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What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Justice THOMAS delivered the opinion of the Court.
Under the Agricultural Marketing Agreement Act of 1937 (AMAA) and the California Raisin Marketing Order (Marketing Order or Order) promulgated by the Secretary of Agriculture, raisin growers are frequently required to turn over a percentage of their crop to the Federal Government. The AMAA and the Marketing Order were adopted to stabilize prices by limiting the supply of raisins on the market. Petitioners are California raisin growers who believe that this regulatory scheme violates the Fifth Amendment. After petitioners refused to surrender the requisite portion of their raisins, the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) began administrative proceedings against petitioners that led to the imposition of more than $650,000 in fines and civil penalties. Petitioners sought judicial review, claiming that the monetary sanctions were an unconstitutional taking of private property without just compensation. The Ninth Circuit held that petitioners were required to bring their takings claim in the Court of Federal Claims and that it therefore lacked jurisdiction to review petitioners' claim. We disagree. Petitioners' takings claim, raised as an affirmative defense to the agency's enforcement action, was properly before the court because the AMAA provides a comprehensive remedial scheme that withdraws Tucker Act jurisdiction over takings claims brought by raisin handlers. Accordingly, we reverse and remand to the Ninth Circuit.
I
A
Congress enacted the AMAA during the Great Depression in an effort to insulate farmers from competitive market forces that it believed caused "unreasonable fluctuations in supplies and prices." Ch. 296, 50 Stat. 246, as amended, 7 U.S.C. § 602(4). To achieve this goal, Congress declared a national policy of stabilizing prices for agricultural commodities. Ibid. The AMAA authorizes the Secretary of Agriculture to promulgate marketing orders that regulate the sale and delivery of agricultural goods. § 608c(1) ; see also Block v. Community Nutrition Institute, 467 U.S. 340, 346, 104 S.Ct. 2450, 81 L.Ed.2d 270 (1984) ("The Act contemplates a cooperative venture among the Secretary, handlers, and producers the principal purposes of which are to raise the price of agricultural products and to establish an orderly system for marketing them"). The Secretary may delegate to industry committees the authority to administer marketing orders. § 608c(7)(C).
The AMAA does not directly regulate the "producer[s]" who grow agricultural commodities, § 608c(13)(B) ; it only regulates "handlers," which the AMAA defines as "processors, associations of producers, and others engaged in the handling" of covered agricultural commodities. § 608c(1). Handlers who violate the Secretary's marketing orders may be subject to civil and criminal penalties. §§ 608a(5), 608a(6), and 608c(14).
The Secretary promulgated a marketing order for California raisins in 1949. See 14 Fed. Reg. 5136 (codified, as amended, at 7 CFR pt. 989 (2013)). In particular, "[t]he Raisin Marketing Order, like other fruit and vegetable orders adopted under the AMAA, [sought] to stabilize producer returns by limiting the quantity of raisins sold by handlers in the domestic competitive market." Lion Raisins, Inc. v. United States, 416 F.3d 1356, 1359 (C.A.Fed.2005). The Marketing Order defines a raisin "handler" as "(a) [a]ny processor or packer; (b) [a]ny person who places ... raisins in the current of commerce from within [California] to any point outside thereof; (c) [a]ny person who delivers off-grade raisins ... into any eligible non-normal outlet; or (d) [a]ny person who blends raisins [subject to certain exceptions]." 7 CFR § 989.15.
The Marketing Order also established the Raisin Administrative Committee (RAC), which consists of 47 members, with 35 representing producers, ten representing handlers, one representing the cooperative bargaining associations, and one member of the public. See § 989.26. The Marketing Order authorizes the RAC to recommend setting up annual reserve pools of raisins that are not to be sold on the open domestic market. See 7 U.S.C. § 608c(6)(E) ; 7 CFR §§ 989.54(d) and 989.65. Each year, the RAC reviews crop yield, inventories, and shipments and makes recommendations to the Secretary whether or not there should be a reserve pool. § 989.54. If the RAC recommends a reserve pool, it also recommends what portion of that year's production should be included in the pool ("reserve-tonnage"). The rest of that year's production remains available for sale on the open market ("free-tonnage"). § 989.54(d), (a). The Secretary approves the recommendation if he determines that the recommendation would "effectuate the declared policy of the Act." § 989.55. The reserve-tonnage, calculated as a percentage of a producer's crop, varies from year to year. Under the Marketing Order's reserve requirements, a producer is only paid for the free-tonnage raisins. § 989.65. The reserve-tonnage raisins, on the other hand, must be held by the handler in segregated bins "for the account" of the RAC. § 989.66(f). The RAC may then sell the reserve-tonnage raisins to handlers for resale in overseas markets, or may alternatively direct that they be sold or given at no cost to secondary, noncompetitive domestic markets, such as school lunch programs. § 989.67(b). The reserve pool sales proceeds are used to finance the RAC's administrative costs. § 989.53(a). In the event that there are any remaining funds, the producers receive a pro rata share. 7 U.S.C. § 608c(6)(E) ; 7 CFR § 989.66(h). As a result, even though producers do not receive payment for reserve-tonnage raisins at the time of delivery to a handler, they retain a limited interest in the net proceeds of the RAC's disposition of the reserve pool.
Handlers have other duties beyond managing the RAC's reserve pool. The Marketing Order requires them to file certain reports with the RAC, such as reports concerning the quantity of raisins that they hold or acquire. § 989.73. They are also required to allow the RAC access to their premises, raisins, and business records to verify the accuracy of the handlers' reports, § 989.77, to obtain inspections of raisins acquired, § 989.58(d), and to pay certain assessments, § 989.80, which help cover the RAC's administrative costs. A handler who violates any provision of the Order or its implementing regulations is subject to a civil penalty of up to $1,100 per day. 7 U.S.C. § 608c(14)(B) ; 7 CFR § 3.91(b)(1)(vii). A handler who does not comply with the reserve requirement must "compensate the [RAC] for the amount of the loss resulting from his failure to ... deliver" the requisite raisins. § 989.166(c).
B
Petitioners Marvin and Laura Horne have been producing raisins in two California counties (Fresno and Madera) since 1969. The Hornes do business as Raisin Valley Farms, a general partnership. For more than 30 years, the Hornes operated only as raisin producers. But, after becoming disillusioned with the AMAA regulatory scheme, they began looking for ways to avoid the mandatory reserve program. Since the AMAA applies only to handlers, the Hornes devised a plan to bring their raisins to market without going through a traditional handler. To this end, the Hornes entered into a partnership with Mrs. Horne's parents called Lassen Vineyards. In addition to its grape-growing activities, Lassen Vineyards purchased equipment to clean, stem, sort, and package the raisins from Raisin Valley Farms and Lassen Vineyards. It also contracted with more than 60 other raisin growers to clean, stem, sort, and, in some cases, box and stack their raisins for a fee. The Hornes' facilities processed more than 3 million pounds of raisins in toto during the 2002-2003 and 2003-2004 crop years. During these two crop years, the Hornes produced 27.4% and 12.3% of the raisins they processed, respectively.
Although the USDA informed the Hornes in 2001 that their proposed operations made them "handlers" under the AMAA, the Hornes paid no assessments to the RAC during the 2002-2003 and 2003-2004 crop years. Nor did they set aside reserve-tonnage raisins from those produced and owned by the more than 60 other farmers who contracted with Lassen Vineyards for packing services. They also declined to arrange for RAC inspection of the raisins they received for processing, denied the RAC access to their records, and held none of their own raisins in reserve.
On April 1, 2004, the Administrator of the Agriculture Marketing Service (Administrator) initiated an enforcement action against the Hornes, Raisin Valley Farms, and Lassen Vineyards (petitioners). The complaint alleged that petitioners were "handlers" of California raisins during the 2002-2003 and 2003-2004 crop years. It also alleged that petitioners violated the AMAA and the Marketing Order by submitting inaccurate forms to the RAC and failing to hold inspections of incoming raisins, retain raisins in reserve, pay assessments, and allow access to their records. Petitioners denied the allegations, countering that they were not "handlers" and asserting that they did not acquire physical possession of the other producers' raisins within the meaning of the regulations . Petitioners also raised several affirmative defenses, including a claim that the Marketing Order violated the Fifth Amendment's prohibition against taking property without just compensation.
An Administrative Law Judge (ALJ) concluded in 2006 that petitioners were handlers of raisins and thus subject to the Marketing Order. The ALJ also concluded that petitioners violated the AMAA and the Marketing Order and rejected petitioners' takings defense based on its view that "handlers no longer have a property right that permits them to market their crop free of regulatory control." App. 39 (citing Cal-Almond, Inc. v. United States, 30 Fed.Cl. 244, 246-247 (1994) ).
Petitioners appealed to a judicial officer who, like the ALJ, also found that petitioners were handlers and that they had violated the Marketing Order. The judicial officer imposed $202,600 in civil penalties under 7 U.S.C. § 608c(14)(B) ; $8,783.39 in assessments for the two crop years under 7 CFR § 989.80(a) ; and $483,843.53 for the value of the California raisins that petitioners failed to hold in reserve for the two crop years under § 989.166(c). The judicial officer believed that he lacked "authority to judge the constitutionality of the various statutes administered by the [USDA]," App. 73, and declined to adjudicate petitioners' takings claim.
Petitioners filed a complaint in Federal District Court seeking judicial review of the USDA's decision. See 7 U.S.C. § 608c(14)(B). The District Court granted summary judgment to the USDA. The court held that substantial evidence supported the agency's determination that petitioners were "handlers" subject to the Marketing Order, and rejected petitioners' argument that they were exempt from the Marketing Order due to their status as "producers" under § 608c(13)(B). No. CV-F-08-1549LJOSMS, 2009 WL 4895362, at *15 (E.D.Cal., Dec. 11, 2009). Petitioners renewed their Fifth Amendment argument, asserting that the reserve-tonnage requirement constituted a physical taking.
Though the District Court found that the RAC takes title to a significant portion of a California raisin producer's crop through the reserve requirement, the court held that the transfer of title to the RAC did not constitute a physical taking. See id., at *26 (" '[I]n essence, [petitioners] are paying an admissions fee or toll-admittedly a steep one-for marketing raisins. The Government does not force plaintiffs to grow raisins or to market the raisins; rather, it directs that if they grow and market raisins, then passing title to their "reserve tonnage" raisins to the RAC is the admissions ticket' " (quoting Evans v. United States, 74 Fed.Cl. 554, 563-564 (2006) )).
The Ninth Circuit affirmed. The court agreed that petitioners were "handlers" subject to the Marketing Order's provisions, and rejected petitioners' argument that they were producers, and, thus exempt from regulation. 673 F.3d 1071, 1078 (2012). The court did not resolve petitioners' takings claim, however, because it concluded that it lacked jurisdiction to do so. The court explained that "a takings claim against the federal government must be brought [in the Court of Federal Claims] in the first instance, 'unless Congress has withdrawn the Tucker Act grant of jurisdiction in the relevant statute.' " Id., at 1079 (quoting Eastern Enterprises v. Apfel, 524 U.S. 498, 520, 118 S.Ct. 2131, 141 L.Ed.2d 451 (1998) (plurality opinion)). The court recognized that 7 U.S.C. § 608c(15) provides an administrative remedy to handlers wishing to challenge marketing orders under the AMAA, and it agreed that "when a handler, or a producer-handler in its capacity as a handler, challenges a marketing order on takings grounds, Court of Federal Claims Tucker Act jurisdiction gives way to section [60]8c(15)'s comprehensive procedural scheme and administrative exhaustion requirements." 673 F.3d, at 1079. But, the Ninth Circuit determined, petitioners brought the takings claim in their capacity as producers, not handlers. Id., at 1080. Consequently, the court was of the view that "[n]othing in the AMAA precludes the Hornes from alleging in the Court of Federal Claims that the reserve program injures them in their capacity as producers by subjecting them to a taking requiring compensation." Ibid. This availability of a Federal Claims Court action thus rendered petitioners' takings claim unripe for adjudication. Ibid.
We granted certiorari to determine whether the Ninth Circuit has jurisdiction to review petitioners' takings claim. 568 U.S. ----, 133 S.Ct. 638, 184 L.Ed.2d 452 (2012).
II
A
The Ninth Circuit's jurisdictional ruling flowed from its determination that petitioners brought their takings claim as producers rather than handlers. This determination is not correct. Although petitioners argued that they were producers-and thus not subject to the AMAA or Marketing Order at all-both the USDA and the District Court concluded that petitioners were "handlers." Accordingly, the civil penalty, assessment, and reimbursement for failure to reserve raisins were all levied on petitioners in their capacity as "handlers." If petitioners' argument that they were producers had prevailed, they would not have been subject to any of the monetary sanctions imposed on them. See 7 U.S.C. § 608c(13)(B) ("No order issued under this chapter shall be applicable to any producer in his capacity as a producer").
It is undisputed that the Marketing Order imposes duties on petitioners only in their capacity as handlers. As a result, any defense raised against those duties is necessarily raised in that same capacity. Petitioners argue that it would be unconstitutional for the Government to come on their land and confiscate raisins, or to confiscate the proceeds of raisin sales, without paying just compensation; and, that it is therefore unconstitutional to fine petitioners for not complying with the unconstitutional requirement. SEE BRIEF FOR PETItioNers 54. given that fines Can only be levied on handlers, petitioners' takings claim makes sense only as a defense to penalties imposed upon them in their capacity as handlers . The Ninth Circuit confused petitioners' statutory argument (i.e., "we are producers, not handlers") with their constitutional argument (i.e., "assuming we are handlers, fining us for refusing to turn over reserve-tonnage raisins violates the Fifth Amendment").
The relevant question, then, is whether a federal court has jurisdiction to adjudicate a takings defense raised by a handler seeking review of a final agency order.
B
The Government argues that petitioners' takings-based defense was rightly dismissed on ripeness grounds. Brief for Respondent 21-22. According to the Government, because a takings claim can be pursued later in the Court of Federal Claims, the Ninth Circuit correctly refused to adjudicate petitioners' takings defense. In support of its position, the Government relies largely on Williamson County Regional Planning Comm'n v . hamilTon bank Of johnsOn city, 473 U.S. 172, 105 S.CT. 3108, 87 l.ed.2d 126 (1985). Brief for Respondent 21-22 ("Just compensation need not 'be paid in advance of, or contemporaneously with, the taking; all that is required is that a 'reasonable, certain and adequate provision for obtaining compensation' exist at the time of the taking' " (quoting Williamson County, 473 U.S., at 194, 105 S.Ct. 3108) ). In that case, the plaintiff filed suit against the Regional Planning Commission, claiming that a zoning decision by the Commission effected a taking of property without just compensation. Id ., at 182, 105 S.Ct. 3108. We found that the plaintiff's claim was not "ripe" for two reasons, neither of which supports the Government's position.
First, we explained that the plaintiff's takings claim in Williamson County failed because the plaintiff could not show that it had been injured by the Government's action. Specifically, the plaintiff "ha[d] not yet obtained a final decision regarding the application of the zoning ordinance and subdivision regulations to its property." Id., at 186, 105 S.Ct. 3108. Here, by contrast, petitioners were subject to a final agency order imposing concrete fines and penalties at the time they sought judicial review under § 608c(14)(B). This was clearly sufficient "injury" for federal jurisdiction.
Second, the Williamson County plaintiff's takings claim was not yet ripe because the plaintiff had not sought "compensation through the procedures the State ha[d] provided for doing so." Id., at 194, 105 S.Ct. 3108. We explained that "[i]f the government has provided an adequate process for obtaining compensation, and if resort to that process yields just compensation, then the property owner has no claim against the Government for a taking." Id., at 194-195, 105 S.Ct. 3108 (internal quotation marks and alteration omitted). Stated differently, a Fifth Amendment claim is premature until it is clear that the Government has both taken property and denied just compensation. Although we often refer to this consideration as "prudential 'ripeness,' " Lucas v. South Carolina Coastal Council, 505 U.S. 1003, 1013, 112 S.Ct. 2886, 120 L.Ed.2d 798 (1992), we have recognized that it is not, strictly speaking, jurisdictional. See Stop the Beach Renourishment, Inc. v. Florida Dept. of Environmental Protection, 560 U.S. 702, ----, and n. 10, 130 S.Ct. 2592, 2610, and n. 10, 177 L.Ed.2d 184 (2010).
Here, the Government argues that petitioners' takings claim is premature because the Tucker Act affords "the requisite reasonable, certain, and adequate provision for obtaining just compensation that a property owner must pursue." Brief for Respondent 22. In the Government's view, "[p]etitioners should have complied with the order, and, after a portion of their raisins were placed in reserve to be disposed of as directed by the RAC, ... sought compensation as producers in the Court of Federal Claims for the alleged taking." Id., at 24-25. We disagree with the Government's argument, however, because the AMAA provides a comprehensive remedial scheme that withdraws Tucker Act jurisdiction over a handler's takings claim. As a result, there is no alternative "reasonable, certain, and adequate" remedial scheme through which petitioners (as handlers) must proceed before obtaining review of their claim under the AMAA.
The Court of Federal Claims has jurisdiction over Tucker Act claims "founded either upon the Constitution, or any Act of Congress or any regulation of an executive department."
28 U.S.C. § 1491(a)(1). " [A] claim for just compensation under the Takings Clause must be brought to the Court of Federal Claims in the first instance, unless Congress has withdrawn the Tucker Act grant of jurisdiction in the relevant statute." Eastern Enterprises, 524 U.S., at 520, 118 S.Ct. 2131 (plurality opinion); see also United States v. Bormes, 568 U.S. ----, ----, 133 S.Ct. 12, 17, 184 L.Ed.2d 317 (2012) (where "a statute contains its own self-executing remedial scheme," a court "look[s] only to that statute"). To determine whether a statutory scheme displaces Tucker Act jurisdiction, a court must "examin[e] the purpose of the [statute], the entirety of its text, and the structure of review that it establishes." United States v. Fausto, 484 U.S. 439, 444, 108 S.Ct. 668, 98 L.Ed.2d 830 (1988).
Under the AMAA's comprehensive remedial scheme, handlers may challenge the content, applicability, and enforcement of marketing orders. Pursuant to § 608c(15)(A)-(B), a handler may file with the Secretary a direct challenge to a marketing order and its applicability to him. We have held that "any handler" subject to a marketing order must raise any challenges to the order, including constitutional challenges, in administrative proceedings. See United States v. Ruzicka, 329 U.S. 287, 294, 67 S.Ct. 207, 91 L.Ed. 290 (1946). Once the Secretary issues a ruling, the federal district court where the "handler is an inhabitant, or has his principal place of business" is "vested with jurisdiction ... to review [the] ruling." § 608c(15)(B). These statutory provisions afford handlers a ready avenue to bring takings claim against the USDA. We thus conclude that the AMAA withdraws Tucker Act jurisdiction over petitioners' takings claim. Petitioners (as handlers) have no alternative remedy, and their takings claim was not "premature" when presented to the Ninth Circuit.
C
Although petitioners' claim was not "premature" for Tucker Act purposes, the question remains whether a takings-based defense may be raised by a handler in the context of an enforcement proceeding initiated by the USDA under § 608c(14). We hold that it may. The AMAA provides that the handler may not be subjected to an adverse order until he has been given "notice and an opportunity for an agency hearing on the record." § 608c(14)(B). The text of § 608c(14)(B) does not bar handlers from raising constitutional defenses to the USDA's enforcement action. Allowing handlers to raise constitutional challenges in the course of enforcement proceedings would not diminish the incentive to file direct challenges to marketing orders under § 608c(15)(A) because a handler who refuses to comply with a marketing order and waits for an enforcement action will be liable for significant monetary penalties if his constitutional challenge fails.
In the case of an administrative enforcement proceeding, when a party raises a constitutional defense to an assessed fine, it would make little sense to require the party to pay the fine in one proceeding and then turn around and sue for recovery of that same money in another proceeding. See Eastern Enterprises, supra, at 520, 118 S.Ct. 2131. We see no indication that Congress intended this result for handlers subject to enforcement proceedings under the AMAA. Petitioners were therefore free to raise their takings-based defense before the USDA. And, because § 608c(14)(B) allows a handler to seek judicial review of an adverse order, the district court and Ninth Circuit were not precluded from reviewing petitioners' constitutional challenge. The grant of jurisdiction necessarily includes the power to review any constitutional challenges properly presented to and rejected by the agency. We are therefore satisfied that the petitioners raised a cognizable takings defense and that the Ninth Circuit erred in declining to adjudicate it.
III
The Ninth Circuit has jurisdiction to decide whether the USDA's imposition of fines and civil penalties on petitioners, in their capacity as handlers, violated the Fifth Amendment. The judgment of the Ninth Circuit is reversed, and the case is remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
The AMAA also applies to a vast array of other agricultural products, including "[m]ilk, fruits (including filberts, almonds, pecans and walnuts ..., pears, olives, grapefruit, cherries, caneberries (including raspberries, blackberries, and loganberries), cranberries, ... tobacco, vegetables, ... hops, [and] honeybees." § 608c(2).
In 2002-2003 and 2003-2004, the crop years at issue here, the reserve percentages were set at 47 percent and 30 percent of a producer's crop, respectively. See RAC, Marketing Policy & Industry Statistics 2012, p. 28 (Table 12).
The Hornes wrote the Secretary and to the RAC in 2002 setting out their grievances: "[W]e are growers that will pack and market our raisins. We reserve our rights under the Constitution of the United States ... [T]he Marketing Order Regulating Raisins has become a tool for grower bankruptcy, poverty, and involuntary servitude. The Marketing Order Regulating Raisins is a complete failure for growers, handlers, and the USDA ... [W]e will not relinquish ownership of our crop. We put forth the money and effort to grow it, not the Raisin Administrative Committee. This is America, not a communist state." App. to Pet. for Cert. 60a.
The Ninth Circuit construed the takings argument quite differently, stating that petitioners believe the regulatory scheme "takes reserve-tonnage raisins belonging to producers." 673 F.3d 1071, 1080 (2012). When the agency brought its enforcement action against petitioners, however, it did not seek to recover reserve-tonnage raisins from the 2002-2003 and 2003-2004 crop years. Rather, it sought monetary penalties and reimbursement. Petitioners could not argue in the face of such agency action that the Secretary was attempting to take raisins that had already been harvested and sold. Instead, petitioners argued that they could not be compelled to pay fines for refusing to accede to an unconstitutional taking.
The Government notes that petitioners did not own most of the raisins that they failed to reserve and argues that petitioners would have no takings claim based on those raisins. See Brief for Respondent 19. We take no position on the merits of petitioners' takings claim. We simply recognize that insofar as the petitioners challenged the imposition of monetary sanctions under the Marketing Order, they raised their takings-based defense in their capacity as handlers. On remand, the Ninth Circuit can decide in the first instance whether petitioners may raise the takings defense with respect to raisins they never owned.
A "Case" or "Controversy" exists once the government has taken private property without paying for it. Accordingly, whether an alternative remedy exists does not affect the jurisdiction of the federal court.
That is not to say that a producer who turns over her reserve-tonnage raisins could not bring suit for just compensation in the Court of Claims. Whether a producer could bring such a claim, and what impact the availability of such a claim would have on petitioners' takings-based defense, are questions going to the merits of petitioners' defense, not to a court's jurisdiction to entertain it. We therefore do not address those issues here.
Petitioners filed an administrative petition before the Secretary in March 2007 pursuant to § 608c(15)(A) challenging the Marketing Order and its application to them. The USDA argued that they had no standing to file the petition because they had not admitted that they were handlers. The judicial officer granted the USDA's motion to dismiss the petition for lack of jurisdiction. Petitioners filed a complaint in District Court, but the court dismissed it as untimely. The Ninth Circuit affirmed. See Horne v. Dept. of Agriculture, 395 Fed.Appx. 486 (2010).
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer:
|
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 Frankfurter
announced the judgment of the Court and an opinion in which The Chief Justice, Mr. Justice Clark and Mr. Justice Whittaker join.
These appeals challenge the constitutionality, under the Fourteenth Amendment, of Connecticut statutes which, as authoritatively construed by the Connecticut Supreme Court of Errors, prohibit the use of contraceptive devices and the giving of medical advice in the use of such devices. In proceedings seeking declarations of law, not on review of convictions for violation of the statutes, that court has ruled that these statutes would be applicable in the case of married couples and even under claim that conception would constitute a serious threat to the health or life of the female spouse.
No. 60 combines two actions brought in a Connecticut Superior Court for declaratory relief. The complaint in the first alleges that the plaintiffs, Paul and Pauline Poe, are a husband and wife, thirty and twenty-six years old respectively, who live together and have no children. Mrs. Poe has had three consecutive pregnancies terminating in infants with multiple congenital abnormalities from which each died shortly after birth. Plaintiffs have consulted Dr. Buxton, an obstetrician and gynecologist of eminence, and it is Dr. Buxton’s opinion that the cause of the infants’ abnormalities is genetic, although the underlying “mechanism” is unclear. In view of the great emotional stress already suffered by plaintiffs, the probable consequence of another pregnancy is psychological strain extremely disturbing to the physical and mental health of both husband and wife. Plaintiffs know that it is Dr. Buxton’s opinion that the best and safest medical treatment which could be prescribed for their situation is advice in methods of preventing conception. Dr. Bux-ton knows of drugs, medicinal articles and instruments which can be safely used to effect contraception. Medically, the use of these devices is indicated as the best and safest preventive measure necessary for the protection of plaintiffs’ health. Plaintiffs, however, have been unable to obtain this information for the sole reason that its delivery and use may or will be claimed by the defendant State’s Attorney (appellee in this Court) to constitute offenses against Connecticut law. The State’s Attorney intends to prosecute offenses against the State’s laws, sind claims that the giving of contraceptive advice and the use of contraceptive devices would be offenses forbidden by Conn. Gen. Stat. Rev., 1958, §§ 53-32 and 54-196. Alleging irreparable injury and a substantial uncertainty of legal relations (a local procedural requisite for a declaration), plaintiffs ask a declaratory judgment that §§ 53-32 and 54-196 are unconstitutional, in that they deprive the plaintiffs of life and liberty without due process of law.
The second action in No. 60 is brought by Jane Doe, a twenty-five-year-old housewife. Mrs. Doe, it is alleged, lives with her husband, they have no children; Mrs. Doe recently underwent a pregnancy which induced in her a critical physical illness — two weeks’ unconsciousness and a total of nine weeks’ acute sickness which left her with partial paralysis, marked impairment of speech, and emotional instability. Another pregnancy would be exceedingly perilous to her life. She, too, has-consulted Dr. Buxton, who believes that the best and safest treatment for her is contraceptive advice. The remaining allegations of Mrs. Doe’s complaint, and the relief sought, are similar to those in the case of Mr. and Mrs. Poe.
In No. 61, also a declaratory judgment action, Dr. Bux-ton is the plaintiff. Setting forth facts identical to those alleged by Jane Doe, he asks that the Connecticut statutes prohibiting his giving of contraceptive advice to Mrs. Doe be adjudged unconstitutional, as depriving him of liberty and property without due process.
In all three actions, demurrers were advanced, inter alia, on the ground that the statutes attacked had been previously construed and sustained by the Supreme Court of Errors of Connecticut, and thus there did not exist the uncertainty of legal relations requisite to maintain suits for declaratory judgment. While the Connecticut Supreme Court of Errors in sustaining the demurrers referred to this local procedural ground, relying on State v. Nelson, 126 Conn. 412, 11 A. 2d 856, and Tileston v. Ullman, 129 Conn. 84, 26 A. 2d 582, app. dism’d, 318 U. S. 44, we cannot say that its decision rested on it. 147 Conn. 48, 156 A. 2d 508. We noted probable jurisdiction. 362 U. S. 987.
Appellants' complaints in these declaratory judgment proceedings do not clearly, and certainly do not in terms, allege that appellee Ullman threatens to prosecute them for use of, or for giving advice concerning, contraceptive devices. The allegations are merely that, in the course of his public duty, he intends to prosecute any offenses against Connecticut law, and that he claims that use of and advice concerning contraceptives would constitute offenses. The lack of immediacy of the threat described by these allegations might alone raise serious questions of non-justiciability of appellants’ claims. See United Public Workers v. Mitchell, 330 U. S. 75, 88. But even were we to read the allegations to convey a clear threat of imminent prosecutions, we are not bound to accept as true all that is alleged on the face of the complaint and admitted, technically, by demurrer, any more than the Court is bound by stipulation of the parties. Swift & Co. v. Hocking Valley R. Co., 243 U. S. 281, 289. Formal agreement between parties that collides with plausibility is too fragile a foundation for indulging in constitutional adjudication.
The Connecticut law prohibiting the use of contraceptives has been on the State’s books since 1879. Conn. Acts 1879, c. 78. During the more than three-quarters of a century since its enactment, a prosecution for its violation seems never to have been initiated, save in State v. Nelson, 126 Conn. 412, 11 A. 2d 856. The circumstances of that case, decided in 1940, only prove the abstract character of what is before us. There, a test case was brought to determine the constitutionality of the Act as applied against two doctors and a nurse who had allegedly disseminated contraceptive information. After the Supreme Court of Errors sustained the legislation on appeal from a demurrer to the information, the State moved to dismiss the information. Neither counsel nor our own researches have discovered any other attempt to enforce the prohibition of distribution or use of contraceptive devices by criminal process. The unreality of these law suits is illumined by another circumstance. We were advised by counsel for appellants that contraceptives are commonly and notoriously sold in Connecticut drugstores. Yet no prosecutions are recorded; and certainly such ubiquitous, open, public sales would more quickly invite the attention of enforcement officials than the conduct in which the present appellants wish to engage— the giving of private medical advice by a doctor to his individual patients, and their private use of the devices prescribed. The undeviating policy of nullification by Connecticut of its anti-contraceptive laws throughout all the long years that they have been on the statute books bespeaks more than prosecutorial paralysis. What was said in another context is relevant here. “Deeply embedded traditional ways of carrying out state policy . . .” — or not carrying it out — -“are often tougher and truer law than the dead words of the written text.” Nashville, C. & St. L. R. Co. v. Browning, 310 U. S. 362, 369.
The restriction of our jurisdiction to cases and controversies within the meaning of Article III of the Constitution, see Muskrat v. United States, 219 U. S. 346, is not the sole limitation on the exercise of our appellate powers, especially in cases raising constitutional questions. The policy reflected in numerous cases and over a long period was thus summarized in the oft-quoted statement of Mr. Justice Brandéis: “The Court [has] developed, for its own governance in the cases confessedly within its jurisdiction, a series of rules under which it has avoided passing upon a large part of all the constitutional questions pressed upon it for decision.” Ashwander v. Tennessee Valley Authority, 297 U. S. 288, 341, 346 (concurring opinion). In part the rules summarized in the Ashwander opinion have derived from the historically defined, limited nature and function of courts and from the recognition that, within the framework of our adversary system, the adjudicatory process is most securely founded when it is exercised under the impact of a lively conflict between antagonistic demands, actively pressed, which make resolution of the controverted issue a practical necessity. See Little v. Bowers, 134 U. S. 547, 558; California v. San Pablo & Tulare R. Co., 149 U. S. 308, 314; United States v. Fruehauf, 365 U. S. 146, 157. In part they derive from the fundamental federal and tripartite character of our National Government and from the role — restricted by its very responsibility — of the federal courts, and particularly this Court, within that structure. See the Note to Hayburn’s Case, 2 Dall. 409; Massachusetts v. Mellon, 262 U. S. 447; 488-489; Watson v. Buck, 313 U. S. 387, 400-403; Alabama State Federation of Labor v. McAdory, 325 U. S. 450, 471.
These considerations press with special urgency in cases challenging legislative action or state judicial action as repugnant to the Constitution. “The best teaching of this Court’s experience admonishes us not to entertain constitutional questions in advance of the strictest necessity.” Parker v. County of Los Angeles, 338 U. S. 327, 333. See also Liverpool, N. Y. & P. S. S. Co. v. Commissioners, 113 U. S. 33, 39. The various doctrines of “standing,” “ripeness,” and “mootness,” which this Court has evolved with particular, though not exclusive, reference to such cases are but several manifestations — each having its own “varied application” — of the primary-conception that federal judicial power is to be exercised to strike down legislation, whether state or federal, only at the instance of one who is himself immediately harmed, or immediately threatened with harm, by the challenged action. Stearns v. Wood, 236 U. S. 75; Texas v. Interstate Commerce Comm’n, 258 U. S. 158; United Public Workers v. Mitchell, 330 U. S. 75, 89-90. “This court can have no right to pronounce an abstract opinion upon the constitutionality of a State law. Such law must be brought into actual, or threatened operation upon rights properly falling under judicial cognizance, or a remedy is not to be had here.” Georgia v. Stanton, 6 Wall. 50, 75, approvingly quoting Mr. Justice Thompson, dissenting, in Cherokee Nation v. Georgia, 5 Pet. 1, 75; also quoted in New Jersey v. Sargent, 269 U. S. 328, 331. “The party who invokes the power [to annul legislation on grounds of its unconstitutionality] must be able to show not only that the statute is invalid but that he has sustained or is immediately in danger of sustaining some direct injury as the result of its enforcement . . . Massachusetts v. Mellon, 262 U. S. 447, 488.
This principle was given early application and has been recurringly enforced in the Court’s refusal to entertain cases which disclosed a want of a truly adversary contest, of a collision of actively asserted and 'differing claims. See, e. g., Cleveland v. Chamberlain, 1 Black 419; Wood-Paper Co. v. Heft, 8 Wall. 333. Such cases may not be “collusive” in the derogatory sense of Lord v. Veazie, 8 How. 251 — in the sense of merely colorable disputes got up to secure an advantageous ruling from the Court. See South Spring Hill Gold Mining Co. v. Amador Medean Gold Mining Co., 145 U. S. 300, 301. The Court has found unfit for adjudication any cause that “is not in any real sense adversary,” that “does not assume the ‘honest and actual antagonistic assertion of rights’ to be adjudicated — a safeguard essential to the integrity of the judicial process, and one which we have held to be indispensable to adjudication of constitutional questions by this Court.” United States v. Johnson, 319 U. S. 302, 305. The requirement for adversity was classically expounded in Chicago & Grand Trunk R. Co. v. Wellman, 143 U. S. 339, 344-345:
“. . . The theory upon which, apparently, this suit was brought is that parties have an appeal from the legislature to the courts; and that the latter are given an immediate and general supervision of the constitutionality of the acts of the former. Such is not true. Whenever, in pursuance of an honest and actual antagonistic assertion of rights by one individual against another, there is presented a question involving the validity of any act of any legislature, State or Federal, and the decision necessarily rests on the competency of the legislature to so enact, the court must, in the exercise of its solemn duties, determine whether the act be constitutional or not; but such an exercise of power is the ultimate and supreme function of courts. It is legitimate only in the last resort, and as a necessity in the determination of real, earnest and vital controversy between individuals. It never was the thought that, by means of a friendly suit, a party beaten in the legislature could transfer to the courts an inquiry as to the constitutionality of the legislative act.”
What was said in the Wellman case found ready application in proceedings brought under modern declaratory judgment procedures. For just as the declaratory judgment device does not “purport to alter the character of the controversies which are the subject of the judicial power under the Constitution,” United States v. West Virginia, 295 U. S. 463, 475, it does not permit litigants to invoke the power of this Court to obtain constitutional rulings in advance of necessity. Electric Bond & Share Co. v. Securities and Exchange Comm’n, 303 U. S. 419, 443. The Court has been on the alert against use of the declaratory judgment device for avoiding the rigorous insistence on exigent adversity as a. condition for evoking Court adjudication. This is as true of state court suits for declaratory judgments as of federal. By exercising their jurisdiction, state courts cannot determine the jurisdiction to be exercised by this Court. Tyler v. Judges of the Court of Registration, 179 U. S. 405; Doremus v. Board of Education, 342 U. S. 429. Although we have held that a state declaratory-judgment suit may constitute a case or controversy within our appellate jurisdiction, it is to be reviewed here only “so long as the case retains the essentials of an adversary proceeding, involving a real, not a hypothetical, controversy, which is finally determined by the judgment below.” Nashville, C. & St. L. R. Co. v. Wallace, 288 U. S. 249, 264. It was with respect to a state-originating declaratory judgment proceeding that we said, in Alabama State Federation of Labor v. McAdory, 325 U. S. 450, 471, that “The extent to which the declaratory judgment procedure may be used in the federal courts to control state action lies in the sound discretion of the Court. . . .” Indeed, we have recognized, in such cases, that “. . . the discretionary element characteristic of declaratory jurisdiction, and imported perhaps from equity jurisdiction and practice without the remedial phase, offers a convenient instrument for making . . . effective . . .” the policy against premature constitutional decision. Rescue Army v. Municipal Court, 331 U. S. 549, 573, n. 41.
Insofar as appellants seek to justify the exercise of our declaratory power by the threat of prosecution, facts which they can no more negative by complaint and demurrer than they could by stipulation preclude our determining their appeals on the merits. Cf. Bartemeyer v. Iowa, 18 Wall. 129, 13A-135. It is clear that the mere existence of a state penal statute would constitute insufficient grounds to support a federal court’s adjudication of its constitutionality in proceedings brought against the State’s prosecuting officials if real threat of enforcement is wanting. See Ex parte La Prade, 289 U. S. 444, 458. If the prosecutor expressly agrees not to prosecute, a suit against him for declaratory and injunctive relief is not such an adversary case as will be reviewed here. C. I. O. v. McAdory, 325 U. S. 472, 475. Eighty years of Connecticut history demonstrate a similar, albeit tacit agreement. The fact that Connecticut has not chosen to press the enforcement of this statute deprives these controversies of the immediacy which is an indispensable condition of constitutional adjudication. This Court cannot be umpire to debates concerning harmless, empty shadows. To find it necessary to pass on these statutes now, in order to protect appellants from the hazards of prosecution, would be to close our eyes to reality.
Nor does the allegation by the Poes and Doe that they are unable to obtain information concerning contraceptive devices from Dr. Buxton, “for the sole reason that the delivery and use of such information and advice may or will be claimed by the defendant State's Attorney to constitute offenses,” disclose a necessity for present constitutional decision. It is true that this Court has several times passed upon criminal statutes challenged by persons who claimed that the effects of the statutes were to deter others from maintaining profitable or advantageous relations with the complainants. See, e. g., Truax v. Raich, 239 U. S. 33; Pierce v. Society of Sisters, 268 U. S. 510. But in these cases the deterrent effect complained of was one which was grounded in a realistic fear of prosecution. We cannot agree that if Dr. Buxton’s compliance with these statutes is uncoerced by the risk of their enforcement, his patients are entitled to a declaratory judgment concerning the statutes’ validity. And, with due regard to Dr. Buxton’s standing as a physician and to his personal sensitiveness, we cannot accept, as the basis of constitutional adjudication, other than as chimerical the fear of enforcement of provisions that have during so many years gone uniformly and without exception unenforced.
