-zagging much of the way to the State's northern border. (Maps showing the districts are included in an appendix to this opinion.) Both have quite the history before this Court.
We first encountered the two districts, in their 1992 versions, in Shaw v. Reno, 509 U.S. 630, 113 S.Ct. 2816, 125 L.Ed.2d 511 (1993). There, we held that voters stated an equal protection claim by alleging that Districts 1 and 12 were unwarranted racial gerrymanders. See id., at 642, 649, 113 S.Ct. 2816. After a remand to the District Court, the case arrived back at our door. See Shaw II, 517 U.S. 899, 116 S.Ct. 1894, 135 L.Ed.2d 207. That time, we dismissed the challenge to District 1 for lack of standing, but struck down District 12. The design of that "serpentine" district, we held, was nothing if not race-centric, and could not be justified as a reasonable attempt to comply with the VRA. Id., at 906, 116 S.Ct. 1894 ; see id., at 911-918, 116 S.Ct. 1894.
The next year, the State responded with a new districting plan, including a new District 12-and residents of that district brought another lawsuit alleging an impermissible racial gerrymander. A District Court sustained the claim twice, but both times this Court reversed. See Hunt v. Cromartie, 526 U.S. 541, 119 S.Ct. 1545, 143 L.Ed.2d 731 (1999) (Cromartie I ); Cromartie II, 532 U.S. 234, 121 S.Ct. 1452, 149 L.Ed.2d 430. Racial considerations, we held, did not predominate in designing the revised District 12. Rather, that district was the result of a political gerrymander-an effort to engineer, mostly "without regard to race," a safe Democratic seat. Id., at 245, 121 S.Ct. 1452.
The State redrew its congressional districts again in 2001, to account for population changes revealed in the prior year's census. Under the 2001 map, which went unchallenged in court, neither District 1 nor District 12 had a black voting-age population (called a "BVAP") that was a majority of the whole: The former had a BVAP of around 48%, the latter a BVAP of around 43%. See App. 312, 503. Nonetheless, in five successive general elections conducted in those reconfigured districts, all the candidates preferred by most African-American voters won their contests-and by some handy margins. In District 1, black voters' candidates of choice garnered as much as 70% of the total vote, and never less than 59%. See 5 Record 636, 638, 641, 645, 647 (Pls. Exh. 112). And in District 12, those candidates won with 72% of the vote at the high end and 64% at the low. See id., at 637, 640, 643, 646, 650.
Another census, in 2010, necessitated yet another congressional map-(finally) the one at issue in this case. State Senator Robert Rucho and State Representative David Lewis, both Republicans, chaired the two committees jointly responsible for preparing the revamped plan. They hired Dr. Thomas Hofeller, a veteran political mapmaker, to assist them in redrawing district lines. Several hearings, drafts, and revisions later, both chambers of the State's General Assembly adopted the scheme the three men proposed.
The new map (among other things) significantly altered both District 1 and District 12. The 2010 census had revealed District 1 to be substantially underpopulated: To comply with the Constitution's one-person-one-vote principle, the State needed to place almost 100,000 new people within the district's boundaries. See App. 2690; Evenwel v. Abbott, 578 U.S. ----, ----, 136 S.Ct. 1120, 1124, 194 L.Ed.2d 291 (2016) (explaining that "[s]tates must draw congressional districts with populations as close to perfect equality as possible"). Rucho, Lewis, and Hofeller chose to take most of those people from heavily black areas of Durham, requiring a finger-like extension of the district's western line. See Appendix, infra. With that addition, District 1's BVAP rose from 48.6% to 52.7%. See App. 312-313. District 12, for its part, had no need for significant total-population changes: It was overpopulated by fewer than 3,000 people out of over 730,000. See id., at 1150. Still, Rucho, Lewis, and Hofeller decided to reconfigure the district, further narrowing its already snakelike body while adding areas at either end-most relevantly here, in Guilford County. See Appendix, infra ; App. 1164. Those changes appreciably shifted the racial composition of District 12: As the district gained some 35,000 African-Americans of voting age and lost some 50,000 whites of that age, its BVAP increased from 43.8% to 50.7%. See 2 Record 349 (Fourth Affidavit of Dan Frey, Exh. 5); id., at 416 (Exh. 11).
Registered voters in the two districts (David Harris and Christine Bowser, here called "the plaintiffs") brought this suit against North Carolina officials (collectively, "the State" or "North Carolina"), complaining of impermissible racial gerrymanders. After a bench trial, a three-judge District Court held both districts unconstitutional. All the judges agreed that racial considerations predominated in the design of District 1. See Harris v. McCrory, 159 F.Supp.3d 600, 611 (M.D.N.C.2016). And in then applying strict scrutiny, all rejected the State's argument that it had a "strong basis" for thinking that the VRA compelled such a race-based drawing of District 1's lines. Id., at 623. As for District 12, a majority of the panel held that "race predominated" over all other factors, including partisanship. Id., at 622. And the court explained that the State had failed to put forward any reason, compelling or otherwise, for its attention to race in designing that district. See ibid. Judge Osteen dissented from the conclusion that race, rather than politics, drove District 12's lines-yet still characterized the majority's view as "[e]minently reasonable." Id., at 640.
The State filed a notice of appeal, and we noted probable jurisdiction. McCrory v. Harris, 579 U.S. ----, 136 S.Ct. 2512, 195 L.Ed.2d 838 (2016).
II
We address at the outset North Carolina's contention that a victory it won in a very similar state-court lawsuit should dictate (or at least influence) our disposition of this case. As the State explains, the North Carolina NAACP and several other civil rights groups challenged Districts 1 and 12 in state court immediately after their enactment, charging that they were unlawful racial gerrymanders. See Brief for Appellants 19-20. By the time the plaintiffs before us filed this action, the state trial court, in Dickson v. Rucho, had rejected those claims-finding that in District 1 the VRA justified the General Assembly's use of race and that in District 12 race was not a factor at all. See App. 1969. The North Carolina Supreme Court then affirmed that decision by a 4-3 vote, applying the state-court equivalent of clear error review. See Dickson v. Rucho, 368 N.C. 481, 500, 781 S.E.2d 404, 419 (2015), modified on denial of reh'g, 368 N.C. 673, 789 S.E.2d 436 (2016), cert. pending, No. 16-24. In this Court, North Carolina makes two related arguments based on the Dickson litigation: first, that the state trial court's judgment should have barred this case altogether, under familiar principles of claim and issue preclusion; and second, that the state court's conclusions should cause us to conduct a "searching review" of the decision below, rather than deferring (as usual) to its factual findings. Reply Brief 6.
The State's preclusion theory rests on an assertion about how the plaintiffs in the two cases are affiliated. As the State acknowledges, one person's lawsuit generally does not bar another's, no matter how similar they are in substance. See Taylor v. Sturgell, 553 U.S. 880, 892-893, 128 S.Ct. 2161, 171 L.Ed.2d 155 (2008) (noting the "deep-rooted historic tradition that everyone should have his own day in court"). But when plaintiffs in two cases have a special relationship, a judgment against one can indeed bind both. See id., at 893-895, 128 S.Ct. 2161 (describing six categories of qualifying relationships). The State contends that Harris and Bowser, the plaintiffs here, are members of organizations that were plaintiffs in Dickson. And according to North Carolina, that connection prevents the pair from raising anew the questions that the state court previously resolved against those groups. See Brief for Appellants 20-21.
But North Carolina never satisfied the District Court that the alleged affiliation really existed. When the State argued that its preclusion theory entitled it to summary judgment, Harris and Bowser responded that they were not members of any of the organizations that had brought the Dickson suit. See 3 Record 1577-1582 (Defs. Motion for Summary Judgment); 4 Record 101-106 (Pls. Opposition to Motion for Summary Judgment). The parties' dueling contentions turned on intricate issues about those groups' membership policies (e.g., could Harris's payment of dues to the national NAACP, or Bowser's financial contribution to the Mecklenburg County NAACP, have made either a member of the state branch?). Because of those unresolved "factual disputes," the District Court denied North Carolina's motion for summary judgment. 4 Record 238 (July 29, 2014 Order). And nothing in the subsequent trial supported the State's assertion about Harris's and Bowser's organizational ties: Indeed, the State chose not to present any further evidence relating to the membership issue. Based on the resulting record, the District Court summarily rejected the State's claim that Harris and Bowser were something other than independent plaintiffs. See 159 F.Supp.3d, at 609.
That conclusion defeats North Carolina's attempt to argue for claim or issue preclusion here. We have no basis for assessing the factual assertions underlying the State's argument any differently than the District Court did. Nothing in the State's evidence clearly rebuts Harris's and Bowser's testimony that they never joined any of the Dickson groups. We need not decide whether the alleged memberships would have supported preclusion if they had been proved. It is enough that the District Court reasonably thought they had not.
The State's back-up argument about our standard of review also falls short. The rule that we review a trial court's factual findings for clear error contains no exception for findings that diverge from those made in another court. See Fed. Rule Civ. Proc. 52(a)(6) ("Findings of fact... must not be set aside unless clearly erroneous"); see also Hernandez v. New York, 500 U.S. 352, 369, 111 S.Ct. 1859, 114 L.Ed.2d 395 (1991) (plurality opinion) (applying the same standard to a state court's findings). Whatever findings are under review receive the benefit of deference, without regard to whether a court in a separate suit has seen the matter differently. So here, we must ask not which court considering Districts 1 and 12 had the better view of the facts, but simply whether the court below's view is clearly wrong. That does not mean the state court's decision is wholly irrelevant: It is common sense that, all else equal, a finding is more likely to be plainly wrong if some judges disagree with it. Cf. Glossip v. Gross, 576 U.S. ----, ----, 135 S.Ct. 2726, 2740, 192 L.Ed.2d 761 (2015) (noting that we are even less likely to disturb a factual determination when "multiple trial courts have reached the same finding"). But the very premise of clear error review is that there are often "two permissible"-because two "plausible"-"views of the evidence." Anderson, 470 U.S., at 574, 105 S.Ct. 1504 ; see supra, at 1465. Even assuming the state court's findings capture one such view, the District Court's assessment may yet represent another. And the permissibility of the District Court's account is the only question before us.
III
With that out of the way, we turn to the merits of this case, beginning (appropriately enough) with District 1. As noted above, the court below found that race furnished the predominant rationale for that district's redesign. See supra, at 1466 - 1467. And it held that the State's interest in complying with the VRA could not justify that consideration of race. See supra, at 1466 - 1467. We uphold both conclusions.
A
Uncontested evidence in the record shows that the State's mapmakers, in considering District 1, purposefully established a racial target: African-Americans should make up no less than a majority of the voting-age population. See 159 F.Supp.3d, at 611-614. Senator Rucho and Representative Lewis were not coy in expressing that goal. They repeatedly told their colleagues that District 1 had to be majority-minority, so as to comply with the VRA. During a Senate debate, for example, Rucho explained that District 1 "must include a sufficient number of African-Americans" to make it "a majority black district." App. 689-690. Similarly, Lewis informed the House and Senate redistricting committees that the district must have "a majority black voting age population." Id., at 606. And that objective was communicated in no uncertain terms to the legislators' consultant. Dr. Hofeller testified multiple times at trial that Rucho and Lewis instructed him "to draw [District 1] with a [BVAP] in excess of 50 percent." 159 F.Supp.3d, at 613 ; see, e.g.,ibid. ("Once again, my instructions [were] that the district had to be drawn at above 50 percent").
Hofeller followed those directions to the letter, such that the 50%-plus racial target "had a direct and significant impact" on District 1's configuration. Alabama, 575 U.S., at ----, 135 S.Ct., at 1271. In particular, Hofeller moved the district's borders to encompass the heavily black parts of Durham (and only those parts), thus taking in tens of thousands of additional African-American voters. That change and similar ones, made (in his words) to ensure that the district's racial composition would "add[ ] up correctly," deviated from the districting practices he otherwise would have followed. App. 2802. Hofeller candidly admitted that point: For example, he testified, he sometimes could not respect county or precinct lines as he wished because "the more important thing" was to create a majority-minority district. Id., at 2807; see id., at 2809. The result is a district with stark racial borders: Within the same counties, the portions that fall inside District 1 have black populations two to three times larger than the portions placed in neighboring districts. See Brief for United States as Amicus Curiae 19; cf. Alabama, 575 U.S., at ---- - ----, 135 S.Ct., at 1271-1272 (relying on similar evidence to find racial predominance).
Faced with this body of evidence-showing an announced racial target that subordinated other districting criteria and produced boundaries amplifying divisions between blacks and whites-the District Court did not clearly err in finding that race predominated in drawing District 1. Indeed, as all three judges recognized, the court could hardly have concluded anything but. See 159 F.Supp.3d, at 611 (calling District 1 a "textbook example" of race-based districting).
B
The more substantial question is whether District 1 can survive the strict scrutiny applied to racial gerrymanders. As noted earlier, we have long assumed that complying with the VRA is a compelling interest. See supra, at 1463 - 1464. And we have held that race-based districting is narrowly tailored to that objective if a State had "good reasons" for thinking that the Act demanded such steps. See supra, at 1464. North Carolina argues that District 1 passes muster under that standard: The General Assembly (so says the State) had "good reasons to believe it needed to draw [District 1] as a majority-minority district to avoid Section 2 liability" for vote dilution. Brief for Appellants 52. We now turn to that defense.
This Court identified, in Thornburg v. Gingles, three threshold conditions for proving vote dilution under § 2 of the VRA. See 478 U.S., at 50-51, 106 S.Ct. 2752. First, a "minority group" must be "sufficiently large and geographically compact to constitute a majority" in some reasonably configured legislative district. Id., at 50, 106 S.Ct. 2752. Second, the minority group must be "politically cohesive." Id., at 51, 106 S.Ct. 2752. And third, a district's white majority must "vote [ ] sufficiently as a bloc" to usually "defeat the minority's preferred candidate." Ibid. Those three showings, we have explained, are needed to establish that "the minority [group] has the potential to elect a representative of its own choice" in a possible district, but that racially polarized voting prevents it from doing so in the district as actually drawn because it is "submerg[ed] in a larger white voting population." Growe v. Emison, 507 U.S. 25, 40, 113 S.Ct. 1075, 122 L.Ed.2d 388 (1993). If a State has good reason to think that all the "Gingles preconditions" are met, then so too it has good reason to believe that § 2 requires drawing a majority-minority district. See Bush v. Vera, 517 U.S. 952, 978, 116 S.Ct. 1941, 135 L.Ed.2d 248 (1996) (plurality opinion). But if not, then not.
Here, electoral history provided no evidence that a § 2 plaintiff could demonstrate the third Gingles prerequisite-effective white bloc-voting. For most of the twenty years prior to the new plan's adoption, African-Americans had made up less than a majority of District 1's voters; the district's BVAP usually hovered between 46% and 48%. See 159 F.Supp.3d, at 606 ; App. 312. Yet throughout those two decades, as the District Court noted, District 1 was "an extraordinarily safe district for African-American preferred candidates." 159 F.Supp.3d, at 626. In the closest election during that period, African-Americans' candidate of choice received 59% of the total vote; in other years, the share of the vote garnered by those candidates rose to as much as 70%. See supra, at 1465 - 1466. Those victories (indeed, landslides) occurred because the district's white population did not "vote [ ] sufficiently as a bloc" to thwart black voters' preference, Gingles, 478 U.S., at 51, 106 S.Ct. 2752 ; rather, a meaningful number of white voters joined a politically cohesive black community to elect that group's favored candidate. In the lingo of voting law, District 1 functioned, election year in and election year out, as a "crossover" district, in which members of the majority help a "large enough" minority to elect its candidate of choice. Bartlett v. Strickland, 556 U.S. 1, 13, 129 S.Ct. 1231, 173 L.Ed.2d 173 (2009) (plurality opinion). When voters act in that way, "[i]t is difficult to see how the majority-bloc-voting requirement could be met"-and hence how § 2 liability could be established. Id., at 16, 129 S.Ct. 1231. So experience gave the State no reason to think that the VRA required it to ramp up District 1's BVAP.
The State counters that, in this context, past performance is no guarantee of future results. See Brief for Appellants 57-58; Reply Brief 19-20. Recall here that the State had to redraw its whole congressional map following the 2010 census. See supra, at 1465 - 1466. And in particular, the State had to add nearly 100,000 new people to District 1 to meet the one-person-one-vote standard. See supra, at 1466. That meant about 13% of the voters in the new district would never have voted there before. See App. 2690; Reply Brief 20. So, North Carolina contends, the question facing the state mapmakers was not whether the then-existing District 1 violated § 2. Rather, the question was whether the future District 1 would do so if drawn without regard to race. And that issue, the State claims, could not be resolved by "focusing myopically on past elections." Id., at 19.
But that reasoning, taken alone, cannot justify North Carolina's race-based redesign of District 1. True enough, a legislature undertaking a redistricting must assess whether the new districts it contemplates (not the old ones it sheds) conform to the VRA's requirements. And true too, an inescapable influx of additional voters into a district may suggest the possibility that its former track record of compliance can continue only if the legislature intentionally adjusts its racial composition. Still, North Carolina too far downplays the significance of a longtime pattern of white crossover voting in the area that would form the core of the redrawn District 1. See Gingles, 478 U.S., at 57, 106 S.Ct. 2752 (noting that longtime voting patterns are highly probative of racial polarization). And even more important, North Carolina can point to no meaningful legislative inquiry into what it now rightly identifies as the key issue: whether a new, enlarged District 1, created without a focus on race but however else the State would choose, could lead to § 2 liability. The prospect of a significant population increase in a district only raises-it does not answer-the question whether § 2 requires deliberate measures to augment the district's BVAP. (Indeed, such population growth could cut in either direction, depending on who comes into the district.) To have a strong basis in evidence to conclude that § 2 demands such race-based steps, the State must carefully evaluate whether a plaintiff could establish the Gingles preconditions-including effective white bloc-voting-in a new district created without those measures. We see nothing in the legislative record that fits that description.
And that absence is no accident: Rucho and Lewis proceeded under a wholly different theory-arising not from Gingles but from Bartlett v. Strickland -of what § 2 demanded in drawing District 1. Strickland involved a geographic area in which African-Americans could not form a majority of a reasonably compact district. See 556 U.S., at 8, 129 S.Ct. 1231 (plurality opinion). The African-American community, however, was sizable enough to enable the formation of a crossover district, in which a substantial bloc of black voters, if receiving help from some white ones, could elect the candidates of their choice. See supra, at 1470 - 1471. A plurality of this Court, invoking the first Gingles precondition, held that § 2 did not require creating that district: When a minority group is not sufficiently large to make up a majority in a reasonably shaped district, § 2 simply does not apply. See 556 U.S., at 18-20, 129 S.Ct. 1231. Over and over in the legislative record, Rucho and Lewis cited Strickland as mandating a 50%-plus BVAP in District 1. See App. 355-356, 363-364, 472-474, 609-610, 619, 1044. They apparently reasoned that if, as Strickland held, § 2 does not require crossover districts (for groups insufficiently large under Gingles ), then § 2 also cannot be satisfied by crossover districts (for groups in fact meeting Gingles'size condition). In effect, they concluded, whenever a legislature can draw a majority-minority district, it must do so-even if a crossover district would also allow the minority group to elect its favored candidates. See 1 Tr. 21-22 (counsel's explanation that "the [S]tate interpreted" Strickland to say that, in order to protect African-Americans' electoral strength and thus avoid § 2 liability, the BVAP in District 1 "need [ed] to be above 50 percent").
That idea, though, is at war with our § 2 jurisprudence-Strickland included. Under the State's view, the third Gingles condition is no condition at all, because even in the absence of effective white bloc-voting, a § 2 claim could succeed in a district (like the old District 1) with an under-50% BVAP. But this Court has made clear that unless each of the three Gingles prerequisites is established, "there neither has been a wrong nor can be a remedy." Growe, 507 U.S., at 41, 113 S.Ct. 1075. And Strickland, far from supporting North Carolina's view, underscored the necessity of demonstrating effective white bloc-voting to prevail in a § 2 vote-dilution suit. The plurality explained that "[i]n areas with substantial crossover voting," § 2 plaintiffs would not "be able to establish the third Gingles precondition" and so "majority-minority districts would not be required." 556 U.S., at 24, 129 S.Ct. 1231 ; see also ibid. (noting that States can "defend against alleged § 2 violations by pointing to crossover voting patterns and to effective crossover districts"). Thus, North Carolina's belief that it was compelled to redraw District 1 (a successful crossover district) as a majority-minority district rested not on a "strong basis in evidence," but instead on a pure error of law. Alabama, 575 U.S., at ----, 135 S.Ct., at 1274.
In sum: Although States enjoy leeway to take race-based actions reasonably judged necessary under a proper interpretation of the VRA, that latitude cannot rescue District 1. We by no means "insist that a state legislature, when redistricting, determine precisely what percent minority population [§ 2 of the VRA] demands." Ibid. But neither will we approve a racial gerrymander whose necessity is supported by no evidence and whose raison d'être is a legal mistake. Accordingly, we uphold the District Court's conclusion that North Carolina's use of race as the predominant factor in designing District 1 does not withstand strict scrutiny.
IV
We now look west to District 12, making its fifth(!) appearance before this Court. This time, the district's legality turns, and turns solely, on which of two possible reasons predominantly explains its most recent reconfiguration. The plaintiffs contended at trial that the General Assembly chose voters for District 12, as for District 1, because of their race; more particularly, they urged that the Assembly intentionally increased District 12's BVAP in the name of ensuring preclearance under the VRA's § 5. But North Carolina declined to mount any defense (similar to the one we have just considered for District 1) that § 5's requirements in fact justified race-based changes to District 12-perhaps because § 5 could not reasonably be understood to have done so, see n. 10, infra. Instead, the State altogether denied that racial considerations accounted for (or, indeed, played the slightest
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | B | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Mr. Chief Justice Warren
delivered the opinion of the Court.
The principal question presented in this case is whether in an action under, the Suits in Admiralty Act, 41 Stat. 525, as amended, 46 U. S. C. § 741 et seq., the United States may defend by pleading against the libelant a claim arising out of an unrelated transaction.
In 1953, the S. S. Steelworker>. a ship belonging to the respondent, Isthmian Steamship Company (“Isthmian”), carried certain cargo for the United States. Isthmian submitted a bill of $116,511.44 for this service. The United States paid $1,307.68 but withheld the remaining $115,203.76. This sum was said to have been applied to an alleged indebtedness of Isthmian to the United States which was claimed to have arisen in 1946,. when the United States, acting through the War Shipping Administration, chartered out to Isthmian eight vessels on a bare boat basis. Some disagreement arose over the amount of charter hire due and the United States asserted that Isthmian owed $115,203.76 for additional charter hire for the period from May 1, 1946, to July 31, 1948. The S. S. Steelworker was not one of the boats involved in the 1946 transaction.
Isthmian filed a libel in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York alleging that the United States owed Isthmian $116,511.44 for cargo transported on the S. S. Steelworker; that Isthmian had presented a bill for that amount; and that the United States had failed and refused to pay $115,203.76 which was due and payable. Isthmian made no reference whatsoever to the parties’ dispute over additional charter hire for the 1946-1948 period.
The United States filed an answer admitting that Isthmian had submitted a claim for $116,511.44; denying that the United States had not paid $115,203.76; and further alleging that this sum had been “paid” by application against an indebtedness of Isthmian to the United States for additional charter hire. Shortly before this answer. was filed, the United States filed a cross-libel against Isthmian seeking recovery of the additional charter hire of $115,203.76. After filing the answer, the United States moved to consolidate its cross-libel with the original libel on the ground that the additional charter-hire claim was dispositive of- both libels.
Isthmian excepted to the answer of the United States on the ground that the defensive matter pleaded therein did not arise “out of the same contract, cause of action or transaction for which the libel was filed.” Isthmian moved that the excepted matter be stricken and asked “-judgment on the pleadings.”
The District Court held that the answer setting forth the withholding and application of the $115,203.76 did not set forth a defense of payment but rather was a claim of setoff arising from a separate transaction. The District Court then held that setoffs arising from distinct transactions could not be asserted in admiralty and sustained Isthmian’s exceptions. Since there was no longer any common issue, consolidation of the libel and cross-libel was denied and Isthmian was awarded a decree pro confesso. 134 F. Supp. 854. The Government’s cross-libel is still pending.
The District Court’s final decree awarded interest at 4% per annum on $115,203.76 from the date of the filing of the libel to the day of decree. The District Court further ordered that interest at 4% should run from the date of the decree until it was paid. This second 4% was to be computed on a sum which included the basic recovery, the costs awarded and the interest which had run from the date of the libel to the date of the decree.
On appeal, the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit affirmed. 255 F. 2d 816. The Court of Appeals relied on the authority of a case decided at the same time as the instant case, Grace Line, Inc., v. United States, 255 F. 2d 810, wherein it was held that withholding and applying did not constitute “payment,” but, rather, setoff. Since the withholding and applying in the instant case did not. arise out of the same transaction on which the libel was based, the Court of Appeals held it was not cognizable in admiralty. The award of interest was also upheld. We granted certiorari principally to consider the question posed at the outset of this opinion. 358 U. S. 813.
The Government presses a threshold argument which, if accepted, would obviate the need to reach the question posed at the outset of this opinion. While admitting the correctness of Isthmian’s bill, the Government claims that the bill has been “paid” and argues that the true nature of the dispute between the parties concerns charter hire despite the fact that Isthmian’s libel does not mention the charter-hire dispute. We agree with the courts below that the Government’s defense is not properly one of payment.
The Government relies upon the Act of March 3, 1817, 3 Stat. 366, which now appears in similar form as Section 305 of the Budget and Accounting Act of ,1921,42 Stat. 24, 31 U. S» C. § 71. This section provides that the General Accounting Office shall settle and adjust all claims and demands by or against the Government. This is said to mean that when the General Accounting Office administratively sets one claim off against, another that is the same as payment. But recognizing the Government’s long-standing power to set off is far different from finding that the Government’s setoff is “payment” which enables the-Government to plead in admiralty foreign and unrelated transactions. See United States v. Munsey Trust Co., 332 U. S. 234, 239; McKnight v. United States, 13 Ct. Cl. 292, 306, affirmed, 98 U. S. 179; Climatic Rainwear Co. v. United States, 115 Ct. Cl. 520, 88 F. Supp. 415, 418. In other situations, the claim of withholding ánd applying has traditionally been treated as setoff. Virginia-Carolina Chemical Co. v. Kirven, 215 U. S. 252, 257-258; Merchants Heat & Light Co. v. Clow & Sons, 204 U. S. 286, 289-290 (a recoupment case); Scammon v. Kimball, 92 U. S. 362, 367; United States v. Eckford, 6 Wall. 484. See also 3 Williston, Contracts (rev. ed. 1936), § 887E. In this context, “payment” connotes tender by the debtor with the intention to satisfy the debt cóupled with its acceptance as satisfaction by the creditor. See Luckenbach v. McCahan Sugar Co., 248 U. S. 139, 149; Bronson v. Rodes, 7 Wall. 229, 250; Sheehy v. Mandeville, 6 Cranch 253, 264; United States v. J. A. J. Const. Co., 137 F. 2d 584, 586.
To, consider withholding and applying the equivalent of “payment” would have strange consequences. In Grace Line, Inc., v. United States, supra, for example, the Government had a claim against the carrier which- had become time-barred. The carrier performed some unrelated services for the United States and then brought suit to colléct. The Government claimed that it had “paid” by withholding the money and applying it to the time-barred claim. Thus, the Government attempted to use its unique concept of “payment” to revive a totally unrelated time-barred claim.
We can understand the Government’s desire to litigate all of its disputes with Isthmian in one lawsuit, but that is no warrant for abandoning the traditional meaning of the defense of payment.
We therefore reach the question posed at the outset. Section 3 of the Suits in Admiralty Act, 46 U. S. C. § 743, provides that suits against the United States under the Act shall “proceed and shall be heard and determined according' to the principles of law and to the rules of practice obtaining in like cases between private parties.” With this, express command before us, we must ascertain whether admiralty practice permits private parties to defend by setting up claims arising out.of separate and unrelated transactions between the parties.
Traditionally, admiralty has narrowly circumscribed the filing of unrelated cross-libels and defenses. The first American case considering this problem appears to be Willard v. Dorr, 29 Fed. Cas. No. 17,680 (1823), in which Justice Story sitting as Circuit Justice refused to permit the attempted setoff. Since that early holding various reasons have been offered for refusal to entertain unrelated defenses: protection of the seaman’s wage claims; preservation of relatively simple proceedings not affecting third-party, rights; and the recognition that allowing cross-libels might deprive litigants of jury trials to which they would otherwise be entitled if the cross-libel were pressed in an independent proceeding. But for whatever reason, the doctrine gained general acceptance.
This consistent pattern of the cases in admiralty on this point .was reflected in the promulgation of Rule 54 of the Admiralty Rules by this Court at December Term, 1S68, 7 Wall, v:
“Whenever a cross-libel is filed upon any counter claim arising out of the same cause of action for which the original libel was filed, the respondents in the cross-libel shall give security in the usual amount and form, to respond in damages as claimed in said cross-libel, unless the court on cause shown, shall otherwise direct; and all proceedings upon the original libel shall be stayed until such security shall be given.”
That rule has remained in the Admiralty Rules ever since with only slight change and now appears as Rule 50 in the following- form • which still reflects- the underlying settled state of the law:
“Whenever a cross-libel is filed upon any counterclaim arising out of the same contract or cause of action for which the original libel was filed, and the respondent or claimant in the original suit shall have given security to respond in damages, the respondent in the cross-libel shall give security in the usual amount and form to respond in damages to the claims set forth in said cross-libel, unless the court for cause shown, shall otherwise direct; and all proceedings on the original libel shall be stayed until such security be given unless the court otherwise directs.”
But the Government urges the Court in this particular case to apply the more flexible procedure utilized in civil cases in federal courts. The Government contends that none of the reasons for limited cross-libels suggested above has any application to the particular facts of this case and that, moreover, the rule has become an anachronism and is out of line with the practice in specific courts and with the general rules of practice for federal courts. But it should be observed that where the procedure has been changed in this regard it has been the result of legislation or rulemaking and not the decisional process.
The law on this point in admiralty has been settled beyond doubt in the lower courts for many years and an Admiralty Rule of this. Court recognizes this case law. We think that if the law is to change it should be by rulemaking or legislation and not by decisión.
Whether the setoff and cross-libel procedure now operative in admiralty is anachronistic, is not a matter best considered by this Court in a litigation without the benefits which normally accompany intelligent rulemaking— including hearings and opportunities to submit data. In addition to this Court’s responsibility for rulemaking, the Judicial Conference of the United States has been given certain responsibilities in this area by the Act of July 11, 1958, 72 Stat. 356:
“The Conference shall also carry on a continuous study of the operation and effect of the general rules of practice and procedure now or hereafter in use as prescribed by the Supreme Court for the other courts of the United States pursuant to law. Such changes in and additions to those rules as the Conference may deem desirable to promote simplicity in procedure, fairness in administration, the just determination of litigation, and the elimination of unjustifiable expense and delay shall be recommended by the Conference from time to time to the Supreme Court for its consideration and adoption, modification or rejection, in accordance with law.
The result in this case does not cause irreparable loss to the United States nor indeed require any expenditure of government funds prior to the complete disposition of all claims. The Government is authorized to withhold payment of Isthmian's judgment in this case to the extent the Government has,, claims outstanding against Isthmian. The only requirement is that the Government press the libel now pending in the District Court. In other situations where no suit is pending, the United States may have to. commence a separate suit rather than set up an unrelated defense in'the original suit. This may be an inconvenience to the United States but it must be remembered that Congress has expressly declared that when sued under the Suits in Admiralty. Act the United States is to have its procedural rights determined and governed in the same manner as private parties.
The Government also complains that the District Court improperly awarded compound interest. This resulted from the decree’s direction that interest be computed at 4% from the filing of the libel until the entry of the decree, and that interest run at 4% from decree until satisfaction, with this latter interest to be computed upon the entire decree including the interest up to decree.
Section 3 of the Suits in Admiralty Act, 46 U. S. C. § 743, provides:
“A decree against the United States . . . may include costs of suit, and when the decree is for a money judgment, interest at the raRTof 4 per centum per annum until satisfied, or at any higher rate which shall be stipulated in any contract upon which such decree shall be based. Interest shall run as ordered by the court. . . .”
Congress’ demonstrated concern with the problem of interest under the Suits in Admiralty Act indicates that it intended to cover these awards affirmatively and not have them controlled by the general command that the suit “shall proceed and shall be heard and determined according to the principles of law” applicable to private parties. Section 3 provides for but one award of interest in the decree and that award is limited to 4% until satisfaction. We find nothing in the rather ambiguous statute authorizing the accumulation of interest up to the decree and then a second independent award of interest which operates upon the first interest. Compound interest is not presumed to run against the United States. See Cherokee Nation v. United States, 270 U. S. 476, 490.
The judgment is affirmed as to entry of the decree pro confesso. The award of compound interest was improper and the judgment is reversed and remanded for proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
Isthmian first attempted to recover the unpaid portion of the freight bill by a suit in the Court of Claims. The United States moved to dismiss that suit because Isthmian’s claim was said .to have been maritime in nature, thus giving the District Courts exclusive jurisdiction under the Suits in Admiralty Act. 46.U. S. C. § 741 et seq. The Court of Claims dismissed Isthmian’s suit. Isthmian Steamship Co. v. United States, 131 Ct. Cl. 472, 130 F. Supp. 336. Before that dismissal, Isthmian filed the instant proceeding.
See generally, as to the nature of setoff, Loyd, The Development of Set-Off, 64 U. of Pa. L. Rev. 541 (1916). As to the distinctions between setoff and recoupment see Shipman, Common Law Pleading (3d ed. 1923), §§209, 210; Waterman on Set-Off, Recoupment, and Counter Claim (2d ed. 1872), §464.
The Government cites several cases, e. g. United States v. New York, N. H. & H. R. Co.; 355 U. S. 253; Alcoa Steamship Co. v. United States, 338 U. S. 421, and Wabash R. Co. v. United States, 59 Ct. Cl. 322, affirmed sub.nom. United States v. St. Louis, S. F. & T. R. Co., 270 U. S. 1, in which the courts adjudicated disputes which were not the bases of the original complaints. None of the cases cited was brought under the Suits in Admiralty Act. The first two suits invoked the Tucker Act, now 28 U. S. C. § 1346, while Wabash was brought in the Court of Claims. The controlling statutes contain express authority for entertaining unrelated setoffs. See n. 11, infra. On this point, these cases indicate no more than that when the pleadings properly in the case, takerf together, indicate there are disputes as to issues not raised in the complaint, those issues will be determined.
See, e. g., The Hudson, 12 Fed. Cas. No. 6,831; Willard v. Dorr, 29 Fed. Cas. No. 17,680; Shilman v. United States, 164 F. 2d 649. See also Isbrandtsen Co. v. Johnson, 343 U. S. 779.
See, e. g., Howard v. 9,889 Bags of Malt, 255 F. 917; The Ping-On v. Blethen, 11 F. 607, 611-612. In British Transport Comm’n v. United States, 354 U. S. 129, the rights of the various parties arose from the same collision. Cf. Powell v. United States, 300 U. S. 276, 290.
See, e. g., The Yankee; 37 F. Supp. 512; Bains v. The James and Catherine, 2 Fed. Cas. No. 756.
The following cases arose in the Second Circuit: The Hudson, 12 Fed. Cas. No. 6,831; Emery Co. v. Tweedie Trading Co., 143 F. 144; 146; The Oceano, 148 F. 131, 132; United Transportation & Lighterage Co. v. New York & B. T. Line, 185 F. 386; The Jane Palmer, 270 F. 609; The Yankee, 37 F. Supp. 512; Cioffi v. New Zealand Shipping Co., 73 F. Supp. 1015, 1016; Ozanic v. United States, 188 F. 2d 228, 231.
Cases arising in other Circuits include: Willard v. Dorr, 29 Fed. Cas. No. 17,680; Bains v. The James and Catherine, 2 Fed. Cas. No. 756; The Two Brothers, 4 F. 158; The Zouave, 29 F. 296; Anderson v. Pacific Coast Co., 99 F. 109; Howard v. 9,889 Bags of Malt, 255 F. 917; Monongahela & Ohio Dredging Co. v. Rodgers Sand Co., 296 F. 916; Susquehanna S. S. Co. v. A. O. Anderson & Co., 6 F. 2d 858, 859; Hildebrand v. Geneva Mill Co., 32 F. 2d 343, 347.
Present authority for this Court’s promulgation, of Admiralty Rules is found in 28 U. S. C. § 2073. Original authority is found in the Act of August 23, 1842, 5 Stat. 516, 518.
It is' interesting to note that the local rules of several of the District Courts have recognized the same principle. See, e. g., Rule 16 of the Admiralty Rules of the United States District Courts for the Southern and Eastern Districts of New York.
See Fed. Rules Civ. Proc., 13 (b):
“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.”
Rule 13 (c):
“A counterclaim may or may not diminish or defeat the recovery sought by the opposing party. It may claim relief exceeding in amount or different in kind from that sought in the pleading of the opposing party.” See generally, 3 Moore, Federal Practice (2d ed.), § 13.01 et seq.
The jurisdictional statute of the Court of Claims, 28 U. S. C. § 1503, provides:
“The Court of Claims shall have jurisdiction to render judgment upon any set-off or demand by the United States against any plaintiff in such court.”
Rule 17 (b) of the Court of Claims provides:
“The answer may state as a counterclaim any claim against a plaintiff not arising out of the transaction or occurrence that is the subject matter of the petition.”
See also 28 U. S. C. § 1346 (c) relating to jurisdiction of the District Courts over certain claims against the United States:
“The jurisdiction conferred by this section includes jurisdiction of any set-off, counterclaim, or other claim or demand whatever on the part of the United States against any plaintiff commencing an action-under this section.”
See n. 10, supra. But see § 3 of the Public Vessels Act, 43 f‘at. 1112, 46 U. S. C. § 783, providing that when the United States filet, libel against a private party, the private party may only set off nr counte/claim for damages “arising out of the same subject matter or cause of action. ...”
See Clark, Code Pleading (f l ed.), §§ 100, 101.
For the composition and f'l action of the Judicial Conference of the United States see 28 U. S. C. §.331, as amended by the Act of July 11, 1958, 72 Stat. 356, quoted in the text.
Act of March 3,1875, IS Stat. 481, as amended, 31 U. S. C. § 227.
■ The interest provisions of this section indicate that Isthmian may well be prejudiced if the prior law is disregarded in this case because the other reasons for the rule may not exist.- If the Government were permitted to raise its cross-libel in this case and should lose on the merits,- thén at best Isthmian might be awarded 4% interest on $115,203.76 to run from the date of the libel until satisfaction.
But if the Government’s cross-libel is not permitted in this case, Isthmian is entitled to a decree pro conjesso. The Comptroller General then will withhold payment of the judgment until the Government’s action is terminated and if the Government should lose on the merits of its claim, §227 requires the Government pay the withheld amount with interest at 6% “for the time it has been withheld from” Isthmian. The difference in rates is of no mean significance when the amount in dispute is as large as it is here.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | H | sc_issuearea |
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Mr. Justice Marshall
delivered the opinion of the Court.
These cases present the question whether conscientious objection to a particular war, rather than objection to war as such, relieves the objector from responsibilities of military training and service. Specifically, we are called upon to decide whether conscientious scruples relating to a particular conflict are within the purview of established provisions relieving conscientious objectors to war from military service. Both petitioners also invoke constitutional principles barring government interference with the exercise of religion and requiring governmental neutrality in matters of religion.
In No. 85, petitioner Gillette was convicted of wilful failure to report for induction into the armed forces. Gillette defended on the ground that he should have been ruled exempt from induction as a conscientious objector to war. In support of his unsuccessful request for classification as a conscientious objector, this petitioner had stated his willingness to participate in a war of national defense or a war sponsored by the United Nations as a peace-keeping measure, but declared his opposition to American military operations in Vietnam, which he characterized as “unjust.” Petitioner concluded that he could not in conscience enter and serve in the armed forces during the period of the Vietnam conflict. Gillette’s view of his duty to abstain from any involvement in a war seen as unjust is, in his words, “based on a humanist approach to religion,” and his personal decision concerning military service was guided by fundamental principles of conscience and deeply held views about the purpose and obligation of human existence.
The District Court determined that there was a basis in fact to support administrative denial of exemption in Gillette’s case. The denial of exemption was upheld, and Gillette’s defense to the criminal charge rejected, not because of doubt about the sincerity or the religious character of petitioner’s objection to military service, but because his objection ran to a particular war. In affirming the conviction, the Court of Appeals concluded that Gillette’s conscientious beliefs “were specifically directed against the war in Vietnam,” while the relevant exemption provision of the Military Selective Service Act of 1967, 50 U. S. C. App. §456 (j) (1964 ed., Supp. V), “requires opposition 'to participation in war in any form.’ ” 420 F. 2d 298, 299-300 (CA2 1970).
In No. 325, petitioner Negre, after induction into the Army, completion of basic training, and receipt of orders for Vietnam duty, commenced proceedings looking to his discharge as a conscientious objector to war. Application for discharge was denied, and Negre sought judicial relief by habeas corpus. The District Court found a basis in fact for the Army’s rejection of petitioner’s application for discharge. Habeas relief was denied, and the denial was affirmed on appeal, because, in the language of the Court of Appeals, Negre “objects to the war in Vietnam, not to all wars,” and therefore does “not qualify for separation [from the Army], as a conscientious objector.” 418 F. 2d 908, 909-910 (CA9 1969). Again, no question is raised as to the sincerity or the religious quality of this petitioner’s views. In line with religious counseling and numerous religious texts, Negre, a devout Catholic, believes that it is his duty as a faithful Catholic to discriminate between “just” and “unjust” wars, and to forswear participation in the latter. His assessment of the Vietnam conflict as an unjust war became clear in his mind after completion of infantry training, and Negre is now firmly of the view that any personal involvement in that war would contravene his conscience and “all that I had been taught in my religious training.”
We granted certiorari in these cases, 399 U. S. 925 (1970), in order to resolve vital issues concerning the exercise of congressional power to raise and support armies, as affected by the religious guarantees of the First Amendment. We affirm the judgments below in both cases.
I
Each petitioner claims a nonconstitutional right to be relieved of the duty of military service in virtue of his conscientious scruples. Both claims turn on the proper construction of § 6 (j) of the Military Selective Service Act of 1967, 50 U. S. C. App. § 456 (j) (1964 ed., Supp. V), which provides:
“Nothing contained in this title... shall be construed to require any person to be subject to combatant training and service in the armed forces of the United States who, by reason of religious training and belief, is conscientiously opposed to participation in war in any form.”
This language controls Gillette’s claim to exemption, which was asserted administratively prior to the point of induction. Department of Defense Directive No. 1300.6 (May 10, 1968), prescribes that post-induction claims to conscientious objector status shall be honored, if valid, by the various branches of the armed forces. Section 6 (j) of the Act, as construed by the courts, is incorporated by the various service regulations issued pursuant to the Directive, and thus the standards for measuring claims of in-service objectors, such as Negre, are the same as the statutory tests applicable in a pre-induction situation.
For purposes of determining the statutory status of conscientious objection to a particular war, the focal language of § 6 (j) is the phrase, “conscientiously opposed to participation in war in any form.” This language, on a straightforward reading, can bear but one meaning; that conscientious scruples relating to war and military service must amount to conscientious opposition to participating personally in any war and all war. See Welsh v. United States, 398 U. S. 333, 340, 342 (1970); id., at 347, 357 (concurring in result). See also United States v. Kauten, 133 F. 2d 703, 707 (CA2 1943). It matters little for present purposes whether the words, “in any form,” are read to modify “war” or “participation.” On the first reading, conscientious scruples must implicate “war in any form,” and an objection involving a particular war rather than all war would plainly not be covered by § 6 (j). On the other reading, an objector must oppose “participation in war.” It would strain good sense to read this phrase otherwise than to mean “participation in all war.” For the word “war” would still be used in an unqualified, generic sense, meaning war as such. Thus, however the statutory clause be parsed, it remains that conscientious objection must run to war in any form.
A different result cannot be supported by reliance on the materials of legislative history. Petitioners and amici point to no episode or pronouncement in the legislative history of § 6 (j), or of predecessor provisions, that tends to overthrow the obvious interpretation of the words themselves.
It is true that the legislative materials reveal a deep concern for the situation of conscientious objectors to war, who absent special status would be put to a hard choice between.contravening imperatives of religion and conscience or suffering penalties. Moreover, there are clear indications that congressional reluctance to impose such a choice stems from a recognition of the value of conscientious action to the democratic community at large, and from respect for the general proposition that fundamental principles of conscience and religious duty may sometimes override the demands of the secular state. See United States v. Seeger, 380 U. S. 163, 170-172 (1965); United States v. Macintosh, 283 U. S. 605, 631-634 (1931) (dissenting opinion). See generally Selective Service System Monograph No. 11, Conscientious Objection (1950). But there are countervailing considerations, which are also the concern of Congress, and the legislative materials simply do not support the view that Congress intended to recognize any conscientious claim whatever as a basis for relieving the claimant from the general responsibility or the various incidents of military service. The claim that is recognized by § 6 (j) is a claim of conscience running against war as such. This claim, not one involving opposition to a particular war only, was plainly the focus of congressional concern.
Finding little comfort in the wording or the legislative history of § 6 (j), petitioners rely heavily on dicta in the decisional law dealing with objectors whose conscientious scruples ran against war as such, but who indicated certain reservations of an abstract nature. It is instructive that none of the cases relied upon embraces an interpretation of § 6 (j) at variance with the construction we adopt today.
Sicurella v. United States, 348 U. S. 385 (1955), presented the only previous occasion for this Court to focus on the “participation in war in any form” language of § 6 (j). In Sicurella a Jehovah’s Witness who opposed participation in secular wars was held to possess the requisite conscientious scruples concerning war, although he was not opposed to participation in a “theocratic war” commanded by Jehovah. The Court noted that the “theocratic war” reservation was highly abstract — no such war had occurred since biblical times, and none was contemplated. Congress, on the other hand, had in mind “real shooting wars,” id., at 391, and Sicurella’s abstract reservations did not undercut his conscientious opposition to participating in such wars. Plainly, Sicurella cannot be read to support the claims of those, like petitioners, who for a variety of reasons consider one particular “real shooting war” to be unjust, and therefore oppose participation in that war.
It should be emphasized that our cases explicating the “religious training and belief” clause of § 6 (j), or cognate clauses of predecessor provisions, are not relevant to the present issue. The question here is not whether these petitioners' beliefs concerning war are “religious” in nature. Thus, petitioners’ reliance on United States v. Seeger, 380 U. S. 163, and Welsh v. United States, 398 U. S. 333, is misplaced. Nor do we decide that conscientious objection to a particular war necessarily falls within § 6 (j)’s expressly excluded class of “essentially political, sociological, or philosophical views, or a merely personal moral code.” Rather, we hold that Congress intended to exempt persons who oppose participating in all war — -“participation in war in any form”— and that persons who object solely to participation in a particular war are not within the purview of the exempting section, even though the latter objection may have such roots in a claimant’s conscience and personality that it is “religious” in character.
A further word may be said to clarify our statutory holding. Apart from abstract theological reservations, two other sorts of reservations concerning use of force have been thought by lower courts not to defeat a conscientious objector claim. Willingness to use force in self-defense, in defense of home and family, or in defense against immediate acts of aggressive violence toward other persons in the community, has not been regarded as inconsistent with a claim of conscientious objection to war as such. See, e. g., United States v. Haughton, 413 F. 2d 736, 740-742 (CA9 1969); United States v. Carroll, 398 F. 2d 651, 655 (CA3 1968). But surely willingness to use force defensively in the personal situations mentioned is quite different from willingness to fight in some wars but not in others. Cf. Sicurella v. United States, 348 U. S., at 389. Somewhat more apposite to the instant situation are cases dealing with persons who oppose participating in all wars, but cannot say with complete certainty that their present convictions and existing state of mind are unalterable. See, e. g., United States v. Owen, 415 F. 2d 383, 390 (CA8 1969). Unwillingness to deny the possibility of a change of mind, in some hypothetical future circumstances, may be no more than humble good sense, casting no doubt on the claimant’s present sincerity of belief. At any rate there is an obvious difference between present sincere objection to all war, and present opposition to participation in a particular conflict only.
II
Both petitioners argue that § 6 (j), construed to cover only objectors to all war, violates the religious clauses of the First Amendment. The First Amendment provides that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof....” Petitioners contend that Congress interferes with free exercise of religion by failing to relieve objectors to a particular war from military service, when the objection is religious or conscientious in nature. While the two religious clauses — pertaining to “free exercise” and “establishment” of religion — overlap and interact in many ways, see Abington School District v. Schempp, 374 U. S. 203, 222-223 (1963); Freund, Public Aid To Parochial Schools, 82 Harv. L. Rev. 1680, 1684 (1969), it is best to focus first on petitioners’ other contention, that §6 (j) is a law respecting the establishment of religion. For despite free exercise overtones, the gist of the constitutional complaint is that §6 (j) impermissibly discriminates among types of religious belief and affiliation.
On the assumption that these petitioners’ beliefs concerning war have roots that are “religious” in nature, within the meaning of the Amendment as well as this Court’s decisions construing § 6 (j), petitioners ask how their claims to relief from military service can be permitted to fail, while other “religious” claims are upheld by the Act. It is a fact that § 6 (j), properly construed, has this effect. Yet we cannot conclude in mechanical fashion, or at all, that the section works an establishment of religion.
An attack founded on disparate treatment of “religious” claims invokes what is perhaps the central purpose of the Establishment Clause — the purpose of ensuring governmental neutrality in matters of religion. See Epperson v. Arkansas, 393 U. S. 97, 103-104 (1968); Everson v. Board of Education, 330 U. S. 1, 15-16 (1947). Here there is no claim that exempting conscientious objectors to war amounts to an overreaching of secular purposes and an.undue involvement of government in affairs of religion. Cf. Walz v. Tax Commission, 397 U. S. 664, 675 (1970); id., at 695 (opinion of Harlan, J.). To the contrary, petitioners ask for greater “entanglement” by judicial expansion of the exemption to cover objectors to particular wars. Necessarily the constitutional value at issue is “neutrality.” And as a general matter it is surely true that the Establishment Clause prohibits government from abandoning secular purposes in order to put an imprimatur on one religion, or on religion as such, or to favor the adherents of any sect or religious organization. See Engel v. Vitale, 370 U. S. 421, 430-431 (1962); Torcaso v. Watkins, 367 U. S. 488, 495 (1961). The metaphor of a “wall” or impassable barrier between Church and State, taken too literally, may mislead constitutional analysis, see Walz v. Tax Commission, supra, at 668-669; Zorach v. Clauson, 343 U. S. 306, 312-313 (1952), but the Establishment Clause stands at least for the proposition that when government activities touch on the religious sphere, they must be secular in purpose, evenhanded in operation, and neutral in primary impact. Abington School District v. Schempp, 374 U. S., at 222; id., at 231 (Brennan, J., concurring) ; id., at 305 (Goldberg, J., concurring).
A
The critical weakness of petitioners' establishment claim arises from the fact that § 6 (j), on its face, simply does not discriminate on the basis of religious affiliation or religious belief, apart of course from beliefs concerning war. The section says that anyone who is conscientiously opposed to all war shall be relieved of military service. The specified objection must have a grounding in “religious training and belief,” but no particular sectarian affiliation or theological position is required. The Draft Act of 1917, § 4, 40 Stat. 78, extended relief only to those conscientious objectors affiliated with some “well-recognized religious sect or organization” whose principles forbade members’ participation in war, but the attempt to focus on particular sects apparently broke down in administrative practice, Welsh v. United States, 398 U. S., at 367 n. 19 (concurring in result), and the 1940 Selective Training and Service Act, § 5 (g), 54 Stat. 889, discarded all sectarian restriction. Thereafter Congress has framed the conscientious objector exemption in broad terms compatible with “its long-established policy of not picking and choosing among religious beliefs.” United States v. Seeger, 380 U. S., at 175.
Thus, there is no occasion to consider the claim that when Congress grants a benefit expressly to adherents of one religion, courts must either nullify the grant or somehow extend the benefit to cover all religions. For § 6 (j) does not single out any religious organization or religious creed for special treatment. Rather petitioners’ contention is that since Congress has recognized one sort of conscientious objection concerning war, whatever its religious basis, the Establishment Clause commands that another, different objection be carved out and protected by the courts.
Properly phrased, petitioners’ contention is that the special statutory status accorded conscientious objection to all war, but not objection to a particular war, works a de facto discrimination among religions. This happens, say petitioners, because some religious faiths themselves distinguish between personal participation in “just” and in “unjust” wars, commending the former and forbidding the latter, and therefore adherents of some religious faiths — and individuals whose personal beliefs of a religious nature include the distinction — cannot object to all wars consistently with what is regarded as the true imperative of conscience. Of course, this contention of de facto religious discrimination, rendering § 6 (j) fatally underinclusive, cannot simply be brushed aside. The question of governmental neutrality is not concluded by the observation that § 6 (j) on its face makes no discrimination between religions, for the Establishment Clause forbids subtle departures from neutrality, “religious gerrymanders,” as well as obvious abuses. Walz v. Tax Commission, 397 U. S., at 696 (opinion of Harlan, J.). See also Braunfeld v. Brown, 366 U. S. 599, 607 (1961) (opinion of Warren, C. J.); Illinois ex rel. McCollum v. Board of Education, 333 U. S. 203, 213, 232 (1948) (opinion of Frankfurter, J.). Still a claimant alleging “gerrymander” must be able to show the absence of a neutral, secular basis for the lines government has drawn. See Epperson v. Arkansas, 393 U. S., at 107-109; Board of Education v. Allen, 392 U. S. 236, 248 (1968); McGowan v. Maryland, 366 U. S. 420, 442-444 (1961); id., at 468 (separate opinion of Frankfurter, J.). For the reasons that follow, we believe that petitioners have failed to make the requisite showing with respect to § 6 (j).
Section 6 (j) serves a number of valid purposes having nothing to do with a design to foster or favor any sect, religion, or cluster of religions. There are considerations of a pragmatic nature, such as the hopelessness of converting a sincere conscientious objector into an effective fighting man, Welsh v. United States, 398 U. S., at 369 (White, J., dissenting), but no doubt the section reflects as well the view that “in the forum of conscience, duty to a moral power higher than the State has always been maintained.” United States v. Macintosh, 283 U. S. 605, 633 (1931) (Hughes, C. J., dissenting). See United States v. Seeger, 380 U. S., at 170-172. We have noted that the legislative materials show congressional concern for the hard choice that conscription would impose on conscientious objectors to war, as well as respect for the value of conscientious action and for the principle of supremacy of conscience.
Naturally the considerations just mentioned are affirmative in character, going to support the existence of an exemption rather than its restriction specifically to persons who object to all war. The point is that these affirmative purposes are neutral in the sense of the Establishment Clause. Quite apart from the question whether the Free Exercise Clause might require some sort of exemption, it is hardly impermissible for Congress to attempt to accommodate free exercise values, in line with “our happy tradition” of “avoiding unnecessary clashes with the dictates of conscience.” United States v. Macintosh, supra, at 634 (Hughes, C. J., dissenting). See Abington School District v. Schempp, 374 U. S., at 294-299 (Brennan, J., concurring); id., at 306 (Goldberg, J., concurring); id., at 309 (Stewart, J., dissenting). See also Welsh v. United States, 398 U. S., at 370-373 (White, J., dissenting). “Neutrality” in matters of religion is not inconsistent with “benevolence” by way of exemptions from onerous duties, Walz v. Tax Commission, 397 U. S., at 669, so long as an exemption is tailored broadly enough that it reflects valid secular purposes. In the draft area for 30 years the exempting provision has focused on individual conscientious belief, not on sectarian affiliation. The relevant individual belief is simply objection to all war, not adherence to any extraneous theological viewpoint. And while the objection must have roots in conscience and personality that are “religious” in nature, this requirement has never been construed to elevate conventional piety or religiosity of any kind above the imperatives of a personal faith.
In this state of affairs it is impossible to say that § 6 (j) intrudes upon “voluntarism” in religious life, see id., at 69A-696 (opinion of Harlan, J.), or that the congressional purpose in enacting § 6 (j) is to promote or foster those religious organizations that traditionally have taught the duty to abstain from participation in any war. A claimant, seeking judicial protection for his own conscientious beliefs, would be hard put to argue that §6 (j) encourages membership in putatively “favored” religious organizations, for the painful dilemma of the sincere conscientious objector arises precisely because he feels himself bound in conscience not to compromise his beliefs or affiliations.
B
We conclude not only that the affirmative purposes underlying § 6 (j) are neutral and secular, but also that valid neutral reasons exist for limiting the exemption to objectors to all war, and that the section therefore cannot be said to reflect a religious preference.
Apart from the Government’s need for manpower, perhaps the central interest involved in the administration of conscription laws is the interest in maintaining a fair system for determining “who serves when not all serve.” When the Government exacts so much, the importance of fair, evenhanded, and uniform decisionmaking is obviously intensified. The Government argues that the interest in fairness would be jeopardized by expansion of § 6 (j) to include conscientious objection to a particular war. The contention is that the claim to relief on account of such objection is intrinsically a claim of uncertain dimensions, and that granting the claim in theory would involve a real danger of erratic or even discriminatory decisionmaking in administrative practice.
A virtually limitless variety of beliefs are subsumable under the rubric, “objection to a particular war.” All the factors that might go into nonconscientious dissent from policy, also might appear as the concrete basis of an objection that has roots as well in conscience and religion. Indeed, over the realm of possible situations, opposition to a particular war may more likely be political and nonconscientious, than otherwise. See United States v. Kauten, 133 F. 2d, at 708. The difficulties of sorting the two, with a sure hand, are considerable. Moreover, the belief that a particular war at a particular time is unjust is by its nature changeable and subject to nullification by changing events. Since objection may fasten on any of an enormous number of variables, the claim is ultimately subjective, depending on the claimant’s view of the facts in relation to his judgment that a given factor or congeries of factors colors the character of the war as a whole. In short, it is not at all obvious in theory what sorts of objections should be deemed sufficient to excuse an objector, and there is considerable force in the Government’s contention that a program of excusing objectors to particular wars may be “impossible to conduct with any hope of reaching fair and consistent results....” Brief 28.
For their part, petitioners make no attempt to provide a careful definition of the claim to exemption that they ask the courts to carve out and protect. They do not explain why objection to a particular conflict — much less an objection that focuses on a particular facet of a conflict — should excuse the objector from all military service whatever, even from military operations that are connected with the conflict at hand in remote or tenuous ways. They suggest no solution to the problems arising from the fact that altered circumstances may quickly render the objection to military service moot.
To view the problem of fairness and evenhanded de-cisionmaking, in the present context, as merely a commonplace chore of weeding out “spurious claims,” is to minimize substantial difficulties of real concern to a responsible legislative body. For example, under the petitioners’ unarticulated scheme for exemption, an objector’s claim to exemption might be based on some feature of a current conflict that most would regard as incidental, or might be predicated on a view of the facts that most would regard as mistaken. The particular complaint about the war may itself be “sincere,” but it is difficult to know how to judge the “sincerity” of the objector’s conclusion that the war in toto is unjust and that any personal involvement would contravene conscience and religion. To be sure we have ruled, in connection with § 6 (j), that “the 'truth’ of a belief is not open to question”; rather, the question is whether the objector’s beliefs are “truly held.” United States v. Seeger, 380 U. S., at 185. See also United States v. Ballard, 322 U. S. 78 (1944). But we must also recognize that “sincerity” is a concept that can bear only so much adjudicative weight.
Ours is a Nation of enormous heterogeneity in respect of political views, moral codes, and religious persuasions. It does not bespeak an establishing of religion for Congress to forgo the enterprise of distinguishing those whose dissent has some conscientious basis from those who simply dissent. There is a danger that as between two would-be objectors, both having the same complaint against a war, that objector would succeed who is more articulate, better educated, or better counseled. There is even a danger of unintended religious discrimination— a danger that a claim’s chances of success would be greater the more familiar or salient the claim’s connection with conventional religiosity could be made to appear. At any rate, it is true that “the more discriminating and complicated the basis of classification for an exemption — even a neutral one — the greatei* the potential for state involvement” in determining the character of persons’ beliefs and affiliations, thus “entangl[ing] government in difficult classifications of what is or is not religious,” or what is or is not conscientious. Walz v. Tax Commission, 397 U. S., at 698-699 (opinion of Harlan, J.). Cf. Presbyterian Church v. Mary Elizabeth Blue Hull Church, 393 U. S. 440 (1969). While the danger of erratic decisionmaking unfortunately exists in any system of conscription that takes individual differences into account, no doubt the dangers would be enhanced if a conscientious objection of indeterminate scope were honored in theory.
In addition to the interest in fairness, the Government contends that neutral, secular reasons for the line drawn by § 6 (j) — between objection to all war and objection to a particular war — may be found in the nature of the conscientious claim that these petitioners assert. Opposition to a particular war, states the Government’s brief, necessarily involves a judgment “that is political and particular,” one “based on the same political, sociological and economic factors that the government necessarily considered” in deciding to engage in a particular conflict. Brief 24-26. Taken in a narrow sense, these considerations do not justify the distinction at issue, for however “political and particular” the judgment underlying objection to a particular war, the objection still might be rooted in religion and conscience, and although the factors underlying that objection were considered and rejected in the process of democratic decision-making, likewise the viewpoint of an objector to all war was no doubt considered and “necessarily” rejected as well. Nonetheless, it can be seen on a closer view that this line of analysis, conjoined with concern for fairness, does support the statutory distinction.
Tacit at least in the Government’s view of the instant cases is the contention that the limits of § 6 (j) serve an overriding interest in protecting the integrity of democratic decisionmaking against claims to individual noncompliance. Despite emphasis on claims that have a “political and particular” component, the logic of the contention is sweeping. Thus the “interest” invoked is highly problematical, for it would seem to justify governmental refusal to accord any breathing space whatever to noncompliant conduct inspired by imperatives of religion and conscience.
On the other hand, some have perceived a danger that exempting persons who dissent from a particular war, albeit on grounds of conscience and religion in part, would “open the doors to a general theory of selective disobedience to law” and jeopardize the binding quality of democratic decisions. Report of the National Advisory Commission on Selective Service, In Pursuit of Equity: Who Serves When Not All Serve? 50 (1967). See also Hamilton v. Regents, 293 U. S. 245, 268 (1934) (Cardozo, J., concurring). Other fields of legal obligation aside, it is undoubted that the nature of conscription, much less war itself, requires the personal desires and perhaps the dissenting views of those who must serve to be subordinated in some degree to the pursuit of public purposes. It is also true that opposition to a particular war does depend inter alia upon particularistic factual beliefs and policy assessments, beliefs and assessments that presumably were overridden by the government that decides to commit lives and resources to a trial of arms. Further, it is not unreasonable to suppose that some persons who are not prepared to assert a conscientious objection, and instead accept the hardships and risks of military service, may well agree at all points with the objector, yet conclude, as a matter of conscience, that they are personally bound by the decision of the democratic process. The fear of the National Advisory Commission on Selective Service, apparently, is that exemption of objectors to particular wars would weaken the resolve of those who otherwise would feel themselves bound to serve despite personal cost, uneasiness at the prospect of violence, or even serious moral reservations or policy objections concerning the particular conflict.
We need not and do not adopt the view that a categorical, global “interest” in stifling individualistic claims to noncompliance, in respect of duties generally exacted, is the neutral and secular basis of § 6 (j). As is shown by the long history of the very provision under discussion, it is not inconsistent with orderly democratic government for individuals to be exempted by law, on account of special characteristics, from general duties of a burdensome nature. But real dangers — dangers of the kind feared by the Commission — might arise if an exemption were made available that in its nature could not be administered fairly and uniformly over the run of relevant fact situations. Should it be thought that those who go to war are chosen unfairly or capriciously, then a mood of bitterness and cynicism might corrode the spirit of public service and the values of willing performance of a citizen’s duties that are the very heart of free government. In short, the considerations mentioned in the previous paragraph, when seen in conjunction with the central problem of fairness, are without question properly cognizable by Congress. In light of these valid concerns, we conclude that it is supportable for Congress to have decided that the objector to all war — to all killing in war — has a claim that is distinct enough and intense enough to justify special status, while the objector to a particular war does not.
Of course, we do not suggest that Congress would have acted irrationally or unreasonably had it decided to exempt those who object to particular wars. Our analysis of the policies of § 6 (j) is undertaken in order to determine the existence vel non of a neutral, secular justification for the lines Congress has drawn. We find that justifying reasons exist and therefore hold that the Establishment Clause is not violated.
h-1 H-1 J — I
Petitioners’ remaining contention is that Congress interferes with the free exercise of religion by conscripting persons who oppose a particular war on grounds of conscience and religion. Strictly viewed, this complaint does not implicate problems of comparative treatment of different sorts of objectors, but rather may be examined in some isolation from the circumstance that Congress has chosen to exempt those who conscientiously object to all war. And our holding that § 6 (j) comports with the Establishment Clause does not automatically settle the present issue. For despite a general harmony of purpose between the two religious clauses of the First Amendment, the Free Exercise Clause no doubt has a reach of its own. Abington School District v. Schempp, 374 U. S., at 222-223.
Nonetheless, our analysis of § 6 (j) for Establishment Clause purposes has revealed governmental interests of a kind and weight sufficient to justify under the Free Exercise Clause the impact of the conscription laws on those who object to particular wars.
Our cases do not at their farthest'reach support the proposition that a stance of conscientious opposition relieves an objector from any colliding duty fixed by a democratic government. See Cantwell v. Connecticut, 310 U. S. 296, 303-304 (1940); Jacobson v. Massachusetts, 197 U. S. 11, 29 (1905); cf. Cleveland v. United States, 329 U. S. 14, 20 (1946). To be sure, the Free Exercise Clause bars “governmental regulation of religious beliefs as such,” Sherbert v. Verner, 374 U. S. 398, 402 (1963), or interference with the dissemination of religious ideas. See Fowler v. Rhode Island, 345 U. S. 67 (1953); Follett v. McCormick, 321 U. S. 573 (1944); Murdock v. Pennsylvania, 319 U. S. 105 (1943). It prohibits misuse of secular governmental programs “to impede the observance of one or all religions or... to discriminate invidiously between religions,... even though the burden may be characterized as being only indirect.” Braunfeld v. Brown
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | C | sc_issuearea |
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Justice Scalia
delivered the opinion of the Court.
In this case, which arises under our original jurisdiction, U. S. Const., Art. Ill, §2, cl. 2; 28 U. S. C. § 1251(a), we consider nine exceptions submitted by the parties to two reports filed by the Special Master.