Justiciability is of course not a legal concept with a fixed content, or susceptible of scientific verification. Its utilization is the resultant of many subtle pressures, including the appropriateness of the issues for decision by this Court and the actual hardship to the litigants of denying them the relief sought. Both these factors justify withholding adjudication of the constitutional issue raised under the circumstances and in the manner in which they are now before the Court.
Dismissed.
Mr. Justice Black dissents because he believes that the constitutional questions should be reached and decided.
Plaintiffs in the two cases composing No. 60 sue under fictitious names. The Supreme Court of Errors of Connecticut approved this procedure in the special circumstances of the cases.
As a matter of specific legislation, Connecticut outlaws only the use of contraceptive materials. Conn. Gen. Stat. Rev., 1958, § 53-32 provides:
“Use of drugs or instruments to prevent conception. Any person who uses any drug, medicinal article or instrument for the purpose of preventing conception shall be fined not less than fifty dollars or imprisoned not less than sixty days nor more than one year or be both fined and imprisoned.”
There are no substantive provisions dealing with the sale or distribution of such devices, nor with the giving of information concerning their use. These activities are deemed to be involved in law solely because of the general criminal accessory enactment of Connecticut. This is Conn. Gen. Stat. Rev., 1958, § 54-196:
“Accessories. Any person who assists, abets, counsels, causes, hires or commands another to commit any offense may be prosecuted and punished as if he were the principal offender.”
The assumption of prosecution of spouses for use of contraceptives is not only inherently bizarre, as was admitted by counsel, but is underscored in its implausibility by the disability of spouses, under Connecticut law, from being compelled to testify against one another.
It is also worthy of note that the Supreme Court of Errors has held that contraceptive devices could not be seized and destroyed as nuisances under the State’s seizure statutes. See State v. Certain Contraceptive Materials, 126 Conn. 428, 11 A. 2d 863, decided on the same day as the Nelson case.
See, e. g., Braxton County Court v. West Virginia, 208 U. S. 192; Yazoo & Mississippi Valley R. Co. v. Jackson Vinegar Co., 226 U. S. 217; Fairchild v. Hughes, 258 U. S. 126; Tileston v. Ullman, 318 U. S. 44; United States v. Raines, 362 U. S. 17. Cf. Owings v. Norwood’s Lessee, 5 Cranch 344.
See, e. g., New Jersey v. Sargent, 269 U. S. 328; Arizona v. California, 283 U. S. 423; International Longshoremen’s Union v. Boyd, 347 U. S. 222. Cf. Coffman v. Breeze Corporations, 323 U. S. 316.
See, e. g., San Mateo County v. Southern Pacific R. Co., 116 U. S. 138; Singer Mfg. Co. v. Wright, 141 U. S. 696; Mills v. Green, 159 U. S. 651; Kimball v. Kimball, 174 U. S. 158; Tennessee v. Condon, 189 U. S. 64; American Book Co. v. Kansas, 193 U. S. 49; Jones v. Montague, 194 U. S. 147; Security Mutual Life Ins. Co. v. Prewitt, 200 U. S. 446; Richardson v. McChesney, 218 U. S. 487; Berry v. Davis, 242 U. S. 468; Atherton Mills v. Johnston, 259 U. S. 13.
Mr. Justice Brandeis, concurring, in Ashwander v. Tennessee Valley Authority, 297 U. S. 288, 341, 347.
The Mellon cases involved what is technically designated as the problem of “standing,” but the concern which they exemplify that constitutional issues be determined only at the suit of a person immediately injured has equal application here. It makes little sense to insist that only the parties themselves whom legislation immediately threatens may sue to strike it down and, at the same time, permit such suit when there is not even a remote likelihood that the threat to them will in fact materialize.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer:
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I
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sc_issuearea
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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.
Me. Justice Powell
delivered the opinion of the Court.
Although a speedy trial is guaranteed the accused by the Sixth Amendment to the Constitution, this Court has dealt with that right on infrequent occasions. See Beavers v. Haubert, 198 U. S. 77 (1905); Pollard v. United States, 352 U. S. 354 (1957); United States v. Ewell, 383 U. S. 116 (1966); United States v. Marion, 404 U. S. 307 (1971). See also United States v. Provoo, 17 F. R. D. 183 (D. Md.), aff’d, 350 U. S. 857 (1955). The Court’s opinion in Klopfer v. North Carolina, 386 U. S. 213 (1967), established that the right to a sjoeedy trial is “fundamental” and is imposed by the 'Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment on the States. See Smith v. Hooey, 393 U. S. 374 (1969); Dickey v. Florida, 398 U. S. 30 (1970). As Mr. Justice Brennan pointed out in his concurring opinion in Dickey, in none, of these cases have we attempted to set out the criteria-}?y which the speedy trial right is to be judged. 398 U. S., at 40-41. This case compels us to make such an attempt.
I
On July 20, 1958, in Christian County, Kentucky, an elderly couple was beaten to death by intruders wielding an iron tire tool. Two suspects, Silas Manning and Willie Barker, the petitioner, were arrested shortly thereafter. The grand jury indicted them on September 15. Counsel was appointed on September 17, and Barker’s trial was set for October 21. The Commonwealth had a stronger case against.Manning, and it believed that Barker could not be convicted unless Manning testified against him. Manning was naturally unwilling to incriminate himself. Accordingly, on October 23, the day Silas Manning was brought to trial, the Commonwealth sought and obtained the first of what was to be a series of 16 continuances of Barker’s trial. Barker made no objection. By first convicting Manning, the Commonwealth would remove possible problems of self-incrimination and would be able to assure his testimony against Barker.
The Commonwealth encountered more than a few difficulties in its prosecution of Manning. The first trial ended in a hung jury. A second trial resulted in a conviction, but the Kentucky Court of Appeals reversed because of the admission of evidence obtained by an illegal search. Manning v. Commonwealth, 328 S. W. 2d 421 (1959). At his third trial, Manning was again convicted, and the Court of Appeals again reversed because the trial court had not granted a change of venue. Manning v. Commonwealth, 346 S. W. 2d 755 (1961). A fourth trial résulted in á hung jury. Finally, after five trials, Manning was convicted, in March 1962, of murdering one victim, and after a sixth trial, in December 1962, he was convicted of murdering the other.
The Christian County Circuit Court holds three terms each year — in February, June, and September. Barker’s initial trial was to take place in the Septémber term of 1958. The first continuance postponed it until the February 1959 term. The second continuance was granted for one month only. Every term thereafter for as long as the Manning prosecutions were in process, the Comtr monwealth routinely moved to continue Barker’s case to thé next term. When the case was continued from the June 1959 term until the. following September, Barker, having spent 10 months in jail, obtained his release by posting a $5,000 bond. He thereafter remained free in the community until his trial. Barker made no objection, through his counsel, to the first 11 continuances.
When on February 12, 1962, the Commonwealth moved for the twelfth time to continue the case until the following term, Barker’s counsel filed a motion to dismiss the indictment. The motion to dismiss was denied two weeks later, and the Commonwealth’s motion for a continuance was granted. The Commonwealth was granted further continuances in June 1962 and Séptem-ber 1962, to which Barker did not object.
In February 1963, the first term of court following Manning’s final conviction, the Commonwealth moved to set Barker’s trial for March 19. But on the day scheduled for trial, it again moved for a continuance until the June term. It gave as its reason the illness of the ex-sheriff who was the chief investigating officer in the. case. To this continuance, Barker objected unsuccessfully.
The witness was still unable to testify in June, and the trial, which had been siet for June 19, was continued again until the September term over Barker’s'objection. This time the court announced that the case would be dismissed for lack of prosecution if it were-not tried during the next term. The final trial date was set for October' 9, 1963. On that date, Barker again moved to dismiss the' indictment, and this time specified that his right to a speedy trial had been violated. The motion was denied; the trial commenced with Manning.as the chief prosecution witness; Barker was convicted and given a life, sentence.
Barker appealed his conviction to the Kentucky Court of Appeals, relying in part on his speedy trial claim. The court affirmed. Barker v. Commonwealth, 385 S. W. 2d 671 (1964). In February 1970 Barker petitioned for habeas corpus in the United States District Court for the Western District of Kentucky. Although the District Court rejected the petition without holding a hearing, the court granted petitioner leave to appeal in forma pauperis and a certificate of probable cause to appeal. On appeal, the Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, affirmed the District Court. 442 F. 2d 1141 (1971). It ruled that Barker had waived his speedy trial claim for the entire period before February 1963, the date on which the court believed he had first objected to the delay by filing a motion to dismiss. In this belief the court was mistaken, for the record reveals that the motion was filed in February 1962. The Commonwealth so conceded at oral argument before this Court. The court held further that the remaining period after the date on which Barker first raised his claim and before his trial — which it thought was only eight months but which was actually 20 months — was not unduly long. In addition, the court held that Barker had shown no resulting prejudice, and that the illness of the ex-sheriff was a valid justification for the delay. We granted Barker’s petition for certiorari. 404 U. S. 1037 (1972).
II
The right to a speedy trial is generically different from any of the other, rights enshrined in the Constitution for the protection of the accused. In addition to the general concern that all accused persons be treated according to decent and fair procedures, there is a societal interest in providing a speedy trial which exists separate from, and at times in opposition to, the interests of the accused. The inability of courts to provide a prompt trial • has contributed to a large backlog of cases in urban courts which, among other things, enables defendants to negotiate more effectively for pleas of guilty to lesser offenses and otherwise manipulate the system. In addition, persons released on bond for lengthy periods awaiting trial have an opportunity to commit other crimes. It must be of little comfort to the residents of Christian County, Kentucky, to know that Barker was at large on bail for over four years while accused of a vicious and brutal murder of which he was ultimately convicted! Moreover, the longer an accused is free awaiting trial, the inore tempting becomes his opportunity to jump bail and escape. Finally, delay between arrest and punishment may have a detrimental effect, on rehabilitation.
. If an accused cannot make bail, he is generally confined, as was Barker for 10 months, in a local jail. This contributes to the overcrowding and generally deplorable. state of those institutions. Lengthy exposure to these'conditions “has a destructive effect on human character and makes the rehabilitation of the individual offender much more difficult.” At times the result may even be violent rioting. Finally, lengthy pretrial detention is costly. The cost of maintaining a prisoner in jail varies from $3 to $9 per day, and this amounts to millions across the Nation. In addition, society loses wages which might have been earned, and it must often support families of incarcerated breádwinners..
A second difference between the right to speedy trial and the accused’s other constitutional rights is that deprivation of the right may work to the accused’s advantage. Delay is not an uncommon defense tactic. As the time between the commission of the crime and trial lengthens, witnesses may become unavailable or their memories may fade. If the witnesses support the prosecution, its case will be weakened, sometimes seriously so. And it is the prosecution which carries the burden of proof. Thus, unlike the right to counsel or the right to be free from compelled self-incrimination, deprivation of the right to speedy trial does not per se prejudice the accused’s ability to defend himself.
Finally, and perhaps most importantly, the right to speedy trial is a more vague concept than other procedural rights. It is, for example, impossiblé to determine with precision when the right has been denied. We cannot definitely say how long is too long in a system where justice is supposed to be swift but deliberate. As a consequence, there is no fixed point in the criminal process when the State can put the defendant to the choice of either exercising or waiving the right to a speedy trial. If, for example, the- State moves for a 60-day continuance, granting that continuance is not a violation of the right to speedy trial unless the circumstances of the case are such that further delay would endanger the values the right protects. It is impossible to do more than generalize about when those circumstances exist. There is nothing comparable to the point in the process when a defendant exercises or waives his right to counsel or his right to a jury trial. Thus, as we recognized in Beavers v. Haubert, supra, any inquiry into a speedy trial claim necessitates a functional analysis of the right in the particular context of the case:
“The right of a speedy trial is necessarily relative. It is consistent with delays and depends upon circumstances. It secures rights to a defendant. It' does’not preclude the rights of public justice.” 198 U. S., at 87.
The amorphous quality of the right also leads to the unsatisfactorily severe remedy of dismissal of the indictment when the right has been deprived. This is indeed a serious consequence because it means that a defendant who may be guilty of a serious crime will go free, without having been tried. Such a remedy is more serious than an exclusionary rule or a reversal for a new trial, but it is the only possible remedy.
Ill
Perhaps because the speedy trial right is so slippery, two rigid approaches are urged upon us as ways of eliminating some of the uncertainty which courts experience jn protecting the right. The first suggestion is that we hold that the Constitution requires a criminal defendant' to be offered a trial within a specified time period. The result of such a ruling would have the virtue of clarifying when the right is infringed and of simplifying courts’ application of it. Recognizing this, some legislatures have enacted laws, and some courts have adopted procedural rules which more narrowly define the right. The United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit has promulgated rules for the district courts in that Circuit establishing that the government must be ready for trial within six months of the date of arrest, except in unusual circumstances, or the charge will be dismissed. This type of rule is also recommended by the American Bar Association.
But such a result would require this Court to engage in legislative or rulemaking activity, rather than in the adjudicative process to which we should confine our efforts. We do not establish procedural rules for the States, except when mandated by the Constitution. We find no constitutional basis for holding that the speedy trial right can be quantified into a specified number of days or months. The States, of course, are free to prescribe a reasonable period consistent with constitutional standards, but our approach must be less precise.
The second suggested alternative would restrict consideration of the right to those cases in which the accused has demanded a speedy trial. Most States have recognized what is loosely referred' to as the “demand rule,” although eight States reject it. It is not clear, however, precisely what is meant by that term. Although every federal court of appeals that has considered the question has endorsed some kind of demand rule, some have regarded the rule within the concept of waiver, whereas others have viewed it as a factor to be weighed in assessing whether there has been a deprivation of the speedy trial right. We shall' refer to the former approach as the demand-waiver doctrine. The demand-waiver doctrine provides that a defendant waives any consideration of his right to speedy trial for any period prior to which he has not demanded a trial. Under this rigid approach, a prior demand is a necessary condition to the consideration of the speedy trial right. This essentially was the approach the Sixth Circuit took below.
Such an approach,, by presuming waiver of a fundamental right from inaction, is inconsistent with this Court’s pronouncements on waiver of constitutional rights. The Court has defined waiver as “an intentional relinquishment or abandonment of a known right or privilege.” Johnson v. Zerbst, 304 U. S. 458, 464 (1938). Courts should “indulge every reasonable presumption against waiver,” Aetna Ins. Co. v. Kennedy, 301 U. S. 389, 393 (1937), and they should “not presume acquiescence in the loss of fundamental rights,” Ohio Bell Tel. Co. v. Public Utilities Comm’n, 301 U. S. 292, 307 (1937). In Carnley v. Cochran, 369 U. S. 606 (1962), we held:
“Presuming waiver from a silent record is impermissible. The record must show, or there must be an allegation and evidence which show, that an accused. was offered counsel but intelligently and understandably rejected the offer. Anything less is not waiver.” Id., at 516.
The Court has ruled similarly with respect to waiver of other rights designed to protect the accused. See, e. g., Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U. S. 436, 475-476 (1966); Boykin v. Alabama, 395 U. S. 238 (1969).
In excépting the right to speedy trial from the rule of waiver we have applied to other fundamental rights, courts that have applied the demand-waiver rule have relied on the assumption that delay usually works for the benefit of the accused and on the absence of any readily ascertainable time in the criminal process for a defendant to be given the choice of exercising or waiving his right. But it is not necessarily true that delay benefits the defendant. There are cases in which delay appreciably harms the defendant’s ability to defend himself. Moreover, a defendant confined to jail prior to trial is obviously disadvantaged by delay as is a defendant released on bail but unable to lead a normal life because of community suspicion and his own anxiety.
The nature of the speedy trial right does make it impossible to pinpoint a precise time in the process when the right must be asserted or waived, but that fact does not argue for placing the burden of protecting the right solely on defendants. A defendant has no duty to bring himself to trial; the State has that duty as well as the duty of insuring that the trial is consistent with due process. Moreover, for the reasons earlier expressed, society.has a particular interest in bringing swift prosecutions, and. society’s representatives are the ones who should protect that interest.
It is also noteworthy that such a rigid view of the demand-waiver rule places defense counsel in an awkward position. Unless he demands a trial early and often, he is in danger of frustrating his client’s right. If counsel is willing to tolerate some delay because he finds it reasonable and helpful in preparing his own, case, he may be unable to obtain a speedy trial for his client.at the end of that time. Since under the demand-waiver rule no time runs until the demand is made, the government will have whatever time is otherwise reasonable to bring the defendant to trial after a demand has been made. Thus, if the first demand is made three months after arrest in a jurisdiction which prescribes a six-month rule, the prosecution will have a total of nine months — which may be wholly unreasonable under the circumstances. The result in practice is likely to be either an automatic, pro forma demand made immediately after appointment of counsel or delays which, but for the demand-waiver rule, would not be tolerated. Such a result is not consistent with the interests of defendants, society, or the Constitution.
We reject, therefore, the rule that a defendant who fails to demand a speedy trial forever waives his right. This does not mean, however, that the defendant has no responsibility to assert his right. We think the better rule is that the defendant’s assertion of or failure to assert his right to a speedy trial is one of the factors to be considered in an inquiry into the deprivation of the right. Such a formulation avoids the rigidities of the demand-waiver rule and the resulting possible unfairness in its application. It allows the trial court to exercise a judicial discretion based on the circumstances, including due consideration of any applicable formal procedural rule. It would permit, for example, a court to attach a different weight to a situation in which the defendant knowingly fails to object from a situation in which his attorney acquiesces in long delay without adequately informing his client, or from a situation in which no counsel is appointed. It would also allow a court to weigh the frequency and force of the objections as opposed to attaching significant weight to a purely pro forma objection.
In ruling that a defendant has some responsibility to assert a speedy trial claim, we do not depart from our holdings in other cases concerning the waiver of fundamental rights, in which we have placed the entire responsibility on the prosecution to show that the claimed waiver was knowingly and voluntarily made. Such cases have involved rights which must be exercised or waived at a specific time or under clearly identifiable circumstances, such as the rights to plead not guilty, to demand a jury trial, to exercise the privilege against self-incrimination, and to have the assistance of counsel. We have shown above that the right to a speedy trial is unique in its uncertainty as to when and under what circumstances it must be asserted or may be deemed waived. But the rule we announce today, which comports with constitutional principles, places the primary burden on the courts and the prosecutors to assure that cases are brought to trial. We hardly need add that if delay is attributable to the defendant, then his waiver may be given effect under standard waiver doctrine, the demand rule aside.
We, therefore, reject both of the inflexible approaches — the fixed-time period because it goes further than the Constitution requires; the demand-waiver rule because it is insensitive to a right which we have deemed fundamental. The approach we accept is*>a balancing test, in which the conduct of both the prosecution and the defendant are weighed.
IV
A balancing test necessarily compels courts to approach speedy trial cases on an ad hoc basis. We can do little more than identify some of the factors which courts should assess in determining whether. a particular defendant has been deprived of his right. Though some might express them in different ways, we identify four such factors: Length of. delay, the reason for the delay, the defendant’s assertion of his right, and prejudice to the defendant.
The length of the delay is to some extent a triggering mechanism. Until there is some delay which is presumptively prejudicial, there is no necessity for inquiry into the other factors that go into the balance. Nevertheless, because of the imprecision of the right to speedy trial, the length of delay that will provoke such an inquiry is necessarily dependent upon the peculiar circumstances of the case. To take but one example, the delay that can be tolerated for an ordinary street crime is considerably less than for a serious, complex conspiracy charge.
Closely related to length of delay is the reason the government assigns to justify the delay. Here, too, different weights should bé assigned to different reasons. A deliberate attempt to delay the trial in order to hamper the defense should be weighted heavily against the government. A more neutral reason such as negligence or overcrowded courts should be weighted less heavily but nevertheless should be considered since the ultimate responsibility for such circumstances must rest with the government rather, than with the defendant. Finally, a valid reason, such as a missing witness, should serve to justify appropriate delay.
We have already discussed the third factor, the defendant’s responsibility to assert his right. Whether and how a defendant asserts his right is closely related to the other factors we have mentioned. The strength óf his efforts will be affected by the length of the delay, to some extent by the reason for the delay, and most particularly by the personal prejudice, which is not always readily identifiable, that he experiences. The more serious the deprivation, the more likely a defendant is to complain. The defendant’s assertion of his speedy trial right, then, is entitled to strong evidentiary weight in determining whether the defendant is being deprived of the right. We emphasize that failure to assert the right will make it difficult for a defendant to prove that he was denied a speedy trial.
A fourth factor is prejudice to the defendant. Prejudice, of course, should be assessed in the light of the interests of defendants which the speedy trial right was designed to protect. This Court has identified three such interests: (i) to prevent oppressive pretrial incarceration; (ii) to minimize anxiety.and concern of the accused; and (iii) to limit the possibility that the defense will be impaired. Of these, the most serious is the last, because the inability of a defendant adequately to prepare his case skews the fairness of the entire system. If witnesses die or disappear during a delay, the prejudice is obvious. There is also prejudice if defense witnesses are unable to recall accurately events of the distant past. Loss of memory, however, is not always reflected in the record because what has been forgotten can rarely be shown.
We have discussed previously the societal disadvantages of lengthy pretrial incarceration, but obviously the disadvantages for the accused who cannot obtain his release are even more serious. The time spent in jail awaiting trial has a detrimental impact on the individual. It often means loss of a job; it disrupts family life; and it enforces idleness. Most jails offer little or no recreational or rehabilitative programs. The time spent in jail is simply dead time. Moreover, if a defendant is locked up, he is hindered in his ability to gather evidence, contact witnesses, or otherwise prepare his defense. Imposing those consequences on anyone who has not yet been convicted is serious. It is especially unfortunate to impose them on those persons who are ultimately found to be innocent. Finally, even if an accused is not incarcerated prior, to trial, he is still disadvantaged by restraints on his liberty and by living under a cloud of anxiety, suspicion, and often hostility. See cases cited in n. 33, supra.
We regard none of the four factors identified above as either a necessary or sufficient condition to the finding of a deprivation of the right of speedy trial. Rather, they are related factors and must be considered together with such other circumstances as may be relevant. In sum, these factors have no talismanic qualities; courts must still engage in a difficult- and sensitive balancing process. But, because we are dealing with a fundamental right pf the accused, this process must be carried out with full recognition that the accused’s interest in a speedy trial is specifically affirmed in the Constitution.
V
The difficulty of the task of balancing these factors is illustrated by this case, which we consider to be close. It is clear that the length of delay between arrest and trial — well over five years — was extraordinary. Only seven months of that period can be attributed to a strong excuse, the illness of the ex-sheriff who was in charge of the investigation. Perhaps some delay would have been permissible under ordinary circumstances, so that Manning could be utilized as a witness in Barker’s trial, but more than four years was too long a period, particularly since a good part of that period was attributable to the Commonwealth’s failure or inability to try Manning under circumstances that comported with due process.
Two counterbalancing factors, however, outweigh these deficiencies. The first is that prejudice was minimal. Of course, Barker was prejudiced to some extent by living fop,, over four years under a cloud of suspicion and anxiety. Moreover, although he was released on bond for most of the period, he did spend 10 months in jail before trial. But there is no claim that any of Barker’s witnesses died or otherwise became unavailable owing to the delay. The trial transcript indicates only two very minor lapses of memory — one on the part of a prosecution witness — which were in no way significant to the outcome.
More important than the absence of serious prejudice, is the fact that Barker did not want a speedy trial. Counsel was appointed for Barker immediately after his indictment and represented him throughout the period. No question is raised as to the competency of such counsel. Despite the fact that counsel had notice of the motions for continuances, the record shows no action whatever taken between October 21, 1958, and February 12, 1962, that could be construed as the assertion of the speedy trial right. On the latter date, in response to another motion for continuance, Barker moved to dismiss the indictment. The record does not show on what ground this motion was based, although it is clear that no alternative motion was made for an immediate trial. Instead the • record strongly suggests that while he hoped to take, advantage of the delay in which he had acquiesced and thereby obtain a dismissal of the charges, he definitely did not want to be tried. Counsel conceded as much at oral argument:
“Your honor, I would concede that Willie Mae Barker probably — I don’t know this for a fact— probably did not want to be tried. I don’t think any man wants to be tried. And I don’t consider this a liability on his behalf. I don’t blame him.” Tr. of Oral Arg. 39.
The probable reason for Barker’s attitude was that he was gambling on Manning’s acquittal. The evidence was not very strong against Manning, as the reversals and hung juries suggest, and Barker undoubtedly thought that if Manning were acquitted, he would never be tried. Counsel also conceded this:
“Now, it’s true that the reason for this delay was the Commonwealth of Kentucky’s desire to secure the testimony of the accomplice, Silas Manning. And it’s true that if Silas Manning were never convicted, Willie Mae Barker would never have been convicted. We concede this.” Id., at 15.
That Barker was gambling on Manning’s acquittal is also • suggested by ■ his failure, following the pro forma motion to dismiss filed in February 1962, to object to the. Commonwealth’s next two motions for continuances. Indeed, it was not until March 1963, after Manning’s convictions were ■ final, that Barker, having lost his gamble, began to object to further continuances. At that time, the Commonwealth’s excuse was the illness of the ex-sheriff, which Barker has conceded justified the further delay.
We do not hold that there may never be a situation in which an indictment may be dismissed on speedy trial grounds where the defendant- has failed to object to continuances. There may be a situation in which the defendant was represented by incompetent counsel, was severely prejudiced, or even cases in which the continuances were granted ex parte. But barring extraordinary circumstances, we would be reluctant indeed to rule that a defendant was denied this constitutional, right on a record that strongly indicates, as does this one, that the defendant did not want a speedy trial. We hold, therefore, that Barker was not deprived of his due process right to a speedy trial.
The judgment of the Court of Appeals is
Affirmed.
The Sixth Amendment provides:
“In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defence.”
“We hold here that the right to a speedy trial is as fundamental as any of the rights secured by the Sixth Amendment.” 386 U. S., at 223.
There is no explanation in the record why, although Barker’s initial trial, was set for October 21, no continuance was sought until October 23, two days after the trial should have begun.
Apparently Maiming chose not to appeal these final two convictions.
The written motion Barker filed alleged that he had objected to every continuance since February 1959. The record does not reflect any objections until the motion to dismiss, filed in February 1962, and the objections to the continuances sought by the Commonwealth in March 1963 and June 1963.
Tr. of Oral Arg. 33.
Report of the President’s Commission on Crime in the District of Columbia 256 (1966).
In Washington, D. C., in 1968, 70.1% of the persons arrested for robbery and released prior to trial were re-arrested while-on bail. Mitchell, Bail Reform and the Constitutionality of Pretrial Detention, 55 Va. L. Rev. 1223, 1236 (1969), citing Report of the Judicial Council. Committee to Study the Operation of the Bail Reform Act in the District of Columbia 20-21 (1969).
The number of these offenses has been increasing. See Annual Report of the Director of the Administrative Office of the-United States Courts, 1971, p. 321.
“[I]t is desirable that punishment should follow.offence as closely as possible; for its impression upon the minds of men is weakened by distance, and, besides, distance adds to the uncertainty of punishment, by affording new chances of escape.” J. Bentham, The Theory of Legislation 326 (Ogden ed. 1931).
To Establish Justice, To Insure Domestic Tranquility, Final Report of the National Commission on the Causes and Prevention of Violence 152 (1969).
Testimony of James V. Bennett, Director, Bureau of Prisons, Hearings on Federal Bail Procedures before the Subcommittee on Constitutional Rights and the Subcommittee on Improvements in Judicial Machinery of the Senate Committee on the Judiciary, 88th Cong., 2d Sess., 46 (1964).
E. g., the “Tombs” riots in New York City in 1970. N. Y. Times, Oct. 3,1970, p. 1; col. 8.
The Challenge of Crime in a Free Society, A Report-by the President’s Commission on Law Enforcement and Administration of Justice 131 (1967).
“[I]n large measure because of'the many procedural safeguards provided an accused, the ordinary procedures for criminal prosecution are designed to move at a deliberate pace. A requirement of unreasonable speed would have a deleterious' effect both upon the rights of the accused and upon the ability of.society to protect itself.” United States v. Ewell, 383 U. S. 116, 120 (1966).
Mr. Justice White noted in his opinion for the Court in Ewell, supra, at 121, that overzealous application of this remedy would infringe “the societal interest in trying people accused of crime, rather than granting them immunization because of legal error....”
For examples, see American Bar Association Project on Standards for Criminal Justice, Speedy Trial 14-16 (Approved Draft 1968); Note, The Right, to & Speedy Criminal Trial, 57 Col. L. Rev. 846, 863 (1957).
Second Circuit Rules Regarding Prompt Disposition of Criminal Cases (1971).
ABA Project, supra, n. 17, at 14. For an example of a proposed statutory rule, see Note, The Lagging Right to a Speedy Trial, 51 Va. L. Rev. 1587, 1619 (1965).
E. g., Pines v. District. Court of Woodbury County, 233 Iowa 1284, 10 N. W. 2d 574 (1943). See generally Note, The Right to a Speedy Criminal Trial, 57 Col. L. Rev. 846, 853 (1957); Note, The Lagging Right to a Speedy Trial, 51 Va. L. Rev. 1587, 1601-1602 (1965).
See State v. Maldonado, 92 Ariz. 70, 373 P. 2d 583 (ere banc), cert. denied, 371 U. S. 928 (1962) ; Hicks v. People, 148 Colo. 26, 364 P. 2d 877 (1961) (ere banc); People v. Prosser, 309 N. Y. 353, 130 N. E. 2d 891 (1955); Zehrlaut v. State, 230 Ind. 175,102 N. E. 2d 203 (1951); Flanary v. Commonwealth, 184 Va. 204, 35 S. E. 2d 135 (1945); Ex parte Chalfant, 81 W. Va. 93, 93 S. E. 1032 (1917); State v. Hess, 180 Kan. 472, 304 P. 2d 474 (1956); State v. Dodson, 226 Ore. 458, 360 P. 2d 782 (1961). But see State v. Vawter, 236 Ore. 85, 386 P. 2d 915 (1963).
See United States v. Hill, 310 F. 2d 601 (CA4 1962); Bruce v. United States, 351 F. 2d 318 (CA5 1965), cert. denied, 384 U. S. 921 (1966); United States v. Perez, 398 F. 2d 658 (CA7 1968), cert. denied, 393 U. S. 1080 (1969); Pietch v. United States, 110 F. 2d 817 (CA10), cert. denied, 310 U. S. 648 (1940); Smith v. United States, 118 U. S. App. D. C. 38, 331 F. 2d 784 (1964) (ere banc). The opinion below in this case demonstrates that the Sixth Circuit takes a similar approach.
As an indication of the importance which these courts have attached to the demand rule, see Perez, supra, in which the court held that a defendant waived any speedy trial claim, because he knew of an indictment and made no demand for an immediate trial, even though the record gave no indication that he was represented by counsel at the time when he should have'made his demand, and even though he was not informed by the court or the prosecution of his right to a speedy trial.
Although stating that they recognize a demand rule, the approach of the Eighth and Ninth Circuits seems to be that a denial of speedy trial can be found despite an absence of a demand under some circumstances. See Bandy v. United States, 408 F. 2d 518 (CA8 1969) (a purposeful or oppressive delay may overcome a failure to demand); Moser v. United States, 381 F. 2d 363 (CA9 1967) (despite a failure to demand, the court balanced other considerations).
The Second Circuit’s approach is unclear. There are cases in which a failure 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:
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A
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sc_issuearea
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What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Justice Kennedy
delivered the opinion of the Court.
The case before us concerns the authority of the President, in our system of separated powers, to prescribe aggravating factors that permit a court-martial to impose the death penalty upon a member of the Armed Forces convicted of murder.
I
On December 12,1988, petitioner Dwight Loving, an Army private stationed at Fort Hood, Texas, murdered two taxicab drivers from the nearby town of Killeen. He attempted to murder a third, but the driver disarmed him and escaped. Civilian and Army authorities arrested Loving the next afternoon. He confessed.
After a trial, an eight-member general court-martial found Loving guilty of, among other offenses, premeditated murder and felony murder under Article 118 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ), 10 U. S. C. §§918(1), (4). In the sentencing phase of the trial, the court-martial found three aggravating factors: (1) that the premeditated murder of the second driver was committed during the course of a robbery, Rule for Courts-Martial (RCM) 1004(c)(7)(B); (2) that Loving acted as the triggerman in the felony murder of the first driver, RCM 1004(c)(8); and (3) that Loving, having been found guilty of the premeditated murder, had committed a second murder, also proved at the single trial, RCM 1004(c)(7)(J). The court-martial sentenced Loving to death. The commander who convened the court-martial approved the findings and sentence. Cf. 10 U. S. C. § 860. The United States Army Court of Military Review and the United States Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces (formerly the United States Court of Military Appeals (CMA)) affirmed, 41 M. J. 213 (1994), relying on United States v. Curtis, 32 M. J. 252 (CMA), cert. denied, 502 U. S. 952 (1991), to reject Loving’s claims that the President lacked authority to promulgate the aggravating factors that enabled the court-martial to sentence him to death. We granted certiorari. 515 U. S. 1191 (1995).
II
Although American courts-martial from their inception have had the power to decree capital punishment, they have not long had the authority to try and to sentence members of the Armed Forces for capital murder committed in the United States in peacetime. In the early days of the Republic the powers of courts-martial were fixed in the Articles of War. Congress enacted the first Articles in 1789 by adopting in full the Articles promulgated in 1775 (and revised in 1776) by the Continental Congress. Act of Sept. 29, 1789, ch. 25, §4, 1 Stat. 96. (Congress reenacted the Articles in 1790 “as far as the same may be applicable to the constitution of the United States,” Act of Apr. 30, 1790, ch. 10, § 13, 1 Stat. 121.) The Articles adopted by the First Congress placed significant restrictions on court-martial jurisdiction over capital offenses. Although the death penalty was authorized for 14 military offenses, American Articles of War of 1776, reprinted in W. Winthrop, Military Law and Precedents 961 (reprint 2d ed. 1920) (hereinafter Winthrop); Comment, Rocks and Shoals in a Sea of Otherwise Deep Commitment: General Court-Martial Size and Voting Requirements, 35 Nav. L. Rev. 153, 156-158 (1986), the Articles followed the British example of ensuring the supremacy of civil court jurisdiction over ordinary capital crimes that were punishable by the law of the land and were not special military offenses. 1776 Articles, § 10, Art. 1, reprinted in Winthrop 964 (requiring commanders, upon application, to exert utmost effort to turn offender over to civil authorities). Cf. British Articles of War of 1765, § 11, Art. 1, reprinted in Winthrop 937 (same). That provision was deemed protection enough for soldiers, and in 1806 Congress debated and rejected a proposal to remove the death penalty from court-martial jurisdiction. Wiener, Courts-Martial and the Bill of Rights: The Original Practice I, 72 Harv. L. Rev. 1, 20-21 (1958).
Over the next two centuries, Congress expanded court-martial jurisdiction. In 1863, concerned that civil courts could not function in all places during hostilities, Congress granted courts-martial jurisdiction of common-law capital crimes and the authority to impose the death penalty in wartime. Act of Mar. 3, 1863, § 30, 12 Stat. 736, Rev. Stat. § 1342, Art. 58 (1875); Coleman v. Tennessee, 97 U. S. 509, 514 (1879). In 1916, Congress granted to the military courts a general jurisdiction over common-law felonies committed by service members, except for murder and rape committed within the continental United States during peacetime. Articles of War of 1916, ch. 418, § 3, Arts. 92-93, 39 Stat. 664. Persons accused of the latter two crimes were to be turned over to the civilian authorities. Art. 74, 39 Stat. 662. In 1950, with the passage of the UCMJ, Congress lifted even this restriction. Article 118 of the UCMJ describes four types of murder subject to court-martial jurisdiction, two of which are punishable by death:
“Any person subject to this chapter who, without justification or excuse, unlawfully kills a human being, when he—
“(1) has a premeditated design to kill;
“(2) intends to kill or inflict great bodily harm;
“(3) is engaged in an act which is inherently dangerous to another and evinces a wanton disregard of human life; or
“(4) is engaged in the perpetration or attempted perpetration of burglary, sodomy, rape, robbery, or aggravated arson;
“is guilty of murder, and shall suffer such punishment as a court-martial may direct, except that if found guilty under clause (1) or (4), he shall suffer death or imprisonment for life as a court-martial may direct.” 10 U.S.C. §918.
So matters stood until 1983, when the CMA confronted a challenge to the constitutionality of the military capital punishment scheme in light of Furman v. Georgia, 408 U. S. 238 (1972), and our ensuing death penalty jurisprudence. Although it held valid most of the death penalty procedures followed in courts-martial, the court found one fundamental defect: the failure of either the UCMJ or the RCM to require that court-martial members “specifically identify the aggravating factors upon which they have relied in choosing to impose the death penalty.” United States v. Matthews, 16 M. J. 364, 379. The court reversed Matthews’ death sentence, but ruled that either Congress or the President could remedy the defect and that the new procedures could be applied retroactively. Id., at 380-382.
The President responded to Matthews in 1984 with an Executive Order promulgating RCM 1004. In conformity with 10 U. S. C. § 852(a)(1), the Rule, as amended, requires a unanimous finding that the accused was guilty of a capital offense before a death sentence may be imposed, RCM 1004(a)(2). The Rule also requires unanimous findings (1) that at least one aggravating factor is present and (2) that any extenuating or mitigating circumstances are substantially outweighed by any admissible aggravating circumstances, 1004(b). RCM 1004(c) enumerates 11 categories of aggravating factors sufficient for imposition of the death penalty. The Rule also provides that the accused is to have “broad latitude to present evidence in extenuation and mitigation,” 1004(b)(3), and is entitled to have the members of the court-martial instructed to consider all such evidence before deciding upon a death sentence, 1004(b)(6).
This is the scheme Loving attacks as unconstitutional. He contends that the Eighth Amendment and the doctrine of separation of powers require that Congress, and not the President, make the fundamental policy determination respecting the factors that warrant the death penalty.