I
In 1986, Congress granted its consent under the Compact Clause, U. S. Const., Art. I, §10, cl. 3, to seven interstate compacts providing for the creation of regional facilities to dispose of low-level radioactive waste. Omnibus Low-Level Radioactive Waste Interstate Compact Consent Act, 99 Stat. 1859. One of those compacts was the Southeast Interstate Low-Level Radioactive Waste Management Compact (Compact), entered into by Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginia. Id., at 1871-1880. That Compact established an “instrument and framework for a cooperative effort” to develop new facilities for the long-term disposal of low-level radioactive waste generated within the region. Art. 1, id., at 1872. The Compact was to be administered by a Southeast Interstate Low-Level Radioactive Waste Management Commission (Commission), composed of two voting members from each party State. Art. 4(A), id., at 1874.
A pre-existing facility in Barnwell, South Carolina, was to serve as the initial facility for regional generators to dispose of their low-level radioactive waste. Art. 2(10), id., at 1873. That facility was scheduled to close as the regional-disposal facility for the Compact by the end of 1992, ibid., and so the Compact required the Commission to develop “procedures and criteria for identifying... a host [S]tate for the development of a second regional disposal facility,” and to “seek to ensure that such facility is licensed and ready to operate as soon as required but in no event later than 1991,” Art. 4(E)(6), id., at 1875. The Compact authorized the Commission to “designate” a party State as a host State for the facility. Art. 4(E)(7), ibid.
In September 1986, the Commission designated North Carolina as the host for the second facility. North Carolina therefore became obligated to “take appropriate steps to ensure that an application for a license to construct and operate a [low-level radioactive waste storage facility] is filed with and issued by the appropriate authority.” Art. 5(C), id., at 1877. In 1987, North Carolina’s General Assembly created the North Carolina Low-Level Radioactive Waste Management Authority (Authority) to fulfill the State’s obligation. N. C. Gen. Stat. § 104G, 1987 N. C. Sess. Laws ch. 850.
Although “[t]he Commission is not responsible for any costs associated with,” among other things, “the creation of any facility,” Art. 4(K)(1), 99 Stat. 1876, North Carolina asked the Commission for fináncial assistance with building and licensing costs. The Commission responded by adopting a resolution, which declared it was both “appropriate and necessary” for the Commission “to provide financial assistance” to North Carolina. App. 63. To that end, the Commission created a “Host States Assistance Fund” to help North Carolina with the “financial costs and burdens” of “preliminary planning, the administrative preparation, and other pre-operational” activities. Id., at 64.
The estimate in 1989 was that it would cost approximately $21 million and take two years to obtain a license for North Carolina’s regional-disposal facility. That proved to be wildly optimistic. By 1990, the cost estimate had ballooned to $45.8 million, and the estimated date for obtaining a license now extended far into 1993. At the beginning of 1994 there still was no license, and the estimated cost had grown to $87.1 million. By end of 1994 the estimate was $112.5 million, and issuance of a license was not anticipated until 1997. And by December 1996 the estimated cost had increased by another $27 million and the projected date to receive a license had become August 2000.
North Carolina’s own appropriations — approximately $27 million from Fiscal Year 1988 through Fiscal Year (FY) 1995 — did not cover the costs of the licensing phase. But during the same time period, the Commission provided North Carolina with approximately $67 million. The funds came from surcharges and access fees collected for that purpose from generators disposing of low-level radioactive waste at the pre-existing Barnwell facility. Id., at 71-74, 145.
In July 1995, however, South Carolina withdrew from the Compact, thereby depriving the Commission of continued revenues from the Barnwell facility. In 1996, the Commission accordingly informed North Carolina that it would no longer be able to provide financial support for licensing activities. The Governor of North Carolina responded that the State was not prepared to assume a greater portion of the project’s costs, and would not be able to proceed without continued Commission funding. Shortly thereafter the Commission adopted a resolution declaring that it was willing and able to provide additional funds, but calling on North Carolina to work with it to develop long-term funding sources for the facility. From FY 1996 through FY 1998, the Commission provided North Carolina approximately an additional $12.27 million in financial assistance. North Carolina, for its part, continued to provide its own funds toward licensing activities — another $6 million during the same time period.
In August 1997, the Commission notified North Carolina that absent a plan for funding the remaining steps of the licensing phase, it would not disburse additional funds to North Carolina after November 30, 1997. North Carolina responded that it would not be able to continue without additional guarantees of external funding. On December 1, 1997, the parties having failed to agree upon a long-term financing plan, the Commission ceased financial assistance to North Carolina. By then it had provided almost $80 million.
On December 19,1997, North Carolina informed the Commission it would commence an orderly shutdown of its licensing project, and since that date has taken no further steps toward obtaining a license for the facility. But it did continue to fund the Authority for several more years, in the hope that the project would resume upon the restoration of external financial assistance. North Carolina maintained the proposed facility site, preserved the work it had completed to date, and retained the Authority’s books and records. It also participated in discussions with the Commission, generators of low-level radioactive waste, and other stakeholders regarding options to resolve the financing shortfall. From FY 1988 through FY 2000, North Carolina had expended almost $34 million toward obtaining a license.
In June 1999, after attempts to resolve the handing impasse had failed, Florida and Tennessee filed with the Commission a complaint for sanctions against North Carolina. It alleged that North Carolina had failed to fulfill its obligations oonder the Compact, and requested (among other things) return of the almost $80 million paid to North Carolina by the Commission, plus interest, as well as damages and attorney’s fees. The next month, North Carolina withdrew from the Compact by enacting a law repealing its status as a party State, see 1999 N. C. Sess. Laws ch. 357, as required by Article 7(G) of the Compact.
More than four months later, in December 1999, the Commission held a sanctions hearing. North Carolina did not participate. After the hearing, the Commission concluded that North Carolina had failed to fulfill its obligations under the Compact. It adopted a resolution demanding that North Carolina repay approximately $80 million, plus interest, to the Commission; pay an additional $10 million penalty to compensate the Commission for the loss of future revenue (surcharges and access fees) it would have received had a facility been completed in North Carolina; and pay the Commission’s attorney’s fees. North Carolina did not comply.
In July 2000, seeking to enforce its sanctions resolution, the Commission moved for leave to file a bill of complaint under our original jurisdiction. Southeast Interstate Low-Level Radioactive Waste Management Commission v. North Carolina, No. 131, Orig. North Carolina opposed the motion on the grounds that the Commission could not invoke this Court’s original jurisdiction, and we invited the Solicitor General to express the views of the United States. 531 U. S. 942 (2000). The Solicitor General filed a brief urging denial of the Commission’s motion on the grounds that the Commission’s bill of complaint did not fall within our exclusive original jurisdiction over “controversies between two or more States.” § 1251(a). We denied the Commission’s motion. 533 U. S. 926 (2001).
In June 2002, the States of Alabama, Florida, Tennessee, and Virginia, joined by the Commission (collectively Plaintiffs), moved for leave to file a bill of complaint against North Carolina. North Carolina opposed the motion, and we again sought the views of the Solicitor General. 537 U. S. 806 (2002). The United States urged that we grant Plaintiffs’ motion, which we did. 539 U. S. 925 (2003). The bill of complaint contains five counts: violation of the party States’ rights under the Compact (Count I); breach of contract (Count II); unjust enrichment (Count III); promissory estop-pel (Count IV); and money had and received (Count V). Plaintiffs’ prayer for relief requests a declaration that North Carolina is subject to sanctions and that the Commission’s sanctions resolution is valid and enforceable, as well as the award of damages, costs, and other relief.
We assigned the case to a Special Master, 540 U. S. 1014 (2003), who has conducted proceedings and now has filed two reports. The Master’s Preliminary Report addressed three motions filed by the parties. He recommended denying without prejudice North Carolina’s motion to dismiss the Commission’s claims against North Carolina on the grounds of sovereign immunity. Preliminary Report 4-14. He recommended denying Plaintiffs’ motion for summary judgment on Count I, which sought enforcement of the Commission’s sanctions resolution. Id., at 14-33. He recommended granting North Carolina’s cross-motion to dismiss Count I and other portions of the bill of complaint that sought enforcement of the sanctions resolution. Id., at 33-34. And he recommended denying North Carolina’s motion to dismiss the claims in Counts II-V. Id., at 34-43.
After the Special Master issued his Preliminary Report, the parties engaged in partial discovery and subsequently filed cross-motions for summary judgment. The Special Master’s Second Report recommended denying Plaintiffs’ motion for summary judgment on Count II, Second Report 8-35, and granting North Carolina’s motion for summary judgment on Count II, id., at 35-40. Finally, he recommended denying North Carolina’s motion for summary judgment on Plaintiffs’ remaining claims in Counts III-V. Id., at 41-45.
II
Plaintiffs present a total of seven exceptions to the Special Master’s two reports. We address them in turn.
A
Their first exception challenges the Special Master’s conclusion that the Commission lacked authority to impose monetary sanctions upon North Carolina. The terms of the Compact determine that question.
Article 4(E) of the Compact sets forth the Commission’s “duties and powers.” 99 Stat. 1874. Among its powers are the authority “to revoke the membership of a party [Sjtate that willfully creates barriers to the siting of a needed regional facility,” Art. 4(E)(7), id., at 1875, and the authority “to revoke the membership of a party [S]tate in accordance with Article 7(f),” Art. 4(E)(11), ibid. Conspicuously absent from Article 4, however, is any mention of the authority to impose monetary sanctions. Plaintiffs contend that authority may be found elsewhere — in the first paragraph of Article 7(F), which provides in relevant part:
“Any party [S]tate which fails to comply with the provisions of this compact or to fulfill the obligations incurred by becoming a party [S]tate to this compact may be subject to sanctions by the Commission, including suspension of its rights under this compact and revocation of its status as a party [S]tate.” Id., at 1879.
The sanctions expressly identified in Article 7(F) — “suspension” of rights and “revocation” of party-state status — flow directly from the Commission’s power in Articles 4(E)(7) and (11) to revoke a party State’s membership. That can fairly be understood to include the lesser power to suspend a party State’s rights. There is no similar grounding in Article 4(E) of authority to impose monetary sanctions, and the absence is significant.
According to Plaintiffs, however, the word “sanctions” in Article 7(F) naturally “includ[es]” monetary sanctions. Since the Compact contains no definition of “sanctions,” we give the word its ordinary meaning. A “sanction” (in the sense the word is used here) is “[t]he detriment loss of reward, or other coercive intervention, annexed to a violation of a law as a means of enforcing the law.” Webster’s New International Dictionary 2211 (2d ed. 1954) (hereinafter Webster’s Second); see Black’s Law Dictionary 1458 (9th ed. 2009) (“A penalty or coercive measure that results from failure to comply with a law, rule, or order”). A monetary penalty is assuredly one kind of “sanction.” See generally Department of Energy v. Ohio, 503 U. S. 607, 621 (1992). But there are many others, ranging from the withholding of benefits, or the imposition of a nonmonetary obligation, to capital punishment. The Compact surely does not authorize the Commission to impose all of them.
Ultimately, context dictates precisely which “sanctions” are authorized under Article 7(F), and nothing in the Compact suggests that these include monetary measures. The only two “sanctions” specifically identified as being included within Article 7(F) are “suspension” of a State’s rights under the Compact and “revocation” of its status as a party State. These are arguably merely examples, and may not exhaust the universe of sanctions the Commission can impose. But they do establish “illustrative application[s] of the general principle,” Federal Land Bank of St. Paul v. Bismarck Lumber Co., 314 U. S. 95, 100 (1941), which underlies the kinds of sanctions the Commission can impose. It is significant that both these specifically authorized sanctions are prospective and nonmonetary in nature.
Moreover, Article 3 of the Compact provides: “The rights granted to the party [Sjtates by this compact are additional to the rights enjoyed by sovereign [Sjtates, and nothing in this compact shall be construed to infringe upon, limit, or abridge those rights.” 99 Stat. 1873. Construing Article 7(F) to authorize monetary sanctions would violate this provision, since the primeval sovereign right is immunity from levies against the government fisc. See, e.g., Alden v. Maine, 527 U. S. 706, 750-751 (1999).
Finally, a comparison of the Compact’s terms with those of “[ojther interstate compacts, approved by Congress contemporaneously,” Texas v. New Mexico, 462 U. S. 554, 565 (1983), confirms that Article 7(F) does not authorize monetary sanctions. At the same time Congress consented to this Compact, it consented to three other interstate compacts that expressly authorize their commissions to impose monetary sanctions against the parties to the compacts. See Northeast Interstate Low-Level Radioactive Waste Management Compact, Art. IV(i)(14), 99 Stat. 1915 (hereinafter Northeast Compact); Central Midwest Interstate Low-Level Radioactive Waste Compact, Art. VIII(f), id., at 1891 (hereinafter Central Midwest Compact); Central Interstate Low-Level Radioactive Waste Compact, Art. VII(e), id., at 1870 (hereinafter Central Compact). The Compact “clearly lacks the features of these other compacts, and we are not free to rewrite it” to empower the Commission to impose monetary sahctions. Texas v. New Mexico, 462 U. S., at 565.
B
Because the Compact does not authorize the Commission to impose monetary sanctions, Plaintiffs’ second exception— that North Carolina could not avoid monetary sanctions by withdrawing from the Compact — is moot. The third exception also pertains to the Commission’s sanctions resolution: that North Carolina forfeited its right to object to a monetary penalty by failing to participate at the sanctions hearing. Plaintiffs have failed to argue this exception. They have merely noted that North Carolina refused to participate at the sanctions hearing, and have cited no law in support of the proposition that this was a forfeit. We deem the exception abandoned. It was wisely abandoned, because it is meritless. North Carolina opposed the sanctions resolution and denied that the Commission had jurisdiction to impose sanctions against it.
C
Plaintiffs next take exception to the Special Master’s recommendation that no binding effect or even deference be accorded to the Commission’s conclusion that North Carolina violated Article 5(C) of the Compact. We are bound by the Commission's conclusion of breach only if there is “an explicit provision or other clear indieatio[n]” in the Compact making the Commission the “sole arbiter of disputes” regarding a party State's compliance with the Compact. Id., at 569-570. Plaintiffs assert there is such a provision, the second sentence of Article 7(C), which states: “The Commission is the judge of the qualifications of the party [S]tates and of its members and of their compliance with the conditions and requirements of this compact and the laws of the party [S]tates relating to the enactment of this compact.” 99 Stat. 1879.
Plaintiffs greatly overread this provision. The limited nature of the authority to “judge” that it confers upon the Commission is clear from its context. The first sentence of Article 7(C) states that an eligible State “shall be declared” a party State “upon enactment of this compact into law by the [SJtate and upon [the] payment of” a $25,000 fee, as “required by Article 4(H)(1).” Ibid. The second sentence makes the Commission the “judge” of four matters, all of which concern status os a party State or Commission member. First, the Commission is the judge of the “qualifications” of a State to become a party State (the qualifications set forth in Article 7(A) for the initial party States and in Article 7(B) for States that subsequently petition to join). Seeond, the Commission is the judge of the qualifications of the members of the Commission, which are specified in Article 4(A). Third, the Commission is the judge of a party State’s compliance with the “conditions” and “requirements” of the Compact. The former term is an obvious reference to Article 7(B): “The Commission may establish such conditions as it deems necessary and appropriate to be met by a [S]tate wishing... to become a party [S]tate to this [C]ompact.” Id., at 1878. The accompanying term “requirements” also refers to Article 7’s prescriptions for prospective party States, such as paying the “fees required” under Article 7(C), id., at 1879, and obtaining, as Article 7(B) requires, a two-thirds vote of the Commission in favor of admission. Finally, the Commission is the judge of the “laws of the party [S]tates relating to the enactment of this compact.” Art. 7(C), ibid. Again, that concerns status as a party State, which requires that the State “enac[t]... this compact into law,” ibid. The Commission is the “judge” of only these specific matters.
This is not to say the Commission lacks authority to interpret the Compact or to say whether a party State has violated its terms. That is of course implicit in its power to sanction under Article 7(F). But because “the express terms of the [Southeast] Compact do not constitute the Commission as the sole arbiter” regarding North Carolina’s compliance with its obligations under the Compact, Texas v. New Mexico, 462 U. S., at 569, we are not bound to follow the Commission’s findings.
Plaintiffs argue that we nonetheless owe deference to the Commission’s conclusion. But unless the text of an interstate compact directs otherwise, we do not review the actions of a compact commission “on the deferential model of judicial review of administrative action by a federal agency.” Id., at 566-567. The terms of this Compact do not establish that “this suit may be maintained only as one for judicial review of the Commission’s” determination of breach. Id., at 567. Accordingly, we do not apply administrative-law standards of review, but exercise our independent judgment as to both fact and law in executing our role as the “exclusive” arbiter of controversies between the States, § 1251(a).
D
Plaintiffs’ next two exceptions are to the Special Master’s recommendations to deny their motion for summary judgment on their breach-of-contract claims, and to grant North Carolina’s motion for summary judgment on those claims. In resolving motions for summary judgment in cases within our original jurisdiction, we are not technically bound by the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, but we use Rule 56 as a guide. This Court’s Rule 17.2; Nebraska v. Wyoming, 507 U. S. 584, 590 (1993). Hence, summary judgment is appropriate where there “is no genuine issue as to any material fact” and the moving party is “entitled to judgment as a matter of law.” Fed. Rule Civ. Proc. 56(c)(2); see Celotex Corp. v. Catrett, 477 U. S. 317, 322 (1986); Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, Inc., 477 U. S. 242, 248 (1986).
1
Plaintiffs claim North Carolina breached the Compact in December 1997, when (as it admits) it ceased all efforts toward obtaining a license. At that point, in their view, North Carolina was no longer “tak[ing] appropriate steps to ensure that an application for a license to construct and operate a [low-level radioactive waste storage facility] is filed with and issued by the appropriate authority,” Art. 5(C), 99 Stat. 1877. North Carolina says that once the Commission ceased providing financial assistance on December 1, and once it became clear there was insufficient funding to complete the licensing phase, there were no more “appropriate” steps to take. The Special Master concluded that the phrase “appropriate steps” in Article 5(C) was ambiguous, and that the parties’ course of performance established that North Carolina was not required to take steps toward obtaining a license once it was made to bear the remaining financial burden of the licensing phase. Second Report 10-24, 35-36. Plaintiffs take exception to that conclusion.
Article 5(C) does not require North Carolina to take any and all steps to license a regional-disposal facility; only those that are “appropriate.” Plaintiffs contend that this requires North Carolina to take the steps set forth in the regulations of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission governing the filing and disposition of applications for licenses to operate radioactive waste disposal facilities, 10 CPR pt. 61 (1997). Those regulations set forth some, but certainly not all, of the “steps” the State would have to take to obtain a license. But Article 5(C) does not incorporate the regulations by reference, much less describe them as the appropriate steps.
We could accept Plaintiffs’ contention if “appropriate” meant “necessary” (the steps set forth in the regulation are assuredly necessary to obtaining a license). But it does not. Whether a particular step is “appropriate” — “[specially suitable; fit; proper,” Webster’s Second 133 — could depend upon many factors other than its mere indispensability to obtaining a license. It would not be appropriate, for exam-pie, to take a step whose cost greatly exceeded whatever benefits the license would confer, or if it was highly uncertain the license would ever issue.
In determining whether, in terminating its efforts to obtain a license, North Carolina failed to take what the parties considered “appropriate” steps, the parties’ course of performance under the Compact is highly significant. See, e. g., New Jersey v. New York, 523 U. S. 767, 830-831 (1998) (Scalia, J., dissenting); Restatement (Second) of Contracts §§ 202(4), 203 (1979) (hereinafter Restatement). That firmly establishes, that North Carolina was not expected to go it alone — to proceed with the very expensive licensing process without any external financial assistance. The history of the Compact consists entirely of shared financial burdens. From the beginning, North Carolina made clear that it required financial assistance to do the extensive work required for obtaining a license. The Commission promptly declared it was “appropriate and necessary” to assist North Carolina with the costs. App. 63. It provided the vast majority of funding for licensing-related activities — $80 million, compared to North Carolina’s $34 million. The Commission repeatedly noted the necessity (and propriety) of providing financial assistance to North Carolina, and reiterated its dedication to sharing the substantial financial burdens of the licensing phase. See, e. g., id., at 63, 71,145. There is nothing to support the proposition that the other States had an obligation under the Compact to share the licensing costs through the Commission; but we doubt that they did so out of love for the Tarheel State. They did it, we think, because that was their understanding of how the Compact was supposed to work. One must take the Commission at its word, that it was “appropriate” to share the cost — which suggests that it would not have been appropriate to make North Carolina proceed on its own.
Nor was North Carolina required after December 19,1997, to continue to expend its own funds at the same level it had previously (which Plaintiffs concede had satisfied North Carolina’s obligation to take “appropriate steps”). Once the Commission refused to provide any further financial assistance, North Carolina would have had to assume an unlimited financial commitment to cover all remaining licensing costs. Even if it maintained its prior rate of appropriations going forward, it would not have come close to covering the at least $34 million needed for the last steps of the licensing phase. And since the income from the South Carolina facility had been terminated, there was no apparent prospect of funding for the construction phase (expected to cost at least $75 million). In connection with its August 1997 refusal to provide further assistance, the Commission itself had said, “[I]t will be imprudent to continue to deplete Commission resources for this purpose if a source of funds is not established soon for the ultimate completion of the project.” Id., at 306, 307; App. to Joint Supp. Fact Brief 36, 37. And in March 1998, the Commission “strongly” reiterated that “it would be imprudent to spend additional funds for licensing activities if funds will not be available to complete the project.” Id., at 59. What was imprudent for the Commission would surely have been imprudent (and hence inappropriate) for North Carolina as well. The State would have wasted millions of its taxpayers’ dollars on what seemed to be a futile effort.
Justice Breyer would uphold Plaintiffs’ challenge on this point. He believes that the Compact obligated North Carolina to fund and complete the licensing and construction of a nuclear waste facility. Post, at 364, 366-368 (opinion concurring in part and dissenting in part). In fact, however, North Carolina was not even contractually required to “se-eur[e] a license,” post, at 364, but only to take “appropriate steps” to obtain one, Art. 5(C), 99 Stat. 1877. And nothing in the terms of the Compact required North Carolina either to provide “adequate funding” for or to “beg[i]n construction” on a regional facility, post, at 364. Other contemporaneously enacted interstate compacts expressly provide that the host State is “responsible for the timely development” of a regional facility, Central Midwest Compact, Ant. VI(f), 99 Stat. 1887; Midwest Interstate Low-Level Radioactive Waste Management Compact, Art. VI(e), id., at 1898 (hereinafter Midwest Compact), or “shall... [clause a regional facility to be developed on a timely basis,” Rocky Mountain Low-Level Radioactive Waste Compact, Art. III(d)(i), id., at 1903-1904. But the Compact here before us has no such provision, and the contrast is telling. Texas v. New Mexico, 462 U. S., at 565. Moreover, the Commission’s statements described in the preceding paragraph, that it would be imprudent to commit additional resources “if a source of funds is not established soon for the ultimate completion of the project,” or “if funds will not be available to complete the project,” surely suggest that North Carolina is not committed to the funding by contract.
Justice Breyer asserts, post, at 366-367, that the rotating-host requirement in the Compact, see Art. 5(A), 99 Stat. 1877, necessarily implies that North Carolina is solely responsible for the licensing and construction costs of its facility. But all that requirement entails is that a party State “shall not be designated” as a host State for a second time before “each [other] party [S]tate” has taken a turn. Ibid. It can perfectly well envision that the States will take turns in bearing the lead responsibility for getting the facility licensed, supervising its construction, and operating the facility on its soil. In fact, that is just what its text suggests, since it describes the responsibility that is to be rotated as the host State’s “obligation... to have a regional facility operated within its borders.” Ibid. Not to construct it, or pay for its construction, but to “have [it] operated within its borders.” As noted above, other contemporaneously enacted compacts do spell out the obligation of the host State to construct the facility. Still others at least provide that the host State will recoup its costs through disposal fees — which arguably suggests that the host State is to bear the costs. See, e.g., Central Compact, Art. 111(d), id., at 1865; Northeast Compact, Art. 111(c)(2), id., at 1913. The Compact before us here does not even contain that arguable suggestion.
What it comes down to, then, is Justice Breyer’s intuition that the whole point of the Compact was that each designated host State would bear the upfront costs of licensing and construction, but would eventually recoup those costs through its regional monopoly on the disposal of low-level radioactive waste. Post, at 366-367. He can cite no provision in the Compact which reflects such an understanding, and the behavior of the parties contradicts it. It would, moreover, have been a foolish understanding, since the regional monopoly to recoup construction costs would not be a monopoly if South Carolina withdrew and continued to operate its facility — 'which is exactly what happened in 1995. Even leaving aside the principle, discussed infra, at 351-352, that implied obligations are not to be read into interstate compacts, Justice Breyer’s intuition fails to reflect the reality of what was implied.
2
Plaintiffs take exception to the Special Master’s rejection of their alternative argument that North Carolina repudiated the Compact when it announced it would not take further steps toward obtaining a license. They argue that North Carolina’s announcement that it was shutting down the project constituted a refusal to tender any further performance under the contract.
Plaintiffs’ repudiation theory fails for the same reasons their breach theory fails. A repudiation occurs when an ob-ligor either informs an obligee “that the obligor will commit a breach that would of itself give the obligee a claim for damages for total breach,” Restatement § 250(a), or performs “a voluntary affirmative act which renders the obligor unable or apparently unable to perform without such a breach,” id., § 250(b). Neither event occurred here. North Carolina never informed the Commission (or any party State) that it would not fulfill its Article 5(C) obligation to take appropriate steps toward obtaining a license. Rather, it refused to take further steps that were not appropriate. Nor did North Carolina take an affirmative act that rendered it unable to perform. To the contrary, it continued to fund the Authority for almost two years; it maintained the records of the Authority; and it preserved the work completed to date while waiting for alternative funding sources that would enable resumption of the project. Plaintiffs further argue that a repudiation was effected by North Carolina’s refusal to take further steps toward licensing “except on conditions which go beyond” the terms of the Compact, id., §250, Comment b (internal quotation marks omitted) —! e., the provision of external financial assistance. But, as we have discussed, external financial assistance was contemplated by the Compact.
E
Plaintiffs’ final exception is to the Special Master's recommendation to deny their motion for summary judgment, and to grant North Carolina’s cross-motion for summary judgment, on their claim that North Carolina violated the implied duty of good faith and fair dealing when it withdrew from the Compact in July 1999. Plaintiffs concede that North Carolina could withdraw from the Compact, but contend it could not do so in “bad faith.” And, they assert, its withdrawal after accepting $80 million from the Commission, and with monetary sanctions pending against it, was the epitome of bad faith.
We have never held that an interstate compact approved by Congress includes an implied duty of good faith and fair dealing. Of course “[ejvery contract imposes upon each party a duty of good faith and fair dealing in its performance and its enforcement.” Id., §205. But an interstate compact is not just a contract; it is a federal statute enacted by Congress. If courts were authorized to add a fairness requirement to the implementation of federal statutes, judges would be potent lawmakers indeed. We do not — we cannot — add provisions to a federal statute. See, e. g., Connecticut Nat. Bank v. Germain, 503 U. S. 249, 254 (1992). And in that regard a statute which is a valid interstate compact is no different. Texas v. New Mexico, 462 U. S., at 564, 565. We are especially reluctant to read absent terms into an interstate compact given the federalism and separation-of-powers concerns that would arise were we to rewrite an agreement among sovereign States, to which the political branches consented. As we have said before, we will not “‘order relief inconsistent with [the] express terms’” of a compact, “no matter what the equities of the circumstances might otherwise invite.” New Jersey v. New York, 523 U. S., at 811 (quoting Texas v. New Mexico, supra, at 564).
The Compact imposes no limitation on North Carolina’s exercise of its statutory right to withdraw. Under Article 7(G), which governed North Carolina’s withdrawal, “[a]ny party [S]tate may withdraw from the compact by enacting a law repealing the compact.” 99 Stat. 1879. There is no restriction upon a party State’s enactment of such a law, and nothing in the Compact suggests the parties understood there were “certain purposes for which the expressly conferred power... could not be employed.” Tymshare, Inc. v. Covell, 727 F. 2d 1145, 1153 (CADC 1984) (opinion for the court by Scalia, J.). Moreover, Article 3 ensures that no such restrictions may be
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
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 & alia
delivered the opinion of the Court.
The issue in this case is whether the Airline Deregulation Act of 1978, 49 U. S. C. App. § 1301 et seq., pre-empts the States from prohibiting allegedly deceptive airline fare advertisements through enforcement of their general consumer protection statutes.
I
Prior to 1978, the Federal Aviation Act of 1958 (FAA), 72 Stat. 731, as amended, 49 U. S. C. App. § 1301 et seq., gave the Civil Aeronautics Board (CAB) authority to regulate interstate airfares and to take administrative action against certain deceptive trade practices. It did not, however, expressly pre-empt state regulation, and contained a “saving clause” providing that “[n]othing... in this chapter shall in any way abridge or alter the remedies now existing at common law or by statute, but the provisions of this chapter are in addition to such remedies.” 49 U. S. C. App. § 1506. As a result, the States were able to regulate intrastate airfares (including those offered by interstate air carriers), see, e. g., California v. CAB, 189 U. S. App. D. C. 176, 178, 581 F. 2d 954, 956 (1978), cert. denied, 439 U. S. 1068 (1979), and to enforce their own laws against deceptive trade practices, see Nader v. Allegheny Airlines, Inc., 426 U. S. 290, 300 (1976).
In 1978, however, Congress, determining that “maximum reliance on competitive market forces” would best further “efficiency, innovation, and low prices” as well as “variety [and] quality... of air transportation services,” enacted the Airline Deregulation Act (ADA). 49 U. S. C. App. §§ 1302(a)(4), 1302(a)(9). To ensure that the States would not undo federal deregulation with regulation of their own, the ADA included a pre-emption provision, prohibiting the States from enforcing any law “relating to rates, routes, or services” of any air carrier. § 1305(a)(1). The ADA retained the CAB’s previous enforcement authority regarding deceptive trade practices (which was transferred to the Department of Transportation (DOT) when the CAB was abolished in 1985), and it also did not repeal or alter the saving clause in the prior law.
In 1987, the National Association of Attorneys General (NAAG), an organization whose membership includes the attorneys general of all 50 States, various Territories, and the District of Columbia, adopted Air Travel Industry Enforcement Guidelines (set forth in an Appendix to this opinion) containing detailed standards governing the content and format of airline advertising, the awarding of premiums to regular customers (so-called “frequent flyers”), and the payment of compensation to passengers who voluntarily yield their seats on overbooked flights. These guidelines do not purport to “create any new laws or regulations” applying to the airline industry; rather, they claim to “explain in detail how existing state laws apply to air fare advertising and frequent flyer programs.” NAAG Guidelines, Introduction (1988).
Despite objections to the guidelines by the DOT and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) on pre-emption and policy grounds, the attorneys general of seven States, including petitioner’s predecessor as attorney general of Texas, sent a memorandum to the major airlines announcing that “it has come to our attention that although most airlines are making a concerted effort to bring their advertisements into compliance with the standards delineated in the... guidelines for fare advertising, many carriers are still [not disclosing all surcharges]” in violation of §2.5 of the guidelines. The memorandum said it was the signatories’ “purpose.... to clarify for the industry as a whole that [this practice] is a violation of our respective state laws on deceptive advertising and trade practices”; warned that this was an “advisory memorandum before [the] initiation of] any immediate enforcement actions”; and expressed the hope that “protracted litigation over this issue will not be necessary and that airlines will discontinue the practice... immediately.” Memorandum from Attorneys General of Colorado, Kansas, Massachusetts, Missouri, New York, Texas, and Wisconsin, dated February 3, 1988 (Exhibit A to Exhibit H to Motion for Temporary Restraining Order), App. 123a, 125a. Several months later, petitioner’s office sent letters to several respondents serving /‘as formal notice[s] of intent to sue.” Letter from Assistant Attorney General of Texas, dated November 14, 1988, App. 115a.
Those respondents then filed suit in Federal District Court claiming that state regulation of fare advertisements is preempted by § 1305(a)(1); seeking a declaratory judgment that, inter alia, § 2.5 of the guidelines is pre-empted; and requesting an injunction restraining Texas from taking any action under its law in conjunction with the guidelines that would regulate respondents’ rates, routes, or services, or their advertising and marketing of the same. The District Court entered a preliminary injunction to that effect, determining that respondents were likely to prevail on their pre-emption claim. Trans World Airlines, Inc. v. Mattox, 712 F. Supp. 99, 101-102 (WD Tex. 1989). (It subsequently extended that injunction to 33 other States, id., at 105-106; the propriety of that extension is not before us.) The Court of Appeals affirmed. Trans World Airlines, Inc. v. Mattox, 897 F. 2d 773, 783-784 (CA5 1990). Subsequently, the District Court, in an unreported order, permanently enjoined the States from taking “any enforcement action” which would restrict “any aspect” of respondents’ fare advertising or operations relating to rates, routes, or services. The Court of Appeals once again affirmed. 949 F. 2d 141 (CA5 1991). We granted certiorari. 502 U. S. 976 (1991).
HH HH
Before discussing whether § 1305(a)(1) pre-empts state enforcement of the challenged guidelines, we first consider whether, assuming that it does, the District Court could properly award respondents injunctive relief. It is a “ ‘basic doctrine of equity jurisprudence that courts of equity should not act... when the moving party has an adequate remedy at law and will not suffer irreparable injury if denied equitable relief.’ ” O’Shea v. Littleton, 414 U. S. 488, 499 (1974); Younger v. Harris, 401 U. S. 37, 43-44 (1971). In Ex parte Young, 209 U. S. 123, 156 (1908), we held that this doctrine does not prevent federal courts from enjoining state officers “who threaten and are about to commence proceedings, either of a civil or criminal nature, to enforce against parties affected an unconstitutional act, violating the Federal Constitution.” When enforcement actions are imminent — and at least when repetitive penalties attach to continuing or repeated violations and the moving party lacks the realistic option of violating the law once and raising its federal defenses — there is no adequate remedy at law. See id., at 145-147, 163-165.
We think Young establishes that injunctive relief was available here. As we have described, the attorneys general of seven States, including petitioner’s predecessor, had made clear that they would seek to enforce the challenged portions of the guidelines (those concerning fare advertising) through suits under their respective state laws. And Texas law, at least, imposes additional liability (by way of civil penalties and consumer treble-damages actions) for multiple violations. See Tex. Bus. & Com. Code Ann. §§ 17.47,17.50 (1987 and Supp. 1991-1992). Like the plaintiff in Young, then, respondents were faced with a Hobson’s choice: continually violate the Texas law and expose themselves to potentially huge liability; or violate the law once as a test case and suffer the injury of obeying the law during the pendency of the proceedings and any further review.
The District Court, however, enjoined petitioner not only from enforcing the fare advertising sections of the guidelines, but also from “initiating any enforcement action... which would seek to regulate or restrict any aspect of the... plaintiff airlines’ air fare advertising or the operations involving their rates, routes, and/or services.” 712 F. Supp., at 102. In so doing, it disregarded the limits on the exercise of its injunctive power. In suits such as this one, which the plaintiff intends as a “first strike” to prevent a State from initiating a suit of its own, the prospect of state suit must be imminent, for it is the prospect of that suit which supplies the necessary irreparable injury. See Public Serv. Comm’n of Utah v. Wycoff Co., 344 U. S. 237, 240-241 (1952). Ex parte Young thus speaks of enjoining state officers “who threaten and are about to commence proceedings,” 209 U. S., at 156 (emphasis added); see also id., at 158, and we have recognized in a related context that a conjectural injury cannot warrant equitable relief, see O’Shea, supra, at 502. Any other rule (assuming it would meet Article III case-or-controversy requirements) would require federal courts to determine the constitutionality of state laws in hypothetical situations where it is not even clear the State itself would consider its law applicable. This problem is vividly enough illustrated by the blunderbuss injunction in the present case, which declares pre-empted “any” state suit involving “any aspect” of the airlines’ rates, routes, and services. As petitioner has threatened to enforce only the obligations described in the guidelines regarding fare advertising, the injunction must be vacated insofar as it restrains the operation of state laws with respect to other matters.
HH HH ► — H
We now turn to the question whether enforcement of the NAAG guidelines on fare advertising through a State’s general consumer protection laws is pre-empted by the ADA. As we have often observed, “[p]re-emption may be either express or implied, and is compelled whether Congress’ command is explicitly stated in the statute’s language or implicitly contained in its structure and purpose.” FMC Corp. v. Holliday, 498 U. S. 52, 56-57 (1990) (internal quotation marks omitted); Shaw v. Delta Air Lines, Inc., 463 U. S. 85, 95 (1983). The question, at bottom, is one of statutory intent, and we accordingly “‘begin with the language employed by Congress and the assumption that the ordinary meaning of that language accurately expresses the legislative purpose.’” Holliday, supra, at 57; Park ’N Fly, Inc. v. Dollar Park & Fly, Inc., 469 U. S. 189, 194 (1985).
A
Section 1305(a)(1) expressly pre-empts the States from “enact[ing] or enforcing] any law, rule, regulation, standard, or other provision having the force and effect of law relating to rates, routes, or services of any air carrier....” For purposes of the present case, the key phrase, obviously, is “relating to.” The ordinary meaning of these words is a broad one — “to stand in some relation; to have bearing or concern; to pertain; refer; to bring into association with or connection with,” Black’s Law Dictionary 1158 (5th ed. 1979) — and the words thus express a broad pre-emptive purpose. We have repeatedly recognized that in addressing the similarly worded pre-emption provision of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA), 29 U. S. C. § 1144(a), which pre-empts all state laws “insofar as they... relate to any employee benefit plan.” We have said, for example, that the “breadth of [that provision’s] pre-emptive reach is apparent from [its] language,” Shaw, supra, at 96; that it has a “broad scope,” Metropolitan Life Ins. Co. v. Massachusetts, 471 U. S. 724, 739 (1985), and an “expansive sweep,” Pilot Life Ins. Co. v. Dedeaux, 481 U. S. 41, 47 (1987); and that it is “broadly worded,” Ingersoll-Rand Co. v. McClendon, 498 U. S. 133, 138 (1990), “deliberately expansive,” Pilot Life, supra, at 46, and “conspicuous for its breadth,” Holliday, supra, at 58. True to our word, we have held that a state law “relates to” an employee benefit plan, and is pre-empted by ERISA, “if it has a connection with or reference to such a plan.” Shaw, supra, at 97. Since the relevant language of the ADA is identical, we think it appropriate to adopt the same standard here: State enforcement actions having a connection with, or reference to, airline “rates, routes, or services” are pre-empted under 49 U. S. C. App. § 1305(a)(1).
Petitioner raises a number of objections to this reading, none of which we think is well taken. First, he claims that we may not use our interpretation of identical language in ERISA as a guide, because the sweeping nature of ERISA pre-emption derives not from the “relates to” language, but from “the wide and inclusive sweep of the comprehensive ERISA scheme,” which he asserts the ADA does not have. Brief for Petitioner 33-34. This argument is flatly contradicted by our ERISA cases, which clearly and unmistakably rely on express pre-emption principles and a construction of the phrase “relates to.” See, e. g., Shaw, supra, at 96-97, and n. 16 (citing dictionary definitions); Ingersoll-Rand, supra, at 138-139. Petitioner also stresses that the FAA “saving” clause, which preserves “the remedies now existing at common law or by statute,” 49 U. S. C. App. § 1506, is broader than its ERISA counterpart. But it is a commonplace of statutory construction that the specific governs the general, see, e. g., Crawford Fitting Co. v. J. T. Gibbons, Inc., 482 U. S. 437, 445 (1987), a canon particularly pertinent here, where the “saving” clause is a relic of the pre-ADA/no preemption regime. A general “remedies” saving clause cannot be allowed to supersede the specific substantive pre-emption provision — unless it be thought that a State having a statute requiring “reasonable rates,” and providing remedies against “unreasonable” ones, could actually set airfares. As in International Paper Co. v. Ouellette, 479 U. S. 481, 494 (1987), “we do not believe Congress intended to undermine this carefully drawn statute through a general saving clause.”
Petitioner contends that § 1305(a)(1) only pre-empts the States from actually prescribing rates, routes, or services. This simply reads the words “relating to” out of the statute. Had the statute been designed to pre-empt state law in such a limited fashion, it would have forbidden the States to “regulate rates, routes, and services.” See Pilot Life, supra, at 50 (“A common-sense view of the word ‘regulates’ would lead to the conclusion that in order to regulate [a matter], a law... must be specifically directed toward [it]”). Moreover, if the pre-emption effected by § 1305(a)(1) were such a limited one, no purpose would be served by the very next subsection, which preserves to the States certain proprietary rights over airports. 49 U. S. C. App. § 1305(b).
Next, petitioner advances the notion that only state laws specifically addressed to the airline industry are pre-empted, whereas the ADA imposes no constraints on laws of general applicability. Besides creating an utterly irrational loophole (there is little reason why state impairment of the federal scheme should be deemed acceptable so long as it is effected by the particularized application of a general statute), this notion similarly ignores the sweep of the “relating to” language. We have consistently rejected this precise argument in our ERISA cases: “[A] state law may ‘relate to’ a benefit plan, and thereby be pre-empted, even if the law is not specifically designed to affect such plans, or the effect is only indirect.” Ingersoll-Rand, supra, at 139; see Pilot Life, supra, at 47-48 (common-law tort and contract suits pre-empted); Metropolitan Life, 471 U. S., at 739 (state law requiring health insurance plans to cover certain mental health expenses pre-empted); Alessi v. Raybestos-Manhattan, Inc., 451 U. S. 504, 525 (1981) (workers’ compensation laws pre-empted).
Last, the State suggests that pre-emption is inappropriate when state and federal law are consistent. State and federal law are in fact inconsistent here — the DOT opposes the obligations contained in the guidelines, and Texas law imposes greater liability — but that is beside the point. Nothing in the language of § 1305(a)(1) suggests that its “relating to” pre-emption is limited to inconsistent state regulation; and once again our ERISA cases have settled the matter: “‘The pre-emption provision... displace^] all state laws that fall within its sphere, even including state laws that are consistent with ERISA’s substantive requirements.’” Mackey v. Lanier Collection Agency & Service, Inc., 486 U. S. 825, 829 (1988); Metropolitan Life, supra, at 739.
B
It is hardly surprising that petitioner rests most of his case on such strained readings of § 1305(a)(1), rather than contesting whether the NAAG guidelines really “relat[e] to” fares. They quite obviously do. Taking them seriatim: Section 2.1, governing print advertisements of fares, requires “clear and conspicuous disclosure [defined as the lesser of one-third the size of the largest typeface in the ad or ten-point type] of restrictions such as” limited time availability, limitations on refund or exchange rights, time-of-day or day-of-week restrictions, length-of-stay requirements, advance-purchase and round-trip-purchase requirements, variations in fares from or to different airports in the same metropolitan area, limitations on breaks or changes in itinerary, limits on fare availability, and “[a]ny other material restriction on the fare.” Section 2.2 imposes similar, though somewhat less onerous, restrictions on broadcast advertisements of fares; and § 2.3 requires billboard fare ads to state clearly and conspicuously “‘Substantial restrictions apply’” if there are any material restrictions on the fares’ availability. The guidelines further mandate that an advertised fare be available in sufficient quantities to “meet reasonably foreseeable demand” on every flight on every day in every market in which the fare is advertised; if the fare will not be available on this basis, the ad must contain a “clear and conspicuous statement of the extent of unavailability.” §2.4. Section 2.5 requires that the advertised fare include all taxes and surcharges; round-trip fares, under §2.6, must be disclosed at least as prominently as the one-way fare when the fare is only available on round trips; and §2.7 prohibits use of the words “ ‘sale/ ‘discount/ [or] ‘reduced’ ”• unless the advertised fare is available only for a limited time and is “substantially below the usual price for the same fare with the same restrictions.”
One cannot avoid the conclusion that these aspects of the guidelines “relate to” airline rates. In its terms, every one of the guidelines enumerated above bears a “reference to” airfares. Shaw, 463 U. S., at 97. And, collectively, the guidelines establish binding requirements as to how tickets may be marketed if they are to be sold at given prices. Under Texas law, many violations of these requirements would give consumers a cause of action (for at least actual damages, see Tex. Bus. & Com. Code Ann. § 17.50 (1987 and Supp. 1991-1992)) for an airline’s failure to provide a particular advertised fare — effectively creating an enforceable right to that fare when the advertisement fails to include the mandated explanations and disclaimers. This case therefore appears to us much like Pilot Life, in which we held that a common-law tort and contract action seeking damages for the failure of an employee benefit plan to pay benefits “related] to” employee benefit plans and was pre-empted by ERISA. 481 U. S., at 43-44, 47-48.
In any event, beyond the guidelines’ express reference to fares, it is clear as an economic matter that state restrictions on fare advertising have the forbidden significant effect upon fares. Advertising “serves to inform the public of the... prices of products and services, and thus performs an indispensable role in the allocation of resources.” Bates v. State Bar of Arizona, 433 U. S. 350, 364 (1977). Restrictions on advertising “serv[e] to increase the difficulty of discovering the lowest cost seller... and [reduce] the incentive to price competitively.” Id., at 377. Accordingly, “where consumers have the benefit of price advertising, retail prices often are dramatically lower than they would be without advertís-ing.” Ibid. As Judge Easterbrook succinctly put it, compelling or restricting “[p]rice advertising surely ‘relates to’ price.” Illinois Corporate Travel v. American Airlines, Inc., 889 F. 2d 751, 754 (CA7 1989), cert. denied, 495 U. S. 919 (1990).
Although the State insists that it is not compelling or restricting advertising, but is instead merely preventing the market distortion caused by “false” advertising, in fact the dynamics of the air transportation industry cause the guidelines to curtail the airlines’ ability to communicate fares to their customers. The expenses involved in operating an airline flight are almost entirely fixed costs; they increase very little with each additional passenger. The market for these flights is divided between consumers whose volume of purchases is relatively insensitive to price (primarily business travelers) and consumers whose demand is very price sensitive indeed (primarily pleasure travelers). Accordingly, airlines try to sell as many seats per flight as possible at higher prices to the first group, and then to fill up the flight by selling seats at much lower prices to the second group (since almost all the costs are fixed, even a passenger paying far below average cost is preferable to an empty seat). In order for this marketing process to work, and for it ultimately to redound to the benefit of price-conscious travelers, the airlines must be able to place substantial restrictions on the availability of the lower priced seats (so as to sell as many seats as possible at the higher rate), and must be able to advertise the lower fares. The guidelines severely burden their ability to do both at the same time: The sections requiring “clear and conspicuous disclosure” of each restriction make it impossible to take out small or short ads, as does (to a lesser extent) the provision requiring itemization of both the one-way and round-trip fares. Since taxes and surcharges vary from State to State, the requirement that advertised fares include those charges forces the airlines to create different ads in each market. The section restricting the use of “sale,” “discount,” or “reduced” effectively prevents the airlines from using those terms to call attention to the fares normally offered to price-conscious travelers. As the FTC observed, “[Requiring too much information in advertisements can have the paradoxical effect of stifling the information that consumers receive.” Letter from FTC to Christopher Ames, Deputy Attorney General of California, dated Mar. 11, 1988, App. to Brief for Respondent Airlines 23a. Further, §2.4, by allowing fares to be advertised only if sufficient seats are available to meet demand or if the extent of unavailability is disclosed, may make it impossible to use this marketing process at all. All in all, the obligations imposed by the guidelines would have a significant impact upon the airlines’ ability to market their product, and hence a significant impact upon the fares they charge.
In concluding that the NAAG fare advertising guidelines are pre-empted, we do not, as Texas contends, set out on a road that leads to pre-emption of state laws against gambling and prostitution as applied to airlines. Nor need we address whether state regulation of the nonprice aspects of fare advertising (for example, state laws preventing obscene depictions) would similarly “relat[e] to” rates; the connection would obviously be far more tenuous. To adapt to this case our language in Shaw, “[s]ome state actions may affect [airline fares] in too tenuous, remote, or peripheral a manner” to have pre-emptive effect. 463 U. S., at 100, n. 21. In this case, as in Shaw, “[t]he present litigation plainly does not present a borderline question, and we express no views about where it would be appropriate to draw the line.” Ibid. Finally, we note that our decision does not give the airlines carte blanche to lie to and deceive consumers; the DOT retains the power to prohibit advertisements which in its opinion do not further competitive pricing, see 49 U. S. C. App. § 1381.
* * *
We hold that the fare advertising provisions of the NAAG guidelines are pre-empted by the ADA, and affirm the judgment of the Court of Appeals insofar as it awarded injunctive and declaratory relief with respect to those provisions. Insofar as that judgment awarded injunctive relief directed at other matters, it is reversed and the injunction vacated.
It is so ordered.
Justice Souter took no part in the consideration or decision of this case.
APPENDIX TO OPINION OF THE COURT,
National Association of Attorneys General
Task Force on the Air Travel Industry
Revised Guidelinés
INTRODUCTION
In June, 1987,- the National Association of Attorneys General (“NAAG”) directed the appointment of a Task Force of states to study the advertising and marketing practices of the airline industry in the United States. In addition to the study, the Task Force was directed to determine the nature and extent of existing unfair and deceptive airline advertising practices and to report a recommended course of action to NAAG at its meeting in December 1987.
The Task Force Report and Recommendations were adopted by NAAG at its winter meeting on December 12, 1987, with a continuing direction to the Task Force (1) to receive and examine any comments from industry, consumer groups, federal agencies, and other interested parties; (2) to evaluate these comments; and (3) to report to NAAG at its Spring 1988 meeting on the advisability of any modifications of the Guidelines.
The Task Force received written comments from the Air Transport Association, the American Association of Advertising Agencies, American Airlines, the Association of National Advertisers, the Council of Better Business Bureaus, the Federal Trade Commission, the National Association of Broadcasters, Southwest Airlines, United Airlines, USAir, and the U. S. Department of Transportation. Assistant attorneys general of the Task Force states evaluated these comments, and reported their recommendations to NAAG.
On March 15, 1988, NAAG adopted the recommended changes to the frequent flyer Guidelines and directed that the comments to both the fare advertising and frequent flyer Guidelines be changed to respond to valid concerns raised by those filing comments. The Guidelines and comments herein reflect the changes directed by NAAG.
NAAG also directed the chair of NAAG’s Consumer Protection Committee to appoint four attorneys general to serve on a continuing task force to evaluate the effectiveness of the Guidelines and to continue discussions with members of the industry and other interested parties. These attorneys general are: John Van de Kamp (California), Neil F. Hartigan (Illinois), Jim Mattox (Texas), and Kenneth O. Eikenberry (Washington).
It is important to note that these Guidelines do not create any new laws or regulations regarding the advertising practices or other business practices of the airline industry. They merely explain in detail how existing state laws apply to air fare advertising and frequent flyer programs. Each Guideline is followed by a comment which summarizes:
• NAAG’s intent with respect to that Guideline.
• Any relevant comments received by the Task Force.
• Any significant changes that were made to the Guidelines.
Section 1 — Definitions
1.0 Advertisement means any oral, written, graphic or pictorial statement made in the course of solicitation of business. Advertisement includes, without limitation, any statement or representation made in a newspaper, magazine or other public publication, or contained in any notice, sign, billboard, poster, display, circular, pamphlet, or letter (collectively called “print advertisements”), or on radio or television (“broadcast commercials”).
Comment: This definition encompasses those materials and media covered by most states’false advertising statutes. “Print advertisements” and “broadcast commercial” are separated into different categories because they are afforded slightly different treatment under these Guidelines. This represents a change from an earlier draft of the Guidelines and is an attempt to address some of the airlines’ concerns regarding the difficulties of lengthy disclosures in broadcast commercials.
1.1 Award means any coupon, certificate, voucher, benefit or tangible thing which is promised, given, sold or otherwise transferred by an airline or program partner to a program member in exchange for mileage, credits, bonuses, segments or other units of value credited to a consumer as an incentive to fly on any airline or to do business with any program partner.
Comment: This definition, as well as definitions 1.2, 1.3, 14,1.6,1.9, and 1.10, is self-explanatory.
1.2 Award level means a specified amount of mileage or number of credits, bonuses, segments or other units which a program member must accumulate in order to receive an award.
1.3 Blackout date means any date on which travel or use of other program benefits is not permitted for program members seeking to redeem their award levels. This is a form of capacity control.
1.4 Capacity control means the practice by which an airline or program partner restricts or otherwise limits the opportunity of program members to redeem their award levels for travel or other benefits offered in the program.
1.5 Clear and conspicuous means that the statement, representation or term (“statement”) being disclosed is of such size, color contrast, and audibility and is so presented as to be readily noticed and understood by the person to whom it is being disclosed. All language and terms should be used in accordance with their common or ordinary usage and meaning. For example, “companion” should be used only when it means any companion (i. e., any person traveling with the program member), not solely family members. Without limiting the requirements of the preceding sentences:
(a) A statement in a print advertisement is considered clear and conspicuous if a type size is used which is at least one-third the size of the largest type size used in the advertising. However, it need not be larger than:
• 10-point type in advertisements that are 200 square inches or smaller, and
• 12-point type in advertisements that are larger than 200 square inches.
If the statement is in the body copy of the advertisement, it may be in the same size type as the largest type used in the body copy, and does not have to meet these type-size requirements.
(b) A statement in a broadcast commercial is considered clear and conspicuous if it is made orally and is as clear and understandable in pace and volume as the fare information.
(c) A statement on any billboard is considered clear and conspicuous if a type is used which is at least one-third the size of the largest one size used on the billboard.
(d) A statement required by Section 3, relating to frequent flyer programs, is considered clear and conspicuous if it is prominently located directly adjacent to the materials to which it applies. Type size should be no smaller than the most commonly-used print size in the document, but in no event smaller than 10-point type. Any reservation of any right to make future changes in the program or award levels should be located prominently at the beginning of printed materials.
Comment: One of the most deceptive aspects of current air fare advertisements is the completely inadequate manner in which those advertisements disclose the restrictions and limitations which apply to the advertised fares. The restrictions disclosed in print advertisements are rarely located near the fare advertised and often appear only in extremely small type at the bottom of the advertisement. In broadcast commercials, such disclosures are generally absent from radio advertisements, and if included at all in television commercials appear as written disclosures flashed on the screen much too quickly for the average person to read. On billboards any mention of restrictions on advertised fares is unusual.
Given this background, NAAG believes that it is necessary to define clearly for the airlines what constitutes clear and adequate disclosure in all advertising media. The type-size minima for print advertisements are aimed at making the disclosures both easy to read and noticeable. Consequently, a slightly larger size print is suggested in larger size advertisements. These type-size minima are not absolute. That is, print disclosures do not in every instance have to be in at least 10-point type, as long as they are clear and conspicuous regardless of the size of the type. The type size suggestions are merely examples of advertising practices which give an airline a reasonable expectation that it will not be sued if it follows the Guidelines. In the Task Force’s meetings with the airlines last summer, one common note expressed was that the airlines could abide by disclosure guidelines, as long as they were clear and enforced uniformly. If an airline does not choose this safe harbor and instead ventures into untested waters, it may run aground and it may not. But it is free to do so.
The comments to this Guideline were critical largely because NAAG singled out airline advertisements for this treatment. However, on the whole, the airlines indicated they could meet the type size standard relatively easily in print advertisements.
NAAG elected to encourage oral disclosures in broadcast media, because written disclosures are difficult if not impossible to read and because many people listen to, rather than watch television commercials. We continue to believe that oral disclosure is the best method of conveying information in a television commercial. However, the converse of this Guideline is not true — a disclosure in a television commercial is not necessarily deceptive if it is instead made in a video super or crawl, as long as it is still clear and conspicuous.
For safety reasons, very large type is provided for billboards.
1.6 Frequent flyer program means any program offered by an airline or program partner in which awards are offered to program members.
1.7 Limited-time availability means that the fare is only available for a specific period of time or that the fare is not available during certain blackout periods.
Comment: This definition applies to air fares that are only available certain times of the year (e. g., available December 15 through April 15), are not available at certain times at all (not available December 23 through January 5), or are only available until a date certain (available only until January 15). It does not apply to fares that are un available only on certain days of the week or times of the day.
1.8 Material restriction means a restriction, limitation, or other requirement which affects the use or refundability of a ticket, and which is not generally applicable to all classes of fares or tickets (such as standard conditions of carriage).
Comment: Due to the numerous standard conditions applicable to most airline tickets, NAAG has confined the
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | J | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Justice Ginsburg
delivered the opinion of the Court.
This ease concerns regulation of the business of insurance by the States, as secured by the McCarran-Ferguson Act, 59 Stat. 33, as amended, 15 U. S. C. § 1011 et seq., and the extent to which federal legislation, specifically, the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO), 18 U. S. C. § 1961 et seq., is compatible with state regulation. The controversy before us stems from a scheme employed by petitioner Humana Health Insurance of Nevada, Inc. (Humana Insurance), a group health insurer, to gain discounts for hospital services which the insurer did not disclose and pass on to its policy beneficiaries. The scheme is alleged to violate both Nevada law and RICO. Under the McCarran-Ferguson Act, the federal legislation may be applied if it does not “invalidate, impair, or supersede” the State’s regulation. 15 U. S. C. § 1012(b).
The federal law at issue, RICO, does not proscribe conduct that the State’s laws governing insurance permit. But the federal and state remedial regimes differ. Both provide a private right of action. RICO authorizes treble damages; Nevada law permits recovery of compensatory and punitive damages. We hold that RICO can be applied in this ease in harmony with the State’s regulation. When federal law is applied in aid or enhancement of state regulation, and does not frustrate any declared state policy or disturb the State’s administrative regime, the MeCarran-Ferguson Act does not bar the federal action.
I
Plaintiffs in the District Court, respondents in this Court, are beneficiaries of group health insurance policies issued by Humana Insurance. Between 1985 and 1988, plaintiffs-respondents received medical care from the Humana Hospital-Sunrise, an acute care facility owned by codefend-ant (now eopetitioner) Humana Inc. Humana Insurance agreed to pay 80% of the policy beneficiaries’ hospital charges over a designated deductible. The beneficiaries bore responsibility for payment of the remaining 20%. But pursuant to a concealed agreement, the complaint in this action alleged, the hospital gave Humana Insurance large discounts on the insurer’s portion of the hospital’s charges for care provided to the policy beneficiaries. As a result, Humana Insurance paid significantly less than 80% of the hospital’s actual charges for the care that policy beneficiaries received, and the beneficiaries paid significantly more than 20% of those charges.
The employee beneficiaries brought suit in the United States District Court for the District of Nevada, alleging that Humana Insurance and Humana Inc. violated RICO through a pattern of racketeering activity consisting of mail, wire, radio, and television fraud. Defendants Humana Insurance and Humana Inc. moved for summary judgment, citing §2(b) of the McCarran-Ferguson Act, which provides:
“No Act of Congress shall be construed to invalidate, impair, or supersede any law enacted by any State for the purpose of regulating the business of insurance, or which imposes a fee or tax upon such business, unless such Act specifically relates to the business of insurance.” 15 U. S. C. § 1012(b).
The District Court granted the motion. In that court’s view, RICO’s private remedies, including the federal statute’s treble damages provision, 18 U. S. C. § 1964(c), so exceeded Nevada’s administrative penalties for insurance fraud, see infra, at 311-812, that applying RICO to the alleged conduct would have been “tantamount to allowing Congress to intercede in an area expressly left to the states under the McCarran-Ferguson Act,” 827 F. Supp. 1498, 1521-1522 (Nev. 1993).
The Ninth Circuit reversed in relevant part. See 114 F. 3d 1467, 1482 (1997). In Merchants Home Delivery Serv., Inc. v. Frank B. Hall & Co., 50 F. 3d 1486 (1995), a decision handed down after the District Court rejected the policy beneficiaries’ right to sue under RICO in this case, the Court of Appeals adopted a “direct conflict” test for determining when a federal law “invalidated, impair[s], or superseded” a state law governing insurance. As declared in Merchants Home, the McCarran-Ferguson Act does not preclude “application of a federal statute prohibiting acts which are also prohibited under a state’s insurance laws.” Id., at 1492. Guided by Merchants Home, and assuming that Nevada law provided for administrative remedies only, the Ninth Circuit held that the McCarran-Ferguson Act did not bar suit under RICO by the Humana Insurance policy beneficiaries. See 114 F. 3d, at 1480. Circuit courts have divided on the question presented: Does a federal law, which proscribes the same conduct as state law, but'provides materially different remedies, “impair” state law under the McCarran-Ferguson Act? We granted certiorari to address that question. 524 U. S. 936 (1998).
1 — 1
Prior to our decision in United States v. South-Eastern Underwriters Assn., 322 U. S. 533 (1944), we had consistently held that the business of insurance was not commerce. See, e. g., Paul v. Virginia, 8 Wall. 168, 183 (1869) (“Issuing a policy of insurance is not a transaction of commerce.”); see also South-Eastern, 322 U. S., at 544, n. 18 (collecting cases relying on the Paul generalization). The business of insurance, in consequence, was largely immune from federal regulation. See St. Paul Fire & Marine Ins. Co. v. Barry, 438 U. S. 531, 539 (1978) (“[T]he States enjoyed a virtually exclusive domain over the insurance industry.”). In SouthEastern, we held for the first time that an insurance company doing business across state lines engages in interstate commerce. See 322 U. S., at 553. In accord with that holding, we further decided that the Sherman Act applied to the business of insurance. See id., at 553-562.
Concerned that our decision might undermine state efforts to regulate insurance, Congress in 1945 enacted the McCarran-Ferguson Act. Section 1 of the Act provides that “continued regulation and taxation by the several States of the business of insurance is in the public interest,” and that “silence on the part of the Congress shall not be construed to impose any barrier to the regulation or taxation of such business by the several States.” 15 U. S. C. § 1011. In §2(b) of the Act — the centerpiece of this case — Congress ensured that federal statutes not identified in the Act or not yet enacted would not automatically override state insurance regulation. Section 2(b) provides that when Congress enacts a law specifically relating to the business of insurance, that law controls. See § 1012(b). The subsection further provides that federal legislation general in character shall not be “construed to invalidate, impair, or supersede any law enacted by any State for the purpose of regulating the business of insurance.” Ibid.
The McCarran-Fergus on Act thus precludes application of a federal statute in face of state law “enacted ... for the purpose of regulating the business of insurance,” if the federal measure does not “specifically relat[e] to the business of insurance,” and would “invalidate, impair, or supersede” the State’s law. See Department of Treasury v. Fabe, 508 U. S. 491, 501 (1993). RICO is not a law that “specifically relates to the business of insurance.” This case therefore turns on the question: Would RICO’s application to the employee beneficiaries’ claims at issue “invalidate, impair, or supersede” Nevada’s laws regulating insurance?
The term “invalidate” ordinarily means “to render ineffective, generally without providing a replacement rule or law.” Brief for United States as Amicus Curiae 17, n. 6 (citing Carter v. Virginia, 321 U. S. 131, 139 (1944) (Black, J., concurring)). And the term “supersede” ordinarily means “to displace (and thus render ineffective) while providing a substitute rule.” Brief for United States as Amicus Curiae 17, n. 6 (citing Illinois Commerce Comm’n v. Thomson, 318 U. S. 675, 682 (1943)). Under these standard definitions, RICO’s application to the policy beneficiaries’ complaint would neither “invalidate” nor “supersede” Nevada law.
The key question, then, is whether RICO’s application to the scheme in which the Humana defendants are alleged to have collaborated, to the detriment of the plaintiff policy beneficiaries, would “impair” Nevada’s law The answer would be “no” were we to read “impair,” as the policy beneficiaries suggest, to be “interehangeabl[e]” with “invalidate” and “supersede.” Brief for Respondents 14; see Brief for United States as Amicus Curiae 17, n. 6 (describing the use of the three terms as an “instane[e] of lawyerly iteration”). The answer would also be “no” if we understood “impair” to mean “the displacement of some portion of a statute or its preclusion in certain contexts.” Id., at 14. This is so because insurers can comply with both RICO and Nevada’s laws governing insurance. These laws do not directly conflict. The acts the policy beneficiaries identify as unlawful under RICO are also unlawful under Nevada law. See infra, at 311-813.
On the other hand, the answer would be “yes” were we to agree with Humana Insurance and Humana Inc. that the word “impair,” in the MeCarran-Ferguson Act context, signals the federal legislators’ intent “to withdraw Congress from the field [of insurance] absent an express congressional statement to the contrary.” Brief for Petitioners 10. Under that reading, “impair” would eonvey “a very broad proscription against applying federal law where a state has regulated, or chosen not to regulate, in the insurance industry.” Merchants Home, 50 F. 3d, at 1491 (emphasis in original). See also Reply Brief 4 (MeCarran-Ferguson Act “precludes federal lav/ that is at material variance with state insurance law — as to substantive prohibitions, procedures or remedies.”).
We reject any suggestion that Congress intended to cede the field of insurance regulation to the States, saving only instances in which Congress expressly orders otherwise. If Congress had meant generally to preempt the field for the States, Congress could have said, as the Ninth Circuit noted: “No federal statute [that does not say so explicitly] shall be construed to apply to the business of insurance.” Merchants Home, 50 F. 3d, at 1492 (emphasis in original) (internal quotation marks omitted); see Brief for United States as Amicus Curiae 24 (“The Act does not declare that ‘No Act of Congress shall apply to the business of insurance unless such Act specifically relates thereto.’ ”). Alternatively, Congress could have provided, as it did with respect to the Sherman, Clayton, and Federal Trade Commission Acts, see 15 U. S. C. § 1012(b), that federal legislation generally, or RICO in particular, would be “applicable to the business of insurance [only] to the extent that such business is not regulated by State Law,” ibid, (emphasis added).
Moreover, §2(b)’s seeond prohibition bears attention in this regard. That proscription, barring construction of federal statutes to “invalidate, impair, or supersede” “any [state] law... which imposes a fee or tax upon [the business of insurance],” belies any congressional intent to preclude federal regulation merely because the regulation imposes liability additional to, or greater than, state law. Were this not so, federal law would “impair” state insurance laws imposing fees or taxes whenever federal law imposed additional fees or greater tax liability. Under our federal system of dual taxation, however, it is scarcely in doubt that “generally applicable federal fees and taxes do not ‘invalidate, impair, or supersede’ state insurance taxes and fees within the meaning of Section 2(b) where nothing precludes insurers from paying both.” Brief for United States as Amicus Curiae 26.
While we reject any sort of field preemption, we also reject the polar opposite of that view, i. e., that Congress intended a green light for federal regulation whenever the federal law does not collide head on with state regulation. The dictionary definition of “impair” is “[t]o weaken, to make worse, to lessen in power, diminish, or relax, or otherwise affect in an injurious manner.” Black’s Law Dictionary 752 (6th ed. 1990). The following formulation seems to us to capture that meaning and to construe, most sensibly, the text of §2(b): When federal law does not directly conflict with state regulation, and when application of the federal law would not frustrate any declared state policy or interfere with a State’s administrative regime, the McCarran-Ferguson Act does not preclude its application. See Brief for National Association of Insurance Commissioners as Amicus Curiae 6-7.