III
A preliminary question in this case is whether the Constitution requires the aggravating factors that Loving challenges. The Government does not contest the application of our death penalty jurisprudence to courts-martial, at least in the context of a conviction under Article 118 for murder committed in peacetime within the United States, and we shall assume that Furman and the case law resulting from it are applicable to the crime and sentence in question. Cf. Trop v. Dulles, 356 U. S. 86 (1958) (analyzing court-martial punishments under the Eighth Amendment). The Eighth Amendment requires, among other things, that “a capital sentencing scheme must ‘genuinely narrow the class of persons eligible for the death penalty and must reasonably justify the imposition of a more severe sentence on the defendant compared to others found guilty of murder.’” Lowenfield v. Phelps, 484 U. S. 231, 244 (1988) (quoting Zant v, Stephens, 462 U. S. 862, 877 (1983)). Some schemes accomplish that narrowing by requiring that the sentencer find at least one aggravating circumstance. 484 U. S., at 244. The narrowing may also be achieved, however, in the definition of the capital offense, in which circumstance the requirement that the sentencer “find the existence of an aggravating circumstance in addition is no part of the constitutionally required narrowing process.” Id., at 246.
Although the Government suggests the contrary, Brief for United States 11, n. 6, we agree with Loving, on the assumption that Furman applies to this case, that aggravating factors are necessary to the constitutional validity of the military capital punishment scheme as now enacted. Article 118 authorizes the death penalty for but two of the four types of murder specified: premeditated and felony murder are punishable by death, 10 U. S. C. §§918(1), (4), whereas intentional murder without premeditation and murder resulting from wanton and dangerous conduct are not, §§918(2), (3). The statute’s selection of the two types of murder for the death penalty, however, does not narrow the death-eligible class in a way consistent with our cases. Article 118(4) by its terms permits death to be imposed for felony murder even if the accused had no intent to kill and even if he did not do the killing himself. The Eighth Amendment does not permit the death penalty to be imposed in those circumstances. Enmund v. Florida, 458 U. S. 782, 801 (1982). As a result, additional aggravating factors establishing a higher culpability are necessary to save Article 118. We turn to the question whether it violated the principle of separation of powers for the President to prescribe the aggravating factors required by the Eighth Amendment.
IV
Even before the birth of this country, separation of powers was known to be a defense against tyranny. Montesquieu, The Spirit of the Laws 151-152 (T. Nugent transí. 1949); 1 W. Blackstone, Commentaries *146-* 147, *269-*270. Though faithful to the precept that freedom is imperiled if the whole of legislative, executive, and judicial power is in the same hands, The Federalist No. 47, pp. 325-326 (J. Madison) (J. Cooke ed. 1961), the Framers understood that a “hermetic sealing off of the three branches of Government from one another would preclude the establishment of a Nation capable of governing itself effectively,” Buckley v. Valeo, 424 U. S. 1, 120-121 (1976) (per curiam).
“While the Constitution diffuses power the better to secure liberty, it also contemplates that practice will integrate the dispersed powers into a workable government. It enjoins upon its branches separateness but interdependence, autonomy but reciprocity.” Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer, 343 U. S. 579, 635 (1952) (Jackson, J., concurring).
Although separation of powers “ ‘d[oes] not mean that these [three] departments ought to have no partial agency in, or no controul over the acts of each other,’” Mistretta v. United States, 488 U. S. 361, 380-381 (1989) (quoting The Federalist No. 47, supra, at 325-326 (emphasis deleted)), it remains a basic principle of our constitutional scheme that one branch of the Government may not intrude upon the central prerogatives of another. See Plaut v. Spendthrift Farm, Inc., 514 U. S. 211, 225-226 (1995) (Congress may not revise judicial determinations by retroactive legislation reopening judgments); Bowsher v. Synar, 478 U. S. 714, 726 (1986) (Congress may not remove executive officers except by impeachment); INS v. Chadha, 462 U. S. 919, 954-955 (1983) (Congress may not enact laws without bicameral passage and presentment of the bill to the President); United States v. Klein, 13 Wall. 128, 147 (1872) (Congress may not deprive court of jurisdiction based on the outcome of a case or undo a Presidential pardon). Even when a branch does not arrogate power to itself, moreover, the separation-of-powers doctrine requires that a branch not impair another in the performance of its constitutional duties. Mistretta v. United States, supra, at 397-408 (examining whether statute requiring participation of Article III judges in the United States Sentencing Commission threatened the integrity of the Judicial Branch); Nixon v. Administrator of General Services, 433 U. S. 425, 445 (1977) (examining whether law requiring agency control of Presidential papers disrupted the functioning of the Executive).
Deterrence of arbitrary or tyrannical rule is not the sole reason for dispersing the federal power among three branches, however. By allocating specific powers and responsibilities to a branch fitted to the task, the Framers created a National Government that is both effective and accountable. Article I’s precise rules of representation, member qualifications, bicameralism, and voting procedure make Congress the branch most capable of responsive and deliberative lawmaking. See Chadha, supra, at 951. Ill suited to that task are the Presidency, designed for the prompt and faithful execution of the laws and its own legitimate powers, and the Judiciary, a branch with tenure and authority independent of direct electoral control. The clear assignment of power to a branch, furthermore, allows the citizen to know who may be called to answer for making, or not making, those delicate and necessary decisions essential to governance.
Another strand of our separation-of-powers jurisprudence, the delegation doctrine, has developed to prevent Congress from forsaking its duties. Loving invokes this doctrine to question the authority of the President to promulgate RCM 1004. The fundamental precept of the delegation doctrine is that the lawmaking function belongs to Congress, U. S. Const., Art. I, §1, and may not be conveyed to another branch or entity. Field v. Clark, 143 U. S. 649, 692 (1892). This principle does not mean, however, that only Congress can make a rule of prospective force. To burden Congress with all federal rulemaking would divert that branch from more pressing issues, and defeat the Framers’ design of a workable National Government. Thomas Jefferson observed: “Nothing is so embarrassing nor so mischievous in a great assembly as the details of execution.” 5 Works of Thomas Jefferson 319 (P. Ford ed. 1904) (letter to E. Carrington, Aug. 4, 1787). See also A. L. A. Schechter Poultry Corp. v. United States, 295 U. S. 495, 529-530 (1935) (recognizing “the necessity of adapting legislation to complex conditions involving a host of details with which the national legislature cannot deal directly”). This Court established long ago that Congress must be permitted to delegate to others at least some authority that it could exercise itself. Wayman v. Southard, 10 Wheat. 1, 42 (1825).
“‘The true distinction... is between the delegation of power to make the law, which necessarily involves a discretion as to what it shall be, and conferring authority or discretion as to its execution, to be exercised under and in pursuance of the law. The first cannot be done; to the latter no valid objection can be made.’” Field, supra, at 693-694, quoting Cincinnati, W. & Z. R. Co. v. Commissioners of Clinton County, 1 Ohio St. 77, 88-89 (1852).
Loving contends that the military death penalty scheme of Article 118 and RCM 1004 does not observe the limits of the delegation doctrine. He presses his constitutional challenge on three fronts. First, he argues that Congress cannot delegate to the President the authority to prescribe aggravating factors in capital murder cases. Second, he contends that, even if it can, Congress did not delegate the authority by implicit or explicit action. Third, Loving believes that even if certain statutory provisions can be construed as delegations, they lack an intelligible principle to guide the President’s discretion. Were Loving’s premises to be accepted, the President would lack authority to prescribe aggravating factors in RCM 1004, and the death sentence imposed upon him would be unconstitutional.
A
Loving’s first argument is that Congress lacks power to allow the President to prescribe aggravating factors in military capital cases because any delegation would be inconsistent with the Framers’ decision to vest in Congress the power “To make Rules for the Government and Regulation of the land and naval Forces.” U. S. Const., Art. I, §8, cl. 14. At least in the context of capital punishment for peacetime crimes, which implicates the Eighth Amendment, this power must be deemed exclusive, Loving contends. In his view, not only is the determination of aggravating factors a quintessential policy judgment for the Legislature, but the history of military capital punishment in England and America refutes a contrary interpretation. He asserts that his offense was not tried in a military court throughout most of English and American history. It is this historical exclusion of common-law capital crimes from military jurisdiction, he urges, that must inform our understanding of whether Clause 14 reserves to Congress the power to prescribe what conduct warrants a death sentence, even if it permits Congress to authorize courts-martial to try such crimes. See Brief for Petitioner 42-43; Brief for United States Navy-Marine Corps Appellate Defense Division as Amicus Curiae 7-12, 19-26. Mindful of the historical dangers of autocratic military justice and of the limits Parliament set on the peacetime jurisdiction of courts-martial over capital crimes in the first Mutiny Act, 1 Wm. & Mary, ch. 5 (1689), and having experienced the military excesses of the Crown in colonial America, the Framers harbored a deep distrust of executive military power and military tribunals. See Reid v. Covert, 354 U. S. 1, 23-24 (1957) (plurality); Lee v. Madigan, 358 U. S. 228, 232 (1959). It follows, Loving says, that the Framers intended that Congress alone should possess the power to decide what aggravating factors justify sentencing a member of the Armed Forces to death.
We have undertaken before, in resolving other issues, the difficult task of interpreting Clause 14 by drawing upon English constitutional history. See, e. g., Reid, supra, at 23-30; O’Callahan v. Parker, 395 U. S. 258, 268-272 (1969) (determining that courts-martial only had jurisdiction of service-connected crimes); Solorio v. United States, 483 U. S. 435, 442-446 (1987) (overruling O’Callahan and taking issue with its historical analysis). Doing so here, we find that, although there is a grain of truth in Loving’s historical arguments, the struggle of Parliament to control military tribunals and the lessons the Framers drew from it are more complex than he suggests. The history does not require us to read Clause 14 as granting to Congress an exclusive, non-delegable power to determine military punishments. If anything, it appears that England found security in divided authority, with Parliament at times ceding to the Crown the task of fixing military punishments. From the English experience the Framers understood the necessity of balancing efficient military discipline, popular control of a standing army, and the rights of soldiers; they perceived the risks inherent in assigning the task to one part of the Government to the exclusion of another; and they knew the resulting parliamentary practice of delegation. The Framers’ choice in Clause 14 was to give Congress the same flexibility to exercise or share power as times might demand.
In England after the Norman Conquest, military justice was a matter of royal prerogative. The rudiments of law in English military justice can first be seen in the written orders issued by the King for various expeditions. Winthrop 17-18. For example, in 1190 Richard I issued an ordinance outlining six offenses to which the crusaders would be subject, including two punishable by death: “Whoever shall slay a man on ship-board, he shall be bound to the dead man and thrown into the sea. If he shall slay him on land he shall be bound to the dead man and buried in the earth.” Ordinance of Richard I — A. D. 1190, reprinted in id., at 903. The first comprehensive articles of war were those declared by Richard II at Durham in 1385 and Henry V at Mantes in 1419, which decreed capital offenses that not only served military discipline but also protected foreign noncombatants from the ravages of war. T. Meron, Henry’s Wars and Shakespeare’s Laws: Perspectives on the Law of War in the Later Middle Ages 91-93 (1993). Articles of War, sometimes issued by military commanders acting under royal commission in the ensuing centuries, Winthrop 19, were not fixed codes, at least through the 17th century; rather, “each war, each expedition, had its own edict,” which lost force after the cessation of hostilities and the disbanding of the army that had been formed. J. Pipón & J. Collier, Manual of Military Law 14 (3d rev. ed. 1863).
Thus, royal ordinances governed the conduct of war, but the common law did not countenance the enforcement of military law in times of peace “when the king’s courts [were] open for all persons to receive justice according to the laws of the land.” 1 W. Blackstone, Commentaries *413. See also M. Hale, History of the Common Law of England 25-27 (C. Gray ed. 1971) (describing efforts of Parliament and the common-law courts to limit the jurisdiction of the military Courts of the Constable and the Marshal).
“The Common Law made no distinction between the crimes of soldiers and those of civilians in time of peace. All subjects were tried alike by the same civil courts, so ‘if a life-guardsman deserted, he could only be sued for breach of contract, and if he struck his officer he was only liable to an indictment or action of battery.’” Reid, supra, at 24, n. 44 (quoting 2 J. Campbell, Lives of the Chief Justices of England 91 (1849)).
See also 1 T. Macaulay, History of England 272 (n. d.) (hereinafter Macaulay).
The triumph of civil jurisdiction was not absolute, however. The political disorders of the 17th century ushered in periods of harsh military justice, with soldiers and at times civilian rebels punished, even put to death, under the summary decrees of courts-martial. See C. Clode, Administration of Justice Under Military and Martial Law 20-42 (1872) (hereinafter Clode). Cf. Petition of Right of 1627, 3 Car. I, ch. 1 (protesting court-martial abuses). Military justice was brought under the rule of parliamentary law in 1689, when William and Mary accepted the Bill of Rights requiring Parliament’s consent to the raising and keeping of armies. In the Mutiny Act of 1689, Parliament declared the general principle that “noe Man may be forejudged of Life or Limbe or subjected to any kinde of punishment by Martiall Law or in any other manner then by the Judgement of his Peeres and according to the knowne and Established Laws of this Realme,” but decreed that “Soldiers who shall Mutiny or stirr up Sedition or shall desert Their Majestyes Service be brought to a more Exemplary and speedy Punishment than the usuall Forms of Law will allow,” and “shall suffer Death or such other Punishment as by a Court-Martiall shall be Inflicted.” 1 Wm. & Mary, ch. 5.
In one sense, as Loving wants to suggest, the Mutiny Act was a sparing exercise of parliamentary authority, since only the most serious domestic offenses of soldiers were made capital, and the militia was exempted. See Solorio, supra, at 442. He misunderstands the Mutiny Act of 1689, however, in arguing that it bespeaks a special solicitude for the rights of soldiers and a desire of Parliament to exclude Executive power over military capital punishment.
The Mutiny Act, as its name suggests, came on the heels of the mutiny of Scottish troops loyal to James II. 3 Macaulay 45-49. The mutiny occurred at a watershed time. Menaced by great continental powers, England had come to a grudging recognition that a standing army, long decried as an instrument of despotism, had to be maintained on its soil. The mutiny cast in high relief the dangers to the polity of a standing army turned bad. Macaulay describes the sentiment of the time:
“There must then be regular soldiers; and, if there were to be regular soldiers, it must be indispensable, both to their efficiency, and to the security of every other class, that they should be kept under a strict discipline. An ill disciplined army... [is] formidable only to the country which it is paid to defend. A strong line of demarcation must therefore be drawn between the soldiers and the rest of the community. For the sake of public freedom, they must, in the midst of freedom, be placed under a despotic rule. They must be subject to a sharper penal code, and to a more stringent code of procedure, than are administered by the ordinary tribunals.” Id., at 50.
The Mutiny Act, then, was no measure of leniency for soldiers. With its passage, “the Army of William III. was governed under a severer Code than that made by his predecessors under the Prerogative authority of the Crown. The Mutiny Act, without displacing the Articles of War and those Military Tribunals under which the Army had hitherto been governed, gave statutory sanction to the infliction of Capital Punishments for offences rather Political than Military, and which had rarely been so punished under Prerogative authority.” Clode 9-10. See also Duke & Vogel, The Constitution and the Standing Army: Another Problem of Court-Martial Jurisdiction, 13 Vand. L. Rev. 435, 443, and n. 40 (1960) (noting that the Articles of War of 1662 and 1686 prohibited the infliction in peacetime of punishment costing life or limb). Indeed, it was the Crown that later tempered the excesses of courts-martial wielding the power of capital punishment. It did so by stipulating in the Articles of War (which remained a matter of royal prerogative) that all capital sentences be sent to it for revision or approval. Clode 9-10.
Popular suspicion of the standing army persisted, 5 Macaulay 253-273, 393, and Parliament authorized the Mutiny Acts only for periods of six months and then a year, 3 id., at 51-53. But renewed they were time and again, and Parliament would alter the power of courts-martial to impose the death penalty for peacetime offenses throughout the next century. It withdrew the power altogether in 1713, 12 Anne, ch. 13, § 1, only to regret the absence of the penalty during the rebellion of 1715, Clode 49. The third of the Mutiny Acts of 1715 subjected the soldier to capital punishment for a wide array of peacetime offenses related to political disorder and troop discipline. Id., at 50. And, for a short time in the 18th century, Parliament allowed the Crown to invest courts-martial with a general criminal jurisdiction over soldiers even at home, placing no substantive limit on the penalties that could be imposed; until 1718, that jurisdiction was superior to civil courts. Id., at 52-53. The propriety of that general jurisdiction within the kingdom was questioned, and the jurisdiction was withdrawn in 1749. Id., at 53. Nevertheless, even as it continued to adjust the scope of military jurisdiction at home, Parliament entrusted broad powers to the Crown to define and punish military crimes abroad. In 1713, it gave statutory sanction to the Crown’s longstanding practice of issuing Articles of War without limiting the kind of punishments that might be imposed; and, in.the same Act, it delegated the power to “erect and constitute Courts Martial with Power to try hear and determine any Crime or Offence by such Articles of War and inflict Penalties by Sentence or Judgement of the same in any of Her Majesties Dominions beyond the Seas or elsewhere beyond the Seas (except in the Kingdom of Ireland)... as might have been done by Her Majesties Authority beyond the Seas in Time of War.” 12 Anne, ch. 13, §43; Winthrop 20. Cf. Duke & Vogel, supra, at 444 (noting that Parliament in 1803 gave statutory authority to the Crown to promulgate Articles of War applicable to troops stationed in England as well). See Solorio, 483 U. S., at 442 (discussing a provision in the British Articles of War of 1774 providing court-martial jurisdiction of civilian offenses by soldiers).
As Loving contends, and as we have explained elsewhere, the Framers well knew this history, and had encountered firsthand the abuses of military law in the colonies. See Reid, 354 U. S., at 27-28. As many were themselves veterans of the Revolutionary War, however, they also knew the imperatives of military discipline. What they distrusted were not courts-martial per se, but military justice dispensed by a commander unchecked by the civil power in proceedings so summary as to be lawless. The latter was the evil that caused Blackstone to declare that “martial law” — by which he, not observing the modern distinction between military and martial law, meant decrees of courts-martial disciplining soldiers in wartime — “is built upon no settled principles, but is entirely arbitrary in its decisions, [and] is, as Sir Matthew Hale observes, in truth and reality no law, but something indulged rather than allowed as a law.” 1 Blackstone's Commentaries *413. See also Hale, History of the Common Law of England, at 26-27; Clode 21 (military law in early 17th-century England amounted to “the arbitrary right to punish or destroy, without legal trial, any assumed delinquent”). The partial security Englishmen won against such abuse in 1689 was to give Parliament, preeminent guardian of the British constitution, primacy in matters of military law. This fact does not suggest, however, that a legislature’s power must be exclusive. It was for Parliament, as it did in the various Mutiny Acts, to designate as the times required what peacetime offenses by soldiers deserved the punishment of death; and it was for Parliament, as it did in 1713, to delegate the authority to define wartime offenses and devise their punishments, including death. The Crown received the delegated power and the concomitant responsibility for its prudent exercise. The lesson from the English constitutional experience was that Parliament must have the primary power to regulate the Armed Forces and to determine the punishments that could be imposed upon soldiers by courts-martial. That was not inconsistent, however, with the further power to divide authority between it and the Crown as conditions might warrant.
Far from attempting to replicate the English system, of course, the Framers separated the powers of the Federal Government into three branches to avoid dangers they thought latent or inevitable in the parliamentary structure. The historical necessities and events of the English constitutional experience, though, were familiar to them and inform our understanding of the purpose and meaning of constitutional provisions. As we have observed before, with this experience to consult they elected not to “freeze court-martial usage at a particular time” for all ages following, Solorio, supra, at 446, nor did they deprive Congress of the services of the Executive in establishing rules for the governance of the military, including rules for capital punishment. In the words of Alexander Hamilton, the power to regulate the Armed Forces, like other powers related to the common defense, was given to Congress
“without limitation: Because it is impossible to foresee or define the extent and variety of national exigencies, or the corresponding extent & variety of the means which may be necessary to satisfy them. The circumstances that endanger the safety of nations are infinite, and for this reason no constitutional shackles can wisely be imposed on the power to which the care of it is committed. This power ought to be co-extensive with all the possible combinations of such circumstances; and ought to be under the direction of the same councils, which are appointed to preside over the common defence.” The Federalist No. 23, at 147 (emphasis deleted).
The later-added Bill of Rights limited this power to some degree, cf. Burns v. Wilson, 346 U. S. 137, 140 (1953) (plurality opinion); Chappell v. Wallace, 462 U. S. 296, 300 (1983), but did not alter the allocation to Congress of the “primary responsibility for the delicate task of balancing the rights of servicemen against the needs of the military,” Solorio, 483 U. S., at 447-448.
Under Clause 14, Congress, like Parliament, exercises a power of precedence over, not exclusion of, Executive authority. Cf. United States v. Eliason, 16 Pet. 291, 301 (1842) (“The power of the executive to establish rules and regulations for the government of the army, is undoubted”). This power is no less plenary than other Article I powers, Solorio, supra, at 441, and we discern no reasons why Congress should have less capacity to make measured and appropriate delegations of this power than of any other, see Skinner v. Mid-America Pipeline Co., 490 U. S. 212, 220-221 (1989) (Congress may delegate authority under the taxing power); cf. Lichter v. United States, 334 U. S.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer:
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B
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sc_issuearea
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What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Mr. Justice Minton
delivered the opinion of the Court.
This case involves the question of whether the Town of Walpole, New Hampshire, or the Federal Government has the prior right to a fund in the hands of a state court receiver of the respondent-taxpayer, an insolvent corporation. The Supreme Court of New Hampshire held the Town was ¡entitled to priority, 97 N. H. 411, 90 A. 2d 499, and we granted certiorari, 344 U. S. 911.
The claims of both arise from tax liens. The Town’s lien grew out of an assessment of an ad valorem tax upon certain machinery of Gilbert Associates, Inc., the respondent, for the years 1947 and 1948 in the amounts of $612.95 and $690.85, respectively. The corporation was thereafter declared insolvent, and a temporary receiver was appointed August 12, 1949, and made permanent January 30, 1950. The Town’s taxes were assessed April 1, 1947, and April 1, 1948. On September 25, 1948, the Town sold the taxpayer’s property at a tax sale to pay the taxes accrued for the year 1947. On September 24, 1949, the Town sold the same property at a tax sale for taxes accrued for the year 1948. The record does not disclose the nature of these tax-sale proceedings. We are informed that the Town bid in the property at its own sales. At least, the Town never took possession of the property, which was later sold by the receiver, creating the fund involved here. The Federal Government’s lien was for employment, withholding, and income taxes that became due between 1943 and June 30, 1948, in the sum of $3,171.97. Notice of this lien was filed in the office of the Clerk of the United States District Court for the District of New Hampshire on August 6, 1948.
Under § 3672 of the Internal Revenue Code, 56 Stat. 798, 26 U. S. C. (1946 ed.) § 3672, the lien of the United States “shall not be valid as against any mortgagee, pledgee, purchaser, or judgment creditor until notice thereof has been filed by the collector— ... In the office of the clerk of the United States district court for the judicial district in which the property subject to the lien is situated . . . .” The Supreme Court of New Hampshire held that since notice of the Government’s lien was not filed until August 6, 1948, and the Town’s taxes were assessed on April 1, 1947, and April 1, 1948, respectively, and such tax assessments are “in the nature of a judgment” under the law of New Hampshire, the Town was a judgment creditor within the meaning of § 3672, and the Government’s lien was not valid as against the Town’s.
Was the Town a judgment creditor within the meaning of § 3672? The New Hampshire Supreme Court in the instant case said:
“It is settled by our decisions that the assessment of a tax is in the nature of a judgment, enforced by a warrant instead of an execution. Boody v. Watson, 64 N. H. 162, 167; Jaffrey v. Smith, 76 N. H. 168, 171; Nottingham v. Company, 84 N. H. 419. See also, Automatic Sprinkler Corp. v. Marston, 94 N. H. 375.” 97 N. H. 411, 414, 90 A. 2d 499, 502.
We would not question or presume to say what the nature and effect of a tax proceeding is in New Hampshire. The state is free to give its own interpretation for the purpose of its own internal administration. United States v. Waddill Co., 323 U. S. 353. See also Howard v. Commissioners of Louisville Sinking Fund, 344 U. S. 624.
The Supreme Court of New Hampshire freely concedes, however, as it must, that the meaning of a federal statute is for this Court to decide. United States v. Security Trust & Savings Bank, 340 U. S. 47. Congress enacted § 3672 to meet the harsh condition created by the holding in United States v. Snyder, 149 U. S. 210, when federal liens were few, that a secret federal tax lien was good against a purchaser for value without notice.
A cardinal principle of Congress in its tax scheme is uniformity, as far as may be. Therefore, a “judgment creditor” should have the same application in all the states. In this instance, we think Congress used the words “judgment creditor” in § 3672 in the usual, conventional sense of a judgment of a court of record, since all states have such courts. We do not think Congress had in mind the action of taxing authorities who may be acting judicially as in New Hampshire and some other states, where the end result is something “in the nature of a judgment,” while in other states the taxing authorities act quasi-judicially and are considered administrative bodies.
We conclude that whatever the tax proceedings of the Town of Walpole may amount to for the purposes of the State of New Hampshire, they were not such proceedings as resulted in making the Town a judgment creditor within the meaning of § 3672.
While the Town was not a judgment creditor, it was the holder of a general lien on all the taxpayer’s property. So was the United States a general lienholder on all the taxpayer’s property. But since the taxpayer was insolvent, the United States claims the benefit of another statute to give it priority, § 3466 of the Revised Statutes, 31 U. S. C. (1946 ed.) § 191, the provisions of which are set forth in the margin.
As is usual in cases like this, the Town asserts that its lien is a perfected and specific lien which is impliedly excepted from this statute. This Court has never actually held that there is such an exception. Once again, we find it unnecessary to meet this issue because the lien asserted here does not raise the question.
In claims of this type, “specificity” requires that the lien be attached to certain property by reducing it to possession, on the theory that the United States has no claim against property no longer in the possession of the debtor. Thelusson v. Smith, 2 Wheat. 396. Until such possession, it remains a general lien. There is no ground for the contention here that the Town had perfected its lien by reducing the property to possession. The record reveals no such action. The mere attachment of the Town’s lien before the recording of the federal lien does not, contrary to the holding of the Supreme Court of New Hampshire, give the Town priority over the United States. The taxpayer had not been divested by the Town of either title or possession. The Town, therefore, had only a general, unperfected lien. United States v. Waddill Co., supra; Illinois v. Campbell, 329 U. S. 362, 370. Where the lien of the Town and that of the Federal Government are both general, and the taxpayer is insolvent, § 3466 clearly awards priority to the United States. United States v. Texas, 314 U. S. 480, 488.
The judgment of the Supreme Court of New Hampshire is
Reversed.
See concurring opinion of Mr. Justice Jackson in United States v. Security Trust & Savings Bank, supra, at p. 52.
The decisions have arrived at the conclusion that assessments are judgments for purposes of preventing collateral attacks upon them, ascertaining rights to a hearing in connection with them, or deciding under local procedure on the applicable method of collecting them. These cases, prior to the instant decision, have never actually declared that the status of a technical judgment creditor has been created. People ex rel. Harding v. Hart, 332 Ill. 467, 163 N. E. 769; Nottingham v. Newmarket Mfg. Co., 84 N. H. 419, 151 A. 709; People ex rel. Glens Falls Ins. Co. v. Ferguson, 38 N. Y. 89; Williams v. Weaver, 75 N. Y. 30; State v. Georgia Co., 112 N. C. 34, 17 S. E. 10; Union Tanning Co. v. Commonwealth, 123 Va. 610, 96 S. E. 780. But see Hibbard v. Clark, 56 N. H. 155, holding that it is not a judgment. 1 Cooley, Taxation (4th ed., 1924), 91-92, points out that assessments, though they may be enough like judgments to definitely establish a demand for taxes, are not technical judgments.
First National Bank of Remsen v. Hayes, 186 Iowa 892, 171 N. W. 715; Alexander v. Commonwealth, 137 Va. 477, 120 S. E. 296; Weyerhaeuser Timber Co. v. Pierce County, 97 Wash. 534, 167 P. 35; Stimson Timber Co. v. Mason County, 112 Wash. 603, 192 P. 994.
Ҥ 3670. Property subject to lien.
“If any person liable to pay any tax neglects or refuses to pay the same after demand, the amount (including any interest, penalty, additional amount, or addition to such tax, together with any costs that may accrue in addition thereto) shall be a lien in favor of the United States upon all property and rights to property, whether real or personal, belonging to such person.” § 3670 I. R.. C., 26 U. S. C. (1946 ed.) § 3670.
R. S. § 3466. “Whenever any person indebted to the United States is insolvent, or whenever the estate of any deceased debtor, in the hands of the executors or administrators, is insufficient to pay all the debts due from the deceased, the debts due to the United States shall be first satisfied; and the priority hereby established shall extend as well to cases in which a debtor, not having sufficient property to pay all his debts, makes a voluntary assignment thereof, or in which the estate and effects of an absconding, concealed, or absent debtor are attached by process of law, as to cases in which an act of bankruptcy is committed.”
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer:
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L
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sc_issuearea
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What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Justice Brennan
delivered the opinion of the Court.
Congress enacted the Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970 (Act) “to assure so far as possible every working man and woman in the Nation safe and healthful working conditions....” § 2 (b), 84 Stat. 1590, 29 U. S. C. § 651 (b). The Act authorizes the Secretary of Labor to establish, after notice and opportunity to comment, mandatory nationwide standards governing health and safety in the workplace. 29 U. S. C. §§655 (a), (b). In 1978, the Secretary, acting through the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), promulgated a standard limiting occupational exposure to cotton dust, an airborne particle byproduct of the preparation and manufacture of cotton products, exposure to which induces a “constellation of respiratory effects” known as “byssinosis.” 43 Fed. Reg. 27352, col. 3 (1978). This disease was one of the expressly recognized health hazards that led to passage of the Act. S. Rep. No. 91-1282, p. 3 (1970), Legislative History of the Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970, p. 143 (Comm. Print 1971) (Leg. Hist.).
Petitioners in these consolidated cases, representing the interests of the cotton industry, challenged the validity of the “Cotton Dust Standard” in the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit pursuant to § 6 (f) of the Act, 29 U. S. C. § 655 (f). They contend in this Court, as they did below, that the Act requires OSHA to demonstrate that its Standard reflects a reasonable relationship between the costs and benefits associated with the Standard. Respondents, the Secretary of Labor and two labor organizations, counter that Congress balanced the costs and benefits in the Act itself, and that the Act should therefore be construed not to require OSHA to do so. They interpret the Act as mandating that OSHA enact the most protective standard possible to eliminate a significant risk of material health impairment, subject to the constraints of economic and technological feasibility. The Court of Appeals held that the Act did not require OSHA to compare costs and benefits. AFL-CIO v. Marshall, 199 U. S. App. D. C. 54, 617 F. 2d 636 (1979). We granted certiorari, 449 U. S. 817 (1980), to resolve this important question, which was presented but not decided in last Term’s Industrial Union Dept. v. American Petroleum Institute, 448 U. S. 607 (1980), and to decide other issues related to the Cotton Dust Standard.
I
Byssinosis, known in its more severe manifestations as “brown lung” disease, is a serious and potentially disabling respiratory disease primarily caused by the inhalation of cotton dust. See 43 Fed. Reg. 27352-27354 (1978); Exhibit 6-16, App. 15-22. Byssinosis is a “continuum... disease,” 43 Fed. Reg. 27354, col. 2 (1978), that has been categorized into four grades. In its least serious form, byssinosis produces both subjective symptoms, such as chest tightness, shortness of breath, coughing, and wheezing, and objective indications of loss of pulmonary functions. Id., at 27352, col. 2. In its most serious form, byssinosis is a chronic and irreversible obstructive pulmonary disease, clinically similar to chronic bronchitis or emphysema, and can be severely disabling. Ibid. At worst, as is true of other respiratory diseases including bronchitis, emphysema, and asthma, byssino-sis can create an additional strain on cardiovascular functions and can contribute to death from heart failure. See Exhibit 6-73, App. 72 (“there is an association between mortality and the extent of dust exposure”). One authority has described the increasing seriousness of byssinosis as follows:
“In the first few years of exposure [to cotton dust], symptoms occur on Monday, or other days after absence from the work environment; later, symptoms occur on other days of the week; and eventually, symptoms are continuous, even in the absence of dust exposure.” A. Bouhuys, Byssinosis in the United States, Exhibit 6-16, App. 15.
While there is some uncertainty over the manner in which the disease progresses from its least serious to its disabling grades, it is likely that prolonged exposure contributes to the progression. 43 Fed. Reg. 27354, cols. 1 and 2 (1978); Exhibit 6-27, App. 26; Exhibit 11, App. 162. It also appears that a worker may suddenly contract a severe grade without experiencing milder grades of the disease. Exhibit 41, App. 192.
Estimates indicate that at least 35,000 employed and retired cotton mill workers, or 1 in 12 such workers, suffer from the most disabling form of byssinosis. 43 Fed. Reg. 27353, col. 3 (1978); Exhibit 124, App. 347. The Senate Report accompanying the Act cited estimates that 100,000 active and retired workers suffer from some grade of the disease. S. Rep. No. 91-1282, p. 3 (1970), Leg. Hist. 143. One study found that over 25% of a sample of active cotton-preparation and yarn-manufacturing workers suffer at least some form of the disease at a dust exposure level common prior to adoption of the current Standard. 43 Fed. Reg. 27355, col. 3 (1978) ; Exhibit 6-51, App. 44. Other studies confirm these general findings on the prevalence of byssinosis. See, e. g., Ct. of App. J. A. 3683; Ex. 6-56, id., at 376-385.
Not until the early 1960’s was byssinosis recognized in the United States as a distinct occupational hazard associated with cotton mills. S. Rep. No. 91-1282, supra, at 3, Leg. Hist. 143. In 1966, the American Conference of Governmental Industrial Hygienists (ACGIH), a private organization, recommended that exposure to total cotton dust be limited to a “threshold limit value” of 1,000 micrograms per cubic meter of air (1,000 /xg/m3) averaged over an 8-hour workday. See 43 Fed. Reg. 27351, col. 1 (1978). The United States Government first regulated exposure to cotton dust in 1968, when the Secretary of Labor, pursuant to the Walsh-Healey Act, 41 U. S. C. § 35 (e), promulgated airborne contaminant threshold limit values, applicable to public contractors, that included the 1,000 /xg/m3 limit for total cotton dust. 34 Fed. Reg. 7953 (1969). Following passage of the Act in 1970, the 1,000 /xg/m3 standard was adopted as an “established Federal standard” under § 6 (a) of the Act, 84 Stat. 1593, 29 U. S. C. § 655 (a), a provision designed to guarantee immediate protection of workers for the period between enactment of the statute and promulgation of permanent standards.
In 1974, ACGIH, adopting a new measurement unit of respirable rather than total dust, lowered its previous exposure limit recommendation to 200 pg/m3 measured by a vertical elutriator, a device that measures cotton dust particles 15 microns or less in diameter. 43 Fed. Reg. 27351, col. 1, 27355, col. 2 (1978). That same year, the Director of the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), pursuant to the Act, 29 U. S. C. §§ 669 (a)(3), 671 (d)(2), submitted to the Secretary of Labor a recommendation for a cotton dust standard with a permissible exposure limit, (PEL) that “should be set at the lowest level feasible, but in no case at an environmental concentration as high as 0.2 mg lint-free cotton dust/cu m,” or 200 pg/m3 of lint-free respirable dust. Ex. 1, Ct. of App. J. A. 11; 41 Fed. Reg. 56500, col. 1 (1976). Several months later, OSHA published an Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, 39 Fed. Reg. 44769 (1974), requesting comments from interested parties on the NIOSH recommendation and other related matters. Soon thereafter, the Textile Worker’s Union of America, joined by the North Carolina Public Interest Research Group, petitioned the Secretary, urging a more stringent PEL of 100 /¿g/ms.
On December 28, 1976, OSHA published a proposal to replace the existing federal standard on cotton dust with a new permanent standard, pursuant to § 6 (b)(5) of the Act, 29 U. S. C. § 655 (b)(5). 41 Fed. Reg. 56498. The proposed standard contained a PEL of 200 /¿g/m3 of vertical elutriated lint-free respirable cotton dust for all segments of the cotton industry. Ibid. It also suggested an implementation strategy for achieving the PEL that relied on respirators for the short term and engineering controls for the long term. Id., at 56506, cols. 2 and 3. OSHA invited interested parties to submit written comments within a 90-day period.
Following the comment period, OSHA conducted three hearings in Washington, D. C., Greenville, Miss., and Lubbock, Tex., that lasted over 14 days. Public participation was widespread, involving representatives from industry and the work force, scientists, economists, industrial hygienists, and many others. By the time the informal rulemaking procedure had terminated, OSHA had received 263 comments and 109 notices of intent to appear at the hearings. 43 Fed. Reg. 27351, col. 2 (1978). The voluminous record, composed of a transcript of written and oral testimony, exhibits, and posthearing comments and briefs, totaled some 105,000 pages. 199 U. S. App. D. C., at 65, 617 F. 2d, at 647. OSHA issued its final Cotton Dust Standard — the one challenged in the instant case — on June 23, 1978. Along with an accompanying statement of findings and reasons, the Standard occupied 69 pages of the Federal Register. 43 Fed. Reg. 27350-27418 (1978); see 29 CFR § 1910.1043 (1980).
The Cotton Dust Standard promulgated by OSHA establishes mandatory PEL’s over an 8-hour period of 200 /¿g/m3 for yarn manufacturing, 750 /¿g/m3 for slashing and weaving operations, and 500 ng/m3 for all other processes in the cotton industry. 29 CFR § 1910.1043 (c) (1980). These levels represent a relaxation of the proposed PEL of 200 /¿g/m3 for all segments of the cotton industry.