Our decision in Shaw v. Delta Air Lines, Inc., 463 U. S. 85 (1983), is similar in tenor. In that case, we considered whether a New York law forbidding discrimination in employee benefit plans on the basis of pregnancy was preempted by ERISA. State agencies and officials, appellants in Shaw, argued that the State’s law was not preempted; they relied on ERISA § 514(d), which provides that ERISA’s preemption clause shall not be “construed to alter, amend, modify, invalidate, impair, or supersede any law of the United States.” 29 U. S. C. § 1144(d). The state agencies and officials maintained that preempting the state law would impair the administration of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 78 Stat. 253, 42 U. S. C. §2000e et seq., as amended in 1978 by the Pregnancy Discrimination Act, 92 Stat. 2076, 42 U. S. C. § 2000e(k), for under the enforcement scheme Title VII accommodates, state remedies serve to promote compliance with federal antidiscrimination prescriptions. See 463 U. S., at 101-102.
We held in Shaw that the New York law was preempted only to the extent it prohibited practices lawful under Title VII. See id., at 103. To the extent the New York law prohibited practices also prohibited under federal law, we explained, the New York law was not preempted; the blanket preemption urged by the employer appellees in Shaw, we pointed out, would “impair” Title VII by “frustrat[ing] the goal of encouraging joint state/federal enforcement of [that federal measure].” Id., at 102. Shaw thus supports the view that to “impair” a law is to hinder its operation or “frustrate [a] goal” of that law.
Our standard accords with SEC v. National Securities, Inc., 393 U. S. 453 (1969). In that case, we upheld, in face of a McCarran-Ferguson Act challenge, the Securities and Exchange Commission's authority to unwind an insurance company merger that the Arizona Director of Insurance had approved. Our opinion pointed to the absence of any “direct conflict”: “Arizona has not commanded something which the Federal Government seeks to prohibit. It has permitted respondents to consummate the merger; it did not order them to do so.” Id., at 463. But that statement did not stand alone. We also observed that “any impairment’ in [that] case [was] a most indirect one.” Ibid. And we concluded: “The paramount federal interest in protecting shareholders [was] perfectly compatible with the paramount state interest in protecting policyholders.” Ibid. There, as here, federal law did not “directly conflict with state regulation,” application of federal law did not “frustrate any declared state policy,” nor did it “interfere with a State’s administrative regime.” Supra, at 310.
Applying the standard just announced to the facts of this case, we conclude that suit under RICO by policy beneficiaries would not “impair” Nevada law and therefore is not precluded by the McCarran-Ferguson Act. Nevada provides both statutory and common-law remedies to check insurance fraud. The Nevada Unfair Insurance Practices Aet, Nev. Rev. Stat. §686A.010 et seq. (1996), patterned substantially on the National Association of Insurance Commissioners’ model Unfair Trade Practices Act, is a comprehensive administrative scheme that prohibits various forms of insur-anee fraud and misrepresentation. Under this legislation, Nevada’s Insurance Commissioner has the authority to issue charges if there is reason to believe the Act has been violated, see §686A.160, and may issue cease and desist orders and administer fees, see § 686A.183.
Victims of insurance fraud may also pursue private actions under Nevada law. The Unfair Insurance Practices Act authorizes a private right of action for violations of a number of unfair insurance practices, including “[misrepresenting to insureds or claimants pertinent facts or insurance policy provisions relating to any coverage,” § 686A.310(l)(a). See § 686A.310(2) (“In addition to any rights or remedies available to the commissioner, an insurer is liable to its insured for any damages sustained by the insured as a result of the commission of any act set forth in subsection 1 as an unfair practice.”). Moreover, the Act is not hermetically sealed; it does not exclude application of other state laws, statutory or decisional. Specifically, Nevada law provides that an insurer is under a common-law duty “to negotiate with its insureds in good faith and to deal with them fairly.” Ainsworth v. Combined Ins. Co. of Am., 104 Nev. 587, 592, 763 P. 2d 673, 676 (1988); see United States Fidelity & Guaranty Co. v. Peterson, 91 Nev. 617, 620, 540 P. 2d 1070, 1071 (1975) (recognizing tort action against insurance company for breach of implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing).
Furthermore, aggrieved insured parties may be awarded punitive damages if a jury finds clear and convincing evidence that the insurer is guilty of “oppression, fraud or malice.” Nev. Rev. Stat. §42.005(1) (1995). Nevada’s punitive damages statute places certain limits on those damages — three times the amount of compensatory damages if they are more than $100,000, and $300,000 if compensa-torios are less than $100,000. See §§42.005(l)(a), (b). But the same law adds that these limits do not apply to claims against “[a]n insurer who acts in bad faith regarding its obligations to provide insurance coverage.” §42.005(2)(b). Accordingly, plaintiffs seeking relief under Nevada law may be eligible for damages exceeding the treble damages available under RICO.
In sum, we see no frustration of state policy in the RICO litigation at issue here. RICO’s private right of action and treble damages provision appears to complement Nevada’s statutory and common-law claims for relief. In this regard, we note that Nevada filed no brief at any stage of this lawsuit urging that application of RICO to the alleged conduct would frustrate any state policy, or interfere with the State’s administrative regime. Cf. NAACP v. American Family Mut. Ins. Co., 978 F. 2d 287, 297 (CA7 1992) (“No official of Wisconsin has appeared in this litigation to say that a federal remedy under the Fair Housing Act would frustrate any state policy.”)- We further note that insurers, too, have relied on the statute when they were the fraud victims. See, e. g., Aetna Casualty Surety Co. v. P & B Autobody, 43 F. 3d 1546, 1551 (CA1 1994); see also Brief for United Policyholders as Amicus Curiae 19-21.
* * *
Because RICO advances the State’s interest in combating insurance fraud, and does not frustrate any articulated Nevada policy, we hold that the McCarran-Ferguson Act does not block the respondent policy beneficiaries’ recourse to RICO in this ease. Accordingly, for the reasons stated in this opinion, the judgment of the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit is
Affirmed.
These discounts were alleged to have ranged between 40% and 96%. See 827 F. Supp. 1498, 1503 (Nev. 1993). For example, in a given case, Humana Insurance might have received a bill for only $550 on a $5,000 gross hospital charge. The beneficiary, however, would have received a bill for 20% of the undiseounted rate of $5,000, or $1,000. Humana Insurance would have paid only 35% of the total bill ($550 out of $1,550), while the beneficiary would have paid 65%. Under the 80%/20% arrangement, Humana Insurance should have paid $1,240 (80% of $1,550), while the beneficiary should have paid $310. See id., at 1508; Brief for United States as Amicus Curiae 5-6.
State investigation of the scheme, launched by Nevada's Attorney General, terminated when Humana Insurance and Nevada’s Insurance Commissioner entered into a consent decree under which the insurer paid a fine of $50,000.
The complaint separated plaintiffs into two classes, a “Co-Payor Class” comprising employee beneficiaries, and a “Premium Payor Class” comprising employers who purchased the policies. See 114 F. 3d 1467, 1472 (CA9 1997). Only the employees’ claims have been placed at issue here.
The complaint also presented claims under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA), 88 Stat. 829, as amended, 29 U. S. C. §1001 et seq., and §2 of the Sherman Act, 26 Stat. 209, as amended, 15 U. S. C. § 2. The disposition of those claims is not germane to the issue on which this Court’s review was sought and granted.
Both the District Court and the Court of Appeals inaccurately projected Nevada law as allowing for administrative remedies only. See infra, at 311-313.
Compare Merchants Home Delivery Serv., Inc. v. Frank B. Hall & Co., 50 F. 3d 1486, 1492 (CA9 1995), and NAACP v. American Family Mut. Ins. Co., 978 F. 2d 287, 297 (CA7 1992) (“[SJtate and federal rules that are substantively identical but differ in penalty do not conflict with or displace each other.”), with Doe v. Norwest Bank Minnesota, N. A., 107 F. 3d 1297, 1307 (CA8 1997) (“[T]he intrusion of RICO’s substantial damage provisions into a state’s insurance regulatory program may so impair the state law as to bar application of RICO.”), and Kenty v. Bank One, Columbus, N. A., 92 F. 3d 384, 392 (CA6 1996) (“The different liability under Ohio law for violations, as well as different standards of proof necessary to demonstrate misrepresentations, means that RICO does impair the ability of Ohio to regulate [unfair and deceptive acts].”).
Section 2(b) also provides that “after June 30,1948, the Act of July 2, 1890, as amended, known as the Sherman Act, and the Act of October 15, 1914, as amended, known as the Clayton Act, and the Act of September 26, 1914, known as the Federal Trade Commission Act, as amended [15 U. S. C. 41 et seq.], shall be applicable to the business of insurance to the extent that such business is not regulated by State Law.” 15 U. S. C. § 1012(b). Section 4 of the Act provides that “[n]othing contained in this chapter shall be construed to affect in any manner the application to the business of insurance of the Act of July 5, 1935, as amended, known as the National Labor Relations Act [29 U. S. C. 151 et seq.], or the Act of June 25,1938, as amended, known as the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 [29 U. S. C. 201 et seq.], or the Act of June 5,1920, known as the Merchant Marine Act, 1920 [46 App. U. S. C. 861 et seq.].” § 1014.
See 4 National Association of Insurance Commissioners, Model Laws, Regulations and Guidelines 880-1 (1995).
See, e. g., Nev. Rev. Stat. §686A.030 (1996) (misrepresentation and false advertising); § 686A.040 (publication of false information); § 686A.070 (falsification of records and financial statements); §§686A.281-686A.289 (fraudulent claims); § 686A.291 (insurance fraud).
The existence of private rights of action under state law dilutes the force of the assertion, made in an amicus brief, that a decision affirming the Ninth Circuit’s judgment would cause insurers to be reluctant to settle with state commissioners to avoid compromising defenses in RICO litigation. See Brief for Consumer Credit Insurance Association as Amicus Curiae 5. Presumably, insurers would be equally reluctant to settle with state commissioners to avoid compromising defenses in state litigation.
See also Nev. Rev. Stat. §42.007(2) (1996) (limiting punitive damages liability by employers for wrongful acts of employees except in “an action brought against an insurer who acts in bad faith regarding its obligations to provide insurance coverage”).
At oral argument, counsel for petitioners Humana Insurance and Hu-mana Inc. suggested that application of RIGO would impair state law, even though that law provided for punitive damages, because under Nevada law, punitive damages may not be imposed when doing so would threaten the solvency of the defendant. Tr. of Oral Arg. 5-6. While Nevada law does appear to prohibit punitive damages that would render a defendant insolvent, see Nevada Cement Co. v. Lemler, 89 Nev. 447, 452, 514 P. 2d 1180, 1183 (1973) (noting that “(fideally the punitive allowance should be in an amount that would promote the public interest without financially annihilating the defendant” and that “the wrongdoer may be punished, but not destroyed”), the record contains no evidence of insolvency here. See Tr. of Oral Arg. 21.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
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 Brennan
delivered the opinion of the Court.
This case was here before as Zwickler v. Koota, 389 U. S. 241 (1967). We there held that the three-judge District Court for the Eastern District of New York erred in abstaining from deciding whether Zwickler, appellee in the instant case, was entitled to a declaratory judgment respecting the constitutionality of New York Penal Law § 781-b, now New York Election Law § 457, and we remanded to the District Court for a determination of that question. Section 781-b made it a crime to distribute anonymous literature in connection with an election campaign. Zwickler had been convicted of violating this provision by distributing anonymous handbills in connection with the 1964 congressional election. That conviction was reversed, on state law grounds, by the New York Supreme Court, Appellate Term. The New York Court of Appeals affirmed in 1965 and filed a memorandum which stated that constitutional questions had not been reached. 16 N. Y. 2d 1069, 213 N. E. 2d 467. A few months thereafter, on April 22, 1966, Zwickler brought this suit.
The complaint sets forth the facts regarding the prosecution and its termination. A Congressman standing for re-election in 1964 was criticized in the anonymous handbill for opposing two amendments to the 1964 Foreign Aid bill. The complaint alleged that the Congressman “will become a candidate in 1966 for reelection . . . and has been a political figure and public official for many years,” and that Zwickler “desires and intends to distribute ... at the place where he had previously done so and at various places in said [Kings] County, the anonymous leaflet herein described . . . and similar anonymous leaflets ... at any time during the election campaign of 1966 and in subsequent election campaigns or in connection with any election of party officials, nomination for public office and party position that may occur subsequent to said election campaign of 1966.”
It was disclosed on the argument of Zwickler v. Koota in this Court that the Congressman had left the House of Representatives for a place on the Supreme Court of New York. We deemed this development relevant to the question whether the prerequisites for the issuance of a declaratory judgment were present. We noted, however, that, probably because of the decision to abstain, the parties had not addressed themselves to, and the District Court had not adjudicated, that question. 389 U. S., at 244, n. 3. Therefore, we directed that on the remand “appellant [Zwickler] must establish the elements governing the issuance of a declaratory judgment.” Id., at 252, n. 15; see also id., at 252-253, n. 16.
The District Court hearing on the remand was limited largely to the oral argument of counsel, and no testimony was taken concerning the existence of the elements governing the issuance of a declaratory judgment. The three-judge court held that the prerequisites of a declaratory judgment had been established by the facts alleged in the complaint, and that the fact that the Congressman who was the original target of the handbills would not again stand for re-election did not affect the question. The court said:
“The attempt of defendant to moot the controversy and thus to abort a declaration of constitutional invalidity by citing the circumstance that the Congressman concerning whom the Zwickler handbill was published has since become a New York State Supreme Court Justice must fail. When this action was initiated the controversy was genuine, substantial and immediate, even though the date of the election to which the literature was pertinent had already passed.
“. . . The fortuitous circumstance that the candidate in relation to whose bid for office the anonymous handbill was circulated had, while vindication inched tediously forward, removed himself from the role of target of the 1964 handbill does not moot the plaintiff’s further and far broader right to a general adjudication of unconstitutionality his complaint prays for. We see no reason to question Zwickler’s assertion that the challenged statute currently impinges upon his freedom of speech by deterring him from again distributing anonymous handbills. His own interest as well as that of others who would with like anonymity practise free speech in a political environment persuade us to the justice of his plea.” 290 F. Supp. 244, 248, 249 (1968).
We noted probable jurisdiction sub nom. Koota v. Zwickler, 393 U. S. 818 (1968). We reverse.
The District Court erred in holding that Zwickler was entitled to declaratory relief if the elements essential to that relief existed “[wjhen this action was initiated.” The proper inquiry was whether a “controversy” requisite to relief under the Declaratory Judgment Act existed at the time of the hearing on the remand. We now undertake that inquiry.
“[TJhe federal courts established pursuant to Article III of the Constitution do not render advisory opinions. For adjudication of constitutional issues, ‘concrete legal issues, presented in actual cases, not abstractions/ are requisite. This is as true of declaratory judgments as any other field.” United Public Workers of America v. Mitchell, 330 U. S. 75, 89 (1947). “The difference between an abstract question and a ‘controversy’ contemplated by the Declaratory Judgment Act is necessarily one of degree, and it would be difficult, if it would be possible, to fashion a precise test for determining in every case whether there is such a controversy. Basically, the question in each case is whether the facts alleged, under all the circumstances, show that there is a substantial controversy, between parties having adverse legal interests, of sufficient immediacy and reality to warrant the issuance of a declaratory judgment.” Maryland Casualty Co. v. Pacific Coal & Oil Co., 312 U. S. 270, 273 (1941).
We think that under all the circumstances of the case the fact that it was most unlikely that the Congressman would again be a candidate for Congress precluded a finding that there was “sufficient immediacy and reality” here. The allegations of the complaint focus upon the then forthcoming 1966 election when, it was alleged, the Congressman would again stand for re-election. The anonymous handbills which the complaint identified as to be distributed in the 1966 and subsequent elections were the 1964 handbill and “similar anonymous leaflets.” On the record therefore the only supportable conclusion was that Zwickler’s sole concern was literature relating to the Congressman and his record. Since the New York statute’s prohibition of anonymous handbills applies only to handbills directly pertaining to election campaigns, and the prospect was neither real nor immediate of a campaign involving the Congressman, it was wholly conjectural that another occasion might arise when Zwickler might be prosecuted for distributing the handbills referred to in the complaint. His assertion in his brief that the former Congressman can be “a candidate for Congress again” is hardly a substitute for evidence that this is a prospect of “immediacy and reality.” Thus the record is in sharp contrast to that in Evers v. Dwyer, 358 U. S. 202 (1958), relied upon by the District Court.
It was not enough to say, as did the District Court, that nevertheless Zwickler has a “further and far broader right to a general adjudication of unconstitutionality . . . [in] [h]is own interest as well as that of others who would with like anonymity practise free speech in a political environment . . . The constitutional question, First Amendment or otherwise, must be presented in the context of a specific live grievance. In United Public Workers of America v. Mitchell, supra, at 89-90, we said:
“The power of courts, and ultimately of this Court, to pass upon the constitutionality of acts of Congress arises only when the interests of litigants require the use of this judicial authority for their protection against actual interference. A hypothetical threat is not enough.”
The same is true of the power to pass upon the constitutionality of state statutes. No federal court, whether this Court or a district court, has “jurisdiction to pronounce any statute, either of a State or of the United States, void, because irreconcilable with the Constitution, except as it is called upon to adjudge the legal rights of litigants in actual controversies.” Liverpool, N. Y. & P. S. S. Co. v. Commissioners, 113 U. S. 33, 39 (1885). (Emphasis added.) See also United States v. Raines, 362 U. S. 17, 21 (1960). The express limitation of the Declaratory Judgment Act to cases “of actual controversy” is explicit recognition of this principle.
We conclude that Zwickler did not establish the existence at the time of the hearing on the remand of the elements governing the issuance of a declaratory judgment, and therefore that the District Court should have dismissed his complaint. We accordingly intimate no view upon the correctness of the District Court’s holding as to the constitutionality of the New York statute. The judgment of the District Court is reversed, and the case is remanded with direction to enter a new judgment dismissing the complaint.
It is so ordered.
Section 781-b, in pertinent part, made it a misdemeanor to “distribute in quantity . . . any handbill' . . . which contains any statement . . . concerning any political party, candidate ... in connection with any election of public officers, party officials . . . without . . . reproducing thereon . . . the name and post-office address of the . . . person ... at whose instance . . . such handbill ... is so . . . distributed ...”
The text of the 1964 handbill is as follows:
“REPRESENTATIVE MULTER — EXPLAIN YOUR POSITIONS “AID TO NASSER
“On September 2, 1964, an amendment was proposed to a foreign aid bill (Public Law 480). In substance, it would have cut off all aid to the United Arab Republic. Congressman Multer spoke at length against the amendment, and in his own words, urged its defeat ‘as earnestly as I can.’ He stated that his position was based on ‘humanitarian instinct.’ (Congressional Record 20792.)
“In this respect, the following should be noted
“(a) Congressman Multer’s stand permits the diversion of funds by Dictator Nasser to his armaments buildup.
“(b) The United Arab Republic is also a recipient of aid from Communist Russia.
“(c) Egypt is now employing the technical skills of scientists, formerly under the employ of the Nazis.
“(d) Congressman Multer debated against the amendment on the eve of the summit conference held in Cairo by 13 Arab States which are threatening the peace of the Near East and the State of Israel in particular.
“SOVIET ANTI-SEMITISM
“The 1964 Foreign Aid bill was passed in the United States Senate with an amendment sponsored by Senator Abraham Ribicoff (D., Conn.) that strongly condemned the anti-Semitic practices of the Soviet Union. When this issue was brought to the House-Senate conferees, a much more general statement decrying all types of religious bigotry was adopted.
“Representative Multer praised this ‘watered down’ measure on the House floor, and stated:
“ ‘While the Senate version did point the finger directly at Soviet Russia, the version as finally adopted, I think, is much the better one.
“ ‘I believe, instead of pointing the finger at the culprit now before the bar of world public opinion where it is being so severely condemned, it is much better that this Congress go on record as it is doing now, against religious persecution wherever it may raise its ugly head.’ (Congressional Record 22850.)
“WHY MR. MULTER, WHY? ? ? ? ?”
The Declaratory Judgment Act, 28 U. S. C. §2201, expressly provides: “In a case of actual controversy within its jurisdiction . . . any court of the United States, upon the filing of an appropriate pleading, may declare the rights and other legal relations of any interested party seeking such declaration, whether or not further relief is or could be sought.” (Emphasis added.)
The former Congressman’s term of office as a State Supreme Court Justice is 14 years.
The allegation of the complaint that Zwickler might distribute anonymous handbills relating to “party officials” does not indicate otherwise. The Congressman held an elective party position as a district leader. See 290 F. Supp., at 248.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | I | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Mr. Justice Frankfurter
delivered the opinion of the Court.
This is a proceeding arising out of a determination by the Tax Commission of the State of New York, sustained by the courts of the State, whereby § 186-a of the New York Tax Law was construed to impose a tax on appellant’s gross receipts from transportation between points within the State but over routes that utilize the highways of Pennsylvania and New Jersey. The appellant contends, against contrary conclusions below, that since the taxed transportation was interstate commerce, New York may not constitutionally tax the gross receipts from such transportation. In any event, it submits that the State may validly tax only so much of these gross receipts as are attributable to the mileage within the State. Before dealing with these issues, we must dispose of an objection to our right to deal with them.
The State urges that the constitutional claims here pressed by the appellant were not passed upon by the New York Court of Appeals. The record does not sustain this challenge to our jurisdiction. The constitutional issues were undeniably raised before the State Tax Commission and on review before the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court, 266 App. Div. 648. The suggestion that these issues were not before the Court of Appeals is based on its statement that the question urged there was “not one of constitutional taxing power but of statutory construction.” 296 N. Y. 18, 24. But the court proceeded to pass upon the constitutional issues and expressly held that “there is no constitutional objection to taxation of the total receipts here. This is not interstate commerce . . . .” 296 N. Y. at 25. Its amended re-mittitur stated explicitly that a question arising under the Commerce Clause of the Constitution “was presented and passed upon,” and that in sustaining the tax the court “held that the aforesaid statute as so construed is not repugnant to that provision of the Federal Constitution.” This amendment was not a retrospective injection of a non-existent federal question, but a formal certification that a federal claim had been presented and was adjudicated by the Court of Appeals. It is properly here for review. § 237 (a) of the Judicial Code, 28 U. S. C. § 344 (a).
This case serves to remind once more that courts do not adjudicate abstractions, such as, “What is interstate commerce?” Also, it again illustrates that even if it be found that certain transactions in fact constitute interstate commerce, such conclusion does not answer the further inquiry whether a particular assertion of power by a State over such transactions offends the Commerce Clause.
It is too late in the day to deny that transportation which leaves a State and enters another State is “Commerce . . . among the several States” simply because the points from and to are in the same State. Hanley v. Kansas City Southern R. Co., 187 U. S. 617; Western Union Tel. Co. v. Speight, 254 U. S. 17; Missouri Pacific R. Co. v. Stroud, 267 U. S. 404. In reaching the opposite conclusion the State court relied upon three decisions of this Court: Lehigh Valley R. Co. v. Pennsylvania, 145 U. S. 192; Ewing v. Leavenworth, 226 U. S. 464; New York ex rel. Cornell Steamboat Co. v. Sohmer, 235 U. S. 549. The Ewing case was based on the Lehigh Valley case; the Cornell Steamboat case relied on the Ewing and the Lehigh Valley decisions. The holding in the Lehigh Valley case was defined with precision by Mr. Justice Holmes in the Hanley case. He accounted for some State decisions which disregarded interstate commerce as a matter of fact, tested by the actual transaction, as “made simply out of deference to conclusions drawn from Lehigh Valley Railroad Co. v. Pennsylvania, 145 U. S. 192, and we are of opinion that they carry their conclusions too far.” He pointed out that in the Lehigh Valley case “the tax 'was determined in respect of receipts for the proportion of the transportation within the State.’ 145 U. S. 201. Such a proportioned tax had been sustained in the case of commerce admitted to be interstate.” Hanley v. Kansas City Southern R. Co., supra, at 621. This limited scope of the Lehigh Valley case was the basis of decision in United States Express Company v. Minnesota, 223 U. S. 335. In that case, the Minnesota Supreme Court had interpreted the Lehigh Valley decision “as allowing a recovery of taxes upon that proportion of the earnings derived from the carriage wholly within the state. This seems to us the safer rule, and avoids any question of taxing interstate commerce, and we adopt and apply it to this case. Nine per cent, of the taxes recovered on this class of earnings should be deducted from the amount of the recovery.” 114 Minn. 346, 350. On writ of error to the Supreme Court of Minnesota, this Court upheld the State court’s application of the Lehigh Valley decision. 223 U.S. 335, 341-42.
In view, however, of some contrariety of views to which the opinion in the Lehigh Valley case has given rise, it calls for a more candid consideration than merely quoting phrases from it congenial to a particular decision. The Lehigh Valley case was this. The Lehigh Valley Railroad Company attacked the validity of a Pennsylvania statute taxing the company’s gross receipts from its line between Mauch Chunk, Pennsylvania, and Phillipsburg, New Jersey. The Pennsylvania Railroad operated a connecting line between Phillipsburg and Philadelphia. The Lehigh and the Pennsylvania had arranged for continuous transportation of through passengers and freight between Mauch Chunk and Philadelphia. The trial court had found, as appears from the record, that the “total receipts from this transportation, seven per cent, of which were collected by the Lehigh Valley Railroad Company at point of shipment and the remainder by the Pennsylvania Railroad Company at point of destination, were apportioned between the companies upon a mileage basis — that is to say, each company’s share was in the proportion that the number of miles carried by it bore to the total number of miles carried.” It sustained the tax on the ground that the transportation was in substance “purely internal.” The Supreme Court of Pennsylvania affirmed on the trial court’s opinion. Lehigh Valley R. Co. v. Commonwealth, 1 Monag. 45, 17Atl. 179.
When the case got here, the Lehigh Valley contended that the transportation between Mauch Chunk and Phil-lipsburg constituted interstate commerce and therefore beyond the taxing power of Pennsylvania, because Phil-lipsburg, while on the Delaware River border between Pennsylvania and New Jersey, was in New Jersey and reached by the railroad via an interstate bridge. Pennsylvania, on the other hand, ignoring the stretch over the interstate bridge (apparently on the theory of de minimis) insisted that the gross receipts were deemed to be “wholly from traffic within the state” because so treated by the railroad itself. This was based on the fact that the Lehigh Valley and the Pennsylvania Railroad had apportioned the receipts from their through traffic, and the amount of the gross receipts which Pennsylvania taxed was the proportion which the railroads inter se attributed to the Lehigh Valley as its share of the earnings within Pennsylvania. This fiscal arrangement between the two railroads is the explanation and justification for the statement in this Court’s opinion that “The tax under consideration here was determined in respect of receipts for the proportion of the transportation within the State.” 145 U. S. at 201. And so, naturally enough, in the Hanley case the Court called the tax which had been sustained in the Lehigh Valley case “a proportioned tax,” and as such it “had been sustained in the case of commerce admitted to be interstate.” Hanley v. Kansas City Southern R. Co., supra, at 621.
In support of the proposition that “a proportioned tax had been sustained in the case of commerce admitted to be interstate” the Hanley case invoked Maine v. Grand Trunk R. Co., 142 U. S. 217. Unfortunately, the opinion in Lehigh Valley did not rely on that case. It did not even mention it. This silence is explicable by the fact that only a few months before, in the same term, the Court had sharply divided on this very issue in the Grand Trunk case. In the Lehigh Valley case Mr. Chief Justice Fuller spoke for a unanimous court. One is entitled to infer that such accord was obtainable by not renewing the battle of the Grand Trunk case. It would not be the first time in the history of this Court that agreement could be reached by one mode of reasoning but not by another. Mr. Justice Bradley and his fellow dissenters in the Grand, Trunk case were evidently content to sustain the Pennsylvania tax as a tax on “domestic transportation,” “internal intercourse,” in short as not “interstate commerce,” for thereby they would not bring into question the views so vigorously expressed by them a few months before.
It was reasonable enough to disregard the short distance in which the transportation in the Lehigh Valley case went over the interstate bridge on the Delaware River büt otherwise was wholly in Pennsylvania, and to treat it as de minimis when the railroad’s accounting itself treated the receipts as proportioned. “Regulation and commerce among the States both are practical rather than technical conceptions, and, naturally, their limits must be fixed by practical lines.” Galveston, Harrisburg and San Antonio R. Co. v. Texas, 210 U. S. 217, 225. But to label transportation across an interstate stream “local commerce” for some purposes when it is “interstate commerce” in other relations, see, e. g., Covington & Cincinnati Bridge Co. v. Kentucky, 154 U. S. 204, is to use loosely terms having connotations of constitutional significance. To call commerce in fact interstate “local commerce” because under a given set of circumstances, as in the Lehigh Valley case, a particular exertion of State power is not rendered invalid by the Commerce Clause is to indulge in a fiction. Especially in the disposition of constitutional issues are legal fictions hazardous, because of the risk of confounding users and not merely readers. The kind of confusion to which the Lehigh Valley opinion has given rise results from employing a needless fiction — calling commerce local which in fact is interstate — as a manner of stating that a particular exercise of State power is not invalid even though it affects interstate commerce. The difficult task of determining whether a phase of commerce, concededly interstate, is subject to a particular incidence of State regulation, through taxation or otherwise, is not lessened by calling interstate commerce local commerce in order to sustain its local control. To state this persistent and protean problem of our federalism in the form of a question-begging fiction, is not to answer it.
This brings us to the facts of the case before us. New York claims the right to tax the gross receipts from transportation which traverses New Jersey and Pennsylvania as well as New York. To say that this commerce is confined to New York is to indulge in pure fiction. To do so, does not eliminate the relation of Pennsylvania and New Jersey to the transactions nor eliminate the benefits which those two States confer upon the portions of the transportation within their borders. Neither their interests nor their responsibilities are evaporated by the verbal device of attributing the entire transportation to New York. There is no suggestion here that the interstate routes were utilized as a means of avoiding even in part New York’s taxation. Compare, e. g., Eichholz v. Public Service Commission of Missouri, 306 U. S. 268, and Ryan v. Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission, 143 Pa. Super. 517. We are not dealing with a necessary deviation or a calculated detour. Nor is New York seeking to tax transactions physically outside its borders but so trifling in quantity to the New York commerce, of which they form a part, as to be constitutionally insignificant. New York seeks to tax the total receipts from transportation of which nearly 43% of the mileage lay in New Jersey and Pennsylvania. Transactions which to such a substantial extent actually take place in New Jersey and Pennsylvania cannot be deemed legally to take place in New York.
Of course we are dealing here with “interstate commerce.” Of course Congress did not exceed its power to regulate such commerce when in the Motor Carrier Act of 1935 it explicitly included commerce such as that before us within the scope of that Act: “The term ‘interstate commerce’ means commerce between any place in a State and any place in another State or between places in the same State through another State, whether such commerce moves wholly by motor vehicle or partly by motor vehicle and partly by rail, express, or water.” 49 Stat. 543, 544, 49 U. S. C. § 303 (a) (10). In a case like this nothing is gained, and clarity is lost, by not starting with recognition of the fact that it is interstate commerce which the State is seeking to reach and candidly facing the real question whether what the State is exacting is a constitutionally fair demand by the State for that aspect of the interstate commerce to which the State bears a special relation. See Union Brokerage Co. v. Jensen, 322 U. S. 202, and Bob-Lo Excursion Co. v. Michigan, 333 U. S. 28. Such being the real issue inevitably “nice distinctions are to be expected.” Galveston, Harrisburg and San Antonio R. Co. v. Texas, supra, at 225. But such distinctions would be clearer and more reasonably made if, for instance, a fiat privilege tax applied by a municipality to an express company shipping packages between points within a State, but over routes which for a very short distance pass out of the State, had been frankly sustained on the ground that the tax did not burden interstate commerce in the constitutional sense rather than on the ground that it was not interstate commerce. Compare Ewing v. Leavenworth, supra, with Kirmeyer v. Kansas, 236 U. S. 568. Again, it would have made for a less dialectical, if not more coherent, development of the law to sustain a New York gross receipts tax on a New York corporation, engaged in towing vessels between ports in the State of New York on the Hudson River traversing the New Jersey side but not touching its shore, on the ground that upon the facts of that case, and more particularly New Jersey’s relation to the transactions (very different from those now before us), New York was not burdening interstate commerce, rather than to hold that “transportation between the ports of the State is not interstate commerce, excluded from the taxing power of the State, because as to a part of the journey the course is over the territory of another State.” Compare New York ex rel. Cornell Steamboat Co. v. Sohmer, supra, at 560, with Cornell Steamboat Co. v. United States, 321 U. S. 634.
It is significant that, so far as we are advised, no State other than New York seeks to tax the unapportioned receipts from transportation going through more than one State, (except to an extent so insignificant as to be disregarded), merely because such transportation returns to the State of its origin. If New Jersey and Pennsylvania could claim their right to make appropriately apportioned claims against that substantial part of the business of appellant to which they afford protection, we do not see how on principle and in precedent such a claim could be denied. This being so, to allow New York to impose a tax on the gross receipts for the entire mileage — on the 57.47% within New York as well as the 42.53% without— would subject interstate commerce to the unfair burden of being taxed as to portions of its revenue by States which give protection to those portions, as well as to a State which does not. This is not to conjure up remote possibilities. Pennsylvania’s claim to tax a portion of appellant’s gross receipts from the transportation which New York has taxed is not a matter of speculation. Apparently, Pennsylvania has so taxed since 1931. Penn. Laws 1931, No. 255, as amended by Act of June 5, 1947, No. 204. New York does not deny that Pennsylvania in fact so taxes, though there is dispute as to the meaning of the formula by which she does so. But even if neither Pennsylvania nor New Jersey sought to tax their proportionate share of the revenue from this transportation, such abstention would not justify the taxing by New York of the entire revenue. Freeman v. Hewit, 329 U. S. 249, 256. By its very nature an unapportioned gross receipts tax makes interstate transportation bear more than “a fair share of the cost of the local government whose protection it enjoys.” Id. at 253. The vice of such a tax is that it lays “a direct burden upon every transaction in [interstate] commerce by withholding, for the use of the State, a part of every dollar received in such transactions.” Crew Levick Co. v. Pennsylvania, 245 U. S. 292, 297; see Adams Manufacturing Co. v. Storen, 304 U. S. 307, 311; Freeman v. Hewit, supra; Joseph v. Carter and Weekes Stevedoring Co., 330 U. S. 422.
However, while the New York courts have construed the statute as levying an unapportioned gross receipts tax on this transaction, the entire tax need not fall. The tax may be “fairly apportioned” to the “business done within the state by a fair method of apportionment.” Western Live Stock v. Bureau of Revenue, 303 U. S. 250, 255. There is no dispute as to feasibility in apportioning this tax. On the record before us the tax may constitutionally be sustained on the receipts from the transportation apportioned as to the mileage within the State. See Ratterman v. Western Union Telegraph Co., 127 U. S. 411, 427-28. There is no question as to the fairness of the suggested method of apportionment. Compare Maine v. Grand Trunk R. Co., supra, with New Jersey Bell Telephone Co. v. State Board of Taxes and Assessments, 280 U. S. 338; cf. Wallace v. Hines, 253 U. S. 66. Both appellant and appellee have indicated here that, as a matter of construction, the statute under consideration permits such apportionment, but that is a matter for the New York courts to determine.
The judgment is reversed and the cause is remanded for further proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion.
Mr. Justice Rutledge 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 |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Mr. Justice White
delivered the opinion of the Court.
This case presents still another development in the efforts of the State of Florida to apportion its legislature in accordance with the requirements of the Federal Constitution. There have been previous chapters in this story. The litigation began in 1962. On June 22, 1964, in Swann v. Adams, 378 U. S. 553, we reversed the judgment of the three-judge District Court upholding the then-current legislative apportionment in Florida and remanded the case for further proceedings, consistent with the Court’s opinion in Reynolds v. Sims, 377 U. S. 533, and its companion cases. The District Court then deferred further action until the conclusion of the legislative session which convened on April 6, 1965. The legislature proceeded to reapportion the State on June 29, 1965. The District Court forthwith held the new plan failed to meet the requirements of the Fourteenth Amendment but approved the plan on an interim basis, limiting it to the period ending 60 days after the adjournment of the 1967 session of the Florida Legislature. This Court, finding no warrant for perpetuating what all conceded was an unconstitutional apportionment for another three years, reversed the judgment and-remanded the case to the District Court so that a valid reapportionment plan would be made effective for the 1966 elections. Swann v. Adams, 383 U. S. 210. The Florida Legislature again acted on the matter in March 1966 by adopting still another reapportionment plan which the appellants promptly attacked in the District Court.
The new plan provides for 48 senators and 117 representatives, and includes what in effect are multimember districts for each house. The senate districts range from 87,595 to 114,053 in population per senator, or from 15.09% overrepresented to 10.56% underrepresented. The ratio between the largest and the smallest district is thus 1.30 to 1. The deviation from the average population per senator is greater than 15% in one senatorial district, is greater than 14% in five more districts and is more than 10% in still six other districts. Approximately 25% of the State’s population living in one quarter of the total number of senatorial districts is underrepresented or overrepresented by at least 10%. The minimum percentage of persons that could elect a majority of 25 senators is 48.38%.
In the house the population per representative ranges from 34,584 to 48,785 or from 18.28% overrepresented to 15.27% underrepresented. The ratio between the largest and the smallest representative district is 1.41 to 1. Two districts vary from the norm by more than 18% and another by more than 15%, these three districts having seven of the 117 representatives. Ten other districts with 22 representatives vary from the norm by more than 10%. There is thus a deviation of more than 10% in districts which elect 29 of the 117 representatives; 24.35% of the State’s population lives in these districts. The'minimum percentage of persons that could elect a majority of 59 representatives is 47.79%.
The District Court recognized that “apportionment must be substantially on a population basis” but that “ [m] athematical exactness or precision is not required.” It went on to hold “[s]uch departures as there are from the ideal are not sufficient in number or great enough in percentages to require an upsetting of the legislative plan. . . . [WJhat deviation there is does not discriminate to any great extent against any section of the state or against either rural or urban interests.” 258 F. Supp. 819, 826, 827. Accordingly, the plan was held constitutional.
The State would have us dismiss this case for lack of standing on the part of appellants to maintain this appeal because appellants are from Dade County, Florida, which appellants concede has received constitutional treatment under the legislative plan. Appellants, however, had before the District Court their own plan which would have accorded different treatment to Dade County in some respects as compared with the legislative plan, and the alternative plan was rejected by the District Court. Moreover, the District Court has apparently consistently denied intervention to other plaintiffs, seemingly treating the appellants as representing other citizens in the State. The challenge to standing cannot succeed.
We reverse for the failure of the State to present or the District Court to articulate acceptable reasons for the variations among the populations of the various legislative districts with respect to both the senate and house of representatives. Reynolds v. Sims, supra, recognized that mathematical exactness is not required in state apportionment plans. De minimis deviations are unavoidable, but variations of 30% among senate districts and 40% among house districts can hardly be deemed de minimis and none of our cases suggests that differences of this magnitude will be approved, without a satisfactory explanation grounded on acceptable state policy. On the contrary, the Reynolds opinion limited the allowable deviations to those minor variations which “are based on legitimate considerations incident to the effectuation of a rational state policy.” 377 U. S. 533, 579. Thus that opinion went on to indicate that variations from a pure population standard might be justified by such state policy considerations as the integrity of political subdivisions, the maintenance of compactness and contiguity in legislative districts or the recognition of natural or historical boundary lines. Likewise, in Roman v. Sincock, 377 U. S. 695, 710, the Court stated that the Constitution permits “such minor deviations only as may occur in recognizing certain factors that are free from any taint of arbitrariness or discrimination.”
The State relies on Forty-fourth General Assembly of Colorado v. Lucas, 379 U. S. 693; Burnette v. Davis, 382 U. S. 42; and Harrison v. Schaefer, 383 U. S. 269, which were per curiam affirmances of lower court judgments in reapportionment cases. The State suggests that the plans approved in those cases involved variations in magnitude equal to or greater than those revealed by the Florida apportionment, and for that reason the judgment here should be affirmed. But in none of these cases was the issue of the validity of the differences in population between various legislative districts either raised or ruled upon in this Court. There was no occasion to explore whether or not there was ample justification for the challenged variations. And in Lucas v. Forty-fourth General Assembly of Colorado, 377 U. S. 713, 727, 734-735, the Court expressly reserved decision upon the validity of a variance ratio of 1.7 to 1. In any event, the fact that a 10%' or 15% variation from the norm is approved in one State has little bearing on the validity of a similar variation in another State. “What is marginally permissible in one State may be unsatisfactory in another, depending upon the particular circumstances of the case.” Reynolds v. Sims, 377 U. S. 533, 578.
As this case comes to us we have no alternative but to reverse. The District Court made no attempt to explain or justify the many variations among the legislative districts. As for the State, all it suggested in either the lower court or here is that its plan comes as close as “practical” to complete population equality and that the State was attempting to follow congressional district lines. There was, however, no attempt to justify any particular deviations, even the larger ones, with respect to either of these considerations. Moreover, the State’s brief states only that the legislature followed “in most instances” the congressional boundaries, and with respect to “practicality” it seems quite obvious that the State could have come much closer to providing districts of equal population than it did. The appellants themselves placed before the court their own plan which revealed much smaller variations between the districts than did the plan approved by the District Court. Furthermore, appellants suggested to the District Court specific amendments to the legislative plan which, if they had been accepted, would have measurably reduced the population differences between many of the districts. Appellants’ own plan and their suggested amendments to the legislative plan might have been infirm in other respects but they do demonstrate that a closer approximation to equally populated districts was a feasible undertaking. The State, with admirable candor, states that it offered no evidence in the District Court to explain the challenged variations with respect to either the house or the senate. In its view, however, the plan should be approved on the record as it is.
We think the better view is that taken by the three-judge court in Maryland. which disapproved a legislative plan involving an overrepresentation of 14.90% and an underrepresentation of 14.38% because, as Judge Sobeloff said, there was “no showing in this case that the difference of one-third is unavoidable or justified upon any legally acceptable ground.” Maryland Citizens Committee for Fair Congressional Redistricting, Inc. v. Tawes, 253 F. Supp. 731, 733. Compare League of Nebraska Municipalities v. Marsh, 242 F. Supp. 357, disapproving a ratio of 1.6 to 1 between the smallest and the largest district absent satisfactory explanation by the State, and Paulson v. Meier, 246 F. Supp. 36, which found a ratio between the smallest and largest district of 1.39 to 1 to be unjustified on the basis offered by the State.
The appellants complain of other aspects of the plan besides unequally populated legislative districts. Under the new statute three senators were not required to run for election in 1966 but were allowed to finish their present terms expiring in 1968. These three senators, as the District Court noted, were elected in districts that are identical in territory to their districts under the legislative plan. Also, one senate and six house seats were subject to residency requirements. The District Court found no invidious discrimination in these aspects of the plan. Appellants also claim that the legislative plan discriminates invidiously by underrepresenting the populous urban counties and by overrepresenting the sparsely settled rural counties in both houses. The court below found that “what deviation there is does not discriminate to any great extent against any section of the state or against either rural or urban interests.” 258 F. Supp. 819, 827. In the light of our disposition of this case, however, we need not reach and decide any of these additional issues, although we note that Reynolds v. Sims indicates the constitutional impropriety of maintaining deviations from the equal population principle in deference to area and economic or other group interests. 377 U. S. 533, 579-580.
Reversed.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | B | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Justice White
delivered the opinion of the Court.
Rule 37(b), Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, provides that a district court may impose sanctions for failure to comply with discovery orders. Included among the available sanctions is:
“An order that the matters regarding which the order was made or any other designated facts shall be taken to be established for the purposes of the action in accordance with the claim of the party obtaining the order.” Rule 37(b)(2)(A).
The question presented by this case is whether this Rule is applicable to facts that form the basis for personal jurisdiction over a defendant. May a district court, as a sanction for failure to comply with a discovery order directed at establishing jurisdictional facts, proceed on the basis that personal jurisdiction over the recalcitrant party has been established? Petitioners urge that such an application of the Rule would violate due process: If a court does not have jurisdiction over a party, then it may not create that jurisdiction by judicial fiat. They contend also that until a court has jurisdiction over a party, that party need not comply with orders of the court; failure to comply, therefore, cannot provide the ground for a sanction. In our view, petitioners are attempting to create a logical conundrum out of a fairly straightforward matter.
I
Respondent Compagnie des Bauxites de Guiñee (CBG) is a Delaware corporation, 49% of which is owned by the Republic of Guinea and 51% is owned by Halco (Mining) Inc. CBG’s principal place of business is in the Republic of Guinea, where it operates bauxite mines and processing facilities. Halco, which operates in Pennsylvania, has contracted to perform certain administrative services for CBG. These include the procurement of insurance.
In 1973, Halco instructed an insurance broker, Marsh & McLennan, to obtain $20 million worth of business interruption insurance to cover CBG’s operations in Guinea. The first half of this coverage was provided by the Insurance Company of North America (IÑA). The second half, or what is referred to as the “excess” insurance, was provided by a group of 21 foreign insurance companies,14 of which are petitioners in this action (the excess insurers).
Marsh & McLennan requested Bland Payne to obtain the excess insurance in the London insurance market. Pursuant to normal business practice
“[i]n late January and in February, 1974, Bland Payne presented to the excess insurer [petitioners] a placing slip in the amount of $10,000,000, in excess of the first $10,000,000. [Petitioners] initialed said placing slip, effective February 12, 1974, indicating the part of said $10,000,000 each was willing to insure.” Finding 27 of the District Court, 2 App. 347a.
Once the offering was fully subscribed, Bland Payne issued a cover note indicating the amount of the coverage and specifying the percentage of the coverage that each excess insurer had agreed to insure. No separate policy was issued; the excess insurers adopted the INA policy “as far as applicable.”
Sometime after February 12, CBG allegedly experienced mechanical problems in its Guinea operation, resulting in a business interruption loss in excess of $10 million. Contending that the loss was covered under its policies, CBG brought suit when the insurers refused to indemnify CBG for the loss. Whatever the mechanical problems experienced by CBG, they were perhaps minor compared to the legal difficulties encountered in the courts.
In December 1975, CBG filed a two-count suit in the Western District of Pennsylvania, asserting jurisdiction based on diversity of citizenship. The first count was against INA; the second against the excess insurers. INA did not challenge personal or subject-matter jurisdiction of the District Court. The answer of the excess insurers, however, raised a number of defenses, including lack of in personam jurisdiction. Subsequently, this alleged lack of personal jurisdiction became the basis of a motion for summary judgment filed by the excess insurers. The issue in this case requires an account of respondent’s attempt to use discovery in order to demonstrate the court’s personal jurisdiction over the excess insurers.
Respondent’s first discovery request — asking for “[cjopies of all business interruption insurance policies issued by Defendant during the period from January 1, 1972 to December 31, 1975” — was served on each defendant in August 1976. In January 1977, the excess insurers objected, on grounds of burdensomeness, to producing such policies. Several months later, respondent filed a motion to compel petitioners to produce the requested documents. In June 1978, the court orally overruled petitioners’ objections. This was followed by a second discovery request in which respondent narrowed the files it was seeking to policies which “were delivered in . . . Pennsylvania ... or covered a risk located in . . . Pennsylvania.” Petitioners now objected that these documents were not in their custody or control; rather, they were kept by the brokers in London. The court ordered petitioners to request the information from the brokers, limiting the request to policies covering the period from 1971 to date. That was in July 1978; petitioners were given 90 days to produce the information. On November 8, petitioners were given an additional 30 days to complete discovery. On November 24, petitioners filed an affidavit offering to make their records, allegedly some 4 million files, available at their offices in London for inspection by respondent. Respondent countered with a motion to compel production of the previously requested documents. On December 21, 1978, the court, noting that no conscientious effort had yet been made to produce the requested information and that no objection had been entered to the discovery order in July, gave petitioners 60 more days to produce the requested information. The District Judge also issued the following warning:
“[I]f you don’t get it to him in 60 days, I am going to enter an order saying that because you failed to give the information as requested, that I am going to assume, under Rule of Civil Procedure 37(b), subsection 2(A), that there is jurisdiction.” 1 App. 115a.
A few moments later he restated the warning as follows: “I will assume that jurisdiction is here with this court unless you produce statistics and other information in that regard that would indicate otherwise.” Id., at 116a.
On April 19, 1979, the court, after concluding that the requested material had not been produced, imposed the threatened sanction, finding that “for the purpose of this litigation the Excess Insurers are subject to the in personam jurisdiction of this Court due to their business contacts with Pennsylvania.” Id., at 201a. Independently of the sanction, the District Court found two other grounds for holding that it had personal jurisdiction over petitioners. First, on the record established, it found that petitioners had sufficient business contacts with Pennsylvania to fall within the Pennsylvania long-arm statute. Second, in adopting the terms of the INA contract with CBG — a Pennsylvania insurance contract — the excess insurers implicitly agreed to submit to the jurisdiction of the court.
Except with respect to three excess insurers, the Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit affirmed the jurisdictional holding, relying entirely upon the validity of the sanction. Compagnie des Bauxites de Guinea v. Insurance Co. of North America, 651 F. 2d 877 (1981). That court specifically found that the discovery orders of the District Court did not constitute an abuse of discretion and that imposition of the sanction fell within the limits of trial court discretion under Rule 37(b):
“The purpose and scope of the ordered discovery were directly related to the issue of jurisdiction and the rule 37 sanction was tailored to establish as admitted those jurisdictional facts that, because of the insurers’ failure to comply with discovery orders, CBG was unable to adduce through discovery.” 651 F. 2d, at 885.
Furthermore, it held that the sanction did not violate petitioners’ due process rights, because it was no broader than “reasonably necessary” under the circumstances.
Because the decision below directly conflicts with the decision of the Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit in Familia de Boom v. Arosa Mercantil, S.A., 629 F. 2d 1134 (1980), we granted certiorari. 454 U. S. 963 (1981).
H-< ■ 4
In McDonald, v. Mabee, 243 U. S. 90 (1917), another case involving an alleged lack of personal jurisdiction, Justice Holmes wrote for the Court, “great caution should be used not to let fiction deny the fair play that can be secured only by a pretty close adhesion to fact.” Id., at 91. Petitioners’ basic submission is that to apply Rule 37(b)(2) to jurisdictional facts is to allow fiction to get the better of fact and that it is impermissible to use a fiction to establish judicial power, where, as a matter of fact, it does not exist. In our view, this represents a fundamental misunderstanding of the nature of personal jurisdiction.
The validity of an order of a federal court depends upon that court’s having jurisdiction over both the subject matter and the parties. Stoll v. Gottlieb, 305 U. S. 165, 171-172 (1938); Thompson v. Whitman, 18 Wall. 457, 465 (1874). The concepts of subject-matter and personal jurisdiction, however, serve different purposes, and these different purposes affect the legal character of the two requirements. Petitioners fail to recognize the distinction between the two concepts — speaking instead in general terms of “jurisdiction” — although their argument’s strength comes from conceiving of jurisdiction only as subject-matter jurisdiction.
Federal courts are courts of limited jurisdiction. The character of the controversies over which federal judicial authority may extend are delineated in Art. III, § 2, cl. 1. Jurisdiction of the lower federal courts is further limited to those subjects encompassed within a statutory grant of jurisdiction. Again, this reflects the constitutional source of federal judicial power: Apart from this Court, that power only exists “in such inferior Courts as the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish.” Art. III, § 1.
Subject-matter jurisdiction, then, is an Art. Ill as well as a statutory requirement; it functions as a restriction on federal power, and contributes to the characterization of the federal sovereign. Certain legal consequences directly follow from this. For example, no action of the parties can confer subject-matter jurisdiction upon a federal court. Thus, the consent of the parties is irrelevant, California v. LaRue, 409 U. S. 109 (1972), principles of estoppel do not apply, American Fire & Casualty Co. v. Finn, 341 U. S. 6, 17-18 (1951), and a party does not waive the requirement by failing to challenge jurisdiction early in the proceedings. Similarly, a court, including an appellate court, will raise lack of subject-matter jurisdiction on its own motion. “[T]he rule, springing from the nature and limits of the judicial power of the United States is inflexible and without exception, which requires this court, of its own motion, to deny its jurisdiction, and, in the exercise of its appellate power, that of all other courts of the United States, in all cases where such jurisdiction does not affirmatively appear in the record.” Mansfield, C. & L. M. R. Co. v. Swan, 111 U. S. 379, 382 (1884).
None of this is true with respect to personal jurisdiction. The requirement that a court have personal jurisdiction flows not from Art. Ill, but from the Due Process Clause. The personal jurisdiction requirement recognizes and protects an individual liberty interest. It represents a restriction on judicial power not as a matter of sovereignty, but as a matter of individual liberty. Thus, the test for personal jurisdiction requires that “the maintenance of the suit. . . not offend ‘traditional notions of fair play and substantial justice.’” International Shoe Co. v. Washington, 326 U. S. 310, 316 (1945), quoting Milliken v. Meyer, 311 U. S. 457, 463 (1940).
Because the requirement of personal jurisdiction represents first of all an individual right, it can, like other such rights, be waived. In McDonald v. Mabee, supra, the Court indicated that regardless of the power of the State to serve process, an individual may submit to the jurisdiction of the court by appearance. A variety of legal arrangements have been taken to represent express or implied consent to the personal jurisdiction of the court. In National Equipment Rental, Ltd. v. Szukhent, 375 U. S. 311, 316 (1964), we stated that “parties to a contract may agree in advance to submit to the jurisdiction of a given court,” and in Petrowski v. Hawkeye-Security Co., 350 U. S. 495 (1956), the Court upheld the personal jurisdiction of a District Court on the basis of a stipulation entered into by the defendant. In addition, lower federal courts have found such consent implicit in agreements to arbitrate. See Victory Transport Inc. v. Comisaria General de Abastecimientos y Transportes, 336 F. 2d 354 (CA2 1964); 2 J. Moore & J. Lucas, Moore’s Federal Practice ¶ 4.02[3], n. 22 (1982) and cases listed there. Furthermore, the Court has upheld state procedures which find constructive consent to the personal jurisdiction of the state court in the voluntary use of certain state procedures. See Adam v. Saenger, 303 U. S. 59, 67-68 (1938) (“There is nothing in the Fourteenth Amendment to prevent a state from adopting a procedure by which a judgment in personam may be rendered in a cross-action against a plaintiff in its courts .... It is the price which the state may exact as the condition of opening its courts to the plaintiff”); Chicago Life Ins. Co. v. Cherry, 244 U. S. 25, 29-30 (1917) (“[W]hat acts of the defendant shall be deemed a submission to [a court’s] power is a matter upon which States may differ”). Finally, unlike subject-matter jurisdiction, which even an appellate court may review sua sponte, under Rule 12(h), Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, “[a] defense of lack of jurisdiction over the person ... is waived” if not timely raised in the answer or a responsive pleading.
In sum, the requirement of personal jurisdiction may be intentionally waived, or for various reasons a defendant may be estopped from raising the issue. These characteristics portray it for what it is — a legal right protecting the individual. The plaintiff’s demonstration of certain historical facts may make clear to the court that it has personal jurisdiction over the defendant as a matter of law — i. e., certain factual showings will have legal consequences — but this is not the only way in which the personal jurisdiction of the court may arise. The actions of the defendant may amount to a legal submission to the jurisdiction of the court, whether voluntary or not.
The expression of legal rights is often subject to certain procedural rules: The failure to follow those rules may well result in a curtailment of the rights. Thus, the failure to enter a timely objection to personal jurisdiction constitutes, under Rule 12(h)(1), a waiver of the objection. A sanction under Rule 37(b)(2)(A) consisting of a finding of personal jurisdiction has precisely the same effect. As a general proposition, the Rule 37 sanction applied to a finding of personal jurisdiction creates no more of a due process problem than the Rule 12 waiver. Although “a court cannot conclude all persons interested by its mere assertion of its own power,” Chicago Life Ins. Co. v. Cherry, supra, at 29, not all rules that establish legal consequences to a party’s own behavior are “mere assertions” of power.
Rule 37(b)(2)(A) itself embodies the standard established in Hammond Packing Co. v. Arkansas, 212 U. S. 322 (1909), for the due process limits on such rules. There the Court held that it did not violate due process for a state court to strike the answer and render a default judgment against a defendant who failed to comply with a pretrial discovery order. Such a rule was permissible as an expression of “the undoubted right of the lawmaking power to create a presumption of fact as to the bad faith and untruth of an answer begotten from the suppression or failure to produce the proof ordered .... [T]he preservation of due process was secured by the presumption that the refusal to produce evidence material to the administration of due process was but an admission of the want of merit in the asserted defense.” Id., at 350-351.
The situation in Hammond was specifically distinguished from that in Hovey v. Elliott, 167 U. S. 409 (1897), in which the Court held that it did violate due process for a court to take similar action as “punishment” for failure to obey an order to pay into the registry of the court a certain sum of money. Due process is violated only if the behavior of the defendant will not support the Hammond Packing presumption. A proper application of Rule 37(b)(2) will, as a matter of law, support such a presumption. See Societe Internationale v. Rogers, 357 U. S. 197, 209-213 (1958). If there is no abuse of discretion in the application of the Rule 37 sanction, as we find to be the case here (see Part III), then the sanction is nothing more than the invocation of a legal presumption, or what is the same thing, the finding of a constructive waiver.
Petitioners argue that a sanction consisting of a finding of personal jurisdiction differs from all other instances in which a sanction is imposed, including the default judgment in Hammond Packing, because a party need not obey the orders of a court until it is established that the court has personal jurisdiction over that party. If there is no obligation to obey a judicial order, a sanction cannot be applied for the failure to comply. Until the court has established personal jurisdiction, moreover, any assertion of judicial power over the party violates due process.
This argument again assumes that there is something unique about the requirement of personal jurisdiction, which prevents it from being established or waived like other rights. A defendant is always free to ignore the judicial proceedings, risk a default judgment, and then challenge that judgment on jurisdictional grounds in a collateral proceeding. See Baldwin v. Traveling Men’s Assn., 283 U. S. 522, 525 (1931). By submitting to the jurisdiction of the court for the limited purpose of challenging jurisdiction, the defendant agrees to abide by that court’s determination on the issue of jurisdiction: That decision will be res judicata on that issue in any further proceedings. Id., at 524; American Surety Co. v. Baldwin, 287 U. S. 156, 166 (1932). As demonstrated above, the manner in which the court determines whether it has personal jurisdiction may include a variety of legal rules and presumptions, as well as straightforward factfinding. A particular rule may offend the due process standard of Hammond Packing, but the mere use of procedural rules does not in itself violate the defendant’s due process rights.
I — I l-H HH
Even if Rule 37(b)(2) may be applied to support a finding of personal jurisdiction, the question remains as to whether it was properly applied under the circumstances of this case. Because the District Court’s decision to invoke the sanction was accompanied by a detailed explanation of the reasons for that order and because that decision was upheld as a proper exercise of the District Court’s discretion by the Court of Appeals, this issue need not detain us for long. What was said in National Hockey League v. Metropolitan Hockey Club, Inc., 427 U. S. 639, 642 (1976), is fully applicable here: “The question, of course, is not whether this Court, or whether the Court of Appeals, would as an original matter have [applied the sanction]; it is whether the District Court abused its discretion in so doing” (citations omitted). For the reasons that follow, we hold that it did not.
Rule 37(b)(2) contains two standards — one general and one specific — that limit a district court’s discretion. First, any sanction must be “just”; second, the sanction must be specifically related to the particular “claim” which was at issue in the order to provide discovery. While the latter requirement reflects the rule of Hammond Packing, supra, the former represents the general due process restrictions on the court’s discretion.
In holding that the sanction in this case was “just,” we rely specifically on the following. First, the initial discovery request was made in July 1977. Despite repeated orders from the court to provide the requested material, on December 21, 1978, the District Court was able to state that the petitioners “haven’t even made any effort to get this information up to this point.” 1 App. 112a. The court then warned petitioners of a possible sanction. Confronted with continued delay and an obvious disregard of its orders, the trial court’s invoking of its powers under Rule 37 was clearly appropriate. Second, petitioners repeatedly agreed to comply with the discovery orders within specified time periods. In each instance, petitioners failed to comply with their agreements. Third, respondent’s allegation that the court had personal jurisdiction over petitioners was not a frivolous claim, and its attempt to use discovery to substantiate this claim was not, therefore, itself a misuse of judicial process. The substantiality of the jurisdictional allegation is demonstrated by the fact that the District Court found, as an alternative ground for its jurisdiction, that petitioners had sufficient contacts with Pennsylvania to fall within the State’s long-arm statute. Supra, at 699. Fourth, petitioners had ample warning that a continued failure to comply with the discovery orders would lead to the imposition of this sanction. Furthermore, the proposed sanction made it clear that, even if there was not compliance with the discovery order, this sanction would not be applied if petitioners were to “produce statistics and other information” that would indicate an absence of personal jurisdiction. 1 App. 116a. In effect, the District Court simply placed the burden of proof upon petitioners on the issue of personal jurisdiction. Petitioners failed to comply with the discovery order; they also failed to make any attempt to meet this burden of proof. This course of behavior, coupled with the ample warnings, demonstrates the “justice” of the trial court’s order.
Neither can there be any doubt that this sanction satisfies the second requirement. CBG was seeking through discovery to respond to petitioners’ contention that the District Court did not have personal jurisdiction. Having put the issue in question, petitioners did not have the option of blocking the reasonable attempt of CBG to meet its burden of proof. It surely did not have this option once the court had overruled petitioners’ objections. Because of petitioners’ failure to comply with the discovery orders, CBG was unable to establish the full extent of the contacts between petitioners and Pennsylvania, the critical issue in proving personal jurisdiction. Petitioners’ failure to supply the requested information as to its contacts with Pennsylvania supports “the presumption that the refusal to produce evidence . . . was but an admission of the want of merit in the asserted defense.” Hammond Packing, 212 U. S., at 351. The sanction took as established the facts — contacts with Pennsylvania — that CBG was seeking to establish through discovery. That a particular legal consequence — personal jurisdiction of the court over the defendants — follows from this, does not in any way affect the appropriateness of the sanction.
> HH
Because the application of a legal presumption to the issue of personal jurisdiction does not in itself violate the Due Process Clause and because there was no abuse of the discretion granted a district court under Rule 37(b)(2), we affirm the judgment of the Court of Appeals.
So ordered.
The petition with which we deal in this case was filed as a cross-petition in response to the petition for certiorari filed in No. 81-290, Compagnie des Bauxites de Guinee v. Insurance Corp. of Ireland, Ltd. We granted the cross-petition, limiting the grant to the question of the validity of the Rule 37(b)(2) sanction. 454 U. S. 963 (1981). We shall refer to the cross-petitioners as “petitioners” and to the cross-respondent as “respondent.”
The District Court described these excess insurers as follows:
“Of the 21 Excess Insurers, five are English companies representing English domestic interests but insuring risks throughout the world, particularly in Pennsylvania. Seven are English companies which represent non English parents, or affiliates. The United States, Japan and Israel are the nationalities of two each of the Excess Insurer Defendants. Switzerland and the Republic of Ireland are the nationalities of one each of the Excess Insurer Defendants. The remaining Excess Insurer Defendant is a Belgium Company which represents the United States parent.” 1 App. 196a.
Four of the excess insurers did not contest personal jurisdiction in the District Court. Id., at 105a. The Court of Appeals directed the dismissal of the complaint with respect to three others. Compagnie des Bauxites de Guinee v. Insurance Co. of North America, 651 F. 2d 877, 886 (1981). CBG challenges the latter action in its petition for certiorari in No. 81-290.
One of the excess insurers, L’Union Atlantique S. A. d’Assurances, does business in Brussels, and was sent a separate placing slip.
The motion for summary judgment was filed on May 20,1977. In it, 17 of the excess insurers alleged a lack of in personam jurisdiction and all 21 excess insurers sought dismissal on the ground oí forum non conveniens. The District Court denied the motion on April 19, 1979.
On March 22,1979, the excess insurers instituted a suit against CBG in England, attackingthe validity of the insurance contract. Inits April 19 decision, the District Court found that “the commencement of the separate action in England [was] oppressive, unfair, and an act of bad faith under all of the circumstances.” 1 App. 203a. It, therefore, enjoined the continuation of that suit. This aspect of the District Court decision was reversed by the Court of Appeals. Respondent seeks certiorari review of that decision (see n. 1, supra,).
It reversed as to three of the excess insurers on the grounds that they had complied with the discovery orders and that their contacts with Pennsylvania were not sufficient to justify exercise of the Pennsylvania long-arm statute. It also held that the District Court had abused its discretion in enjoining the action in England. Judge Gibbons dissented on the propriety of the sanction, arguing that the District Court had abused its discretion. He also expressed some doubt that a Rule 37 sanction could ever be used as the source of personal jurisdiction. 651 F. 2d, at 892, n. 4.
In Familia de Boom, the Fifth Circuit held that a sanction under Rule 37(b)(2) is valid only if the court has personal jurisdiction over the party that has refused compliance with a court order. Personal jurisdiction must, it held, appear from the record independently of the sanction. The Courts of Appeals for the Fourth and Eighth Circuits, on the other hand, have agreed with the Third Circuit on the appropriateness of a sanction on the issue of personal jurisdiction. Lekkas v. Liberian M/V Caledonia, 443 F. 2d 10, 11 (CA4 1971); English v. 21st Phoenix Corp., 590 F. 2d 723 (CA8 1979).
A party that has had an opportunity to litigate the question of subject-matter jurisdiction may not, however, reopen that question in a collateral attack upon an adverse judgment. It has long been the rule that principles of res judicata apply to jurisdictional determinations — both subject matter and personal. See Chicot County Drainage Dist. v. Baxter State Bank, 308 U. S. 371 (1940); Stoll v. Gottlieb, 305 U. S. 165 (1938).
It is true that we have stated that the requirement of personal jurisdiction, as applied to state courts, reflects an element of federalism and the character of state sovereignty vis-a-vis other States. For example, in World-Wide Volkswagen Corp. v. Woodson, 444 U. S. 286, 291-292 (1980), we stated:
“[A] state court may exercise personal jurisdiction over a nonresident defendant only so long as there exist ‘minimum contacts’ between the defendant and the forum State. The concept of minimum contacts, in turn, can be seen to perform two related, but distinguishable, functions. It protects the defendant against the burdens of litigating in a distant or inconvenient forum. And it acts to ensure that the States, through their courts, do not reach out beyond the limits imposed on them by their status as coequal sovereigns in a federal system.” (Citation omitted.)
Contrary to the suggestion of Justice Powell, post, at 713-714, our holding today does not alter the requirement that there be “minimum contacts” between the nonresident defendant and the forum State. Rather, our holding deals with how the facts needed to show those “minimum contacts” can be established when a defendant fails to comply with court-ordered discovery. The restriction on state sovereign power described in World-Wide Volkswagen Corp., however, must be seen as ultimately a function of the individual liberty interest preserved by the Due Process Clause. That Clause is the only source of the personal jurisdiction requirement and the Clause itself makes no mention of federalism concerns. Furthermore, if the federalism concept operated as an independent restriction on the sovereign power of the court, it would not be possible to waive the personal jurisdiction requirement: Individual actions cannot change the powers of sovereignty, although the individual can subject himself to powers from which he may otherwise be protected.