OSHA chose an implementation strategy for the Standard that depended primarily on a mix of engineering controls, such as installation of ventilation systems, and work practice controls, such as special floor-sweeping procedures. Full compliance with the PEL’s is required within four years, except to the extent that employers can establish that the engineering and work practice controls are infeasible. § 1910.1043 (e)(1). During this compliance period, and at certain other times, the Standard requires employers to provide respirators to employees. § 1910.1043 (f). Other requirements include monitoring of cotton dust exposure, medical surveillance of all employees, annual medical examinations, employee education and training programs, and the posting of warning signs. A specific provision also under challenge in the instant case requires employers to transfer employees unable to wear respirators to another position, if available, having a dust level at or below the Standard’s PEL’s, with “no loss of earnings or other employment rights or benefits as a result of the transfer.” § 1910.1043 (f) (2) (v)s.
On the basis of the evidence in the record as a whole, the Secretary determined that exposure to cotton dust represents a “significant health hazard to employees,” 43 Fed. Reg. 27350, col. 1 (1978), and that “the prevalence of byssinosis should be significantly reduced” by the adoption of the Standard’s PEL’s, id., at 27359, col. 3. In assessing the health risks from cotton dust and the risk reduction obtained from lowered exposure, OSHA relied particularly on data showing a strong linear relationship between the prevalence of byssinosis and the concentration of lint-free respirable cotton dust. Id., at 27355-27359; Exhibit 6-51, App. 29-55. See also Ex. 6-17, Ct. of App. J. A. 235-245; Ex. 38D, id., at 1492-1839. Even at the 200 /¿g/m3 PEL, OSHA found that the prevalence of at least Grade % byssinosis would be 13% of all employees in the yarn manufacturing sector. 43 Fed. Reg. 27359, cols. 2 and 3 (1978).
In promulgating the Cotton Dust Standard, OSHA interpreted the Act to require adoption of the most stringent standard to protect against material health impairment, bounded only by technological and economic feasibility. Id., at 27361, col. 3. OSHA therefore rejected the industry’s alternative proposal for a PEL of 500 ng/m3 in yarn manufacturing, a proposal which would produce a 25% prevalence of at least Grade % byssinosis. The agency expressly found the Standard to be both technologically and economically feasible based on the evidence in the record as a whole. Although recognizing that permitted levels of exposure to cotton dust would still cause some byssinosis, OSHA nevertheless rejected the union proposal for a 100 yg/m3 PEL because it was not within the “technological capabilities of the industry.” Id., at 27359-27360. Similarly, OSHA set PEL’s for some segments of the cotton industry at 500 yg/m3 in part because of limitations of technological feasibility. Id., at 27361, col. 3. Finally, the Secretary found that “engineering dust controls in weaving may not be feasible even with massive expenditures by the industry,” id., at 27360, col. 2, and for that and other reasons adopted a less stringent PEL of 750 yg/m3 for weaving and slashing.
The Court of Appeals upheld the Standard in all major respects. The court rejected the industry’s claim that OSHA failed to consider its proposed alternative or give sufficient reasons for failing to adopt it. 199 U. S. App. D. C., at 70-72, 617 F. 2d, at 652-654. The court also held that the Standard was “reasonably necessary and appropriate” within the meaning of § 3 (8) of the Act, 29 U. S. C. § 652 (8), because of the risk of material health impairment caused by exposure to cotton dust. 199 U. S. App. D. C., at 72-73, and n. 83, 617 F. 2d, át 65A-655, and n. 83. Rejecting the industry position that OSHA must demonstrate that the benefits of the Standard are proportionate to its costs, the court instead agreed with OSHA’s interpretation that the Standard must protect employees against material health impairment subject only to the limits of technological and economic feasibility. Id., at 80-84, 617 F. 2d, at 662-666. The court held that “Congress itself struck the balance between costs and benefits in the mandate to the agency” under § 6 (b)(5) of the Act, 29 U. S. C. § 655 (b)(5), and that OSHA is powerless to circumvent that judgment by adopting less than the most protective feasible standard. 199 U. S. App. D. C., at 81, 617 F. 2d, at 663. Finally, the court held that the agency’s determination of technological and economic feasibility was supported by substantial evidence in the record as a whole. Id., at 73-80, 617 F. 2d, at 655-662.
We affirm in part, and vacate in part.
II
The principal question presented in these cases is whether the Occupational Safety and Health Act requires the Secretary, in promulgating a standard pursuant to § 6 (b) (5) of the Act, 29 U. S. C. § 655 (b)(5), to determine that the costs of the standard bear a reasonable relationship to its benefits. Relying on §§ 6 (b)(5) and 3 (8) of the Act, 29 U. S. C. §§655 (b)(5) and 652 (8), petitioners urge not only that OSHA must show that a standard addresses a significant risk of materiál health impairment, see Industrial Union Dept. v. American Petroleum Institute, 448 U. S., at 639 (plurality opinion), but also that OSHA must demonstrate that the reduction in risk of material health impairment is significant in light of the costs of attaining that reduction. See Brief for Petitioners in No. 79-1429, pp. 38-41 Respondents on the other hand contend that the Act requires OSHA to promulgate standards that eliminate or reduce such risks “to the extent such protection is technologically and economically feasible.” Brief for Federal Respondent 38; Brief for Union Respondents 26-27. To resolve this debate, we must turn to the language, structure, and legislative history of the Act.
A
The starting point of our analysis is the language of the statute itself. Steadman v. SEC, 450 U. S. 91, 97 (1981); Reiter v. Sonotone Corp., 442 U. S. 330, 337 (1979). Section 6(b)(5) of the Act, 29 U. S. C. §655 (b)(5) (emphasis added), provides:
“The Secretary, in promulgating standards dealing with toxic materials or harmful physical agents under this subsection, shall set the standard which most adequately assures, to the extent feasible, on the basis of the best available evidence, that no employee will suffer material impairment of health or functional capacity even if such employee has regular exposure to the hazard dealt with by such standard for the period of his working life.”
Although their interpretations differ, all parties agree that the phrase “to the extent feasible” contains the critical language in § 6 (b)(5) for purposes of these cases.
The plain meaning of the word “feasible” supports respondents’ interpretation of the statute. According to Webster’s Third New International Dictionary of the English Language 831 (1976), “feasible” means “capable of being done, executed, or effected.” Accord, the Oxford English Dictionary 116 (1933) (“Capable of being done, accomplished or carried out”); Funk & Wagnalls New “Standard” Dictionary of the English Language 903 (1957) (“That may be done, performed or effected”). Thus, § 6 (b)(5) directs the Secretary to issue the standard that “most adequately assures... that no employee will suffer material impairment of health,” limited only by the extent to which this is “capable of being done.” In effect then, as the Court of Appeals held, Congress itself defined the basic relationship between costs and benefits, by placing the “benefit” of worker health above all other considerations save those making attainment of this “benefit” unachievable. Any standard based on a balancing of costs and benefits by the Secretary that strikes a different balance than that struck by Congress would be inconsistent with the command set forth in §6 (b)(5). Thus, cost-benefit analysis by OSHA is not required by the statute because feasibility analysis is. See Industrial Union Dept. v. American Petroleum Institute, 448 U. S., at 718-719 (Marshall, J., dissenting).
When Congress has intended that an agency engage in cost-benefit analysis, it has clearly indicated such intent on the face of the statute. One early example is the Flood Control Act of 1936, 33 U. S. C. § 701:
“[T] he 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.” (Emphasis added.)
A more recent example is the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act Amendments of 1978, 43 U. S. C. § 1347 (b) (1976 ed., Supp. Ill), providing that offshore drilling operations shall use
“the best available and safest technologies which the Secretary determines to be economically feasible, wherever failure of equipment would have a significant effect on safety, health, or the environment, except where the Secretary determines that the incremental benefits are clearly insufficient to justify the incremental costs of using such technologies.”
These and other statutes demonstrate that Congress uses specific language when intending that an agency engage in cost-benefit analysis. See Industrial Union Dept. v. American Petroleum Institute, supra, at 710, n. 27 (Marshall, J., dissenting). Certainly in light of its ordinary meaning, the word “feasible” cannot be construed to articulate such congressional intent. We therefore reject the argument that Congress required cost-benefit analysis in § 6 (b)(5).
B
Even though the plain language of §6 (b)(5) supports this construction, we must still decide whether §3 (8), the general definition of an occupational safety and health standard, either alone or in tandem with § 6 (b)(5), incorporates a cost-benefit requirement for standards dealing with toxic materials or harmful physical agents. Section 3 (8) of the Act, 29 U. S. C. § 652 (8) (emphasis added), provides:
“The term ‘occupational safety and health standard’ means a standard which requires conditions, or the adoption or use of one or more practices, means, methods, operations, or processes, reasonably necessary or appropriate to provide safe or healthful employment and places of employment.”
Taken alone, the phrase “reasonably necessary or appropriate” might be construed to contemplate some balancing of the costs and benefits of a standard. Petitioners urge that, so construed, § 3 (8) engrafts a cost-benefit analysis requirement on the issuance of § 6 (b)(5) standards, even if § 6 (b) (5) itself does not authorize such analysis. We need not decide whether §3(8), standing alone, would contemplate some form of cost-benefit analysis. For even if it does, Congress specifically chose in § 6 (b) (5) to impose separate and additional requirements for issuance of a subcategory of occupational safety and health standards dealing with toxic materials and harmful physical agents: it required that those standards be issued to prevent material impairment of health to the extent feasible. Congress could reasonably have concluded that health standards should be subject to different criteria than safety standards because of the special problems presented in regulating them. See Industrial Union Dept. v. American Petroleum Institute, 448 U. S., at 649, n. 54 (plurality opinion).
Agreement with petitioners’ argument that § 3 (8) imposes an additional and overriding requirement of cost-benefit analysis on the issuance of § 6 (b) (5) standards would eviscerate the “to the extent feasible” requirement. Standards would inevitably be set at the level indicated by cost-benefit analysis, and not at the level specified by § 6 (b)(5). For example, if cost-benefit analysis indicated a protective standard of 1,000 /ig/m3 PEL, while feasibility analysis indicated a 500 pg/ms PEL, the agency would be forced by the cost-benefit requirement to choose the less stringent point. We cannot believe that Congress intended the general terms of § 3 (8) to countermand the specific feasibility requirement of §6 (b)(5). Adoption of petitioners’ interpretation would effectively write § 6 (b) (5) out of the Act. We decline to render Congress’ decision to include a feasibility requirement nugatory, thereby offending the well-settled rule that all parts of a statute, if possible, are to be given effect. E. g., Reiter v. Sonotone Corp., 442 U. S., at 339; Weinberger v. Hynson, Westcott & Dunning, Inc., 412 U. S. 609, 633-634 (1973); Jarecki v. G. D. Searle & Co., 367 U. S. 303, 307-308 (1961). Congress did not contemplate any further balancing by the agency for toxic material and harmful physical agents standards, and we should not “ ‘impute to Congress a purpose to paralyze with one hand what it sought to promote with the other.’ ” Weinberger v. Hynson, Westcott & Dunning, Inc., supra, at 631, quoting Clark v. Uebersee Finanz-Korporation, 332 U. S. 480, 489 (1947).
c
The legislative history of the Act, while concededly not crystal clear, provides general support for respondents’ interpretation of the Act. The congressional Reports and debates certainly confirm that Congress meant “feasible” and nothing else in using that term. Congress was concerned that the Act might be thought to require achievement of absolute safety, an impossible standard, and therefore insisted that health and safety goals be capable of economic and technological accomplishment. Perhaps most telling is the absence of any indication whatsoever that Congress intended OSHA to conduct its own cost-benefit analysis before promulgating a toxic material or harmful physical agent standard. The legislative history demonstrates conclusively that Congress was fully aware that the Act would impose real and substantial costs of compliance on industry, and believed that such costs were part of the cost of doing business. We thus turn to the relevant portions of the legislative history.
Neither the original Senate bill, S. 2193, 91st Cong., 1st Sess. (1969), introduced by Senator Williams, nor the original House bill, H. R. 16785, 91st Cong., 2d Sess. (1970), introduced by Representative Daniels, included specific provisions controlling the issuance of standards governing toxic materials and harmful physical agents, Leg. Hist. 1, 6-7 (Williams bill); 721, 728-732 (Daniels bill), although both contained the definitional section enacted as § 3 (8). The House Committee on Education and Labor, to which the Daniels bill was referred, reported out an amended bill that included the following section:
“The Secretary, in promulgating standards under this subsection, shall set the standard which most adequately assures, on the basis of the best available professional evidence, that no employee will suffer any impairment of health or functional capacity, or diminished life expectancy even if such employee has regular exposure to the hazard dealt with by such standard for the period of his working life.” H. R. Rep. No. 91-1291, p. 4 (1970) (to accompany H. R. 16785), Leg. Hist. 834.
The Senate Committee on Labor and Public Welfare, reporting on the Williams bill, included a provision virtually identical to the House version, except for the additional requirement that the Secretary set the standard “which most adequately and feasibly assures... that no employee will suffer any impairment of health.” Id., at 242 (the Senate provision was numbered § 6 (b) (5)) (emphasis added). This addition to the Williams bill was offered by Senator Javits, who explained his amendment:
“As a result of this amendment the Secretary, in setting standards, is expressly required to consider feasibility of proposed standards. This is an improvement over the Daniels bill [as reported out of the House Committee], which might be interpreted to require absolute health and safety in all cases, regardless of feasibility, and the Administration bill, which contains no criteria for standards at all.” S. Rep. No. 91-1282, p. 58 (1970), Leg. Hist. 197 (emphasis added).
Thus the Senator’s concern was that a standard might require “absolute health and safety” without any consideration as to whether such a condition was achievable. The full Senate Committee also noted that standards promulgated under this provision “shall represent feasible requirements,” S. Rep. No. 91-1282, at 7, Leg. Hist. 147, and commented that “[s]uch standards should be directed at assuring, so far as possible, that no employee will suffer impaired health...,” ibid. (emphasis added).
The final amendments to this Senate provision, resulting in § 6 (b) (5) of the Act, were proposed and adopted on the Senate floor after the Committee reported out the bill. Senator Dominick, who played a prominent role in this amendment process, see 116 Cong. Rec. 37631 (1970), Leg. Hist. 526 (comments of Sen. Javits); 116 Cong. Rec., at 37631, Leg. Hist. 527 (comments of Sen. Williams), continued to be concerned that the Act might be read to require absolute safety. He therefore proposed that the entire first sentence of § 6 (b)(5) be struck, explaining:
“This requirement is inherently confusing and unrealistic. It could be read to require the Secretary to ban all occupations in which there remains some risk of injury, impaired health, or life expectancy. In the case of all occupations, it will be impossible to eliminate all risks to safety and health. Thus, the present criteria could, if literally applied, close every business in this nation. In addition, in many cases, the standard which might most 'adequately’ and 'feasibly’ assure the elimination of the danger would be the prohibition of the occupation itself.” Leg. Hist. 367 (comments of Sen. Dominick on his proposed amendment No. 1054) (emphasis in original).
In the ensuing floor debate on this issue, Senator Dominick reiterated his concern that “[i]t is unrealistic to attempt, as [the Committee’s §6 (b)(5)] apparently does, to establish a utopia free from any hazards. Absolute safety is an impossibility....” 116 Cong. Rec. 37614 (1970), Leg. Hist. 480. The Senator concluded: “Any administrator responsible for enforcing the statute will be faced with an impossible choice. Either he must forbid employment in all occupations where there is any risk of injury, even if the technical state of the art could not remove the hazard, or he must ignore the mandate of Congress....” 116 Cong. Rec., at 37614, Leg. Hist. 481-482.
Senator Dominick failed in his efforts to have the first sentence of § 6 (b) (5) deleted. However, after working with Senators Williams and Javits, he introduced an amended version of the first sentence which he thought was “agreeable to all” and which became § 6 (b) (5) as it now appears in the Act. 116 Cong. Rec., at 37622, Leg. Hist. 502. This amendment limited the applicability of § 6 (b)(5) to “toxic materials and harmful physical agents,” changed “health impairment” to “material impairment of health,” and deleted the reference to “diminished life expectancy.” Significantly, the feasibility requirement was left intact in the statute. Instead of the phrase “which most adequately and feasibly assures,” the amendment merely substituted “which most adequately assures, to the extent feasible,” to emphasize that the feasibility requirement operated as a limit on the promulgation of standards under § 6 (b) (5).
Senator Dominick believed that his modifications made clearer that attainment of an absolutely safe working environment could not be achieved through “prohibition of the occupation itself,” Leg. Hist. 367, and that toxic material and harmful physical agent standards should not address frivolous harms that exist in every workplace. The feasibility requirement, along with the need for a “material impairment of health,” were thus thought to satisfy these two concerns. He explained the effect of the amendment:
“What we were trying to do in the bill — unfortunately, we did not have the proper wording or the proper drafting — was to say that when we are dealing with toxic agents or physical agents, we ought to take such steps as are feasible and practical to provide an atmosphere within which a person’s health or safety would not be affected. Unfortunately, we had language providing that anyone would be assured that no one would have a hazard....” 116 Cong. Rec. 37622 (1970), Leg. Hist. 502.
Senator Williams added that the amendment “will provide a continued direction to the Secretary that he shall be required to set the standard which most adequately and to the greatest extent feasible assures” that no employee will suffer any material health impairment. 116 Cong. Rec., at 37622, Leg. Hist. 503. The Senate thereafter passed S. 2193. One week later, the House passed a substitute bill which failed to contain any substantive criteria for the issuance of health standards in place of its original bill. 116 Cong. Rec., at 38716-38717, Leg. Hist. 1094-1096. At the joint House-Senate Conference, however, the House conferees acceded to the Senate’s version of § 6 (b)(5).
Not only does the legislative history confirm that Congress meant “feasible” rather than “cost-benefit” when it used the former term, but it also shows that Congress understood that the Act would create substantial costs for employers, yet intended to impose such costs when necessary to create a safe and healthful working environment. Congress viewed the costs of health and safety as a cost of doing business. Senator Yarborough, a cosponsor of the Williams bill, stated: “We know the costs would be put into consumer goods but that is the price we should pay for the 80 million workers in America.” 116 Cong. Rec., at 37345, Leg. Hist. 444. He asked:
“One may well ask too expensive for whom? Is it too expensive for the company who for lack of proper safety equipment loses the services of its skilled employees? Is it too expensive for the employee who loses his hand or leg or eyesight? Is it too expensive for the widow trying to raise her children on meager allowance under workmen’s compensation and social security? And what about the man — a good hardworking man — tied to a wheel chair or hospital bed for the rest of his life? That is what we are dealing with when we talk about industrial safety.
“We are talking about people’s lives, not the indifference of some cost accountants.” 116 Cong. Rec., at 37625, Leg. Hist. 510.
Senator Eagleton commented that “[tjhe costs that will be incurred by employers in meeting the standards of health and
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer:
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G
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sc_issuearea
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What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Mr. Justice Black
delivered the opinion of the Court.
The United States brought this civil action to prevent and restrain violations of the Sherman Act by appellant, Timken Roller Bearing Co., an Ohio corporation. The complaint charged that appellant, in violation of §§ 1 and 3 of the Act, combined, conspired and acted with British Timken, Ltd. (British Timken), and Societe Anonyme Frangaise Timken (French Timken) to restrain interstate and foreign commerce by eliminating competition in the manufacture and sale of antifriction bearings in the markets of the world. After a trial of more than a month the District Court made detailed findings of fact which may be summarized as follows:
As early as 1909 appellant and British Timken’s predecessor had made comprehensive agreements providing for a territorial division of the world markets for antifriction bearings. These arrangements were somewhat modified and extended in 1920, 1924 and 1925. Again in 1927 the agreements were substantially renewed in connection with a transaction by which appellant and one Dewar, an English businessman, cooperated in purchasing all the stock of British Timken. Later some British Timken stock was sold to the public with the result that appellant now holds about 30% of the outstanding shares while Dewar owns about 24%. In 1928 appellant and Dewar organized French Timken and since that date have together owned all the stock in the French company. Beginning in that year, appellant, British Timken and French Timken have continuously kept operative “business agreements” regulating the manufacture and sale of antifriction bearings by the three companies and providing for the use by the British and French corporations of the trademark “Timken.” Under these agreements the contracting parties have (1) allocated trade territories among themselves; (2) fixed prices on products of one sold in the territory of the others; (3) cooperated to protect each other’s markets and to eliminate outside competition; and (4) participated in cartels to restrict imports to, and exports from, the United States.
On these findings, the District Court concluded that appellant had violated the Sherman Act as charged, and entered a comprehensive decree designed to bar future violations. 83 F. Supp. 284. The case is before us on appellant’s direct appeal under 15 U. S. C. § 29.
Although appellant has indiscriminately challenged the District Court’s judgment and decree in over 200 separate assignments of error, the real grounds relied on for reversal are only a few in number. In the first place, appellant contends that most of the District Court’s material findings of fact are without evidential support, that they “ignore or fail properly to evaluate” evidence supporting appellant’s position, and that it was error for the court to refuse to make additional findings. For the most part, this shotgun approach is actually only a dispute as to the proper inferences to be drawn from the evidence in the record; in effect, it is an invitation for us to try the case de novo. This Court must decline such an invitation just as it does when the Government makes the same request. United States v. Yellow Cab Co., 338 U. S. 338. In the present case, the trial judge after a patient hearing carefully analyzed the evidence in an opinion prepared with obvious care. Appellant’s lengthy brief has failed to establish that there was error in making any crucial, or even important, ultimate or subsidiary finding. Since we cannot say the findings are “clearly erroneous,” we accept them. Fed. Rules Civ. Proc., 52 (a).
Appellant next contends that the restraints of trade so clearly revealed by the District Court’s findings can be justified as “reasonable,” and therefore not in violation of the Sherman Act, because they are “ancillary” to allegedly “legal main transactions,” namely, (1) a “joint venture” between appellant and Dewar, and (2) an exercise of appellant’s right to license the trademark “Timken.”
We cannot accept the “joint venture” contention. That the trade restraints were merely incidental to an otherwise legitimate “joint venture” is, to say the least, doubtful. The District Court found that the dominant purpose of the restrictive agreements into which appellant, British Timken and French Timken entered was to avoid all competition either among themselves or with others. Regardless of this, however, appellant’s argument must be rejected. Our prior decisions plainly establish that agreements providing for an aggregation of trade restraints such as those existing in this case are illegal under the Act. Kiefer-Stewart Co. v. Seagram & Sons, 340 U. S. 211, 213; United States v. Socony-Vacuum Oil Co., 310 U. S. 150, 223-224 and note 59; United States v. National Lead Co., 63 F. Supp. 513, affirmed, 332 U. S. 319; United States v. American Tobacco Co., 221 U. S. 106, 180—184; Associated Press v. United States, 326 U. S. 1, 15. See also United States v. Aluminum Co. of America, 148 F. 2d 416, 439-445. The fact that there is common ownership or control of the contracting corporations does not liberate them from the impact of the antitrust laws. E. g., Keifer-Stewart Co. v. Seagram & Sons, supra at 215. Nor do we find any support in reason or authority for the proposition that agreements between legally separate persons and companies to suppress competition among themselves and others can be justified by labeling the project a “joint venture.” Perhaps every agreement and combination to restrain trade could be so labeled.
Nor can the restraints of trade be justified as reasonable steps taken to implement a valid trademark licensing system, even if we assume with appellant that it is the owner of the trademark “Timken” in the trade areas allocated to the British and French corporations. Appellant’s premise that the trade restraints are only incidental to the trademark contracts is refuted by the District Court’s finding that the “trade mark provisions [in the agreements] were subsidiary and secondary to the central purpose of allocating trade territories.” Furthermore, while a trademark merely affords protection to a name, the agreements in the present case went far beyond protection of the name “Timken” and provided for control of the manufacture and sale of antifriction bearings whether carrying the mark or not. A trademark cannot be legally used as a device for Sherman Act violation. Indeed, the Trade Mark Act of 1946 itself penalizes use of a mark “to violate the antitrust laws of the United States.”
We also reject the suggestion that the Sherman Act should not be enforced in this case because what appellant has done is reasonable in view of current foreign trade conditions. The argument in this regard seems to be that tariffs, quota restrictions and the like are now such that the export and import of antifriction bearings can no longer be expected as a practical matter; that appellant cannot successfully sell its American-made goods abroad; and that the only way it can profit from business in England, France and other countries is through the ownership of stock in companies organized and manufacturing there. This position ignores the fact that the provisions in the Sherman Act against restraints of foreign trade are based on the assumption, and reflect the policy, that export and import trade in commodities is both possible and desirable. Those provisions of the Act are wholly inconsistent with appellant’s argument that American business must be left free to participate in international cartels, that free foreign commerce in goods must be sacrificed in order to foster export of American dollars for investment in foreign factories which sell abroad. Acceptance of appellant’s view would make the Sherman Act a dead letter insofar as it prohibits contracts and conspiracies in restraint of foreign trade. If such a drastic change is to be made in the statute, Congress is the one to do it.
Finally, appellant attacks the District Court’s decree as being too broad in scope. The decree enjoins continuation or repetition of the conduct found illegal. This is clearly correct. Ethyl Gasoline Corp. v. United States, 309 U. S. 436, 461. It also contains certain other restraining provisions which were within the court’s discretion because “relief, to be effective, must go beyond the narrow limits of the proven violation.” United States v. United States Gypsum, Co., 340 U. S. 76, 90. The most vigorous objection, however, is made to those portions of the decree relating to divestiture of appellant’s stockholdings and other financial interests in British and French Timken.
Mr. Justice Douglas, Mr. Justice Minton and I believe that the decree properly ordered divestiture. Our views on this point are as follows: Appellant’s interests in the British and French companies were obtained as part of a plan to promote the illegal trade restraints. If not severed, the intercompany relationships will provide in the future, as they have in the past, the temptation and means to engage in the prohibited conduct. These considerations alone should be enough to support the divestiture order. United States v. Paramount Pictures, Inc., 334 U. S. 131, 152-153; United States v. National Lead Co., 332 U. S. 319, 363. But there are other considerations as well. The decree should not be overturned unless we can say that the District Court abused its discretion. Absent divestiture, it is difficult to see where other parts of the decree forbidding trade restraints would add much to what the Sherman Act by itself already prohibits. And obviously the most effective way to suppress further Sherman Act violations is to end the intercorporate relationship which has been the core of the conspiracy. For these reasons, Mr. Justice Douglas, Mr. Justice Minton and I cannot say that the District Court abused its discretion in ordering divestiture.
Nevertheless, a majority of this Court, for reasons set forth in other opinions filed in this case, believe that divestiture should not have been ordered by the District Court. Therefore, it becomes necessary to strike from the decree §§ VIII, IYB, and the phrase “or B” in § IYC. As so modified, the judgment of the District Court is affirmed.
It is so ordered.
Mr. Justice Burton and Mr. Justice Clark took no part in the consideration or decision of this case.
26 Stat. 209,15 U. S. C. §§ 1-4.
These sections declare illegal all contracts, combinations or conspiracies in restraint of trade or commerce among the states and territories or with foreign nations.
Dewar died while the appeal in this case was pending. See note 10, infra.
The most recent of these agreements, which was to have governed the conduct of the parties until 1965, is dated November 28, 1938.
Appellant originally attacked the decision below in 206 assignments of error, including 69 alleged errors in the District Court’s findings of fact, 26 in its conclusions of law, and 62 based on the court’s refusal to make new and additional findings. (Later appellant abandoned 5 of the assignments.) These assignments are unduly repetitious, some are frivolous, and the excessive number obscures the actual grounds on which appellant relies for reversal. As the Government pointed out in its motion to dismiss the appeal, our prior cases justify dismissal in such situations. See Local 167 v. United States, 291 U. S. 293, 296; Phillips & Colby Construction Co. v. Seymour, 91 U. S. 646, 648. We do not take that action, however, since appellant in its brief opposing the Government’s motion has sufficiently spelled out the few real objections it raises here.
This is well illustrated by the following portion of the “Summary of Argument” which appears in the appellant’s brief: “The evidence relied upon by the district court as demonstrating conduct of an intentional restraint of trade by the three Timken companies from 1928 on is just as reconcilable with the conduct of a legal joint adventure as with the conduct of a combination for the purpose of suppressing competition and controlling world trade in tapered roller bearings, and therefore the district court’s decision to the contrary is clearly erroneous.” Brief for Appellant, pp. 78-79.
Appellant claims the District Court’s findings of fact and conclusions of law failed to comply with Rule 52 (a) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. We think that the opinion below meets all the requirements of the Rule.
60 Stat. 427, 439, §33 (b) (7), 15 U. S. C. §§ 1051, 1115 (b) (7). The reason for the penalty provision was that “trade-marks have been misused. . . . have been used in connection with cartel agreements.” 92 Cong. Rec. 7872.
We would reject the argument that divestiture is unwise in light of current foreign trade conditions for substantially the same reasons we rejected it in connection with appellant’s contention that there was no violation of the Sherman Act.
Dewar died while this appeal was pending. Were it not for the present litigation, appellant, under the contracts between it and Dewar, would be entitled to purchase Dewar’s interest in British Timken (which would give appellant a 54% stock interest in that corporation); appellant also has a right of first refusal as to Dewar’s 50% stock interest in French Timken (which, if exercised, would give appellant 100% ownership of that company). Appellant moved in the District Court to reopen the record to admit evidence of these changed circumstances caused by Dewar’s death and for a reconsideration of the divestiture provisions of the decree. The District Court denied the motion. Mr. Justice Douglas, Mr. Justice Minton and I would hold that this ruling was within its discretion.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer:
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H
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sc_issuearea
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What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Mr. Justice Murphy
delivered the opinion of the Court.
Petitioner, Deputy Commissioner of the United States Employees' Compensation Commission, issued an order under the District of Columbia Workmen’s Compensation Act awarding compensation to the widow of one Clarence H. Ticer. It was specifically found that the injury which led to Ticer’s death “arose out of and in the course of the employment.” The propriety and effect of that finding are the main focal points of our inquiry in this case.
Section 1 of the District of Columbia Workmen’s Compensation Act provides in part that “the provisions of the Act entitled 'Longshoremen’s and Harbor Workers’ Compensation Act,’ . . . shall apply in respect to the injury or death of an employee of an employer carrying on any employment in the District of Columbia, irrespective of the place where the injury or death occurs.” The Longshoremen’s and Harbor Workers’ Compensation Act, § 2 (2), in turn defines the term “injury” to include “accidental injury or death arising out of and in the course of employment, ...” A finding that the injury or death was one “arising out of and in the course of employment” is therefore essential to an award of compensation under the District of Columbia Workmen’s Compensation Act.
In support of his order in this case the Deputy Commissioner made various findings of fact. These may be summarized as follows:
Ticer and his wife were residents of the District of Columbia. He had been regularly employed since about 1934 as an electrician by E. C. Ernst, Inc., a contractor engaged in electrical construction work in the District of Columbia and surrounding areas. In November, 1940, Ticer was transferred by his employer from a project in the District of Columbia to a project at the Quantico Marine Base at Quantico, Virginia. His work at the Marine Base continued for over three years until the time of his injury in December, 1943.
There was in effect at all times an agreement between the electrical workers’ union and the employer. Section 15 (b) of this agreement provided that “Transportation and any necessary expense such as board and lodging shall be furnished [by the employer] for all work outside the District of Columbia.” The sum of $2 a day was fixed by the parties to this agreement as transportation expense and represented the approximate cost of travel from the District of Columbia to the Quantico Marine Base and return. This sum was paid to Ticer and others in addition to the regular hourly rate of pay. And it was paid in lieu of the employer’s furnishing transportation.
Because the job site at the Marine Base was several miles away from the Quantico bus or train terminal, it was necessary for Ticer and his co-workers to drive their own automobiles to and from work. The employees formed a car pool. Each morning they started from their respective homes in their own automobiles and drove to a designated meeting place at Roaches Run, Virginia. From that point they would proceed in one car to the job site at the Marine Base. This procedure was repeated in reverse in the evening. The workers alternated in the use of the cars between Roaches Run and the job site. Non-members of the car pool each paid the car owner $1 for the round trip.
The employer was aware of the means of transportation being used and acquiesced therein. On December 13, 1943, Ticer was driving his car on a direct route from his place of employment to his home, following the close of the day’s work. Four co-workers were riding with him, two of them being non-members of the car pool. As the car approached Fort Belvoir, Virginia, a large stone, which came from under the rear wheel of a passing truck, crashed through the windshield of the car. It struck Ticer’s head, crushing his skull. Death resulted four days later.
Ticer’s widow presented a claim for compensation. At the hearing before the Deputy Commissioner, the employer and the insurance carrier contended that the Virginia Compensation Commission had sole jurisdiction over the claim and that Ticer’s injury did not arise out of or in the course of his employment. The Deputy Commissioner ruled against these contentions. After making the foregoing findings, he entered an order awarding death benefits and funeral expenses to the claimant.
The employer and the insurance carrier then brought this action in the District Court to set aside the order of the Deputy Commissioner. They renewed their jurisdictional objection and alleged a lack of substantial evidence to support the finding that Ticer’s injury arose out of and in the course of his employment. The District Court dismissed the complaint, holding that the Deputy Commissioner’s findings were supported by evidence in the record and that the compensation order was in all respects in accordance with law. On appeal, the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia reversed, one justice dissenting. 81 U. S. App. D. C. 72, 154 F. 2d 529. Without passing upon the jurisdictional issue, the court held that Ticer’s injury had not arisen out of and in the course of his employment. It felt that Ticer had become entirely free of his employer’s control at the close of the day’s work at the Marine Base and that he had thereafter assumed his own risk in subjecting himself to the hazards of the highway. We granted certiorari on a petition alleging a conflict with the decision of this Court in Voehl v. Indemnity Ins. Co., 288 U. S. 162.
As noted, the Court of Appeals deemed it unnecessary to dispose of the question whether the Deputy Commissioner had jurisdiction over the instant claim. But in reviewing an administrative order, it is ordinarily preferable, where the issue is raised and where the record permits an adjudication, for a federal court first to satisfy itself that the administrative agency or officer had jurisdiction over the matter in dispute. At the same time, however, it is needless to remand this case to the Court of Appeals for a determination of the jurisdictional issue. That issue was considered and determined by the Deputy Commissioner, who was in turn sustained by the District Court. The facts pertinent to that issue are not seriously disputed and the matter has been fully briefed and argued before us. A remand under such circumstances is not warranted. We accordingly turn to a consideration of the jurisdictional issue.
We are aided here, of course, by the provision of § 20 of the Longshoremen’s Act that, in proceedings under that Act, jurisdiction is to be “presumed, in the absence of substantial evidence to the contrary”—a provision which applies with equal force to proceedings under the District of Columbia Act. And the Deputy Commissioner’s findings as to jurisdiction are entitled to great weight and will be rejected only where there is apparent error. Davis v. Department of Labor, 317 U. S. 249, 256-257. His conclusion that jurisdiction exists in this case is supported both by the statutory provisions and by the evidence in the record.
The jurisdiction of the Deputy Commissioner to consider the claim in this case rests upon the statement in the District of Columbia Act that it “shall apply in respect to the injury or death of an employee of an employer carrying on any employment in the District of Columbia, irrespective of the place where the injury or death occurs; except that in applying such provisions the term 'employer’ shall be held to mean every person carrying on any employment in the District of Columbia, and the term 'employee’ shall be held to mean every employee of any such person.” There is no question here but that Ticer was employed by a District of Columbia employer; the latter had its place of business in the District and engaged in construction work in the District, as well as in surrounding areas. But the contention is made that, despite the broad sweep of the statutory language, the Act applies only where the employee, during the whole of his employment, spent more time working within the District than he spent working outside the District. Using that criterion, it is said that the Act is inapplicable to this case since Ticer was employed on a construction job in Virginia continuously for over three years prior to the accident and did nothing within the District for his employer during that period. The implication is that only the Virginia workmen’s compensation law is applicable.
But the record indicates that both Ticer and his wife were residents of the District. He had been hired in the District by his employer in 1934 and had worked on various projects in and around the District from that time until 1940, when he was assigned to the Quantico Marine Base project. While at the Marine Base, he was under orders from the District and was subject to being transferred at anytime to a project in the District. His pay was either carried to him from the District or was given to him directly in the District. And he commuted daily between his home in the District and the Marine Base project.
We hold that the jurisdictional objection is without merit in light of these facts. Nothing in the history, the purpose or the language of the Act warrants any limitation which would preclude its application to this case. The Act in so many words applies to every employee of an employer carrying on any employment in the District of Columbia, “irrespective of the place where the injury or death occurs.” Those words leave no possible room for reading in an implied exception excluding those employees like Ticer who have substantial business and personal connections in the District and who are injured outside the District. Whether this language covers employees who are more remotely related to the District is a matter which we need not now discuss and any arguments based upon such hypothetical situations are without weight in this case.
Nor does any statutory policy suggest itself to justify the proposed exception. A prime purpose of the Act is to provide residents of the District of Columbia with a practical and expeditious remedy for their industrial accidents and to place on District of Columbia employers a limited and determinate liability. See Bradford Elec. Co. v. Clapper, 286 U. S. 145, 159. The District is relatively quite small in area; many employers carrying on business in the District assign some employees to do work outside the geographical boundaries, especially in nearby Virginia and Maryland areas. When such employees reside in the District and are injured while performing those outside assignments, they come within the intent and design of the statute to the same extent as those whose work and injuries occur solely within the District. In other words, the District’s legitimate interest in providing adequate workmen’s compensation measures for its residents does not turn on the fortuitous circumstance of the place of their work or injury. Nor does it vary with the amount or percentage of work performed within the District. Rather it depends upon some substantial connection between the District and the particular employee-employer relationship, a connection which is present in this case. Such has been the essence of prior holdings of the Court of Appeals. B. F. Goodrich Co. v. Britton, 78 U. S. App. D. C. 221, 139 F. 2d 362; Travelers Ins. Co. v. Cardillo, 78 U. S. App. D. C. 392, 141 F. 2d 362; Travelers Ins. Co. v. Cardillo, 78 U. S. App. D. C. 394, 141 F. 2d 364. And as so applied, the statute fully satisfies any constitutional questions of due process or full faith and credit. Alaska Packers Assn. v. Industrial Accident Commission, 294 U. S. 532. Cf. Bradford Elec. Co. v. Clapper, supra.
Hence we conclude that the Deputy Commissioner had jurisdiction under the District of Columbia Act to entertain a claim by the widow of an employee who had been a resident of the District, who had been employed by a District employer and who had been subject to work assignments in the District. We accordingly turn to a consideration of the propriety and effect of the Deputy Commissioner’s finding that Ticer’s injury arose out of and in the course of his employment.