The Advisory Committee Notes to the Rule specifically stated that “the provisions of the rule find support in [Hammond Packing Co. v. Arkansas, 212 U. S. 322 (1909)].” Final Report of Advisory Committee on Rules for Civil Procedure 25 (1937). See also Societe Internationale v. Rogers, 357 U. S. 197, 209 (1958).
Counsel for petitioners agreed to this characterization of the sanction at oral argument. Tr. of Oral Arg. 47-48.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
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 Blackmun
delivered the opinion of the Court.
This litigation was instituted in August 1977, pursuant to Art. Ill, §2, cl. 2, of the United States Constitution and 28 U. S. C. § 1251(a)(1) (1976 ed.), by the presentation to this Court of a motion by the State of Georgia for leave to file a complaint against the State of South Carolina. The suit wasthe culmination of a prolonged dispute between the two States over the location of their boundary along the lower reaches of the Savannah River (that is, downstream from the city of Savannah) and at the river’s mouth. The two States also are in disagreement as to their lateral seaward boundary.
We granted leave to Georgia to file its complaint. 434 U. S. 917 (1977). The Honorable Walter E. Hoffman, Senior Judge of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, was appointed Special Master with the authority customarily granted in litigation of this kind. 434 U. S. 1057 (1978). South Carolina, in due course, filed its answer and counterclaims.
The Special Master submitted his First Report (1 Rep.) to this Court eight years later on March 20, 1986. That report dealt with the issues other than the lateral seaward boundary. The Master and the parties moved that we defer action on the First Report until he had ruled on the seaward boundary. We complied with that request. The Special Master’s Second and Final Report (2 Rep.) was filed April 24, 1989. The Court fixed the time for the filing of exceptions. See 490 U. S. 1033 (1989). Each State filed exceptions and each responded to the exceptions of the other. Briefs were submitted and oral argument followed.
I
Background
On June 9, 1732, nearly 260 years ago, King George II, describing himself as King of Great Britain, France, and Ireland, issued letters patent constituting the Charter of the Colony of Georgia. These letters described the boundary between that colony and the existing Colony of South Carolina as “the most northern part of a stream or river there, commonly called the Savannah.” See F. Van Zandt, Boundaries of the United States and the Several States (Geological Survey Professional Paper 909) 100 (1976).
The precise location of segments of the boundary, however, proved to be a matter of continuing dispute between South Carolina and Georgia. Much of the controversy originally concerned navigation rights on the river. Shortly after the United States emerged as a Nation, commissioners appointed by each of the States met at Beaufort, S. C., and produced a Convention known as the Treaty of Beaufort of April 28, 1787 (hereinafter Treaty). See Van Zandt, supra, at 99; see also Georgia v. South Carolina, 257 U. S. 516, 518 (1922). The Treaty stated that the boundary was the “most northern branch or stream of the river Savannah..., reserving all the islands in the said rive[r] Savannah... to Georgia The Treaty was ratified in due course by the legislature of each State and by the Continental Congress. See 33 Journals of the Continental Congress 467 (1936).
Past Litigation
The very existence of the present suit, of course, demonstrates that the Treaty of Beaufort did not resolve all river-boundary questions between South Carolina and Georgia. Indeed, this is not the first, but the third, occasion that some issue concerning that boundary has come before this Court.
The first case is South Carolina v. Georgia, 93 U. S. 4 (1876). South Carolina filed a bill in equity for an injunction restraining Georgia and certain federal officials from “obstructing or interrupting” navigation on the Savannah River. This Court dismissed the bill. It ruled that the 1787 Treaty had no effect upon the power of Congress to regulate commerce among the several States. Congress’ power over the river was the same as it possessed over other navigable waters. Thus, Congress could close one of the several channels in the river if, in its judgment, navigation thereby would be improved.
The second case is Georgia v. South Carolina, 257 U. S. 516, decided in 1922. There, the Treaty of Beaufort was central to the controversy. The Court held, among other things, that (1) where there is no island in the Savannah River, the boundary is midway between the banks when the water is at ordinary stage, (2) where an island is present, the boundary is midway between the island bank and the South Carolina shore, with the water at ordinary stage, (3) where a navigable or nonnavigable river is the boundary between the two States, and the navigable channel is not involved, then, in the absence of contrary agreement, each State takes to the middle of the stream, and (4) the location of the boundary under the Treaty was unaffected by the thalweg doctrine because of the Treaty’s provision that each State shall have equal rights of navigation. The ensuing decree is set forth at 259 U. S. 572 (1922).
It is to be noted that this Court did not discuss the problem of emerging islands, that navigability was not itself a factor in determining the boundary, and that no map or chart illuminated the Court’s reported opinion.
Neither of these cases bears directly upon the specific issues presently before us. The 1876 case, however, illustrates the type of boundary problem the Savannah River is capable of producing, and the 1922 case reveals generally this Court’s approach to the Treaty of Beaufort.
The decision in United States v. 450 Acres of Land, More or Less in Chatham County, 220 F. 2d 353 (CA5), cert. denied, 350 U. S. 826 (1955), must be mentioned. This was a condemnation proceeding instituted by the Federal Government in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Georgia to acquire an easement to enter upon “Barnwell Island,” one of the islands of a group discussed in Part III hereof, for the deposit of spoil excavated from Savannah Harbor. The complaint was served upon E. B. Pinckney, who claimed ownership of the island, and upon certain Beaufort County,,S. C., officials. Only Pinckney made an appearance. He moved to dismiss the complaint for lack of jurisdiction on the ground that the land was in South Carolina. The motion was granted, and the Government’s complaint was dismissed. Georgia then was allowed to intervene. The Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit reversed. It observed:
“The boundary line between Georgia and South Carolina is not in dispute as between these sovereigns....
“There is, there can be, no doubt that the land here involved is in the State of Georgia. Article I of the Beaufort Convention specifically reserved to Georgia all the islands in the Savannah River and the Supreme Court by its decision and decree in State of Georgia v. South Carolina, 257 U. S. 516... confirmed that reservation.” 220 F. 2d, at 356.
Although South Carolina did not participate in that case, it sought leave to file an original-jurisdiction complaint in this Court to confirm its claimed sovereignty over the Barnwell Islands. Leave to file was denied. South Carolina v. Georgia, 350 U. S. 812 (1955). This took place while Pinckney’s petition for certiorari, noted above, in the Fifth Circuit case was pending in this Court. Later, another application by South Carolina for leave to file also was denied. South Carolina v. Georgia, 352 U. S. 1030 (1957).
II
The Special Master’s Reports and the Exceptions
The Special Master’s two reports concern, as he listed them, (1) a small unnamed island upstream, or west, of Pennyworth Island, (2) an unnamed island east of Pennyworth, referred to as “Tidegate,” (3) the Barnwell Islands, that is, Rabbit Island, Hog Island, Long Island, and Barnwell No. 3, (4) Southeastern Denwill, (5) Jones Island, (6) Horseshoe Shoal and Oyster Bed Island, (7) the mouth of the river, and (8) the lateral seaward boundary.
The Special Master himself, “[f Jor the convenience of the Court and counsel,” described the “major legal issues” covered by his First Report in this way:
“1. Did the Treaty of 1787, in reserving all islands in the Savannah River to Georgia, intend to include not only the then existing islands, but also all islands thereafter emerging by natural processes on the South Carolina side of the river? If the answer is in the affirmative, how can the 1922 decision of this Court be reconciled?
“2. Is the Special Master correct in determining that the right-angle principle should be invoked by the de-marcator in drawing the boundary line around islands on the South Carolina side of the ‘thread’ of the Savannah River, because of the ‘special circumstances’ existing by reason of the preclusive effect of the 1922 Supreme Court decision as it interpreted the Treaty of 1787?
“3. Has the Special Master correctly ruled that Rabbit Island accreted to the State of South Carolina, and whether the ‘Island Rule’ is applicable?
“4. Has the Special Master correctly decided that Hog Island and Long Island have been acquired by the State of South Carolina under the doctrine of prescription and acquiescence? The Special Master notes that, even though Hog Island (in existence in 1787) was acquired by South Carolina under the doctrine of prescription and acquiescence, there remained at that time a creek separating Hog Island from the mainland and it was not until the spoilage had been dumped by avulsive processes that Hog Island became a part of the South Carolina mainland.
“5. Has the Special Master correctly ruled that the area known as Southeastern Denwill, if it presently encroaches on the southern side of the mid-point of the Savannah River as it existed in 1787, now belongs to Georgia?
“6. Has the Special Master correctly ruled that Jones Island, at all pertinent times, was in the State of South Carolina?
“7. Did the Special Master err in diverting from the doctrine of medium filum acquae as established by the 1922 decision of this Court, in proceeding eastwardly after leaving the southern tip of Turtle Island?” 1 Rep. 112-113.
Georgia’s exceptions to both reports are directed to the Special Master’s recommendations concerning (a) the Barn-well Islands (other than Rabbit Island, as to which Georgia does not now except), (b) Oyster Bed Island and the mouth of the Savannah River, (c) the “use of a right-angle line to connect the boundary in stream around an island in the Savannah River with the boundary in the mainstream of the river,” see Ga. Exceptions ii, (d) the Master’s ruling that islands of natural formation emerging after the Treaty of Beaufort are not in Georgia if they emerged “on the South Carolina side of the river,” ibid., and (e) the Master’s use of the navigation channel, rather than the geographic middle of the “mouth” of the Savannah River, as the starting point for his delineation of the lateral seaward boundary. Georgia’s exceptions, so far as the First Report is concerned, thus are directed only to the first, second, fourth, and seventh of the issues listed by the Master. Some of the claims Georgia pressed before the Master, e. g., the one relating to Jones Island, are not presented for review here; we treat those claims as now abandoned.
South Carolina takes exception to the Master’s recommendations concerning (a) the lateral seaward boundary, (b) “two narrow strips of land well downstream from the City of Savannah,” (c) the “downstream area known as Horseshoe Shoal,” and (d) “the line which resulted from the placement of Horseshoe Shoal in Georgia.” See S. C. Exceptions 2. So far as the First Report is concerned, these exceptions thus are directed only to the first, fifth, and seventh of the issues listed by the Master.
Before we consider these several exceptions specifically, we note that Georgia’s reaction to the First Report is straightforward. It asserts that under the 1787 Treaty all islands in the Savannah River are in Georgia; that, despite this treaty provision, the Master would place certain islands in South Carolina; and that his First Report “reflects his fundamental dissatisfaction with the boundary line as established by the framers of the Treaty of Beaufort and as construed by this Court in 1922.” Ga. Exceptions 7. This has led the Master “to diverge, at virtually every opportunity, from the boundary which has been established since 1787, in order to place his recommended boundary in or near the mainstream or the navigation channel of the river.” Id., at 8. South Carolina, of course, disavows this characterization of the Special Master’s decision.
We turn to the exceptions in an order we select.
III
The Barnwell Islands
These islands were four in number and were named by the Barnwell family, in downstream order, Rabbit Island, Hog Island (referred to as “Barnwell Island” on some older United States Coast Survey maps), Long Island (referred to as Barnwell Island No. 2 on some maps), and Barnwell Island No. 3 (actually the fourth island and not present when the family named the others). As has been noted, Georgia takes no exception to the Special Master’s recommendation that Rabbit Island, although in the Savannah River in 1787, now be adjudged to be in South Carolina. This leaves us with Hog Island, Long Island, and Barnwell Island No. 3.
Georgia states that the Barnwell Islands remained as islands in the Savannah River and discernible as such well into the 20th century, when, because of the activity of the United States Army Corps of Engineers, they became affixed to the South Carolina shore. Ga. Exceptions 13. South Carolina opines that the Barnwell Islands area is the most valuable land in the present dispute. It consists of at least 450 acres of high ground only a short distance downstream from the city of Savannah. It is “clearly capable of future economic development.” Response for South Carolina 1-2.
Georgia’s argument is essentially this: Long acquiescence in the practical location of an interstate boundary, and possession in accordance therewith, often has been used as an aid in resolving boundary disputes. See, e. g., Rhode Island v. Massachusetts, 4 How. 591, 638-639 (1846); Louisiana v. Mississippi, 202 U. S. 1, 53 (1906). Possession and dominion are essential elements of a claim of sovereignty by prescription and acquiescence. Virginia v. Tennessee, 148 U. S. 503, 524 (1893). The duration of any purported dominion by South Carolina was judicially terminated by the above-cited Fifth Circuit decision in 1955. In line with that decision, and at all times since, Georgia has exercised dominion, sovereignty, and ownership of the Barnwell Islands. The Corps of Engineers has possessed and occupied Barnwell pursuant to a deed granted by Georgia for a spoilage easement. The doctrine of prescription and acquiescence may not be used aggressively to acquire territory; it may be used only to confirm the current status. In any event, proof adduced by South Carolina falls short of what is required to change the boundary solemnly accepted by the two States in 1787.
Georgia further maintains that the State asserting the claim must make a showing of acquiescence by the neighboring State. New Jersey v. Delaware, 291 U. S. 361, 376, 377 (1934). Inaction, in and of itself, is of no great importance; what is legally significant is silence in the face of circumstances that warrant a response. Here, it is said, there is little evidence either of prescription by South Carolina or of actual or constructive notice to Georgia sufficient to imply acquiescence by Georgia. Except for the activity by the Corps of Engineers, the islands received scant attention from anyone except members of the Barnwell family. And, apart from some rice planting, there is little evidence of activity on the islands other than illegal whiskey production and the raising of hogs fed with the mash. The fact that moonshining could be carried on successfully shows how little attention was paid to the islands by Georgia authorities and the public generally. Except for the placement of a battery on the islands by Confederate forces during the War Between the States, there never was any resident on the islands and no schools, roads, or other public improvements.
Georgia acknowledges two grants by South Carolina, one in 1795 and the other in 1813. The grants and accompanying plats, however, identify the property only as “islands.” These, says Georgia, were invalid because the 1787 Treaty reserved all islands in the river to Georgia. Thus, South Carolina cannot build its case on those grants. To be sure, there were 1868 deeds describing the property as in South Carolina, but these were intrafamily conveyances by the Barnwells and, in any event, provided no notice to anyone until they were recorded in 1930. There also were a marriage settlement in 1832 and a mortgage in 1871 but these, too, were intrafamily transactions. Anyway, their descriptions were insufficient to constitute notice of claim by South Carolina. The same is true of a deed in 1896 whereby the Barnwell brothers conveyed their interests in the islands and other family property to their sisters. A sheriff’s deed in 1940 was insufficient to convey title, because of inadequate description of the property, and did not constitute notice to Georgia of any South Carolina claim of jurisdiction. The same is true of a 1942 deed from the Forfeited Land Commission of South Carolina to E. B. Pinckney.
There were taxes paid to Beaufort County, S. C., by the Barnwell family and later by Pinckney, but the tax records contain no information identifying the property, and even after 1930 there was no correlation between the acreage reported for taxes and the acreage conveyed by the deeds. The claim of South Carolina prescription and Georgia acquiescence is contradicted “by considerable evidence” that Georgia and United States officials understood the islands to be in Georgia. Ga. Exceptions 34. There was a Georgia grant in 1760. In 1825, 1830, and 1831, taxes were paid to Chatham County, Ga. Many maps show the Barnwell Islands (other than Rabbit) to be on the Georgia side of the boundary line between the two States.
Thus, the short duration of actual possession, the limited South Carolina official Acts, and the paucity of published or recorded documents referring to the islands as in South Carolina fall far short, Georgia claims, of establishing the open and continuous possession required to confirm a boundary by prescription. This is especially so since the islands remained as islands in the river until well into the 20th century, and since South Carolina continued to recognize officially the Treaty of Beaufort with its provision that all islands in the river are in Georgia. This is not a situation where Georgia can be held to have acquiesced.
South Carolina, in its turn, first takes the position that the 1955 Fifth Circuit case has no effect whatsoever, directly or indirectly, on the present litigation. South Carolina was not a party in that case, and the case did not fix the boundary between the States. It further argues that Georgia asserted no act of dominion or control over the Barnwell Islands from 1787 until the 1950’s, and acquiesced in South Carolina’s jurisdiction through long inaction in the face of the latter’s continuing and obvious exercise of dominion since 1795.
With all this before us, and recognizing that each side advances some facts favorable to its position, we decide this issue in favor of South Carolina. We agree that the 1955 case in the Fifth Circuit cannot be regarded as fixing the boundary between the States. Although some South Caro-linians were served with process, they were local officials and a person whose name appeared in the chain of title. South Carolina itself was never served and made no appearance. See Martin v. Wilks, 490 U. S. 755, 761-762 (1989). In any event, this Court, not a Court of Appeals, is the place where an interstate boundary dispute usually is to be resolved. See Durfee v. Duke, 375 U. S. 106, 115-116 (1963). The judgment in the 1955 case, therefore, does not control the issue of South Carolina’s sovereignty. Nor do the incidental effects of that case transform the judgment into one that binds South Carolina. This conclusion needs no additional fortification, but, if it did, we would note that South Carolina twice, in 1955 and again in 1957, asked this Court to have the Barnwell area boundary question resolved. Georgia opposed those applications, and leave to file was denied each time by this Court. South Carolina attempted to get the issue here, but until the present litigation was instituted and allowed to proceed, this aspect of the boundary issue was not before this Court.
We need not here repeat in detail the extensive record evidence and the tax and conveyancing documents relied upon by the Special Master in reaching his conclusion. It suffices to say that the entire area in the late 18th and early 19th centuries was low marshy ground. The islands were separated from Georgia by the wide and deep waters of the Savannah River, but were separated from South Carolina only by streams so shallow that they were described as “sometimes dry.” Record, S. C. Exh. B-8. See Handly’s Lessee v. Anthony, 5 Wheat. 374, 381 (1820). The South Carolina grant in 1813, the almost-uniform taxation of the property, the South Carolina seizure and subsequent sale for unpaid taxes, policing and prosecutorial activities by South Carolina authorities, patrolling by South Carolina wildlife officers, and other factors, all support the Special Master’s conclusion that, in any event, South Carolina established sovereignty by prescription and acquiescence.
Georgia seeks to avoid the effect of this evidence on the ground that it had no reasonable notice of South Carolina’s actions and therefore cannot be said to have acquiesced in them. But inaction alone may constitute acquiescence when it continues for a sufficiently long period. See Rhode Island v. Massachusetts, 15 Pet. 233, 274 (1841); Vermont v. New Hampshire, 289 U. S. 593, 616 (1933). And there is more than mere inaction on the part of Georgia. The record contains substantial evidence of events that put Georgia on notice of South Carolina’s exercise of sovereignty. Parts of the islands were cultivated, as the Master found, for more than 30 years prior to 1880. This was readily discernible, for rice cultivation requires dikes, and the presence of dikes on the islands appeared on maps of the area as early as 1855. Ga. Exh. 156, App. B to 1 Rep. Georgia was chargeable with knowledge that the Treaty of Beaufort placed all the Savannah River islands in Georgia. Yet Georgia authorities could have discovered there was no record of taxation or other sovereign action over these lands by Georgia except, possibly, for three isolated instances in the early part of the 19th century. Some documents recorded in Georgia, because they also involved Georgia property, describe the islands as in South Carolina. There is evidence, too, that Savannah residents were aware of cultivation on the islands. “It is conclusively settled in England, that open and notorious adverse possession is evidence of notice; not of the adverse holding only, but of the title under which the possession is held.... And in the United States we deem it to be equally settled.” Landes v. Brant, 10 How. 348, 375 (1851).
South Carolina must prevail as to the Barnwell Islands issue, and we overrule Georgia’s exception with respect thereto.
<5
Islands Emerging After the Treaty of Beaufort
The unnamed island west of Pennyworth, the island east of Pennyworth called “Tidegate,” and Oyster Bed Island all emerged after the Treaty of Beaufort was signed in 1787. Georgia claims these islands and argues that, by the terms of the Treaty, the boundary in the vicinity of each island runs between that island and the South Carolina shore. The first Article of the Treaty, see n. 1, supra, provides:
“The most northern branch or stream of the river Savannah from the sea or mouth of such stream to the fork or confluence of the rivers now called Tugoloo and Keowee,... reserving all the islands in the said rivers Savannah and Tugoloo to Georgia... shall forever hereafter form the separation limit and boundary between the States of South Carolina and Georgia.”
This Court considered this provision in 1922 in Georgia v. South Carolina, 257 U. S. 516. Both States agreed that the presence of an island on the South Carolina side of the river altered the boundary so as to bring the island within the jurisdiction of Georgia. In its decision on the merits, the Court resolved two contested issues relevant here.
First it held, ruling in Georgia’s favor, that “where, in any of the boundary rivers here involved, there are no islands the location of the boundary line between the two States is the thread of the river — the middle line of the stream — regardless of the channel of navigation....” Id., at 521. It rejected South Carolina’s alternative position, which would have placed the boundary at the low water mark on the Georgia side of the river: “The express reservation of the islands to Georgia and the placing of the boundary line in the most northerly branch of the Savannah and then of the Tugaloo river up to the ‘northern boundary of South Carolina,’ makes it clear that where there are islands in the river the line must be between them and the South Carolina shore, for otherwise the Georgia islands would be within the State of South Carolina.” Id., at 520-521. Because the “northern branch or stream” clause by definition would bring the boundary north of the low water mark on the Georgia side, the Court thought it unlikely that the parties intended the low water mark to be the benchmark where no islands were present. The more logical reading of the Treaty was that each State would take to “the middle of the stream.” Id., at 521.
Second, the Court held that, where there was an island in the river, the boundary would be midway between the island and the South Carolina shore. This conclusion followed from the determination that the “northern branch or stream” of the river, where an island was present in the northern half of the river, would be the “branch or stream” that ran between the island and the northern shore, and from the Court’s first holding that the midpoint of the relevant body of water was the appropriate place to draw the boundary.
Two principles established by the 1922 decision are pertinent here. First, although it is by no means self-evident on the face of the Treaty that the “northern branch or stream” refers to the “stream” that each island — however small and however close to the northern shore — creates between itself and the shore to the north of it, that was the construction of the Treaty agreed upon by the parties in 1922 and adopted by this Court. Apparently it was thought that a contrary rule, whereby the “northern branch or stream” referred only to a “branch or stream” that made a major departure from the main body of the river, would create an unmanageable boundary, because then the Treaty’s additional reservation of the islands to Georgia would create pockets of Georgia territory within South Carolina wherever islands existed on the South Carolina side of the “northern branch or stream” defined in this larger sense. Second, under the principle that each island in the river created a new “northern branch or stream,” each island was not only reserved to Georgia under the reservation clause of Article I, but also formed a point of reference, by which the boundary would be drawn.
The Court, in its 1922 decision, did not expressly determine the treatment to be given islands that emerged after the Treaty of Beaufort was signed, so that decision is not controlling on this is she. The Special Master found, and South Carolina agrees, that the better reading of the Treaty in light of the 1922 decision is that the clause “reserving all islands... to Georgia” refers only to islands in existence in 1787 and that the “most northern branch or stream,” as applied to a “branch or stream” going to the north of an island, similarly refers only to islands in existence when the Treaty was signed. The Treaty’s establishment of the boundary “forever hereafter” would thus be unaffected by after-emerging islands. Georgia argues that the provision of Article I “reserving all islands... to Georgia” includes such after-emerging islands and that, accordingly, the reference in the Treaty to the “most northern branch or stream of the river Savannah” means the stream flowing to the north of any island currently in the river. We think South Carolina and the Special Master have the better argument.
Georgia’s solution, whereby each emerging island not only is newly “reserv[ed]... to Georgia” but also creates a new “northern branch or stream” by which the boundary between the States must be drawn, would create a regime of continually shifting jurisdiction. Even the smallest emerging island, no matter how near the South Carolina shore, would cause the entire boundary between the States to shift northward, depriving South Carolina not only of the land that constitutes the island but also any riverbed between the island and the center line that previously formed the boundary. We doubt that the parties, in drafting the Treaty, meant to create a boundary that shifted so radically each time a new island emerged in the river. To the contrary, Article I of the Treaty purports to fix the boundary “forever hereafter,” a goal that would be frustrated were the boundary to jump northward each time a new island appeared on the South Carolina side of the river. A construction of the Treaty that avoids sudden changes in the boundary would be more consistent with this language, and also comports with the principles of simplicity and finality that animated the Court’s reading of the Treaty in 1922, and with the respect for settled expectations that generally attends the drawing of interstate boundaries. Cf. Virginia v. Tennessee, 148 U. S. 503, 522-525 (1893).
We recognize, of course, that the normal rules relating to accretion and erosion may cause the boundary line between the States to shift over time, so that the line will not necessarily be fixed as of any particular point. But it is one thing to say that the parties meant that gradual shifts in the path of the river would shift the boundary gradually, to the extent of the accretion; this rule is consistent with settled expectations and with the parties’ interest in maintaining their riparian rights. See Nebraska v. Iowa, 143 U. S. 359 (1892). It is quite another thing to infer that the parties meant that each new island, however formed, would alter the boundary line to a degree that could be dramatically out of proportion to the physical change brought about by the formation of the island itself.
Finally, Georgia points to the statement in the 1922 decree that all islands “formed by nature” in the Chattooga River, like the islands in the Savannah and the Tugaloo, were reserved by the Treaty to Georgia. Georgia v. South Carolina, 259 U. S., at 572. This reference, Georgia contends, necessarily implies that the reservation clause in the Treaty includes after-emerging islands, since man-made islands did not exist in the river in 1787. There is no indication, however, that the Court knew of this fact in 1922. No issue of after-emerging islands was even before the Court, and the decree simply described the river as it then was.
In light of the foregoing, we agree with the Special Master that islands that emerged after 1787 do not affect the boundary line between the two States. Georgia’s exception with respect to that issue is overruled.
V
Oyster Bed Island and the Mouth of the River
Oyster Bed Island, which was not in existence in 1787 and which emerged in the 1870’s or 1880’s, is one of the most easterly or downstream islands in the Savannah River. It lies north of Cockspur Island and southeast of Turtle Island. Both Turtle Island and its westerly neighbor, Jones Island, are now conceded by the parties to be in South Carolina. Georgia accepts the Special Master’s location of the boundary between the two States immediately upstream and west of Oyster Bed as midway between Jones Island and certain Georgia islands in the river. Ga. Exceptions 38-39.
Georgia complains, however, that west of Oyster Bed, opposite the southern point of Turtle Island, the Special Master’s recommended boundary departs from the middle of the stream and, going east, makes an “abrupt jog [to the southeast] to reach the navigation channel of the river.” Id., at 38. The result is that Oyster Bed Island is placed in South Carolina, a consequence, Georgia says, that is contrary to this Court’s 1922 ruling in Georgia v. South Carolina, supra.
Georgia fortifies this argument by asserting that in the 1870’s a major navigation channel of the river flowed north of Oyster Bed, but that the Corps of Engineers blocked this northern channel by a training wall and later by deposit of hydraulic fill in order to force the water into the channel south of Oyster Bed. It stresses that only Georgia has exercised dominion and control over Oyster Bed and, indeed, ceded it to the United States in 1820.
It seems to us that this portion of the controversy between the two States centers on the determination of the “mouth” of the Savannah River and encounters no inconsistency with what this Court said in Georgia v. South Carolina. The Savannah River’s “mouth” was not defined in the Treaty of Beaufort. Georgia argues that the mouth, as referred to in the Treaty, must be located in the vicinity of Tybee Island, rather than somewhat upstream. Tybee lies south and east of Cockspur. We accept that submission and regard Tybee as forming the south side of the river’s mouth. Usually, there are two opposing “headlands” marking and constituting the mouth of a river. See Knight v. United States Land Assn., 142 U. S. 161, 207 (1891) (Field, J., concurring). This is the “headland-to-headland” principle used in defining the limits of bays and rivers. 2 A. Shalowitz, Shore and Sea Boundaries § 141, p. 367 (1964). It is not always that simple, however. Sometimes the mouth of a river is difficult to delineate. See S. Jones, Boundary-Making: A Handbook 130 (1945). Because of the absence of a reasonably close headland to the north, Georgia is driven to argue that the boundary at the mouth of the Savannah River must be the geographical middle between Tybee and the closest points of land in South Carolina, that is, Daufuskie Island, lying north and northeastward of Turtle Island, and Hilton Head Island, almost six miles north of Tybee.
We conclude that this is not a realistic determination of the Savannah River’s mouth, and we agree with the Special Master in rejecting the argument.
The difficulty lies in the fact that Tybee Island, the most seaward point of land on the southern side of the river, has no counterpart of high land on the northern side. The geographical feature taking the place of the customarily present opposing headland is, instead, a shoal, long recognized as confining the river. It is true, of course, that the Corps of Engineers affected the flow by its training wall and hydraulic fill. But the shoal which directed that
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | 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.
Pee Curiam.
On January 15, 1973, respondent filed a complaint in the District Court seeking to compel the petitioner, as Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, to allot among the States the full sums authorized to be appropriated for fiscal years 1973 and 1974 by § 207 of the Federal Water Pollution Control Act, as added by the Amendments of 1972, 86 Stat. 839, 33 U. S. C. § 1287 (1970 ed., Supp. II), for federal grants to municipalities for construction of publicly owned waste treatment works. Although conceding in the trial court that the Administrator had a measure of discretion in making the allotments authorized by § 205 of the Act, 86 Stat. 837, 33 U. S. C. § 1285 (1970 ed., Supp. III), respondent asserted that the Administrator had abused his discretion by allotting only 45% of the sums authorized to be appropriated by § 207. In sustaining respondent’s position, the District Court rejected the holding by the United States District Court for the District of Columbia in City of New York v. Ruckelshaus, 358 F. Supp. 669 (1973), that the Administrator has no discretion to allot less than the full amounts authorized by the Act. The Court of Appeals proceeded on the premise that there was discretion to control or delay allotments but concluded that further proceedings were essential to determine whether the Administrator’s discretion had been abused. The Administrator petitioned for certiorari, asserting that the exercise of his discretion to allot funds under § 205 is not subject to judicial review. We granted certiorari, 416 U. S. 969 (1974), and heard the case with Train v. City of New York, ante, p. 35.
We held in Train v. City of New York that the Administrator has no authority under § 205 to allot less than the full amounts sought to be appropriated under § 207. Because that holding is at odds with the premise underlying the judgment of the Court of Appeals, we vacate the judgment of the Court of Appeals and remand the case for further proceedings consistent with this opinion and with the opinion in Train v. City of New York.
So ordered.
Mr. Justice Douglas concurs in the result.
The petition also asserted that the doctrine of sovereign immunity foreclosed ordering the Administrator to allot funds that he had withheld in the course of exercising his discretion under the Act. In light of Train v. City of New York, ante, p. 35, and our disposition of the instant case, we need not address 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: | H | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Per Curiam.
The petition for writ of certiorari is granted. The judgment is vacated and the case is remanded to the Court of Appeals for further consideration in light of Hewitt-Robins Inc. v. Eastern Freight-Ways, Inc., ante, p. 84.
Mr. Justice Harlan, Mr. Justice Stewart, and Mr. Justice White would affirm the judgment below for the reasons given in the dissenting opinion in Hewitt-Robins.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | H | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Per Curiam.
The motion for leave to proceed in forma pauperis and the petition for writ of certiorari are granted, the judgment of the Court of Appeals is vacated and the case is remanded to the Court of Appeals for further proceedings, including re-entry of its judgment affirming petitioner’s conviction and consideration of the appointment of counsel for petitioner in connection with seeking review in this Court of the judgment of the Court of Appeals. 18 U. S. C. §§ 3006A (c), 3006A (d) (6), 3006A (g). See also H. R. Rep. No. 1709, 88th Cong., 2d Sess., 7 (1964); Report of the Committee to Implement the Criminal Justice Act of 1964, presented to a Special Session of the Judicial Conference of the United States, 36 F. R. D. 285, 291 (1965); Fed. Rule Crim. Proc. 44 (a); Doherty v. United States, ante, p. 28.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | B | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Per Curiam.
Section 204 of the Railroad Revitalization and Regulatory-Reform Act of 1976, Pub. L. 94-210, 90 Stat. 40, note following 45 U. S. C. § 793, directed the Interstate Commerce Commission to conduct an investigation to determine whether the rail rate structure for recyclable and competing virgin materials unjustly discriminates against recyclables or whether such rates are unreasonable, and, if found to be so, to require the removal of any such defect from the structure. The Act demonstrated congressional concern that rail rates may have been unjustly impeding the movement of recycled materials in a market of diminishing virgin resources. S. Rep. No. 94-499, p. 51 (1975).
After conducting the investigation required by §§204 (a) (1) and (2), the Commission concluded that the rail rate structure was neither discriminatory with respect to recyclable materials, nor, with few exceptions, unreasonable. Investigation of Freight Rates for the Transportation of Recyclable or Recycled Commodities, 356 I. C. C. 114 (1977). The Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit reversed, finding that the Commission had applied an overly restrictive definition of “competitive” in assessing whether particular commodities were comparable for purposes of determining discrimination, and that the Commission had improperly shifted the burden of proof from the railroads. National Association of Recycling Industries, Inc. v. ICC, 190 U. S. App. D. C. 118, 585 F. 2d 522 (1978). The case was remanded with orders to the Commission to conduct an expedited investigation which would remedy these errors.
On remand, the Commission found that certain recyclable materials were being discriminated against in the rate structure and concluded that, in general, rates for transportation of recyclables were unreasonably high if they produced a revenue-to-variable cost ratio exceeding 180%. The Commission ordered the elimination of all rate discrimination and ordered that rates for recyclable materials which produced revenue in excess of the 180% ratio be reduced accordingly. Investigation of Freight Rates for Transportation of Recyclable or Recycled Commodities, 361 I. C. C. 238 (1979). In eliminating the discrimination, the railroads were free to use any combination of raising or lowering rates which would equalize rates for recyclable and competing virgin materials, so long as the resulting rate would not be unreasonable. Investigation of Freight Rates for Transportation of Recyclable or Recycled Commodities, 361 I. C. C. 641 (1979). Under this approach, the railroads could raise the rates for recyclable material and competing virgin material to a level above the previous levels for either commodity, if the new rate did not produce revenue in excess of the 180% ratio.
The Court of Appeals affirmed with respect to the Commission’s findings on discrimination. National Association of Recycling Industries, Inc. v. ICC, 201 U. S. App. D. C. 342, 627 F. 2d 1328 (1980). However, the court found fault with the scope of the Commission’s remedy for eliminating discrimination and with the Commission’s failure adequately to justify the 180% ratio as indicative of reasonableness. The court revoked all rate increases for recyclable material put into effect pursuant to those perceived errors and remanded for further proceedings. In a supplementary order, the court made it clear that the central task on remand would be to determine whether the 180% ratio, or some other formula, provided the appropriate standard for determining reasonableness. Until such a standard had been adequately justified, the court enjoined implementation of any rate increase for recyclable material, excepting one caused by a general rate increase.
The railroads sought certiorari, challenging only those aspects of the Court of Appeals’ decision which revoked or enjoined rate increases. The argument is that the lower court was without authority to enter such orders. We agree. The authority to determine when any particular rate should be implemented is a matter which Congress has placed squarely in the hands of the Commission. Arrow Transportation Co. v. Southern R. Co., 372 U. S. 658, 662-672 (1963). While the Court of Appeals was not without power to order further proceedings to determine the propriety of the 180% ratio standard, the court stepped beyond the proper exercise of its power when it revoked rates implemented under the standard and enjoined any further increases toward the 180% level. The basis for these remedies was the court’s conclusion that the Commission had failed to adequately support the choice of the 180% figure. That standard was not rejected outright; the court’s opinion leaves open the possibility that the 180% ratio may eventually prevail.
Under the above circumstances, there is no basis in our prior decisions for the revocation order or for the injunction against further increases. “If a reviewing court cannot discern [the Commission’s] policies, it may remand the case to the agency for clarification and further justification of the departure from precedent. . . . When a case is remanded on the ground that the agency’s policies are unclear, an injunction ordinarily interferes with the primary jurisdiction of the Commission.” Atchison, T. & S. F. R. Co. v. Wichita Board of Trade, 412 U. S. 800, 822 (1973); see United States v. SCRAP, 412 U. S. 669, 690-698 (1973); Arrow Transportation Co. v. Southern R. Co., supra; see also Southern R. Co. v. Seaboard Allied Milling Corp., 442 U. S. 444 (1979). Here, the court was dissatisfied with the Commission’s justification for adopting the 180% standard, and the case was remanded for further proceedings which could either produce a new standard or clarify the basis for the 180% ratio. Such a posture provides no basis for either revoking or enjoining rate increases under the above authorities. Accordingly, the petition for a writ of certiorari is granted, those portions of the Court of Appeals decision revoking or enjoining rate increases are vacated, and the case is remanded for proceedings consistent with the immediate disposition.
So ordered.
Justice Powell took no part in the consideration or decision of this case.
On October 14, 1980, the President signed into law the Staggers Rail Act of 1980, Pub. L. 96-448, 94 Stat. 1895. Section 204 of the Act amends 49 U. S. C. § 10731 (1976 ed, Supp. III) so as to provide guidelines under which the Commission must develop a new revenue-to-variable cost standard for all reeydables excepting iron and steel scrap. Congress has estimated that that ratio would not exceed 160%. S. Rep. No. 96-470, p. 34 (1979). Although the Act may result in the Commission’s adoption of a standard lower than 180%, that factor has no bearing on the Court of Appeals’ power to revoke or enjoin the rate increases at issue here.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | I | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Chief Justice Burger
delivered the opinion of the Court.
We granted certiorari to decide whether a gun owner’s acquittal on criminal charges involving firearms precludes a subsequent in rem forfeiture proceeding against those same firearms.
I-H
<3
On January 20, 1977, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms seized a cache of firearms from the home of Patrick Mulcahey. Mulcahey was subsequently indicted on charges that he had knowingly engaged in the business of dealing in firearms without a license, in violation of 18 U. S. C. § 922(a)(1). At his criminal trial, Mulcahey admitted that he had no license to deal in firearms and that he had bought and sold firearms during the period set forth in the indictment. His defense was that he had been entrapped into making the illegal firearms transactions. The jury returned a verdict of not guilty.
Following Mulcahey’s acquittal of the criminal charges, the United States, pursuant to its authority under 18 U. S. C. § 924(d), instituted this in rem action for forfeiture of the seized firearms. On the basis of his earlier acquittal, Mul-cahey asserted the defenses of res judicata and collateral es-toppel. The United States District Court for the District of South Carolina struck Mulcahey’s defenses, reasoning that an in rem forfeiture proceeding under 18 U. S. C. § 924(d) is remedial in nature and is therefore properly characterized as a civil proceeding. 463 F. Supp. 365, 367 (1978). The District Court then concluded that “the firearms here in question were involved in, used or intended to be used in violation of 18 U. S. C. § 922(a)(1). Such firearms are rendered subject to forfeiture under 18 U. S. C. § 924(d), which forfeiture is hereby ordered.” 511 F. Supp. 133, 139 (1980).
B
A divided United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, sitting en banc, reversed. 685 F. 2d 913 (1982). The en banc majority relied upon two theories for its conclusion that the forfeiture proceeding against these firearms was barred by Mulcahey’s prior acquittal, although it did not sharply distinguish between the two. Because the majority considered the § 924(d) forfeiture proceeding to be criminal and punitive in nature, the Court of Appeals concluded that it was barred by double jeopardy principles. Looking to Coffey v. United States, 116 U. S. 436 (1886), as authority, the Court of Appeals also determined that the forfeiture action was barred by collateral estoppel, because it was based upon the same facts as the earlier criminal action. In dissent, four judges argued that neither collateral estoppel nor double jeopardy should preclude forfeiture proceedings brought under § 924(d). 685 F.2d, at 918-919 (Winter, J., joined by Butzner, Russell, and Murnaghan, JJ., dissenting). We granted certiorari, 459 U. S. 1199 (1983), and we reverse.
I
In Coffey v. United States, supra, this Court held that a forfeiture action brought against certain distilling equipment was barred by the owner’s prior acquittal on charges of removing and concealing distilled spirits with the intent to defraud the revenue. The Court stated:
“[W]here an issue raised as to the existence of the act or fact denounced has been tried in a criminal proceeding, instituted by the United States, and a judgment of acquittal has been rendered in favor of a particular person, that judgment is conclusive in favor of such person, on the subsequent trial of a suit in rem by the United States, where, as against him, the existence of the same act or fact is the matter in issue, as a cause for the forfeiture of the property prosecuted in such suit in rem. It is urged as a reason for not allowing such effect to the judgment, that the acquittal in the criminal case may have taken place because of the rule requiring guilt to be proved beyond a reasonable doubt, and that, on the same evidence, on the question of preponderance of proof, there might be a verdict for the United States, in the suit in rem. Nevertheless, the fact or act has been put in issue and determined against the United States; and all that is imposed by the statute, as a consequence of guilt, is a punishment therefor. There could be no new trial of the criminal prosecution after the acquittal in it; and a subsequent trial of the civil suit amounts to substantially the same thing, with a difference only in the consequences following a judgment adverse to the claimant.” Id., at 443.
Although the language quoted above incorporates notions of both collateral estoppel and double jeopardy, the Coffey Court did not identify the precise legal foundation for the rule of preclusion it announced. Perhaps for this reason, later decisions of this Court have reflected uncertainty as to the exact scope of the Coffey holding.
In Helvering v. Mitchell, 303 U. S. 391 (1938), the Court considered the preclusive effect of a prior criminal acquittal on a subsequent action for a monetary penalty. The defendant taxpayer in Mitchell was acquitted of charges that he willfully attempted to evade and defeat the income tax by fraudulently misstating certain items on his income tax return. When the Commissioner of Internal Revenue then brought an action to recover a substantial monetary penalty for fraudulent avoidance of income tax, the taxpayer argued that the subsequent penalty action was barred by res judicata, collateral estoppel, and the Coffey rule of preclusion.
This Court, speaking through Justice Brandéis, disagreed. Although the taxpayer argued and the Government conceded that the factual matters at issue in the penalty proceeding had been litigated and determined in the prior criminal action, the Court concluded that “[t]he difference in degree of the burden of proof in criminal and civil cases precludes application of the doctrine of res judicata303 U. S., at 397. The Mitchell Court viewed the criminal acquittal as nothing more than a determination that the evidence in the criminal setting was not sufficient to overcome all reasonable doubt that the accused was guilty. See Lewis v. Frick, 233 U. S. 291, 302 (1914). The Court went on to state:
“That acquittal on a criminal charge is not a bar to a civil action by the Government, remedial in its nature, arising out of the same facts on which the criminal proceeding was based has long been settled. Stone v. United States, 167 U. S. 178, 188; Murphy v. United States, 272 U. S. 630, 631, 632. Compare Chantangco v. Abaroa, 218 U. S. 476, 481, 482.” 303 U. S., at 397-398 (footnote omitted).
Turning to the taxpayer’s argument that double jeopardy barred the assessment of a monetary penalty following his acquittal on related criminal charges, the Court noted:
“Congress may impose both a criminal and a civil sanction in respect to the same act or omission; for the double jeopardy clause prohibits merely punishing twice, or attempting a second time to punish criminally, for the same offense. The question for decision is thus whether [the monetary penalty] imposes a criminal sanction. That question is one of statutory interpretation.” Id., at 399.
In concluding that the monetary penalty was merely a remedial civil sanction authorized by Congress to be assessed at the discretion of those administering the tax law, the Court observed that forfeiture of goods or their value and the payment of fixed or variable sums of money are sanctions that have long been recognized as enforceable by civil proceedings. Id., at 400.
Finally, the Mitchell Court considered the effect of the holding in Coffey upon the facts before it. The Court distinguished Coffey on the ground that the Coffey rule did not apply where an acquittal on a criminal charge was followed by a civil action requiring a different degree of proof. The Mitchell Court concluded that the monetary penalty imposed by the revenue laws was a civil administrative sanction; it therefore found Coffey no obstacle to the recovery of the penalty from the taxpayer. 303 U. S., at 405-406.
Most recently, in One Lot Emerald Cut Stones v. United States, 409 U. S. 232 (1972) (per curiam), the Court held that a civil action for forfeiture of a ring and stones was not barred by the owner’s prior acquittal on charges of willfully and knowingly, with intent to defraud the United States, smuggling articles into the United States without complying with customs procedures. Reaffirming the principles articulated in Helvering v. Mitchell, supra, the Court reasoned that the difference between the burdens of proof in the criminal and civil cases precluded the application of the doctrine of collateral estoppel. Double jeopardy was equally inapposite, the Court continued, because the forfeiture asserted against the ring and stones was a civil, not a criminal, sanction. The Court distinguished Coffey on the ground that acquittal on the criminal charges in One Lot Emerald Cut Stones did not necessarily resolve the issues in the later forfeiture action. 409 U. S., at 235, n. 5.
In focusing on Coffey v. United States, the Court of Appeals appears to have overlooked the significance of Mitchell and One Lot Emerald Cut Stones. At the very least, Mitchell signaled that an acquittal of a criminal charge does not automatically bar an action to enforce sanctions by way of forfeiture of goods or other civil penalties. Whatever the validity of Coffey on its facts, its ambiguous reasoning seems to have been a source of confusion for some time. As long ago as Mitchell, this Court was urged to disapprove Coffey so as to make clear that an acquittal in a criminal trial does not bar a civil action for forfeiture even though based on the identical facts. Indeed, for nearly a century, the analytical underpinnings of Coffey have been recognized as less than adequate. The time has come to clarify that neither collateral estoppel nor double jeopardy bars a civil, remedial forfeiture proceeding initiated following an acquittal on related criminal charges. To the extent that Coffey v. United States suggests otherwise, it is hereby disapproved.
r — H HH I — I
A
The disposition of the instant case follows readily from the principles articulated in Mitchell and One Lot Emerald Cut Stones. Mulcahey first argues that, because of his earlier criminal acquittal, the doctrine of collateral estoppel operates to preclude the § 924(d) forfeiture action. But an acquittal on criminal charges does not prove that the defendant is innocent; it merely proves the existence of a reasonable doubt as to his guilt. We need not be concerned whether the jury decided to acquit Mulcahey because he was entrapped into making an illegal sale or whether the jurors were not convinced of his guilt beyond a reasonable doubt for other reasons. In either case, the jury verdict in the criminal action did not negate the possibility that a preponderance of the evidence could show that Mulcahey was engaged in an unlicensed firearms business. Mulcahey’s acquittal on charges brought under § 922(a)(1) therefore does not estop the Government from proving in a civil proceeding that the firearms should be forfeited pursuant to § 924(d). It is clear that the difference in the relative burdens of proof in the criminal and civil actions precludes the application of the doctrine of collateral es-toppel. Helvering v. Mitchell, 303 U. S., at 397; One Lot Emerald Cut Stones v. United States, supra, at 235.
B
Mulcahey next contends that a forfeiture proceeding under § 924(d) is barred by the Double Jeopardy Clause of the Fifth Amendment. Unless the forfeiture sanction was intended as punishment, so that the proceeding is essentially criminal in character, the Double Jeopardy Clause is not applicable. Helvering v. Mitchell, 303 U. S., at 398-399. The question, then, is whether a § 924(d) forfeiture proceeding is intended to be, or by its nature necessarily is, criminal and punitive, or civil and remedial. Resolution of this question begins as a matter of statutory interpretation. Id., at 399. As the Court noted in United States v. Ward, 448 U. S. 242, 248 (1980):
“Our inquiry in this regard has traditionally proceeded on two levels. First, we have set out to determine whether Congress, in establishing the penalizing mechanism, indicated either expressly or impliedly a preference for one label or the other. See One Lot Emerald Cut Stones v. United States, supra, at 236-237. Second, where Congress has indicated an intention to establish a civil penalty, we have inquired further whether the statutory scheme was so punitive either in purpose or effect as to negate that intention. See Flemming v. Nestor, 363 U. S. 603, 617-621 (1960).”
Applying the first prong of the Ward test to the facts of the instant case, we conclude that Congress designed forfeiture under § 924(d) as a remedial civil sanction. Congress’ intent in this regard is most clearly demonstrated by the procedural mechanisms it established for enforcing forfeitures under the statute. Section 924(d) does not prescribe the steps to be followed in effectuating a forfeiture, but rather incorporates by reference the procedures of the Internal Revenue Code of 1954 (Code), 26 U. S. C. §§7321-7328. The Code in turn provides that an action to enforce a forfeiture “shall be in the nature of a proceeding in rem in the United States District Court for the district where such seizure is made.” 26 U. S. C. § 7323. In contrast to the in personam nature of criminal actions, actions in rem have traditionally been viewed as civil proceedings, with jurisdiction dependent upon seizure of a physical object. See Calero-Toledo v. Pearson Yacht Leasing Co., 416 U. S. 663, 684 (1974). In addition to establishing the in rem nature of the action, the Code authorizes a summary administrative proceeding for forfeiture of items valued at $2,500 or less, for which notice of a seizure may be by publication. See 26 U. S. C. § 7325. By creating such distinctly civil procedures for forfeitures under § 924(d), Congress has “indicate[d] clearly that it intended a civil, not a criminal, sanction.” Helvering v. Mitchell, supra, at 402.
Moreover, § 924(d) is somewhat broader in scope than the criminal provisions of 18 U. S. C. § 922. Section 924(d) subjects to forfeiture “[a]ny firearm or ammunition involved in or used or intended to be used in, any violation of the provisions of this chapter.” (Emphasis added.) But § 922(a)(1), the substantive criminal provision under which Mulcahey was prosecuted, does not render unlawful an intention to engage in the business of dealing in firearms without a license; only the completed act of engaging in the prohibited business is made a crime. See n. 1, supra. Whatever the actual scope of the conduct embraced by § 924(d), it is apparent from the differences in the language of these two statutes that the forfeiture provisions of § 924(d) were meant to be broader in scope than the criminal sanctions of § 922(a)(1).
Finally, the forfeiture provision of § 924(d) furthers broad remedial aims. Section 924(d) was enacted as part of the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968, Pub. L. 90-351, 82 Stat. 233, and later retained without alteration in the Gun Control Act of 1968, Pub. L. 90-618, 82 Stat. 1224. In enacting the 1968 gun control legislation, Congress “was concerned with the widespread traffic in firearms and with their general availability to those whose possession thereof was contrary to the public interest.” Huddleston v. United States, 415 U. S. 814, 824 (1974). Accordingly, Congress sought to “control the indiscriminate flow” of firearms and to “assist and encourage States and local communities to adopt and enforce stricter gun control laws.” H. R. Rep. No. 1577, 90th Cong., 2d Sess., 8 (1968). Section 924(d) plays an important role in furthering the prophylactic purposes of the 1968 gun control legislation by discouraging unregulated commerce in firearms and by removing from circulation firearms that have been used or intended for use outside regulated channels of commerce. Keeping potentially dangerous weapons out of the hands of unlicensed dealers is a goal plainly more remedial than punitive. Accordingly, we hold that Congress viewed § 924(d) forfeiture as a remedial civil sanction rather than a criminal punishment.
We now turn to the second aspect of our inquiry: “whether the statutory scheme [is] so punitive either in purpose or effect as to negate” Congress’ intention to establish a civil remedial mechanism. United States v. Ward, 448 U. S., at 248-249. “ ‘Only the clearest proof’ ” that the purpose and effect of the forfeiture are punitive will suffice to override Congress’ manifest preference for a civil sanction. Id., at 249 (quoting Flemming v. Nestor, 363 U. S. 603, 617 (1960)). In Kennedy v. Mendoza-Martinez, 372 U. S. 144, 168-169 (1963), we set forth a list of considerations that has proved helpful in the past in making such determinations. See, e. g., United States v. Ward, supra, at 249-251; Bell v. Wolfish, 441 U. S. 520, 537-538 (1979).
Only one of the Mendoza-Martinez factors — whether or not the proscribed behavior is already a crime — lends any support to Mulcahey’s position that § 924(d) imposes a criminal penalty. The fact that actions giving rise to forfeiture proceedings under § 924(d) may also entail the criminal penalties of § 922(a)(1) admittedly suggests that § 924(d) is criminal in nature. But that indication is not as strong as it might seem at first blush. United States v. Ward, supra, at 250. Clearly “Congress may impose both a criminal and a civil sanction in respect to the same act or omission,” Helvering v. Mitchell, 303 U. S., at 399; indeed, it has done so on other occasions. Moreover, Congress in fact drafted § 924(d) to cover a broader range of conduct than is proscribed by the criminal provisions of § 922(a)(1). See supra, at 363-364. Because the sanction embodied in § 924(d) is not limited to criminal misconduct, the forfeiture remedy cannot be said to be coextensive with the criminal penalty. What overlap there is between the two sanctions is not sufficient to persuade us that the forfeiture proceeding may not legitimately be viewed as civil in nature.
In short, an analysis of the Mendoza-Martinez factors in no way undermines Congress’ classification of the § 924(d) forfeiture action as a civil sanction. Mulcahey has failed to establish by the “clearest proof” that Congress has provided a sanction so punitive as to “transfor[m] what was clearly intended as a civil remedy into a criminal penalty.” Rex Trailer Co. v. United States, 350 U. S. 148, 154 (1956). We accordingly conclude that the forfeiture mechanism set forth in § 924(d) is not an additional penalty for the commission of a criminal act, but rather is a separate civil sanction, remedial in nature. Because the § 924(d) forfeiture proceeding brought against Mulcahey’s firearms is not a criminal proceeding, it is not barred by the Double Jeopardy Clause.
> I — I
We hold that a gun owner’s acquittal on criminal charges involving firearms does not preclude a subsequent in rem forfeiture proceeding against those firearms under § 924(d). Neither collateral estoppel nor the Double Jeopardy Clause affords a doctrinal basis for such a rule of preclusion, and we reject today the contrary rationale of Coffey v. United States, 116 U. S. 436 (1886). The judgment of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit is accordingly reversed, and the case is remanded for proceedings consistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
Title 18 U. S. C. §922(a)(1) provides:
“It shall be unlawful ... for any person, except a licensed importer, licensed manufacturer, or licensed dealer, to engage in the business of importing, manufacturing, or dealing in firearms or ammunition, or in the course of such business to ship, transport, or receive any firearm or ammunition in interstate or foreign commerce.”
Title 18 U. S. C. § 924(d) provides:
“Any firearm or ammunition involved in or used or intended to be used in, any violation of the provisions of this chapter or any rule or regulation promulgated thereunder, or any violation of any other criminal law of the United States, shall be subject to seizure and forfeiture and all provisions of the Internal Revenue Code of 1954 relating to the seizure, forfeiture, and disposition of firearms, as defined in section 5845(a) of that Code, shall, so far as applicable, extend to seizures and forfeitures under the provisions of this chapter.”
The number of firearms involved in this action has varied somewhat with time. Federal agents originally seized 105 firearms from Mulcahey, but later learned that 13 of them had been stolen. The stolen items were returned to their rightful owners, and the forfeiture action proceeded against the remaining 92 items. Later an additional automatic pistol was found, bringing the total to 93. Still later, for reasons not relevant here, 4 of the seized firearms were returned to Mulcahey’s wife, leaving 89 firearms as the subject of the forfeiture proceeding.
A divided panel of the Fourth Circuit had previously reversed the District Court’s forfeiture order. 669 F. 2d 206 (1982).
See, e. g., United States v. Burch, 294 P. 2d 1, 3, n. 2 (CA5 1961); United States v. One Dodge Sedan, 113 F. 2d 552, 553, and n. 1 (CA3 1940) (collecting cases and law review articles); IB J. Moore, J. Lucas, & T. Currier, Moore’s Federal Practice ¶ 0.418[3], pp. 587-589, and n. 12 (1983) (collecting cases).
Mulcahey relies heavily upon Congress’ labeling of §924 with the appellation “Penalties,” arguing that inclusion of the forfeiture provision in that section demonstrates Congress’ intention to create an additional criminal sanction. This argument is unavailing; both criminal and civil sanctions may be labeled “penalties.” Moreover, the congressional Reports accompanying § 924 describe it as “containing] the penalty and forfeiture provisions,” H. R. Rep. No. 1577, 90th Cong., 2d Sess., 17 (1968); S. Rep. No. 1097, 90th Cong., 2d Sess., 117 (1968), indicating that Congress was cognizant of the important differences between criminal punishment and in rem forfeiture.
In Kennedy v. Mendoza-Martinez, the Court enumerated “the tests traditionally applied to determine whether an Act of Congress is penal or regulatory in character.” 372 U. S., at 168.
“Whether the sanction involves an affirmative disability or restraint, whether it has historically been regarded as a punishment, whether it comes into play only on a finding of scienter, whether its operation will promote the traditional aims of punishment — retribution and deterrence, whether the behavior to which it applies is already a crime, whether an alternative purpose to which it may rationally be connected is assignable for it, and whether it appears excessive in relation to the alternative purpose assigned are all relevant to the inquiry, and may often point in differing directions.” Id., at 168-169 (footnotes omitted).
This list of considerations is, however, “neither exhaustive nor dispos-itive.” United States v. Ward, 448 U. S. 242, 249 (1980).
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
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 motions for. leave to proceed in forma ■pauperis and the petitions for writs of certiorari are granted.
After a joint trial in the state courts of Tennessee, petitioners were convicted of rape and sentenced to death. While their appeals were pending in the Tennessee Supreme Court, this Court 'announced its decision in Witherspoon v. Illinois, 391 U. S. 510 (1968)! Petitioners sought to supplement their bills of exceptions to raise issues' under that decision, but they were precluded from doing so by the provisions of former Tennessee Code Annotated § 27-111 (1955), which as it then stood prohibited the filing of bills of exceptions more than 90 days after judgment. The .Tennessee Supreme Court therefore affirmed petitioners’ convictions and sentences without considering the possible effect of Witherspoon. 222 Tenn. 672, 440 S. W. 2d 1 (1969). While the petitions for certiorari were pending in this Court, the Tennessee Legislature amended § 27-111 to authorize the state appellate courts to order the filing of. bills of exceptions in criminal cases at ány time, for good cause shown. Tenn. Code Ann. § 27-111 (Supp. 1970). With matters in this posture, we believe that sound judicial administration requires us to vacate the judgments below and remand the cases to the Tennessee Supreme Court so as to afford petitioners an opportunity to apply to that court under the new Tennessee statute for leave to supplement .their bills of exceptions. In so doing we, of course, intimate no view on the merits of petitioners’ contentions or as to the applicability of the new Tennessee statute to these cases.
It is so ordered.
Mr. Justice Black dissents.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | A | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Mr. Justice Clark
delivered the opinion of the Court.
Disability awards by the New York Workmen’s Compensation Board to an interstate railroad employee precipitate this attack on § 113 of that state’s Workmen’s Compensation Law as unconstitutionally conflicting with the Federal Employers’ Liability Act. While employed as a switchman by the appellant Railway, Thomas J. Ahern in July 1944 suffered a coronary occlusion as a result of unusual physical exertion in attempting to “throw a stuck switch” in the Railway’s Lackawanna, New York, yards. On January 15, 1945, he filed a claim with the New York Workmen’s Compensation Board, asserting disability caused by injuries sustained in the regular course of his employment. The Railway controverted the claim solely on the grounds that his injuries were not in fact accidental, and that his disability was not causally related to the injuries alleged. A referee, after hearing evidence, resolved these issues in the claimant’s favor and in September 1945 awarded him compensation at the rate of $28 per week from the date of the accident. The Board denied the Railway’s application for review and affirmed the referee’s determination. In 1946 and the year following, the Board entered two further temporary disability awards. A self-insured employer, appellant in accordance with the Board’s orders and without appeal to the courts of the state continued biweekly payments to Ahern until December 20, 1948. On January 3, 1949, Ahern died of his heart condition. At a subsequent hearing held shortly thereafter to determine a final disability award, the widow, appellee here, was requested to file a death claim. At that point appellant for the first time disputed the Board’s jurisdiction over the subject matter of the proceeding and offered to introduce proof in support. The referee rejected appellant’s proffer and rendered a disability award for the two weeks preceding Ahern’s death. Over appellant’s contention that the claimant was employed “in interstate commerce” so that the applicability of the Federal Employers’ Liability Act deprived the Workmen’s Compensation Board of jurisdiction, the Board denied a petition for review. The Appellate Division of the State Supreme Court upheld the award, and the Court of Appeals affirmed. This decision by the highest court of the state invoked § 113 of New York’s Workmen’s Compensation Law which in relevant part provides that awards “may be made by the board in respect of injuries subject to the admiralty or other federal laws in case the claimant, the employer and the insurance carrier waive their admiralty or interstate commerce rights and remedies . . . .” (Emphasis added.) Appellant’s serious attacks on the constitutionality of the statute as here applied and related problems important to the administration of the Federal Employers’ Liability Act prompted us to note probable jurisdiction of this case.
Collision of New York’s statute with the Federal Employers’ Liability Act is the crux of appellant’s constitutional contentions. All agree that the injured employee, had he pursued his federal remedy, would have met the “interstate commerce” requirements of that Act. But we are told that, under the New York Court of Appeals’ decision, § 113 of the state Workmen’s Compensation Law may translate the mere payment and acceptance of a single interlocutory compensation award into an irrevocable agreement by employer and employee to forsake their federal rights and submit their controversy to the state Board, a tribunal not only without jurisdiction but whose rules of liability clash with the uniform scheme intended by Congress in the Federal Employers’ Liability Act. That being so, appellant urges, the New York Court of Appeals’ construction of § 113 unconstitutionally authorizes the Workmen’s Compensation Board to invade a field foreclosed by governing federal legislation.
We do not think that the Court of Appeals roved so far afield. Rather than coin sweeping generalities, the court held that New York permitted the Board to render compensatory awards for employees engaged in interstate commerce only if the parties voluntarily had so agreed and “if there has been no overreaching or fraud.” Accordingly, the court scrupulously traced the significant factual elements in this case: Appellant from the outset was represented by able counsel well versed in the nature of its liabilities toward injured employees; it utilized the Board’s administrative machinery at several hearings resulting in at least four separate awards; it made payments for four and a half years in accordance with the Board’s directions, choosing not to contest the authority of the Board; it sought no judicial relief from any award save the last, when the employee’s remedy under the Federal Employers’ Liability Act had lapsed. In view of these facts the court concluded that manifestly the parties had agreed to invoke § 113, a purely “permissive statute,” thereby empowering the Workmen’s Compensation Board to act. And, in effect, appellant’s course of conduct over the years estopped it from now asserting a flaw in the bargain: “we can conceive of no sound reason why the employer should be permitted to urge his Federal rights at this late date.”
We do not doubt that the Federal Employers’ Liability Act, supplanting a patchwork of state legislation with a nationwide uniform system of liberal remedial rules, displaces any state law trenching on the province of the Act. State legislatures, for example, may not intrude into the federal Act’s interstate commerce perimeter to destroy uniformity by arbitrarily presuming the renunciation of rights which the Act confers, or by compelling parties to elect between their federal remedies and an alternative state compensation plan. Erie R. Co. v. Winfield, 244 U. S. 170 (1917). The New York Court of Appeals, however, manifested meticulous care to avoid collision; it construed § 113 of the Workmen’s Compensation Law as a mere legislative authorization, permitting the Board to effectuate private agreements for compromising a federal controversy by resort to an impartial local umpire — “that is all that section 113 of the Workmen’s Compensation Law purports to accomplish.” The difference between coercion and permission is decisive; New York’s jurisdictional grant, so confined, does not transgress.
To be sure, peculiarities of local law may not gnaw at rights rooted in federal legislation. American Railway Express Co. v. Levee, 263 U. S. 19, 21 (1923); Davis v. Wechsler, 263 U. S. 22, 24 (1923). Untainted by fraud or overreaching, full and fair compromises of FELA claims do not clash with the policy of the Act. Callen v. Pennsylvania R. Co., 332 U. S. 625 (1948). The validity of such an agreement, however, raises a federal question to be resolved by federal law. Dice v. Akron, C. & Y. R. Co., 342 U. S. 359 (1952); cf. Garrett v. Moore-McCormack Co., 317 U. S. 239 (1942). And, mindful of the benevolent aims of the Act, we have jealously scrutinized private arrangements for the bartering away of federal rights. Ibid.; Boyd v. Grand Trunk Western R. Co., 338 U. S. 263 (1949); Duncan v. Thompson, 315 U. S. 1 (1942). Here, however, whether motivated by charity, dislike of litigation, or trial strategy, appellant made payments until the statute of limitations barred the employee’s federal claim. Fully advised of its legal rights it submitted the controversy to the Board. The New York Court of Appeals viewed these circumstances as estopping appellant from the assertion of so long delayed a change of heart. No tenet of federal law compels otherwise.
Affirmed.
See R. 4.
R. 33, 37. In its “Notice to the Industrial Commissioner That Claim Will Be Controverted,” appellant additionally reserved “the right to controvert for such other reasons as may later appear.” R. 33. The New York courts attached no significance to that reservation.
R. 88-91.
The Board found, in part, that appellant “by its conduct and the effect thereof on the rights of the deceased claimant ... is now estopped from pleading the defense of the Federal Employer’s Liability Act.” R. 5.
303 N. Y. 545, 104 N. E. 2d 898 (1952), affirming 277 App. Div. 1067, 100 N. Y. S. 2d 639 (1950).
“The provisions of this chapter shall apply to employers and employees engaged in intrastate, and also interstate or foreign commerce, for whom a rule of liability or method of compensation has been or may be established by the congress of the United States, only to the extent that their mutual connection with intrastate work may and shall be clearly separable and distinguishable from interstate or foreign commerce, provided that awards according to the provisions of this chapter may be made by the board in respect of injuries subject to the admiralty or other federal laws in case the claimant, the employer and the insurance carrier waive their admiralty or interstate commerce rights and remedies, and the state insurance fund or other insurance carrier may assume liability for the payment of such awards under this chapter.” McKinney’s N. Y. Laws, Workmen’s Compensation Law, § 113.
“Any employee of a carrier, any part of whose duties as such employee shall be the furtherance of interstate or foreign commerce; or shall, in any way directly or closely and substantially, affect such commerce as above set forth shall, for the purposes of this chapter, be considered as being employed by such carrier in such commerce and shall be considered as entitled to the benefits of this chapter.” 45 U. S. C. § 51.
303 N. Y., at 555, 104 N. E. 2d, at 904.
303 N. Y., at 555, 104 N. E. 2d, at 903.
303 N. Y., at 564, 104 N. E. 2d, at 909.
303 N. Y., at 555, 104 N. E. 2d, at 904.
See also Heagney v. Brooklyn Eastern District Terminal, 190 F. 2d 976, 978 (1951); Ricketts v. Pennsylvania R. Co., 153 F. 2d 757, 759 (1946). We need not now decide whether the systematic solicitation of such agreements would ran afoul of § 5 of the Federal Employers’ Liability Act. “Any contract, rule, regulation, or device whatsoever, the purpose or intent of which shall be to enable any common carrier to exempt itself from any liability created by this chapter, shall to that extent be void . . . .” 45 U. S. C. § 55.