Our approach to that problem grows out of the provisions of the Longshoremen’s Act, as made applicable by the District of Columbia Act. Section 19 (a) of the Longshoremen’s Act provides for the filing of a “claim for compensation” and specifies that “the deputy commissioner shall have full power and authority to hear and determine all questions in respect of such claim.” Thus questions as to whether an injury arose out of and in the course of employment necessarily fall within the scope of the Deputy Commissioner’s authority. Section 21 (b) then provides that compensation orders may be suspended or set aside through injunction proceedings instituted in the federal district courts “if not in accordance with law.”
In determining whether a particular injury arose out of and in the course of employment, the Deputy Commissioner must necessarily draw an inference from what he has found to be the basic facts. The propriety of that inference, of course, is vital to the validity of the order subsequently entered. But the scope of judicial review of that inference is sharply limited by the foregoing statutory provisions. If supported by evidence and not inconsistent with the law, the Deputy Commissioner’s inference that an injury did or did not arise out of and in the course of employment is conclusive. No reviewing court can then set aside that inference because the opposite one is thought to be more reasonable; nor can the opposite inference be substituted by the court because of a belief that the one chosen by the Deputy Commissioner is factually questionable. Voehl v. Indemnity Ins. Co., supra, 166; Del Vecchio v. Bowers, 296 U. S. 280, 287; South Chicago Co. v. Bassett, 309 U. S. 251, 257-258; Parker v. Motor Boat Sales, 314 U. S. 244, 246; Davis v. Department of Labor, supra, 256; Norton v. Warner Co., 321 U. S. 565, 568-569.
It matters not that the basic facts from which the Deputy Commissioner draws this inference are undisputed rather than controverted. See Boehm v. Commissioner, 326 U. S. 287, 293. It is likewise immaterial that the facts permit the drawing of diverse inferences. The Deputy Commissioner alone is charged with the duty of initially selecting the inference which seems most reasonable and his choice, if otherwise sustainable, may not be disturbed by a reviewing court. Del Vecchio v. Bowers, supra, 287. Moreover, the fact that the inference of the type here made by the Deputy Commissioner involves an application of a broad statutory term or phrase to a specific set of facts gives rise to no greater scope of judicial review. Labor Board v. Hearst Publications, 322 U. S. 111, 131; Commissioner v. Scottish American Co., 323 U. S. 119, 124; Unemployment Compensation Commission v. Aragon, 329 U. S. 143, 153-154. Even if such an inference be considered more legal than factual in nature, the reviewing court’s function is exhausted when it becomes evident that the Deputy Commissioner’s choice has substantial roots in the evidence and is not forbidden by the law. Such is the result of the statutory provision permitting the suspension or setting aside of compensation orders only “if not in accordance with law.”
Our attention must therefore be cast upon the inference drawn by the Deputy Commissioner in this case that Ticer’s injury and death did arise out of and in the course of his employment. If there is factual and legal support for that conclusion, our task is at an end.
A reasonable legal basis for the Deputy Commissioner’s action in this respect is clear. The statutory phrase “arising out of and in the course of employment,” which appears in most workmen’s compensation laws, is deceptively simple and litigiously prolific. As applied to injuries received by employees while traveling between their homes and their regular places of work, however, this phrase has generally been construed to preclude compensation. Voehl v. Indemnity Ins. Co., supra, 169. Such injuries are said not to arise out of and in the course of employment; rather they arise out of the ordinary hazards of the journey, hazards which are faced by all travelers and which are unrelated to the employer’s business. But certain exceptions to this general rule have come to be recognized. These exceptions relate to situations where the hazards of the journey may fairly be regarded as the hazards of the service. They are thus dependent upon the nature and circumstances of the particular employment and necessitate a careful evaluation of the employment terms.
Under the District of Columbia Workmen’s Compensation Act, at least four exceptions have been recognized by the Court of Appeals: (1) where the employment requires the employee to travel on the highways; (2) where the employer contracts to and does furnish transportation to and from work; (3) where the employee is subject to emergency calls, as in the case of firemen; (4) where the employee uses the highway to do something incidental to his employment, with the knowledge and approval of the employer. Ward v. Cardillo, 77 U. S. App. D. C. 343, 345, 135 F. 2d 260, 262. See also Lake v. Bridgeport, 102 Conn. 337, 128 A. 782. In performing his function of deciding whether an injury, incurred while traveling, arose out of and in the course of employment, the Deputy Commissioner must determine the applicability of these exceptions to the general rule. Here he decided that the second exception was applicable, that Ticer’s employer had contracted to furnish transportation to and from work and had paid the expense of transportation in lieu of actually supplying the transportation itself. We cannot say that he was wrong as a matter of law.
There are no rigid legal principles to guide the Deputy Commissioner in determining whether the employer contracted to and did furnish transportation to and from work. “No exact formula can be laid down which will automatically solve every case.” Cudahy Packing Co. v. Parramore, 263 U. S. 418, 424; Voehl v. Indemnity Ins. Co., supra, 169. Each employment relationship must be perused to discover whether the employer, by express agreement or by a course of dealing, contracted to and did furnish this type of transportation. For that reason it was error for the Court of Appeals in this case to emphasize that the employer must have control over the acts and movements of the employee during the transportation before it can be said that an injury arose out of and in the course of employment. The presence or absence of control is certainly a factor to be considered. But it is not decisive. An employer may in fact furnish transportation for his employees without actually controlling them during the course of the journey or at the time and place where the injury occurs. Ward v. Cardillo, supra. And in situations where the journey is in other respects incidental to the employment, the absence of control by the employer has not been held to preclude a finding that an injury arose out of and in the course of employment. See Cudahy Packing Co. v. Parramore, supra; Voehl v. Indemnity Ins. Co., supra.
Indeed, to import all the common law concepts of control and to erect them as the sole or prime guide for the Deputy Commissioner in cases of this nature would be to encumber his duties with all the technicalities and unrealities which have marked the use of those concepts in other fields. See Labor Board v. Hearst Publications, supra, 120-121, 125; Hust v. Moore-McCormack Lines, 328 U. S. 707, 723-725. That we refuse to do. “The modern development and growth of industry, with the consequent changes in the relations of employer and employee, have been so profound in character and degree as to take away, in large measure, the applicability of the doctrines upon which rest the common law liability of the master for personal injuries to a servant, leaving of necessity a field of debatable ground where a good deal must be conceded in favor of forms of legislation, calculated to establish new bases of liability more in harmony with these changed conditions.” Cudahy Packing Co. v. Parramore, supra, 423.
Nor is there any other formal principle of law which would invalidate the choice made by the Deputy Commissioner in this instance. The fact that Ticer was not being paid wages at the time of the accident is clearly immaterial. Cudahy Packing Co. v. Parramore, supra. And it is without statutory consequence that the employer here carried out his contract obligation to furnish actual transportation by paying the travel costs and allowing the employees like Ticer to make the journey by whatever means they saw fit. To be sure, there are many holdings to the effect that, where the employer merely pays the costs of transportation, an injury occurring during the journey does not arise out of and in the course of employment ; there must be something more than mere payment of transportation costs. But assuming those holdings to be correct and assuming the Deputy Commissioner's findings in this case to be justified, there is more here than mere payment of transportation costs. It was found that Ticer’s employer paid the costs as a means of carrying out its contract obligation to furnish the transportation itself. Where there is that obligation, it becomes, irrelevant in this setting whether the employer performs the obligation by supplying its own vehicle, hiring the vehicle of an independent contractor, making arrangements with a common carrier, reimbursing employees for the use of their own vehicles, or reimbursing employees for the costs of transportation by any means they desire to use. In other words, where the employer has promised to provide transportation to and from work, the compensability of the injury is in no way dependent upon the method of travel which is employed. From the statutory standpoint, the employer is free to carry out its transportation obligation in any way the parties desire; and the rights of the employees to compensation are unaffected by the choice made.
Turning to the factual support for the Deputy Commissioner’s inference that Ticer’s injury arose out of and in the course of employment, we find ample sustaining evidence. Ticer’s employment was governed by the terms of a long-standing agreement between Local Union No. 26, International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (of which Ticer was a member) and the Institute of Electrical Contractors of the District of Columbia, Inc. (of which the employer was a member). Rule 15 (b) of the agreement provided that “Transportation and any necessary expense such as board and lodging shall be furnished for all work outside the District of Columbia.”
The employer carried out in different ways this obligation to furnish transportation. On certain construction jobs in the past, it actually furnished a station wagon or a passenger car of its own to transport the employees. At other times, however, it paid the employees an allowance to cover the cost of transportation in lieu of furnishing an automobile. Where the latter course was followed, the written contract was not amended or changed in any way, the employer simply communicating with the union to ascertain the amount necessary to defray the cost of transportation. The amount agreed upon affected all contractors in the Institute; and the cost of transportation was determined before the contractors made their respective bids.
On the Quantico Marine Base project, the sum of $2 per day was agreed upon as the transportation allowance in lieu of furnishing an automobile. This amount was fixed after investigation into the cost of transportation by railroad and was paid to each employee, irrespective of his rate of pay, to cover the cost of transportation to and from the Marine Base. No change was made in the written contract.
There was also evidence that the distant location of the Marine Base project, the hours of work and the inadequacy of public transportation facilities all combined to make it essential, as a practical matter, that the employer furnish transportation in some manner if employees were to be obtained for the job. This was not a case of employees traveling in the same city between home and work. Extended cross-country transportation was necessary. And it was transportation of a type that an employer might fairly be expected to furnish. Such evidence illustrates the setting in wffiich the contract was drawn.
The Court of Appeals felt, however, that the original contract to furnish transportation was not followed and that a new oral contract to pay transportation expenses was substituted in its place. We need not decide whether that view is justified by the record. It is enough that there is sufficient evidence to support the Deputy Commissioner’s view that the payment of transportation costs was merely one way of carrying out the original contract obligation to furnish the transportation itself.
We therefore hold that, under the particular circumstances of this ease, the Deputy Commissioner was justified in concluding that Ticer’s injury and death arose out of and in the course of his employment. And since the Deputy Commissioner had jurisdiction over this case, the resulting award of compensation should have been sustained.
Reversed.
Mr. Justice Frankfurter concurs in the result.
Mr. Justice Jackson and Mr. Justice Burton dissent.
Act of May 17, 1928, 45 Stat. 600, D. C. Code, 1940, § 36-501.
Act of March 4, 1927, c. 509, 44 Stat. 1424, 33 U. S. C. § 901 et seq.
There was one exception. For a period of about 6 months in 1938 or 1939 he worked for the United States Government.
“The few and seemingly simple words ‘arising out of and in the course of the employment’ have been the fruitful (or fruitless) source of a mass of decisions turning upon nice distinctions and supported by refinements so subtle as to leave the mind of the reader in a maze of confusion. From their number counsel can, in most cases, cite what seems to be an authority for resolving in his favour, on whichever side he may be, the question in dispute.” Lord Wrenbury in Herbert v. Fox & Co. [1916] 1 A. C. 405, 419. See also Dodd, Administration of Workmen’s Compensation (1936), pp. 680-687; Horovitz, “Modern Trends in Workmen’s Compensation,” 21 Ind. L. J. 473, 497-564; Horovitz, Injury and Death Under Workmen’s Compensation Laws (1944), pp. 93-173; Brown, “ ‘Arising Out Of And In The Course Of The Employment’ In Workmen’s Compensation Laws,” 7 Wis. L. Rev. 15, 67, 8 Wis. L. Rev. 134, 217.
See also Gagnebin v. Industrial Comm’n, 140 Cal. App. 80, 34 P. 2d 1052; Keely v. Metropolitan Edison Co., 157 Pa. Super. 63, 41 A. 2d 420; McKinney v. Dorlac, 48 N. M. 149, 146 P. 2d 867; Exelbert v. Klein & Kavanagh, 243 App. Div. 839, 278 N. Y. S. 377.
“Nor is it ['in the course of employment’] limited to the time for which wages are paid. Indeed the fact that the workman is paid wages for the time when the accident occurs is of little, if any, importance.” Bohlen, “A Problem in the Drafting of Workmen’s Compensation Acts,” 25 Harv. L. Rev. 328, 401, 402. Turner Day & Woolworth Handle Co. v. Pennington, 250 Ky. 433, 63 S. W. 2d 490.
Public Service Co. of Northern Illinois v. Industrial Commission, 370 Ill. 334, 18 N. E. 2d 914; Guenesa v. Ralph V. Rulon, Inc., 124 Pa. Super. 569, 189 A. 524; Republic Underwriters v. Terrell, (Tex. Civil App.) 126 S. W. 2d 752; Orsinie v. Torrance, 96 Conn. 352, 113 A. 924; Kowalek v. New York Consolidated R. Co., 229 N. Y. 489, 128 N. E. 888; Tallon v. Interborough Rapid Transit Co., 232 N. Y. 410, 134 N. E. 327; Keller v. Reis & Donovan, Inc., 195 App. Div. 45, 185 N. Y. S. 741; Levchuk v. Krug Cement Products Co., 246 Mich. 589, 225 N. W. 559. See annotations in 20 A. L. R. 319, 49 A. L. R. 454, 63 A. L. R. 469, 87 A. L. R. 250, 100 A. L. R. 1053. Cf. Netherton v. Coles, [1945] 1 All E. R. 227.
See Donovan’s Case, 217 Mass. 76, 104 N. E. 431; Breland v. Traylor Engineering & Mfg. Co., 52 Cal. App. 2d 415, 126 P. 2d 455; Lehigh Nav. Coal Co. v. McGonnell, 120 N. J. L. 428, 199 A. 906; Burchfield v. Department of Labor and Industries, 165 Wash. 106, 4 P. 2d 858; Swanson v. Latham, 92 Conn. 87, 101 A. 492; Cary v. State Industrial Commission, 147 Okla. 162, 296 P. 385; Williams v. Travelers Ins. Co. of Hartford, Conn., (La. App.) 19 So. 2d 586; Turner Day & Woolworth Handle Co. v. Pennington, 250 Ky. 433, 63 S. W. 2d 490.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer:
|
H
|
sc_issuearea
|
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Justice Breyer
delivered the opinion of the Court.
A labor arbitrator ordered an employer to reinstate an employee truck driver who had twice tested positive for marijuana. The question before us is whether considerations of public policy require courts to refuse to enforce that arbitration award. We conclude that they do not. The courts may enforce the award. And the employer must reinstate, rather than discharge, the employee.
I
Petitioner, Eastern Associated Coal Corp., and respondent, United Mine Workers of America, are parties to a collective-bargaining agreement with arbitration provisions. The agreement specifies that, in arbitration, in order to discharge an employee, Eastern must prove it has “just cause.” Otherwise the arbitrator will order the employee reinstated. The arbitrator’s decision is final. App. 28-31.
James Smith worked for Eastern as a member of a road crew, a job that required him to drive heavy trucklike vehicles on public highways. As a truck driver, Smith was subject to Department of Transportation (DOT) regulations requiring random drug testing of workers engaged in “safety-sensitive” tasks. 49 CFR §§382.301, 382.305 (1999).
In March 1996, Smith tested positive for marijuana. Eastern sought to discharge Smith. The union went to arbitration, and the arbitrator concluded that Smith’s positive drug test did not amount to “just cause” for discharge. Instead the arbitrator ordered Smith’s reinstatement, provided that Smith (1) accept a suspension of 30 days without pay, (2) participate in a substance-abuse program, and (3) undergo drug tests at the discretion of Eastern (or an approved substance-abuse professional) for the next five years.
Between April 1996 and January four random drug tests. But in July 1997 he again tested positive for marijuana. Eastern again sought to discharge Smith. The union again went to arbitration, and the arbitrator again concluded that Smith’s use of marijuana did not amount to “just cause” for discharge, in light of two mitigating circumstances. First, Smith had been a good employee for 17 years. App. to Pet. for Cert. 26a-27a. And, second, Smith had made a credible and “very personal appeal under oath ... concerning a personal/family problem which caused this one time lapse in drug usage.” Id., at 28a.
The arbitrator that Smith (1) accept a new suspension without pay, this time for slightly more than three months; (2) reimburse Eastern and the union for the costs of both arbitration proceedings; (3) continue to participate in a substance-abuse program; (4) continue to undergo random drug testing; and (5) provide Eastern with a signed, undated letter of resignation, to take effect if Smith again tested positive within the next five years. Id., at 29a.
Eastern brought suit in federal court seeking to have the arbitrator’s award vacated, arguing that the award contravened a public policy against the operation of dangerous machinery by workers who test positive for drugs. 66 F. Supp. 2d 796 (SDWV 1998). The District Court, while recognizing a strong regulation-based public policy against drug use by workers who perform safety-sensitive functions, held that Smith’s conditional reinstatement did not violate that policy. Id., at 804-805. And it ordered the award’s enforcement. Id., at 805.
The Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit affirmed on the reasoning of the District Court. 188 F. 3d 501, 1999 WL 635632 (1999) (unpublished). We granted certiorari in light of disagreement among the Circuits. Compare id., at **1 (holding that public policy does not prohibit “reinstatement of employees who have used illegal drugs in the past”), with, e.g., Exxon Corp. v. Esso Workers’ Union, Inc., 118 F. 3d 841, 852 (CA1 1997) (holding that public policy prohibits enforcement of a similar arbitration award). We now affirm the Fourth Circuit’s determination.
Eastern claims that considerations of public policy make the arbitration award unenforceable. In considering this claim, we must assume that the collective-bargaining agreement itself calls for Smith’s reinstatement. That is because both employer and union have granted to the arbitrator the authority to interpret the meaning of their contract’s language, including such words as “just cause.” See Steelwork ers v. Enterprise Wheel & Car Corp., 368 U. S. 593, 599 (1960). They have “bargained for” the “arbitrator’s construction” of their agreement. Ibid. And courts will set aside the arbitrator’s interpretation of what their agreement means only in rare instances. Id., at 596. Of course, an arbitrator’s award “must draw its essence from the contract and cannot simply reflect the arbitrator’s own notions of industrial justice.” Paperworkers v. Misco, Inc., 484 U. S. 29, 38 (1987). “But as long as [an honest] arbitrator is even arguably construing or applying the contract and acting within the scope of his authority,” the fact that “a court is convinced he committed serious error does not suffice to overturn his decision.” Ibid.; see also Enterprise Wheel, supra, at 596 (the “proper” judicial approach to a labor arbitration award is to “refus[e] ... to review the merits”). Eastern does not claim here that the arbitrator acted outside the scope of his contractually delegated authority. Hence we must treat the arbitrator’s award as if it represented an agreement between Eastern and the union as to the proper meaning of the contract’s words “just cause.” See St. Antoine, Judicial Review of Labor Arbitration Awards: A Second Look at Enterprise Wheel and Its Progeny, 75 Mich. L. Rev. 1137, 1155 (1977). For present purposes, the award is not distinguishable from the contractual agreement.
We must then decide whether a contractual reinstatement requirement would fall within the legal exception that makes unenforceable “a collective-bargaining agreement that is contrary to public policy.” W. R. Grace & Co. v. Rubber Workers, 461 U. S. 757, 766 (1983). The Court has made clear that any such public policy must be “explicit,” “well defined,” and “dominant.” Ibid. It must be “ascertained 'by reference to the laws and legal precedents and not from general considerations of supposed public interests.’” Ibid, (quoting Muschany v. United States, 324 U. S. 49, 66 (1945)); accord, Misco, supra, at 43. And, of course, the question to be answered is not whether Smith’s drug use itself violates public policy, but whether the agreement to reinstate him does so. To put the question more specifically, does a contractual agreement to reinstate Smith with specified conditions, see App. to Pet. for Cert. 29a, run contrary to an explicit, well-defined, and dominant public policy, as ascertained by reference to positive law and not from general considerations of supposed public interests? See Misco, supra, at 43.
III
Eastern initially argues that the District Court erred by asking, not whether the award is “contrary to” public policy “as ascertained by reference” to positive law, but whether the award “violates” positive law, a standard Eastern says is too narrow. We believe, however, that the District Court correctly articulated the standard set out in W R. Grace and Misco, see 66 F. Supp. 2d, at 803 (quoting Misco, supra, at 43), and applied that standard to reach the right result.
We agree, that courts’ authority to invoke the public policy exception is not limited solely to instances where the arbitration award itself violates positive law. Nevertheless, the public policy exception is narrow and must satisfy the principles set forth in W R. Grace and Misco. Moreover, in a case like the one before us, where two political branches have created a detailed regulatory regime in a specific field, courts should approach with particular caution pleas to divine further public policy in that area.
Eastern a public policy against reinstatement of workers who use drugs can be discerned from an examination of that regulatory regime, which consists of the Omnibus Transportation Employee Testing Act of 1991 and DOT’s implementing regulations. The Testing Act embodies a congressional finding that “the greatest efforts must be expended to eliminate the .. . use of illegal drugs, whether on or off duty, by those individuals who are involved in [certain safety-sensitive positions, including] the operation of . . . trucks.” Pub. L. 102-143, §2(3), 105 Stat. 953. The Act adds that “increased testing” is the “most effective deterrent” to “use of illegal drugs.” §2(5). It requires the Secretary of Transportation to promulgate regulations requiring “testing of operators of commercial motor vehicles for the use of a controlled substance.” 49 U. S. C. § 31306(b)(1)(A) (1994 ed., Supp. III). It mandates suspension of those operators who have driven a commercial motor vehicle while under the influence of drugs. 49 U. S. C. § 31310(b)(1)(A) (requiring suspension of at least one year for a first offense); § 31310(e)(2) (requiring suspension of at least 10 years for a second offense). And DOT’S implementing regulations set forth sanctions applicable to those who test positive for illegal drugs. 49 CFR § 382.605 (1999).
In Eastern’s view, policy against drug use by transportation workers in safety-sensitive positions and in favor of random drug testing in order to detect that use. Eastern argues that reinstatement of a driver who has twice failed random drug tests would undermine that policy — to the point where a judge must set aside an employer-union agreement requiring reinstatement.
Eastern’s argument, however, one considers further provisions of the Act that make clear that the Act’s remedial aims are complex. The Act says that “rehabilitation is a critical component of any testing program,” §2(7), 105 Stat. 953, that rehabilitation “should be made available to individuals, as appropriate,” ibid., and that DOT must promulgate regulations for “rehabilitation programs,” 49 U. S. C. § 31306(e). The DOT regulations specifically state that a driver who has tested positive for drugs cannot return to a safety-sensitive position until (1) the driver has been evaluated by a “substance abuse professional” to determine if treatment is needed, 49 CFR § 382.605(b) (1999); (2) the substance-abuse professional has certified that the driver has followed any rehabilitation program prescribed, § 382.605(c)(2)(i); and (3) the driver has passed a return-to-duty drug test, § 382.605(c)(1). In addition, (4) the driver must be subject to at least six random drug tests during the first year after returning to the job. § 382.605(c)(2)(ii). Neither the Act nor the regulations forbid an employer to reinstate in a safety-sensitive position an employee who fails a random drug test once or twice. The congressional and regulatory directives require only that the above-stated prerequisites to reinstatement be met.
Moreover these regulations, DOT decided not to require employers either to provide rehabilitation or to "hold a job open for a driver” who has tested positive, on the basis that such decisions "should be left to management/driver negotiation.” 59 Fed. Reg. 7502 (1994). That determination reflects basic background labor law principles, which caution against interference with labor-management agreements about appropriate employee discipline. See, e. g., California Brewers Assn. v. Bryant, 444 U. S. 598, 608 (1980) (noting that it is “this Nation’s longstanding labor policy” to give “employers and employees the freedom through collective bargaining to establish conditions of employment”).
We believe that these expressions of positive law embody several relevant policies. As Eastern points out, these policies include Testing Act policies against drug use by employees in safety-sensitive transportation positions and in favor of drug testing. They also include a Testing Act policy favoring rehabilitation of employees who use drugs. And the relevant statutory and regulatory provisions must be read in light of background labor law policy that favors determination of disciplinary questions through arbitration when chosen as a result of labor-management negotiation.
The us not contrary to these several policies, taken together. The award does not condone Smith’s conduct or ignore the risk to public safety that drug use by truck drivers may pose. Rather, the award punishes Smith by suspending him for three months, thereby depriving him of nearly $9,000 in lost wages, Record Doc. 29, App. A, p. 2; it requires him to pay the arbitration costs of both sides; it insists upon further substance-abuse treatment and testing; and it makes clear (by requiring Smith to provide a signed letter of resignation) that one more failed test means discharge.
The award violates no specific provision of any law or regulation. It is consistent with DOT rules requiring completion of substance-abuse treatment before returning to work, see 49 CFR § 382.605(c)(2)(i) (1999), for it does not preclude Eastern from assigning Smith to a non-safety-sensitive position until Smith completes the prescribed treatment program. It is consistent with the Testing Act’s 1-year and 10-year driving license suspension requirements, for those requirements apply only to drivers who, unlike Smith, actually operated vehicles under the influence of drugs. See 49 U. S. C. §§ 31310(b), (c). The award is also consistent with the Act’s rehabilitative concerns, for it requires substance-abuse treatment and testing before Smith can return to work.
The fact that Smith is a recidivist — that he has failed drug tests twice — is not sufficient to tip the balance in Eastern’s favor. The award punishes Smith more severely for his second lapse. And that more severe punishment, which included a 90-day suspension, would have satisfied even a “recidivist” rule that DOT once proposed but did not adopt — a rule that would have punished two failed drug tests, not with discharge, but with a driving suspension of 60 days. 57 Fed. Reg. 59585 (1992). Eastern argues that DOT’S withdrawal of its proposed rule leaves open the possibility that discharge is the appropriate penalty for repeat offenders. That argument fails, however, because DOT based its withdrawal, not upon a determination that a more severe penalty was needed, but upon a determination to leave in place, as the “only driving prohibition period for a controlled substances violation,” the “completion of rehabilitation requirements and a return-to-duty test with a negative result.” 59 Fed. Reg. 7493 (1994).
Regarding drug use by persons in safety-sensitive positions, then, Congress has enacted a detailed statute. And Congress has delegated to the Secretary of Transportation authority to issue further detailed regulations on that subject. Upon careful consideration, including public notice and comment, the Secretary has done so. Neither Congress nor the Secretary has seen fit to mandate the discharge of a worker who twice tests positive for drugs. We hesitate to infer a public policy in this area that goes beyond the careful and detailed scheme Congress and the Secretary have created.
We recognize that reasonable people can differ as to whether reinstatement or discharge is the more appropriate remedy here. But both employer and union have agreed to entrust this remedial decision to an arbitrator. We cannot find in the Act, the regulations, or any other law or legal precedent an “explicit,” “well defined,” “dominant” public policy to which the arbitrator’s decision “runs contrary.” Misco, 484 U. S., at 43; W. R. Grace, 461 U. S., at 766. We conclude that the lower courts correctly rejected Eastern’s public policy claim. The judgment of the Court of Appeals is
Affirmed.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer:
|
G
|
sc_issuearea
|
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Per Curiam.
Petitioner moves for leave to file a petition for a writ of mandamus to compel compliance with our mandate issued January 12, 1948, in Sipuel v. Board of Regents, 332 U. S. 631. We there said:
“The petitioner is entitled to secure legal education afforded by a state institution. To this time, it has been denied her although during the same period many white applicants have been afforded legal education by the State. The State must provide it for her in conformity with the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment and provide it as soon as it does for applicants of any other group. Missouri ex rel. Gaines v. Canada, 305 U. S. 337 (1938).”
Petitioner states that on January 17,1948, the Supreme Court of Oklahoma rendered an opinion in which it was said:
“Said Board of Regents is hereby directed, under the authority conferred upon it by the provisions of Art. 13-A, Constitution of the State of Oklahoma, and Title 70 O. S. 1941, Secs. 1976, 1979, to afford to plaintiff, and all others similarly situated, an opportunity to commence the study of law at a state institution as soon as citizens of other groups are afforded such opportunity, in conformity with the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment of the Federal Constitution and with the provisions of the Constitution and statutes of this state requiring segregation of the races in the schools of this state. Art. 13, Sec. 3, Constitution of Oklahoma; 70 O. S. 1941, Secs. 451-457.
“Reversed with directions to the trial court to take such proceedings as may be necessary to fully carry out the opinion of the Supreme Court of the United States and this opinion. The mandate is ordered to issue forthwith.”
It is further stated by petitioner that the District Court of Cleveland County of Oklahoma entered an order on January 22,1948, as follows:
“It is, therefore, ordered, adjudged and decreed by this Court that unless and until the separate school of law for negroes, which the Supreme Court of Oklahoma in effect directed the Oklahoma State Regents for Higher Education to establish
‘with advantages for education substantially equal to the advantages afforded to white students,’
is established and ready to function at the designated time applicants of any other group may hereafter apply for admission to the first-year class of the School of Law of the University of Oklahoma, and if the plaintiff herein makes timely and proper application to enroll in said class, the defendants, Board of Regents of the University of Oklahoma, et al., be, and the same are hereby ordered and directed to either:
“(1) enroll plaintiff, if she is otherwise qualified, in the first-year class of the School of Law of the University of Oklahoma, in which school she will be entitled to remain on the same scholastic basis as other students thereof until such a separate law school for negroes is established and ready to function, or
“(2) not enroll any applicant of any group in said class until said separate school is established and ready to function.
“It is further ordered, adjudged and decreed that if such a separate law school is so established and ready to function, the defendants, Board of Regents of the University of Oklahoma, et al., be, and the same are hereby ordered and directed to not enroll plaintiff in the first-year class of the School of Law of the University of Oklahoma.
“The cost of this case is taxed to defendants.
“This court retains jurisdiction of this cause to hear and determine any question which may arise concerning the application of and performance of the duties prescribed by this order.”
The only question before us on this petition for a writ of mandamus is whether or not our mandate has been followed. It is clear that the District Court of Cleveland County did not depart from our mandate.
The petition for certiorari in Sipuel v. Board of Regents, did not present the issue whether a state might not satisfy the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment by establishing a separate law school for Negroes. On submission, we were clear it was not an issue here. The Oklahoma Supreme Court upheld the refusal to admit petitioner on the ground that she had failed to demand establishment of a separate school and admission to it. On remand, the district court correctly understood our decision to hold that the equal protection clause permits no such defense.
Nothing which may have transpired since the orders of the Oklahoma courts were issued is in the record before us, nor could we consider it on this petition for writ of mandamus if it were. The Oklahoma District Court has retained jurisdiction to hear and determine any question arising under its order. Whether or not the order is followed or disobeyed should be determined by it in the first instance. The manner in which, or the method by which, Oklahoma may have satisfied, or could satisfy, the requirements of the mandate of this Court, as applied by the District Court of Cleveland County in its order of January 22,1948, is not before us.
Motion for leave to file petition for writ of mandamus is denied.
Mr. Justice Murphy
is of the opinion that a hearing should be had in order to determine whether the action of the Oklahoma courts subsequent to the issuance of this Court’s mandate constitutes an evasion of that mandate.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer:
|
B
|
sc_issuearea
|
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Mr. Justice Douglas
delivered the opinion of the Court.
The State of Maryland imposes on steam railroad companies a franchise tax, measured by gross receipts, apportioned to the length of their lines within the State. Appellant Canton Railroad Company, a Maryland corporation, challenges the validity of the tax under the Import-Export Clause of the Constitution, Art. I, § 10, cl. 2, insofar as the gross income by which the tax is measured includes revenues derived from the handling of goods moving in foreign trade.
Canton is a common carrier of freight operating entirely within the City of Baltimore, Maryland. It maintains a marine terminal in the port of Baltimore and railroad lines connecting this terminal with the lines of major trunk-line railroads. Its operating revenues are derived from services which fall into the following classifications:
Switching freight cars from the piers to the lines of connecting railroads.
Storage pending forwarding, for which a charge is made for each day beyond a free period.
Wharfage, or the privilege of using Canton’s piers for the transfer of cargo to lighters or to trucks.
Weighing of loaded freight cars.
Furnishing a crane for use in unloading vessels. This crane is operated by a stevedoring company, which pays Canton a set charge per ton for the “crane privilege.”
A substantial proportion of the freight moved to and from the port consists of exports from and imports into the United States. In its report to the State Tax Commission for 1946, Canton showed gross receipts from its railroad business in Maryland of $1,588,744.48, of which it claimed $705,957.21 to be exempt from taxation because derived from operations in foreign commerce. After a hearing, the Commission rejected Canton’s contention that a part of its gross receipts was constitutionally exempt from the tax, assessed its gross receipts at the higher figure, and imposed a tax of $39,092.34. The Commission’s order was affirmed both by the Baltimore Circuit Court and by the Court of Appeals of Maryland, two judges dissenting. -Md.-, 73 A. 2d 12.
The case is here on appeal.
The Constitution commands in Art. I, § 10, cl. 2 that “No State shall, without the Consent of the Congress, lay any Imposts or Duties on Imports or Exports, except what may be absolutely necessary for executing it’s inspection Laws . . . .” The Maryland court held that the tax does not violate this provision of the Constitution; and we agree.
If this were a tax on the articles of import and export, we would have the kind of problem presented in Spalding & Bros. v. Edwards, 262 U. S. 66; Richfield Oil Corp. v. State Board, 329 U. S. 69; Hooven & Allison Co. v. Evatt, 324 U. S. 652; and Joy Oil Co. v. State Tax Comm’n, 337 U. S. 286. But the present tax is not on the articles of import and export; nor is it the equivalent of a direct tax on the articles, as was held to be true of stamp taxes on foreign bills of lading (Fairbank v. United States, 181 U. S. 283), stamp taxes on charter parties in foreign commerce (United States v. Hvoslef, 237 U. S. 1); and stamp taxes on policies insuring exports against maritime risks. Thames & Mersey Ins. Co. v. United States, 237 U. S. 19. It is true that the latter cases indicate that the prohibition of the Import-Export Clause against taxes on imports and exports involves more than an exemption from taxes laid upon the goods themselves. Moreover, Crew Levick Co. v. Pennsylvania, 245 U. S. 292, following the reasoning of Brown v. Maryland, 12 Wheat. 419, 444-445, gave like immunity to the business of selling goods in foreign commerce when gross receipts were taxed. Cf. Anglo-Chilean Corp. v. Alabama, 288 U. S. 218. Though appellant is not engaged in the import-export business, it claims that its handling of goods, which are destined for export or which arrive as imports, is part of the process of exportation and importation. In support of the argument it refers to language in Spalding & Bros. v. Edwards, supra, and Richfield Oil Corp. v. State Board, supra, relative to when the export process starts; and it argues that, if the baseballs and the baseball bats in Spalding and the oil in Richfield were immune from the sales taxes because those commodities had been committed to exportation, the same immunity should be allowed here since the goods handled by appellant were similarly committed. The difference is that in the present case the tax is not on the goods but on the handling of them at the port. An article may be an export and immune from a tax long before or long after it reaches the port. But when the tax is on activities connected with the export or import the range of immunity cannot be so wide.
To export means to carry or send abroad; to import means to bring into the country. Those acts begin and end at water’s edge. The broader definition which appellant tenders distorts the ordinary meaning of the terms. It would lead back to every forest, mine, and factory in the land and create a zone of tax immunity never before imagined. For if the handling of the goods at the port were part of the export process, so would hauling them to or from distant points or perhaps mining them or manufacturing them. The phase of the process would make no difference so long as the goods were in fact committed to export or had arrived as imports.
Appellant claims that loading and unloading are a part of its activities. But close examination of the record indicates that it merely rents a crane for loading and unloading and does not itself do the stevedoring work. Hence we need not decide whether loading for export and unloading for import are immune from tax by reason of the Import-Export Clause. Cf. Joseph v. Carter & Weekes Co., 330 U. S. 422.
We do conclude, however, that any activity more remote than that does not commence the movement of the commodities abroad nor end their arrival and therefore is not a part of the export or import process.
The objection to Maryland’s tax on the ground that interstate commerce is involved is not well taken. It is settled that a nondiscriminatory gross receipts tax on an interstate enterprise may be sustained if fairly apportioned to the business done within the taxing state (see Western Live Stock v. Bureau of Revenue, 303 U. S. 250, 255) and not reaching any activities carried on beyond the borders of the state. Where transportation is concerned, an apportionment according to the mileage within the state is an approved method. Greyhound Lines v. Medley, 334 U. S. 653, 663.
Affirmed.
The Chief Justice took no part in the consideration or decision of this case.
By Mr. Justice Jackson, whom Mr. Justice Frankfurter joins, reserving judgment.
In this case, I reserve judgment in the belief that today’s decision of the Court may be found, upon consideration of matters not briefed or argued, to be untenable.
One of the fundamental federal policies, established by the Constitution itself, is that “No Preference shall be given by any Regulation of Commerce or Revenue to the Ports of one State over those of another . . . .” Art. I, § 9, cl. 6. This policy is further implemented by a requirement that federal duties, imposts and excises be uniform (Art. I, § 8, cl. 1), and by a prohibition of any federal tax or duty on articles exported from a state (Art. I, § 9, el. 5). But this policy of equality of access to the high seas can also be upset by the states. Hence the Constitution forbids any state, without the consent of Congress, to lay any imposts or duties on imports or exports, except to pay the cost of inspection laws. Art. I, § 10, cl. 2.
This detailed constitutional concern about exports and imports is a manifestation of a realistic recognition that a state or city with a safe harbor sits at a gateway with not only an inevitable natural advantage, but also a strategic one which may be exploited if not restrained. Political influence of wealthy and populous port areas was feared in the making of federal law, hence the restrictions on Congress. The disposition of cities and states to. exploit their location astride the Nation’s portals also was feared, hence the restriction on the states.
If the roads to the ports may be obstructed with local regulation and taxes, inland producers may be made to pay tribute to the seaboard for the privilege of exportation, and the longer the road to port, the more localities that may lay burdens on the passing traffic. The evident policy of the Constitution is to avoid these burdens and maintain free and equal access to foreign ports for the inland areas. If the constitutional policy can be avoided by shifting the tax from the exported article itself to some incident such as carriage, unavoidable in the process of exportation, then the policy is a practical nullity. I think prohibition of a tax on exports and imports goes beyond exempting specific articles from direct ad valorem duties— it prohibits taxing exports and imports as a process.
This is a matter of giving the inland farms and factories a fair access to the sea which will enable them to compete in foreign commerce, as well as to make imports as equally available as possible, regardless of distance from port. Ocean rates to a given foreign port are the same from all Atlantic ports, so that any differences in the costs of reaching the coast from the inland cannot be offset and represent net differences in the costs of reaching foreign markets.