See Purvis v. Pennsylvania R. Co., 198 F. 2d 631 (1952).
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
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 sentencing law permits federal prison authorities to award prisoners credit against prison time as a reward for good behavior. 18 U. S. C. § 3624(b). Petitioners, two federal prisoners, challenge the method that the Federal Bureau of Prisons uses for calculating this “good time credit.” We conclude that the Bureau’s method reflects the most natural reading of the statute, and we reject petitioners’ legal challenge.
I
A
A federal sentencing statute provides:
“[A] prisoner who is serving a term of imprisonment of more than 1 year... may receive credit toward the service of the prisoner’s sentence, beyond the time served, of up to 54 days at the end of each year of the prisoner’s term of imprisonment, beginning at the end of the first year of the term.... [Cjredit for the last year or portion of a year of the term of imprisonment shall be prorated and credited within the last six weeks of the sentence.” § 3624(b)(1).
The Bureau of Prisons (BOP) applies this statute using a methodology that petitioners in this case challenge as unlawful. In order to explain the BOP method, we shall use a simplified example that captures its essential elements. The unsimplified calculations described by the BOP in its policy statement, see App. 96-100, will reach approximately the same results as, and are essentially the mathematical equivalent of, the simplified system we describe (there may be other ways to describe the calculation as well). To the extent that there are any differences between the methodology employed by the BOP and that reflected in our example, they are of no consequence to the resolution of petitioners’ challenge and are therefore not before us. Similarly, although petitioners committed their crimes before the current version of §3624 was enacted and are therefore subject to a previous version that differed slightly in certain details, see 18 U. S. C. § 3624 (1988 ed.), the differences between the two versions are immaterial to the questions presented by this case. The parties refer to the current version as the relevant provision of law, see Brief for Petitioners 2-3; Brief for Respondent 8, n. 2, and we shall do the same.
In our example we shall imagine a prisoner who has received a sentence of 10 years’ imprisonment. We shall assume that his behavior throughout his confinement is exemplary and that prison authorities will consequently consider him to merit the maximum good time credit that the statute will allow. And we shall ignore leap years.
Thus, at the end of the first year (Year 1) that prisoner would earn the statute’s maximum credit of 54 days. The relevant official (whom we shall call the “good time calculator”) would note that fact and, in effect, preliminarily put the 54 days to the side. At the end of Year 2 the prisoner would earn an additional 54 days of good time credit. The good time calculator would add this 54 days to the first 54 days, note the provisional total of 108 days, and again put the 108 days’ credit to the side. By the end of Year 8, the prisoner would have earned a total of 432 days of good time credit (8 years times 54 days). At that time, the good time calculator would note that the difference between the time remaining in the sentence (2 years, or 730 days) and the amount of accumulated good time credit (432 days) is less than 1 year (730 minus 432 equals 298 days, which is less than 365). The 432 days of good time credit that the prisoner has earned by the end of Year 8 are sufficient to wipe out all of the last year of the 10-year prison term and to shorten the prisoner’s 9th year of imprisonment by 67 days.
Year 9 of the sentence will consequently become the prisoner’s last year of imprisonment. Further, because the prisoner has already earned 67 days of credit against that year (432 days already earned minus 365 days applied to Year 10 leaves 67 days to apply to Year 9), the prisoner will have no more than 298 days left to serve in Year 9. Now the good time calculator will have to work out just how much good time the prisoner can earn, and credit against, these remaining 298 days.
As we said, the statute provides that “good time” for this “last year or portion” thereof shall be “prorated.” Thus, the good time calculator must divide the 298 days into two parts: (1) days that the prisoner will have to serve in prison, and (2) credit for good behavior the prisoner will earn during the days served in Year 9. In other words, the number of days to be served in Year 9 plus the number of good time credit days earned will be equal to the number of days left in the sentence, namely, 298. And to keep the award of credit in the last year proportional to awards in other years, the ratio of these two parts of Year 9 (i. e., the number of good time days divided by the number of days served) must be 54 divided by 365, the same ratio that the BOP applies to full years served. We can use some elementary algebra, described in the Appendix, infra, to work out the rest. The result is that if the prisoner serves 260 days, he can earn an additional 38 days of credit for good behavior. That is to say, of the 298 days remaining in his sentence, the prisoner will have to serve 260 days in confinement, after which point, his sentence will be fully accounted for (given the additional 38 days’ credit earned), and he will be released. In sum, a prisoner subject to a 10-year (3,650-day) sentence who earns the maximum number of days the statute permits will serve 3,180 days in confinement and receive 470 days of “good time” credit, about 15% of the prison time actually served.
B
In this case petitioners claim that the BOP’s calculation method is unlawful. They say that § 3624(b)(1) (2006 ed.) requires a straightforward calculation based upon the length of the term of imprisonment that the sentencing judge imposes, not the length of time that the prisoner actually serves. Thus, if a sentencing judge imposes a prison term of 10 years (as in our example), then, in petitioners’ view, the statute permits a maximum good time award of 540 days (10 years times 54 days), not the 470 days that the method described above would allow. And if the judge imposes a prison term of 10 years and 6 months, then the statute permits 567 days (540 days for the 10 years plus 27 days for the extra 6 months), not the 494 days that the method above would allow. According to petitioners, the BOP’s method causes model prisoners to lose seven days of good time credit per year of imprisonment, and because their sentences are fairly long (one, Michael Barber, was sentenced to 26 years and 8 months; the other, Tahir Jihad-Black, was sentenced to 21 years and 10 months), the difference in their cases amounts to several months of additional prison time.
The District Court in each of these cases rejected the prisoner’s challenge. Civ. No. 08-226 MO (D Ore., Oct. 27,2008), App. 13; Jihad-Black v. Thomas, Civ. No. 08-227 MO (D Ore., Oct. 27, 2008), App. 25. And in each instance the Court of Appeals affirmed the District Court. Tablada v. Thomas, No. 07-35538 (CA9, Apr. 10, 2009), App. 11; see also Tab-lada v. Thomas, 533 F. 3d 800 (CA9 2008). Because the BOP’s administration of good time credits affects the interests of a large number of federal prisoners, we granted the consolidated petition for certiorari to consider petitioners’ challenge.
II
Having now considered petitioners’ arguments, we conclude that that we must reject their legal challenge. The statute’s language and its purpose, taken together, convince us that the BOP’s calculation method is lawful. For one thing, that method tracks the language of § 3624(b). That provision says that a prisoner (serving a sentence of imprisonment of more than a year and less than life) “may receive credit... of up to 54 days at the end of each year” subject to the “determination by the Bureau of Prisons that, during that year, the prisoner” has behaved in an exemplary fashion. § 3624(b)(1) (emphasis added). And it says that credit for the “last year or portion of a year... shall be prorated and credited within the last six weeks of the sentence.” Ibid. As the example in Part I makes clear, the BOP’s interpretation provides a prisoner entitled to a maximum annual credit with 54 days of good time credit for each full year of imprisonment that he serves and a proportionally adjusted amount of credit for any additional time served that is less than a full year. And, as § 3624(b) directs, the BOP awards the credit at the end of each year of imprisonment (except, of course, for Year 9, which is subject to the statute’s special instruction requiring proration and crediting during the last six weeks of the sentence).
We are unable similarly to reconcile petitioners’ approach with the statute. Their system awards credit for the sentence imposed, regardless of how much time is actually served. Thus, a prisoner under petitioners’ system could receive 54 days of credit for Year 10 despite the fact that he would be released after less than, 8V2 years in prison. The good time calculation for Year 10 would not be made “at the end of” Year 10 (nor within the last six weeks of a sentence ending during that year). Neither could the BOP determine whether the prisoner had behaved in exemplary fashion “during that year.” 18 U. S. C. § 3624(b)(1) (emphasis added); see also White v. Scibana, 390 F. 3d 997, 1001 (CA7 2004) (“The Bureau cannot evaluate a prisoner’s behavior and award credit for good conduct if the prisoner is not still in prison”); cf. McGinnis v. Royster, 410 U. S. 263, 273 (1973) (“Where there is no evaluation by state officials and little or no rehabilitative participation for anyone to evaluate, there is a rational justification for declining to give good-time credit”).
We cannot say that this language (“at the end of,” “during that year”) found its way into the statute by accident. Under the previous good time provision, a prisoner was “entitled to a deduction from the term of his sentence beginning with the day on which the sentence commences to run.” 18 U. S. C. §4161 (1982 ed.) (repealed 1984). This deduction, granted at the outset of a prisoner’s sentence, was then made subject to forfeiture if the prisoner “committed] any offense or violatefd] the rules of the institution.” §4165 (repealed 1984). The present statute, §3624 (2006 ed.), in contrast, creates a system under which “credit” is “earned” “at the end of” the year based on an evaluation of behavior “during that year.” We agree with the Government that “[t]he textual differences between the two statutes reveal a purpose to move from a system of prospective entitlement to a system of retrospective award.” Brief for Respondent 33; see also White, supra, at 1002, n. 3.
For another thing, the BOP’s method better furthers the statute’s basic purpose. The “good time” provision in § 3624 is part of the Sentencing Reform Act of 1984, 98 Stat. 1987, 18 U. S. C. §3551 et seq., 28 U. S. C. §§991-998, a comprehensive law that reformed federal sentencing practice and directed the newly created United States Sentencing Commission “to devise guidelines to be used for sentencing” in district courts, Mistretta v. United States, 488 U. S. 361, 367 (1989). Under the previous regime, the United States Parole Commission, “as a general rule, [could] conditionally release a prisoner any time after he serve[d] one-third of the judicially fixed term.” United States v. Grayson, 438 U. S. 41, 47 (1978). If, for example, a judge imposed a prison term of 15 years, the Parole Commission might have released the prisoner after only 5 years. And it routinely did so. See United States Sentencing Commission, Guidelines Manual §1A3, p. s., p. 1.2 (Oct. 1987) (USSG) (“[Defendants often servfed] only about one-third of the sentence handed down by the court”). The result was “confusion and implicit deception.” Ibid. With the Sentencing Reform Act, Congress sought to achieve both increased sentencing uniformity and greater honesty by “mak[ing] all sentences basically determinate,” Mistretta, supra, at 367. See USSG § 1A3, p. s., at 1.2 (statutory objectives included “honesty in sentencing,” “uniformity,” and “proportionality” (emphasis deleted)).
Thereafter, the sentence the judge imposed would be the sentence the offender actually served, with a sole statutory exception for good time credits. Mistretta, supra, at 367 (a “prisoner is to be released at the completion of his sentence reduced only by any credit earned by good behavior while in custody” (citing § 3624(b))). The reason for this exception is provided in § 3624(b)(1) itself: to provide an incentive for prisoners to “compl[y] with institutional disciplinary regulations.” The good time exception is limited (to 54 days per year) and tailored to its purpose — credit is earned at the end of the year after compliance with institutional rules is demonstrated and thereby rewards and reinforces a readily identifiable period of good behavior. '
The BOP’s approach furthers the objective of §3624. It ties the award of good time credits directly to good behavior during the preceding year of imprisonment. By contrast, petitioners’ approach, insofar as it would award up to 54 days per year of time sentenced as opposed to time served, allows a prisoner to earn credit for both the portion of his sentence that he serves and the portion of his sentence that he offsets with earned good time credit. In other words, petitioners argue that the BOP should award good time credit not only for the days a prisoner spends in prison and behaves appropriately, but also for days that he will not spend in prison at all, such as Year 10 in our example. By doing so, it loosens the statute’s connection between good behavior and the award of good time and transforms the nature of the exception to the basic sentence-imposed-is-sentence-served rule. And to that extent, it is inconsistent with the statute’s basic purpose.
Ill
A
We are not convinced by petitioners’ several arguments against the BOP’s methodology. First, petitioners point to the statement in § 3624(b)(1) that a prisoner “may receive credit... at the end of each year of the prisoner’s term of imprisonment.” (Emphasis added.) The words “term of imprisonment,” they say, must refer to the years of the term that the sentencing judge imposed (10 years in our example), not the (less-than-10) years of the term that the prisoner actually served once good time credits were taken into account. After all, the very first phrase of that provision makes eligible for good time credits “a prisoner who is serving a term of imprisonment of more than 1 year other than a term of imprisonment for the duration of the prisoner’s life.” Ibid, (emphasis added; footnote omitted). The words “term of imprisonment” in this phrase almost certainly refer to the sentence imposed, not to the time actually served (otherwise prisoners sentenced to a year and a day would become ineligible for credit as soon as they earned it). And, as petitioners emphasize, we have recognized a “presumption that a given term is used to mean the same thing throughout a statute,” Brown v. Gardner, 513 U. S. 115, 118 (1994).
The problem for petitioners, however, is that this presumption is not absolute. It yields readily to indications that the same phrase used in different parts of the same statute means different things, particularly where the phrase is one that speakers can easily use in different ways without risk of confusion. Atlantic Cleaners & Dyers, Inc. v. United States, 286 U. S. 427, 433 (1932); General Dynamics Land Systems, Inc. v. Cline, 540 U. S. 581, 595-596 (2004). See, e. g., id., at 596-597 (“age” has different meanings in the Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967); United States v. Cleveland Indians Baseball Co., 532 U. S. 200, 213 (2001) (same for “‘wages paid’” in the Internal Revenue Code); Robinson v. Shell Oil Co., 519 U. S. 337, 343-344 (1997) (same for “employee” in Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964).
The phrase “term of imprisonment” is just such a phrase. It can refer to the sentence that the judge imposes, see, e. g., § 3624(a) (“A prisoner shall be released” at the end of “the prisoner’s term of imprisonment, less any time credited” for good behavior), but it also can refer to the time that the prisoner actually serves. Thus, § 3624(d) of the statute before us requires the BOP to “furnish [a] prisoner with... suitable clothing[,]... money,... and... transportation” “[u]pon the release of [the] prisoner on the expiration of the prisoner’s term of imprisonment.” (Emphasis added.) The statute here means to ensure that the prisoner is provided with these necessities at the time of his actual release from prison (sometime during Year 9 in our example), not at the end of the term that the judge imposed (which would be over a year later). Since the statute uses the same phrase “term of imprisonment” in two different ways, the presumption cannot help petitioners here. And, for the reasons we have given, see Part II, supra, context here indicates that the particular instance of the phrase “term of imprisonment” at issue refers to prison time actually served rather than the sentence imposed by the judge.
Second, petitioners seek to draw support from the statute’s legislative history. But those who consider legislative history significant cannot find that history helpful to petitioners here. Petitioners point, for example, to a statement in the Senate Report accompanying the Sentencing Reform Act, which says that the “method of calculation” of good time “will be considerably less complicated than under current law in many respects,” and that “credit toward early release is earned at a steady and easily determined rate that will have an obvious impact on the prisoner’s release date.” S. Rep. No. 98-225, pp. 146-147 (1983); see Brief for Petitioners 31-32. But these statements are consistent with the BOP’s interpretation of the statute. Its method, as we understand it, is not particularly difficult to apply and it is certainly less complex than prior law, which provided for the accumulation of two different kinds of good time credit (general and industrial), calculated in different manners (prospectively and retrospectively), and awarded at different rates, depending on the length of sentence imposed on the prisoner (5 to 10 days per month for general) or the year of employment (3 or 5 days per month for industrial). See 18 U. S. C. §§4161, 4162 (1982 ed.).
Petitioners also point to various statements contained in the Act’s Conference Report and made by individual legislators that describe good time credit as providing sentence reductions of 15%. See Brief for Petitioners 34-36 (citing, e. g., H. R. Conf. Rep. No. 98-1159, p. 415 (1984); 131 Cong. Rec. 488 (1985) (remarks of Rep. Hamilton)). But there is nothing in the context of these statements to suggest that they amounted to anything other than rough approximations or that they were made with the present controversy in mind. See, e. g., H. R. Conf. Rep. No. 98-1159, at 415 (noting simply that an increase in the amount of maximum annual credit from 36 days to 54 days “increases ‘good time’ that accrues from 10 percent to 15 percent”); 131 Cong. Rec. 488 (statement of Rep. Hamilton) (“Under [pre-Senteneing Reform Act] law, about 80% of all criminals are paroled after serving one third of their time. Now sentences will be reduced only 15% for good behavior”). And whatever interpretive force one attaches to legislative history, the Court normally gives little weight to statements, such as those of the individual legislators, made after the bill in question has become law. See, e. g., Heintz v. Jenkins, 514 U. S. 291, 298 (1995).
Third, petitioners rely on a statement in the United States Sentencing Commission’s Supplementary Report on the Initial Sentencing Guidelines and Policy Statements issued in 1987 (hereinafter Supplementary Report). In that Report, the Commission summarized its analysis of recent pre-Guidelines sentencing practice, which it had used to help draft the Guidelines. The results of the analysis were presented in a table that permits comparison of the likely prison-time consequences of the new Guidelines with prison time actually served under pre-Guidelines practice (specifically, by identifying the Guidelines “offense level that is closest to the average time... served by first-time offenders” convicted of a particular crime, Supplementary Report 23). Because the Guidelines “refer to sentences prior to the awarding of good time” (i. e., because a Guidelines sentence of, say, 30 months’ imprisonment does not necessarily mean that the offender will serve the entire 30 months in prison), the Commission adjusted the average time served “by dividing by 0.85 good time when the term exceeded 12 months.” Ibid. This adjustment, the Commission explained, “made sentences in the [t]able comparable with those in the guidelines.” Ibid.
Pointing to this adjustment and a reference in later editions of the Guidelines to a potential credit of “approximately fifteen percent for good behavior,” see, e.g., USSG §1A3, p. s., at 3 (Nov. 2009), petitioners maintain that the Commission.set its Guidelines ranges, with the expectation that well-behaved prisoners would receive good time credit of up to 15% of the sentence imposed, not 15% of the time actually served. They add that, in setting the Guidelines ranges in this way, the Commission exercised congressionally delegated power to interpret the Sentencing Reform Act, see Mistretta, 488 U. S., at 371-379 (approving Congress’ delegation of the power to promulgate sentencing guidelines), and that as long as that interpretation is reasonable, courts must defer to it, see Chevron U. S. A. Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc., 467 U. S. 837, 843-844 (1984).
Again, however, we can find no indication that the Commission, in writing its Supplementary Report or in the Guidelines themselves, considered or referred to the particular question here before us, that is, whether good time credit is to be based on time served or the sentence imposed. The Guidelines Manual itself, a more authoritative account of the Commission’s interpretive views than the Supplementary Report, says nothing directly on that subject. Moreover, with respect to comparisons between Guidelines sentences and pre-Guidelines practice, the original 1987 Manual cautioned that the Guidelines did not “simply cop[y] estimates of existing practice as revealed by the data,” but rather “departed from the data at different points for various important reasons.” USSG § 1A3, p. s., at 1.4; see also id., §lA4(g), p. s., at 1.11 (while “Guideline sentences in many instances will approximate existing [i. e., pre-Guidelines] practice,” the Commission did “not conside[r] itself bound by existing sentencing practice” (emphasis added)). Because the Commission has expressed no view on the question before us, we need not decide whether it would be entitled to deference had it done so. If it turns out that the calculation of good time credit based on prison time served rather than the sentence imposed produces results that are more severe than the Commission finds appropriate, the Commission remains free to adjust sentencing levels accordingly. See id., §1A2, at 1.2 (acknowledging that “the guideline-writing process [is] evolutionary” and that the Commission functions “as a permanent agency to monitor sentencing practices in the federal courts throughout the nation”).
Fourth, petitioners ask us to invoke the rule of lenity and construe § 3624 (2006 ed.) in their favor, that is, in a way that will maximize the amount of available good time credit. We may assume for present purposes that § 3624(b) can be construed as imposing a criminal penalty. See Bifulco v. United States, 447 U. S. 381, 387 (1980) (rule of lenity applies to “interpretations of... the penalties” imposed by “criminal prohibitions”); but see Sash v. Zenk, 428 F. 3d 132, 134 (CA2 2005) (Sotomayor, J.) (holding that § 3624(b) is not a criminal statute for the purposes of the rule of lenity). Even so, the rule of lenity only applies if, after considering text, structure, history, and purpose, there remains a “grievous ambiguity or uncertainty in the statute,” Muscarello v. United States, 524 U. S. 125, 139 (1998) (internal quotation marks omitted), such that the Court must simply “ ‘guess as to what Congress intended,” Bifulco, supra, at 387 (quoting Ladner v. United States, 358 U. S. 169, 178 (1958)). See United States v. Hayes, 555 U. S. 415, 429 (2009); United States v. R. L. C., 503 U. S. 291, 305-306 (1992) (plurality opinion). Having so considered the statute, we do not believe that there remains a “grievous ambiguity or uncertainty” in the statutory provision before us. Nor need we now simply “guess” what the statute means.
Finally, we note that petitioners urge us not to defer to the BOP’s implementation of § 3624(b). In our view, the BOP’s calculation system applies that statute as its language is most naturally read, and in accordance with what that language makes clear is its basic purpose. No one doubts that the BOP has the legal power to implement the statute in accordance with its language and purposes; hence we need not determine the extent to which Congress has granted the BOP authority to interpret the statute more broadly, or differently than it has done here. Cf. Chevron, supra, at 844-845.
B
Acknowledging that petitioners’ arguments cannot carry the day, the dissent has proposed a “third possibility,” post, at 495 (opinion of Kennedy, J.), not raised by either party nor, to our knowledge, used elsewhere in the Criminal Code. The dissent reads the statutory phrase “term of imprisonment” to refer to “the administrative period along which progress toward eventual freedom is marked.” Ibid. It derives from this reading the following method of calculation as applied to our 10-year example. First, “[t]he sentence is divided into ten 365-day segments.” Ibid. At the end of the first segment, a prisoner may receive up to 54 days of credit for good behavior. These credits immediately “go toward completion of the next year” so that the prisoner need only serve “another 311 days behind bars before the second year of his term of imprisonment is at an end.” Post, at 496. This process repeats itself until the “10th segment,” in which a prisoner receives an unspecified “credit in a prorated amount.” Ibid. In the end, the prisoner will have served 10 “administrative segments,” ibid., collectively comprising 3,117 days in prison and 533 days of credit.
The dissent claims “[r]eading ‘term of imprisonment’ this way is consistent with all parts of the statute.” Ibid. We see at least four problems. First, the opening sentence of § 3624(a) instructs that “[a] prisoner shall be released” upon “the expiration of the prisoner’s term of imprisonment, less any time credited” for good behavior. But if a prisoner’s “term of imprisonment” is the “period that a prisoner must complete in order to earn his freedom,” post, at 497, and it is “accounted for through a combination of prison time and credits,” post, at 495, then a prisoner should be released exactly at the end of his term of imprisonment (without any further adjustment). Because the dissent’s approach would require us to read words out of the statute, or give prisoners double credit, its definition cannot be used here.
Second, § 3624(b)(1) tells us that a prisoner receives credit “at the end of each year” based on behavior “during that year.” Under the dissent’s approach, however, a prisoner may receive credit at the end of each “administrative segment]” presumably based on his behavior during that segment. And because an “administrative segmen[t]” is made up of some “combination of service and credits,” post, at 496, each one lasts less than a calendar year. We do not see how a system in which “a prisoner may complete a particular year of his term in less than 365 calendar days,” ibid., and receive full good time credit for doing so, can possibly represent the most natural reading of this statutory language. Nor do we know, because the BOP has not had an opportunity to tell us, whether a system in which a “year” lasts anywhere from 311 to 365 calendar days (and in which the “years” of a single prisoner’s sentence may all be of different lengths) is easily administrable. (We doubt that this system will be more comprehensible to prisoners than one, like the BOP’s, that provides credit for actual years.)
Third, under the dissent’s approach, credit is earned at different rates during a single sentence. For the first “administrative segmen[t]” in its 10-year example, the prisoner serves 365 days and earns 54 days of credit. The ratio of credit earned to days served is 0.148. For the second “administrative segmen[t],” the prisoner serves 311 days and earns 54 days of credit. This time, the ratio of credit earned to days served is 0.174. (For the last “administrative segment],” the dissent tells us the prisoner will receive “credit in a prorated amount,” but it does not tell us which ratio should be used for the proration. Post, at 496.) The use of different rates finds no support in the statute. The dissent objects that the statute “prescribes no particular rate,” post, at 499, but in fact it does — 54 days of credit per year of good behavior — and it further requires that credit for the last year be “prorated” using the same proportion. Moreover, the dissent’s application of different rates leads to odd results. For example, a model prisoner sentenced on two separate 5-year terms (with a break in between) will serve a different number of days from one sentenced to a single 10-year term. How can this be if both prisoners are earning 54 days of credit for each of their 10 years in prison?
Fourth, § 3624(b)(2) provides that good time credit “shall vest on the date the prisoner is released from custody.” (This provision does not apply to prisoners, like petitioners, who committed their offenses before it was amended in 1996, but the dissent plainly intends for its approach to apply more broadly. See post, at 501 (noting the effect on “almost 200,000 federal prisoners”).) Yet under the dissent’s approach, credit appears to vest immediately. See post, at 496 (Days of credit for the first year “go toward completion of the next year” so that the prisoner “would need another 311 days behind bars before the second year of his term of imprisonment is at an end”). And if it does not, then the situation quickly becomes complicated. What happens if, say, on the last day of the 10th “administrative segmen[t]” (somewhere in the 8th calendar year), a prisoner badly misbehaves and prison officials punish him by taking away all of his previously earned credit? Cf. 28 CFR § 541.13 (2009) (prescribing sanctions for prohibited acts). Does the BOP retroactively adjust the duration of all of his administrative segments to 365 days so that the prisoner now finds himself in the middle of the 8th “administrative segmen[t]”? (Again we do not know if the BOP would find such a system administrable, and we doubt that this system would be more comprehensible to a prisoner.) If so, does the prisoner have a second opportunity to earn credit for good behavior for the 9th “administrative segmen[t]” that he had previously completed but now must account for again? Cf. § 3624(b)(1) (“Credit that has not been earned may not later be granted”). Or, having previously awarded (and taken away) credit for that segment, are prison authorities left without any incentive to offer for good behavior?
Finally, the dissent, like petitioners, invokes the rule of lenity to support its interpretation. But, the best efforts of the dissent notwithstanding, we still see no “grievous ambiguity or uncertainty” that would trigger the rule’s application. We remain convinced that the BOP’s approach reflects the most natural reading of the statutory language and the most consistent with its purpose. Whatever the merits of the dissent’s policy arguments, the statute does not require the BOP to accept them.
For all of these reasons, we conclude that the BOP’s methodology is lawful. The Ninth Circuit’s judgment is
Affirmed.
APPENDIX
A fuller example of the BOP’s method for calculating “credit for the last year or portion of a year of the term of imprisonment”
The defendant is sentenced to 10 years’ imprisonment. As a prisoner he exhibits exemplary behavior and is awarded the maximum credit of 54 days at the end of each year served in prison. At the end of Year 8, the prisoner has 2 years remaining in his sentence and has accumulated 432 days of good time credit. Because the difference between the time remaining in his sentence and the amount of accumulated credit (i. e., 730 minus 432) is less than a year (298 days), Year 9 is the last year he will spend in prison. (Year 10
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | A | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Mr. Justice White
delivered the opinion of the Court.
Section 1461 of Title 18, U. S. C., prohibits the knowing use of the mails for the delivery of obscene matter. The issue presented by the jurisdictional statement in this case is whether § 1461 is constitutional as applied to the distribution of obscene materials to willing recipients who state that they are adults. The District Court held that it was not. We disagree and reverse the judgment.
I
On April 15, 1970, the appellee, Norman Reidel, was indicted on three counts, each count charging him with having mailed a single copy of an illustrated booklet entitled The True Facts About Imported Pornography. One of the copies had been mailed to a postal inspector stipulated to be over the age of 21, who had responded to a newspaper advertisement. The other two copies had been seized during a search of appellee’s business premises; both of them had been deposited in the mail by Reidel but had been returned to him in their original mailing envelopes bearing the mark “undelivered.” As to these two booklets, the Government conceded that it had no evidence as to the identity or age of the addressees or as to their willingness to receive the booklets. Nor does the record indicate why the booklets were returned undelivered.
Reidel moved in the District Court before trial to dismiss the indictment, contending, among other things, that § 1461 was unconstitutional. Assuming for the purpose of the motion that the booklets were obscene, the trial judge granted the motion to dismiss on the ground that Reidel had made a constitutionally protected delivery and hence that § 1461 was unconstitutional as applied to him. The Government’s direct appeal is here under 18 U. S. C. § 3731.
II
In Roth v. United States, 354 U. S. 476 (1957), Roth was convicted under § 1461 for mailing obscene circulars and advertising. The Court affirmed the conviction, holding that “obscenity is not within the area of constitutionally protected speech or press,” id., at 485, and that § 1461, “applied according to the proper standard for judging obscenity, do[es] not offend constitutional safeguards against convictions based upon protected material, or fail to give men in acting adequate notice of what is prohibited.” Id., at 492. Roth has not been overruled. It remains the law in this Court and governs this case. Reidel, like Roth, was charged with using the mails for the distribution of obscene material. His conviction, if it occurs and the materials are found in fact to be obscene, would be no more vulnerable than was Roth’s.
Stanley v. Georgia, 394 U. S. 557 (1969), compels no different result. There, pornographic films were found in Stanley’s home and he was convicted under Georgia statutes for possessing obscene material. This Court reversed the conviction, holding that the mere private possession of obscene matter cannot constitutionally be made a crime. But it neither overruled nor disturbed the holding in Roth. Indeed, in the Court’s view, the constitutionality of proscribing private possession of obscenity was a matter of first impression in this Court, a question neither involved nor decided in Roth. The Court made its point expressly: “Roth and the cases following that decision are not impaired by today’s holding. As we have said, the States retain broad power to regulate obscenity; that power simply does not extend to mere possession by the individual in the privacy of his own home.” Id., at 568. Nothing in Stanley questioned the validity of Roth insofar as the distribution of obscene material was concerned. Clearly the Court had no thought of questioning the validity of § 1461 as applied to those who, like Reidel, are routinely disseminating obscenity through the mails and who have no claim, and could make none, about unwanted governmental intrusions into the privacy of their home. The Court considered this sufficiently clear to warrant summary affirmance of the judgment of the United States District Court for the Northern District of Georgia rejecting claims that under Stanley v. Georgia, Georgia’s obscenity statute could not be applied to book sellers. Gable v. Jenkins, 397 U. S. 592 (1970).
The District Court ignored both Both and the express limitations on the reach of the Stanley decision. .Relying on the statement in Stanley that “the Constitution protects the right to receive information and ideas . . . regardless of their social worth,” 394 U. S., at 564, the trial judge reasoned that “if a person has the right to receive and possess this material, then someone must have the right to deliver it to him.” He concluded that § 1461 could not be validly applied “where obscene material is not directed at children, or it is not directed at an unwilling public, where the material such as in this case is solicited by adults . . . .”
The District Court gave Stanley too wide a sweep. To extrapolate from Stanley’s right to have and peruse obscene material in the privacy of his own home a First Amendment right in Reidel to sell it to him would effectively scuttle Roth, the precise result that the Stanley opinion abjured. Whatever the scope of the “right to receive” referred to in Stanley, it is not so broad as to immunize the dealings in obscenity in which Reidel engaged here — dealings that Roth held unprotected by the First Amendment.
The right Stanley asserted was “the right to read or observe what he pleases — the right to satisfy his intellectual and emotional needs in the privacy of his own home.” 394 U. S., at 565. The Court’s response was that “a State has no business telling a man, sitting alone in his own house, what books he may read or what films he may watch. Our whole constitutional heritage rebels at the thought of giving government the power to control men’s minds.” Ibid. The focus of this language was on freedom of mind and thought and on the privacy of one’s home. It does not require that we fashion or recognize a constitutional right in people like Reidel to distribute or sell obscene materials. The personal constitutional rights of those like Stanley to possess and read obscenity in their homes and their freedom of mind and thought do not depend on whether the materials are obscene or whether obscenity is constitutionally protected. Their rights to have and view that material in private are independently saved by the Constitution.
Reidel is in a wholly different position. He has no complaints about governmental violations of his private thoughts or fantasies, but stands squarely on a claimed First Amendment right to do business in obscenity and use the mails in the process. But Roth has squarely placed obscenity and its distribution outside the reach of the First Amendment and they remain there today. Stanley did not overrule Roth and we decline to do so now.
Ill
A postscript is appropriate. Roth and like cases have interpreted the First Amendment not to insulate obscenity from statutory regulation. But the Amendment itself neither proscribes dealings in obscenity nor directs or suggests legislative oversight in this area. The relevant constitutional issues have arisen in the courts only because lawmakers having the exclusive legislative power have consistently insisted on making the distribution of obscenity a crime or otherwise regulating such materials and because the laws they pass are challenged as unconstitutional invasions of free speech and press.
It is urged that there is developing sentiment that adults should have complete freedom to produce, deal in, possess, and consume whatever communicative materials may appeal to them and that the law’s involvement with obscenity should be limited to those situations where children are involved or where it is necessary to prevent imposition on unwilling recipients of whatever age. The concepts involved are said to be so elusive and the laws so inherently unenforceable without extravagant expenditures of time and effort by enforcement officers and the courts that basic reassessment is not only wise but essential. This may prove to be the desirable and eventual legislative course. But if it is, the task of restructuring the obscenity laws lies with those who pass, repeal, and amend statutes and ordinances. Roth and like cases pose no obstacle to such developments.
The judgment of the District Court is reversed.
So ordered.
[For dissenting opinion of Mr. Justice Black, see post, p. 379.]
The statute in pertinent part provides:
“Every obscene, lewd, lascivious, indecent, filthy or vile article, matter, thing, device, or substance; and—
“Every written or printed card, letter, circular, book, pamphlet, advertisement, or notice of any kind giving information, directly or indirectly, where, or how, or from whom, or by what means any of such mentioned matters, articles, or things may be obtained or made, or where or by whom any act or operation of any kind for the procuring or producing of abortion will be done or performed, or how or by what means conception may be prevented or abortion produced, whether sealed or unsealed ....
“Is declared to be nonmailable matter and shall not be conveyed in the mails or delivered from any post office or by any letter carrier.
“Whoever knowingly uses the mails for the mailing, carriage in the mails, or delivery of anything declared by this section to be nonmailable, or knowingly causes to be delivered by mail according to the direction thereon, or at the place at which it is directed to be delivered by the person to whom it is addressed, or knowingly takes any such thing from the mails for the purpose of circulating or disposing thereof, or of aiding in the circulation or disposition thereof, shall be fined not more than $5,000 or imprisoned not more than five years, or both, for the first such offense, and shall be fined not more than $10,000 or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both, for each such offense thereafter.”
The trial judge did not issue a written opinion but ruled orally from the bench.
The advertisement was as follows:
“IMPORTED PORNOGRAPHY — learn the true facts before sending money abroad. Send $1.00 for our fully illustrated booklet. You must be 21 years of age and so state. Normax Press, P. O. Box 989, Fontana, California, 92335.”
Roth v. United, States was heard and decided with Alberts v. California, in which the Court upheld the obscenity provisions of the California Penal Code.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | C | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Justice White
delivered an opinion, Parts I, II, and V-B of which are the opinion of the Court.
The issue in this case is whether the Illinois Business TakeOver Act, Ill. Rev. Stat., ch. 12P/2, ¶ 137.51 et seq. (1979), is unconstitutional under the Supremacy and Commerce Clauses of the Federal Constitution.
HH
Appellee MITE Corp. and its wholly owned subsidiary, MITE Holdings, Inc., are corporations organized under the laws of Delaware with their principal executive offices in Connecticut. Appellant James Edgar is the Secretary of State of Illinois and is charged with the administration and enforcement of the Illinois Act. Under the Illinois Act any takeover offer for the shares of a target company must be registered with the Secretary of State. Ill. Rev. Stat., ch. 12154, 1137.54. A (1979). A target company is defined as a corporation or other issuer of securities of which shareholders located in Illinois own 10% of the class of equity securities subject to the offer, or for which any two of the following three conditions are met: the corporation has its principal executive office in Illinois, is organized under the laws of Illinois, or has at least 10% of its stated capital and paid-in surplus represented within the State. ¶ 137.52-10. An offer becomes registered 20 days after a registration statement is filed with the Secretary unless the Secretary calls a hearing. ¶ 137.54. E. The Secretary may call a hearing at any time during the 20-day waiting period to adjudicate the substantive fairness of the offer if he believes it is necessary to protect the shareholders of the target company, and a hearing must be held if requested by a majority of a target company’s outside directors or by Illinois shareholders who own 10% of the class of securities subject to the offer. ¶ 137.57. A. If the Secretary does hold a hearing, he is directed by the statute to deny registration to a tender offer if he finds that it “fails to provide full and fair disclosure to the offerees of all material information concerning the take-over offer, or that the take-over offer is inequitable or would work or tend to work a fraud or deceit upon the offerees....” f 137.57. E.
On January 19,1979, MITE initiated a cash tender offer for all outstanding shares of Chicago Rivet & Machine Co., a publicly held Illinois corporation, by filing a Schedule 14D-1 with the Securities and Exchange Commission in order to comply with the Williams Act. The Schedule 14D-1 indicated that MITE was willing to pay $28 per share for any and all outstanding shares of Chicago Rivet, a premium of approximately $4 over the then-prevailing market price. MITE did not comply with the Illinois Act, however, and commenced this litigation on the same day by filing an action in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois. The complaint asked for a declaratory judgment that the Illinois Act was pre-empted by the Williams Act and violated the Commerce Clause. In addition, MITE sought a temporary restraining order and preliminary and permanent injunctions prohibiting the Illinois Secretary of State from enforcing the Illinois Act.
Chicago Rivet responded three days later by bringing suit in Pennsylvania, where it conducted most of its business, seeking to enjoin MITE from proceeding with its proposed tender offer on the ground that the offer violated the Pennsylvania Takeover Disclosure Law, Pa. Stat. Ann., Tit. 70, § 71 et seq. (Purdon Supp. 1982-1983). After Chicago Rivet’s efforts to obtain relief in Pennsylvania proved unsuccessful, both Chicago Rivet and the Illinois Secretary of State took steps to invoke the Illinois Act. On February 1, 1979, the Secretary of State notified MITE that he intended to issue an order requiring it to cease and desist further efforts to make a tender offer for Chicago Rivet. On February 2, 1979, Chicago Rivet notified MITE by letter that it would file suit in Illinois state court to enjoin the proposed tender offer. MITE renewed its request for injunctive relief in the District Court and on February 2 the District Court issued a preliminary injunction prohibiting the Secretary of State from enforcing the Illinois Act against MITE’s tender offer for Chicago Rivet.
MITE then published its tender offer in the February 5 edition of the Wall Street Journal. The offer was made to all shareholders of Chicago Rivet residing throughout the United States. The outstanding stock was worth over $23 million at the offering price. On the same day Chicago Rivet made an offer for approximately 40% of its own shares at $30 per share. The District Court entered final judgment on February 9, declaring that the Illinois Act was pre-empted by the Williams Act and that it violated the Commerce Clause. Accordingly, the District Court permanently enjoined enforcement of the Illinois statute against MITE. Shortly after final judgment was entered, MITE and Chicago Rivet entered into an agreement whereby both tender offers were withdrawn and MITE was given 30 days to examine the books and records of Chicago Rivet. Under the agreement MITE was either to make a tender offer of $31 per share before March 12, 1979, which Chicago Rivet agreed not' to oppose, or decide not to acquire Chicago Rivet’s shares or assets. App. to Brief for Appellees la-4a. On March 2, 1979, MITE announced its decision not to make a tender offer.
The United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit affirmed sub nom. MITE Corp. v. Dixon, 633 F. 2d 486 (1980). It agreed with the District Court that several provisions of the Illinois Act are pre-empted by the Williams Act and that the Illinois Act unduly burdens interstate commerce in violation of the Commerce Clause. We noted probable jurisdiction, 451 U. S. 968 (1981), and now affirm.
I — I h — 1
The Court of Appeals specifically found that this case was not moot, 633 F. 2d, at 490, reasoning that because the Secretary has indicated he intends to enforce the Act against MITE, a reversal of the judgment of the District Court would expose MITE to civil and criminal liability for making the February 5, 1979, offer in violation of the Illinois Act. We agree. It is urged that the preliminary injunction issued by the District Court is a complete defense to civil or criminal penalties. While, as Justice Stevens’ concurrence indicates, that is not a frivolous question by any means; it is an issue to be decided when and if the Secretary of State initiates an action. That action would be foreclosed if we agree with the Court of Appeals that the Illinois Act is unconstitutional. Accordingly, the case is not moot.
HH I — I
We first address the holding that the Illinois Take-Over Act is unconstitutional under the Supremacy Clause. We note at the outset that in passing the Williams Act, which is an amendment to the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, Congress did not also amend § 28(a) of the 1934 Act, 15 U. S. C. § 78bb(a). In pertinent part, § 28(a) provides as follows:
“Nothing in this title shall affect the jurisdiction of the securities commission (or any agency or officer performing like functions) of any State over any security or any person insofar as it does not conflict with the provisions of this title or the rules and regulations thereunder.” 48 Stat. 903.
Thus Congress did not explicitly prohibit States from regulating takeovers; it left the determination whether the Illinois statute conflicts with the Williams Act to the courts. Of course, a state statute is void to the extent that it actually conflicts with a valid federal statute; and
“[a] conflict will be found ‘where compliance with both federal and state regulations is a physical impossibility...,’ Florida Lime & Avocado Growers, Inc. v. Paul, 373 U. S. 132, 142-143 (1963), or where the state flaw stands as an obstacle to the accomplishment and execution of the full purposes and objectives of Congress.’ Hines v. Davidowitz, 312 U. S. 52, 67 (1941); Jones v. Rath Packing Co., [430 U. S. 519,] 526, 540-541 [(1977)]. Accord, De Canas v. Bica, 424 U. S. 351, 363 (1976).” Ray v. Atlantic Richfield Co., 435 U. S. 151, 158 (1978).
Our inquiry is further narrowed in this case since there is no contention that it would be impossible to comply with both the provisions of the Williams Act and the more burdensome requirements of the Illinois law. The issue thus is, as it was in the Court of Appeals, whether the Illinois Act frustrates the objectives of the Williams Act in some substantial way.
The Williams Act, passed in 1968, was the congressional response to the increased use of cash tender offers in corporate acquisitions, a device that had “removed a substantial number of corporate control contests from the reach of existing disclosure requirements of the federal securities laws.” Piper v. Chris-Craft Industries, Inc., 430 U. S. 1, 22 (1977). The Williams Act filled this regulatory gap. The Act imposes several requirements. First, it requires that upon the commencement of the tender offer, the offeror file with the SEC, publish or send to the shareholders of the target company, and furnish to the target company detailed information about the offer. 15 U. S. C. § 78n(d)(l); 17 CFR § 240.24d-3 (1981). The offeror must disclose information about its background and identity; the source of the funds to be used in making the purchase; the purpose of the purchase, including any plans to liquidate the company or make major changes in its corporate structure; and the extent of the offeror’s holdings in the target company. 15 U. S. C. §78m(d)(l) (1976 ed., Supp. IV); 17 CFR §240.13d-l (1981). See also n. 2, supra. Second, stockholders who tender their shares may withdraw them during the first 7 days of a tender offer and if the offeror has not yet purchased their shares, at any time after 60 days from thé commencement of the offer. 15 U. S. C. §78n(d)(5). Third, all shares tendered must be purchased for the same price; if an offering price is increased, those who have already tendered receive the benefit of the increase. 15 U. S. C. § 78n(d)(7).
There is no question that in imposing these requirements, Congress intended to protect investors. Piper v. Chris-Craft Industries, Inc., supra, at 35; Rondeau v. Mosinee Paper Corp., 422 U. S. 49, 58 (1975); S. Rep. No. 550, 90th Cong., 1st Sess., 3-4 (1967) (Senate Report). But it is also crystal clear that a major aspect of the effort to protect the investor was to avoid favoring either management or the takeover bidder. As we noted in Piper, the disclosure provisions originally embodied in S. 2731 “were avowedly pro-management in the target company’s efforts to defeat takeover bids.” 430 U. S., at 30. But Congress became convinced “that takeover bids should not be discouraged because they serve a useful purpose in providing a check on entrenched but inefficient management.” Senate Report, at 3. It also became apparent that entrenched management was often successful in defeating takeover attempts. As the legislation evolved, therefore, Congress disclaimed any “intention to provide a weapon for management to discourage takeover bids,” Rondeau v. Mosinee Paper Corp., supra, at 58, and expressly embraced a policy of neutrality. As Senator Williams explained: “We have taken extreme care to avoid tipping the scales either in favor of management or in favor of the person making the takeover bids.” 113 Cong. Rec. 24664 (1967). This policy of “evenhandedness,” Piper v. Chris-Craft Industries, Inc., supra, at 31, represented a conviction that neither side in the contest should be extended additional advantages vis-á-vis the investor, who if furnished with adequate information would be in a position to make his own informed choice. We, therefore, agree with the Court of Appeals that Congress sought to protect the investor not only by furnishing him with the necessary information but also by withholding from management or the bidder any undue advantage that could frustrate the exercise of an informed choice. 633 F. 2d, at 496.
To implement this policy of investor protection while maintaining the balance between management and the bidder, Congress required the latter to file with the Commission and furnish the company and the investor with all information adequate to the occasion. With that filing, the offer could go forward, stock could be tendered and purchased, but a stockholder was free within a specified time to withdraw his tendered shares. He was also protected if the offer was increased. Looking at this history as a whole, it appears to us, as it did to the Court of Appeals, that Congress intended to strike a balance between the investor, management, and the takeover bidder. The bidder was to furnish the investor and the target company with adequate information but there was no “intension] to do... more than give incumbent management an opportunity to express and explain its position.” Rondeau v. Mosinee Paper Corp., supra, at 58. Once that opportunity was extended, Congress anticipated that the investor, if he so chose, and the takeover bidder should be free to move forward within the time frame provided by Congress.
IV
The Court of Appeals identified three provisions of the Illinois Act that upset the careful balance struck by Congress and which therefore stand as obstacles to the accomplishment and execution of the full purposes and objectives of Congress. We agree with the Court of Appeals in all essential respects.
A
The Illinois Act requires a tender offeror to notify the Secretary of State and the target company of its intent to make a tender offer and the material terms of the offer 20 business days before the offer becomes effective. Ill. Rev. Stat., ch. 12r/2, U1U37.54.E, 137.54.B (1979). During that time, the offeror may not communicate its offer to the shareholders. ¶ 137.54. A. Meanwhile, the target company is free to disseminate information to its shareholders concerning the impending offer. The contrast with the Williams Act is apparent. Under that Act, there is no precommencement notification requirement; the critical date is the date a tender offer is “first published or sent or given to security holders.” 15 U. S. C. § 78n(d)(l). See also 17 CFR § 240.14d-2 (1981).
We agree with the Court of Appeals that by providing the target company with additional time within which to take steps to combat the offer, the precommencement notification provisions furnish incumbent management with a powerful tool to combat tender offers, perhaps to the detriment of the stockholders who will not have an offer before them during this period. These consequences are precisely what Congress determined should be avoided, and for this reason, the precommencement notification provision frustrates the objectives of the Williams Act.
It is important to note in this respect that in the course of events leading to the adoption of the Williams Act, Congress several times refused to impose a precommencement disclosure requirement. In October 1965, Senator Williams introduced S. 2731, a bill which would have required a bidder to notify the target company and file a public statement with the Securities and Exchange Commission at least 20 days before commencement of a cash tender offer for more than 5% of a class of the target company’s securities. Ill Cong. Rec. 28259 (1965). The Commission commented on the bill and stated that “the requirement of a 20-day advance notice to the issuer and the Commission is unnecessary for the protection of security holders....” 112 Cong. Rec. 19005 (1966). Senator Williams introduced a new bill in 1967, S. 510, which provided for a confidential filing by the tender offeror with the Commission five days prior to the commencement of the offer. S. 510 was enacted as the Williams Act after elimination of the advance disclosure requirement. As the Senate Report explained:
“At the hearings it was urged that this prior review was not necessary and in some cases might delay the offer when time was of the essence. In view of the authority and responsibility of the Securities and Exchange Commission to take appropriate, action in the event that inadequate or misleading information is disseminated to the public to solicit acceptance of a tender offer, the bill as approved by the committee requires only that the statement be on file with the Securities and Exchange Commission at the time the tender offer is first made to the public.” Senate Report, at 4.
Congress rejected another precommencement notification proposal during deliberations on the 1970 amendments to the Williams Act.
B
For similar reasons, we agree with the Court of Appeals that the hearing provisions of the Illinois Act frustrate the congressional purpose by introducing extended delay into the tender offer process. The Illinois Act allows the Secretary of State to call a hearing with respect to any tender offer subject to the Act, and the offer may not proceed until the hearing is completed. Ill. Rev. Stat., ch. 12114, ¶¶ 137.57.A and B (1979). The Secretary may call a hearing at any time prior to the commencement of the offer, and there is no deadline for the completion of the hearing. ¶¶ 137.57.C and D. Although the Secretary is to render a decision within 15 days after the conclusion of the hearing, that period may be extended without limitation. Not only does the Secretary of State have the power to delay a tender offer indefinitely, but incumbent management may also use the hearing provisions of the Illinois Act to delay a tender offer. The Secretary is required to call a hearing if requested to do so by, among other persons, those who are located in Illinois “as determined by post office address as shown on the records of the target company and who hold of record or beneficially, or both, at least 10% of the outstanding shares of any class of equity securities which is the subject of the take-over offer.” ¶ 137.57.A. Since incumbent management in many cases will control, either directly or indirectly, 10% of the target company’s shares, this provision allows management to delay the commencement of an offer by insisting on a hearing. As the Court of Appeals observed, these provisions potentially afford management a “powerful weapon to stymie indefinitely a takeover.” 633 F. 2d, at 494. In enacting the Williams Act, Congress itself “recognized that delay can seriously impede a tender offer” and sought to avoid it. Great Western United Corp. v. Kidwell, 577 F. 2d 1256, 1277 (CA5 1978); Senate Report, at 4.
Congress reemphasized the consequences of delay when it enacted the Hart-Scott-Rodino Antitrust Improvements Act of 1976, Pub. L. 94-435, 90 Stat. 1397,15 U. S. C. § 12 et seq.
“[I]t is clear that this short waiting period [the 10-day period for proration provided for by § 14(d)(6) of the Securities Exchange Act, which applies only after a tender offer is commenced] was founded on congressional concern that a longer delay might unduly favor the target firm’s incumbent management, and permit them to frustrate many pro-competitive cash tenders. This ten-day waiting period thus underscores the basic purpose of the Williams Act — to maintain a neutral policy towards cash tender offers, by avoiding lengthy delays that might discourage their chances for success.” H. R. Rep. No. 94-1373, p. 12 (1976).
As we have said, Congress anticipated that investors and the takeover offeror would be free to go forward without unreasonable delay. The potential for delay provided by the hearing provisions upset the balance struck by Congress by favoring management at the expense of stockholders. We therefore agree with the Court of Appeals that these hearing provisions conflict with the Williams Act.
C
The Court of Appeals also concluded that the Illinois Act is pre-empted by the Williams Act insofar as it allows the Secretary of State of Illinois to pass on the substantive fairness of a tender offer. Under H137.57.E of the Illinois law, the Secretary is required to deny registration of a takeover offer if he finds that the offer “fails to provide full and fair disclosure to the offerees... or that the take-over offer is inequitable...” (emphasis added). The Court of Appeals understood the Williams Act and its legislative history to indicate that Congress intended for investors to be free to make their own decisions. We agree. Both the House and Senate Reports observed that the Act was “designed to make the relevant facts known so that shareholders have a fair opportunity to make their decision.” H. R. Rep. No. 1711, 90th Cong., 2d Sess., 4 (1968); Senate Report, at 3. Thus, as the Court of Appeals said, “[t]he state thus offers-investor protection at the expense of investor autonomy — an approach quite in conflict with that adopted by Congress.” 633 F. 2d, at 494.
V
The Commerce Clause provides that “Congress shall have Power... [t]o regulate Commerce... among the several States.” U. S. Const., Art. I, §8, cl. 3. “[A]t least since Cooley v. Board of Wardens, 12 How. 299 (1852), it has been clear that ‘the Commerce Clause.... even without implementing legislation by Congress is a limitation upon the power of the States.’” Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Co. v. Cottrell, 424 U. S. 366, 370-371 (1976), quoting Freeman v. Hewitt, 329 U. S. 249, 252 (1946). See also Lewis v. BT Investment Managers, Inc., 447 U. S. 27, 35 (1980). Not every exercise of state power with some impact on interstate commerce is invalid. A state statute must be upheld if it “regulates evenhandedly to effectuate a legitimate local public interest, and its effects on interstate commerce are only incidental... unless the burden imposed on such commerce is clearly excessive in relation to the putative local benefits.” Pike v. Bruce Church, Inc., 397 U. S. 137, 142 (1970), citing Huron Cement Co. v. Detroit, 362 U. S. 440, 443 (1960). The Commerce Clause, however, permits only incidental regulation of interstate commerce by the States; direct regulation is prohibited. Shafer v. Farmers Grain Co., 268 U. S. 189, 199 (1925). See also Pike v. Bruce Church, Inc., supra, at 142. The Illinois Act violates these principles for two reasons. First, it directly regulates and prevents, unless its terms are satisfied, interstate tender offers which in turn would generate interstate transactions. Second, the burden the Act imposes on interstate commerce is excessive in light of the local interests the Act purports to further.
A
States have traditionally regulated intrastate securities transactions, and this Court has upheld the authority of States to enact “blue-sky” laws against Commerce Clause challenges on several occasions. Hall v. Geiger-Jones Co., 242 U. S. 539 (1917); Caldwell v. Sioux Falls Stock Yards Co., 242 U. S. 559 (1917); Merrick v. N. W. Halsey & Co., 242 U. S. 568 (1917). The Court’s rationale for upholding blue-sky laws was that they only regulated transactions occurring within the regulating States. “The provisions of the law... apply to dispositions of securities within the State and while information of those issued in other States and foreign countries is required to be filed..., they are only affected, by the requirement of a license of one who deals with them within the State.... Such regulations affect interstate commerce in [securities] only incidentally.” Hall v. Geiger-Jones Co., supra, at 557-558 (citations omitted). Congress has also recognized the validity of such laws governing intrastate securities transactions in § 28(a) of the Securities Exchange Act, 15 U. S. C. § 78bb(a), a provision “designed to save state blue-sky laws from pre-emption.” Leroy v. Great Western United Corp., 443 U. S. 173, 182, n. 13 (1979).
The Illinois Act differs substantially from state blue-sky laws in that it directly regulates transactions which take place across state lines, even if wholly outside the State of Illinois. A tender offer for securities of a publicly held corporation is ordinarily communicated by the use of the mails or other means of interstate commerce to shareholders across the country and abroad. Securities are tendered and transactions closed by similar means. Thus, in this case, MITE Corp., the tender offeror, is a Delaware corporation with principal offices in Connecticut. Chicago Rivet is a publicly held Illinois corporation with shareholders scattered around the country, 27% of whom live in Illinois. MITE’s offer to Chicago Rivet’s shareholders, including those in Illinois, necessarily employed interstate facilities in communicating its offer, which, if accepted, would result in transactions occurring across state lines. These transactions would themselves be interstate commerce. Yet the Illinois law, unless complied with, sought to prevent MITE from making its offer and concluding interstate transactions not only with Chicago Rivet’s stockholders living in Illinois, but also with those living in other States and having no connection with Illinois. Indeed, the Illinois law on its face would apply even if not a single one of Chicago Rivet’s shareholders were a resident of Illinois, since the Act applies to every tender offer for a corporation meeting two of the following conditions: the corporation has its principal executive office in Illinois, is organized under Illinois laws, or has at least 10% of its stated capital and paid-in surplus represented in Illinois. Ill. Rev. Stat., ch. 12172, ¶ 137.52-10(2) (1979). Thus the Act could be applied to regulate a tender offer which would not affect a single Illinois shareholder.
It is therefore apparent that the Illinois statute is a direct restraint on interstate commerce and that it has a sweeping extraterritorial effect. Furthermore, if Illinois may impose such regulations, so may other States; and interstate commerce in securities transactions generated by tender offers would be thoroughly stifled. In Shafer v. Farmers Grain Co., supra, at 199, the Court held that “a state statute which by its necessary operation directly interferes with or burdens [interstate] commerce is a prohibited regulation and invalid, regardless of the purpose with which it was enacted.” See also Hughes v. Alexandria Scrap Corp., 426 U. S. 794, 806 (1976). The Commerce Clause also precludes the application of a state statute to commerce that takes place wholly outside of the State’s borders, whether or not the commerce has effects within the State. In Southern Pacific Co. v. Arizona, 325 U. S. 761, 775 (1945), the Court struck down on Commerce Clause grounds a state law where the “practical effect of such regulation is to control [conduct] beyond the boundaries of the state... The limits on a State’s power to enact substantive legislation are similar to the limits on the jurisdiction of state courts. In either case, “any attempt ‘directly’ to assert extraterritorial jurisdiction over persons or property would offend sister States and exceed the inherent limits of the State’s power.” Shaffer v. Heitner, 433 U. S. 186, 197 (1977).
Because the Illinois Act purports to regulate directly and to interdict interstate commerce, including commerce wholly outside the State, it must be held invalid as were the laws at issue in Shafer v. Farmers Grain Co. and Southern Pacific.
B
The Illinois Act is also unconstitutional under the test of Pike v. Bruce Church, Inc., 397 U. S., at 142, for even when a state statute regulates interstate commerce indirectly, the burden imposed on that commerce must not be excessive in relation to the local interests served by the statute. The most obvious burden the Illinois Act imposes on interstate commerce arises from the statute’s previously described nationwide reach which purports to give Illinois the power to determine whether a tender offer may proceed anywhere.
The effects of allowing the Illinois Secretary of State to block a nationwide tender offer are substantial. Shareholders are deprived of the opportunity to sell their shares at a premium. The reallocation of economic resources to their highest valued use, a process which can improve efficiency and competition, is hindered. The incentive the tender offer mechanism provides incumbent management to perform well so that stock prices remain-high is reduced. See Easter-brook & Fischel, The Proper Role of a Target’s Management in Responding to a Tender Offer, 94 Harv. L. Rev. 1161,1173-1174 (1981); Fischel, Efficient Capital Market Theory, the Market for Corporate Control, and the Regulation of Cash Tender Offers, 57 Texas L. Rev. 1, 5, 27-28, 45 (1978); H. R. Rep. No. 94-1373, p. 12 (1976).
Appellant claims the Illinois Act furthers two legitimate local interests. He argues that Illinois seeks to protect resident security holders and that the Act merely regulates the internal affairs of companies incorporated under Illinois law. We agree with the Court of Appeals that these asserted interests are insufficient to outweigh the burdens Illinois imposes on interstate commerce.
While protecting local investors is plainly a legitimate state objective, the State has no legitimate interest in protecting nonresident shareholders. Insofar as the Illinois law burdens out-of-state transactions, there is nothing to be weighed in the balance to sustain the law. We note, furthermore, that the Act completely exempts from coverage a corporation’s acquisition of its own shares. III. Rev. Stat., ch. 12114, ¶ 137.52-9(4) (1979). Thus Chicago Rivet was able to make a competing tender offer for its own stock without complying with the Illinois Act, leaving Chicago Rivet’s shareholders to depend only on the protections afforded them by federal securities law, protections which Illinois views as inadequate to protect investors in other contexts. This distinction is at variance with Illinois’ asserted legislative purpose, and tends to undermine appellant’s justification for the burdens the statute imposes on interstate commerce.
We are also unconvinced that the Illinois Act substantially enhances the shareholders’ position. The Illinois Act seeks to protect shareholders of a company subject to a tender offer by requiring disclosures regarding the offer, assuring that shareholders have adequate time to decide whether to tender their shares, and according shareholders withdrawal, proration, and equal consideration rights. However, the Williams Act provides these same substantive protections, compare Ill. Rev. Stat., ch. 121A, ¶¶ 137.59.C, D, and E (1979) (withdrawal, proration, and equal consideration rights), with 15 U. S. C. §§ 78n(d)(5), (6), and (7) and 17 CFR §240.14d-7 (1981) (same). As the Court of Appeals noted, the disclosures required by the Illinois Act which go beyond.those mandated by the Williams Act and the regulations pursuant to it may not substantially enhance the shareholders’ ability to make informed decisions. 633 F. 2d, at 500. It also was of the view that the possible benefits of the potential delays required by the Act may be outweighed by the increased risk that the tender offer will fail due to defensive tactics employed by incumbent management. We are unprepared to disagree with the Court of Appeals in these respects, and conclude that the protections the Illinois Act affords resident security holders are, for the most part, speculative.
Appellant also contends that Illinois has an interest in regulating the internal affairs of a corporation incorporated under its laws. The internal affairs doctrine is a conflict of laws principle which recognizes that only one State should have the authority to regulate a corporation’s internal affairs — matters peculiar to the relationships among or between the corporation and its current officers, directors, and shareholders — because otherwise a corporation could be faced with conflicting demands. See Restatement (Second) of Conflict of Laws §302, Comment b, pp. 307-308 (1971). That doctrine is of little use to the State in this context. Tender offers contemplate transfers of stock by stockholders to a third party and do not themselves implicate the internal affairs of the target company. Great Western United Corp. v. Kidwell, 577 F. 2d, at 1280, n. 53; Restatement, supra, § 302, Comment e, p. 310. Furthermore, the proposed justification is somewhat incredible since the Illinois Act applies to tender offers for any corporation for which 10% of the outstanding shares are held by Illinois residents, Ill. Rev. Stat., ch. 12172, ¶ 137.52-10 (1979). The Act thus applies to corporations that are not incorporated in Illinois and have their principal place of business in other States. Illinois has no interest in regulating the internal affairs of foreign corporations.
We conclude with the Court of Appeals that the Illinois Act imposes a substantial burden on interstate commerce which outweighs its putative local benefits. It is accordingly invalid under the Commerce Clause.
The judgment of the Court of Appeals is
Affirmed.
The Chief Justice joins the opinion in its entirety; Justice Black-mun joins Parts I, II, III, and IV; Justice Powell joins Parts I and V-B; and Justice Stevens and Justice O'Connor join Parts I, II, and V.
The Illinois Act defines “take-over offer” as “the offer to acquire or the acquisition of any equity security of a target company, pursuant to a tender offer....” Ill. Rev. Stat., ch. 121'/z, ¶ 137.52-9 (1979). “A tender offer has been conventionally understood to be a publicly made invitation addressed to all shareholders of a corporation to tender their shares for sale at a specified price.” Note, The Developing Meaning of “Tender Offer” Under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, 86 Harv. L. Rev. 1250, 1251 (1973) (footnotes omitted). The terms “tender offer” and “takeover offer” are often used interchangeably.
The Williams Act, 82 Stat. 454, codified at 15 U. S. C. §§78m(d)-(e) and 78n(dMf), added new §§ 13(d), 13(e), and 14(d)-(f) to the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. Section 14(d)(1) of the Securities Exchange Act requires an offeror seeking to acquire more than 5% of any class of equity security by means of a tender offer to first file a Schedule 14D-1 with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The Schedule requires disclosure of the source of funds used to purchase the target shares, past transactions with the target company, and other material financial information about the offeror. In addition, the offeror must disclose any antitrust or other legal problems which might result from the success of the offer. 17 CFR §240.14d-100 (1981). Section 14(d)(1) requires the offeror to publish or send a statement of the relevant facts contained 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.
Mr. Justice Whittaker
delivered the opinion of the Court.
This is a companion case to Lehmann v. United States ex rel. Carson, ante, p. 685, and presents similar questions. Respondent, an alien who entered the United States in 1920 for permanent residence, was convicted in 1925 of .a federal offense relating to illicit traffic in narcotic drugs. At that time there was no statute making that offense a ground for deportation. He was taken into custody in May, 1953, and, after administrative proceedings, was ordered deported under §241 (a) (11) and (d) of the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952, which provides, inter alia, for the deportation of any alien “. . . who at any time has been convicted of a violation of any law or regulation relating to the illicit traffic in narcotic drugs .
Respondent petitioned the District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan for a writ of habeas corpus. The District Court, after hearing, denied the petition. The Court of Appeals reversed, 236 F. 2d 955, holding — principally on the basis of its earlier decision in United States v. Kershner, 228 F. 2d 142, this day reversed by us, sub nom. Lehmann v. United States ex rel. Carson, ante, p. 685 — that inasmuch as respondent’s conviction in 1925 of illicit traffic in narcotic drugs was not a ground for deportation prior to the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952, respondent had a “status” of nondeportability which was preserved to him by the savings clause in § 405 (a) of that Act. We granted certiorari, 352 U. S. 915.
[For dissenting opinion of Mr. Justice Black, joined by Mr. Justice Douglas, see ante, p. 690.]
As we have said in Lehmann v. United States ex rel. Carson, ante, p. 685, § 405 (a) by its own terms does not apply to situations “otherwise specifically provided” for in the Act. Section 241 (a) (11) and §241 (d) specifically provide for the deportation of an alien notwithstanding that the offense for which he is being deported occurred prior to the 1952 Act. Section 241 (a) (11) makes an alien deportable if he has “at any time” been convicted of illicit traffic in narcotic drugs. And §241 (d) makes §241 (a) (11) applicable to all aliens covered thereby “notwithstanding . . . that the facts . . . occurred prior to the date of enactment of this Act.” It seems to us indisputable, therefore, that Congress was legislating retrospectively, as it may do, to cover offenses of the kind here involved. The case is, therefore, “otherwise specifically provided” for within the meaning of § 405 (a). The Court of Appeals was in error in holding to the contrary, and its judgment is
Reversed.
The sale of a quantity of cocaine hydrochloride and possession and purchase of 385 grains thereof.
66 Stat. 204, 8 U. S. C. § 1251.
Section 241 (a) (11) and (d) of the Immigration and Nationality-Act of 1952 provides, in pertinent part, as follows:
“(a) Any alien in the United States (including an alien crewman) shall, upon the order of the Attorney General, be deported who—
“(11) is, or hereafter at any time after entry has been, a narcotic drug addict, or who at any time has been convicted of a violation of any law or regulation relating to the illicit traffic in narcotic drugs ....
“(d) Except as otherwise specifically provided in this section, the provisions of this section shall be applicable to all aliens belonging to any of the classes enumerated in subsection (a), notwithstanding . . . (2) that the facts, by reason of which any such alien belongs to any of the classes enumerated in subsection (a), occurred prior to the date of enactment of this Act.”
66 Stat. 280, 8 U. S. C. § 1101, Note. Section 405, so far as here material, provides “Nothing contained in this Act, unless otherwise specifically provided therein, shall be construed to affect . . . any status . . . existing, at the time this Act shall take effect ...”
Bugajewitz v. Adams, 228 U. S. 585; Ng Fung Ho v. White, 259 U. S. 276; Mahler v. Eby, 264 U. S. 32; United States ex rel. Eichenlaub v. Shaughnessy, 338 U. S. 521; Harisiades v. Shaughnessy, 342 U. S. 580; Galvan v. Press, 347 U. S. 522; Marcello v. Bonds, 349 U. S. 302.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | B | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Mr. Justice Brennan
delivered the opinion of the Court.