Congress, the Interstate Commerce Commission, this Court, and American rail and motor carriers have all concurred in the development of rate structures on the premise that exports are to be recognized as such from the time they are delivered to the carrier for export and not merely when they reach the water’s edge. There is a wealth of statutory material relating to the carriage of goods for export by railroads, motor carriers, and shipping companies. Railroads have established lawful tariffs for export goods substantially less than for like goods destined for local markets. Texas & P. R. Co. v. I. C. C., 162 U. S. 197; Texas & P. R. Co. v. United States, 289 U. S. 627. In the latter case, this Court recognized that export and import shipments, although not made on through bills, might lawfully be transported at rates below those charged for domestic traffic between the same points. Id., at 636. The differential, I believe, is sometimes as much as fifty percent of the local tariff over the same route. Of course, if the export character of the goods is not to be recognized until they are ready to board or have boarded ship, this is a rank discrimination against local shippers quite without justification.
What Maryland has done, if these goods while in transit do constitute exports, is to tax gross proceeds of their transportation and handling, not merely the profits therefrom. This adds directly to the cost of their reaching ship-side, and the greater distance they travel, the greater possible accumulation of tax burden. Clearly, this is an obstruction in the path of the federal policy.
However, the effect of the federal policy on the validity of the Maryland tax was not advanced in the courts below nor here by railroad counsel, so I do not wish to express a final view on the matter. But I suspect today’s decision will cause mischief in quarters we have not considered.
Md. Ann. Code (1943 Supp.), Art. 81, §§ 94% and 95.
This case involved a federal tax equivalent to 3 per cent of the price “upon all tennis rackets, golf clubs, baseball bats,” etc. Act of Oct. 3, 1917, § 600 (f),. 40 Stat. 300, 316. It presented, as did the Fairbank, Hvoslef, and Thames & Mersey Ins. Co. cases, a question under Art. I, § 9, cl. 5 of the Constitution, which provides, “No Tax or Duty shall be laid on Articles exported from any State.”
The tax required of appellant is "upon such proportion of its gross earnings as the length of its line in this State bears to the whole length of its line.” § 95 (b), supra, note 1.
As demonstrative that Congress is vitally concerned about exports and imports, see 15 U. S. C. § 173, respecting the annual report on statistics of commerce required of the Director of the Bureau of Foreign and Domestic Commerce, in which he must outline the “kinds, quantities, and values” of all articles exported of imported, showing the exports to and imports from each foreign country and their values, the exports being required to be broken down into those manufactured in the United States and their value, and those manufactured in other countries and their value.
Also, although the Interstate Commerce Act does not apply to carriers engaged in foreign commerce insofar as their carriage beyond the limits of the United States is concerned, 49 U. S. C. § 902 (i) (3); 49 C. F. R.. § 141.67, their state-side activities have received considerable attention. Chapter 12, Part III of the Act, relating to water carriers, defines “common carrier by water” as “any person which holds itself out to the general public to engage in the transportation by water in interstate or foreign commerce of passengers or property (Emphasis supplied.) 49 U. S. C. §902 (d). Section 905 (b) of the same Title states: “It shall be the duty of common carriers by water to establish reasonable through routes . . . with common carriers by railroad . . . and just and reasonable rates . . . applicable thereto .... Common carriers by water may establish reasonable through routes and rates . . . with common carriers by motor vehicle. . . .” And § 905 (c) provides that, “It shall be unlawful for any common carrier by water to . . . give . . . any undue or unreasonable preference or advantage to any particular person, port, . . . territory, or description of traffic
Further congressional concern is evidenced in 49 U. S. C. § 906 (a) : “Every common carrier by water shall file with the Commission, and print, and keep open to public inspection tariffs showing all rates, fares, charges, classifications, rules, regulations, and practices for the transportation in interstate or foreign commerce of passengers and property between, places on its own route, and between such places and places on the route of any other such carrier or on the route of any common carrier by railroad or by motor vehicle, when a through route and joint rate shall have been established. . . .” See also 49 U. S. C. .§6, par. (12), providing: “If any common carrier subject to this chapter and chapters 8 and 12 of this title enters into arrangements with any water carrier operating from a port in the United States to a foreign country ... for the handling of through business between interior points of the United States and such foreign country, the Commission may by order require such common carrier to enter into similar arrangements with any or all other lines of steamships operating from said port to the same foreign country.”
The ever-present concern with through routes and joint rates would appear a strong indication that the Congress regards goods as in export from the time they are first consigned to a carrier for a foreign destination, not from the time they reach the ship on which they are to be carried.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
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 ALITOdelivered the opinion of the Court.
Petitioner Gregory Holt, also known as Abdul Maalik Muhammad, is an Arkansas inmate and a devout Muslim who wishes to grow a ½-inch beard in accordance with his religious beliefs. Petitioner's objection to shaving his beard clashes with the Arkansas Department of Correction's grooming policy, which prohibits inmates from growing beards unless they have a particular dermatological condition. We hold that the Department's policy, as applied in this case, violates the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act of 2000 (RLUIPA), 114 Stat. 803, 42 U.S.C. § 2000cc et seq.,which prohibits a state or local government from taking any action that substantially burdens the religious exercise of an institutionalized person unless the government demonstrates that the action constitutes the least restrictive means of furthering a compelling governmental interest.
We conclude in this case that the Department's policy substantially burdens petitioner's religious exercise. Although we do not question the importance of the Department's interests in stopping the flow of contraband and facilitating prisoner identification, we do doubt whether the prohibition against petitioner's beard furthers its compelling interest about contraband. And we conclude that the Department has failed to show that its policy is the least restrictive means of furthering its compelling interests. We thus reverse the decision of the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit.
I
A
Congress enacted RLUIPA and its sister statute, the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993 (RFRA), 107 Stat. 1488, 42 U.S.C. § 2000bb et seq.,"in order to provide very broad protection for religious liberty." Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc.,573 U.S. ----, ----, 134 S.Ct. 2751, 2760, 189 L.Ed.2d 675 (2014). RFRA was enacted three years after our decision in Employment Div., Dept. of Human Resources of Ore. v. Smith,494 U.S. 872, 110 S.Ct. 1595, 108 L.Ed.2d 876 (1990), which held that neutral, generally applicable laws that incidentally burden the exercise of religion usually do not violate the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment. Id.,at 878-882, 110 S.Ct. 1595. Smithlargely repudiated the method of analysis used in prior free exercise cases like Wisconsin v. Yoder,406 U.S. 205, 92 S.Ct. 1526, 32 L.Ed.2d 15 (1972), and Sherbert v. Verner,374 U.S. 398, 83 S.Ct. 1790, 10 L.Ed.2d 965 (1963). In those cases, we employed a balancing test that considered whether a challenged government action that substantially burdened the exercise of religion was necessary to further a compelling state interest. See Yoder,supra,at 214, 219, 92 S.Ct. 1526; Sherbert, supra,at 403, 406, 83 S.Ct. 1790.
Following our decision in Smith,Congress enacted RFRA in order to provide greater protection for religious exercise than is available under the First Amendment. See Hobby Lobby, supra,at ---- - ----, 134 S.Ct., at 2760-2761. RFRA provides that "[g]overnment shall not substantially burden a person's exercise of religion even if the burden results from a rule of general applicability," unless the government "demonstrates that application of the burden to the person-(1) is in furtherance of a compelling governmental interest; and (2) is the least restrictive means of furthering that compelling governmental interest." 42 U.S.C. §§ 2000bb-1(a), (b). In making RFRA applicable to the States and their subdivisions, Congress relied on Section 5 of the Fourteenth Amendment, but in City of Boerne v. Flores,521 U.S. 507, 117 S.Ct. 2157, 138 L.Ed.2d 624 (1997), this Court held that RFRA exceeded Congress' powers under that provision. Id.,at 532-536, 117 S.Ct. 2157.
Congress responded to City of Boerneby enacting RLUIPA, which applies to the States and their subdivisions and invokes congressional authority under the Spending and Commerce Clauses. See § 2000cc-1(b). RLUIPA concerns two areas of government activity: Section 2 governs land-use regulation, § 2000cc; and Section 3-the provision at issue in this case-governs religious exercise by institutionalized persons, § 2000cc-1. Section 3 mirrors RFRA and provides that "[n]o government shall impose a substantial burden on the religious exercise of a person residing in or confined to an institution ... even if the burden results from a rule of general applicability, unless the government demonstrates that imposition of the burden on that person-(1) is in furtherance of a compelling governmental interest; and (2) is the least restrictive means of furthering that compelling governmental interest." § 2000cc-1(a). RLUIPA thus allows prisoners "to seek religious accommodations pursuant to the same standard as set forth in RFRA." Gonzales v. O Centro Espírita Beneficente Uniõ do Vegetal,546 U.S. 418, 436, 126 S.Ct. 1211, 163 L.Ed.2d 1017 (2006).
Several provisions of RLUIPA underscore its expansive protection for religious liberty. Congress defined "religious exercise" capaciously to include "any exercise of religion, whether or not compelled by, or central to, a system of religious belief." § 2000cc-5(7)(A). Congress mandated that this concept "shall be construed in favor of a broad protection of religious exercise, to the maximum extent permitted by the terms of this chapter and the Constitution." § 2000cc-3(g). And Congress stated that RLUIPA "may require a government to incur expenses in its own operations to avoid imposing a substantial burden on religious exercise." § 2000cc-3(c). See Hobby Lobby, supra,at ---- - ----, ----, 134 S.Ct., at 2761-2762, 2781-2782.
B
Petitioner, as noted, is in the custody of the Arkansas Department of Correction and he objects on religious grounds to the Department's grooming policy, which provides that "[n]o inmates will be permitted to wear facial hair other than a neatly trimmed mustache that does not extend beyond the corner of the mouth or over the lip." App. to Brief for Petitioner 11a. The policy makes no exception for inmates who object on religious grounds, but it does contain an exemption for prisoners with medical needs: "Medical staff may prescribe that inmates with a diagnosed dermatological problem may wear facial hair no longer than one quarter of an inch." Ibid.The policy provides that "[f]ailure to abide by [the Department's] grooming standards is grounds for disciplinary action." Id.,at 12a.
Petitioner sought permission to grow a beard and, although he believes that his faith requires him not to trim his beard at all, he proposed a "compromise" under which he would grow only a ½-inch beard. App. 164. Prison officials denied his request, and the warden told him: "[Y]ou will abide by [Arkansas Department of Correction] policies and if you choose to disobey, you can suffer the consequences." No. 5:11-cv-00164 (ED Ark., July 21, 2011), Doc. 13, p. 6 (Letter from Gaylon Lay to Gregory Holt (July 19, 2011)).
Petitioner filed a pro se complaint in Federal District Court challenging the grooming policy under RLUIPA. We refer to the respondent prison officials collectively as the Department. In October 2011, the District Court granted petitioner a preliminary injunction and remanded to a Magistrate Judge for an evidentiary hearing. At the hearing, the Department called two witnesses. Both expressed the belief that inmates could hide contraband in even a ½-inch beard, but neither pointed to any instances in which this had been done in Arkansas or elsewhere. Both witnesses also acknowledged that inmates could hide items in many other places, such as in the hair on their heads or their clothing. In addition, one of the witnesses-Gaylon Lay, the warden of petitioner's prison-testified that a prisoner who escaped could change his appearance by shaving his beard, and that a prisoner could shave his beard to disguise himself and enter a restricted area of the prison. Neither witness, however, was able to explain why these problems could not be addressed by taking a photograph of an inmate without a beard, a practice followed in other prison systems. Lay voiced concern that the Department would be unable to monitor the length of a prisoner's beard to ensure that it did not exceed one-half inch, but he acknowledged that the Department kept track of the length of the beards of those inmates who are allowed to wear a ¼-inch beard for medical reasons.
As a result of the preliminary injunction, petitioner had a short beard at the time of the hearing, and the Magistrate Judge commented: "I look at your particular circumstance and I say, you know, it's almost preposterous to think that you could hide contraband in your beard." App. 155. Nevertheless, the Magistrate Judge recommended that the preliminary injunction be vacated and that petitioner's complaint be dismissed for failure to state a claim on which relief can be granted. The Magistrate Judge emphasized that "the prison officials are entitled to deference," id.,at 168, and that the grooming policy allowed petitioner to exercise his religion in other ways, such as by praying on a prayer rug, maintaining the diet required by his faith, and observing religious holidays.
The District Court adopted the Magistrate Judge's recommendation in full, and the Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit affirmed in a brief per curiamopinion, holding that the Department had satisfied its burden of showing that the grooming policy was the least restrictive means of furthering its compelling security interests. 509 Fed.Appx. 561 (2013). The Court of Appeals stated that "courts should ordinarily defer to [prison officials'] expert judgment" in security matters unless there is substantial evidence that a prison's response is exaggerated. Id.,at 562. And while acknowledging that other prisons allow inmates to maintain facial hair, the Eighth Circuit held that this evidence "does not outweigh deference owed to [the] expert judgment of prison officials who are more familiar with their own institutions." Ibid.
We entered an injunction pending resolution of petitioner's petition for writ of certiorari, 571 U.S. ----, 134 S.Ct. 635, 187 L.Ed.2d 414 (2013), and we then granted certiorari, 571 U.S. ----, 134 S.Ct. 1490, 188 L.Ed.2d 391 (2014).
II
Under RLUIPA, petitioner bore the initial burden of proving that the Department's grooming policy implicates his religious exercise. RLUIPA protects "any exercise of religion, whether or not compelled by, or central to, a system of religious belief," § 2000cc-5(7)(A), but, of course, a prisoner's request for an accommodation must be sincerely based on a religious belief and not some other motivation, see Hobby Lobby,573 U.S., at ----, n. 28, 134 S.Ct., at 2774, n. 28. Here, the religious exercise at issue is the growing of a beard, which petitioner believes is a dictate of his religious faith, and the Department does not dispute the sincerity of petitioner's belief.
In addition to showing that the relevant exercise of religion is grounded in a sincerely held religious belief, petitioner also bore the burden of proving that the Department's grooming policy substantially burdened that exercise of religion. Petitioner easily satisfied that obligation. The Department's grooming policy requires petitioner to shave his beard and thus to "engage in conduct that seriously violates [his] religious beliefs." Id.,at ----, 134 S.Ct., at 2775. If petitioner contravenes that policy and grows his beard, he will face serious disciplinary action. Because the grooming policy puts petitioner to this choice, it substantially burdens his religious exercise. Indeed, the Department does not argue otherwise.
The District Court reached the opposite conclusion, but its reasoning (adopted from the recommendation of the Magistrate Judge) misunderstood the analysis that RLUIPA demands. First, the District Court erred by concluding that the grooming policy did not substantially burden petitioner's religious exercise because "he had been provided a prayer rug and a list of distributors of Islamic material, he was allowed to correspond with a religious advisor, and was allowed to maintain the required diet and observe religious holidays." App. 177. In taking this approach, the District Court improperly imported a strand of reasoning from cases involving prisoners' First Amendment rights. See, e.g.,O'Lone v. Estate of Shabazz,482 U.S. 342, 351-352, 107 S.Ct. 2400, 96 L.Ed.2d 282 (1987); see also Turner v. Safley,482 U.S. 78, 90, 107 S.Ct. 2254, 96 L.Ed.2d 64 (1987). Under those cases, the availability of alternative means of practicing religion is a relevant consideration, but RLUIPA provides greater protection. RLUIPA's "substantial burden" inquiry asks whether the government has substantially burdened religious exercise (here, the growing of a ½-inch beard), not whether the RLUIPA claimant is able to engage in other forms of religious exercise.
Second, the District Court committed a similar error in suggesting that the burden on petitioner's religious exercise was slight because, according to petitioner's testimony, his religion would "credit" him for attempting to follow his religious beliefs, even if that attempt proved to be unsuccessful. RLUIPA, however, applies to an exercise of religion regardless of whether it is "compelled." § 2000cc-5(7)(A).
Finally, the District Court went astray when it relied on petitioner's testimony that not all Muslims believe that men must grow beards. Petitioner's belief is by no means idiosyncratic. See Brief for Islamic Law Scholars as Amici Curiae2 ("hadith requiring beards ... are widely followed by observant Muslims across the various schools of Islam"). But even if it were, the protection of RLUIPA, no less than the guarantee of the Free Exercise Clause, is "not limited to beliefs which are shared by all of the members of a religious sect." Thomas v. Review Bd. of Indiana Employment Security Div.,450 U.S. 707, 715-716, 101 S.Ct. 1425, 67 L.Ed.2d 624 (1981).
III
Since petitioner met his burden of showing that the Department's grooming policy substantially burdened his exercise of religion, the burden shifted to the Department to show that its refusal to allow petitioner to grow a ½-inch beard "(1) [was] in furtherance of a compelling governmental interest; and (2) [was] the least restrictive means of furthering that compelling governmental interest." § 2000cc-1(a).
The Department argues that its grooming policy represents the least restrictive means of furthering a " 'broadly formulated interes[t],' " see Hobby Lobby, supra,at ----, 134 S.Ct., at 2779(quoting O Centro,546 U.S., at 431, 126 S.Ct. 1211), namely, the Department's compelling interest in prison safety and security. But RLUIPA, like RFRA, contemplates a " 'more focused' " inquiry and " 'requires the Government to demonstrate that the compelling interest test is satisfied through application of the challenged law "to the person"-the particular claimant whose sincere exercise of religion is being substantially burdened.' " Hobby Lobby,573 U.S., at ----, 134 S.Ct., at 2779(quoting O Centro, supra,at 430-431, 126 S.Ct. 1211(quoting § 2000bb-1(b))). RLUIPA requires us to " 'scrutiniz[e] the asserted harm of granting specific exemptions to particular religious claimants' " and "to look to the marginal interest in enforcing" the challenged government action in that particular context. Hobby Lobby,supra,at ----, 134 S.Ct., at 2779(quoting O Centro, supra,at 431, 126 S.Ct. 1211; alteration in original). In this case, that means the enforcement of the Department's policy to prevent petitioner from growing a ½-inch beard.
The Department contends that enforcing this prohibition is the least restrictive means of furthering prison safety and security in two specific ways.
A
The Department first claims that the no-beard policy prevents prisoners from hiding contraband. The Department worries that prisoners may use their beards to conceal all manner of prohibited items, including razors, needles, drugs, and cellular phone subscriber identity module (SIM) cards.
We readily agree that the Department has a compelling interest in staunching the flow of contraband into and within its facilities, but the argument that this interest would be seriously compromised by allowing an inmate to grow a ½-inch beard is hard to take seriously. As noted, the Magistrate Judge observed that it was "almost preposterous to think that [petitioner] could hide contraband" in the short beard he had grown at the time of the evidentiary hearing. App. 155. An item of contraband would have to be very small indeed to be concealed by a ½-inch beard, and a prisoner seeking to hide an item in such a short beard would have to find a way to prevent the item from falling out. Since the Department does not demand that inmates have shaved heads or short crew cuts, it is hard to see why an inmate would seek to hide contraband in a ½-inch beard rather than in the longer hair on his head.
Although the Magistrate Judge dismissed the possibility that contraband could be hidden in a short beard, the Magistrate Judge, the District Court, and the Court of Appeals all thought that they were bound to defer to the Department's assertion that allowing petitioner to grow such a beard would undermine its interest in suppressing contraband. RLUIPA, however, does not permit such unquestioning deference. RLUIPA, like RFRA, "makes clear that it is the obligation of the courts to consider whether exceptions are required under the test set forth by Congress." O Centro,supra,at 434, 126 S.Ct. 1211. That test requires the Department not merely to explain why it denied the exemption but to prove that denying the exemption is the least restrictive means of furthering a compelling governmental interest. Prison officials are experts in running prisons and evaluating the likely effects of altering prison rules, and courts should respect that expertise. But that respect does not justify the abdication of the responsibility, conferred by Congress, to apply RLUIPA's rigorous standard. And without a degree of deference that is tantamount to unquestioning acceptance, it is hard to swallow the argument that denying petitioner a ½-inch beard actually furthers the Department's interest in rooting out contraband.
Even if the Department could make that showing, its contraband argument would still fail because the Department cannot show that forbidding very short beards is the least restrictive means of preventing the concealment of contraband. "The least-restrictive-means standard is exceptionally demanding," and it requires the government to "sho[w] that it lacks other means of achieving its desired goal without imposing a substantial burden on the exercise of religion by the objecting part[y]." Hobby Lobby, supra,at ----, 134 S.Ct., at 2780. "[I]f a less restrictive means is available for the Government to achieve its goals, the Government must use it." United States v. Playboy Entertainment Group, Inc.,529 U.S. 803, 815, 120 S.Ct. 1878, 146 L.Ed.2d 865 (2000).
The Department failed to establish that it could not satisfy its security concerns by simply searching petitioner's beard. The Department already searches prisoners' hair and clothing, and it presumably examines the ¼-inch beards of inmates with dermatological conditions. It has offered no sound reason why hair, clothing, and ¼-inch beards can be searched but ½-inch beards cannot. The Department suggests that requiring guards to search a prisoner's beard would pose a risk to the physical safety of a guard if a razor or needle was concealed in the beard. But that is no less true for searches of hair, clothing, and ¼-inch beards. And the Department has failed to prove that it could not adopt the less restrictive alternative of having the prisoner run a comb through his beard. For all these reasons, the Department's interest in eliminating contraband cannot sustain its refusal to allow petitioner to grow a ½-inch beard.
B
The Department contends that its grooming policy is necessary to further an additional compelling interest, i.e.,preventing prisoners from disguising their identities. The Department tells us that the no-beard policy allows security officers to identify prisoners quickly and accurately. It claims that bearded inmates could shave their beards and change their appearance in order to enter restricted areas within the prison, to escape, and to evade apprehension after escaping.
We agree that prisons have a compelling interest in the quick and reliable identification of prisoners, and we acknowledge that any alteration in a prisoner's appearance, such as by shaving a beard, might, in the absence of effective countermeasures, have at least some effect on the ability of guards or others to make a quick identification. But even if we assume for present purposes that the Department's grooming policy sufficiently furthers its interest in the identification of prisoners, that policy still violates RLUIPA as applied in the circumstances present here. The Department contends that a prisoner who has a beard when he is photographed for identification purposes might confuse guards by shaving his beard. But as petitioner has argued, the Department could largely solve this problem by requiring that all inmates be photographed without beards when first admitted to the facility and, if necessary, periodically thereafter. Once that is done, an inmate like petitioner could be allowed to grow a short beard and could be photographed again when the beard reached the ½-inch limit. Prison guards would then have a bearded and clean-shaven photo to use in making identifications. In fact, the Department (like many other States, see Brief for Petitioner 39) already has a policy of photographing a prisoner both when he enters an institution and when his "appearance changes at any time during [his] incarceration." Arkansas Department of Correction, Inmate Handbook 3-4 (rev. Jan. 2013).
The Department argues that the dual-photo method is inadequate because, even if it might help authorities apprehend a bearded prisoner who escapes and then shaves his beard once outside the prison, this method is unlikely to assist guards when an inmate quickly shaves his beard in order to alter his appearance within the prison. The Department contends that the identification concern is particularly acute at petitioner's prison, where inmates live in barracks and work in fields. Counsel for the Department suggested at oral argument that a prisoner could gain entry to a restricted area by shaving his beard and swapping identification cards with another inmate while out in the fields. Tr. of Oral Arg. 28-30, 39-43.
We are unpersuaded by these arguments for at least two reasons. First, the Department failed to show, in the face of petitioner's evidence, that its prison system is so different from the many institutions that allow facial hair that the dual-photo method cannot be employed at its institutions. Second, the Department failed to establish why the risk that a prisoner will shave a ½-inch beard to disguise himself is so great that ½-inch beards cannot be allowed, even though prisoners are allowed to grow mustaches, head hair, or ¼-inch beards for medical reasons. All of these could also be shaved off at a moment's notice, but the Department apparently does not think that this possibility raises a serious security concern.
C
In addition to its failure to prove that petitioner's proposed alternatives would not sufficiently serve its security interests, the Department has not provided an adequate response to two additional arguments that implicate the RLUIPA analysis.
First, the Department has not adequately demonstrated why its grooming policy is substantially underinclusive in at least two respects. Although the Department denied petitioner's request to grow a ½-inch beard, it permits prisoners with a dermatological condition to grow ¼-inch beards. The Department does this even though both beards pose similar risks. And the Department permits inmates to grow more than a ½-inch of hair on their heads. With respect to hair length, the grooming policy provides only that hair must be worn "above the ear" and "no longer in the back than the middle of the nape of the neck." App. to Brief for Petitioner 11a. Hair on the head is a more plausible place to hide contraband than a ½-inch beard-and the same is true of an inmate's clothing and shoes. Nevertheless, the Department does not require inmates to go about bald, barefoot, or naked. Although the Department's proclaimed objectives are to stop the flow of contraband and to facilitate prisoner identification, "[t]he proffered objectives are not pursued with respect to analogous nonreligious conduct," which suggests that "those interests could be achieved by narrower ordinances that burdened religion to a far lesser degree." Church of Lukumi Babalu Aye, Inc. v. Hialeah,508 U.S. 520, 546, 113 S.Ct. 2217, 124 L.Ed.2d 472 (1993).
In an attempt to demonstrate why its grooming policy is underinclusive in these respects, the Department emphasizes that petitioner's ½-inch beard is longer than the ¼-inch beard allowed for medical reasons. But the Department has failed to establish (and the District Court did not find) that a ¼-inch difference in beard length poses a meaningful increase in security risk. The Department also asserts that few inmates require beards for medical reasons while many may request beards for religious reasons. But the Department has not argued that denying petitioner an exemption is necessary to further a compelling interest in cost control or program administration. At bottom, this argument is but another formulation of the "classic rejoinder of bureaucrats throughout history: If I make an exception for you, I'll have to make one for everybody, so no exceptions." O Centro,546 U.S., at 436, 126 S.Ct. 1211. We have rejected a similar argument in analogous contexts, see ibid.; Sherbert,374 U.S., at 407, 83 S.Ct. 1790, and we reject it again today.
Second, the Department failed to show, in the face of petitioner's evidence, why the vast majority of States and the Federal Government permit inmates to grow ½-inch beards, either for any reason or for religious reasons, but it cannot. See Brief for Petitioner 24-25; Brief for United States as Amicus Curiae28-29. "While not necessarily controlling, the policies followed at other well-run institutions would be relevant to a determination of the need for a particular type of restriction." Procunier v. Martinez,416 U.S. 396, 414, n. 14, 94 S.Ct. 1800, 40 L.Ed.2d 224 (1974). That so many other prisons allow inmates to grow beards while ensuring prison safety and security suggests that the Department could satisfy its security concerns through a means less restrictive than denying petitioner the exemption he seeks.
We do not suggest that RLUIPA requires a prison to grant a particular religious exemption as soon as a few other jurisdictions do so. But when so many prisons offer an accommodation, a prison must, at a minimum, offer persuasive reasons why it believes that it must take a different course, and the Department failed to make that showing here. Despite this, the courts below deferred to these prison officials' mere say-so that they could not accommodate petitioner's request. RLUIPA, however, demands much more. Courts must hold prisons to their statutory burden, and they must not "assume a plausible, less restrictive alternative would be ineffective." Playboy Entertainment,529 U.S., at 824, 120 S.Ct. 1878.
We emphasize that although RLUIPA provides substantial protection for the religious exercise of institutionalized persons, it also affords prison officials ample ability to maintain security. We highlight three ways in which this is so. First, in applying RLUIPA's statutory standard, courts should not blind themselves to the fact that the analysis is conducted in the prison setting. Second, if an institution suspects that an inmate is using religious activity to cloak illicit conduct, "prison officials may appropriately question whether a prisoner's religiosity, asserted as the basis for a requested accommodation, is authentic." Cutter v. Wilkinson,544 U.S. 709, 725, n. 13, 125 S.Ct. 2113, 161 L.Ed.2d 1020 (2005). See also Hobby Lobby,573 U.S., at ----, n. 28, 134 S.Ct., at 2774, n. 28. Third, even if a claimant's religious belief is sincere, an institution might be entitled to withdraw an accommodation if the claimant abuses the exemption in a manner that undermines the prison's compelling interests.
IV
In sum, we hold that the Department's grooming policy violates RLUIPA insofar as it prevents petitioner from growing a ½-inch beard in accordance with his religious beliefs. The judgment of the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit is reversed, and the case is remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
Justice GINSBURG, with whom Justice SOTOMAYORjoins, concurring.
Unlike the exemption this Court approved in Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc.,573 U.S. ----, 134 S.Ct. 2751, 189 L.Ed.2d 675 (2014), accommodating petitioner's religious belief in this case would not detrimentally affect others who do not share petitioner's belief. See id.,at ----, ---- - ----, and n. 8, ----, 134 S.Ct., at 2787-2788, 2790-2791, and n. 8, 2801(GINSBURG, J., dissenting). On that understanding, I join the Court's opinion.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer:
|
C
|
sc_issuearea
|
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Justice White
delivered the opinion of the Court.
The Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), 5 U. S. C. § 552, mandates that the Government make its records available to the public. Section 552(b)(5) exempts from disclosure “inter-agency or intra-agency memorandums or letters which would not be available by law to a party ... in litigation with the agency.” It is well established that this exemption was intended to encompass the attorney work-product rule. The question presented in this case is the extent, if any, to which the work-product component of Exemption 5 applies when the litigation for which the requested documents were generated has been terminated.
In 1972, the Federal Trade Commission undertook an investigation of Americana Corp., a subsidiary of respondent Grolier Inc. The investigation was conducted in connection with a civil penalty action filed by the Department of Justice. In 1976, the suit against Americana was dismissed with prejudice when the Government declined to comply with a District Court discovery order. In 1978, respondent filed a request with the Commission for disclosure of documents concerning the investigation of Americana. The Commission initially denied the entire request, stating that it did not have any information responsive to some of the items and that the remaining portion of the request was not specific enough to permit the Commission to locate the information without searching millions of documents contained in investigatory files. The Commission refused to release the few items that were responsive to the request on the basis that they were exempt from mandatory disclosure under § 552(b)(5).
Pursuant to the Commission’s Rules, respondent appealed to the agency’s General Counsel. Following review of respondent’s request, and after a considerable process of give and take, the dispute finally centered on seven documents. Following in camera inspection, the District Court determined that all the requested documents were exempt from disclosure under § 552(b)(5), either as attorney work product, as confidential attorney-client communications, or as internal predecisional agency material. On appeal, the Court of Appeals held that four documents generated during the Americana litigation could not be withheld on the basis of the work-product rule unless the Commission could show that “litigation related to the terminated action exists or potentially exists.” 217 U. S. App. D. C. 47, 50, 671 F. 2d 553, 556 (1982).
The Court of Appeals reasoned that the work-product rule encompassed by § 552(b)(5) was coextensive with the work-product privilege under the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. A requirement that documents must be disclosed in the absence of the existence or potential existence of related litigation, in the Court of Appeals’ view, best comported with the fact that the work-product privilege is a qualified one. We granted the Commission’s petition for certiorari, 459 U. S. 986 (1982). Because we find that the Court of Appeals erred in its construction of Exemption 5, we reverse.
Section 552(b) lists nine exemptions from the mandatory disclosure requirements that “represen[t] the congressional determination of the types of information that the Executive Branch must have the option to keep confidential, if it so chooses.” EPA v. Mink, 410 U. S. 73, 80 (1973). The primary purpose of one of these, Exemption 5, was to enable the Government to benefit from “frank discussion of legal or policy matters.” S. Rep. No. 813, 89th Cong., 1st Sess., 9 (1965). See H. R. Rep. No. 1497, 89th Cong., 2d Sess., 10 (1966). In keeping with the Act’s policy of “the fullest responsible disclosure,” S. Rep. No. 813, at 3, Congress intended Exemption 5 to be “as narro[w] as [is] consistent with efficient Government operation.” Id., at 9. See H. R. Rep. No. 1497, at 10.
Both the District Court and the Court of Appeals found that the documents at issue were properly classified as “work product” materials, and there is no serious argument about the correctness of this classification. “It is equally clear that Congress had the attorney’s work-product privilege specifically in mind when it adopted Exemption 5,” the privilege being that enjoyed in the context of discovery in civil litigation. NLRB v. Sears, Roebuck & Co., 421 U. S. 132, 154-155 (1975); H. R. Rep. No. 1497, at 10; S. Rep. No. 813, at 2.
In Hickman v. Taylor, 329 U. S. 495, 510 (1947), the Court recognized a qualified immunity from discovery for the “work product of the lawyer”; such material could only be discovered upon a substantial showing of “necessity or justification.” An exemption from discovery was necessary because, as the Hickman Court stated:
“Were such materials open to opposing counsel on mere demand, much of what is now put down in writing would remain unwritten. An attorney’s thoughts, heretofore inviolate, would not be his own. Inefficiency, unfairness'and sharp practices would inevitably develop in the giving of legal advice and in the preparation of cases for trial. The effect on the legal profession would be demoralizing. And the interests of the clients and the cause of justice would be poorly served.” Id., at 511.
The attorney’s work-product immunity is a basic rule in the litigation context, but like many other rules, it is not self-defining and has been the subject of extensive litigation.
Prior to 1970, few District Courts had addressed the question whether the work-product immunity extended beyond the litigation for which the documents at issue were prepared. Those courts considering the issue reached varying results. By 1970, only one Court of Appeals had addressed the issue. In Republic Gear Co. v. Borg-Warner Corp., 381 F. 2d 551, 557 (CA2 1967), the Court of Appeals held that documents prepared in connection with litigation that was on appeal were not subject to discovery in a related case. The court also noted that there was potential for further related litigation. Thus, at the time FOIA was enacted in 1966, other than the general understanding that work-product materials were subject to discovery only upon a showing of need, no consensus one way or the other had developed with respect to the temporal scope of the work-product privilege.
In 1970, the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure were amended to clarify the extent to which trial preparation materials are discoverable in federal courts. Rule 26(b)(3) provides, in pertinent part:
“[A] party may obtain discovery of documents and tangible things . . . prepared in anticipation of litigation or for trial by or for another party or by or for that other party’s representative . . . only upon a showing that the party seeking discovery has substantial need of the materials in the preparation of his case and that he is unable without undue hardship to obtain the substantial equivalent of the materials by other means. In ordering discovery of such materials when the required showing has been made, the court shall protect against disclosure of the mental impressions, conclusions, opinions, or legal theories of an attorney or other representative of a party concerning the litigation.”
Rule 26(b)(3) does not in so many words address the temporal scope of the work-product immunity, and a review of the Advisory Committee’s comments reveals no express concern for that issue. Notes of Advisory Committee on 1970 Amendments, 28 U. S. C. App., pp. 441-442. But the literal language of the Rule protects materials prepared for any litigation or trial as long as they were prepared by or for a party to the subsequent litigation. See 8 C. Wright & A. Miller, Federal Practice and Procedure § 2024, p. 201 (1970). Whatever problems such a construction of Rule 26(b)(3) may engender in the civil discovery area, see id., at 201-202, it provides a satisfactory resolution to the question whether work-product documents are exempt under the FOIA. By its own terms, Exemption 5 requires reference to whether discovery would normally be required during litigation with the agency. Under a literal reading of Rule 26(b)(8), the work product of agency attorneys would not be subject to discovery in subsequent litigation unless there was a showing of need and would thus fall within the scope of Exemption 5.
We need not rely exclusively on any particular construction of Rule 26(b)(3), however, because we find independently that the Court of Appeals erred in construing Exemption 5 to protect work-product materials only if related litigation exists or potentially exists. The test under Exemption 5 is whether the documents would be “routinely” or “normally” disclosed upon a showing of relevance. NLRB v. Sears, Roebuck & Co. 421 U. S., at 148-149. At the time this case came to the Court of Appeals, all of the Courts of Appeals that had decided the issue under Rule 26(b)(3) had determined that work-product materials retained their immunity from discovery after termination of the litigation for which the documents were prepared, without regard to whether other related litigation is pending or is contemplated. In addition, an overwhelming majority of the Federal District Courts reporting decisions on the issue under Rule 26(b)(3) were in accord with that view. “Exemption 5 incorporates the privileges which the Government enjoys under the relevant statutory and case law in the pretrial discovery context.” Renegotiation Board v. Grumman Aircraft Engineering Corp., 421 U. S. 168, 184 (1975) (emphasis added). Under this state of the work-product rule it cannot fairly be said that work-product materials are “routinely” available in subsequent litigation.
The Court of Appeals’ determination that a related-litigation test best comported with the qualified nature of the work-product rule in civil discovery — a proposition with which we do not necessarily agree — is irrelevant in the FOIA context. It makes little difference whether a privilege is absolute or qualified in determining how it translates into a discrete category of documents that Congress intended to exempt from disclosure under Exemption 5. Whether its immunity from discovery is absolute or qualified, a protected document cannot be said to be subject to “routine” disclosure.
Under the current state of the law relating to the privilege, work-product materials are immune from discovery unless the one seeking discovery can show substantial need in connection with subsequent litigation. Such materials are thus not “routinely” or “normally” available to parties in litigation and hence are exempt under Exemption 5. . This result, by establishing a discrete category of exempt information, implements the congressional intent to provide “workable” rules. See S. Rep. No. 813, at 5; H. R. Rep. No. 1497, at 2.
Respondent urges that the meaning of the statutory language is “plain” and that, at least in this case, the requested documents must be disclosed because the same documents were ordered disclosed during discovery in previous litigation. It does not follow, however, from an ordered disclosure based on a showing of need that such documents are routinely available to litigants. The logical result of respondent’s position is that whenever work-product documents would be discoverable in any particular litigation, they must be disclosed to anyone under the FOIA. We have previously rejected that line of analysis. In NLRB v. Sears, Roebuck & Co., supra, we construed Exemption 5 to “exempt those documents, and only those documents, normally privileged in the civil discovery context.” 421 U. S., at 149. (Emphasis added.) It is not difficult to imagine litigation in which one party’s need for otherwise privileged documents would be sufficient to override the privilege but that does not remove the documents from the category of the normally privileged. See id,., at 149, n. 16.
Accordingly, we hold that under Exemption 5, attorney work product is exempt from mandatory disclosure without regard to the status of the litigation for which it was prepared. Only by construing the Exemption to provide a categorical rule can the Act’s purpose of expediting disclosure by means of workable rules be furthered. The judgment of the Court of Appeals is reversed.
It is so ordered.