These two cases concern the provision of the Internal Revenue Code which excludes from the gross income of an income taxpayer “the value of property acquired by gift.” They pose the frequently recurrent question whether a specific transfer to a taxpayer in fact amounted to a “gift” to him within the meaning of the statute. The importance to decision of the facts of the cases requires that we state them in some detail.
No. 376, Commissioner v. Duberstein. The taxpayer, Duberstein, was president of the Duberstein Iron & Metal Company, a corporation with headquarters in Dayton, Ohio. For some years the taxpayer’s company had done business with Mohawk Metal Corporation, whose headquarters were in New York City. The president of Mohawk was one Berman. The taxpayer and Berman had generally used the telephone to transact their companies' business with each other, which consisted of buying and selling metals. The taxpayer testified, without elaboration, that he knew Berman “personally” and had known him for about seven years. From time to time in their telephone conversations, Ber-man would ask Duberstein whether the latter knew of potential customers for some of Mohawk’s products in which Duberstein’s company itself was not interested. Duberstein provided the names of potential customers for these items.
One day in 1951 Berman telephoned Duberstein and said that the information Duberstein had given him had proved so helpful that he wanted to give the latter a present. Duberstein stated that Berman owed him nothing. Berman said that he had a Cadillac as a gift for Duberstein, and that the latter should send to New York for it; Berman insisted that Duberstein accept the car, and the latter finally did so, protesting however that he had not intended to be compensated for the information. At the time Duberstein already had a Cadillac and an Oldsmobile, and felt that he did not need another car. Duberstein testified that he did not think Berman would have sent him the Cadillac if he had not furnished him with information about the customers. It appeared that Mohawk later deducted the value of the Cadillac as a business expense on its corporate income tax return.
Duberstein did not include the value of the Cadillac in gross income for 1951, deeming it a gift. The Commissioner asserted a deficiency for the car’s value against him, and in proceedings to review the deficiency the Tax Court affirmed the Commissioner’s determination. It said that “The record is significantly barren of evidence revealing any intention on the part of the payor to make a gift. . . . The only justifiable inference is that the automobile was intended by the payor to be remuneration for services rendered to it by Duberstein.” The Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit reversed. 265 F. 2d 28.
No. 546, Stanton v. United States. The taxpayer, Stanton, had been for approximately 10 years in the employ of Trinity Church in New York City. He was comptroller of the Church corporation, and president of a corporation, Trinity Operating Company, the church set up as a fully owned subsidiary to manage its real estate holdings, which were more extensive than simply the church property. His salary by the end of his employment there in 1942 amounted to $22,500 a year. Effective November 30, 1942, he resigned from both positions to go into business for himself. The Operating Company’s directors, who seem to have included the rector and vestrymen of the church, passed the following resolution upon his resignation: “Be it Resolved that in appreciation of the services rendered by Mr. Stanton ... a gratuity is hereby awarded to him of Twenty Thousand Dollars, payable to him in equal instalments of Two Thousand Dollars at the end of each and every month commencing with the month of December, 1942; provided that, with the discontinuance of his services, the Corporation of Trinity Church is released from all rights and claims to pension and retirement benefits not already accrued up to November 30, 1942.”
The Operating Company’s action was later explained by one of its directors as based on the fact that, “Mr. Stanton was liked by all of the Vestry personally. He had a pleasing personality. He had come in when Trinity’s affairs were in a difficult situation. He did a splendid piece of work, we felt. Besides that ... he was liked by all of the members of the Vestry personally.” And by another: “[W]e were all unanimous in wishing to make Mr. Stanton a gift. Mr. Stanton had loyally and faithfully served Trinity in a very difficult time. We thought of him in the highest regard. We understood that he was going in business for himself. We felt that he was entitled to that evidence of good will.”
On the other hand, there was a suggestion of some ill-feeling between Stanton and the directors, arising out of the recent termination of the services of one Watkins, the Operating Company’s treasurer, whose departure was evidently attended by some acrimony. At a special board meeting on October 28, 1942, Stanton had intervened on Watkins’ side and asked reconsideration of the matter. The minutes reflect that “resentment was expressed as to the 'presumptuous’ suggestion that the action of the Board, taken after long deliberation, should be changed.” The Board adhered to its determination that Watkins be separated from employment, giving him an opportunity to resign rather than be discharged. At another special meeting two days later it was revealed that Watkins had not resigned; the previous resolution terminating his services was then viewed as effective; and the Board voted the payment of six months’ salary to Watkins in a resolution similar to that quoted in regard to Stanton, but which did not use the term “gratuity.” At the meeting, Stanton announced that in order to avoid any such embarrassment or question at any time as to his willingness to resign if the Board desired, he was tendering his resignation. It was tabled, though not without dissent. The next week, on November 5, at another special meeting, Stanton again tendered his resignation which this time was accepted.
The “gratuity” was duly paid. So was a smaller one to Stanton's (and the Operating Company's) secretary, under a similar resolution, upon her resignation at the same time. The two corporations shared the expense of the payments. There was undisputed testimony that there were in fact no enforceable rights or claims to pension and retirement benefits which had not accrued at the time of the taxpayer’s resignation, and that the last proviso of the resolution was inserted simply out of an abundance of caution. The taxpayer received in cash a refund of his contributions to the retirement plans, and there is no suggestion that he was entitled to more. He was required to perform no further services for Trinity after his resignation.
The Commissioner asserted a deficiency against the taxpayer after the latter had failed to include the payments in question in gross income. After payment of the deficiency and administrative rejection of a refund claim, the taxpayer sued the United States for a refund in the District Court for the Eastern District of New York. The trial judge, sitting without a jury, made the simple finding that the payments were a “gift,” and judgment was entered for the taxpayer. The Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit reversed. 268 F. 2d 727.
The Government, urging that clarification of the problem typified by these two eases was necessary, and that the approaches taken by the Courts of Appeals for the Second and the Sixth Circuits were in conflict, petitioned for certiorari in No. 376, and acquiesced in the taxpayer’s petition in No. 546. On this basis, and because of the importance of’the question in the administration of the income tax laws, we granted certiorari in both cases. 361 U. S. 923.
The exclusion of property acquired by gift from gross income under the federal income tax laws was made in the first income tax statute passed under the authority of the Sixteenth Amendment, and has been a feature of the income tax statutes ever since. The meaning of the term “gift” as applied to particular transfers has always been a matter of contention. Specific and illuminating legislative history on the point does not appear to exist. Analogies and inferences drawn from other revenue provisions, such as the estate and gift taxes, are dubious. See Lockard v. Commissioner, 166 F. 2d 409. The meaning of the statutory term has been shaped largely by the decisional law. With this, we turn to the contentions made by the Government in these cases.
First. The Government suggests that we promulgate a new “test” in this area to serve as a standard to be applied by the lower courts and by the Tax Court in dealing with the numerous cases that arise. We reject this invitation. We are of opinion that the governing principles are necessarily general and have already been spelled out in the opinions of this Court, and that the problem is one which, under the present statutory framework, does not lend itself to any more definitive statement that would produce a talisman for the solution of concrete cases. The cases at bar are fair examples of the settings in which the problem usually arises. They present situations in which payments have been made in a context with business overtones — an employer making a payment to a retiring employee; a businessman giving something of value to another businessman who has been of advantage to him in his business. In this context, we review the law as established by the prior cases here.
The course of decision here makes it plain that the statute does not use the term “gift” in the common-law sense, but in a more colloquial sense. This Court has indicated that a voluntary executed transfer of his property by one to another, without any consideration or compensation therefor, though a common-law gift, is not necessarily a “gift” within the meaning of the statute. For the Court has shown that the mere absence of a legal or moral obligation to make such a payment does not establish that it is a gift. Old Colony Trust Co. v. Commissioner, 279 U. S. 716, 730. And, importantly, if the payment proceeds primarily from “the constraining force of any moral or legal duty,” or from “the incentive of anticipated benefit” of an economic nature, Bogardus v. Commissioner, 302 U. S. 34, 41, it is not a gift. And, conversely, “[w]here the.payment is in return for services rendered, it is irrelevant that the donor derives no economic benefit from it.” Robertson v. United States, 343 U. S. 711, 714. A gift in the statutory sense, on the other hand, proceeds from a “detached and disinterested generosity,” Commissioner v. LoBue, 351 U. S. 243, 246; “out of affection, respect, admiration, charity or like impulses.” Robertson v. United States, supra, at 714. And in this regard, the most critical consideration, as the Court was agreed in the leading case here, is the transferor’s “intention.” Bogardus v. Commissioner, 302 U. S. 34, 43. “What controls is the intention with which payment, however voluntary, has been made.” Id., at 45 (dissenting opinion) ,
The Government says that this “intention” of the transferor cannot mean what the cases on the common-law concept of gift call “donative intent.” With that we are in agreement, for our decisions fully support this. Moreover, the Bogardus case itself makes it plain that the donor’s characterization of his action is not determinative — that there must be an objective inquiry as to whether what is called a gift amounts to it in reality. 302 U. S., at 40. It scarcely needs adding that the parties’ expectations or hopes as to the tax treatment of their conduct in themselves have nothing to do with the matter.
It is suggested that the Bogardus criterion would be more apt if rephrased in terms of “motive” rather than “intention.” We must confess to some skepticism as to whether such a verbal mutation would be of any practical consequence. We take it that the proper criterion, established by decision here, is one that inquires what the basic reason for his conduct was in fact — the dominant reason that explains his action in making the transfer. Further than that we do not think it profitable to go.
Second. The Government’s proposed “test,” while apparently simple and precise in its formulation, depends frankly on a set of “principles” or “presumptions” derived from the decided cases, and concededly subject to various exceptions; and it involves various corollaries, which add to its detail. Were we to promulgate this test as a matter of law, and accept with it its various presuppositions and stated consequences, we would be passing far beyond the requirements of the cases before us, and would be painting on a large canvas with indeed a broad brush. The Government derives its test from such propositions as the following: That payments by an employer to an employee, even though voluntary, ought, by and large, to be taxable ; that the concept of a gift is inconsistent with a payment’s being a deductible business expense; that a gift involves “personal” elements; that a business corporation cannot properly make a gift of its assets. The Government admits that there are exceptions and qualifications to these propositions. We think, to the extent they are correct, that these propositions are not principles of law but rather maxims of experience that the tribunals which have tried the facts of cases in this area have enunciated in explaining their factual determinations. Some of them simply represent truisms: it doubtless is, statistically speaking, the exceptional payment by an employer to an employee that amounts to a gift. Others are overstatements of possible evidentiary inferences relevant to a factual determination on the totality of circumstances in the case: it is doubtless relevant to the over-all inference that the transferor treats a payment as a business deduction, or that the transferor is a corporate entity. But these inferences cannot be stated in absolute terms. Neither factor is a shibboleth. The taxing statute does not make nondeductibility by the transferor a condition on the “gift” exclusion; nor does it draw any distinction, in terms, between transfers by corporations and individuals, as to the availability of the “gift” exclusion to the transferee. The conclusion whether a transfer amounts to a “gift” is one that must be reached on consideration of all the factors.
Specifically, the trier of fact must be careful not to allow trial of the issue whether the receipt of a specific payment is a gift to turn into a trial of the tax liability, or of the propriety, as a matter of fiduciary or corporate law, attaching to the conduct of someone else. The major corollary to the Government’s suggested “test” is that, as an ordinary matter, a payment by a corporation cannot be a gift, and, more specifically, there can be no such thing as a “gift” made by a corporation which would allow it to take a deduction for an ordinary and necessary business expense. As we have said, we find no basis for such a conclusion in the statute; and if it were applied as a determinative rule of “law,” it would force the tribunals trying tax cases involving the donee’s liability into elaborate inquiries into the local law of corporations or into the peripheral deductibility of payments as business expenses. The former issue might make the tax tribunals the most frequent investigators of an important and difficult issue of the laws of the several States, and the latter inquiry would summon one difficult and delicate problem of federal tax law as an aid to the solution of another. Or perhaps there would be required a trial of the vexed issue whether there was a “constructive” distribution of corporate property, for income tax purposes, to the corporate agents who had sponsored the transfer. These considerations, also, reinforce us in our conclusion that while the principles urged by the Government may, in nonabsolute form as crystallizations of experience, prove persuasive to the trier of facts in a particular case, neither they, nor any more detailed statement than has been made, can be laid down as a matter of law.
Third. Decision of the issue presented in these cases must be based ultimately on the application of the fact-finding tribunal’s experience with the mainsprings of human conduct to the totality of the facts of each case. The nontechnical nature of the statutory standard, the close relationship of it to the data of practical human experience, and the multiplicity of relevant factual elements, with their various combinations, creating the necessity of ascribing the proper force to each, confirm us in our conclusion that primary weight in this area must be given to the conclusions of the trier of fact. Baker v. Texas & Pacific R. Co., 359 U. S. 227; Commissioner v. Heininger, 320 U. S. 467, 475; United States v. Yellow Cab Co., 338 U. S. 338, 341; Bogardus v. Commissioner, supra, at 45 (dissenting opinion).
This conclusion may not satisfy an academic desire for tidiness, symmetry and precision in this area, any more than a system based on the determinations of various fact-finders ordinarily does. But we see it as implicit in the present statutory treatment of the exclusion for gifts, and in the variety of forums in which federal income tax cases can be tried. If there is fear of undue uncertainty or overmuch litigation, Congress may make more precise its treatment of the matter by singling out certain factors and making them determinative of the matter, as it has done in one field of the “gift” exclusion’s former application, that of prizes and awards. Doubtless diversity of result will tend to be lessened somewhat since federal income tax decisions, even those in tribunals of first instance turning on issues of fact, tend to be reported, and since there may be a natural tendency of professional triers of fact to follow one another’s determinations, even as to factual matters. But the question here remains basically one of fact, for determination on a case-by-case basis.
One consequence of this is that appellate review of determinations in this field must be quite restricted. Where a jury has tried the matter upon correct instructions, the only inquiry is whether it cannot be said that reasonable men could reach differing conclusions on the issue. Baker v. Texas & Pacific R. Co., supra, at 228. Where the trial has been by a judge without a jury, the judge’s findings must stand unless “clearly erroneous.” Fed. Rules Civ. Proc., 52 (a). “A finding is 'clearly erroneous’ when although there is evidence to support it, the reviewing court on the entire evidence is left with the definite and firm conviction that a mistake has been committed.” United States v. United States Gypsum Co., 333 U. S. 364, 395. The rule itself applies also to factual inferences from undisputed basic facts, id., at 394, as will on many occasions be presented in this area. Cf. Graver Tank & Mfg. Co. v. Linde Air Products Co., 339 U. S. 605, 609-610. And Congress has in the most explicit terms attached the identical weight to the findings of the Tax Court. I. R. C., § 7482 (a).
Fourth. A majority of the Court is in accord with the principles just outlined. And, applying them to the Duberstein case, we are in agreement, on the evidence we have set forth, that it cannot be said that the conclusion of the Tax Court was “clearly erroneous.” It seems to us plain. that as .trier of the facts it was warranted in concluding that despite the characterization of the transfer of the Cadillac by the parties and the absence of any obligation, even of a moral nature, to make it, it was at bottom a recompense for Duberstein’s past services, or an inducement for him to be of further service in the future. We cannot say with the Court of Appeals that such a conclusion was “mere suspicion” on the Tax Court’s part. To us it appears based in the sort of informed experience with human affairs that fact-finding tribunals should bring to this task.
As to Stanton, we are in disagreement. To four of us, it is critical here that the District Court as trier of fact made only the simple and unelaborated finding that the transfer in question was a “gift.” To be sure, conciseness is to be strived for, and prolixity avoided, in findings; but, to the four of us, there comes a point where findings become so sparse and conclusory as to give no revelation of what the District Court’s concept of the determining facts and legal standard may be. See Matton Oil Transfer Corp. v. The Dynamic, 123 F. 2d 999, 1000-1001. Such conclusory, general findings do not constitute compliance with Rule 52’s direction to “find the facts specially and state separately . . . conclusions of law thereon.” While the standard of law in this area is not a complex one, we four think the unelaborated finding of ultimate fact here cannot stand as a fulfillment of these requirements. It affords the reviewing court not the semblance of an indication of the legal standard with which the trier of fact has approached his task. For all that appears, the District Court may have viewed the form of the resolution or the simple absence of legal consideration as conclusive. While the judgment of the Court of Appeals cannot stand, the four of us think there must be further proceedings in the District Court looking toward new and adequate findings of fact. In this, we are joined by Mr. Justice Whittaker, who agrees that the findings were inadequate, although he does not concur generally in this opinion.
Accordingly, in No. 376, the judgment of this Court is that the judgment of the Court of Appeals is reversed, and in No. 546, that the judgment of the Court of Appeals is vacated, and the case is remanded to the District Court for further proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
Mr. Justice Harlan concurs in the result in No. 376. In No. 546, he would affirm the judgment of the Court of Appeals for the reasons stated by Mr. Justice Frankfurter.
Mr. Justice Whittaker, agreeing with Bogardus that whether a particular transfer is or is not a “gift” may involve “a mixed question of law and fact,” 302 U. S., at 39, concurs only in the result of this opinion.
Mr. Justice Douglas dissents, since he is of the view that in each of these two cases there was a gift under the test which the Court fashioned nearly a quarter of a century ago in Bogardus v. Commissioner, 302 U. S. 34.
The operative provision in the cases at bar is § 22 (b) (3) of the 1939 Internal Revenue Code. The corresponding provision of the present Code is § 102 (a).
In both cases the husband will be referred to as the taxpayer, although his wife joined with him in joint tax returns.
See note 14, infra.
§ H.B., c. 16, 38 Stat. 167.
The first case of the Board of Tax Appeals officially reported in fact deals with the problem. Parrott v. Commissioner, 1 B. T. A. 1.
The Government’s proposed test,is stated: “Gifts should be defined as transfers of property made for personal as distinguished from business reasons.”
The cases including “tips” in gross income are classic examples of this. See, e. g., Roberts v. Commissioner, 176 F. 2d 221.
The parts of the Bogardus opinion which we touch on here are the ones we take to be basic to its holding, and the ones that we read as stating those governing principles which it establishes. As to them we see little distinction between the views of the Court and those taken in dissent in Bogardus. The fear expressed by the dissent at 302 U. S., at 44, that the prevailing opinion “seems” to hold “that every payment which in any aspect is a gift is . . . relieved of any tax” strikes us now as going beyond what the opinion of the Court held in fact. In any event, the Court’s opinion in Bogardus does not seem to have been so interpreted afterwards. The principal difference, as we see it, between the Court’s opinion and the dissent lies in the weight to be given the findings of the trier of fact.
Justice Cardozo once described in memorable language the inquiry into whether an expense was an “ordinary and necessary” one of a business: “One struggles in vain for any verbal formula that will supply a ready touchstone. The standard set up by the statute is not a rule of law; it is rather a way of life. Life in all its fullness must supply the answer to the riddle.” Welch v. Helvering, 290 U. S. 111, 115. The same comment well fits the issue in the cases at bar.
Cf., e. g., Nelson v. Commissioner, 203 F. 2d 1.
In Bogardus, the Court was divided 5 to 4 as to the scope of review to be extended the fact-finder’s determination as to a specific receipt, in a context like that of the instant cases. The majority held that such a determination was “a conclusion of law or at least a determination of a mixed question of law and fact.” 302 U. S., at 39. This formulation it took as justifying it in assuming a fairly broad standard of review. The dissent took a contrary view. The approach of this part of the Court’s ruling in Bogardus, which we think was the only part on which there was real division among the Court, see note 8, supra, has not been afforded subsequent respect here. In Heininger, a question presenting at the most elements no more factual and untechnical than those here — that of the “ordinary and necessary” nature of a business expense — was treated as one of fact. Cf. note 9, supra. And in Dobson v. Commissioner, 320 U. S. 489, 498, n. 22, Bogardus was adversely criticized, insofar as it treatsd the matter as reviewable as one of law. While Dobson is, of course, no longer the law insofar as it ordains a greater weight to be attached to the findings of the Tax Court than to those of any other fact-finder in a tax litigation, see note 13, infra, we think its criticism of this point in the Bogardus opinion is sound in view of the dominant importance of factual inquiry to decision of these cases.
I. R. C., § 74, which is a provision new with the 1954 Code. Previously, there had been holdings that such receipts as the “Pot O’ Gold” radio giveaway, Washburn v. Commissioner, 5 T. C. 1333, and the Ross Essay Prize, McDermott v. Commissioner, 80 U. S. App. D. C. 176, 150 F. 2d 585, were “gifts.” Congress intended to obviate such rulings. S. Rep. No. 1622, 83d Cong., 2d Sess., p. 178. We imply no approval of those holdings under the general standard of the “gift” exclusion. Cf. Robertson v. United States, supra.
“The United States Courts of Appeals shall have exclusive jurisdiction to review the decisions of the Tax Court ... in the same manner and to the same extent as decisions of the district courts in civil actions tried without a jury. . . .” The last words first came into the statute through an amendment to § 1141 (a) of the 1939 Code in 1948 (§36 of the Judicial Code Act, 62 Stat. 991). The purpose of the 1948 legislation was to remove from the law the favored position (in comparison with District Court and Court of Claims rulings in tax matters) enjoyed by the Tax Court under this Court’s ruling in Dobson v. Commissioner, 320 U. S. 489. Cf. note 11, supra. See Grace Bros., Inc., v. Commissioner, 173 F. 2d 170, 173.
The “Findings of Fact and Conclusions of Law” were made orally, and were simply: “The resolution of the Board of Directors of the Trinity Operating Company, Incorporated, held November 19, 1942, after the resignations had been accepted of the plaintiff from his positions as controller of the corporation of the Trinity Church, and the president of the Trinity Operating Company, Incorporated, whereby a gratuity was voted to the plaintiff, Allen [sfc] D. Stanton, in the amount of $20,000 payable to him in monthly installments of $2,000 each, commencing with the month of December, 1942, constituted a gift to the taxpayer, and therefore need not have been reported by him as income for the taxable years 1942, or 1943.”
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | L | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Mr. Justice Black
delivered the opinion of the Court.
Section 7 (a) of the Fair Labor Standards Act requires employers to pay each employee covered by the Act not less than one and one-half times his regular pay rate for every hour worked in excess of a forty-hour week; § 11 (c) requires employers to keep appropriate employment records. Employees covered are defined as those “engaged in commerce or in the production of goods for commerce.” We have held that employees repairing interstate roads or railroads are “engaged in commerce” within the meaning of that clause of § 7 (a). The question presented in this case is whether employees who work off such roads in the production of materials to repair them are engaged “in the production of goods for commerce” within the meaning of § 7 (a).
The Wage and Hour Administrator sued in District Court to enjoin the petitioner Alstate Construction Company from violating the overtime and record-keeping provisions of the Act. The District Court found: Al-state is a Pennsylvania road contractor that reconstructs and repairs roads, railroads, parkways and like facilities in that state. The company also manufactures at three Pennsylvania plants a bituminous concrete road surfacing mixture called amesite made from materials either bought or quarried in Pennsylvania. Most of it is applied to Pennsylvania roads either by Alstate’s own employees or by Alstate’s customers. Eighty-five and one-half percent of Alstate’s work here involved was done on interstate roads, railroads, or for Pennsylvania companies producing goods for interstate commerce, and 14%% was done on projects that did not relate to interstate commerce. Alstate made no attempt to segregate payments to its employees on the basis of whether their work involved interstate or intrastate activities.
The District Court held that all of Alstate’s employees were covered by the Afet and granted the injunction prayed. 95 F. Supp. 585. The Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit affirmed, holding that those employees of Alstate who worked on roads were “in commerce,” and that its “off-the-road” plant employees were producing road materials “for commerce.” 195 F. 2d 577. On similar facts, the Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit applied the Act to “off-the-road” employees. Tobin v. Johnson, 198 F. 2d 130. An opposite result was reached by the Tenth Circuit in E. C. Schroeder Co. v. Clifton, 153 F. 2d 385, and the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania in Thomas v. Hempt Bros., 371 Pa. 383, 89 A. 2d 776. To settle this question we granted certiorari in this and the Hempt Bros. case. 344 U. S. 895.
Amesite is produced in Pennsylvania for use on Pennsylvania roads. None of it is manufactured with a purpose to ship it across state lines. For this reason, so Alstate contends, amesite is not produced “for commerce.” Obviously, acceptance of this contention would require us to read “production of goods for commerce” as though written “production of goods for transportation in commerce” — that is, across state lines. Such limiting language did appear in the bill as it passed the Senate, but Congress left it out of the Act as passed. Of course production of “goods” for the purpose of shipping them across state lines is production “for commerce.” But we could not hold — consistently with Overstreet v. North Shore Corp., 318 U. S. 125, and Pedersen v. Fitzgerald Construction Co., 318 U. S. 740 — that the only way to produce goods “for commerce” is to produce them for transportation across state lines.
In the Overstreet and Pedersen cases, supra, we had to decide whether employees engaged in repairing interstate roads and railroads were “in commerce.” In Over-street we pointed out that interstate roads and railroads are indispensable “instrumentalities” in the carriage of persons and goods that move in interstate commerce. We then held that because roads and railroads are in law and in fact integrated and indispensable parts of our system of commerce among the states, employees repairing them are “in commerce.” Consequently he who serves interstate highways and railroads serves commerce. By the same token he who produces goods for these indispensable and inseparable parts of commerce produces goods for commerce. We therefore conclude that Al-state’s off-the-road employees were covered by the Act because engaged in “production of goods for commerce.”
It is contended that we should not construe the Act as covering the “off-the-road” employees because it was given a contrary interpretation by its administrators from 1938 until 1945. During these first years after the Act’s passage the administrator did take such a position. But more experience with the Act together with judicial construction of its scope convinced its administrators that the first interpretation was unjustifiably narrow. He therefore publicly announced that off-the-road employees like these were protected by the Act. The new interpretation was reported to congressional committees on a number of occasions. Interested employers severely criticized the administrator’s changes. Specific amendments were urged to neutralize his interpretation. Such neutralizing amendments were suggested to congressional committees by the National Sand and Gravel Association which has filed a brief before us as amicus curiae. Instead of adopting any of the suggestions to undermine the administrator’s interpretation, Congress in a 1949 amendment to the Fair Labor Standards Act provided that all past orders, regulations and interpretations of the administrator should remain in effect “except to the extent that any such order, regulation, interpretation, . . . may be inconsistent with the provisions of this Act, or may from time to time be amended, modified, or rescinded by the Administrator . ...”
We decline to repudiate an administrative interpretation of the Act which Congress refused to repudiate after being repeatedly urged to do so.
There is an objection to the scope of the injunction, but we are satisfied with the Court of Appeals’ treatment of this contention.
Affirmed.
52 Stat. 1060, as amended, 63 Stat. 910, 912-913, 29 U. S. C. §§ 207 (a), 211 (c).
Overstreet v. North Shore Corp., 318 U. S. 125; Pedersen v. Fitzgerald Construction Co., 318 U. S. 740, reversing 288 N. Y. 687, 43 N. E. 2d 83, on the authority of Overstreet v. North Shore Corp., supra.
81 Cong. Rec. 7957.
Fleming v. Atlantic Co., 40 F. Supp. 654, affirmed sub nom. Atlantic Co. v. Walling, 131 F. 2d 518; Lewis v. Florida Power & Light Co., 154 F. 2d 751; Southern United Ice Co. v. Hendrix, 153 F. 2d 689; Chapman v. Home Ice Co., 136 F. 2d 353.
See for illustration Hearings before Subcommittee No. 4 of House Committee on Education and Labor on H. R. 40, 80th Cong., 1st Sess. 1374-1375.
63 Stat. 910, 920.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
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 Fortas
delivered the opinion of the Court.
The United States brought this appeal to review the judgment of the District Court in a civil antitrust case alleging violations of § 1 of the Sherman Act, 26 Stat. 209, as amended, 15 U. S. C. § 1. Direct appeal is authorized by § 2 of the Expediting Act, 32 Stat. 823, as amended, 15 U. S. C. § 29. The complaint charged a continuing conspiracy since 1952 between defendants and other alleged co-conspirators involving price fixing, allocation of exclusive territories to wholesalers and jobbers, and confinement of merchandise to franchised dealers. Named as defendants were Arnold, Schwinn & Company (“Schwinn”), the Schwinn Cycle Distributors Association (“SCDA”), and B. F. Goodrich Company (“B. F. Goodrich”).
At trial, the United States asserted that not only the price fixing but also Schwinn’s methods of distribution were illegal per se under § 1 of the Sherman Act. The trial lasted 70 days. The evidence, largely offered by appellees, elaborately sets forth information as to the total market interaction and interbrand competition, as well as the distribution program and practices.
The District Court rejected the charge of price fixing. With respect to the charges of illegal distribution practices, the court held that the territorial limitation was unlawful per se as respects products sold by Schwinn to its distributors; but that the limitation was not unlawful insofar as it was incident to sales by Schwinn itself to franchised retailers where the wholesaler or jobber (hereinafter referred to as the distributor) functioned as agent or consignee, including distribution pursuant to the “Schwinn Plan” described below.
The United States did not appeal from the District Court’s rejection of its price-fixing charge. The appellees did not appeal from the findings and order invalidating restraints on resale by distributors who purchase products from Schwinn.
In this Court, the United States has abandoned its contention that the distribution limitations are illegal per se. Instead we are asked to consider these limitations in light of the “rule of reason,” and, on the basis of the voluminous record below, to conclude that the limitations are the product of “agreement” between Schwinn and its wholesale and retail distributors and that they constitute an unreasonable restraint of trade.
Appellee Schwinn is a family-owned business which for many years has been engaged in the manufacture and sale of bicycles and some limited bicycle parts and accessories. Appellee SCDA is an association of distributors handling Schwinn bicycles and other products. The challenged marketing program was instituted in 1952. In 1951 Schwinn had the largest single share of the United States bicycle market — 22.5%. In 1961 Schwinn’s share of market had fallen to 12.8% although its dollar and unit sales had risen substantially. In the same period, a competitor, Murray Ohio Manufacturing Company, which is now the leading United States bicycle producer, increased its market share from 11.6% in 1951 to 22.8% in 1961. Murray sells primarily to Sears, Roebuck & Company and other mass merchandisers. By 1962 there were nine bicycle producers in the Nation, operating 11 plants. Imports of bicycles amounted to 29.7% of sales in 1961.
Forty percent of all bicycles are distributed by national concerns which operate their own stores and franchise others. Another 20% are sold by giant chains and mass merchandisers like Sears and Montgomery Ward & Company. Sears and Ward together account for'20% of all bicycle sales. Most of these bicycles are sold under private label. About 30% of all bicycles are distributed by cycle jobbers which specialize in the trade, and the remaining 10% by hardware and general stores.
Schwinn sells its products primarily to or through 22 wholesale distributors, with sales to the public being made by a large number of retailers. In addition, it sells about 11% of its total to B. F. Goodrich for resale in B. F. Goodrich retail or franchised stores. There are about 5,000 to 6,000 retail dealers in the United States which are bicycle specialty shops, generally also providing servicing. About 84% of Schwinn’s sales are through such specialized dealers. Schwinn sells only under the Schwinn label, never under private label, while about 64% of all bicycles are sold under private label. Distributors and retailers handling Schwinn bicycles are not restricted to the handling of that brand. They may and ordinarily do sell a variety of brands.
The United States does not contend that there is in this case any restraint on interbrand competition, nor does it attempt to sustain its charge by reference to the market for bicycles as a whole. Instead, it invites us to confine our attention to the intrabrand effect of the contested restrictions. It urges us to declare that the method of distribution of a single brand of bicycles, amounting to less than one-seventh of the market, constitutes an unreasonable restraint of trade or commerce among the several States.
Schwinn’s principal methods of selling its bicycles are as follows: (1) sales to distributors, primarily cycle distributors, B. F. Goodrich and hardware jobbers; (2) sales to retailers by means of consignment or agency arrangements with distributors; and (3) sales to retailers under the so-called Schwinn Plan which involves direct shipment by Schwinn to the retailer with Schwinn invoicing the dealers, extending credit, and paying a commission to the distributor taking the order. Schwinn fair-traded certain of its models at retail in States permitting this, and suggested retail prices for all of its bicycles in all States. During the 1962-1962 period, as the District Court found, “well over half of the bicycles sold by Schwinn have been sold direct to the retail dealer (not to a cycle distributor) by means of Schwinn Plan sales and consignment and agency sales.” Less than half were sold to distributors.
After World War II, Schwinn had begun studying and revamping its distribution pattern. As of 1951-1952, it had reduced its mailing list from about 15,000 retail outlets to about 5,500. It instituted the practice of franchising approved retail outlets. The franchise did not prevent the retailer from handling other brands, but it did require the retailer to promote Schwinn bicycles and to give them at least equal prominence with competing brands. The number of franchised dealers in any area was limited, and a retailer was franchised only as to a designated location or locations. Each franchised dealer was to purchase only from or through the distributor authorized to serve that particular area. He was authorized to sell only to consumers, and not to unfranchised retailers. The District Court found that while each Schwinn franchised retailer “knows that he is an unrestricted retail dealer, free to sell at his own price to any person who wants to buy on a retail basis. . . . [He] knows also that he is not a wholesaler and that he cannot sell as a wholesaler or act as an agent for some other unfranchised dealer, such as a discount house retailer .... When he acts as such an agent he subjects his franchise to cancellation at will by Schwinn.”
Schwinn assigned specific territories to each of its 22 wholesale cycle distributors. These distributors were instructed to sell only to franchised Schwinn accounts and only in their respective territories which were specifically described and allocated on an exclusive basis. The District Court found “that certain cycle distributors have in fact not competed with each other . . . and that in so doing they have conspired with Schwinn to unreasonably restrain competition contrary to the provisions of Section 1 of the Sherman Act.” The court, however, restricted this finding and its consequent order to transactions in which the distributor purchased the bicycles from Schwinn for resale, as distinguished from sales by the distributor as agent or consignee of Schwinn or on the Schwinn Plan. The United States urges that this Court should require revision of the decree in this respect to forbid territorial exclusivity regardless of the technical form by which the products are transferred from Schwinn to the retailer or consumer.
The District Court rejected the Government’s contention that Schwinn had in fact canceled the franchises of some retailers because of sales to discount houses or other unfranchised dealers, nor did it find that distributors have been cut off because of sales to unfranchised retailers or violation of territorial limitations. The United States urges that this is “clearly erroneous.” In any event, it is clear and entirely consistent with the District Court’s findings that Schwinn has been “firm and resolute” in insisting upon observance of territorial and customer limitations by its bicycle distributors and upon confining sales by franchised retailers to consumers, and that Schwinn’s “firmness” in these respects was grounded upon the communicated danger of termination. Our analysis will embrace this conclusion, rather than the finding which is urged by the Government and which was refused by the trial court that Schwinn actually terminated retail franchises or cut off distributors for the suggested reasons.
We come, then, to the legal issues in this case. We are here confronted with challenged vertical restrictions as to territory and dealers. The source of the restrictions is the manufacturer. These are not horizontal restraints, in which the actors are distributors with or without the manufacturer’s participation. We have held in such a case, where the purpose was to prevent the distribution of automobiles to or by “discounters,” that a “classic conspiracy in restraint of trade” results. United States v. General Motors Corp., 384 U. S. 127 (1966); see also Klor’s, Inc. v. Broadway-Hale Stores, Inc., 359 U. S. 207 (1959); Timken Roller Bearing Co. v. United States, 341 U. S. 593 (1951). Nor is this a case of territorial or dealer restrictions accompanied by price fixing, for here the issue of unlawful price fixing was tendered, litigated, decided against the appellant, and appellant has not appealed. If it were otherwise— if there were here a finding that the restrictions were part of a scheme involving unlawful price fixing, the result would be a per se violation of the Sherman Act. United States v. Sealy, Inc., ante, p. 350; United States v. Bausch & Lomb Co., 321 U. S. 707, 724 (1944). Because of the posture of the case and the failure of the Government to urge the point, we do not here pause to consider whether a case might be presented, short of unlawful price fixing, in which the activities of the manufacturer to affect resale prices — whether styled price “maintenance” or “stabilization” or otherwise — would fatally infect vertical customer restrictions so as to require a conclusion of per se violation. The Government does not contend that a per se violation of the Sherman Act is presented by the practices which are involved in this appeal (that is, without reference to the practice which the lower court enjoined and which is not before us). Accordingly, we are remitted to an appraisal of the market impact of these practices.
In White Motor Co. v. United States, 372 U. S. 253 (1963), this Court refused to affirm summary judgment against the manufacturer even though there were not only vertical restrictions as to territory and customer selection but also unlawful price fixing. The Court held that there was no showing that the price fixing was “an integral part of the whole distribution system” and accordingly it declined to outlaw the system because of the possibility that a trial laying bare “the economic and business stuff out of which these arrangements emerge” might demonstrate their reasonableness. Id., at 263. So here we must look to the specifics of the challenged practices and their impact upon the marketplace in order to make a judgment as to whether the restraint is or is not “reasonable” in the special sense in which § 1 of the Sherman Act must be read for purposes of this type of inquiry. Chicago Board of Trade v. United States, 246 U. S. 231, 238 (1918); Standard Oil Co. v. United States, 221 U. S. 1, 51 (1911); Apex Hosiery v. Leader, 310 U. S. 469, 498 (1940).
We first observe that the facts of this case do not come within the specific illustrations which the Court in White Motor articulated as possible factors relevant to a showing that the challenged vertical restraint is sheltered- by the rule of reason because it is not anticompetitive. Schwinn was not a newcomer, seeking to break into or stay in the bicycle business. It was not a “failing company.” On the contrary, at the initiation of these practices, it was the leading bicycle producer in the Nation. Schwinn contends, however, and the trial court found, that the reasons which induced it to adopt the challenged distribution program were to enable it and the small, independent merchants that made up its chain of distribution to compete more effectively in the marketplace. Schwinn sought a better way of distributing its product: a method which would promote sales, increase stability of its distributor and dealer outlets, and augment profits. But this argument, appealing as it is, is not enough to avoid the Sherman Act proscription; because, in a sense, every restrictive practice is designed to augment the profit and competitive position of its participants. Price fixing does so, for example, and so may a well-calculated division of territories. See United States v. Socony-Vacuum Oil Co., 310 U. S. 150 (1940). The antitrust outcome does not turn merely on the presence of sound business reason or motive. Here, for example, if the test of reasonableness were merely whether Schwinn’s restrictive distribution program and practices were adopted “for good business reasons” and not merely to injure competitors, or if the answer turned upon whether it was indeed “good business practice,” we should not quarrel with Schwinn’s eloquent submission or the finding of the trial court. But our inquiry cannot stop at that point. Our inquiry is whether, assuming nonpredatory motives and business purposes and the incentive of profit and volume considerations, the effect upon competition in the marketplace is substantially adverse. The promotion of self-interest alone does not invoke the rule of reason to immunize otherwise illegal conduct. It is only if the conduct is not unlawful in its impact in the marketplace or if the self-interest coincides with the statutory concern with the preservation and promotion of competition that protection is achieved. Chicago Board of Trade, supra, at 238.
On this basis, restraints as to territory or customers, vertical or horizontal, are unlawful if they are “ancillary to the price-fixing” (White Motor Co. v. United States, supra, at 260) or if the price fixing is “an integral part of the whole distribution system.” (Bausch & Bomb, supra, at 720.) In those situations, it is needless to inquire further into competitive effect because it is established doctrine that, unless permitted by statute, the fixing of prices at which others may sell is anticompetitive, and the unlawfulness of the price fixing infects the distribution restrictions. Cf. Sealy, supra, and Bausch <fc Lomb, supra. At the other extreme, a manufacturer of a product other and equivalent brands of which are readily available in the market may select his customers, and for this purpose he may “franchise” certain dealers to whom, alone, he will sell his goods. Cf. United States v. Colgate & Co., 250 U. S. 300 (1919). If the restraint stops at that point — if nothing more is involved than vertical “confinement” of the manufacturer’s own sales of the merchandise to selected dealers, and if competitive products are readily available to others, the restriction, on these facts alone, would not violate the Sherman Act. It is within these boundary lines that we must analyze the present case.
The District Court here enjoined appellees from limiting the territory within which any wholesaler or jobber may sell any Schwinn product which it has purchased. It held that these are agreements to divide territory and, as such, are per se violations of § 1 of the Sherman Act. The court made clear that it confined its order to transactions in which the distributor purchases from Schwinn. As to consignment, agency and Schwinn Plan transactions, the court held that, in these instances, “Schwinn has a right to allocate its agents or salesmen to a particular territory.” The court also held that the franchising of retailers was reasonable in view of the competitive problem presented by “giant” bicycle retailers such as Sears and Ward and by other mass merchandisers, and it declined to enjoin appellees’ practices with respect to confinement of sale by distributors or Schwinn to franchised retailers, or to forbid Schwinn and its distributors from continuing to prohibit franchised retailers from selling to discount houses or other unfranchised retailers for resale to the public.
As noted above, appellees have not appealed from the District Court’s order, and, accordingly, we have before us only the Government’s pleas: (1) that the decree should not be confined to sale transactions between Schwinn and wholesalers but should reach territorial restrictions upon distributors whether they are incident to sale and resale transactions or to consignment, agency or Schwinn-Plan relationship between Schwinn and the distributors; (2) that agreements requiring distributors to limit their distribution to only such retailers as are franchised should be enjoined; and (3) that arrangements preventing franchised retailers from supplying non-franchised retailers, including discount stores, should also be forbidden.
As to point (2), the Government argues that it is illogical and inconsistent to forbid territorial limitations on resales by distributors where the distributor owns the goods, having bought them from Schwinn, and, at the same time, to exonerate arrangements which require distributors to confine resales of the goods they have bought to “franchised” retailers. It argues that requiring distributors, once they have purchased the product, to confine sales to franchised retailers is indistinguishable in law and principle from the division of territory which the decree condemns. Both, the Government argues, are in the nature of restraints upon alienation which are beyond the power of the manufacturer to impose upon its vendees and which, since the nature of the transaction includes an agreement, combination or understanding, are violations of § 1 of the Sherman Act. Cf. Dr. Miles Medical Co. v. Park & Sons Co., 220 U. S. 373 (1911); United States v. Bausch & Lomb Co., supra; Klor’s, Inc. v. Broadway-Hale Stores, Inc., supra; Fash ion Originators’ Guild v. FTC, 312 U. S. 457 (1941); United States v. General Motors Corp., 384 U. S. 127 (1966). We agree, and upon remand, the decree should be revised to enjoin any limitation upon the freedom of distributors to dispose of the Schwinn products, which they have bought from Schwinn, where and to whomever they choose. The principle is, of course, equally applicable to sales to retailers, and the decree should similarly enjoin the making of any sales to retailers upon any condition, agreement or understanding limiting the retailer's freedom as to where and to whom it will resell the products.
The appellant vigorously argues that, since this remedy is confined to situations where the distributor and retailer acquire title to the bicycles, it will provide only partial relief; that to prevent the allocation of territories and confinement to franchised retail dealers, the decree can and should be enlarged to forbid these practices, however effected — whether by sale and resale or by agency, consignment, or the Schwinn Plan. But we are dealing here with a vertical restraint embodying the unilateral program of a single manufacturer. We are not dealing with a combination of manufacturers, as in Klor’s, or of distributors, as in General Motors. We are not dealing with a “division" of territory in the sense of an allocation by and among the distributors, see Sealy, supra, or an agreement among distributors to restrict their competition, see General Motors, supra. We are here concerned with a truly vertical arrangement, raising the fundamental question of the degree to which a manufacturer may not only select the customers to whom he will sell, but also allocate territories for resale and confine access to his product to selected, or franchised, retailers. We conclude that the proper application of § 1 of the Sherman Act to this problem requires differentiation between the situation where the manufacturer parts with title, dominion, or risk with respect to the article, and where he completely retains ownership and risk of loss.
As the District Court held, where a manufacturer sells products to his distributor subject to territorial restrictions upon resale, a per se violation of the Sherman Act results. And, as we have held, the same principle applies to restrictions of outlets with which the distributors may deal and to restraints upon retailers to whom the goods are sold. Under the Sherman Act, it is unreasonable without more for a manufacturer to seek to restrict and confine areas or persons with whom an article may be traded after the manufacturer has parted with dominion over it. White Motor, supra; Dr. Miles, supra. Such restraints are so obviously destructive of competition that their mere existence is enough. If the manufacturer parts with dominion over his product or transfers risk of loss to another, he may not reserve control over its destiny or the conditions of its resale. To permit this would sanction franchising and confinement of distribution as the ordinary instead of the unusual method which may be permissible in an appropriate and impelling competitive setting, since most merchandise is distributed by means of purchase and sale. On the other hand, as indicated in White Motor, we are not prepared to introduce the inflexibility which a per se rule might bring if it were applied to prohibit all vertical restrictions of territory and all franchising, in the sense of designating specified distributors and retailers as the chosen instruments through which the manufacturer, retaining ownership of the goods, will distribute them to the public. Such a rule might severely hamper smaller enterprises resorting to reasonable methods of meeting the competition of giants and of merchandising through independent dealers, and it might sharply accelerate the trend towards vertical integration of the distribution process. But to allow this freedom where the manufacturer has parted with dominion over the goods — the usual marketing situation — would violate the ancient rule against restraints on alienation and open the door to exclusivity of outlets and limitation of territory further than prudence permits.
The Government does not here contend for a per se rule as to agency, consignment, or Schwinn-Plan transactions even though these may be used — as they are here — to implement a scheme of confining distribution outlets as in this case. Where the manufacturer retains title, dominion, and risk with respect to the product and the position and function of the dealer in question are, in fact, indistinguishable from those of an agent or salesman of the manufacturer, it is only if the impact of the confinement is “unreasonably” restrictive of competition that a violation of § 1 results from such confinement, unencumbered by culpable price fixing. Simpson v. Union Oil Co., 377 U. S. 13 (1964). As the District Court found, Schwinn adopted the challenged distribution programs in a competitive situation dominated by mass merchandisers which command access to large-scale advertising and promotion, choice of retail outlets, both owned and franchised, and adequate sources of supply. It is not claimed that Schwinn’s practices or other circumstances resulted in an inadequate competitive situation with respect to the bicycle market; and there is nothing in this record — after elimination of the price-fixing issue — to lead us to conclude that Schwinn’s program exceeded the limits reasonably necessary to meet the competitive problems posed by its more powerful competitors. In these circumstances, the rule of reason is satisfied.
We do not suggest that the unilateral adoption by a single manufacturer of an agency or consignment pattern and the Schwinn type of restrictive distribution system would be justified in any and all circumstances by the presence of the competition of mass merchandisers and by the demonstrated need of the franchise system to meet that competition. But certainly, in such circumstances, the vertically imposed distribution restraints— absent price fixing and in the presence of adequate sources of alternative products to meet the needs of the unfranchised — may not be held to be per se violations of the Sherman Act. The Government, in this Court, so concedes in this case.
On this record, we cannot brand the District Court's finding as clearly erroneous and cannot ourselves conclude that Schwinn’s franchising of retailers and its confinement of retail sales to them — so long as it retains all indicia of ownership, including title, dominion, and risk, and so long as the dealers in question are indistinguishable in function from agents or salesmen — constitute an “unreasonable” restraint of trade. Critical in this respect are the facts: (1) that other competitive bicycles are available to distributors and retailers in the marketplace, and there is no showing that they are not in all respects reasonably interchangeable as articles of competitive commerce with the Schwinn product; (2) that Schwinn distributors and retailers handle other brands of bicycles as well as Schwinn’s; (3) in the present posture of the case we cannot rule that the vertical restraints are unreasonable because of their intermixture with price fixing; and (4) we cannot disagree with the findings of the trial court that competition made necessary the challenged program; that it was justified by, and went no further than required by, competitive pressures; and that its net effect is to preserve and not to damage competition in the bicycle market. Application of the rule of reason here cannot be confined to intrabrand competition. When we look to the product market as a whole, we cannot conclude that Schwinn’s franchise system with respect to products as to which it retains ownership and risk constitutes an unreasonable restraint of trade. This does not, of course, excuse or condone the per se violations which, in substance, consist of the control over the resale of Schwinn’s products after Schwinn has parted with ownership thereof. Once the manufacturer has parted with title and risk, he has parted with dominion over the product, and his effort thereafter to restrict territory or persons to whom the product may be transferred — whether by explicit agreement or by silent combination or understanding with his vendee — is a per se violation of § 1 of the Sherman Act.
Accordingly, the judgment of the District Court is reversed and the cause remanded for the entry of a decree in accordance with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
Mr. Justice Clark and Mr. Justice White took no part in the decision of this case.
B. F. Goodrich negotiated a consent decree with the Government prior to trial, and dropped out of the case.
Its parts and accessory business is less than 4% of its total sales. Like other bicycle producers, Schwinn manufactures the basic parts of its bicycles and purchases components from parts producers.
Schwinn’s brief represents that presently about 75% of all Schwinn sales are now made under the Schwinn Plan; that there are no longer any consignment agreements; and that only two cycle distributors remain under agency contract.
The United States did not perfect this point below, and its Jurisdictional Statement in this Court did not expressly request revision of the decree. Appellees strenuously urge that we should for these reasons refuse to consider the United States’ present argument that the decree should be enlarged as stated. See Supreme Court Rules 15 (1) (c)(1) and 40 (1) (d)(2); General Pictures Co. v. Electric Co., 304 U. S. 175, 177-179 (1938). While we regard with disfavor the Government’s practice in this case, both with respect to the point here at issue and its change of theory, in view of the nature and importance of the case, we shall not reject the tendered issues because the request for the substance of the relief was embraced in the question presented in the Jurisdictional Statement and because appellees have not been adversely affected.
The United States, having abandoned its contention that the restraints in the present case are per se violations of the Sherman Act, now urges “a standard of presumptive illegality/' presumably on the basis of a showing that a product has been distributed by means of arrangements for territorial exclusivity and restricted retail and wholesale customers. We do not consider this additional subtlety which was not advanced in the trial court. The burden of proof in antitrust cases remains with the plaintiff, deriving such help as may be available in the circumstances from particularized rules articulated by law — such as the per se doctrine. Cf. Standard Oil Co. v. United States, 283 U. S. 163, 179 (1931).
We have no occasion here to consider whether a patentee has any greater rights in this respect. Compare United States v. General Electric Co., 272 U. S. 476 (1926), with United States v. New Wrinkle, Inc., 342 U. S. 371 (1952); United States v. Line Material Co., 333 U. S. 287 (1948); and United States v. Masonite Corp., 316 U. S. 265 (1942).
We do not regard Schwinn’s claim of product excellence as establishing the contrary.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
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.
Finally, the State and its amici point to the compelling governmental interest in combating drunk driving and contend that prompt BAC testing, including through blood testing, is vital to pursuit of that interest. They argue that is particularly so because, in addition to laws that make it illegal to operate a motor vehicle under the influence of alcohol, all 50 States and the District of Columbia have enacted laws that make it per se unlawful to operate a motor vehicle with a BAC of over 0.08 percent. See National Highway Traffic Safety Admin. (NHTSA), Alcohol and Highway Safety: A Review of the State of Knowledge 167 (No. 811374, Mar. 2011) (NHTSA Review). To enforce these provisions, they reasonably assert, accurate BAC evidence is critical. See also post, at 1570 - 1571 (opinion of ROBERTS, C.J.); post, at 1576 - 1577 (opinion of THOMAS, J.).
"No one can seriously dispute the magnitude of the drunken driving problem or the States' interest in eradicating it." Michigan Dept. of State Police v. Sitz, 496 U.S. 444, 451, 110 S.Ct. 2481, 110 L.Ed.2d 412 (1990). Certainly we do not. While some progress has been made, drunk driving continues to exact a terrible toll on our society. See NHTSA, Traffic Safety Facts, 2011 Data 1 (No. 811700, Dec. 2012) (reporting that 9,878 people were killed in alcohol-impaired driving crashes in 2011, an average of one fatality every 53 minutes).
But the general importance of the government's interest in this area does not justify departing from the warrant requirement without showing exigent circumstances that make securing a warrant impractical in a particular case. To the extent that the State and its amici contend that applying the traditional Fourth Amendment totality-of-the-circumstances analysis to determine whether an exigency justified a warrantless search will undermine the governmental interest in preventing and prosecuting drunk-driving offenses, we are not convinced.
As an initial matter, States have a broad range of legal tools to enforce their drunk-driving laws and to secure BAC
evidence without undertaking warrantless nonconsensual blood draws. For example, all 50 States have adopted implied consent laws that require motorists, as a condition of operating a motor vehicle within the State, to consent to BAC testing if they are arrested or otherwise detained on suspicion of a drunk-driving offense. See NHTSA Review 173; supra, at 1556 (describing Missouri's implied consent law). Such laws impose significant consequences when a motorist withdraws consent; typically the motorist's driver's license is immediately suspended or revoked, and most States allow the motorist's refusal to take a BAC test to be used as evidence against him in a subsequent criminal prosecution. See NHTSA Review 173-175; see also South Dakota v. Neville, 459 U.S. 553, 554, 563-564, 103 S.Ct. 916, 74 L.Ed.2d 748 (1983) (holding that the use of such an adverse inference does not violate the Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination).
It is also notable that a majority of States either place significant restrictions on when police officers may obtain a blood sample despite a suspect's refusal (often limiting testing to cases involving an accident resulting in death or serious bodily injury) or prohibit nonconsensual blood tests altogether. Among these States, several lift restrictions on nonconsensual blood testing if law enforcement officers first obtain a search warrant or similar court order. Cf. Bullcoming v. New Mexico, 564 U.S. ----, ----, 131 S.Ct. 2705, 2710-2711, 180 L.Ed.2d 610 (2011) (noting that the blood test was obtained pursuant to a warrant after the petitioner refused a breath test). We are aware of no evidence indicating that restrictions on nonconsensual blood testing have compromised drunk-driving enforcement efforts in the States that have them. And in fact, field studies in States that permit nonconsensual blood testing pursuant to a warrant have suggested that, although warrants do impose administrative burdens, their use can reduce breath-test-refusal rates and improve law enforcement's ability to recover BAC evidence. See NHTSA, Use of Warrants for Breath Test Refusal: Case Studies 36-38 (No. 810852, Oct. 2007).
To be sure, "States [may] choos[e] to protect privacy beyond the level that the Fourth Amendment requires." Virginia v. Moore, 553 U.S. 164, 171, 128 S.Ct. 1598, 170 L.Ed.2d 559 (2008). But wide-spread state restrictions on nonconsensual blood testing provide further support for our recognition that compelled blood draws implicate a significant privacy interest. They also strongly suggest that our ruling today will not "severely hamper effective law enforcement." Garner, 471 U.S., at 19, 105 S.Ct. 1694.
IV
The State argued before this Court that the fact that alcohol is naturally metabolized by the human body creates an exigent circumstance in every case. The State did not argue that there were exigent circumstances in this particular case because a warrant could not have been obtained within a reasonable amount of time. In his testimony before the trial court, the arresting officer did not identify any other factors that would suggest he faced an emergency or unusual delay in securing a warrant. App. 40. He testified that he made no effort to obtain a search warrant before conducting the blood draw even though he was "sure" a prosecuting attorney was on call and even though he had no reason to believe that a magistrate judge would have been unavailable. Id., at 39, 41-42. The officer also acknowledged that he had obtained search warrants before taking blood samples in the past without difficulty. Id., at 42. He explained that he elected to forgo a warrant application in this case only because he believed it was not legally necessary to obtain a warrant. Id., at 39-40. Based on this testimony, the trial court concluded that there was no exigency and specifically found that, although the arrest took place in the middle of the night, "a prosecutor was readily available to apply for a search warrant and a judge was readily available to issue a warrant." App. to Pet. for Cert. 43a.
The Missouri Supreme Court in turn affirmed that judgment, holding first that the dissipation of alcohol did not establish a per se exigency, and second that the State could not otherwise satisfy its burden of establishing exigent circumstances.
358 S.W.3d, at 70, 74-75. In petitioning for certiorari to this Court, the State challenged only the first holding; it did not separately contend that the warrantless blood test was reasonable regardless of whether the natural dissipation of alcohol in a suspect's blood categorically justifies dispensing with the warrant requirement. See Pet. for Cert. i.
Here and in its own courts the State based its case on an insistence that a driver who declines to submit to testing after being arrested for driving under the influence of alcohol is always subject to a nonconsensual blood test without any precondition for a warrant. That is incorrect.
Although the Missouri Supreme Court referred to this case as "unquestionably a routine DWI case," 358 S.W.3d, at 74, the fact that a particular drunk-driving stop is "routine" in the sense that it does not involve "'special facts,' " ibid., such as the need for the police to attend to a car accident, does not mean a warrant is required. Other factors present in an ordinary traffic stop, such as the procedures in place for obtaining a warrant or the availability of a magistrate judge, may affect whether the police can obtain a warrant in an expeditious way and therefore may establish an exigency that permits a warrantless search. The relevant factors in determining whether a warrantless search is reasonable, including the practical problems of obtaining a warrant within a timeframe that still preserves the opportunity to obtain reliable evidence, will no doubt vary depending upon the circumstances in the case.
Because this case was argued on the broad proposition that drunk-driving cases present a per se exigency, the arguments and the record do not provide the Court with an adequate analytic framework for a detailed discussion of all the relevant factors that can be taken into account in determining the reasonableness of acting without a warrant. It suffices to say that the metabolization of alcohol in the bloodstream and the ensuing loss of evidence are among the factors that must be considered in deciding whether a warrant is required. No doubt, given the large number of arrests for this offense in different jurisdictions nationwide, cases will arise when anticipated delays in obtaining a warrant will justify a blood test without judicial authorization, for in every case the law must be concerned that evidence is being destroyed. But that inquiry ought not to be pursued here where the question is not properly before this Court. Having rejected the sole argument presented to us challenging the Missouri Supreme Court's decision, we affirm its judgment.
* * *
We hold that in drunk-driving investigations, the natural dissipation of alcohol in the bloodstream does not constitute an exigency in every case sufficient to justify conducting a blood test without a warrant.
The judgment of the Missouri Supreme Court is affirmed.
It is so ordered.
Justice KENNEDY, concurring in part.
I join Parts I, II-A, II-B, and IV of the opinion for the Court.
For the reasons stated below this case does not call for the Court to consider in detail the issue discussed in Part II-C and the separate opinion by THE CHIEF JUSTICE.
As to Part III, much that is noted with respect to the statistical and survey data will be of relevance when this issue is explored in later cases. The repeated insistence in Part III that every case be determined by its own circumstances is correct, of course, as a general proposition; yet it ought not to be interpreted to indicate this question is not susceptible of rules and guidelines that can give important, practical instruction to arresting officers, instruction that in any number of instances would allow a warrantless blood test in order to preserve the critical evidence.
States and other governmental entities which enforce the driving laws can adopt rules, procedures, and protocols that meet the reasonableness requirements of the Fourth Amendment and give helpful guidance to law enforcement officials. And this Court, in due course, may find it appropriate and necessary to consider a case permitting it to provide more guidance than it undertakes to give today.
As the opinion of the Court is correct to note, the instant case, by reason of the way in which it was presented and decided in the state courts, does not provide a framework where it is prudent to hold any more than that always dispensing with a warrant for a blood test when a driver is arrested for being under the influence of alcohol is inconsistent with the Fourth Amendment.
Chief Justice ROBERTS, with whom Justice BREYER and Justice ALITO join, concurring in part and dissenting in part.
A police officer reading this Court's opinion would have no idea-no idea-what the Fourth Amendment requires of him, once he decides to obtain a blood sample from a drunk driving suspect who has refused a breathalyzer test. I have no quarrel with the Court's "totality of the circumstances" approach as a general matter; that is what our cases require. But the circumstances in drunk driving cases are often typical, and the Court should be able to offer guidance on how police should handle cases like the one before us.
In my view, the proper rule is straightforward. Our cases establish that there is an exigent circumstances exception to the warrant requirement. That exception applies when there is a compelling need to prevent the imminent destruction of important evidence, and there is no time to obtain a warrant. The natural dissipation of alcohol in the bloodstream constitutes not only the imminent but ongoing destruction of critical evidence. That would qualify as an exigent circumstance, except that there may be time to secure a warrant before blood can be drawn. If there is, an officer must seek a warrant. If an officer could reasonably conclude that there is not, the exigent circumstances exception applies by its terms, and the blood may be drawn without a warrant.
I
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."
That language does not state that warrants are required prior to searches, but this Court has long held that warrants must generally be obtained. See Kentucky v. King, 563 U.S. ----, ----, 131 S.Ct. 1849, 1856, 179 L.Ed.2d 865 (2011). We have also held that bodily intrusions like blood draws constitute searches and are subject to the warrant requirement. See Schmerber v. California, 384 U.S. 757, 767, 770, 86 S.Ct. 1826, 16 L.Ed.2d 908 (1966).
However, "the ultimate touchstone of the Fourth Amendment is'reasonableness,'
" Brigham City v. Stuart, 547 U.S. 398, 403, 126 S.Ct. 1943, 164 L.Ed.2d 650 (2006), and thus "the warrant requirement is subject to certain reasonable exceptions," King, 563 U.S., at ----, 131 S.Ct., at 1856. One of those exceptions is known as the "exigent circumstances exception," which "applies when the exigencies of the situation make the needs of law enforcement so compelling that a warrantless search is objectively reasonable under the Fourth Amendment." Ibid. (internal quotation marks and alterations omitted).
Within the exigent circumstances exception, we have identified several sets of exigent circumstances excusing the need for a warrant. For example, there is an emergency aid exception to the warrant requirement. In Brigham City, supra, at 403, 126 S.Ct. 1943, we held that "law enforcement officers may enter a home without a warrant to render emergency assistance to an injured occupant or to protect an occupant from imminent injury." There is also a fire exception to the warrant requirement. In Michigan v. Tyler, 436 U.S. 499, 509, 98 S.Ct. 1942, 56 L.Ed.2d 486 (1978), we held that "[a] burning building clearly presents an exigency of sufficient proportions to render a warrantless entry'reasonable.' " And there is a hot pursuit exception to the warrant requirement as well. In United States v. Santana, 427 U.S. 38, 96 S.Ct. 2406, 49 L.Ed.2d 300 (1976), and Warden, Md. Penitentiary v. Hayden, 387 U.S. 294, 87 S.Ct. 1642, 18 L.Ed.2d 782 (1967), we recognized "the right of police, who had probable cause to believe that an armed robber had entered a house a few minutes before, to make a warrantless entry to arrest the robber and to search for weapons." Santana,supra, at 42, 96 S.Ct. 2406. In each of these cases, the requirement that we base our decision on the "totality of the circumstances" has not prevented us from spelling out a general rule for the police to follow.
The exigency exception most on point here is the one for imminent destruction of evidence. We have affirmed on several occasions that "law enforcement officers may make a warrantless entry onto private property... to prevent the imminent destruction of evidence." Brigham City, supra, at 403, 126 S.Ct. 1943 (citing Ker v. California, 374 U.S. 23, 40, 83 S.Ct. 1623, 10 L.Ed.2d 726 (1963) (plurality opinion)); see also, e.g., King, supra, at ----, 131 S.Ct., at 1856-1857. For example, in Ker, the police had reason to believe that the defendant was in possession of marijuana and was expecting police pursuit. We upheld the officers' warrantless entry into the defendant's home, with the plurality explaining that the drugs "could be quickly and easily destroyed" or distributed d or hidden before a warrant could be obtained at that time of night." 374 U.S., at 40, 42, 83 S.Ct. 1623.
As an overarching principle, we have held that if there is a "compelling need for official action and no time to secure a warrant," the warrant requirement may be excused. Tyler, supra, at 509, 98 S.Ct. 1942. The question here is whether and how this principle applies in the typical case of a police officer stopping a driver on suspicion of drunk driving.
II
A
The reasonable belief that critical evidence is being destroyed gives rise to a compelling need for blood draws in cases like this one. Here, in fact, there is not simply a belief that any alcohol in the bloodstream will be destroyed; it is a biological certainty. Alcohol dissipates from the bloodstream at a rate of 0.01 percent to 0.025 percent per hour. Stripp, Forensic and Clinical Issues in Alcohol Analysis, in Forensic Chemistry Handbook 440 (L. Kobilinsky ed.2012). Evidence is literally disappearing by the minute. That certainty makes this case an even stronger one than usual for application of the exigent circumstances exception.
And that evidence is important. A serious and deadly crime is at issue. According to the Department of Transportation, in 2011, one person died every 53 minutes due to drinking and driving. National Highway Traffic Safety Admin. (NHTSA), Traffic Safety Facts, 2011 Data 1 (No. 811700, Dec. 2012). No surprise then that drinking and driving is punished severely, including with jail time. See generally Dept. of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics, L. Maruschak, Special Report, DWI Offenders under Correctional Supervision (1999). McNeely, for instance, faces up to four years in prison. See App. 22-23 (citing Mo. Ann. Stat. §§ 558.011, 577.010, 577.023 (West 2011) ).
Evidence of a driver's blood alcohol concentration (BAC) is crucial to obtain convictions for such crimes. All 50 States and the District of Columbia have laws providing that it is per se illegal to drive with a BAC of 0.08 percent or higher. Most States also have laws establishing additional penalties for drivers who drive with a "high BAC," often defined as 0.15 percent or above. NHTSA, Digest of Impaired Driving and Selected Beverage Control Laws, pp. vii, x-xviii (No. 811673, Oct. 2012). BAC evidence clearly matters. And when drivers refuse breathalyzers, as McNeely did here, a blood draw becomes necessary to obtain that evidence.
The need to prevent the imminent destruction of BAC evidence is no less compelling because the incriminating alcohol dissipates over a limited period of time, rather than all at once. As noted, the concentration of alcohol can make a difference not only between guilt and innocence, but between different crimes and different degrees of punishment. The officer is unlikely to know precisely when the suspect consumed alcohol or how much; all he knows is that critical evidence is being steadily lost. Fire can spread gradually, but that does not lessen the need and right of the officers to respond immediately. See Tyler, supra.
McNeely contends that there is no compelling need for a warrantless blood draw, because if there is some alcohol left in the blood by the time a warrant is obtained, the State can use math and science to work backwards and identify a defendant's BAC at the time he was driving. See Brief for Respondent 44-46. But that's not good enough. We have indicated that exigent circumstances justify warrantless entry when drugs are about to be flushed down the toilet. See, e.g., King, 563 U.S., at ---- - ----, 131 S.Ct., at 1857-1858. We have not said that, because there could well be drug paraphernalia elsewhere in the home, or because a defendant's co-conspirator might testify to the amount of drugs involved, the drugs themselves are not crucial and there is no compelling need for warrantless entry.
The same approach should govern here. There is a compelling need to search because alcohol-the nearly conclusive evidence of a serious crime-is dissipating from the bloodstream. The need is no less compelling because the police might be able to acquire second-best evidence some other way.
B
For exigent circumstances to justify a warrantless search, however, there must also be "no time to secure a warrant." Tyler, 436 U.S., at 509, 98 S.Ct. 1942; see Schmerber, 384 U.S., at 771, 86 S.Ct. 1826 (warrantless search legal when "there was no time to seek out a magistrate and secure a warrant"). In this respect, obtaining a blood sample from a suspected drunk driver differs from other exigent circumstances cases.
Importantly, there is typically delay between the moment a drunk driver is stopped and the time his blood can be drawn. Drunk drivers often end up in an emergency room, but they are not usually pulled over in front of one. In most exigent circumstances situations, police are just outside the door to a home. Inside, evidence is about to be destroyed, a person is about to be injured, or a fire has broken out. Police can enter promptly and must do so to respond effectively to the emergency. But when police pull a person over on suspicion of drinking and driving, they cannot test his blood right away. There is a time-consuming obstacle to their search, in the form of a trip to the hospital and perhaps a wait to see a medical professional. In this case, for example, approximately 25 minutes elapsed between the time the police stopped McNeely and the time his blood was drawn. App. 36, 38.
As noted, the fact that alcohol dissipates gradually from the bloodstream does not diminish the compelling need for a search-critical evidence is still disappearing. But the fact that the dissipation persists for some time means that the police-although they may not be able to do anything about it right away-may still be able to respond to the ongoing destruction of evidence later on.
There might, therefore, be time to obtain a warrant in many cases. As the Court explains, police can often request warrants rather quickly these days. At least 30 States provide for electronic warrant applications. See ante, at 1561 - 1563, and n. 4. In many States, a police officer can call a judge, convey the necessary information, and be authorized to affix the judge's signature to a warrant. See, e.g., Ala. Rule Crim. Proc. 3.8(b) (2012-2013) ; Alaska Stat. § 12.35.015 (2012) ; Idaho Code §§ 19-4404, 19-4406 (Lexis 2004) ; Minn. Rules Crim. Proc. 36.01 - 36.08 (2010 and Supp.2013) ; Mont.Code Ann. § 46-5-222 (2012); see generally NHTSA, Use of Warrants for Breath Test Refusal: Case Studies 6-32 ( No. 810852, Oct. 2007) (overview of procedures in Arizona, Michigan, Oregon, and Utah). Utah has an e-warrant procedure where a police officer enters information into a system, the system notifies a prosecutor, and upon approval the officer forwards the information to a magistrate, who can electronically return a warrant to the officer. Utah, e-Warrants: Cross Boundary Collaboration 1 (2008). Judges have been known to issue warrants in as little as five minutes. Bergreen, Faster Warrant System Hailed, Salt Lake Tribune, Dec. 26, 2008, p. B1, col. 1. And in one county in Kansas, police officers can e-mail warrant requests to judges' iPads; judges have signed such warrants and e-mailed them back to officers in less than 15 minutes. Benefiel, DUI Search Warrants: Prosecuting DUI Refusals, 9 Kansas Prosecutor 17, 18 (Spring 2012). The police are presumably familiar with the mechanics and time involved in the warrant process in their particular jurisdiction.
III
A
In a case such as this, applying the exigent circumstances exception to the general warrant requirement of the Fourth Amendment seems straightforward: If there is time to secure a warrant before blood can be drawn, the police must seek one. If an officer could reasonably conclude that there is not sufficient time to seek and receive a warrant, or he applies for one but does not receive a response before blood can be drawn, a warrantless blood draw may ensue. See Tyler, supra, at 509, 98 S.Ct. 1942; see also Illinois v. Rodriguez, 497 U.S. 177, 185-186, 110 S.Ct. 2793, 111 L.Ed.2d 148 (1990) ("in order to satisfy the'reasonableness' requirement of the Fourth Amendment, what is generally demanded of the many factual determinations that must regularly be made by... police officer[s] conducting a search or seizure under one of the exceptions to the warrant requirement... is not that they always be correct, but that they always be reasonable"); Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 20, 88 S.Ct. 1868, 20 L.Ed.2d 889 (1968) ("police must, whenever practicable, obtain advance judicial approval of searches and seizures through the warrant procedure").
Requiring police to apply for a warrant if practicable increases the likelihood that a neutral, detached judicial officer will review the case, helping to ensure that there is probable cause for any search and that any search is reasonable. We have already held that forced blood draws can be constitutional-that such searches can be reasonable-but that does not change the fact that they are significant bodily intrusions. See Schmerber, 384 U.S., at 770, 86 S.Ct. 1826 (upholding a warrantless forced blood draw but noting the "importance of informed, detached and deliberate determinations of the issue whether or not to invade another's body in search of evidence of guilt" as "indisputable and great"). Requiring a warrant whenever practicable helps ensure that when blood draws occur, they are indeed justified.
At the same time, permitting the police to act without a warrant to prevent the imminent destruction of evidence is well established in Fourth Amendment law. There is no reason to preclude application of that exception in drunk driving cases simply because it may take the police some time to be able to respond to the undoubted destruction of evidence, or because the destruction occurs continuously over an uncertain period.
And that is so even in situations where police have requested a warrant but do not receive a timely response. An officer who reasonably concluded there was no time to secure a warrant may have blood drawn from a suspect upon arrival at a medical facility. There is no reason an officer should be in a worse position, simply because he sought a warrant prior to his arrival at the hospital.
B
The Court resists the foregoing, contending that the question presented somehow inhibits such a focused analysis in this case. See ante, at 1567 - 1568. It does not. The question presented is whether a warrantless blood draw is permissible under the Fourth Amendment "based upon the natural dissipation of alcohol in the bloodstream." Pet. for Cert. i. The majority answers "It depends," and so do I. The difference is that the majority offers no additional guidance, merely instructing courts and police officers to consider the totality of the circumstances. I believe more meaningful guidance can be provided about how to handle the typical cases, and nothing about the question presented prohibits affording that guidance.
A plurality of the Court also expresses concern that my approach will discourage state and local efforts to expedite the warrant application process. See ante, at 1563. That is not plausible: Police and prosecutors need warrants in a wide variety of situations, and often need them quickly. They certainly would not prefer a slower process, just because that might obviate the need to ask for a warrant in the occasional drunk driving case in which a blood draw is necessary. The plurality's suggestion also overlooks the interest of law enforcement in the protection a warrant provides.
The Court is correct when it says that every case must be considered on its particular facts. But the pertinent facts in drunk driving cases are often the same, and the police should know how to act in recurring factual situations. Simply put, when a drunk driving suspect fails field sobriety tests and refuses a breathalyzer, whether a warrant is required for a blood draw should come down to whether there is time to secure one.
Schmerber itself provides support for such an analysis. The Court there made much of the fact that "there was no time to seek out a magistrate and secure a warrant." 384 U.S., at 771, 86 S.Ct. 1826. It did so in an era when cell phones and e-mail were unknown. It follows quite naturally that if cell phones and e-mail mean that there is time to contact a magistrate and secure a warrant, that must be done. At the same time, there is no need to jettison the well-established exception for the imminent destruction of evidence, when the officers are in a position to do something about it.
* * *
Because the Missouri courts did not apply the rule I describe above, and because this Court should not do so in the first instance, I would vacate and remand for further proceedings in the Missouri courts.
Pursuant to congressional directive, the NHTSA conditions federal highway grants on States' adoption of laws making it a per se offense to operate a motor vehicle with a BAC of 0.08 percent or greater. See 23 U.S.C. § 163(a) ; 23 C.F.R. § 1225.1 (2012). Several federal prohibitions on drunk driving also rely on the 0.08 percent standard. E.g., 32 C.F.R. §§ 234.17(c)(1)(ii), 1903.4(b)(1)(i)-(ii) ; 36 C.F.R. § 4.23(a)(2). In addition, 32 States and the District of Columbia have adopted laws that impose heightened penalties for operating a motor vehicle at or above a BAC of 0.15 percent. See NHTSA Review 175.
See Ala.Code § 32-5-192(c) (2010) ; Alaska Stat. §§ 28.35.032(a), 28.35.035(a) (2012) ; Ariz.Rev.Stat. Ann. § 28-1321(D)(1) (West 2012); Ark.Code Ann. §§ 5-65-205(a)(1), 5-65-208(a)(1) (Supp.2011); Conn. Gen.Stat. §§ 14-227b(b), 14-227c(b) (2011); Fla. Stat. Ann. § 316.1933(1)(a) (West 2006); Ga.Code Ann. § 40-5-67.1(d), (d.1) (2011); Haw.Rev.Stat. § 291E-15 (2009 Cum.Supp.), §§ 291E-21(a), 291E-33 (2007), § 291E-65 (2009 Cum.Supp.); Iowa Code §§ 321J.9(1), 321J.10(1), 321J.10A(1) (2009); Kan. Stat. Ann. § 8-1001(b), (d) (2001); Ky.Rev.Stat. Ann. § 189A.105(2) (Lexis Supp.2012); La.Rev.Stat. Ann. § 32:666.A(1)(a)(i), (2) (Supp.2013); Md. Transp. Code Ann. § 16-205.1(b)(i)(1), (c)(1) (Lexis 2012); Mass. Gen. Laws Ann., ch. 90, § 24(1)(e), (f)(1) (West 2012); Mich. Comp. Laws Ann. § 257.625d(1) (West 2006); Miss.Code Ann. § 63-11-21 (1973-2004); Mont.Code Ann. § 61-8-402(4), (5) (2011); Neb.Rev.Stat. § 60-498.01(2) (2012 Cum.Supp.), § 60-6,210 (2010) ; N.H.Rev.Stat. Ann. §§ 265-A:14(I), 265-A:16 (West 2012 Cum.Supp.); N.M. Stat. Ann. § 66-8-111(A) (LexisNexis 2009); N.Y. Veh. & Traf. Law Ann. §§ 1194(2)(b)(1), 1194(3) (West 2011); N.D. Cent.Code Ann. § 39-20-01.1(1) (Lexis Supp.2011), § 39-20-04(1) (Lexis 2008); Okla. Stat., Tit. 47, § 753 (West Supp.2013) ; Ore.Rev.Stat. § 813.100(2) (2011); 75 Pa. Cons.Stat. § 1547(b)(1) (2004); R.I. Gen. Laws §§ 31-27-2.1(b), 31-27-2.9(a) (Lexis 2010); S.C.Code Ann. § 56-5-2950(B) (Supp.2011); Tenn.Code Ann. § 55-10-406(a)(4), (f) (2012); Tex. Transp. Code Ann. §§ 724.012(b), 724.013 (West 2011) ; Vt. Stat. Ann., Tit. 23, § 1202(b), (f) (2007); Wash. Rev.Code § 46.20.308(2) -(3), (5) (2012); W. Va.Code Ann. § 17C-5-7 (Lexis Supp.2012); Wyo. Stat. Ann. § 31-6-102(d) (Lexis 2011).
See Ariz.Rev.Stat. Ann. § 28-1321(D)(1) (West 2012); Ga.Code Ann. § 40-5-67.1(d), (d.1) (2011); Ky.Rev.Stat. Ann. § 189A.105(2)(b) (Lexis Supp.2012); Mich. Comp. Laws Ann. § 257.625d(1) (West 2006); Mont.Code Ann. § 61-8-402(5) (2011); N.M. Stat. Ann. § 66-8-111(A) (LexisNexis 2009); N.Y. Veh. & Traf. Law Ann. §§ 1194(2)(b)(1), 1194(3) (West 2011); Ore.Rev.Stat. 813.320(2)(b) (2011); R.I
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | A | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Mr. Justice Fortas
delivered the opinion of the Court.
This is a companion case to No. 176, United States v. Laub, ante, p. 475. Petitioner was tried on a stipulation of facts, under an indictment which alleged that on two occasions she “did unlawfully, knowingly and willfully depart from the United States without bearing a valid passport, for the Republic of Cuba, via Mexico, the Republic of Cuba being a place outside the United States for which a valid passport is required” in violation of § 215 (b) of the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952, -66 Stat. 190, 8 U. S. C. § 1185 (b). The parties stipulated that “At no time pertinent or material herein did defendant, Helen Maxine Levi Travis, bear a valid United States passport specifically endorsed for travel to the Republic of Cuba . . . .” This stipulation is all that the record in this case reveals as to petitioner’s possession of a valid passport. Petitioner was convicted, and the Court of Appeals affirmed. We granted certiorari in light of the important questions raised by petitioner, and the apparent conflict with the decision of the District Court for the Eastern District of New York in the Laub case, supra, which we affirm today.
As our decision in Laub determines, if petitioner in fact had a valid passport, and the gravamen of the Government’s accusation under § 215 (b) were that her passport was not valid for travel to Cuba, this conviction could not stand. We have today held that area restrictions upon the use of an otherwise valid passport are not criminally enforceable under § 215 (b). Because the Government did not allege, and introduced no proof, that petitioner did not bear a valid passport on each of the occasions on which she departed for Cuba, via Mexico, our decision in Laub, supra, requires that her conviction be reversed.
Accordingly, the judgment of the Court of Appeals 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.
Mr. Chief Justice Warren
delivered the opinion of the Court.
Petitioner is a practitioner registered to practice before the United States Patent Office. He has not been admitted to practice law before the Florida or any other baf. Alleging, among other things, that petitioner “is engaged in the unauthorized practice. of law, in that although' he is not a member of The Florida Bar, he nevertheless maintains an office... in Tampa, Florida,... holds himself oút to the public as a Patent Attorney...• represents Florida clients before the United States Patent Office,... has rendered opinions as to patentability, and... has prepared various legal instruments, including... applications and amendments to applications for letters patent, and filed same in the United States Patent Office in Washington, D. C.,” the Florida Bar instituted these proceedings in the Supreme Court of Florida, to enjoin the performance of these and other specified acts within the State. Petitioner filed an answer in which he admitted the above allegations but pleaded as a defense “that the work performed by him for Florida citizens is solely that work which is presented to the United States Patent Office and that he charges fees solely for his work of preparing and prosecuting patent applications and patent assignments and determinations incident to preparing and prosecuting patent applications and assignments.” Thereupon, the court granted the Bar’s motion for a summary decree and permanently enjoined the petitioner from pursuing the following activities in Florida until and unless he became a member of the State Bar:
“1. using the term 'patent attorney’ or holding himself out to be an attorney at law in this state in any field or phase of the law (we recognize that the respondent according to the record before us has already voluntarily ceased the <use of the word ‘attorney’) ;
“2. rendering legal opinions, including opinions as to patentability or infringement on patent rights ;
. “3. preparing, drafting and construing legal documents;
“4. holding himself out, in this state, as qualified to. prepare and prosecute applications for letters patent, and amendments thereto;
“5. preparation and prosecution of applications for letters patent, and amendments thereto, in this state ; and
“6. otherwise engaging in the practice of law.”
The Supreme Court of Florida concluded that petitioner’s conduct constituted the unauthorized practice of law which the State, acting under its police power, could properly prohibit, and that neither federal statute nor the Constitution of the United States empowered any federal body to authorize such conduct in Florida. 140 So. 2d 587.
In his petition for certiorari, petitioner attacked the injunction “only insofar as it prohibits him from engaging in the specific activities... [referred to.above], covered by his federal license to practice before the Patent Office. He does not claim that he has any right otherwise to engage in activities that would be regarded as the practice of law.” We granted certiorari, 371 U. S. 875, to consider the significant, but narrow, questions thus presented.
We do not question the determination that under Florida law the preparation and prosecution of patent applications for others constitutes the practice of law. Greenough v. Tax Assessors, 331 U. S. 486; Murdock v. Memphis, 20 Wall. 590. Such conduct inevitably requires the practitioner to consider and advise his clients as to the patentability of their inventions under the statutory criteria, 35 U. S. C. §§ 101-103, 161, 171, as well as to consider the advisability of relying upon alternative forms of protection which may be available under state law. It also involves his participation in the drafting of the specification and claims of the patent application, 35 U. S. C. § 112, which this Court long ago noted “constitute [s] one of the most difficult legal instruments to draw with accuracy,” Topliff v. Topliff, 145 U. S. 156, 171. And upon rejection of the application, the practitioner may also assist in the preparation of amendments, 37 CFR §§ 1.117-1.126, which frequently requires written argument to establish the patentability of the claimed invention under the applicable rules of law and in light of the prior art. 37 CFR § 1.119. Nor do we doubt that Florida has a substantial interest in regulating the practice of law within the State and that, in the absence of federal legislation, it could validly prohibit nonlaw-yers from engaging in this circumscribed form of patent practice.
But “the law of the State, though enacted in the exercise of powers not contraverted, must yield” when incompatible with federal legislation. Gibbons v. Ogden, 9 Wheat. 1, 211. Congress has provided that the Commissioner of Patents “may prescribe regulations governing the recognition and conduct of agents, attorneys,' or other persons representing applicants or other parties before the Patent Office,” 35 U. S. C. § 31, and the Commissioner, pursuant to § 31, has provided by regulation that “[a]n applicant for patent... may be represented by an attorney or agent authorized' to practice before the Patent Office in patent' cases.” 37 CFR § 1.31. (Emphasis added.) The current regulations establish two separate registers “on which are entered the names of all persons recognized as entitled to represent applicants before the Patent Office in the preparation and prosecution of applications for patent.” 37CFR.§ 1.341. (Emphasisadded.) One register is for attorneys at law, 37 CFR § 1.341 (a), and the other is for nonlawyer “agents.” 37 CFR § 1.341 (b).. A person may be admitted under either category only by establishing “that he is of good moral character and of good repute and possessed of the legal and scientific and technical qualifications necessary to enable him to render applicants for patents valuable service, and is otherwise competent to advise and assist them in the presentation and prosecution of their applications before the Patent Office.” 37 CFR § 1.341 (c).
The statute thus expressly permits the Commissioner to authorize practice before the Patent Office by nonlawyers, and the Commissioner has explicitly granted such authority. If the authorization is unqualified, then, by virtue of the' Supremacy Clause, Florida may not deny to those failing to meet its own qualifications the right to perform the functions within the scope of the federal authority. A State may not enforce licensing requirements which, though valid in the absence of federal regulation, give “the State’s licensing board a virtual power sof review over the federal determination” that a person or agency is qualified and entitled to perform certain functions, or which impose upon the performance of activity sanctioned by federal license additional conditions not contemplated by Congress. “No State law can hinder or obstruct the free use of a license granted under an act of Congress.” Pennsylvania v. Wheeling & B. Bridge Co., 13 How. 518, 566.
Respondent argues, however, that we must read into the authorization conferred by the federal statute and regulations the condition that such practice not be inconsistent with state law, thus leaving registered practitioners with the unqualified right to practice only in the physical presence of the Patent Office' and in the District of Columbia, where the Office is now located.
The only language in either the statute or regulations which affords any plausible support for this view is the provision in the regulations that “[registration in the Patent Office... shall only entitle the persons registered to practice before the Patent Office.” 37 CFR § 1.341. Respondent' suggests that the meaning of this limitation is clarified by reference to the predecessor provision, which provided that registration “shall not bé construed as authorizing persons not members of the bar to practice law.” 3 Fed. Reg. 2429. Yet the progression to the more circumscribed language without more tends to indicate that the provision was intended only to emphasize that registration in the Patent Office does not authorize the general practice of patent law, but sanctions only the performance of those services which are reasonably necessary and incident to the preparation and prosecution of patent applications. ■ That no more was intended is further shown by the contrast with the regulations governing practice before the Patent Office in trademark cases, also issued by the Commissioner of Patents. These regulations now provide that “[recognition of any person under this section is not to be construed as sanctioning or authorizing the performance of any acts regarded in the jurisdiction where performed as the unauthorized practice of law.” 37 CFR § 2.12 (d). The comparison is perhaps sufficiently telling. But any possible uncertainty as to the intended meaning of the Commissioner must be dispelled by the fact that when the present regulations were amended in 1948, it was first proposed to add a provision similar to that appearing in the trademark regulations. After objection had been leveled against the revision on the ground that it “indicated that • the office thinks that the states have the power to cir-. cumscribe and limit the rights of patent attorneys who are.not lawyers,” the more sweeping language was deleted and the wording modified to its present form.
Bereft of support in the regulations, respondent directs us to. the legislative history of the statute to confirm its understanding. that § 31 and its predecessor provisions were not designed to authorize practice not condoned by the State. Insofar as this history provides any insight into the intent of Congress, however, we are convinced, that the interpretation which respondent asks us to give the statute is inconsistent with the assumptions upon which Congress has acted for over a century.
Examination of the development of practice before the Patent Office and its governmental regulation reveals that: (1) nonlawyers have practiced before the Office from its inception, with the express approval of the Patent Office and to the knowledge of Congress; (2) during pro-, longed congressional study of unethical practices before the Patent Office, the right of nonlawyer agents to practice before the Office went unquestioned, and there was no suggestion that.abuses might be curbed by state regulation; (3) despite protests of the bar, Congress in enacting the Administrative Procedure Act refused to limit the right to practice before the administrative agencies to lawyers; and (4) the Patent Office has defended the value of nonlawyer practitioners while taking steps to protect the interests which a State has in prohibiting unauthorized practice of law. We find implicit in this history congressional (and. administrative) recognition that registration in the Patent Office confers a right to practice before the Office without regard to whether the State within whieh the practice is conducted would otherwise prohibit such conduct.
The power of the Commissioner of Patents to regulate practice before the Patent Office dates back to 1861, when Congress first provided that “for gross misconduct he may refuse to recognize any person as a patent agent, either generally or in any particular case....” The “Rules and Directions” issued by the Commissioner in 1869 provided that “[a]ny person of intelligence and good moral character may appear as the attorney in fact or agent of an applicant upon.filing proper power of attorney.” From the'outset, a substantial number of those appearing-in this capacity were engineers or chemists familiar with the technical subjects to which the patent application related. “Many of them were not members of the bar. It probably never occurred to anybody that they should be.”- Moreover, although a concentration of patent practitioners developed in Washington, D. C., the regulations have provided since the reorganization of the Patent Office in 1836 that personal attendance in Washington is unnecessary and that business with the Office should be transacted in writing. • The bulk of practitioners are now scattered throughout the country, and have been so distributed for many years. As a practical matter, if practitioners were not so located, and thus could not easily consult with the inventors' with whom they deal, their effectiveness would often be considerably impaired. Respondent’s suggestion that practice by nonlawyers was intended to be confined to the District of Columbia thus assumes either congressional-ignorance or disregard of long-established practice.
Despite the early recognition of nonlawyers by the Patent Office, these agents, not subject to the professional restraints of their lawyer brethren, were particularly responsible for the deceptive advertising and victimization of inventors which long plagued the Patent Office. To remedy these abuses, the Commissioner of Patents in 1899 first required registration of persons practicing before the Patent Office and, in 1918, required practitioners to obtain his prior approval of all advertising material which they distributed. It was to reach these same evils that § 31 was given much its present form when, in 1922, the statute was amended to expressly authorize the Commissioner to prescribe regulations for the recognition of agents and attorneys.
This modification of the statute, first proposed in 1912, was designed to provide for the “creation of a patent bar” and “to require a higher standard of qualifications for registry.” Although it was brought to the attention of the House Committee on Patents that practitioners included lawyers and nonlawyers alike, it was never suggested that agents would be subject to exclusion. In fact, although the Commissioner of Patents had at one time expressed the view that Patent Office abuses could be eliminated only by restricting practice to lawyers, his successor concluded that such a limitation would be unwise and during the pendency of this legislation recommended to Congress against such a limitation:
“It has been suggested many times that the privilege of practising before the Office should be granted only after examination similar to examinations held for admission to the bar. It is believed that this requirement would be too severe, as many persons not specially trained in the law and without any particular educational advantages may by careful study of the practice and of the useful arts learn adequately to prosecute applications. Fundamentally knowledge of the invention is more important than knowledge of the rules and is often possessed by men of a type of mind which does not acquire legal knowledge readily.”
Moreover, during the consideration in 1916 of another bill enacted to curb abusive advertising by patent practitioners, by prohibiting persons practicing before government agencies from using the names of government officials in their advertising literature, the same point was made on the floor of the House:
“Mr. OGLESBY. I will say to the gentleman that a good many men appear before the Patent Office who are not admitted attorneys. The commissioner stated at the hearing that he had considered the question as to whether or not anyone except, a regularly admitted attorney at Jaw should be excluded from practicing before the Patent Office, but for certain reasons thought, perhaps, he ought not to establish such a rule.”
Disclosure that persons were falsely holding themselves out to be registered patent practitioners led in 1938 to the enactment of legislation making such misrepresentation a criminal offense. This corrective legislation was under consideration for over a decade and originally contained several other provisions, including one which would have prohibited any person “duly registered to practice in the Patent Office... [from holding] himself out as a patent attorney, patent lawyer, patent solicitor, or patent counselor unless he is legally admitted to practice law in the State... or in the District of Columbia.” During the extended consideration given the matter in both Houses of.Congress, the distinction between patent lawyers, who had been admitted to the bar, and nonlawyer agents, was repeatedly brought out; time and again it was made clear that the above provision was not intended to restrict practice by agents, but was designed only to prevent them from labeling themselves “patent attorneys,” as the Patent Office had theretofore permitted. The proposed bills would not have affected “any engineers or draftsmen from doing those things which they have always been doing before the Patent Office”; the bills sought “to bring about no change in the status- of the many men now registered and entitled to practice before-the Patent Office, regardless of whether they are members of the bar or not....” (Emphasis added.) “[T]here are quite a number of solicitors of patents who are highly qualified and who are not members of the bar, who never graduated at law and were never admitted to the bar. But this bill doesn't disqualify those men. They can continue to qualify as patent agents.” • (Emphasis added.) When asked “[w]hat is going to be the difference in the legal prerogatives of the agents and the others that come in,” the Commissioner of Patents responded that “[tjheir rights in the Patent Office will be exactly the same. Their rights in the courts will be different.” (Emphasis added.) The House debates on the bill before Congress in 1930- reveal the same understanding:
“Mr. STAFFORD.... I was under the impression that hereafter a person in order to practice before the Patent Office must be admitted to practice before some bar of a State.
“Mr. LaGUARDIA. That is my understanding.
“Mr. PERKINS. I will correct myself. He may be admitted to act as a patent agent, but after the passage of this act no one who is not admitted to the bar generally can hold himself out to be a patent attorney, patent lawyer, patent solicitor, or patent counselor.
“Mr. STAFFORD. A person without being a member of the bar may be registered as a patent agent to practice before the Commissioner of Patents?
“Mr. PERKINS. He may.”
Hence, during the period the 1922 statute was being considered,- and prior to its readoption in 1952, we find strong and unchallenged implications that registered agents have a right to practice before the Patent Office. The repeated efforts to assure Congress that no attempt was being made to limit this right are not without significance. Nor is it insignificant that we find no suggestion that the abuses being perpetrated by patent agents could or should be corrected by the States. To the contrary, reform was effected by the Patent Office, which now requires all practitioners to pass a rigorous examination, 37 CFR § 1.341 (c), strictly regulates their advertising, 37 CFR § 1.345, and demands that “[attorneys and agents appearing before the Patent Office... conform to the standards of ethical and professional conduct generally applicable to attorneys before the courts of the United States.” 37 CFR § 1.344.
Moreover, the extent to which specialized lay practitioners should be allowed to practice before some 40-odd federal administrative agencies, including the Patent Office, received continuing attention both in and out of Congress during the period prior to 1952. The Attorney General’s Committee on Administrative Procedure which, in 1941, studied the need for procedural reform in the administrative agencies, reported that “[e] specially among lawyers’ organizations there has been manifest a sentiment in recent years that only members of the bar should be admitted to practice before administrative agencies. The Committee doubts that a sweeping interdiction of nonlawyer practitioners would be wise....” Ultimately it was provided in § 6 (a) of the Administrative Procedure Act that “[e]very party shall be accorded the right to appear in person or by or with counsel or other duly qualified representative in any agency proceeding.... Nothing herein shall be construed either to grant or to' deny to any person who is.not a lawyer the right to appear for or represent others before any agency or in any agency proceeding.” 60 Stat. 240; 5 U. S. C. § 1005 (a). Although the act thus disavows any.intention to change the existing.practice before any of the agencies, so that the right of nonlawyers to practice before each agency must be determined' by reference to the statute and regulations applicable to the particular agency, the history of § 6 (a) contains further recognition of the power of agencies to admit nonlawyers, and again we see no suggestion that this power is in any way conditioned on the approval of the State. The Chairman of the American Bar Association’s committee on administrative law testified before the House Judiciary Committee:
A great deal of complaint has been received from two sources. Number one is the lay practitioners before the various agencies, chiefly the Interstate Commerce Commission, who are afraid something might be said that would oust them from practice, On the other hand, there is a great deal of protest ■from the committees on unauthorized practice of the law in various, State, local, and municipal bar associations who are just as vehement in saying that these measures fail to recognize that' legal procedure must be confined to lawyers. But these bills do not eliminate the lay practitioner, if the administrative agency feels they have a function to perform and desires to admit him to practice.”
Despite the concern of the bar associations, the Senate Judiciary Committee reported that “nonlawyers, if permitted by the agency to practice before it, are not excluded from representing interested parties in administrative matters.” And in the House debates on this provision.we find the following instructive passage:
“Mr. AUSTIN. Mr. President, before the Senator leaves that thought, I wish to ask a question. I notice... in.the section to which the Senator is referring, this language:
“ ‘Nothing herein shall be construed either to grant or to deny to any person who is not a lawyer the right to appear for or represent others before any agency or in any agency proceeding.’
“Is it not a fact that somewhere in the bill the distinguished Senator has reserved the right to a nonprofessional — that is, a man who is not a lawyer— to appear, if the agency having jurisdiction permits it?. That is, there is a discretion permitted, is there not? For example, take a case where a scientific expert would better represent before the Commission the interests involved than would a lawyer. The right to obtain that privilege is granted in the bill somewhere, is it not?
“Mr. McCARRAN. The Senator is correct; and in connection with that I wish to read from the Attorney General’s comment, as follows:
“ ‘This subsection does not deal with, or in any way qualify, the present power of an agency to regulate practice at its bar. It expressly provides, moreover, that nothing in the act shall be construed either to grant or to deny the right of nonlawyers to appear before agencies in a representative capacity. Control over this matter remains in the respectivé agencies.’
“That is the Attorney General’s observation.” (Emphasis added.)
It is also instructive to note that shortly after the adoption of the Administrative Procedure Act, the American Bar Association proposed the adoption of an “Administrative Practitioners Act.” Though limiting the powers of nonattorneys in respects not here relevant, the bill did provide that “authorized participation in agency proceedings” was permissible, without regard to whether the conduct constituted the practice of law in the State where performed.
Indicative of this same general understanding, we note that every state court considering the problem prior to 1952 agreed that the authority to participate in administrative'proceedings conferred by the Patent Office and by other federal agencies was either consistent with or preemptive of state law.
Finally, regard to the underlying considerations renders it difficult to conclude that Congress would have permitted a State to prohibit patent agents from operating within its boundaries had it expressly directed its attention to the problem. The rights conferred by the issuance of letters patent are federal rights. It is upon Congress that the Constitution' has bestowed 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,” Art. I, § 8, cl. 8, and to take all steps necessary and proper to accomplish that end, Art. I, § 8, cl. 18, pur-, suant to which the Patent Office and its specialized bar.have been established. The Government, appearing as amicus curiae, informs the Court that of the 7,544 persons registered to practice before the Patent Office in November 1962, 1,801 were not lawyers and 1,687 others were not lawyers admitted to the bar of the State in which they were practicing. Hence, under the respondent’s view, one-quarter of the present practitioners would be subject to disqualification of to relocation in the District of Columbia and another one-fourth, unless reciprocity provisions for admission to the bar of the State in which they are practicing are available to them, might be forced to relocate, apply for.admission to the State’s bar, or discontinue practice. The disruptive effect which this could have upon Patent Office proceedings cannot be ignored. On the other hand, the State is primarily concerned with protecting its citizens from unskilled and unethical practitioners, interests which, as we have seen, the Patent Office now safeguards by testing- applicants for registration, and by insisting on the maintenance of high standards of integrity. Failure to comply with these standards may result in suspension or disbarment. 35 U. S. C. § 32; 37 CFR § 1.348. So successful have the efforts of the Patent Office been that the Office was able to inform the Hoover Commission that “there is no significant difference between lawyers and nonlawyers either with respect to their ability to handle the work or with respect to their ethical conduct.”
Moreover, since patent practitioners are authorized to practice only before the Patent Office, the State maintains control over the practice of law within its borders except to the limited extent necessary for the accomplishment of the federal objectives.
We have not overlooked respondent’s constitutional arguments, but find them singularly without merit. We have already noted the source of Congress’ power to grant patent rights. It has never been doubted that the establishment of the Patent Office to process patent applications is appropriate and, plainly adapted to the end of securing to inventors the exclusive right to their discoveries, nor can it plausibly be suggested that by taking steps to authorize competent persons to assist in the preparation of patent applications Congress has exceeded the bounds of what is necessary and proper to the accomplishment of this same end. Cf. Goldsmith v. United States Board of Tax Appeals, 270 U. S. 117; United States v. Duell, 172 U. S. 576. Congress having acted within the scope of the powers, “delegated to the United States by the Constitution,” it has not exceeded the limits of the Tenth Amendment despite the concurrent effects of its legislation upon a matter otherwise within the control of the State. “Interference with.the power of the States’ was no constitutional criterion of the power of Congress. If the power was not given, Congress could not exercise it; if given, they might exercise it, although it should interfere with the laws, or even the Constitution of.the States.” II Annals of Congress 1897 (remarks of Madison).- The Tenth Amendment “states but a truism that all is retained which has not been surrendered.” United States v. Darby, 312 U. S. 100, 124; Case v. Bowles, 327 U. S. 92, 102. Compare Miller, Inc., v. Arkansas, 352 U. S. 187. The authority of Congress is no less when the state power which it displaces would, otherwise have be'en exercised by the state judiciary rather-than by the state legislature. Cf. Pennsylvania R. Co. v. Public Service Comm’n, 250 U. S. 566. Finally, § 31 contains sufficient standards' to guide the Patent Office in its admissions policy to avoid the criticism that Congress has improperly delegated its powers to the administrative agency. Fahey v. Mallonee, 332 U. S. 245; Currin v. Wallace, 306 U. S. 1, 16-18.
It follows that the order enjoining petitioner must be vacated since it prohibits him from performing tasks which are incident to the preparation and prosecution of patent applications before the Patent Office. The judgment below is vacated and the case is'remanded for further proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
Petitioner’s right to refer to himself as a “Patent Attorney” has been mooted by his voluntary discontinuance of the use of the term “attorney.”
See Konigsberg v. State Bar of California, 366 U. S. 36, 40-41; Schware v. Board of Bar Examiners of New Mexico, 353 U. S. 232, 239; West Virginia State Bar v. Earley, 144 W. Va. 504, 109 S. E. 2d 420; Gardner v. Conway, 234 Minn. 468, 48 N. W. 2d 788.
Act of July 19, 1952, c. 950, § I, 66 Stat. 795, 35 U. S. C. § 31:
“The Commissioner, subject to the approval of the Secretary of Commerce, may prescribe regulations governing the recognition and conduct of agents, attorneys, or other persons representing applicants or other parties before the Patent Office, and may require them, before being recognized as representatives of applicants or other persons, to show that they are of good moral character and reputation and are possessed of the necessary qualifications to render to applicants or other persons valuable service, advice, and assistance in the presentation or prosecution of their applications or other business before the Office.”
Miller, Inc., v. Arkansas, 352 U. S. 187, 190; First Iowa HydroElectric Coop. v. Federal Power Comm’n, 328 U. S. 152; cf. Castle v. Hayes Freight Lines, Inc., 348 U. S. 61; Cloverleaf Butter Co. v. Patterson, 315 U. S. 148.
Rice v. Santa F.e Elevator Corp., 331 U. S. 218, 235-236; Moran v. New Orleans, 112 U. S. 69; Sinnot v. Davenport, 22 How. 227; Gibbons v. Ogden, 9 Wheat. 1; Huron Portland Cement Co. v. Detroit, 362 U. S. 440, 449 (dissenting opinion); cf. Hill v. Florida, 325 U. S. 538.
13 Fed.. Reg. 9596.
Proposed Revision of Patent Rules § 5.1, 611 O. G. Pat. Off., June 29, 1948, Supp. 8:
“Registration of attorneys and agents.... Registration in the Patent Office under the Drovisions of these rules shall not be construed as authorizing persons not members of the bar to practice law or to perform any acts regarded as practicing law in the jurisdiction where performed.”
“I think I know what you mean to say, but you have not said what you mean to say. If you stopped at the end of the first clause there and said that it does not authorize the persons not members of the bar to practice law, you might be closer to being right; but, as you have written it here, you have said that patent attorneys may not do in the states things which it may be necessary for them to do in order to prosecute their claims before the Patent Office.
“In other words, you are giving it to the states to say what a patent attorney may do rather than leaving it up to the Congress and to the laws of the United States.
' “I. may suggest that what patent attorneys do before the Patent Office might be construed as practicing law, were it not for the fact that their particular conduct is permitted by the acts of Congress and under the rules of the Patent Office.
"The states cannot pass laws derogating from the rights of the patent attorneys, as created by Congress and existing under the rules of the Patent Office. I think that the rule, as proposed, makes it possible for the states, or indicated that the Office thinks that the states have the power to circumscribe and limit the rights of patent attorneys who are not lawyers, which rights are created under the laws of Congress, and subject to the rules of the Patent Office rather than to regulation by the individual states.
“I think you would have no power to pass this particular part of your proposed rule.”
Remarks of A. P. Kane, Attorney, Hearing on Proposed Revision of Rules of Practice in Patent Cases, 281-282 (Sept. 30, 1948). See also id., at pp. 319-330.
Act of March 2, 1861, c. 88, §8, 12 Stat. 247; see also Act of July 8, 1870, c. 230, § 19, 16 Stat. 200, as amended, 66 Stat. 793, 35 U. S. C. §.6.
Rules and Directions for Proceedings in the Patent Office, § 127 (Aug. 1, 1869).
Letter from Edward S. Rogers, Hearings before House Committee on Patents on H. R. 5527, 70th Cong., 1st Sess. 84 (1928) ; cf. Hoosier Drill Co. v. Ingels, 15 O. G. Pat. Off. 1013; 2 Robinson,Patents, §431.
“Personal attendance of the applicant at the Patént Office, to obtain a patent, is unnecessary. The business can be done by correspondence, (free of postage) or by power of attorney.” Information to Persons. Having Business to Transact at the Patent Office, 8 (July 1836). In 1854, it was first provided that “[a]ll business with the office should be transacted in writing....” Rules and Directions for Proceedings in the Patent Office,'§ 122 (Feb. 20, 1854). Compare 37 CFR § 1.2.
Roster of Attorneys and Agents Registered to Practice Before the U. S. Patent Offiee (1958); -Names and Addresses of Attorneys Practicing Before the U. S. Patent Office (1883); Testimony of T. E. Robertson, Commissioner of Patents, Hearings before House Committee on' Patents bn H. R. 699, 7.1st Cong., 2d Sess. 12. Commencing in 1848, the Commissioner for many years informed'inventors that “[i]f the services of Patent Agents are desired, able and competent persons engaged in that business can be found at their offices in this city, and in other cities.” Information to Persons Having Business to Transact at the Patent Office, Patent Agents or Attorneys (1848). (Emphasis deleted and added.)
See Berle, Inventions and Their Management, 189-190; Hoar, Patent Tactics and Law (3d ed.), 256-257; Woodling, Inventions and Their Protection (2d ed.), 289-290, 333; Rivise, Preparation and Prosecution of Patent Applications, §42.
See Hearings before House Committee on Patents on H. R. 5527, 70th Cong., 1st Sess. 16-18; 69 Cong. Rec. 6580; Spencer, The United States Patent Law System, 94r-96. Berle, 184-186. Compare H. R. Rep. No. 1622, 68th Cong., 2d Sess. 2-3; H. R. Rep. No. 364, 64th Cong., 1st Sess. 2; Information to Persons Having Business' to Transact at the Patent Office, Patent Agents or Attorneys (1848).
Rules of Practice in the United States Patent Office, § 17 (July 18, 1899). Compare ■§ 17 in the edition of June 18, 1897.
252 O. G. Pat. Off. 967. Compare 37 CFR § 1.345.
Act of February 18,' 1922, c. 58, § 3, 42 Stat. 390. Compare Act of July 8,1870, c. 230, § 19,16 Stat. 200, as amended, 35 U. S. C. §•6, and Act of July 4, 1884, e. 181, § 5, 23 Stat. 101, 5 U. S. C. § 493.
Letter from E. B. Moore, Commissioner of Patents, Hearings before House Committee on Patents on H. R. 23417, No. 1, 62d Cong., 2d Sess. 6-7. See also Hearings before House Committee on Patents on H. R. 210,-67th Cong., 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: | F | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Mr. Chief Justice Warren
delivered the opinion of the Court.
The cases before us raise questions which go to the roots of our concepts of American criminal jurisprudence: the restraints society must observe consistent with the Federal Constitution in prosecuting individuals for crime. More specifically, we deal with the admissibility of statements obtained from an individual who is subjected to custodial police interrogation and the necessity for procedures which assure that the individual is accorded his privilege under the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution not to be compelled to incriminate himself.
We dealt with certain phases of this problem recently in Escobedo v. Illinois, 378 U. S. 478 (1964). There, as in the four cases before us, law enforcement officials took the defendant into custody and interrogated him in a police station for the purpose of obtaining a confession. The police did not effectively advise him of his right to remain silent or of his right to consult with his attorney. Rather, they confronted him with an alleged accomplice who accused him of having perpetrated a murder. When the defendant denied the accusation and said “I didn’t shoot Manuel, you did it,” they handcuffed him and took him to an interrogation room. There, while handcuffed and standing, he was questioned for four hours until he confessed. During this interrogation, the police denied his request to speak to his attorney, and they prevented his retained attorney, who had come to the police station, from consulting with him. At his trial, the State, over his objection, introduced the confession against him. We held that the statements thus made were constitutionally inadmissible.
This case has been the subject of judicial interpretation and spirited legal debate since it was decided two years ago. Both state and federal courts, in assessing its implications, have arrived at varying conclusions. A wealth of scholarly material has been written tracing its ramifications and underpinnings. Police and prosecutor have speculated on its range and desirability. We granted certiorari in these cases, 382 U. S. 924, 925, 937, in order further to explore some facets of the problems, thus exposed, of applying the privilege against self-incrimination to in-custody interrogation, and to give concrete constitutional guidelines for law enforcement agencies and courts to follow.
We start here, as we did in Escobedo, with the premise that our holding is not an innovation in our jurisprudence, but is an application of principles long recognized and applied in other settings. We have undertaken a thorough re-examination of the Escobedo decision and the principles it announced, and we reaffirm it. That case was but an explication of basic rights that are enshrined in our Constitution — that “No person... shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself,” and that “the accused shall... have the Assistance of Counsel” — rights which were put in jeopardy in that case through official overbearing. These precious rights were fixed in our Constitution only after centuries of persecution and struggle. And in the words of Chief Justice Marshall, they were secured “for ages to come, and... designed to approach immortality as nearly as human institutions can approach it,” Cohens v. Virginia, 6 Wheat. 264, 387 (1821).
Over 70 years ago, our predecessors on this Court eloquently stated:
“The maxim nemo tenetur seipsum acensare had its origin in a protest against the inquisitorial and manifestly unjust methods of- interrogating accused persons, which [have] long obtained in the continental system, and, until the expulsion of the Stuarts from the British throne in 1688, and the erection of additional barriers for the protection of the people against the exercise of arbitrary power, [were] not uncommon even in England. While the admissions or confessions of the prisoner, when voluntarily and freely made, have always ranked high in the scale of incriminating evidence, if an accused person be asked to explain his apparent connection with a crime under investigation, the ease with which the questions put to him may assume an inquisitorial character, the temptation to press the witness unduly, to browbeat him if he be timid or reluctant, to push him into a corner, and to entrap him into fatal contradictions, which is so painfully evident in many of the earlier state trials, notably in those of Sir Nicholas Throckmorton, and Udal, the Puritan minister, made the system so odious as to give rise to a demand for its total abolition. The change in the English criminal procedure in that particular seems to be founded upon no statute and no judicial opinion, but upon a general and silent acquiescence of the courts in a popular demand. But, however adopted, it has become firmly embedded in English, as well as in American jurisprudence. So deeply did the iniquities of the ancient system impress themselves upon the minds of the American colonists that the States, with one accord, made a denial of the right to question an accused person a part of their fundamental law, so that a maxim, which in England was a mere rule of evidence, became clothed in this country with the impregnability of a constitutional enactment.” Brown v. Walker, 161 U. S. 591, 596-597 (1896).
In stating the obligation of the judiciary to apply these constitutional rights, this Court declared in Weems v. United States, 217 U. S. 349, 373 (1910):
.. our contemplation cannot be only of what has been but of what may be. Under any other rule a constitution would indeed be as easy of application as it would be deficient in efficacy and power. Its general principles would have little value and be converted by precedent into impotent and lifeless formulas. Rights declared in words might be lost in reality. And this has been recognized. The meaning and vitality of the Constitution have developed against narrow and restrictive construction.”
This was the spirit in which we delineated, in meaningful language, the manner in which the constitutional rights of the individual could be enforced against overzealous police practices. It was necessary in Escobedo, as here, to insure that what was proclaimed in the Constitution had not become but a “form of words,” Silverthorne Lumber Co. v. United States, 251 U. S. 385, 392 (1920), in the hands of government officials. And it is in this spirit, consistent with our role as judges, that we adhere to the principles of Escobedo today.
Our holding will be spelled out with some specificity in the pages which follow but briefly stated it is this: the prosecution may not use statements, whether exculpatory or inculpatory, stemming from custodial interrogation of the defendant unless it demonstrates the use of procedural safeguards effective to secure the privilege against self-incrimination. By custodial interrogation, we mean questioning initiated by law enforcement officers after a person has been taken into custody or otherwise deprived of his freedom of action in any significant way. As for the procedural safeguards to be employed, unless other fully effective means are devised to inform accused persons of their right of silence and to assure a continuous opportunity to exercise it, the following measures are required. Prior to any questioning, the person must be warned that he has a right to remain silent, that any statement he does make may be used as evidence against him, and that he has a right to the presence of an attorney, either retained or appointed. The defendant may waive effectuation of these rights, provided the waiver is made voluntarily, knowingly and intelligently. If, however, he indicates in any manner and at any stage of the process that he wishes to consult with an attorney before speaking there can be no questioning. Likewise, if the individual is alone and indicates in any manner that he does not wish to be interrogated, the police may not question him. The mere fact that he may have answered some questions or volunteered some statements on his own does not deprive him of the right to refrain from answering any further inquiries until he has consulted with an attorney and thereafter consents to be questioned.
I.
The constitutional issue we decide in each of these cases is the admissibility of statements obtained from a defendant questioned while in custody or otherwise deprived of his freedom of action in any significant way. In each, the defendant was questioned by police officers, detectives, or a prosecuting attorney in a room in which he was cut off from the outside world. In none of these cases was the defendant given a full and effective warning of his rights at the outset of the interrogation process. In all the cases, the questioning elicited oral admissions, and in three of them, signed statements as well which were admitted at their trials. They all thus share salient features— incommunicado interrogation of individuals in a police-dominated atmosphere, resulting in self-incriminating statements without full warnings of constitutional rights.
An understanding of the nature and setting of this in-custody interrogation is essential to our decisions today. The difficulty in depicting what transpires at such interrogations stems from the fact that in this country they have largely taken place incommunicado. From extensive factual studies undertaken in the early 1930’s, including the famous Wickersham Report to Congress by a Presidential Commission, it is clear that police violence and the “third degree” flourished at that time. In a series of cases decided by this Court long after these studies, the police resorted to physical brutality — beating, hanging, whipping — and to sustained and protracted questioning incommunicado in order to extort confessions. The Commission on Civil Rights in 1961 found much evidence to indicate that “some policemen still resort to physical force to obtain confessions,” 1961 Comm’n on Civil Rights Rep., Justice, pt. 5, 17. The use of physical brutality and violence is not, unfortunately, relegated to the past or to any part of the country. Only recently in Kings County, New York, the police brutally beat, kicked and placed lighted cigarette butts on the back of a potential witness under interrogation for the purpose of securing a statement incriminating a third party. People v. Portelli, 15 N. Y. 2d 235, 205 N. E. 2d 857, 257 N. Y. S. 2d 931 (1965).
The examples given above are undoubtedly the exception now, but they are sufficiently widespread to be the object of concern. Unless a proper limitation upon custodial interrogation is achieved — such as these decisions will advance — -there can be no assurance that practices of this nature will be eradicated in the foreseeable future. The conclusion of the Wickersham Commission Report, made over 30 years ago, is still pertinent:
“To the contention that the third degree is necessary to get the facts, the reporters aptly reply in the language of the present Lord Chancellor of England (Lord Sankey): ‘It is not admissible to do a great right by doing a little wrong.... It is not sufficient to do justice by obtaining a proper result by irregular or improper means.’ Not only does the use of the third degree involve a flagrant violation of law by the officers of the law, but it involves also the dangers of false confessions, and it tends to make police and prosecutors less zealous in the search for objective evidence. As the New York prosecutor quoted in the report said, ‘It is a short cut and makes the police lazy and unenterprising.’ Or, as another official quoted remarked: Tf you use your fists, you are not so likely to use your wits.’ We agree with the conclusion expressed in the report, that ‘The third degree brutalizes the police, hardens the prisoner against society, and lowers the esteem in which the administration of justice is held by the public.’ ” IV National Commission on Law Observance and Enforcement, Report on Lawlessness in Law Enforcement 5 (1931).
Again we stress that the modern practice of in-custody interrogation is psychologically rather than physically oriented. As we have stated before, “Since Chambers v. Florida, 309 U. S. 227, this Court has recognized that coercion can be mental as well as physical, and that the blood of the accused is not the only hallmark of an unconstitutional inquisition.” Blackburn v. Alabama, 361 U. S. 199, 206 (1960). Interrogation still takes place in privacy. Privacy results in secrecy and this in turn results in a gap in our knowledge as to what in fact goes on in the interrogation rooms. A valuable source of information about present police practices, however, may be found in various police manuals and texts which document procedures employed with success in the past, and which recommend various other effective tactics. These texts are used by law enforcement agencies themselves as guides. It should be noted that these texts professedly present the most enlightened and effective means presently used to obtain statements through custodial interrogation. By considering these texts and other data, it is possible to describe procedures observed and noted around the country.
The officers are told by the manuals that the “principal psychological factor contributing to a successful interrogation is privacy — being alone with the person under interrogation.” The efficacy of this tactic has been explained as follows:
“If at all practicable, the interrogation should take place in the investigator’s office or at least in a room of his own choice. The subject should be deprived of every psychological advantage. In his own home he may be confident, indignant, or recalcitrant. He is more keenly aware of his rights and more reluctant to tell of his indiscretions or criminal behavior within the walls of his home. Moreover his family and other friends are nearby, their presence lending moral support. In his own office, the investigator possesses all the advantages. The atmosphere suggests the invincibility of the forces of the law.”
To highlight the isolation and unfamiliar surroundings, the manuals instruct the police to display an air of confidence in the suspect’s guilt and from outward appearance to maintain only an interest in confirming certain details. The guilt of the subject is to be posited as a fact. The interrogator should direct his comments toward the reasons why the subject committed the act, rather than court failure by asking the subject whether he did it. Like other men, perhaps the subject has had a bad family life, had an unhappy childhood, had too much to drink, had an unrequited desire for women. The officers are instructed to minimize the moral seriousness of the offense, to cast blame on the victim or on society. These tactics are designed to put the subject in a psychological state where his story is but an elaboration of what the police purport to know already— that he is guilty. Explanations to the contrary are dismissed and discouraged.
The texts thus stress that the major qualities an interrogator should possess are patience and perseverance. One writer describes the efficacy of these characteristics in this manner:
“In the preceding paragraphs emphasis has been placed on kindness and stratagems. The investigator will, however, encounter many situations where the sheer weight of his personality will be the deciding factor. Where emotional appeals and tricks are employed to no avail, he must rely on an oppressive atmosphere of dogged persistence. He must interrogate steadily and without relent, leaving the subject no prospect of surcease. He must dominate his subject and overwhelm him with his inexorable will to obtain the truth. He should interrogate for a spell of several hours pausing only for the subject’s necessities in acknowledgment of the need to avoid a charge of duress that can be technically substantiated. In a serious case, the interrogation may continue for days, with the required intervals for food and sleep, but with no respite from the atmosphere of domination. It is possible in this way to induce the subject to talk without resorting to duress or coercion. The method should be used only when the guilt of the subject appears highly probable.”
The manuals suggest that the suspect be offered legal excuses for his actions in order to obtain an initial admission of guilt. Where there is a suspected revenge-killing, for example, the interrogator may say:
“Joe, you probably didn’t go out looking for this fellow with the purpose of shooting him. My guess is, however, that you expected something from him and that’s why you carried a gun — for your own protection. You knew him for what he was, no good. Then when you met him he probably started using foul, abusive language and he gave some indication that he was about to pull a gun on you, and that’s when you had to act to save your own life. That’s about it, isn’t it, Joe?”
Having then obtained the admission of shooting, the interrogator is advised to refer to circumstantial evidence which negates the self-defense explanation. This should enable him to secure the entire story. One text notes that “Even if he fails to do so, the inconsistency between the subject’s original denial of the shooting and his present admission of at least doing the shooting will serve to deprive him of a self-defense ‘out’ at the time of trial.”
When the techniques described above prove unavailing, the texts recommend they be alternated with a show of some hostility. One ploy often used has been termed the “friendly-unfriendly” or the “Mutt and Jeff” act:
“... In this technique, two agents are employed. Mutt, the relentless investigator, who knows the subject is guilty and is not going, to waste any time. He’s sent a dozen men away for this crime and he’s going to send the subject away for the full term. Jeff, on the other hand, is obviously a kindhearted man. He has a family himself. He has a brother who was involved in a little scrape like this. He disapproves of Mutt and his tactics and will arrange to get him off the case if the subject will cooperate. He can’t hold Mutt off for very long. The subject would be wise to make a quick decision. The technique is applied by having both investigators present while Mutt acts out his role. Jeff may stand by quietly and demur at some of Mutt’s tactics. When Jeff makes his plea for cooperation, Mutt is not present in the room.”
The interrogators sometimes are instructed to induce a confession out of trickery. The technique here is quite effective in crimes which require identification or which run in series. In the identification situation, the interrogator may take a break in his questioning to place the subject among a group of men in a line-up. “The witness or complainant (previously coached, if necessary) studies the line-up and confidently points out the subject as the guilty party.” Then the questioning resumes “as though there were now no doubt about the guilt of the subject.” A variation on this technique is called the “reverse line-up”:
“The accused is placed in a line-up, but this time he is identified by several fictitious witnesses or victims who associated him with different offenses. It is expected that the subject will become desperate and confess to the offense under investigation in order to escape from the false accusations.”
The manuals also contain instructions for police on how to handle the individual who refuses to discuss the matter entirely, or who asks for an attorney or relatives. The examiner is to concede him the right to remain silent. “This usually has a very undermining effect. First of all, he is disappointed in his expectation of an unfavorable reaction on the part of the interrogator. Secondly, a concession of this right to remain silent impresses the subject with the apparent fairness of his interrogator.” After this psychological conditioning, however, the officer is told to point out the incriminating significance of the suspect’s refusal to talk:
“Joe, you have a right to remain silent. That’s your privilege and I’m the last person in the world who’ll try to take it away from you. If that’s the way you want to leave this, O. K. But let me ask you this. Suppose you were in my shoes and I were in yours and you called me in to ask me about this and I told you, T don’t want to answer any of your questions.’ You’d think I had something to hide, and you’d probably be right in thinking that. That’s exactly what I’ll have to think about you, and so will everybody else. So let’s sit here and talk this whole thing over.”
New will persist in their initial refusal to talk, it is said, if this monologue is employed correctly.
In the event that the subject wishes to speak to a relative or an attorney, the following advice is tendered:
“[T]he interrogator should respond by suggesting that the subject first tell the truth to the interrogator himself rather than get anyone else involved in the matter. If the request is for an attorney, the interrogator may suggest that the subject save himself or his family the expense of any such professional service, particularly if he is innocent of the offense under investigation. The interrogator may also add, ‘Joe, I’m only looking for the truth, and if you’re telling the truth, that’s it. You can handle this by yourself.’ ”
From these representative samples of interrogation techniques, the setting prescribed by the manuals and observed in practice becomes clear. In essence, it is this: To be alone with the subject is essential to prevent distraction and to deprive him of any outside support. The aura of confidence in his guilt undermines his will to resist. He merely confirms the preconceived story the police seek to have him describe. Patience and persistence, at times relentless questioning, are employed. To obtain a confession, the interrogator must “patiently maneuver himself or his quarry into a position from which the desired objective may be attained.” When normal procedures fail to produce the needed result, the police may resort to deceptive stratagems such as giving false legal advice. It is important to keep the subject off balance, for example, by trading on his insecurity about himself or his surroundings. The police then persuade, trick, or cajole him out of exercising his constitutional rights.
Even without employing brutality, the “third degree” or the specific stratagems described above, the very fact of custodial interrogation exacts a heavy toll on individual liberty and trades on the weakness of individuals. This fact may be illustrated simply by referring to three confession cases decided by this Court in the Term immediately preceding our Escobedo decision. In Townsend v. Sain, 372 U. S. 293 (1963), the defendant was a 19-year-old heroin addict, described as a “near mental defective,” id., at 307-310. The defendant in Lynumn v. Illinois, 372 U. S. 528 (1963), was a woman who confessed to the arresting officer after being importuned to “cooperate” in order to prevent her children from being taken by relief authorities. This Court as in those cases reversed the conviction of a defendant in Haynes v. Washington, 373 U. S. 503 (1963), whose persistent request during his interrogation was to phone his wife or attorney. In other settings, these individuals might have exercised their constitutional rights. In the incommunicado police-dominated atmosphere, they succumbed.
In the cases before us today, given this background, we concern ourselves primarily with this interrogation atmosphere and the evils it can bring. In No. 759, Miranda v. Arizona, the police arrested the defendant and took him to a special interrogation room where they secured a confession. In No. 760, Vignera v. New York, the defendant made oral admissions to the police after interrogation in the afternoop, and then signed an inculpatory statement upon being questioned by an assistant district attorney later the same evening. In No. 761, Westover v. United States, the defendant was handed over to the Federal Bureau of Investigation by local authorities after they had detained and interrogated him for a lengthy period, both at night and the following morning. After some two hours of questioning, the federal officers had obtained signed statements from the defendant. Lastly, in No. 584, California v. Stewart, the local police held the defendant five days in the station and interrogated him on nine separate occasions before they secured his inculpatory statement.
In these cases, we might not find the defendants’ statements to have been involuntary in traditional terms. Our concern for adequate safeguards to protect precious Fifth Amendment rights is, of course, not lessened in the slightest. In each of the cases, the defendant was thrust into an unfamiliar atmosphere and run through menacing police interrogation procedures. The potentiality for compulsion is forcefully apparent, for example, in Miranda, where the indigent Mexican defendant was a seriously disturbed individual with pronounced sexual fantasies, and in Stewart, in which the defendant was an indigent Los Angeles Negro who had dropped out of school in the sixth grade. To be sure, the records do not evince overt physical coercion or patent psychological ploys. The fact remains that in none of these cases did the officers undertake to afford appropriate safeguards at the outset of the interrogation to insure that the statements were truly the product of free choice.
It is obvious that such an interrogation environment is created for no purpose other than to subjugate the individual to the will of his examiner. This atmosphere carries its own badge of intimidation. To be sure, this is not physical intimidation, but it is equally destructive of human dignity. The current practice of incommunicado interrogation is at odds with one of our Nation’s most cherished principles — that the individual may not be compelled to incriminate himself. Unless adequate protective devices are employed to dispel the compulsion inherent in custodial surroundings, no statement obtained from the defendant can truly be the product of his free choice.
From the foregoing, we can readily perceive an intimate connection between the privilege against self-incrimination and police custodial questioning. It is fitting to turn to history and precedent underlying the Self-Incrimination Clause to determine its applicability in this situation.
II.
We sometimes forget how long it has taken to establish the privilege against self-incrimination, the sources from which it came and the fervor with which it was defended. Its roots go back into ancient times. Perhaps the critical historical event shedding light on its origins and evolution was the trial of one John Lilburn, a vocal anti-Stuart Leveller, who was made to take the Star Chamber Oath in 1637. The oath would have bound him to answer to all questions posed to him on any subject. The Trial of John Lilburn and John Wharton, 3 How. St. Tr. 1315 (1637). He resisted the oath and declaimed the proceedings, stating:
“Another fundamental right I then contended for, was, that no man’s conscience ought to be racked by oaths imposed, to answer to questions concerning himself in matters criminal, or pretended to be so.” Haller & Davies, The Leveller Tracts 1647-1653, p. 454 (1944).
On account of the Lilburn Trial, Parliament abolished the inquisitorial Court of Star Chamber and went further in giving him generous reparation. The lofty principles to which Lilburn had appealed during his trial gained popular acceptance in England. These sentiments worked their way over to the Colonies and were implanted after great struggle into the Bill of Rights. Those who framed our Constitution and the Bill of Rights were ever aware of subtle encroachments on individual liberty. They knew that “illegitimate and unconstitutional practices get their first footing... by silent approaches and slight deviations from legal modes of procedure.” Boyd v. United States, 116 U. S. 616, 635 (1886). The privilege was elevated to constitutional status and has always been “as broad as the mischief against which it seeks to guard.” Counselman v. Hitchcock, 142 U. S. 547, 562 (1892). We cannot depart from this noble heritage.
Thus we may view the historical development of the privilege as one which groped for the proper scope of governmental power over the citizen. As a “noble principle often transcends its origins,” the privilege has come rightfully to be recognized in part as an individual’s substantive right, a “right to a private enclave where he may lead a private life. That right is the hallmark of our democracy.” United States v. Grunewald, 233 F. 2d 556, 579, 581-582 (Frank, J., dissenting), rev’d, 353 U. S. 391 (1957). We have recently noted that the privilege against self-incrimination — the essential mainstay of our adversary system — is founded on a complex of values, Murphy v. Waterfront Comm’n, 378 U. S. 52, 55-57, n. 5 (1964); Tehan v. Shott, 382 U. S. 406, 414-415, n. 12 (1966). All these policies point to one overriding thought: the constitutional foundation underlying the privilege is the respect a government — state or federal— must accord to the dignity and integrity of its citizens. To maintain a “fair state-individual balance,” to require the government “to shoulder the entire load,” 8 Wigmore, Evidence 317 (McNaughton rev. 1961), to respect the inviolability of the human personality, our accusatory system of criminal justice demands that the government seeking to punish an individual produce the evidence against him by its own independent labors, rather than by the cruel, simple expedient of compelling it from his own mouth. Chambers v. Florida, 309 U. S. 227, 235-238 (1940). In sum, the privilege is fulfilled only when the person is guaranteed the right “to remain silent unless he chooses to speak in the unfettered exercise of his own will.” Malloy v. Hogan, 378 U. S. 1, 8 (1964).
The question in these cases is whether the privilege is fully applicable during a period of custodial interrogation. In this Court, the privilege has consistently been accorded a liberal construction. Albertson v. SACB, 382 U. S. 70, 81 (1965); Hoffman v. United States, 341 U. S.. 479, 486 (1951); Arndstein v. McCarthy, 254 U. S. 71, 72-73 (1920); Counselman v. Hitchock, 142 U. S. 547, 562 (1892). We are satisfied that all the principles embodied in the privilege apply to informal compulsion exerted by law-enforcement officers during in-custody questioning. An individual swept from familiar surroundings into police custody, surrounded by antagonistic forces, and subjected to the techniques of persuasion described above cannot be otherwise than under compulsion to speak. As a practical matter, the compulsion to speak in the isolated setting of the police station may well be greater than in courts or other official investigations, where there are often impartial observers to guard against intimidation or trickery.
This question, in fact, could have been taken as settled in federal courts almost 70 years ago, when, in Bram v. United States, 168 U. S. 532, 542 (1897), this Court held:
“In criminal trials, in the courts of the United States, wherever a question arises whether a confession is incompetent because not voluntary, the issue is controlled by that portion of the Fifth Amendment... commanding that no person ‘shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself.’ ”
In Bram, the Court reviewed the British and American history and case law and set down the Fifth Amendment standard for compulsion which we implement today:
“Much of the confusion which has resulted from the effort to deduce from the adjudged cases what would be a sufficient quantum of proof to show that a confession was or was not voluntary, has arisen from a misconception of the subject to which the proof must address itself. The rule is not that in order to render a statement admissible the proof must be adequate to establish that the particular communications contained in a statement were voluntarily made, but it must be sufficient to establish that the making of the statement was voluntary; that is to say, that from the causes, which the law treats as legally sufficient to engender in the mind of the accused hope or fear in respect to the crime charged, the accused was not involuntarily impelled to make a statement, when but for the improper influences he would have remained silent....” 168 U. S., at 549. And see, id., at 542.
The Court has adhered to this reasoning. In 1924, Mr. Justice Brandéis wrote for a unanimous Court in reversing a conviction resting on a compelled confession, Wan v. United States, 266 U. S. 1. He stated:
“In the federal courts, the requisite of voluntariness is not satisfied by establishing merely that the confession was not induced by a promise or a threat. A confession is voluntary in law if, and only if, it was, in fact, voluntarily made. A confession may have been given voluntarily, although it was made to police officers, while in custody, and in answer to an examination conducted by them. But a confession obtained by compulsion must be excluded whatever may have been the character of the compulsion, and whether the compulsion was applied in a judicial proceeding or otherwise. Bram v. United States, 168 U. S. 532.” 266 U. S., at 14-15.
In addition to the expansive historical development of the privilege and the sound policies which have nurtured its evolution, judicial precedent thus clearly establishes its application to incommunicado interrogation. In fact, the Government concedes this point as well established in No. 761, Westover v. United States, stating: “We have no doubt... that it is possible for a suspect’s Fifth Amendment right to be violated during in-custody questioning by a law-enforcement officer.”
Because of the adoption by Congress of Rule 5 (a) of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure, and this Court’s effectuation of that Rule in McNabb v. United States, 318 U. S. 332 (1943), and Mallory v. United States, 354 U. S. 449 (1957), we have had little occasion in the past quarter century to reach the constitutional issues in dealing with federal interrogations. These supervisory rules, requiring production of an arrested person before a commissioner “without unnecessary delay” and excluding evidence obtained in default of that statutory obligation, were nonetheless responsive to the same considerations of Fifth Amendment policy that unavoidably face us now as to the States. In McNabb, 318 U. S., at 343-344, and in Mallory, 354 U. S., at 455-456, we recognized both the dangers of interrogation and the appropriateness of prophylaxis stemming from the very fact of interrogation itself.