United States v. Americana Corp., Civ. No. 388-72 (NJ). Americana was charged with violation of a 1948 cease-and-desist order in making misrepresentations regarding its encyclopedia advertisements and door-to-door sales.
By letter to the Commission, respondent requested the following:
“1) All records and documents which refer or relate to a covert investigation of Americana Corporation and/or Grolier Incorporated, which was made in or about April 1978, by a Federal Trade Commission consumer protection specialist named Wendell A. Reid; and
“2) All records and documents which refer or relate to any covert investigation, made by any employee of the Federal Trade Commission, of any of the following companies: [listing 14 companies, including respondent and Americana Corporation].
“3) All records and documents which refer or relate to any covert investigation, made by any employee of the Federal Trade Commission, of any person, company or other entity.” App. 15-16.
“Covert investigation” was defined by respondent to be “any investigation of which the subject entity was not notified in advance and prior to acts taken pursuant to such investigation.” Id., at 16. Respondent later abandoned its requests for any documents other than those related to the Americana investigation, defined in the first category of its request.
The requested documents are subject to mandatory disclosure as “identifiable records” under § 552(a)(3), unless covered by a specific exemption. In this case, the Commission claims exemption only under §552 (b)(5), which provides:
“This section does not apply to matters that are—
“(5) inter-agency or intra-agency memorandums or letters which would not be available by law to a party other than an agency in litigation with the agency . . . .”
The Commission released a number of documents after respondent filed this suit. Respondent abandoned its claim for many others. See n. 2, supra.
Respondent withdrew its claim for disclosure of one of the seven documents. The Court of Appeals affirmed the District Court’s judgment that another was exempt as an attorney-client communication, 217 U. S. App. D. C., at 48, n. 3, 671 F. 2d, at 554, n. 3, and held that still another was clearly a predecisional document not subject to disclosure under Exemption 5, id., at 51, 671 F. 2d, at 557. These rulings are not at issue here.
Respondent makes some assertions concerning the ethical conduct of the Commission in continuing its investigations after the Americana suit had been instituted and claims that the work-product rule would not apply to documents containing evidence of unethical conduct. Respondent did not raise this issue before the District Court or the Court of Appeals and we decline to address it.
See Honeywell, Inc. v. Piper Aircraft Corp., 50 F. R. D. 117 (MD Pa. 1970); Bourget v. Government Employees Ins. Co., 48 F. R. D. 29 (Conn. 1969); Stix Products, Inc. v. United Merchants & Mfrs., Inc., 47 F. R. D. 334 (SDNY 1969); LaRocca v. State Farm Mutual Automobile Ins. Co., 47 F. R. D. 278 (WD Pa. 1969); Kirkland v. Morton Salt Co., 46 F. R. D. 28 (ND Ga. 1968); Chitty v. State Farm Mutual Automobile Ins. Co., 36 F. R. D. 37 (EDSC 1964); Insurance Co. of North America v. Union Carbide Corp., 35 F. R. D. 520 (Colo. 1964); Hanover Shoe, Inc. v. United Shoe Machinery Corp., 207 F. Supp. 407 (MD Pa. 1962); Thompson v. Hoitsma, 19 F. R. D. 112 (NJ 1956); Tobacco and Allied Stocks, Inc. v. Transamerica Corp., 16 F. R. D. 534 (Del. 1954).
See In re Murphy, 560 F. 2d 326, 334 (CA8 1977); United States v. Leggett & Platt, Inc., 542 F. 2d 655 (CA6 1976), cert. denied, 430 U. S. 945 (1977); Duplan Corp. v. Moulinage et Retorderie de Chavanoz, 487 F. 2d 480, 483-384 (CA4 1973). See also In re Grand Jury Proceedings, 604 F. 2d 798, 803 (CA3 1979) (work-product privilege continues at least when subsequent litigation is related). Cf. Kent Corp. v. NLRB, 530 F. 2d 612 (CA5) (work-product privilege does not turn on whether litigation actually ensued), cert. denied, 429 U. S. 920 (1976).
See In re Federal Copper of Tennessee, Inc., 19 B. R. 177 (Bkrtcy. MD Tenn. 1982); In re International Systems & Controls Corp. Securities Litigation, 91 F. R. D. 552 (SD Tex. 1981); United States v. Capitol Service, Inc., 89 F. R. D. 578 (ED Wis. 1981); In re LTV Securities Litigation, 89 F. R. D. 595 (ND Tex. 1981); First Wisconsin Mortgage Trust v. First Wisconsin Corp., 86 F. R. D. 160 (ED Wis. 1980); Panter v. Marshall Field & Co., 80 F. R. D. 718 (ND Ill. 1978); United States v. O. K. Tire & Rubber Co., 71 F. R. D. 465 (Idaho 1976); SCM Corp. v. Xerox Corp., 70 F. R. D. 508 (Conn.), appeal disxn’d, 534 F. 2d 1031 (1976); Burlington Industries v. Exxon Corp., 65 F. R. D. 26 (Md. 1974). See also Hercules, Inc. v. Exxon Corp., 434 F. Supp. 136 (Del. 1977) (protected when cases are closely related in parties or subject matter); Ohio-Sealy Mattress Mfg. Co. v. Sealy, Inc., 90 F. R. D. 45 (ND Ill. 1981) (protected in later related litigation).
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer:
|
E
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sc_issuearea
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Justice Scalia
delivered the opinion of the Court.
The question presented by these consolidated cases is whether the County of Yakima may impose an ad valorem tax on so-called “fee-patented” land located within the Yakima Indian Reservation, and an excise tax on sales of such land.
I
A
In the late 19th century, the prevailing national policy of segregating lands for the exclusive use and control of the Indian tribes gave way to a policy of allotting those lands to tribe members individually. The objectives of allotment were simple and clear cut: to extinguish tribal sovereignty, erase reservation boundaries, and force the assimilation of Indians into the society at large. See, e. g., In re Heff, 197 U. S. 488, 499 (1905). Congress was selective at first, allotting lands under differing approaches on a tribe-by-tribe basis. See F. Cohen, Handbook of Federal Indian Law 129-130 (1982); Gates, Indian Allotments Preceding the Dawes Act, in The Frontier Challenge 141 (J. Clark ed. 1971). These early efforts were marked by failure, however. Because allotted land could be sold soon after it was received, see, e. g., Treaty with Wyandot Nation, Apr. 1, 1850, 9 Stat. 987, 992, many of the early allottees quickly lost their land through transactions that were unwise or even procured by fraud. See Cohen, supra, at 130. Even if sales were for fair value, Indian allottees divested of their land were deprived of an opportunity to acquire agricultural and other self-sustaining economic skills, thus compromising Congress’ purpose of assimilation.
Congress sought to solve these problems in the Indian General Allotment Act of 1887, also known as the Dawes Act, 24 Stat. 388, as amended, 25 U. S. C. §331 et seq., which empowered the President to allot most tribal lands nationwide without the consent of the Indian nations involved. The Dawes Act restricted immediate alienation or encumbrance by providing that each allotted parcel would be held by the United States in trust for a period of 25 years or longer; only then would a fee patent issue to the Indian allot-tee. 24 Stat. 389; see United States v. Mitchell, 445 U. S. 535, 543-544 (1980). Section 6 of the Act furthered Congress’ goal of assimilation by providing that “each and every member of the respective bands or tribes of Indians to whom allotments have been made shall have the benefit of and be subject to the laws, both civil and criminal, of the State or Territory in which they may reside.” 24 Stat. 390.
In In re Heff, supra, at 502-503, we held that this latter provision subjected Indian allottees to plenary state jurisdiction immediately upon issuance of a trust patent (and prior to the expiration of the 25-year trust period). Congress promptly altered that disposition in the Burke Act of 1906,34 Stat. 182, decreeing that state civil and criminal jurisdiction would lie “at the expiration of the trust period... when the lands have been conveyed to the Indians by patent in fee.” A proviso, however, gave the President authority, when he found an allottee “competent and capable of managing his or her affairs,” to “issu[e]... a patent in fee simple” prior to the expiration of the relevant trust period. Upon such a premature patenting, the proviso specified (significantly for present purposes) not that the patentee would be subject to state civil and criminal jurisdiction but that “all restrictions as to sale, incumbrance, or taxation of said land shall be removed.” Id., at 183.
The policy of allotment came to an abrupt end in 1934 with passage of the Indian Reorganization Act. See 48 Stat. 984, 25 U. S. C. § 461 et seq. Returning to the principles of tribal self-determination and self-governance which had characterized the pre-Dawes Act era, Congress halted further allotments and extended indefinitely the existing periods of trust applicable to already allotted (but not yet fee-patented) Indian lands. See §§461, 462. In addition, the Act provided for restoring unallotted surplus Indian lands to tribal ownership, see §463, and for acquiring, on behalf of the tribes, lands “within or without existing reservations.” § 465. Except by authorizing reacquisition of allotted lands in trust, however, Congress made no attempt to undo the dramatic effects of the allotment years on the ownership of former Indian lands. It neither imposed restraints on the ability of Indian allottees to alienate or encumber their fee-patented lands nor impaired the rights of those non-Indians who had acquired title to over two-thirds of the Indian lands allotted under the Dawes Act. See W. Washburn, Red Man’s Land/ White Man’s Law 145 (1971).
B
The Yakima Indian Reservation, which was established by treaty in 1855, see Treaty with Yakima Nation, 12 Stat. 951, covers approximately 1.3 million acres in southeastern Washington State. Eighty percent of the reservation’s land is held by the United States in trust for the benefit of the Tribe or its individual members; 20 percent is owned in fee by Indians and non-Indians as a result of patents distributed during the allotment era. See Brendale v. Confederated Tribes and Bands of Yakima Nation, 492 U. S. 408, 415 (1989) (plurality opinion). Some of this fee land is owned by the Yakima Indian Nation itself.
The reservation is located almost entirely within the confines of petitioner/cross-respondent Yakima County. Pursuant to Washington law, Yakima County imposes an ad valo-rem levy on taxable real property within its jurisdiction and an excise tax on sales of such land. Wash. Rev. Code §§ 84.52.030,82.45.070 (1989). According to the county, these taxes have been levied on the Yakima Reservation’s fee lands and collected without incident for some time. In 1987, however, as Yakima County proceeded to foreclose on properties throughout the county for which ad valorem and excise taxes were past due, including a number of reservation parcels in which the Tribe or its members had an interest, respondent/ cross-petitioner Yakima Nation commenced this action for declaratory and injunctive relief, contending that federal law prohibited these taxes on fee-patented lands held by the Tribe or its members.
On stipulated facts, the District Court awarded summary judgment to the Tribe and entered an injunction prohibiting the imposition or collection of the taxes on such lands. On appeal, the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit agreed that the excise tax was impermissible, but held that the ad valorem tax would be impermissible only if it would have a “ ‘demonstrably serious’ ” impact on the “ ‘political integrity, economic security, or the health and welfare of the tribe,’ ” and remanded to the District Court for that determination to be made. 903 F. 2d 1207,1218 (CA9 1990) (emphasis deleted) (quoting Brendale, supra, at 431). We granted certiorari. 500 U. S. 903 (1991).
II
The Court’s earliest cases addressing attempts by States to exercise dominion over the reservation lands of Indians proceeded from Chief Justice Marshall’s premise that the “several Indian nations [constitute] distinct political communities, having territorial boundaries, within which their authority is exclusive....” Worcester v. Georgia, 6 Pet. 515, 556-557 (1832). Because Congress, pursuant to its constitutional authority both “[t]o regulate Commerce... with the Indian Tribes” and to make treaties, U. S. Const., Art. I, § 8, cl. 3; Art II, §2, cl. 2, had determined by law and treaty that “all intercourse with them [would] be carried on exclusively by the [Federal Government],” Worcester v. Georgia, supra, at 557, the Court concluded that within reservations state jurisdiction would generally not lie. The assertion of taxing authority was not excepted from this principle. E. g., The Kansas Indians, 5 Wall. 737, 755-757 (1867); The New York Indians, 5 Wall. 761, 771-772 (1867).
The “platonic notions of Indian sovereignty” that guided Chief Justice Marshall have, over time, lost their independent sway. See McClanahan v. Arizona State Tax Comm’n, 411 U. S. 164, 172, and n. 8 (1973); Organized Village of Kake v. Egan, 369 U. S. 60, 71-73 (1962). Congress abolished treatymaking with the Indian nations in 1871, Rev. Stat. §2079, as amended, 25 U. S. C. §71, and has itself subjected the tribes to substantial bodies of state and federal law. This Court’s more recent cases have recognized the rights of States, absent a congressional prohibition, to exercise criminal (and, implicitly, civil) jurisdiction over non-Indians located on reservation lands. See, e. g., New York ex rel. Ray v. Martin, 326 U. S. 496 (1946); see also Cohen, Handbook of Federal Indian Law, at 352, and n. 39. We have even observed that state jurisdiction over the relations between reservation Indians and non-Indians may be permitted unless the application of state laws “would interfere with reservation self-government or impair a right granted or reserved by federal law.” Organized Village of Kake, supra, at 75. In the area of state taxation, however, Chief Justice Marshall’s observation that “the power to tax involves the power to destroy,” McCulloch v. Maryland, 4 Wheat. 316, 431 (1819), has counseled a more categorical approach: “[AJbsent cession of jurisdiction or other federal statutes permitting it,” we have held, a State is without power to tax reservation lands and reservation Indians. Mescalero Apache Tribe v. Jones, 411 U. S. 145, 148 (1973). And our cases reveal a consistent practice of declining to find that Congress has authorized state taxation unless it has “made its intention to do so unmistakably clear.” Montana v. Blackfeet Tribe, 471 U. S. 759, 765 (1985); see also California v. Cabazon Band of Mission Indians, 480 U. S. 202, 215, n. 17 (1987).
Yakima County persuaded the Court of Appeals, and urges upon us, that express authority for taxation of fee-patented land is found in § 6 of the General Allotment Act, as amended. We have little doubt about the accuracy of that threshold assessment. Our decision in Goudy v. Meath, 203 U. S. 146, 149 (1906), without even mentioning the Burke Act proviso, held that state tax laws were “[ajmong the laws to which [Indian allottees] became subject” under §6 upon the expiration of the Dawes Act trust period. And we agree with the Court of Appeals that by specifically mentioning immunity from land taxation “as one of the restrictions that would be removed upon conveyance in fee,” Congress in the Burke Act proviso “manifest[ed] a clear intention to permit the state to tax” such Indian lands. 903 F. 2d, at 1211.
Neither the Yakima Nation nor its principal amicus, the United States, vigorously disputes this. Instead, they contend that § 6 of that Act — the Burke Act proviso included— is a dead letter, at least within the confines of an Indian reservation. The Tribe argues that, by terminating the allotment program and restoring tribal integrity through the Indian Reorganization Act of 1934, Congress impliedly repealed § 6’s jurisdictional grant and returned the law to its pre-General Allotment Act foundations. Congress’ subsequent actions, according to the Tribe, confirm this implication. In 1948, for instance, Congress defined “Indian country” to include all fee land within the boundaries of an existing reservation, whether or not held by an Indian, and pre-empted state criminal laws within “Indian country” insofar as offenses by and against Indians were concerned. See Act of June 25,1948,62 Stat. 757-758, as amended, 18 U. S. C. §§1151-1153; Seymour v. Superintendent of Washington State Penitentiary, 368 U. S. 351 (1962). And in 1953, Congress once again signaled its belief in the dormition of §6 by enacting Pub. L. 280, which authorized States to assume criminal and civil jurisdiction over Indians within Indian country in certain circumstances. See Act of Aug. 15, 1953, 67 Stat. 588.
Though generally in agreement with the Tribe, the United States takes a slightly different tack. It claims that the General Allotment Act removed only those barriers to state jurisdiction that existed at the time of its enactment, e. g., those associated with tribal sovereignty and the trust status of allotted land. The General Allotment Act did not remove — indeed, the argument goes, could not have removed — a jurisdictional bar arising after the Act’s passage. For just such an after-arising jurisdictional bar, the United States points to the same statutes on which the Tribe rests its position. In the United States’ view, these enactments must be construed to pre-empt the application “of state laws (especially state tax laws) to Indians and their property within a reservation.” Brief for United States as Amicus Curiae 14.
In support of their convergent arguments, the Yakima Nation and the United States cite this Court’s unanimous decision in Moe v. Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes, 425 U. S. 463 (1976), which they contend repudiates the continuing jurisdictional force of the General Allotment Act. In that case, the State of Montana sought to impose its cigarette sales and personal property taxes, as well as vendor-licensing fees, on Indian residents of a reservation located entirely within the State. It relied for jurisdiction upon § 6 of the General Allotment Act, but did not limit its claim of taxing authority to the reservation’s allottees or even to those activities taking place on allotted reservation fee land. Instead, the State made an “all or nothing” claim to reservation-wide jurisdiction (trust land included), arguing that any scheme of divided jurisdiction would be inequitable. Brief for Appellants in Moe, O. T. 1975, No. 74-1656, p. 17. We declined Montana’s invitation to ignore the plain language of §6, which “[b]y its terms [did] not reach Indians residing” or conducting business on trust lands. Moe, 425 U. S., at 478. The assertion of reservation-wide jurisdiction, we said, could not be sustained. But we went much further: In light of Congress’ repudiation in 1934 of the policies behind the General Allotment Act, we concluded that the Act could no longer be read to provide Montana plenary jurisdiction even over those Indians residing on reservation fee lands:
“The State has referred us to no decisional authority— and we know of none — giving the meaning for which it contends to § 6 of the General Allotment Act in the face of the '.any and complex intervening jurisdictional statutes directed at the reach of state law within reservation lands.... Congress by its more modern legislation has evinced a clear intent to eschew any such ‘checkerboard’ approach within an existing Indian reservation, and our cases have in turn followed Congress’ lead in this area.” Id., at 479.
Reasoning from Moe, the Yakima Nation and the United States argue that if § 6 no longer provides for plenary state jurisdiction over the owners of reservation fee lands, then it cannot support the exercise of the narrower jurisdiction asserted by Yakima County here. They concede, as they must, that in Moe the Court did not address the Burke Act proviso to § 6, which figures so prominently in Yakima County’s analysis. But real property taxes were not at issue in Moe, they argue, making the proviso irrelevant. And because a proviso can only operate within the reach of the principal provision it modifies, cf. United States v. Morrow, 266 U. S. 531, 534-535 (1925), neither the language of § 6 proper nor the proviso can be considered effective after Moe.
We think this view rests upon a misunderstanding of Moe and a misperception of the structure of the General Allotment Act. As to the former: The Tribe’s and the United States’ interpretation of our opinion in Moe reduces ultimately to the proposition that we held § 6 to have been repealed by implication. That is not supportable, however, since it is a “cardinal rule... that repeals by implication are not favored,” Posadas v. National City Bank, 296 U. S. 497, 503 (1936), and since we made no mention of implied repeal in our opinion. Moe was premised, instead, on the implausibility, in light of Congress’ postallotment era legislation, of Montana’s construction of § 6 that would extend the State’s in personam jurisdiction beyond the section’s literal coverage (“each and every allottee”) to include subsequent Indian owners (through grant or devise) of the allotted parcels. This approach, we said, would create a “checkerboard” pattern in which an Indian’s personal law would depend upon his parcel ownership; it would contradict “the many and complex intervening jurisdictional statutes” dealing with States’ civil and criminal jurisdiction over reservation Indians; and it would produce almost surreal administrative problems, making the applicable law of civil relations depend not upon the locus of the transaction but upon the character of the reservation land owned by one or both parties. See Moe, supra, at 478-479.
Thus, even as to § 6 personal jurisdiction, Moe in no way contradicts Goudy v. Meath, which involved the personal liability for taxes of an Indian who not merely owned an allotted parcel, but was, as the language of § 6 requires, himself an allottee. See 203 U. S., at 147, 149. But (and now we come to the misperception concerning the structure of the General Allotment Act) Goudy did not rest exclusively, or even primarily, on the § 6 grant of personal jurisdiction over allottees to sustain the land taxes at issue. Instead, it was the alienability of the allotted lands — a consequence produced in these cases not by § 6 of the General Allotment Act, but by §5 — that the Court found of central significance. As the first basis of its decision, before reaching the “further” point of personal jurisdiction under § 6, id., at 149, the Goudy Court said that, although it was certainly possible for Congress to “grant the power of voluntary sale, while withholding the land from taxation or forced alienation,” such an intent would not be presumed unless it was “clearly manifested.” Ibid. For “it would seem strange to withdraw [the] protection [of the restriction on alienation] and permit the Indian to dispose of his lands as he pleases, while at the same time releasing it [sic] from taxation.” Ibid. Thus, when § 5 rendered the allotted lands alienable and en-cumberable, it also rendered them subject to assessment and forced sale for taxes.
The Burke Act proviso, enacted in 1906, made this implication of §5 explicit, and its nature more clear. As we have explained, the purpose of the Burke Act was to change the outcome of our decision in In re Heff, 197 U. S. 488 (1905), so that § 6’s general grant of civil and criminal jurisdiction over Indian allottees would not be effective until the 25-year trust period expired and patents were issued in fee. The proviso, however, enabled the Secretary of the Interior to issue fee patents to certain allottees before expiration of the trust period. Although such a fee patent would not subject its Indian owner to plenary state jurisdiction, fee ownership would free the land of “all restrictions as to sale, incum-brance, or taxation.” 25 U. S. C. § 349. In other words, the proviso reaffirmed for such “prematurely” patented land what § 5 of the General Allotment Act implied with respect to patented land generally: subjection to state real estate taxes. And when Congress, in 1934, while putting an end to further allotment of reservation land, see 25 U. S. C. §461, chose not to return allotted land to pre-General Allotment Act status, leaving it fully alienable by the allottees, their heirs, and assigns, see Brendale, 492 U. S., at 423 (plurality opinion); Hodel v. Irving, 481 U. S. 704, 708-709 (1987), it chose not to terminate state taxation upon those lands as well.
The Yakima Nation and the United States deplore what they consider the impracticable, Moe-condemned “checkerboard” effect produced by Yakima County’s assertion of jurisdiction over reservation fee-patented land. But because the jurisdiction is in rem rather than in personam, it is assuredly not Moe-condemned; and it is not impracticable either. The parcel-by-parcel determinations that the State’s tax assessor is required to make on the reservation do not differ significantly from those he must make off the reservation, to take account of immunities or exemptions enjoyed, for example, by federally owned, state-owned, and church-owned lands. We cannot resist observing, moreover, that the Tribe’s and the United States’ favored disposition also produces a “checkerboard,” and one that is less readily administered: They would allow state taxation of only those fee lands owned (from time to time) by nonmembers of the Tribe. See Brief for Yakima Nation 16, n. 8; Brief for United States as Amicus Curiae 14, n. 12. See also Brendale, supra, at 422-425 (plurality opinion) (affirming “checkerboard” with respect to zoning power over reservation fee land).
Turning away from the statutory texts altogether, the Yakima Nation argues that state jurisdiction over reservation fee land is manifestly inconsistent with the policies of Indian self-determination and self-governance that lay behind the Indian Reorganization Act and subsequent congressional enactments. This seems to us a great exaggeration. While the in personam jurisdiction over reservation Indians at issue in Moe would have been significantly disruptive of tribal self-government, the mere power to assess and collect a tax on certain real estate is not. In any case, these policy objections do not belong in this forum. If the Yakima Nation believes that the objectives of the Indian Reorganization Act are too much obstructed by the clearly retained remnant of an earlier policy, it must make that argument to Congress. Judges “are not at liberty to pick and choose among congressional enactments, and when two [or more] statutes are capable of co-existence, it is the duty of the courts, absent a clearly expressed congressional intention to the contrary, to regard each as effective.” Morton v. Mancari, 417 U. S. 535, 551 (1974).
III
Yakima County sought to impose two separate taxes with respect to reservation fee lands, an ad valorem tax and an excise tax on sales. We discuss each in turn, in light of the principles set forth above.
A
Liability for the ad valorem tax flows exclusively from ownership of realty on the annual date of assessment. See Timber Traders, Inc. v. Johnston, 87 Wash. 2d 42, 47, 548 P. 2d 1080, 1083 (1976). The tax, moreover, creates a burden on the property alone. See Wash. Rev. Code § 84.60.020 (1989) (“The taxes assessed upon real property... shall be a lien thereon from and including the first day of January in the year in which they are levied until the same are paid...”); Clizer v. Krauss, 57 Wash. 26, 30-31, 106 P. 145, 146-147 (1910). See also Timber Traders, Inc., supra; In re Electric City, Inc., 43 B. R. 336, 341 (Bkrtcy. Ct. WD Wash. 1984) (dictum). The Court of Appeals held, the Tribe does not dispute, and we agree, that this ad valorem tax constitutes “taxation of... land” within the meaning of the General Allotment Act and is therefore prima facie valid.
The Court of Appeals, however, derived from our decision three Terms ago in Brendale the conclusion that the Yakima Nation has a “protectible interest” against imposition of the tax on Tribe members upon demonstration of the evils described in that opinion, and remanded to the District Court for further findings in that regard. Neither of the parties supports this aspect of the Ninth Circuit’s ruling, believing that the law affords an unconditional answer to permissibility of the tax. We agree.
Brendale addressed a challenge to the Yakima Nation’s assertion of authority to zone reservation fee land owned by non-Indians. The concept of “protectible interest” to which Justice White’s opinion in the case referred, see 492 U. S., at 431, grew out of a long line of cases exploring the very narrow powers reserved to tribes over the conduct of non-Indians within their reservations. See Montana v. United States, 450 U. S. 544, 566 (1981) (citing cases). Even though a tribe’s “inherent sovereign powers... do not extend to the activities of nonmembers,... [a] tribe may... retain inherent power to exercise civil authority over the conduct of non-Indians on fee lands within its reservation when that conduct threatens or has some direct effect on the political integrity, the economic security, or the health or welfare of the tribe.” Id., at 565-566 (emphasis added). Brendale and its reasoning are not applicable to the present cases, which involve not a proposed extension of a tribe’s inherent powers, but an asserted restriction of a State’s congressionally conferred powers. Moreover, as the Court observed recently in California v. Cabazon Band of Mission Indians, 480 U. S., at 215, n. 17, we have traditionally followed “a per se rule” “[i]n the special area of state taxation of Indian tribes and tribal members.” Though the rule has been most often applied to produce categorical prohibition of state taxation when there has been no “cession of jurisdiction or other federal [legislative permission],” Mescalero Apache Tribe, 411 U. S., at 148, we think it also applies to produce categorical allowance of state taxation when it has in fact been authorized by Congress. “Either Congress intended to pre-empt the state taxing authority or it did not. Balancing of interests is not the appropriate gauge for determining validity since it is that very balancing which we have reserved to Congress.” Washington v. Confederated Tribes of Colville Reservation, 447 U. S. 134, 177 (1980) (opinion of Rehn-QUIST, J.). If the Ninth Circuit’s Brendale test were the law, litigation would surely engulf the States’ annual assessment and taxation process, with the validity of each levy dependent upon a multiplicity of factors that vary from year to year, and from parcel to parcel. For reasons of practicality, as well as text, we adhere to our per se approach.
B
We think the excise tax on sales of fee land is another matter, as did the Court of Appeals. While the Burke Act proviso does not purport to describe the entire range of in rem jurisdiction States may exercise with respect to fee-patented reservation land, we think it does describe the entire range of jurisdiction to tax. And that description is “taxation of... land.” Yakima County seeks to expand this text by citing our statement in Squire v. Capoeman, 351 U. S. 1 (1956), to the effect that “[t]he literal language of the [Burke Act] proviso evinces a congressional intent to subject an Indian allotment to all taxes” after it has been patented in fee. Id., at 7-8 (emphasis added). This dictum was addressed, however, to the United States' assertion that the General Allotment Act barred only States and localities, and not the Federal Government, from levying taxes on Indian allotments during the trust period. “All taxes,” in the sense of federal as well as local, in no way expands the text beyond “taxation of... land.”
It does not exceed the bounds of permissible construction to interpret “taxation of land” as including taxation of the proceeds from sale of land; and it is even true that such a construction would be fully in accord with Goudy’s emphasis upon the consequences of alienability, which underlay the Burke Act proviso. That is surely not, however, the phrase's unambiguous meaning — as is shown by the Washington Supreme Court’s own observation that “a tax upon the sale of property is not a tax upon the subject matter of that sale.” Mahler v. Tremper, 40 Wash. 2d 405, 409, 243 P. 2d 627, 629 (1952). It is quite reasonable to say, in other words, that though the object of the sale here is land, that does not make land the object of the tax, and hence does not invoke the Burke Act proviso. When we are faced with these two possible constructions, our choice between them must be dictated by a principle deeply rooted in this Court’s Indian jurisprudence: “[Statutes are to be construed liberally in favor of the Indians, with ambiguous provisions interpreted to their benefit.” Montana v. Blackfeet Tribe, 471 U. S., at 766. See also McClanahan v. Arizona State Tax Comm’n, 411 U. S., at 174.
To render this a “taxation of land” in the narrow sense, it does not suffice that, under Washington law, the excise tax creates “a specific lien upon each piece of real property sold from the time of sale until the tax shall have been paid....” Wash. Rev. Code § 82.45.070 (1989). A lien upon real estate to satisfy a tax does not convert the tax into a tax upon real estate — otherwise all sorts of state taxation of reservation-Indian activities could be validated (even the cigarette sales tax disallowed in Moe) by merely making the unpaid tax assessable against the taxpayer’s fee-patented real estate. Thus, we cannot even accept the county’s narrower contention that the excise tax lien is enforceable against reservation fee property conveyed by an Indian seller to a non-Indian buyer. The excise tax remains a tax upon the Indian’s activity of selling the land, and thus is void, whatever means may be devised for its collection. Cf., e. g., Washington v. Confederated Tribes of Colville Reservation, supra, at 154-159 (Indian proprietors may be compelled to precollect taxes whose incidence legally falls on non-Indians); Moe, 425 U. S., at 482 (same).
The short of the matter is that the General Allotment Act explicitly authorizes only “taxation of... land,” not “taxation with respect to land,” “taxation of transactions involving land,” or “taxation based on the value of land.” Because it is eminently reasonable to interpret that language as not including a tax upon the sale of real estate, our cases require us to apply that interpretation for the benefit of the Tribe. Accordingly, Yakima County’s excise tax on sales of land cannot be sustained.
* * *
We hold that the General Allotment Act permits Yakima County to impose an ad valorem tax on reservation land patented in fee pursuant to the Act, but does not allow the county to enforce its excise tax on sales of such land. The Yakima Nation contends it is not clear whether the parcels at issue in these cases were patented under the General Allotment Act, rather than under some other statutes in force prior to the Indian Reorganization Act. E. g., 25 U. S. C. §§ 320, 379,404, 405. We leave for resolution on remand that factual point, and the prior legal question whether it makes any difference.
The judgment is affirmed, and the cause is remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
Section 6 provides in pertinent part:
“At the expiration of the trust period and when the lands have been conveyed to the Indians by patent in fee,... then each and every allottee shall have the benefit of and be subject to the laws, both civil and criminal, of the State or Territory in which they may reside.... Provided, That the Secretary of the Interior may, in his discretion, and he is authorized, whenever he shall be satisfied that any Indian allottee is competent and capable of managing his or her affairs at any time to cause to be issued to such allottee a patent in fee simple, and thereafter all restrictions as to sale, incumbrame, or taxation of said land shall be removed’’ 25 U. S. C. § 349 (emphasis added).
The Yakima Nation does, however, make a preliminary objection to the taxes on the ground that the Washington State Constitution permits land taxes to be imposed only on those Indians holding fee patents who have terminated their affiliations with the Tribe — which the Indian plaintiffs in these cases have not done. The provision at issue provides in pertinent part as follows:
“That the people inhabiting this state do agree and declare that they forever disclaim all right and title to the unappropriated public lands lying within the boundaries of this state, and to all lands lying within said limits owned or held by any Indian or Indian tribes; and that until the title thereto shall have been extinguished by the United States, the same shall be and remain subject to the disposition of the United States, and said Indian lands shall remain under the absolute jurisdiction and control of the congress of the United States...; Provided, That nothing in this ordinance shall preclude the state from taxing as other lands are taxed any lands owned or held by any Indian who has severed his tribal relations, and has obtained from the United States or from any person a title thereto by patent or other grant, save and except such lands as have been or may be granted to any Indian or Indians under any act of congress containing a provision exempting the lands thus granted from taxation, which exemption shall continue so long and to such an extent as such act of congress may prescribe.” Wash. Const., Art. XXVI, Second (emphasis added).
We agree with the Court of Appeals that, under this text, the Indian lands not covered by the quoted proviso are not exempted from taxation, but merely committed to “the absolute jurisdiction and control of [Congress].” If Congress has permitted taxation, the provision is not violated.
Section 5 of the General Allotment Act provides in part:
“[A)t the expiration of said [trust] period the United States will convey [the allotted lands] by patent to said Indian... in fee, discharged of
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer:
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B
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sc_issuearea
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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.
Fourteen county recorders and other public officials of Arizona appeal from a judgment of a three-judge district court holding the State’s 50-day durational voter residency requirement and its 50-day voter registration requirement unconstitutional under the decision in Dunn v. Blumstein, 405 U. S. 330 (1972). A permanent injunction was entered against enforcement of these or any other greater-than-30-day residency and registration requirements in any election held after November 1972. Appellants do not seek review of the District Court’s judgment insofar as it enjoins application of the 50-day requirements in presidential elections. See Voting Rights Act Amendments of 1970, 84 Stat. 316, 42 U. S. C. § 1973aa-l. Appellants assert, however, that the requirements, as applied to special, primary, or general elections involving state and local officials, are supported by sufficiently strong local interests to pass constitutional muster. We agree and reverse.
In Dunn v. Blumstein, we struck down Tennessee’s durational voter residency requirement of one year in the State and three months in the county. We recognized that a person does not have a federal constitutional right to walk up to a voting place on election day and demand a ballot. States have valid and sufficient interests in providing for some period of time — prior to an election — in order to prepare adequate voter records and protect its electoral processes from possible frauds. A year, or even three months, was found too long, particularly in the context of “the judgment of the Tennessee lawmakers,” who had set “the cutoff point for registration [at] 30 days before an election . . . .” 405 U. S., at 349. The Arizona scheme, however, stands in a different light. The durational residency requirement is only 50 days, not a year or even three months. Moreover, unlike Tennessee’s, the Arizona requirement is tied to the closing of the State’s registration process at 50 days prior to elections and reflects a state legislative judgment that the period is necessary to achieve the State’s legitimate, goals.
We accept that judgment, particularly in light of the realities of Arizona’s registration and voting procedures. Those procedures, apparently first adopted during the Populist Era, rely on a “massive” volunteer deputy registrar system. See Ariz. Rev. Stat. Ann. § 16-141. According to appellants’ testimony, although these volunteers make registration convenient for voters, they average 1.13 mistakes per voter registration and the county recorder must correct those mistakes before certifying to the “completeness and correctness” of each precinct register. Ariz. Rev. Stat. Ann. § 16-155. The District Court itself noted that there were estimates that “in Maricopa County alone, some 4,400 registered voters might be denied the right to vote if the county voter list is in error by only one percent.”
An additional complicating factor in Arizona registration procedures is the State’s fall primary system. The uncontradicted testimony demonstrates that in the weeks preceding the deadline for registration in general elections — a period marked by a curve toward the “peak” in terms of the registration affidavits received — county recorders and their staffs are unable to process the incoming affidavits because of their work in the fall primaries. It is only after the primaries are over that the officials can return to the accumulated backlog of registration affidavits and undertake to process them in accordance with applicable statutory requirements.
On the basis of the evidence before the District Court, it is clear that the State has demonstrated that the 50-day voter registration cutoff (for election of state and local officials) is necessary to permit preparation of accurate voter lists. We said in Dunn v. Blumstein that “[f]ixing a constitutionally acceptable period is surely a matter of degree. It is sufficient to note here that 30 days appears to be an ample period of time for the State to complete whatever administrative tasks are necessary to prevent fraud — and a year, or three months, too much.” 405 U. S., at 348. In the present case, we are confronted with a recent and amply justifiable legislative judgment that 50 days rather than 30 is necessary to promote the State’s important interest in accurate voter lists. The Constitution is not so rigid that that determination and others like it may not stand.
The judgment of the District Court, insofar as it has been appealed from, is
Reversed.
The requirements appear, respectively, at Ariz. Rev. Stat. Ann. §§ 16-101 (3) and 16-107. These provisions were enacted after our decision in Dunn v. Blumstein.
Appellees are a deputy registrar in Maricopa County and a resident of Maricopa County.
Section 1973aa-l withstood constitutional attack in Oregon v. Mitchell, 400 U. S. 112 (1970).
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer:
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B
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sc_issuearea
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What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Mr. Chief Justice Vinson
delivered the opinion of the Court.
Section 6 (j) of the Selective Service Act provides exemption from military service — partial or full, depending upon the circumstances — for any person “who, by reason of religious training and belief, is conscientiously opposed to participation in war in any form.” If the conscientious objector’s claim for relief under this Section is denied by his local draft board, he is entitled to further review by an “appropriate appeal board.” All such appeals are referred to the Department of Justice for an “appropriate inquiry” and a “hearing.” The Department of Justice then makes a recommendation to the appeal board, which may or may not follow it in reviewing the local board’s classification.
These two cases are concerned with the procedure, established by regulation and practice, which is followed when a conscientious objector’s appeal is referred to the Department of Justice. The Department has regularly used the FBI to investigate each appealing registrant’s background and reputation for sincerity. A hearing is then held before a designated “hearing officer.” The registrant is allowed to appear in person, and, if he chooses, he may bring with him an advisor and witnesses to testify in his behalf. Upon request, he is entitled to be instructed “as to the general nature and character” of any “unfavorable” evidence developed by the Depart-meat’s investigation. But he is not permitted to see the FBI report, nor is he informed of the names of persons interviewed by the investigators.
It is the Department’s refusal to disclose the entire FBI reports which precipitates the issues now before us. The Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit has held that this procedure violates a registrant’s rights under the Selective Service Act. We granted certiorari, 345 U. S. 915, because that determination seemed in conflict with the decisions of other Courts of Appeals and because it dealt with an important problem in the administration of the Selective Service Act.