Our decision in Malloy v. Hogan, 378 U. S. 1 (1964), necessitates an examination of the scope of the privilege in state cases as well. In Malloy, we squarely held the privilege applicable to the States, and held that the substantive standards underlying the privilege applied with full force to state court proceedings. There, as in Murphy v. Waterfront Comm’n, 378 U. S. 52 (1964), and Griffin v. California, 380 U. S. 609 (1965), we applied the existing Fifth Amendment standards to the case before us. Aside from the holding itself, the reasoning in Malloy made clear what had already become apparent — that the substantive and procedural safeguards surrounding admissibility of confessions in state cases had become exceedingly exacting, reflecting all the policies embedded in the privilege, 378 U. S., at 7-8. The voluntariness doctrine in the state cases, as Malloy indicates, encompasses all interrogation practices which are likely to exert such pressure upon an individual as to disable him from making a free and rational choice. The implications of this proposition were elaborated in our decision in Escobedo v. Illinois, 378 U. S. 478, decided one week after Malloy applied the privilege to the States.
Our holding there stressed the fact that the police had not advised the defendant of his constitutional privilege to remain silent at the outset of the interrogation, and we drew attention to that fact at several points in the decision, 378 U. S., at 483, 485, 491. This was no isolated factor, but an essential ingredient in our decision. The entire thrust of police interrogation there, as in all the cases today, was to put the defendant in such an emotional state as to impair his capacity for rational judgment. The abdication of the constitutional privilege— the choice on his part to speak to the
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | A | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Per Curiam.
The United States District Court for the District of Wyoming ordered that certain evidence which the Government proposed to use in respondent’s pending criminal trial be suppressed. The Government appealed the order to the Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit, but that court dismissed the Government’s appeal. It held that the 30-day period in which to file an appeal began to run on the date of the District Court’s original suppression order, rather than on the date the District Court denied the Government’s motion for reconsideration. 920 F. 2d 702 (1990). We grant the Government’s petition for certiorari and vacate the judgment of the Court of Appeals.
h—
Respondent was indicted for possession of cocaine with intent to distribute. The circumstances leading to the indictment are largely uncontested. Law enforcement officers stopped respondent’s car for a suspected operating violation. The officers questioned respondent and asked for permission to search the car. Respondent granted the request and a brief search was conducted but no cocaine was identified or seized. However, noting that neither respondent nor his passenger had a valid operator’s license, the officers impounded the car and transported respondent and his passenger to a Western Union office. The officers then went to the towing service lot and searched the car a second time. They found cocaine in the trunk. Respondent filed a pretrial motion to suppress the evidence found in the second search. Among the theories on which the Government originally contested the motion was that the second search had been conducted pursuant to respondent’s continuing consent. However, before the District Court ruled on the suppression motion, the Government abandoned the continuing consent theory in papers filed with the court, citing a lack of legal support for its position. On November 15, 1989, after an evidentiary hearing, the District Court granted the motion to suppress and noted in its order the Government’s abandonment of the continuing consent theory. 725 F. Supp. 1195, 1200 (Wyo. 1989). On December 13,1989, the Government filed with the District Court a “Motion for Reconsideration of Suppression Order.” The sole basis for the Government’s motion was its reassertion of the continuing consent theory. On January 3, 1990, the District Court denied the motion. The Government noticed its appeal on January 30, 1990, less than 30 days after the denial of the motion for reconsideration but 76 days after the initial suppression order.
A divided panel of the Tenth Circuit dismissed the appeal as untimely, holding that the Government’s motion to reconsider did not “toll” the 30-day period to appeal which began to run on the date of the initial order. In the course of its opinion, the Court of Appeals rejected the Government’s argument that this Court’s decisions in United States v. Healy, 376 U. S. 75 (1964), and United States v. Dieter, 429 U. S. 6 (1976) (per curiam), controlled the decision.
In United States v. Healy, supra, we said:
“The question, therefore, is simply whether in a criminal case a timely petition for rehearing by the Government filed within the permissible time for appeal renders the judgment not final for purposes of appeal until the Court disposes of the petition — in other words whether in such circumstances the 30-day period . . . begins to run from the date of entry of judgment or the denial of the petition for rehearing.” 376 U. S., at 77-78.
The Court answered this question by saying that under the “well-established rule in civil cases,” id., at 78, the 30-day period begins with the denial of the petition for rehearing and by further observing that this Court’s consistent practice had been to treat petitions for rehearing as having the same effect in criminal cases. Id., at 78-79. More than 12 years later, we decided United States v. Dieter, supra (per curiam). There, too, the Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit dismissed as untimely the Government’s appeal from a District Court’s order dismissing an indictment. Although the Government’s notice of appeal had been filed within 30 days of a District Court order denying its “Motion to Set Aside Order of Dismissal,” it was not filed within 30 days after the order of dismissal itself. The Court of Appeals held that our decision in Healy, supra, governed only in cases of claimed errors of law, whereas the basis of the Government’s motion for reconsideration in Dieter was mistake or inadvertence.
We vacated and remanded the decision of the Court of Appeals, saying that it “misconceived the basis of our decision in Healy. We noted there that the consistent practice in civil and criminal cases alike has been to treat timely petitions for rehearing as rendering the original judgment non-final for purposes of appeal for as long as the petition is pending.” 429 U. S., at 8. We pointed out the presumed benefits of this rule — district courts are given the opportunity to correct their own alleged errors, and allowing them to do so prevents unnecessary burdens being placed on the courts of appeals. We concluded that “the Court of Appeals’ law/ fact distinction — assuming such a distinction can be clearly drawn for these purposes — finds no support in Healy.” Ibid.
The Court of Appeals in the present case nonetheless determined that the 30-day period was not affected by the Government’s motion to reconsider. It instead created a special rule for motions that seek reconsideration of previously disavowed theories because it concluded that suspending the time to appeal upon such motions does not further the goals described in Dieter. Because such motions do not serve to permit the district court to reconsider matters initially overlooked, the Court of Appeals thought that delaying the appellate process pending resolution of such motions is unlikely to contribute to judicial efficiency. 920 F. 2d, at 706. It also noted that Government motions to reconsider a position conceded during appellate litigation are viewed with disfavor when filed before an appellate tribunal. Ibid. (citing United States v. Smith, 781 F. 2d 184 (CA10 1986)).
II
We think the Court of Appeals has misread our decisions in Healy, supra, and Dieter, supra. The first of these decisions established that a motion for rehearing in a criminal case, like a motion for rehearing in a civil case, renders an otherwise final decision of a district court not final until it decides the petition for rehearing. In Dieter, we rejected an effort to carve out exceptions to this general rule in the case of petitions for rehearing which do not assert an alleged error of law. We think that the Court of Appeals' present effort to carve out a different exception to the general rule laid down in Healy must likewise be rejected.
It may be that motions to reconsider based on previously abandoned grounds are not apt to fare well either in the district court or on appeal to the court of appeals. But if such a judgment as to the merits were allowed to play a part in deciding the time in which a denial of the motion may be appealed, it is difficult to see why a similar merits analysis should not be undertaken for all motions for reconsideration. The result would be, as the dissenting judge below pointed out, to "graf[t] a merits inquiry onto what should be a bright-line jurisdictional inquiry." 920 F. 2d, at 710 (Baldock, J., dissenting).
Undoubtedly some motions for reconsideration are so totally lacking in merit that the virtues of the rule established in Healy are not realized by delaying the 30-day period. If it were possible to pick them out in advance, it would be better if litigants pursuing such motions were made to go sooner, rather than later, on their fruitless way to the appellate court. But there is no certain way of deciding in advance which motions for reconsideration have the requisite degree of merit, and which do not. Given this, it is far better that all such motions be subsumed under one general rule — the rule laid down in Healy. Without a clear general rule litigants would be required to guess at their peril the date on which the time to appeal commences to run. Prudent attorneys would be encouraged to file notices of appeal from orders of the district court, even though the latter court is in the course of considering a motion for rehearing of the order. Cf. United States v. Ladson, 774 F. 2d 436, 438-439, n. 3 (CA11 1985). Less prudent attorneys would find themselves litigating in the courts of appeals whether a motion for reconsideration filed in the district court had sufficient potential merit to justify the litigant’s delay in pursuing appellate review. Neither development would be desirable.
The Court of Appeals’ opinion can be read to hold that because the Government did not initially urge the argument which it made in its motion for reconsideration, that motion was not a “true” motion for reconsideration which would extend the time for appeal. But this method of analysis, too, would break down into subcategories the more general category of “motions for reconsideration” described in our previous opinions. Here, the Government’s motion before the District Court sought to “ ‘reconsider [a] question decided in the case’ in order to effect an ‘alteration of the rights adjudicated.’” Dieter, 429 U. S., at 8-9 (quoting Department of Banking of Neb. v. Pink, 317 U. S. 264, 266 (1942)). That is sufficient under Healy and Dieter.
The petition for certiorari is granted, respondent’s motion to proceed in forma pauperis is granted, the judgment of the Court of Appeals is vacated, and the case is remanded to that court for further proceedings.
It is so ordered.
Federal Rule of Appellate Procedure 4(b) provides, inter alia:
“When an appeal by the government is authorized by statute, the notice of appeal shall be filed in the district court within 30 days after the entry of (i) the judgment or order appealed from or (ii) a notice of appeal by any defendant.”
Statutory authorization for the United States to appeal a suppression order is found at 18 U. S. C. §3731:
“An appeal by the United States shall lie to a court of appeals from a decision or order of a district courts [sic] suppressing or excluding evidence.
“The appeal in all such cases shall be taken within thirty days after the decision, judgment or order has been rendered and shall be diligently prosecuted.”
The Court of Appeals’ decision discusses the issue as a matter of whether the motion for reconsideration “tolled” the 30-day period that, by assumption, began to run with the District Court’s first decision. We believe the issue is better described as whether the 30-day period began to run on the date of the first order or on the date of the order denying the motion for reconsideration, rather than as a matter of tolling. Principles of equitable tolling usually dictate that when a time bar has been suspended and then begins to run again upon a later event, the time remaining on the clock is calculated by subtracting from the full limitations period whatever time ran before the clock was stopped. See Cada v. Baxter Healthcare Corp., 920 F. 2d 446 (CA7 1990) (discussing principles of equitable tolling). Thus, in the present case for example, a motion to reconsider filed after 20 days, if it tolled the 30-day period to appeal, would leave at most only 10 days to appeal once the reconsideration motion was decided. However, we previously made clear that would-be appellants are entitled to the full 30 days after a motion to reconsider has been decided. United States v. Dieter, 429 U. S. 6, 7-8 (1976) (per curiam) (“[T]he 30-day limitation period runs from the denial of a timely petition .. . rather than from the date of the order itself”).
Two other concerns that animate the Tenth Circuit’s decision are simply inapposite to the present case. First, there is no assertion that the Government’s abandonment and reassertion of the consensual search theory was done in bad faith. We thus have no occasion to consider whether instances of bad faith might require a different result'. See United States v. Healy, 376 U. S. 75, 80, n. 4 (1964). Second, only a single motion for reconsideration was filed. We thus also have no occasion to consider whether it is appropriate to refuse to extend the time to appeal in cases in which successive motions for reconsideration are submitted. See United States v. Marsh, 700 F. 2d 1322 (CA10 1983).
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | A | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Justice SCALIAannounced the judgment of the Court and delivered an opinion, in which THE CHIEF JUSTICE and Justice THOMAS join.
Fauzia Din is a citizen and resident of the United States. Her husband, Kanishka Berashk, is an Afghan citizen and former civil servant in the Taliban regime who resides in that country. When the Government declined to issue an immigrant visa to Berashk, Din sued.
The state action of which Din complains is the denial of Berashk'svisa application. Naturally, one would expect him-not Din-to bring this suit. But because Berashk is an unadmitted and nonresident alien, he has no right of entry into the United States, and no cause of action to press in furtherance of his claim for admission. See Kleindienst v. Mandel,408 U.S. 753, 762, 92 S.Ct. 2576, 33 L.Ed.2d 683 (1972). So, Din attempts to bring suit on his behalf, alleging that the Government's denial of her husband'svisa application violated herconstitutional rights. See App. 36-37, Complaint ¶ 56. In particular, she claims that the Government denied her due process of law when, without adequate explanation of the reason for the visa denial, it deprived her of her constitutional right to live in the United States with her spouse. There is no such constitutional right. What Justice BREYER's dissent strangely describes as a "deprivation of her freedom to live together with her spouse in America," post,at 2142, is, in any world other than the artificial world of ever-expanding constitutional rights, nothing more than a deprivation of her spouse's freedom to immigrate into America.
For the reasons given in this opinion and in the opinion concurring in the judgment, we vacate and remand.
I
A
Under the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA), 66 Stat. 163, as amended, 8 U.S.C. § 1101 et seq.,an alien may not enter and permanently reside in the United States without a visa. § 1181(a). The INA creates a special visa-application process for aliens sponsored by "immediate relatives" in the United States. §§ 1151(b), 1153(a). Under this process, the citizen-relative first files a petition on behalf of the alien living abroad, asking to have the alien classified as an immediate relative. See §§ 1153(f), 1154(a)(1). If and when a petition is approved, the alien may apply for a visa by submitting the required documents and appearing at a United States Embassy or consulate for an interview with a consular officer. See §§ 1201(a)(1), 1202. Before issuing a visa, the consular officer must ensure the alien is not inadmissible under any provision of the INA. § 1361.
One ground for inadmissibility, § 1182(a)(3)(B), covers "[t]errorist activities." In addition to the violent and destructive acts the term immediately brings to mind, the INA defines "terrorist activity" to include providing material support to a terrorist organization and serving as a terrorist organization's representative. § 1182(a)(3)(B)(i), (iii)-(vi).
B
Fauzia Din came to the United States as a refugee in 2000, and became a naturalized citizen in 2007. She filed a petition to have Kanishka Berashk, whom she married in 2006, classified as her immediate relative. The petition was granted, and Berashk filed a visa application. The U.S. Embassy in Islamabad, Pakistan, interviewed Berashk and denied his application. A consular officer informed Berashk that he was inadmissible under § 1182(a)(3)(B)but provided no further explanation.
Din then brought suit in Federal District Court seeking a writ of mandamus directing the United States to properly adjudicate Berashk's visa application; a declaratory judgment that 8 U.S.C. § 1182(b)(2)-(3), which exempts the Government from providing notice to an alien found inadmissible under the terrorism bar, is unconstitutional as applied; and a declaratory judgment that the denial violated the Administrative Procedure Act. App. 36-39, Complaint ¶¶ 55-68. The District Court granted the Government's motion to dismiss, but the Ninth Circuit reversed. The Ninth Circuit concluded that Din "has a protected liberty interest in marriage that entitled [her] to review of the denial of [her] spouse's visa," 718 F.3d 856, 860 (2013), and that the Government's citation of § 1182(a)(3)(B)did not provide Din with the "limited judicial review" to which she was entitled under the Due Process Clause, id.,at 868. This Court granted certiorari. 573 U.S. ----, 135 S.Ct. 44, 189 L.Ed.2d 896 (2014).
II
The Fifth Amendment provides that "[n]o person shall be... deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law." Although the amount and quality of process that our precedents have recognized as "due" under the Clause has changed considerably since the founding, see Pacific Mut. Life Ins. Co. v. Haslip,499 U.S. 1, 28-36, 111 S.Ct. 1032, 113 L.Ed.2d 1 (1991)(SCALIA, J., concurring in judgment), it remains the case that noprocess is due if one is not deprived of "life, liberty, or property," Swarthout v. Cooke,562 U.S. 216, 219, 131 S.Ct. 859, 178 L.Ed.2d 732 (2011)(per curiam). The first question that we must ask, then, is whether the denial of Berashk's visa application deprived Din of any of these interests. Only if we answer in the affirmative must we proceed to consider whether the Government's explanation afforded sufficient process.
A
The Due Process Clause has its origin in Magna Carta. As originally drafted, the Great Charter provided that "[n]o freeman shall be taken, or imprisoned, or be disseised of his freehold, or liberties, or free customs, or be outlawed, or exiled, or any otherwise destroyed; nor will we not pass upon him, nor condemn him, but by lawful judgment of his peers, or by the law of the land." Magna Carta, ch. 29, in 1 E. Coke, The Second Part of the Institutes of the Laws of England 45 (1797) (emphasis added). The Court has recognized that at the time of the Fifth Amendment's ratification, the words "due process of law" were understood "to convey the same meaning as the words 'by the law of the land' " in Magna Carta. Murray's Lessee v. Hoboken Land & Improvement Co.,18 How. 272, 276, 15 L.Ed. 372 (1856). Although the terminology associated with the guarantee of due process changed dramatically between 1215 and 1791, the general scope of the underlying rights protected stayed roughly constant.
Edward Coke, whose Institutes "were read in the American Colonies by virtually every student of law," Klopfer v. North Carolina,386 U.S. 213, 225, 87 S.Ct. 988, 18 L.Ed.2d 1 (1967), thoroughly described the scope of the interests that could be deprived only pursuant to "the law of the land." Magna Carta, he wrote, ensured that, without due process, "no man [may] be taken or imprisoned"; "disseised of his lands, or tenements, or dispossessed of his goods, or chattels"; "put from his livelihood without answer"; "barred to have the benefit of the law"; denied "the franchises, and priviledges, which the subjects have of the gift of the king"; "exiled"; or "forejudged of life, or limbe, disherited, or put to torture, or death." 1 Coke, supra,at 46-48. Blackstone's description of the rights protected by Magna Carta is similar, although he discusses them in terms much closer to the "life, liberty, or property" terminology used in the Fifth Amendment. He described first an interest in "personal security," "consist[ing] in a person's legal and uninterrupted enjoyment of his life, his limbs, his body, his health, and his reputation." 1 W. Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England 125 (1769). Second, the "personal liberty of individuals" "consist[ed] in the power of locomotion, of changing situation, or removing one's person to whatsoever place one's own inclination may direct; without imprisonment or restraint." Id.,at 130. And finally, a person's right to property included "the free use, enjoyment, and disposal of all his acquisitions." Id.,at 134.
Din, of course, could not conceivably claim that the denial of Berashk's visa application deprived her-or for that matter even Berashk-of life or property; and under the above described historical understanding, a claim that it deprived her of liberty is equally absurd. The Government has not "taken or imprisoned" Din, nor has it "confine[d]" her, either by "keeping [her] against h[er] will in a private house, putting h[er] in the stocks, arresting or forcibly detaining h[er] in the street." Id.,at 132. Indeed, not even Berashk has suffered a deprivation of liberty so understood.
B
Despite this historical evidence, this Court has seen fit on several occasions to expand the meaning of "liberty" under the Due Process Clause to include certain implied "fundamental rights." (The reasoning presumably goes like this: If you have a right to do something, you are free to do it, and deprivation of freedom is a deprivation of "liberty"-never mind the original meaning of that word in the Due Process Clause.) These implied rights have been given moreprotection than "life, liberty, or property" properly understood. While one may be dispossessed of property, thrown in jail, or even executed so long as proper procedures are followed, the enjoyment of implied constitutional rights cannot be limited at all, except by provisions that are "narrowly tailored to serve a compelling state interest." Reno v. Flores,507 U.S. 292, 301-302, 113 S.Ct. 1439, 123 L.Ed.2d 1 (1993). Din does not explicitly argue that the Government has violated this absolute prohibition of the substantivecomponent of the Due Process Clause, likely because it is obvious that a law barring aliens engaged in terrorist activities from entering this country isnarrowly tailored to serve a compelling state interest. She nevertheless insists that, because enforcement of the law affects her enjoyment of an implied fundamental liberty, the Government must first provide her a full battery of procedural-due-process protections.
I think it worth explaining why, even ifone accepts the textually unsupportable doctrine of implied fundamental rights, Din's arguments would fail. Because "extending constitutional protection to an asserted right or liberty interest... place[s] the matter outside the arena of public debate and legislative action," Washington v. Glucksberg,521 U.S. 702, 720, 117 S.Ct. 2258, 138 L.Ed.2d 772 (1997), and because the "guideposts for responsible decisionmaking in this unchartered area are scarce and open-ended," Collins v. Harker Heights,503 U.S. 115, 125, 112 S.Ct. 1061, 117 L.Ed.2d 261 (1992), "[t]he doctrine of judicial self-restraint requires us to exercise the utmost care whenever we are asked to break new ground in this field," ibid.Accordingly, before conferring constitutional status upon a previously unrecognized "liberty," we have required "a careful description of the asserted fundamental liberty interest," as well as a demonstration that the interest is "objectively, deeply rooted in this Nation's history and tradition, and implicit in the concept of ordered liberty, such that neither liberty nor justice would exist if [it was] sacrificed." Glucksberg, supra,at 720-721, 117 S.Ct. 2258(citations and internal quotation marks omitted).
Din describes the denial of Berashk's visa application as implicating, alternately, a "liberty interest in her marriage," Brief for Respondent 28, a "right of association with one's spouse," id.,at 18, "a liberty interest in being reunited with certain blood relatives," id.,at 22, and "the liberty interest of a U.S. citizen under the Due Process Clause to be free from arbitrary restrictions on his right to live with his spouse," ibid.To be sure, this Court has at times indulged a propensity for grandiloquence when reviewing the sweep of implied rights, describing them so broadly that they would include not only the interests Din asserts but many others as well. For example: "Without doubt, [the liberty guaranteed by the Due Process Clause] denotes not merely freedom from bodily restraint but also the right of the individual to contract, to engage in any of the common occupations of life, to acquire useful knowledge, to marry, establish a home and bring up children, [and] to worship God according to the dictates of his own conscience" Meyer v. Nebraska,262 U.S. 390, 399, 43 S.Ct. 625, 67 L.Ed. 1042 (1923). But this Court is not bound by dicta, especially dicta that have been repudiated by the holdings of our subsequent cases. And the actual holdings of the cases Din relies upon hardly establish the capacious right she now asserts.
Unlike the States in Loving v. Virginia,388 U.S. 1, 87 S.Ct. 1817, 18 L.Ed.2d 1010 (1967), Zablocki v. Redhail,434 U.S. 374, 98 S.Ct. 673, 54 L.Ed.2d 618 (1978), and Turner v. Safley,482 U.S. 78, 107 S.Ct. 2254, 96 L.Ed.2d 64 (1987), the Federal Government here has not attempted to forbid a marriage. Although Din and the dissent borrow language from those cases invoking a fundamental right to marriage, they both implicitly concede that no such right has been infringed in this case. Din relies on the "associational interests in marriage that necessarily are protected by the right to marry," and that are "presuppose[d]" by later cases establishing a right to marital privacy. Brief for Respondent 16, 18. The dissent supplements the fundamental right to marriage with a fundamental right to live in the United States in order to find an affected liberty interest. Post,at 2142 - 2143 (BREYER, J., dissenting).
Attempting to abstract from these cases some liberty interest that might be implicated by Berashk's visa denial, Din draws on even more inapposite cases. Meyer,for example, invalidated a state statute proscribing the teaching of foreign language to children who had not yet passed the eighth grade, reasoning that it violated the teacher's "right thus to teach and the right of parents to engage him so to instruct their children." 262 U.S., at 400, 43 S.Ct. 625. Pierce v. Society of Sisters, 268 U.S. 510, 534-535, 45 S.Ct. 571, 69 L.Ed. 1070 (1925), extended Meyer,finding that a law requiring children to attend public schools "interferes with the liberty of parents and guardians to direct the upbringing and education of children under their control." Moore v. East Cleveland, 431 U.S. 494, 505-506, 97 S.Ct. 1932, 52 L.Ed.2d 531 (1977), extended this interest in raising children to caretakers in a child's extended family, striking down an ordinance that limited occupancy of a single-family house to members of a nuclear family on the ground that "[d]ecisions concerning child rearing... long have been shared with grandparents or other relatives." And Griswold v. Connecticut,381 U.S. 479, 485, 85 S.Ct. 1678, 14 L.Ed.2d 510 (1965), concluded that a law criminalizing the use of contraceptives by married couples violated "penumbral rights of 'privacy and repose' " protecting "the sacred precincts of the marital bedroom"-rights which do not plausibly extend into the offices of our consulates abroad.
Nothing in the cases Din cites establishes a free-floating and categorical liberty interest in marriage (or any other formulation Din offers) sufficient to trigger constitutional protection whenever a regulation in any way touches upon an aspect of the marital relationship. Even if our cases could be construed so broadly, the relevant question is not whether the asserted interest "is consistent with this Court's substantive-due-process line of cases," but whether it is supported by "this Nation's history and practice." Glucksberg,521 U.S., at 723-724, 117 S.Ct. 2258(emphasis deleted). Even if we might "imply" a liberty interest in marriage generally speaking, that must give way when there is a tradition denying the specific application of that general interest. Thus, Glucksbergrejected a claimed liberty interest in "self-sovereignty" and "personal autonomy" that extended to assisted suicide when there was a longstanding tradition of outlawing the practice of suicide. Id.,at 724, 727-728, 117 S.Ct. 2258(internal quotation marks omitted).
Here, a long practice of regulating spousal immigration precludes Din's claim that the denial of Berashk's visa application has deprived her of a fundamental liberty interest. Although immigration was effectively unregulated prior to 1875, as soon as Congress began legislating in this area it enacted a complicated web of regulations that erected serious impediments to a person's ability to bring a spouse into the United States. See Abrams, What Makes the Family Special? 80 U. Chi. L. Rev. 7, 10-16 (2013).
Most strikingly, perhaps, the Expatriation Act of 1907 provided that "any American woman who marries a foreigner shall take the nationality of her husband." Ch. 2534, 34 Stat. 1228. Thus, a woman in Din's position not only lacked a liberty interest that might be affected by the Government's disposition of her husband's visa application, she lost her ownrights as a citizen upon marriage. When Congress began to impose quotas on immigration by country of origin less than 15 years later, with the Immigration Act of 1921, it omitted fiances and husbands from the family relations eligible for preferred status in the allocation of quota spots. § 2(d), 42 Stat. 6. Such relations were similarly excluded from the relations eligible for nonquota status, when that status was expanded three years later. Immigration Act of 1924, § 4(a), 43 Stat. 155.
To be sure, these early regulations were premised on the derivative citizenship of women, a legacy of the law of coverture that was already in decline at the time. C. Bredbenner, A Nationality of Her Own 5 (1998). Modern equal-protection doctrine casts substantial doubt on the permissibility of such asymmetric treatment of women citizens in the immigration context, and modern moral judgment rejects the premises of such a legal order. Nevertheless, this all-too-recent practice repudiates any contention that Din's asserted liberty interest is "deeply rooted in this Nation's history and tradition, and implicit in the concept of ordered liberty." Glucksberg, supra,at 720, 117 S.Ct. 2258(citations and internal quotations marks omitted).
Indeed, the law showed little more solicitude for the marital relationship when it was a male resident or citizen seeking admission for his fiancee or wife. The Immigration Act of 1921 granted nonquota status only to unmarried, minor children of citizens, § 2(a), while granting fiancees and wives preferred status withinthe allocation of quota spots, § 2(d). In other words, a citizen could move his spouse forward in the line, but once all the quota spots were filled for the year, the spouse was barred without exception. This was not just a theoretical possibility: As one commentator has observed, "[f]or many immigrants, the family categories did little to help, because the quotas were so small that the number of family members seeking slots far outstripped the number available." Abrams, supra,at 13.
Although Congress has tended to show "a continuing and kindly concern... for the unity and the happiness of the immigrant family," E. Hutchinson, Legislative History of American Immigration Policy 1798-1965, p. 518 (1981), this has been a matter of legislative grace rather than fundamental right. Even where Congress has provided special privileges to promote family immigration, it has also "written in careful checks and qualifications." Ibid.This Court has consistently recognized that these various distinctions are "policy questions entrusted exclusively to the political branches of our Government, and we have no judicial authority to substitute our political judgment for that of the Congress." Fiallo v. Bell,430 U.S. 787, 798, 97 S.Ct. 1473, 52 L.Ed.2d 50 (1977). Only by diluting the meaning of a fundamental liberty interest and jettisoning our established jurisprudence could we conclude that the denial of Berashk's visa application implicates any of Din's fundamental liberty interests.
C
Justice BREYER suggests that procedural due process rights attach to liberty interests that either are (1) created by nonconstitutional law, such as a statute, or (2) "sufficiently important" so as to "flow 'implicit[ly]' from the design, object, and nature of the Due Process Clause." Post,at 2142.
The first point is unobjectionable, at least given this Court's case law. See, e.g., Goldberg v. Kelly,397 U.S. 254, 262, and n. 8, 90 S.Ct. 1011, 25 L.Ed.2d 287 (1970); Collins,503 U.S., at 129, 112 S.Ct. 1061. But it is unhelpful to Din, who does not argue that a statute confers on her a liberty interest protected by the Due Process Clause. Justice BREYER attempts to make this argument for Din, latching onto language in Wilkinson v. Austin,545 U.S. 209, 221, 125 S.Ct. 2384, 162 L.Ed.2d 174 (2005), saying that a liberty interest "may arise from an expectation or interest created by state laws or policies." Such an "expectation" has been created here, he asserts, because "the law... surrounds marriage with a host of legal protections to the point that it creates a strong expectation that government will not deprive married individuals of their freedom to live together without strong reasons and (in individual cases) without fair procedure," post,at 2143. But what Wilkinsonmeant by an "expectation or interest" was not that sort of judicially unenforceable substantial hope, but a present and legally recognized substantive entitlement.As sole support for its conclusion that nonconstitutional law can create constitutionally protected liberty interests, Wilkinsoncited Wolff v. McDonnell,418 U.S. 539, 556-558, 94 S.Ct. 2963, 41 L.Ed.2d 935 (1974), which held that a prisoner could not be deprived of statutory good-time credit without procedural due process. That was not because a prisoner might have " 'a strong expectation' " that the government would not deprive him of good-time credit " 'without strong reasons' " or " 'fair procedure,' " but because "the State itself has not only provided a statutory rightto good time [credit] but also specifies that it is to be forfeited onlyfor serious misbehavior," id.,at 557, 94 S.Ct. 2963(emphasis added). The legal benefits afforded to marriages and the preferential treatment accorded to visa applicants with citizen relatives are insufficient to confer on Din a right that can be deprived only pursuant to procedural due process.
Justice BREYER's second point-that procedural due process rights attach even to some nonfundamental liberty interests that have notbeen created by statute-is much more troubling. He relies on the implied-fundamental-rights cases discussed above to divine a "right of spouses to live together and to raise a family," along with "a citizen's right to live within this country." Post,at 2142. But perhaps recognizing that our established methodology for identifying fundamental rights cuts against his conclusion, see Part II-B, supra,he argues that the term "liberty" in the Due Process Clause includes implied rights that, although not so fundamental as to deserve substantive-due-process protection, are important enough to deserve procedural-due-process protection. Post,at 2142. In other words, there are two categories of implied rights protected by the Due Process Clause: really fundamental rights, which cannot be taken away at all absent a compelling state interest; and not-so-fundamental rights, which can be taken away so long as procedural due process is observed.
The dissent fails to cite a single case supporting its novel theory of implied nonfundamental rights. It is certainly true that Vitek v. Jones,445 U.S. 480, 100 S.Ct. 1254, 63 L.Ed.2d 552 (1980), and Washington v. Harper,494 U.S. 210, 110 S.Ct. 1028, 108 L.Ed.2d 178 (1990), do not entail implied fundamentalrights, but this is because they do not entail impliedrights at all. Vitekconcerned the involuntary commitment of a prisoner, deprivation of the expressly protected right of liberty under the original understanding of the term, see Part II-A, supra. " 'Among the historic liberties' protected by the Due Process Clause is the 'right to be free from, and to obtain judicial relief for, unjustified intrusions on personal security.' " Vitek, supra,at 492, 100 S.Ct. 1254. The same is true of Harper,which concerned forced administration of psychotropic drugs to an inmate. 494 U.S., at 214, 110 S.Ct. 1028. Arguably, Paul v. Davis,424 U.S. 693, 96 S.Ct. 1155, 47 L.Ed.2d 405 (1976), also addressed an interest expressly contemplated within the meaning of "liberty." See 1 W. Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England 125 ("The right of personal security consists in a person's... reputation"). But that case is of no help to the dissent anyway, since it found no liberty interest entitled to the Due Process Clause's protection. Paul, supra,at 713-714, 96 S.Ct. 1155. Finally, the dissent points to Goss v. Lopez,419 U.S. 565, 574, 95 S.Ct. 729, 42 L.Ed.2d 725 (1975), a case that "recognize[d]... as a property interest" a student's right to a public education conferred by Ohio's express statutory creation of a public school system; and further concluded that the student's 10-day suspension implicated the constitutionally grounded liberty interest in " 'a person's good name, reputation, honor, or integrity.' "
Ultimately, the dissent identifies no case holding that there is an implied nonfundamental right protected by procedural due process, and only one case even suggestingthat there is. That suggestion, in Smith v. Organization of Foster Families For Equality & Reform,431 U.S. 816, 97 S.Ct. 2094, 53 L.Ed.2d 14 (1977), is contained in dictum in a footnote, id.,at 842, n. 48, 97 S.Ct. 2094. The holding of the case was that "the procedures provided by New York State... and by New York Cit[y]... are adequate to protect whateverliberty interests appellees mayhave." Id.,at 856, 97 S.Ct. 2094(emphasis added).
The footnoted dictum that Justice BREYER proposes to elevate to constitutional law is a dangerous doctrine. It vastly expands the scope of our implied-rights jurisprudence by setting it free from the requirement that the liberty interest be "objectively, deeply rooted in this Nation's history and tradition, and implicit in the concept of ordered liberty," Glucksberg,521 U.S., at 720-721, 117 S.Ct. 2258(internal quotation marks omitted). Even shallow-rooted liberties would, thanks to this new procedural-rights-only notion of quasi-fundamental rights, qualify for judicially imposed procedural requirements. Moreover, Justice BREYER gives no basis for distinguishing the fundamental rights recognized in the cases he depends on from the nonfundamentalright he believes they give rise to in the present case.
Neither Din's right to live with her spouse nor her right to live within this country is implicated here. There is a "simple distinction between government action that directly affects a citizen's legal rights, or imposes a direct restraint on his liberty, and action that is directed against a third party and affects the citizen only indirectly or incidentally." O'Bannon v. Town Court Nursing Center,447 U.S. 773, 788, 100 S.Ct. 2467, 65 L.Ed.2d 506 (1980). The Government has not refused to recognize Din's marriage to Berashk, and Din remains free to live with her husband anywhere in the world that both individuals are permitted to reside. And the Government has not expelled Din from the country. It has simply determined that Kanishka Berashk engaged in terrorist activities within the meaning of the Immigration and Nationality Act, and has therefore denied him admission into the country. This might, indeed, deprive Din of something "important," post, at 2142, but if that is the criterion for Justice BREYER's new pairing of substantive and procedural due process, we are in for quite a ride.
* * *
Because Fauzia Din was not deprived of "life, liberty, or property" when the Government denied Kanishka Berashk admission to the United States, there is no process due to her under the Constitution. To the extent that she received any explanation for the Government's decision, this was more than the Due Process Clause required. The judgment of the Ninth Circuit is vacated, and the case is remanded for further proceedings.
It is so ordered.
Justice KENNEDY, with whom Justice ALITOjoins, concurring in the judgment.
The respondent, Fauzia Din, is a citizen and resident of the United States. She asserts that petitioner Government officials (collectively, Government) violated her own constitutional right to live in this country with her husband, an alien now residing in Afghanistan. She contends this violation occurred when the Government, through State Department consular officials, denied her spouse's immigrant visa application with no explanation other than that the denial was based on 8 U.S.C. § 1182(a)(3)(B), the statutory provision prohibiting the issuance of visas to persons who engage in terrorist activities.
The plurality is correct that the case must be vacated and remanded. But rather than deciding, as the plurality does, whether Din has a protected liberty interest, my view is that, even assuming she does, the notice she received regarding her husband's visa denial satisfied due process.
Today's disposition should not be interpreted as deciding whether a citizen has a protected liberty interest in the visa application of her alien spouse. The Court need not decide that issue, for this Court's precedents instruct that, even assuming she has such an interest, the Government satisfied due process when it notified Din's husband that his visa was denied under the immigration statute's terrorism bar, § 1182(a)(3)(B). See ante,at 2131 - 2132.
I
The conclusion that Din received all the process to which she was entitled finds its most substantial instruction in the Court's decision in Kleindienst v. Mandel,408 U.S. 753, 92 S.Ct. 2576, 33 L.Ed.2d 683 (1972). There, college professors-all of them citizens-had invited Dr. Ernest Mandel, a self-described "'revolutionary Marxist,' " to speak at a conference at Stanford University. Id.,at 756, 92 S.Ct. 2576. Yet when Mandel applied for a temporary nonimmigrant visa to enter the country, he was denied. At the time, the immigration laws deemed aliens "who advocate[d] the economic, international, and governmental doctrines of World communism" ineligible for visas. § 1182(a)(28)(D) (1964 ed.). Aliens ineligible under this provision did have one opportunity for recourse: The Attorney General was given discretion to waive the prohibition and grant individual exceptions, allowing the alien to obtain a temporary visa. § 1182(d)(3). For Mandel, however, the Attorney General, acting through the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS), declined to grant a waiver. In a letter regarding this decision, the INS explained Mandel had exceeded the scope and terms of temporary visas on past trips to the United States, which the agency deemed a " 'flagrant abuse of the opportunities afforded him to express his views in this country.' " 408 U.S., at 759, 92 S.Ct. 2576.
The professors who had invited Mandel to speak challenged the INS' decision, asserting a First Amendment right to " 'hear his views and engage him in a free and open academic exchange.' " Id.,at 760, 92 S.Ct. 2576. They claimed the Attorney General infringed this right when he refused to grant Mandel relief. See ibid.
The Court declined to balance the First Amendment interest of the professors against "Congress' 'plenary power to make rules for the admission of aliens and to exclude those who possess those characteristics which Congress has forbidden.' " Id.,at 766, 768, 92 S.Ct. 2576(citation omitted). To do so would require "courts in each case... to weigh the strength of the audience's interest against that of the Government in refusing a [visa] to the particular applicant," a nuanced and difficult decision Congress had "properly... placed in the hands of the Executive." Id.,at 769, 92 S.Ct. 2576.
Instead, the Court limited its inquiry to the question whether the Government had provided a "facially legitimate and bona fide" reason for its action. Id.,at 770, 92 S.Ct. 2576. Finding the Government had proffered such a reason-Mandel's abuse of past visas-the Court ended its inquiry and found the Attorney General's action to be lawful. See ibid.The Court emphasized it did not address "[w]hat First Amendment or other grounds may be available for attacking an exercise of discretion for which no justification whatsoever is advanced." Ibid.
The reasoning and the holding in Mandelcontrol here. That decision was based upon due consideration of the congressional power to make rules for the exclusion of aliens, and the ensuing power to delegate authority to the Attorney General to exercise substantial discretion in that field. Mandelheld that an executive officer's decision denying a visa that burdens a citizen's own constitutional rights is valid when it is made "on the basis of a facially legitimate and bona fide reason." Id., at
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | 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 Rutledge
delivered the opinion of the Court.
In United States v. Scophony Corp., 333 U. S. 795, we recently considered the meaning and effect of § 12 of the Clayton Act, providing for venue and service of process in civil antitrust proceedings against private corporations. This case brings before us another phase of the section’s effect in like proceedings. The principal question, and the only one we find it necessary to consider, is whether the choice of forums given to the plaintiff by § 12 is subject to qualification by judicial application of the doctrine of jorum non conveniens.
The suit was brought by the United States against nine corporations for alleged violation of §§ 1 and 2 of the Sherman Act. 26 Stat. 209, 15 U. S. C. §§ 1, 2. The basic charge is that the appellees conspired to acquire control of local transportation companies in numerous cities located in widely different parts of the United States, and to restrain and monopolize interstate commerce in motorbusses, petroleum supplies, tires and tubes sold to those companies, contrary to the Act’s prohibitions. Injunctive and other relief of an equitable nature was sought.
The appellees filed various motions, including the one involved in this appeal. It sought dismissal of the complaint on the ground that the District Court for the Southern District of California was not a convenient forum for the trial. This motion was supported by a showing not only of inconvenience to the defendants of trial in the California district, but also that the District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division (Chicago), would be the most convenient forum for them. The showing was by affidavits, executed by officers, attorneys and employees of the corporate defendants. Counteraffidavits were filed in opposition on behalf of the Government.
After oral argument, the District Court filed findings of fact and conclusions of law together with a written opinion, substantially accepting appellees’ showing and sustaining the motion. 7 F. R. D. 456. Accordingly it entered judgment dismissing the complaint, but without prejudice to the institution of a similar suit against the named defendants “in a more appropriate and convenient forum.” This decision is brought to us for review on direct appeal pursuant to the statutes applicable in such cases.
It is not disputed that the District Court has jurisdiction in the basic sense of power to hear and determine the cause or that it has venue within the provisions of § 12. Nor can it be questioned that any of the defendants can be brought personally within that court’s jurisdiction by service of process made in accordance with the provisions of either § 12, or those of § 5 of the Sherman Act. The only question presented concerning the court’s power is whether, having jurisdiction and venue of the cause and personal jurisdiction of the defendants, the court also was authorized to decline to exercise its jurisdiction upon finding, without abuse of discretion, that the forum was not a convenient one within the scope of the non-statutory doctrine commonly, though not too accurately, labeled jorum non conveniens.
It would serve no useful purpose to review in detail the reasoning or the authorities upon which the District Court ruled the doctrine applicable in such cases as this, or therefore the further groundings upon which it proceeded in holding the forum inconvenient. For the view has prevailed without qualification during the life of § 12, thirty-four years, that the choice of venues expressly given to the plaintiff is not to be qualified by any power of a court having venue under any of the section’s alternatives to decline to exercise the jurisdiction conferred. None of the decisions on which the District Court relied suggested, much less decided, that such a power exists. This therefore is a case of first impression, seeking departure from long-established practice. Moreover, the analogies drawn from other types of cases in which the doctrine has been applied cannot survive in the face of the section’s explicit terms and the patent intent of Congress in enacting it.
In the Scophony case we gave attention to the history of § 12, which as there related is as pertinent to the question now presented as it was to the issues then under consideration. Reference to the Scophony opinion, Part I, 333 U. S. at 802-810, will avoid the necessity for repeating the history here in extenso. But its present applicability will be accentuated by recalling that we reaffirmed the ruling in Eastman Co. v. Southern Photo Co., 273 U. S. 359, namely, that § 12 of the Clayton Act had enlarged the venue provision of § 7 of the Sherman Act, with the intent and effect to give the plaintiff the right to bring antitrust proceedings not only in the districts where the corporate defendant “resides or is found,” as § 7 had authorized, but also “in any district wherein it... transacts business.”
In the Eastman case, as the Scophony opinion emphasized, the Court had rejected the argument that the addition of “or transacts business” was no more than a redundant reformulation of “is found”; instead it gave the added words broader and less technical meaning than “is found” had acquired under prior decisions. This was done, as the Eastman opinion stated, because accepting the contrary view would have rendered the addition meaningless and defeated the plain remedial purpose of § 12. 273 U. S. at 373. That section, the Court held, supplemented “the remedial provision of the Anti-Trust Act for the redress of injuries resulting from illegal restraints upon interstate trade, by relieving the injured person from the necessity of resorting for the redress of wrongs committed by a non-resident corporation, to a district, however distant, in which it resides or may be 'found’ — often an insuperable obstacle — and enabling him to institute the suit in a district, frequently that of his own residence, in which the corporation in fact transacts business, and bring it before the court by the service of process in a district in which it resides or may be ‘found.’ ” (Emphasis added.) 273 U. S. at 373-374.
The Scophony opinion reaffirmed this view: “Thus, by substituting practical, business conceptions for the previous hair-splitting legal technicalities encrusted upon the ‘found’-'present’-'carrying-on-business’ sequence, the Court yielded to and made effective Congress’ remedial purpose. Thereby it relieved persons injured through corporate violations of the antitrust laws from the ‘often insuperable obstacle’ of resorting to distant forums for redress of wrongs done in the places of their business or residence. A foreign corporation no longer could come to a district, perpetrate there the injuries outlawed, and then by retreating or even without retreating to its headquarters defeat or delay the retribution due.” 333 U. S. at 808.
These conclusions concerning the section’s intent and effect are altogether inconsistent with any idea that the defendant corporation can defeat the plaintiff’s choice of venue as given, by asking for and securing dismissal of the suit, either on the ground that the venue selected within the statutory limits is inconvenient for the defendant or that another authorized venue is more convenient for it.
No such discretionary power had been exercised by any court during the twenty years of the Sherman Act’s application prior to the enactment of § 12, under the narrower range of choice afforded by § 7. None had been suggested, and uniform practice had established that the plaintiff’s choice was conclusive, as was true later under § 12 until the deviation in this case.
When therefore Congress came to face the problem of making the nation’s antitrust policy more effective through the Clayton Act’s provisions, that body was not confronted with any problem of abuse by plaintiffs in selecting venue for antitrust suits; nor was it concerned with any question of providing means by which the defendants in such suits might defeat the plaintiff’s choice to serve their own convenience. Congress’ concern was quite the opposite. It was to provide broader and more effective relief, both substantively and procedurally, for persons injured by violations of its antitrust policy. Insofar as convenience in bringing suit and conducting trial was involved, the purpose was to make these less inconvenient for plaintiffs or, as was said in the Eastman opinion, to remove the “often insuperable obstacle” thrown in their way by the existing venue restrictions.
To have broadened the choice of venue for the reasons which brought about that action, only to have it narrowed again by application of the vague and discretionary power comprehended by jorum non conveniens, would have been incongruous, to say the least. In making the change Congress did not authorize plaintiffs to institute civil antitrust suits in the newly specified districts, merely in order to have them transferred back for trial to one of the districts comprehended by § 7. It intended trial to take place in the district specified by the statute and selected by the plaintiff.
This conclusion is supported as strongly by the history of the legislative proceedings relating to the enactment of § 12 as by the foregoing judicial constructions. Section 7 of the Sherman Act had limited venue, as we have noted, to districts in which the defendant “resides or is found.” As originally introduced in the House, two sections of the Clayton Act, §§ 4 (then § 5) and 12 (then § 10), perpetuated those provisions. During discussion on the floor, however, various Representatives demanded broader choice of venue for plaintiffs. The demand related to both sections, and the discussion went forward now with reference to one, now the other, now both.
The basic aim of the advocates of change was to give the plaintiff the right to bring suit and have it tried in the district where the defendant had committed violations of the Act and inflicted the forbidden injuries. At first they were not much concerned with the exact formulation of the language to accomplish this, several formulas being proposed from time to time. But they were convinced that restricting the choice of venue to districts in which the defendant “resides or is found” was not adequate to assure that the suit could be brought where the cause of action arose, and therefore insisted on change in order to assure that result.
The committee sponsoring the bill had no objection to this purpose; indeed its members expressly approved it. But at first they opposed any amendment, because they thought the object fully achieved by the words “is found.” Over this difference the discussion went forward, as well as over various formulations of the proposed addition. Some were broader than was necessary to achieve the primary aim. Indeed some were so broad that committee members thought their inclusion would jeopardize passage of the entire bill.
To avoid this result and to satisfy those who insisted on amendment, the committee yielded and proposed a substitute amendment for one of those offered from the floor relating to § 4. The committee substitute added the words “or has an agent” after “is found” in the original committee version. 51 Cong. Rec. 9466. This amendment passed the House and later the Senate unchanged. Id. 9467. Section 4 thus became law in its present form, for the limited class of cases covered by its terms. Cf. note 18.
Since however the amendment affected only § 4, the problem concerning § 12 remained unresolved. Suggestions therefore were made at once for amending § 12 to bring it into conformity with § 4. Id. 9467, 9607. Although other proposals were again put forward, id. 9607, the conforming amendment was adopted by the House. Ibid.
After the bill passed the House, it was referred to the Senate Committee on the Judiciary. That committee reported it out with § 12 altered by the substitution of “or transacts business” in place of “or has an agent,” but leaving the latter clause in § 4 untouched. The Senate committee reports and the debates in that body throw little light upon the reasons underlying the committee’s alteration of § 12 and its failure to alter § 4 so as to make them uniform, except for the general statement that § 12 as reported “concerns the venue or the place where suits to enforce the antitrust laws against corporations may be brought and liberalizes the Sherman law to some extent upon this subject.” The bill finally passed the Senate with § 12 substantially as it was reported by the Committee on the Judiciary, and went to conference in that form. In conference the Senate version of § 12 prevailed over that of the House, and the bill was so enacted.
The short outcome was that Congress expanded the venue provisions of the Sherman Act, § 7, in two ways, viz: (1) by adding to “resides or is found,” in § 4 of the Clayton Act, the words “or has an agent”; (2) in § 12 by adding “or transacts business.” Thus strict uniformity in the two sections’ venue provisions was not achieved. But whatever their differences may be, each addition was designed to aid plaintiffs by giving them a wider choice of venues, and thereby to secure a more effective, because more convenient, enforcement of antitrust prohibitions.
Moreover the discussions in Congress, particularly in the House, disclose no other thought than that the choice of forums was given as a matter of right, not as one limited by judicial discretion. There was, in fact, common agreement upon this among both the advocates and the opponents of amendment. No one suggested that the courts would have discretionary power to decline to exercise the jurisdiction conferred. But since it was universally agreed that the choice of venue, to whatever extent it might be conferred, was to be given as a matter of right, several of the broader amendments were opposed and defeated as going too far.
Congress therefore was not indifferent to possibilities of abuse involved in the various proposals for change. Exactly the opposite was true. For the broader proposals were not rejected because they gave the plaintiff the choice. They were rejected because the choice given was too wide, giving plaintiffs the power to bring suit and force trial in districts far removed from the places where the company was incorporated, had its headquarters, or carried on its business. In adopting § 12 Congress was not willing to give plaintiffs free rein to haul defendants hither and yon at their caprice. 51. Cong. Rec. 9466, 9467. But neither was it willing to allow defendants to hamper or defeat effective enforcement by claiming immunity to suit in the districts where by a course of conduct they had violated the Act with the resulting outlawed consequences. In framing § 12 to include those districts at the plaintiffs’ election, Congress thus had in mind not only their convenience but also the defendant company’s inconvenience, and fixed the limits within which each could claim advantage in venue and beyond which neither could seek it. Moreover, in § 12, though not in § 4, the right of choice conferred was given designedly to the Government as well as to private suitors.
In the face of this history we cannot say that room was left for judicial discretion to apply the doctrine of forum non conveniens so as to deprive the plaintiff of the choice given by the section. That result, as other courts have concluded, would be utterly inconsistent with the purpose of Congress in conferring the broader range of choice. Tivoli Realty v. Interstate Circuit, 167 F. 2d 155; Ferguson v. Ford Motor Co., 77 F. Supp. 425.
In this view of Congress’ action, numerous considerations of policy urged by the appellees as supporting the discretionary power’s existence and applicability become irrelevant. Congress’ mandate regarding venue and the exercise of jurisdiction is binding upon the federal courts. Const. Art. Ill, § 2. Our general power to supervise the administration of justice in the federal courts, cf. McNabb v. United States, 318 U. S. 332, does not extend to disregarding a validly enacted and applicable statute or permitting departure from it, even in such matters as venue.
It is true that the appellees made a strong showing of inconvenience, albeit by interested persons, when that matter is considered on their presentation alone. On the other hand, the Government advanced strong reasons, apart from the question of power, for not applying the doctrine. But in the view we take of § 12, we need not consider whether the appellees’ showing on the facts sufficiently outweighed that of the Government to justify dismissal.
Two important policy considerations were advanced by the Government, however, which not only bear strongly upon that question but affect the question of power, if Congress had not concluded it. The first is that permitting the application of jorum non conveniens to antitrust cases inevitably would lengthen litigation already overextended in the time required for its final disposition, and thus would violate Congress’ declared policy of expediting this type of litigation.
The argument has merit to support the conclusion we have reached upon the statute. Antitrust suits, even with all the expedition afforded them, are notoriously though often perhaps unavoidably long drawn out. The more complex and important cases seldom require less than three to five years to conclude, except possibly where consent decrees are entered. Often the time necessary or taken is much longer. To inject into this over lengthened procedure what would amount to an additional preliminary trial and review upon the convenience of the forum could not but add approximately another year or longer to the time essential for disposing of the cases, indeed for reaching the merits. Although some instances of inconvenience to defendants will arise from the absence of discretionary power, that will be unavoidably true in almost any event. And it may well be doubted that the sum total of inconvenience and injustice resulting will be as great as would follow, for both private plaintiffs and the public, from allowing the inescapable delay-incident to the exercise of such a discretionary power. For once the power were found to exist, it is more than likely that injection of the issue would become a common incident of antitrust suits, and create the disadvantage of delay for all concerned.
This consideration is reinforced by another, namely, the difficulty of applying the doctrine in cases such as this, in which the violations charged are nationwide or nearly so in scope and effect, and the defendants are numerous companies widely scattered in the location of their places of incorporation, principal offices, and places of carrying on business and participating in the scheme. In such a case dismissal in one authorized district cannot reinstate or transfer the cause to another. Nor can the court, within the limits of the doctrine, specify the district in which the case shall be reinstituted and tried. It can only terminate the pending proceeding, as was done here, without prejudice to commencement of a like suit “in a more appropriate or convenient forum,” with whatever consequences may follow from having to begin all over again.
Further, when that is done, the result well may be in some instances to have the action commenced again, only to precipitate the same issue and consequent delay in the second forum. Conceivably this could occur from forum to forum in succession, depending upon the number of corporations named as defendants and the variety, proximity, and degree of concentration of the locations of their principal offices, places of business, and the relative advantages of other available forums for the variously situated defendants. Accordingly, in an unknown number of such cases the practical result well might be to establish a merry-go-round of litigation upon the issue, which could be used to defer indefinitely consideration of the merits. The very possibility of such a tactic would greatly hamper the institution as well as the conclusion of antitrust proceedings. Indeed, for cases of this complex type, the uncertainty concerning the outcome of an effort to apply the doctrine might go far toward defeating the Act's effective application to the most serious and widespread offenses and offenders.
Further, even if it is taken that the appellees’ activities constituting the core of the violations charged were as fully concentrated in or near the Illinois district as ap-pellees claim, such a concentration might or might not exist in other like proceedings. And in the latter event the problem of selecting the appropriate forum well might become a highly uncertain and difficult one.
The appellees also strongly urge two other considerations which deserve mention. One is that a criminal prosecution against the appellees (together with seven individuals, officers of some of them), pending in the California district simultaneously with this cause and growing out of substantially the same transactions, had been transferred to the Illinois district shortly before the District Court entered its judgment of dismissal. The transfer was ordered pursuant to Rule 21 (b) of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure. That action was taken after the District Court had made findings of fact and conclusions of law founded upon and substantially adopting the appellees’ showing, which was practically identical with their showing in this case. Consequently, as the cases now stand, the criminal cause is to be tried in the Illinois district while this civil suit founded upon practically the same transactions and affecting the same corporate defendants is to be tried in the California district.
Great emphasis is placed upon this as an impelling reason for holding jorum non conveniens applicable here, and then sustaining the order of dismissal under that doctrine and the District Court’s findings. But, for the reasons above stated, we think the matter has been concluded by the terms and intent of § 12. Moreover, it is at least doubtful whether the Government had a right to appeal from the order of transfer in the criminal case. In any event, the validity of that order is not before us.. We therefore express no opinion upon either of those questions. But the fact that we cannot do so goes far to nullify the effect of appellee’s argument of hardship arising from the transfer. For that argument comes down, in the peculiar circumstances, to one that because the District Court on appellees’ application has transferred the criminal cause by a dubiously reviewable order, perforce of that action it should also dismiss this civil cause and we should sustain the dismissal.
In practical effect the outcome of accepting such an argument as ground for sustaining both the power and the dismissal would be to make Rule 21 (b) controlling in civil as well as criminal cases involving the same transactions and parties, thus overriding § 12, and at the same time depriving the plaintiff in the civil cause of anything more than perfunctory review of the District Court’s order of dismissal.
Hardly can it be taken that Rule 21 (b) was intended so to override the provisions of § 12, to confer power on the District Courts to do so, or to nullify the plaintiff’s right of appeal from an order depriving it of the statutory privilege of choosing the venue. Yet these would be the practical results, if the consideration that the court has ordered transfer of the criminal case is to be controlling or highly influential, as it undoubtedly would be in most cases, in applying the doctrine of jorum non conveniens in the civil cause. If matters of policy were material, these possible consequences would add force to the view that the doctrine is not applicable.
Moreover, if the transfer should result in hardship to the appellees, insofar as the hardship arises from that cause it is one which was avoidable by them and will be incurred as a result of their own action in applying for it. That they have voluntarily incurred it is no good reason for depriving the plaintiff of its statutory right of choice under the terms and policy of § 12 in the entirely distinct civil suit.
Finally, both appellees and the District Court have placed much emphasis upon this Court’s recent decisions applying the doctrine of jorum non conveniens and in some instances extending the scope of its application. Whatever may be the scope of its previous application or of its appropriate extension, the doctrine is not a principle of universal applicability, as those decisions uniformly recognize. At least one invariable, limiting principle may be stated. It is that whenever Congress has vested courts with jurisdiction to hear and determine causes and has invested complaining litigants with a right of choice among them which is inconsistent with the exercise by those courts of discretionary power to defeat the choice so made, the doctrine can have no effect. Baltimore & O. R. Co. v. Kepner, 314 U. S. 44; Miles v. Illinois Central R. Co., 315 U. S. 698. The question whether such a right has been given is usually the crux of the problem. It is one not to be answered by such indecisive inquiries as whether the venue or jurisdictional statute is labeled a “special” or a “general” one. Nor is it to be determined merely by the court’s view that applicability of the doctrine would serve the ends of justice in the particular case. It is rather to be decided, upon consideration of all the relevant materials, by whether the legislative purpose and the effect of the language used to achieve it were to vest the power of choice in the plaintiff or to confer power upon the courts to qualify his selection.
This is a case in which the pertinent factors make clear that the courts were given no such power. Accordingly the judgment is
Reversed.
“Sec. 12. That any suit, action, or proceeding under the antitrust laws against a corporation may be brought not only in the judicial district whereof it is an inhabitant, but also in any district wherein it may be found or transacts business; and all process in such cases may be served in the district of which it is an inhabitant, or wherever it may be found.” 38 Stat. 736,15 U. S. C. § 22.
These, with the states of their incorporation and their principal places of business, are as follows:
Corporation State of incorporation Principal place of business
National City Lines, Inc. Delaware Chicago
American City Lines, Inc.
Pacific City Lines, Inc. Oakland, Calif.
Standard Oil Co. of California “ San Francisco
Federal Engineering Corp. California “
Phillips Petroleum Co. Delaware Bartlesville, Okla.
General Motors Corp. “ Detroit, Mich.
Firestone Tire & Rubber Co. Ohio Akron, Ohio
Mack Manufacturing Corp. Delaware New York
Forty-four cities in sixteen states are included. The states are as widely scattered as California, Florida, Maryland, Michigan, Nebraska, Texas and Washington. The larger local transportation systems include those of Baltimore, St. Louis, Salt Lake City, Los Angeles and Oakland. The largest concentrations of smaller systems are in Illinois, with eleven cities; California with nine (excluding Los Angeles); and Michigan with four. The local operating companies were not named as parties defendant.
The appellee companies fall into two groups. The largest, which may be called the supplier group, includes the six last named in note 2 above. Except Federal, they are engaged in producing and distributing the commodities purchased by the local operating companies, the sale of which is charged to be monopolized and restrained. Federal is a wholly owned subsidiary of Standard, engaged in managing investments for Standard.
The other group, including the first three companies listed in note 2, is collectively called City Lines. National is a holding company with operations directed from Chicago. American and Pacific are its subsidiaries. The three own, control or have substantial interests in the operating companies.
The complaint charges that the supplier appellees furnish capital to Cily Lines for acquiring control of the local operating systems, upon the understanding that City Lines cause all requirements of the local systems in busses, petroleum products, tires and tubes to be purchased from the supplier appellees and no other sellers.
The prayer of the complaint sought complete divestiture of the supplier appellees’ financial interests in City Lines; partial divestiture of City Lines’ interests in local transportation companies; voiding of existing contracts between the supplier appellees and City Lines; and an injunction against purchases from those suppliers by City Lines or their operating companies, except in accordance with a competitive bidding plan to be included in the decree.
In highly attenuated summary the showing was that the transactions creating the core of the charged conspiracy took place chiefly in or near Chicago; appellees’ chief witnesses and documentary evidence are located there; their transportation to Los Angeles and extended presence there will cause great hardship; no defendant “resides” or has its principal office or place of business in the California district (cf. note 2); and two trials in distant cities, see text infra at note 41, will greatly magnify the hardship. See 7 F. R. D. 456,465.
The Government stresses that three of the five supplier defendants transact business and are “found,” cf. note 1, in the California district; the volume of sales allegedly restrained is much greater on the Pacific Coast than elsewhere; substantial portions of the evidence, oral and documentary, will be produced from California, etc. Cf. 7 F. R. D. 456,465.
32 Stat. 823, 36. Stat. 1167, 15 U. S. C. §29; 43 Stat. 938, 28 U. S. C. § 345.
It is conceded that three of the defendants, Standard, General Motors, and Firestone, transact business within the Southern District of California. The others apparently were served either pursuant to the concluding clause of § 12 or pursuant to § 5 of the Sherman Act. See note 10 infra.
“Sec 5. Whenever it shall appear to the court before which any proceeding under section four of this act may be pending, that the ends of justice require that other parties should be brought before the court, the court may cause them to be summoned, whether they reside in the district in which the court is held or not; and subpoenas to that end may be served in any district by the marshal thereof.” 26 Stat. 210, 15 U. S. C. § 5. Section 4 of the Sherman Act (i. e., “this act”) refers specifically to civil actions brought by the Government. Cf. Eastman Co. v. Southern Photo Co., 273 U. S. 359, 374.
See note 46 infra.
In the Scophony ease we were concerned, not as here with any question of discretion to decline the exercise of jurisdiction, but in presently pertinent part with the tests of venue prescribed by the section and whether, on the facts presented, those tests had been met, so as to establish venue in the district of suit.
See note 1.
See United States v. Scophony Corp., 333 U. S. 795, Part I at 802-810.
The Clayton Act hardly can be regarded as a statute for the relief of corporate defendants in antitrust proceedings from either procedural or substantive abuses. See Levy, The Clayton Law— An Imperfect Supplement to the Sherman Law, 3 Va. L. Rev. 411.
"Wisely, it has not been attempted to catalogue the circumstances which will justify or require either grant or denial of remedy. The doctrine leaves much to the discretion of the court to which plaintiff resorts, and experience has not shown a judicial tendency to renounce one’s own jurisdiction so strong as to result in many abuses.
“If the combination and weight of factors requisite to given results are difficult to forecast or state, those to be considered are not difficult to name. An interest to be considered, and the one likely to be most pressed, is the private interest of the litigant.... The court will weigh relative advantages and obstacles to fair trial.” Gulf Oil Corp. v. Gilbert, 330 U. S. 501,508.
The Eastman opinion referred to the disadvantages suffered by plaintiffs under § 7 of the Sherman Act who were injured where they resided or conducted their business, only to be forced to seek out the wrongdoing company in a distant forum to secure venue and service of process, and therefore also to transport witnesses and incur other disadvantages in trial. 273 U. S. 359, 373-374. Likewise the legislative discussions hereinafter cited uniformly treat the problem as one involving both instituting the suit and trying it. There is no hint that it was contemplated the two phases of the litigation might be separated and conducted in different places. See, e. g., notes 31 and 32 infra.
Section 12 began as § 10, became § 11 in the Senate, and finally § 12 in conference. Similarly, § 4 began as § 5, changed first to § 3, and finally to § 4. Section 4 provides for recovery of treble damages in private antitrust proceedings and its venue provisions apply in terms only to such suits. Section 12 applies to “any suit, action, or proceeding under the antitrust laws against a corporation.” This literally is broad enough to include the suits comprehended by §4.
The original wording of the two sections in respect to venue was slightly different but the substance was identical, both following the preexisting provisions of § 7 of the Sherman Act.
E. g., Representative Dickinson urged that the language “be extended sufficiently to reach every contingency, so that these concerns may be sued in that jurisdiction where they commit the wrong, where the acts complained of may be committed, where the officers, agents, or employees, acting for their master corporation, may be found setting aside the law, and where the witnesses are easily obtainable....” 51 Cong. Rec. 9190. Later he stated that he wanted to “give the widest liberty of bringing suits where the damage is done and where the action arose.” 51 Cong. Rec. 9417.
Representative Sumners spoke to the same effect: “Mr. Chairman, I believe this matter of venue is one of the most important connected with the whole subject of antitrust legislation.... The philosophy of legislation with regard to this subject should give the venue at the place wherein the cause of action arises.” Id. 9467. See also id. 9414, 9415, 9608.
“Why not at the end of the section, after the word 'found,’ add other words, such as 'doing business, or violating the provisions of this law, or wherever it may do business or where its agents, officers, or employees may be found,’ or other appropriate language. A dozen suggestions may be made in the way of amendment.” Id. 9190. See also id. 9414-9417,9466, 9607,9663,9682.
“Mr. Scott. What is the gentleman’s understanding of the word 'found’; what is its import as used in this section?
“Mr. Dickinson. I understand that there is some decision by some court that I am not very familiar with that may possibly cover the very thought suggested by my proposed amendment. I do not believe that it meets the situation, and if there be any doubt about it, in order that the Government may prosecute successfully and institute suits and actions and have trials the language ought to be clear and definite, and so plain that he who runs may read, so that there can not be two constructions.” Id. 9415.
“Mr. Cullop. May I suggest... that every suit which has arisen under the Sherman antitrust law has been brought at the home of the corporation itself, or at its principal place of business, and therefore there was no occasion to construe this language, ‘is found/ which is ambiguous and uncertain. If you are to construe ‘is found/ you will have to construe that as the place of the residence of the corporation, because it is not migratory. You can not get service upon some person traveling throughout the country and hold your jurisdiction throughout that territory.
“Mr. Carlin. Why should not the suit be brought in the habitat of the corporation? We have been successful so far in that matter.
“Mr. Cullop. In this case for the very best reason, I think. The gentleman from Virginia [Mr. Carlin] now has disclosed the purpose of this language, and that is why I am combating it, and for the best of reasons, I think. I do not want to make a resident of California come to Trenton, N. J., to bring a suit for violation of this law, but I want him to sue at home in the jurisdiction where the cause of action arose.” Id. 9416. See also id. 9466-9467, 9607-9608, 9663-9664.
E. g., Representative Floyd stated that the provisions were designed “to give the Government the widest possible scope in getting service in these cases, and the provision is right as it is written and ought not to be changed.” Id. 9416.
“Mr. Floyd.... The very broadest language that can be used in a statute of this kind conferring jurisdiction is to give the jurisdiction where the corporation resides or is found.” Id. 9415. And “I think the provisions relating to
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | I | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Per Curiam.
The judgment is affirmed by an equally divided Court.
Justice Powell took no part in the decision of this case.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | A | sc_issuearea |
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