Each of the respondents claims to be a conscientious objector entitled to total exemption from military service. Each has been convicted of wilfully refusing to submit to induction in the armed forces of the United States. At their trials, respondents challenged the validity of their selective service classifications, claiming that they were fixed without basis in fact and without adherence to the procedures prescribed by § 6 (j) of the Act; each claimed that the Department of Justice’s failure to show him the FBI reports rendered his classification illegal. The Court of Appeals, reversing each respondent’s conviction, sustained the claims.
We think that the Court of Appeals erred. We think that the statutory scheme for review, within the selective service system, of exemptions claimed by conscientious objectors entitles them to no guarantee that the FBI reports must be produced for their inspection. We think the Department of Justice satisfies its duties under § 6 (j) when it accords a fair opportunity to the registrant to speak his piece before an impartial hearing officer; when it permits him to produce all relevant evidence in his own behalf and at the same time supplies him with a fair résumé of any adverse evidence in the investigator’s report.
Respondents urge that this is not enough. The argument rides hard upon the word “hearing” in § 6 (j). It is suggested that the “hearing” prescribed by Congress was purposely designed to allow the registrant to refute— item by item, if necessary — the matters discussed in the investigator’s report. In sum, respondents assimilate the “hearing” in § 6 (j) to a trial and insist that it imports a right to confront every informant who may have rendered adverse comment to the FBI.
The statute does entitle the registrant to a “hearing,” and of course no sham substitute will meet this requirement; but we do not think that the word “hearing”— when put in the context of the whole scheme for review set forth in § 6 (j) — comprehends the formal and litigious procedures which respondents’ interpretation would attribute to it. Instead, the word takes its meaning in this instance from an analysis of the precise function which Congress has imposed upon the Department of Justice in § 6 (j).
The duty to classify — to grant or deny exemptions to conscientious objectors — rests upon the draft boards, local and appellate, and not upon the Department of Justice. The registrant must first look to his local board for the relief he claims; he must convince this body— composed of representatives of his own community — of the depth and sincerity of his convictions. He must fill out forms, calculated to put him to the test; he must supply any additional detailed information which may be necessary for a searching investigation of his claim; and, if he or his local board demands it, he may appear in person to explain his position to the persons charged with determining its validity.
If the local board denies the claim, the responsibility for review, if sought, falls upon the appeal board. The Department of Justice takes no action which is decisive. Its duty is to advise, to render an auxiliary service to the appeal board in this difficult class of cases. Congress was under no compulsion to supply this auxiliary service — to provide for a more exhaustive processing of the conscientious objector’s appeal. Registrants who claim exemption for some reason other than conscientious objection, and whose claims are denied, are entitled to no “hearing” before the Department. Yet in this special class of cases, involving as it does difficult analyses of facts and individualized judgments, Congress directed that the assistance of the Department be made available whenever a registrant insists that his conscientious objection claim has been misjudged by his local board. Observers sympathetic to the problems of the conscientious objector have recognized that this provision in the statute improves the system of review by helping the appeal boards to reach a more informed judgment on the appealing registrant’s claims. But it has long been recognized that neither the Department’s “appropriate investigation” nor its “hearing” is the determinative investigation and the determinative hearing in each case. It has regularly been assumed that it is not the function of this auxiliary procedure to provide a full-scale trial for each appealing registrant.
Accordingly, the standards of procedure to which the Department must adhere are simply standards which will enable it to discharge its duty to forward sound advice, as expeditiously as possible, to the appeal board. Certainly, this is an important and delicate responsibility, but we do not think the statute requires the Department to entertain an all-out collateral attack at the hearing on the testimony obtained in its prehearing investigation.
Respondents urge that they have a right to such a procedure under the Fifth Amendment. We cannot agree.
The Selective Service Act is a comprehensive statute designed to provide an orderly, efficient and fair procedure to marshal the available manpower of the country, to impose a common obligation of military service on all physically fit young men. It is a valid exercise of the war power. It is calculated to function — it functions today — in times of peril. Even so, Congress took care to provide special treatment for those who could not reconcile participation in the defense effort with their religious beliefs — if those beliefs were a matter of sincere conviction. Profiting from the experiences of the First World War, Congress adopted a new and special procedure to secure the rights of conscience, which had been given express statutory recognition.
It is always difficult to devise procedures which will be adequate to do justice in cases where the sincerity of another’s religious convictions is the ultimate factual issue. It is especially difficult when these procedures must be geared to meet the imperative needs of mobilization and national vigilance — when there is no time for “litigious interruption.” Falbo v. United States, 320 U. S. 549, 554 (1944). Under the circumstances presented, we cannot hold that the statute, as we construe it, violates the Constitution.
The judgments are
Reversed.
Mr. Justice Jackson took no part in the consideration or decision of this case.
Section 6 (j) appeared in the 1940 Selective Service Act as § 5 (g), 54 Stat. 885, 889. It was reenacted as § 6 (j) of the Selective Service Act of 1948. 62 Stat. 604, 613, 50 U. S. C. § 456 (j). The Act was amended in 1951, 65 Stat. 75, 86, 50 U. S. C. App. (Supp. V) §456 (j), and the present language of §6 (j) differs in immaterial respects from the language in the earlier statutes.
The full text of § 6 (j) of the Selective Service Act of 1948 reads:
“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. Religious training and belief in this connection means an individual’s belief in a relation to a Supreme Being involving duties superior to those arising from any human relation, but does not include essentially political, sociological, or philosophical views or a merely personal moral code. Any person claiming exemption from combatant training and service because of such conscientious objections whose claim is sustained by the local board shall, if he is inducted into the armed forces under this title, be assigned to noncombatant service as defined by the President, or shall, if he is found to be conscientiously opposed to participation in such noncombatant service, be deferred. Any person claiming exemption from combatant training and service because, of such conscientious objections shall, if such claim is not sustained by the local board, be entitled to an appeal to the appropriate appeal board. Upon the filing of such appeal, the appeal board shall refer any such claim to the Department of Justice for inquiry and hearing. The Department of Justice, after appropriate inquiry, shall hold a hearing with respect to the character and good faith of the objections of the person concerned, and such person shall be notified of the time and place of such hearing. The Department of Justice shall, after such hearing, if the objections are found to be sustained, recommend to the appeal board that (1) if the objector is inducted into the armed forces under this title, he shall be assigned to noncombatant service as defined by the President, or (2) if the objector is found to be conscientiously opposed to participation in such noncombatant service, he shall be deferred. If after such hearing the Department of Justice finds that his objections are not sustained, it shall recommend to the appeal board that such objections be not sustained. The appeal board shall, in making its decision, give consideration to, but shall not be bound to follow, the recommendation of the Department of Justice together with the record on appeal from the local board. Each person whose claim for exemption from combatant training and service because of conscientious objections is sustained shall be listed by the local board on a register of conscientious objectors.”
There is a dearth of legislative history reflecting discussion in Congress about this phase of the Selective Service Act. The problem was discussed rather briefly during the Committee hearings on the 1940 Act. See Hearings Before the Committee on Military Affairs United States Senate on S. 4164, 76th Cong., 3d Sess., and Hearings Before the Committee on Military Affairs House of Representatives on H. R. 10132, 76th Cong., 3d Sess. Compare H. R. Rep. No. 2903, 76th Cong., 3d Sess., p. 5.
See 32 CFR § 1626.25 (1949 ed.); see also 17 Fed. Reg. 5449, June 18, 1952.
See, Instructions to Registrants Whose Claims for Exemption as Conscientious Objectors Have Been Appealed (a letter sent to the appealing registrant from the office of the Attorney General) reproduced in part in the record in the Nugent case, at p. 54.
Ibid.
United States v. Nugent, 200 F. 2d 46, and United States v. Packer, 200 F. 2d 540.
See e. g., Imboden v. United States, 194 F. 2d 508 (C. A. 6th Cir. 1952); Elder v. United States, 202 F. 2d 465 (C. A. 9th Cir. 1953).
50 U. S. C. App. (Supp. V) § 462.
Cox v. United States, 332 U. S. 442 (1947).
Estep v. United States, 327 U. S. 114 (1946).
As to what constitutes a “fair résumé” see Imboden v. United States, supra. Compare United States v. Oller, 107 F. Supp. 54 (D. Conn. 1952), and United States v. Bouziden, 108 F. Supp. 395 (W. D. Okla. 1952).
We need not reach that question in these cases because in our view respondents cannot complain of any failure on the part of the Department of Justice to supply them with a summary of the evidence.
Respondent Nugent first indicated to his local board that he would only serve as a noncombatant. Thereafter, when required to submit additional information, he stated that he was opposed to any military service whatsoever. The local board, after a hearing, classified him as 1-A-O which rendered him eligible only for noncombatant military service. He appealed, claiming total exemption. Pursuant to §6 (j) his case was referred to the Department of Justice.
Instructions mailed to respondent Nugent informed him of his right to “request” the Hearing Officer to “advise” him of the “general nature and character of any evidence” which was “unfavorable” to his claim. Respondent never requested the Hearing Officer for any summary of the FBI investigation. He claims he was misled by the Hearing Officer’s secretary who told him that the “files” were “favorable.” But respondent made no effort to verify this statement; at no time did he say anything or make any request to the Hearing Officer concerning the FBI report.
Moreover, the Hearing Officer, in his own report on the case, said nothing which would indicate that the secretary’s comment was erroneous. He did not purport to base his recommendation on material submitted by the FBI; rather his recommendation seems based upon Nugent’s own conduct and testimony at the hearing coupled with the fact that respondent, in his original classification questionnaire, had indicated a willingness to serve as a noncombatant — the classification to which he had been assigned.
An additional statement by a Special Assistant to the Attorney General, forwarding the Hearing Officer’s report to the appeal board, also made no mention that there was adverse matter in the FBI report.
No part of the FBI report was transmitted to the appeal board. Thus the record before the appeal board contained no evidence secured by the FBI. In view of this, and in view of his failure to make any request to the Hearing Officer, we think that Nugent was not denied any right.
Nor was respondent Packer denied his right to be advised of the general nature of any evidence in the FBI report which might defeat his claim. In response to his question, the Hearing Officer told him that there was nothing unfavorable in it. The Hearing Officer’s report, which was transmitted to the appeal board, corroborates this view. Nothing in the FBI report was transmitted to the appeal board, and thus it was given no indication that the FBI report was unfavorable.
See United States v. Geyer, 108 F. Supp. 70 (D. Conn. 1952), an opinion heavily relied upon by the Court of Appeals in its opinion in the Nugent case.
Norwegian Nitrogen Products Co. v. United States, 288 U. S. 294 (1933).
The Selective Service System requires conscientious objectors to fill out a special form. This form supplies the registrant with the opportunity to demonstrate — -by pointing to past examples, referring to character witnesses and recounting the background of his training and beliefs — the sincerity of his claim.
32 CFR (1949 ed.) Part 1624.
See Sibley and Jacob, Conscription of Conscience (1952), 71-76.
Cf. Norwegian Nitrogen Products Co. v. United States, supra; Williams v. New York, 337 U. S. 241 (1949).
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer:
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C
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sc_issuearea
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What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Mr. Justice Black
delivered the opinion of the Court.
This civil action was brought by the Government in a Federal District Court of Illinois against appellees, a trade association of Chicago lathing contractors, two of its member contractors, and a local labor union composed of lathers. The complaint charged a violation of § 1 of the Sherman Act which forbids combinations or conspiracies in restraint of trade or commerce among the states. 15 U. S. C. § 1. The District Court dismissed the complaint on the ground that it failed to state a cause of action on which relief could be granted. At the same time and for the same reason it dismissed a similar complaint charging a Chicago plasterers’ association and a local plasterers’ union with violating § 1 of the Sherman Act. Both cases were brought here on direct appeal by the Government under authority of 15 U. S. C. § 29. We have just reversed the District Court’s dismissal of the complaint against the plastering group, United States v. Employing Plasterers Assn. of Chicago, ante, p. 186. Despite some differences in the two complaints, the reasons for reversing the plasterers’ case are equally applicable here.
This complaint shows:
A substantial quantity of lathing material used on Chicago jobs is produced in states other than Illinois, sold by the producers to Chicago building material dealers, shipped interstate either to the Chicago dealers or to their plastering contractor customers, and finally delivered by the plastering contractor to his lathing contractor for use on local building jobs. The alleged conspiracy here is among these lathing contractors and the union whose members do the actual lathing. This combination, according to the complaint, has achieved almost complete mastery over the lathing business in the Chicago area. It limits the number of lathing contractors, prescribes their qualifications, decides who meets the standards prescribed, excludes persons from the business on varied grounds, including arbitrary racial standards, and assigns plastering contractors to each lathing contractor. All of these allegations and more show a substantial suppression of competition in the lathing business.
The complaint charges that an effect of the alleged combination and conspiracy has been that “[interstate trade and commerce in lathing and related building materials has been unlawfully restrained.” Other allegations emphasize this charge by asserting that any restraint upon lathing work in Chicago “necessarily and directly restrains and affects the interstate flow of lathing materials, and . . . building materials . . . .”
The complaint does state a cause of action on which relief can be granted on proper proof.
Reversed.
[For dissenting opinion of Mr. Justice Minton, joined by Mr. Justice Douglas, see ante, p. 190.]
The Government complaint also charged a violation of § 2 of the Sherman Act but that claim is not pressed 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:
|
G
|
sc_issuearea
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What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Justice Ginsburg
delivered the opinion of the Court.
Twelve-year-old Natalie Calhoun was killed in a jet ski accident on July 6, 1989. At the time of her death, she was vacationing with family friends at a beach-front resort in Puerto Rico. Alleging that the jet ski was defectively designed or made, Natalie’s parents sought to recover from the manufacturer pursuant to state survival and wrongful-death statutes. The manufacturer contended that state remedies could not be applied because Natalie died on navigable waters; federal, judge-declared maritime law, the manufacturer urged, controlled to the exclusion of state law.
Traditionally, state remedies have been applied in accident cases of this order — maritime wrongful-death cases in which no federal statute specifies the appropriate relief and the decedent was not a seaman, longshore worker, or person otherwise engaged in a maritime trade. We hold, in accord with the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, that state remedies remain applicable in such cases and have not been displaced by the federal maritime wrongful-death action recognized in Moragne v. States Marine Lines, Inc., 398 U. S. 375 (1970).
I
Natalie Calhoun, the 12-year-old daughter of respondents Lucien and Robin Calhoun, died in a tragic accident on July 6, 1989. On vacation with family friends at a resort hotel in Puerto Rico, Natalie had rented a “WaveJammer” jet ski manufactured by Yamaha Motor Company, Ltd., and distributed by Yamaha Motor Corporation, U. S. A. (collectively, Yamaha), the petitioners in this case. While riding the WaveJammer, Natalie slammed into a vessel anchored in the waters off the hotel frontage, and was killed.
The Calhouns, individually and in their capacities as administrators of their daughter’s estate, sued Yamaha in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. Invoking Pennsylvania’s wrongful-death and survival statutes, 42 Pa. Cons. Stat. §§8301-8302 (1982 and Supp. 1995), the Calhouns asserted several bases for recovery (including negligence, strict liability, and breach of implied warranties), and sought damages for lost future earnings, loss of society, loss of support and services, and funeral expenses, as well as punitive damages. They grounded federal jurisdiction on both diversity of citizenship, 28 U. S. C. § 1332, and admiralty, 28 U. S. C. § 1333.
Yamaha moved for partial summary judgment, arguing that the federal maritime wrongful-death action this Court recognized in Moragne v. States Marine Lines, Inc., 398 U. S. 375 (1970), provided the exclusive basis for recovery, displacing all remedies afforded by state law. Under Moragne, Yamaha contended, the Calhouns could recover as damages only Natalie’s funeral expenses. The District Court agreed with Yamaha that Moragne’s maritime • death action displaced state remedies; the court held, however, that loss of society and loss of support and services were compensable under Moragne.
Both sides asked the District Court to present questions for immediate interlocutory appeal pursuant to 28 U. S. C. § 1292(b). The District Court granted the parties’ requests, and in its § 1292(b) certifying order stated:
“Natalie Calhoun, the minor child of plaintiffs Lucien B. Calhoun and Robin L. Calhoun, who are Pennsylvania residents, was killed in an accident not far off shore in Puerto Rico, in the territorial waters of the United States. Plaintiffs have brought a diversity suit against, inter alia, defendants Yamaha Motor Corporation, U. S. A. and Yamaha Motor Co., Ltd. The counts of the complaint directed against the Yamaha defendants allege that the accident was caused by a defect or defects in a Yamaha jet ski which Natalie Calhoun had rented and was using at the time of the fatal accident. Those counts sound in negligence, in strict liability, and in implied warranties of merchantability and fitness. The district court has concluded that admiralty jurisdiction attaches to these several counts and that they constitute a federal maritime cause of action. The questions of law certified to the Court of Appeals are whether, pursuant to such a maritime cause of action, plaintiffs may seek to recover (1) damages for the loss of the society of their deceased minor child, (2) damages for the loss of their child’s future earnings, and (3) punitive damages.” App. to Pet. for Cert. A-78.
Although the Court of Appeals granted the interlocutory review petition, the panel to which the appeal was assigned did not reach the questions presented in the certified order, for it determined that an anterior issue was pivotal. The District Court, as just recounted, had concluded that any damages the Calhouns might recover from Yamaha would be governed exclusively by federal maritime law. But the Third Circuit panel questioned that conclusion and inquired whether state wrongful-death and survival statutes supplied the remedial prescriptions for the Calhouns’ complaint. The appellate panel asked whether the state remedies endured or were “displaced by a federal maritime rule of decision.” 40 F. 3d 622, 624 (1994). Ultimately, the Court of Appeals ruled that state-law remedies apply in this case. Id., at 644.
II
In our order granting certiorari, we asked the parties to brief a preliminary question: “Under 28 U. S. C. § 1292(b), can the courts of appeals exercise jurisdiction over any question that is included within the order that contains the controlling question of law identified by the district court?” 514 U. S. 1126 (1995). The answer to that question, we are satisfied, is yes.
Section 1292(b) provides, in pertinent 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.” (Emphasis added.)
As the text of § 1292(b) indicates, appellate jurisdiction applies to the order certified to the court of appeals, and is not tied to the particular question formulated by the district court. The court of appeals may not reach beyond the certified order to address other orders made in the case. United States v. Stanley, 483 U. S. 669, 677 (1987). But the appellate court may address any issue fairly included within the certified order because “it is the order that is appealable, and not the controlling question identified by the district court.” 9 J. Moore & B. Ward, Moore’s Federal Practice ¶ 110.25[1], p. 300 (2d ed. 1995). See also 16 C. Wright, A. Miller, E. Cooper, & E. Gressman, Federal Practice and Procedure §3929, pp. 144-145 (1977) (“[T]he court of appeals may review the entire order, either to consider a question different than the one certified as controlling or to decide the case despite the lack of any identified controlling question.”); Note, Interlocutory Appeals in the Federal Courts Under 28 U. S. C. § 1292(b), 88 Harv. L. Rev. 607,628-629 (1975) (“scope of review [includes] all issues material to the order in question”).
We therefore proceed to the issue on which certiorari was granted: Does the federal maritime claim for wrongful death recognized in Moragne supply the exclusive remedy in cases involving the deaths of nonseafarers in territorial waters?
III
Because this case involves a watercraft collision on navigable waters, it falls within admiralty’s domain. See Sisson v. Ruby, 497 U. S. 358, 361-367 (1990); Foremost Ins. Co. v. Richardson, 457 U. S. 668, 677 (1982). “With admiralty jurisdiction,” we have often said, “comes the application of substantive admiralty law.” East River S. S. Corp. v. Transamerica Delaval Inc., 476 U. S. 858, 864 (1986). The exercise of admiralty jurisdiction, however, “does not result in automatic displacement of state law.” Jerome B. Gru-bart, Inc. v. Great Lakes Dredge & Dock Co., 513 U. S. 527, 545 (1995). Indeed, prior to Moragne, federal admiralty courts routinely applied state wrongful-death and survival statutes in maritime accident cases. The question before us is whether Moragne should be read to stop that practice.
Our review of maritime wrongful-death law begins with The Harrisburg, 119 U. S. 199 (1886), where we held that the general maritime law (a species of judge-made federal common law) did not afford a cause of action for wrongful death. The Harrisburg Court said that wrongful-death actions are statutory and may not be created by judicial decree. The Court did not question the soundness of this view, or examine the historical justifications that account for it. Instead, the Court merely noted that common law in the United States, like the common law of England, did not allow recovery “for an injury which results in death,” id., at 204 (internal quotation marks omitted), and that no country had “adopted a different rule on this subject for the sea from that which it maintains on the land,” id., at 213. The Court did not consider itself free to chart a different course by crafting a judge-made wrongful-death action under our maritime law.
Federal admiralty courts tempered the harshness of The Harrisburg’s rule by allowing recovery under state wrongful-death statutes. See, e. g., The Hamilton, 207 U. S. 398 (1907); The City of Norwalk, 55 F. 98 (SDNY 1893). We reaffirmed this practice in Western Fuel Co. v. Garcia, 257 U. S. 233 (1921), by holding that California’s wrongful-death statute governed a suit brought by the widow of a maritime worker killed in that State’s territorial waters. Though we had generally refused to give effect to state laws regarded as inconsonant with the substance of federal maritime law, we concluded that extending state wrongful-death statutes to fatal accidents in territorial waters was compatible with substantive maritime policies: “The subject is maritime and local in character and the specified modification of or supplement to the rule applied in admiralty courts ... will not work material prejudice to the characteristic features of the general maritime law, nor interfere with the proper harmony and uniformity of that law in its international and interstate relations.” Id., at 242. On similar reasoning, we also held that state survival statutes may be applied in cases arising out of accidents in territorial waters. See Just v. Chambers, 312 U. S. 383, 391-392 (1941).
State wrongful-death statutes proved an adequate supplement to federal maritime law, until a series of this Court’s decisions transformed the maritime doctrine of unseaworthiness into a strict-liability rule. Prior to 1944, unseaworthiness “was an obscure and relatively little used” liability standard, largely because “a shipowner’s duty at that time was only to use due diligence to provide a seaworthy ship.” Miles v. Apex Marine Corp., 498 U. S. 19, 25 (1990) (internal quotation marks omitted). See also Moragne, 398 U. S., at 398-399. Mahnich v. Southern S. S. Co., 321 U. S. 96 (1944), however, notably expanded a shipowner’s liability to injured seamen by imposing a nondelegable duty “to furnish a vessel and appurtenances reasonably fit for their intended use.” Mitchell v. Trawler Racer, Inc., 362 U. S. 539, 550 (1960). The duty imposed was absolute; failure to supply a safe ship resulted in liability “irrespective of fault and irrespective of the intervening negligence of crew members.” Miles, 498 U. S., at 25. The unseaworthiness doctrine thus became a “species of liability without fault,” Seas Shipping Co. v. Sieracki, 328 U. S. 85, 94 (1946), and soon eclipsed ordinary negligence as the primary basis of recovery when a seafarer was injured or killed. Miles, 498 U. S., at 25-26.
The disparity between the unseaworthiness doctrine’s strict-liability standard and negligence-based state wrongful-death statutes figured prominently in our landmark Moragne decision. Petsonella Moragne, the widow of a longshore worker killed in Florida’s territorial waters, brought suit under Florida’s wrongful-death and survival statutes, alleging both negligence and unseaworthiness. The District Court dismissed the claim for wrongful death based on unseaworthiness, citing this Court’s decision in The Tungus v. Skovgaard, 358 U. S. 588 (1959). There, a sharply divided Court held that “when admiralty adopts a State’s right of action for wrongful death, it must enforce the right as an integrated whole, with whatever conditions and limitations the creating State has attached.” Id., at 592. Thus, in wrongful-death actions involving fatalities in territorial waters, state statutes provided the standard of liability as well as the remedial regime. Because the Florida Supreme Court had previously held that Florida’s wrongful-death statute did not encompass unseaworthiness as a basis of liability, the Court of Appeals affirmed the dismissal of Moragne’s unseaworthiness claim. See Moragne, 398 U. S., at 377.
The Court acknowledged in Moragne that The Tungus had led to considerable uncertainty over the role state law should play in remedying deaths in territorial waters, but concluded that “the primary source of the confusion is not to be found in The Tungus, but in The Harrisburg.” 398 U. S., at 378. Upon reexamining the soundness of The Harrisburg, we decided that its holding, “somewhat dubious even when rendered, is such an unjustifiable anomaly in the present maritime law that it should no longer be followed.” 398 U. S., at 378. Accordingly, the Court overruled The Harrisburg and held that an action “lie[s] under general maritime law for death caused by violation of maritime duties.” 398 U. S., at 409.
IV
Yamaha argues that Moragne — despite its focus on “maritime duties” owed to maritime workers — covers the waters, creating a uniform federal maritime remedy for all deaths occurring in state territorial waters, and ousting all previously available state remedies. In Yamaha’s view, state remedies can no longer supplement general maritime law (as they routinely did before Moragne), because Moragne launched a solitary federal scheme. Yamaha’s reading of Moragne is not without force; in several contexts, we have recognized that vindication of maritime policies demanded uniform adherence to a federal rule of decision, with no leeway for variation or supplementation by state law. See, e. g., Kossick v. United Fruit Co., 365 U. S. 731, 742 (1961) (federal maritime rule validating oral contracts precluded application of state Statute of Frauds); Pope & Talbot, Inc. v. Hawn, 346 U. S. 406, 409 (1953) (admiralty’s comparative negligence rule barred application of state contributory negligence rule); Garrett v. Moore-McCormack Co., 317 U. S. 239, 248-249 (1942) (federal maritime rule allocating burden of proof displaced conflicting state rule). In addition, Yamaha correctly points out that uniformity concerns informed our decision in Moragne.
The uniformity concerns that prompted us to overrule The Harrisburg, however, were of a different order than those invoked by Yamaha. Moragne did not reexamine the soundness of The Harrisburg out of concern that state monetary awards in maritime wrongful-death cases were excessive, or that variations in the remedies afforded by the States threatened to interfere with the harmonious operation of maritime law. Variations of this sort had long been' deemed compatible with federal maritime interests. See Western Fuel, 257 U. S., at 242. The uniformity concern that drove our decision in Moragne related, instead, to the availability of unseaworthiness as a basis of liability.
By 1970, when Moragne was decided, claims premised on unseaworthiness had become “the principal vehicle for recovery” by'seamen and other maritime workers injured or killed in the course of their employment. Moragne, 898 U. S., at 399. But with The Harrisburg in place, troubling anomalies had developed that many times precluded the survivors of maritime workers from recovering for deaths caused by an unseaworthy vessel. The Moragne Court identified three anomalies and concluded they could no longer be tolerated.
First, the Court noted that “within territorial waters, identical conduct violating federal law (here the furnishing of an unseaworthy vessel) produces liability if the victim is merely injured, but frequently not if he is killed.” 398 U. S., at 395. This occurred because in nonfatal injury cases, state substantive liability standards were superseded by federal maritime law, see Kermarec v. Compagnie Generate Transatlantique, 358 U. S. 625, 628 (1959); Pope & Talbot, 346 U. S., at 409, which provided for maritime worker recovery based on unseaworthiness. But if the same worker met death in the territorial waters of a State whose wrongful-death statute did not encompass unseaworthiness (as was the case in Moragne itself), the survivors could not proceed under that generous standard of liability. See The Tungus, 858 U. S., at 592-593.
Second, we explained in Moragne that “identical breaches of the duty to provide a seaworthy ship, resulting in death, produce liability outside the three-mile limit . . . but not within the territorial waters of a State whose local statute excludes unseaworthiness claims.” 398 U. S., at 395. This occurred because survivors of a maritime worker killed on the high seas could sue for wrongful death under the Death on the High Seas Act (DOHSA), 46 U. S. C. App. § 761 et seq. (1988 ed.), which encompasses unseaworthiness as a basis of liability. Moragne, 398 U. S., at 395 (citing Kernan v. American Dredging Co., 355 U. S. 426, 430, n. 4 (1958)).
Finally, we pointed out that “a true seaman [a member of a ship’s company]... is provided no remedy for death caused by unseaworthiness within territorial waters, while a longshoreman, to whom the duty of seaworthiness was extended only because he performs work traditionally done by seamen, does have such a remedy when allowed by a state statute.” 398 U. S., at 395-396. This anomaly stemmed from the Court’s rulings in Lindgren v. United States, 281 U. S. 38 (1930), and Gillespie v. United States Steel Corp., 379 U. S. 148 (1964), that the Jones Act, 46 U. S. C. App. § 688 (1988 ed.), which provides only a negligence-based claim for the wrongful death of seamen, precludes any state remedy, even one accommodating unseaworthiness. As a result, at the time Moragne was decided, the survivors of a longshore worker killed in the territorial waters of a State whose wrongful-death statute incorporated unseaworthiness could sue under that theory, but the survivors of a similarly situated seaman could not.
The anomalies described in Moragne relate to ships and the workers who serve them, and to a distinctly maritime substantive concept — the unseaworthiness doctrine. The Court surely meant to “assure uniform vindication of federal policies,” 398 U. S., at 401, with respect to the matters it examined. The law as it developed under The Harrisburg had forced on the States more than they could bear — the task of “providing] the sole remedy” in cases that did not involve “traditional common-law concepts,” but “concepts peculiar to maritime law.” 398 U. S., at 401, n. 15 (internal quotation marks omitted). Discarding The Harrisburg and declaring a wrongful-death right of action under general maritime law, the Court concluded, would “remov[e] the tensions and discrepancies” occasioned by the need “to accommodate state remedial statutes to exclusively maritime substantive concepts.” 398 U. S., at 401.
Moragne, in sum, centered on the extension of relief, not on the contraction of remedies. The decision recalled that “ ‘it better becomes the humane and liberal character of proceedings in admiralty to give than to withhold the remedy, when not required to withhold it by established and inflexible rules.’” Id., at 387 (quoting The Sea Gull, 21 F. Cas. 909, 910 (No. 12,578) (CC Md. 1865) (Chase, C. J.)). The Court tied Petsonella Moragne’s plea based on the unseaworthiness of the vessel to a federal right-of-action anchor, but notably left in place the negligence claim she had stated under Florida’s law. See 398 U. S., at 376-377.
Our understanding of Moragne accords with that of the Third Circuit, which Judge Becker set out as follows:
“Moragne ... showed no hostility to concurrent application of state wrongful-death statutes. Indeed, to read into Moragne the idea that it was placing a ceiling on recovery for wrongful death, rather than a floor, is somewhat ahistorical. The Moragne cause of action was in many respects a gap-filling measure to ensure that seamen (and their survivors) would all be treated alike. The ‘humane and liberal’ purpose underlying the general maritime remedy of Moragne was driven by the idea that survivors of seamen killed in state territorial waters should not have been barred from recovery simply because the tort system of the particular state in which a seaman died did not incorporate special maritime doctrines. It is difficult to see how this purpose can be taken as an intent to preclude the operation of state laws that do supply a remedy.” 40 F. 3d, at 641-642 (citation omitted).
We have reasoned similarly in Sun Ship, Inc. v. Pennsylvania, 447 U. S. 715 (1980), where we held that a State may apply its workers’ compensation scheme to land-based injuries that fall within the compass of the Longshore and Harbor Workers’ Compensation Act, 33 U. S. C. § 901 et seq. See Sun Ship, 447 U. S., at 724 (a State’s remedial scheme might be “more generous than federal law” but nevertheless could apply because Congress indicated no concern “about a disparity between adequate federal benefits and superior state benefits”) (emphasis in original).
When Congress has prescribed a comprehensive tort recovery regime to be uniformly applied, there is, we have generally recognized, no cause for enlargement of the damages statutorily provided. See Miles, 498 U. S., at 30-36 (Jones Act, rather than general maritime law, determines damages recoverable in action for wrongful death of seamen); Offshore Logistics, Inc. v. Tallentire, 477 U. S. 207, 232 (1986) (DOHSA, which limits damages to pecuniary losses, may not be supplemented by nonpecuniary damages under a state wrongful-death statute); Mobil Oil Corp. v. Higginbotham, 436 U. S. 618, 624-625 (1978) (DOHSA precludes damages for loss of society under general maritime law). But Congress has not prescribed remedies for the wrongful deaths of non-seafarers in territorial waters. See Miles, 498 Ü. S., at 31. There is, however, a relevant congressional disposition. Section 7 of DOHSA states: “The provisions of any State statute giving or regulating rights of action or remedies for death shall not be affected by this chapter.” 46 U. S. C. App. § 767. This statement, by its terms, simply stops DOHSA from displacing state law in territorial waters. See Miles, 498 U. S., at 25; Tallentire, All U. S., at 224-225; Moragne, 398 U. S., at 397-398. Taking into account what Congress sought to achieve, we preserve the application of state statutes to deaths within territorial waters.
H= H= *
For the reasons stated, we hold that the damages available for the jet ski death of Natalie Calhoun are properly governed by state law. The judgment of the Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit is accordingly
Affirmed.
The Calhouns are citizens of Pennsylvania. Yamaha Motor Corporation, U. S. A., is incorporated and has its principal place of business in California; Yamaha Motor Company, Ltd., is incorporated and has its principal place of business in Japan.
By “nonseafarers,” we mean persons who are neither seamen covered by the Jones Act, 46 U. S. C. App. §688 (1988 ed.), nor longshore workers covered by the Longshore and Harbor Workers’ Compensation Act, 33 U. S. C. §901 et seq.
Throughout this opinion, for economy, we use the term wrongful-death remedies or statutes to include survival statutes.
Congress also mitigated the impact of The Harrisburg by enacting two statutes affording recovery for wrongful death. In 1920, Congress passed the Death on the High Seas Act (DOHSA), 46 U. S. C. App. § 761 et seq. (1988 ed.), which provides a federal claim for wrongful death occurring more than three nautical miles from the shore of any State or Territory. In that same year, Congress also passed the Jones Act, 46 U. S. C. App. § 688 (1988 ed.), which provides a wrongful-death claim to the survivors of seamen killed in the course of their employment, whether on the high seas or in territorial waters.
Indeed, years before The Harrisburg, this Court rendered a pathmarking decision, Steamboat Co. v. Chase, 16 Wall. 522 (1873). In Steamboat, the Court upheld, under the “saving-to-suitors” proviso of the Judiciary Act of 1789 (surviving currently in 28 U. S. C. § 1333(1)), a state court’s application of the State’s wrongful-death statute to a fatality caused by a collision in territorial waters between defendants’ steamboat and a sailboat in which plaintiff’s decedent was passing.
The Court extended the duty to provide a seaworthy ship, once owed only to seamen, to longshore workers in Seas Shipping Co. v. Sieracki, 328 U. S. 85 (1946). Congress effectively overruled this extension in its 1972 amendments to the Longshore and Harbor Workers’ Compensation Act, 33 U. S. C. § 901 et seq. See § 905(b). We have thus far declined to extend the duty further. See Kermarec v. Compagnie Generate Transatlantique, 358 U. S. 625, 629 (1959) (unseaworthiness doctrine inapplicable to invitee aboard vessel).
If Moragne’s wrongful-death action did not extend to nonseafarers like Natalie, one could hardly argue that Moragne displaced the state-law remedies the Calhouns seek. Lower courts have held that Moragne’s wrongful-death action extends to nonseafarers. See, e. g., Sutton v. Earles, 26 F. 3d 903 (CA9 1994) (recreational boater); Wahlstrom v. Kawasaki Heavy Industries, Ltd., 4 F. 3d 1084 (CA2 1993) (jet skier), cert. denied, 510 U. S. 1114 (1994). We assume, for purposes of this decision, the correctness of that position. Similarly, as in prior encounters, we assume without deciding that Moragne also provides a survival action. See Miles v. Apex Marine Corp., 498 U. S. 19, 34 (1990). The question we confront is not what Moragne added to the remedial arsenal in maritime eases, but what, if anything, it removed from admiralty’s stock.
The federal cast of admiralty law, we have observed, means that “state law must yield to the needs of a uniform federal maritime law when this Court finds inroads on a harmonious system[,] [b]ut this limitation still leaves the States a wide scope.” Romero v. International Terminal Operating Co., 358 U. S. 354, 373 (1959). Our precedent does not precisely delineate that scope. As we recently acknowledged, “[i]t would be idle to pretend that the line separating permissible from impermissible state regulation is readily discernible in our admiralty jurisprudence.” American Dredging Co. v. Miller, 510 U. S. 443, 452 (1994). We attempt no grand synthesis or reconciliation of our precedent today, but confine our inquiry to the modest question whether it was Moragne’s design to terminate recourse to state remedies when nonseafarers meet death in territorial waters.
As noted earlier, unseaworthiness recovery by longshore workers was terminated by Congress in its 1972 amendments to the Longshore and Harbor Workers’ Compensation Act, 33 U. S. C. § 901 et seq. See § 905(b).
The Court might have simply overruled The Tungus, see supra, at 209, thus permitting plaintiffs to rely on federal liability standards to obtain state wrongful-death remedies. The petitioner in Moragne, widow of a longshore worker, had urged that course when she sought certiorari. See Moragne v. States Marine Lines, Inc., 398 U. S. 375, 378, n. 1 (1970). But training Moragne solely on The Tungus would have left untouched the survivors of seamen, who remain blocked by the Jones Act from pursuing state wrongful-death claims — whether under a theory of negligence or unseaworthiness. See Gillespie v. United States Steel Corp., 379 U. S. 148, 154-155 (1964). Thus, nothing short of a federal maritime right of action for wrongful death could have achieved uniform access by seafarers to the unseaworthiness doctrine, the Court’s driving concern in Moragne. See 398 U. S., at 396, n. 12.
While unseaworthiness was the doctrine immediately at stake in Moragne, the right of action, as stated in the Court’s opinion, is “for death caused by violation of maritime duties.” Id., at 409. See East River S. S. Corp. v. Transamerica Delaval Inc., 476 U. S. 858, 865 (1986) (maritime law incorporates strict product liability); Kermarec, 358 U. S., at 630 (negligence). See also G. Gilmore & C. Black, The Law of Admiralty 368 (2d ed. 1975).
Moragne was entertained by the Court of Appeals pursuant to a 28 U. S. C. § 1292(b) certification directed to the District Court’s order dismissing the unseaworthiness claim. See 398 U. S., at 376.
Federal maritime law has long accommodated the States’ interest in regulating maritime affairs within their territorial waters. See, e. g., Just v. Chambers, 312 U. S. 383, 390 (1941) (“maritime law [is] not a complete and perfect system”; “a considerable body of municipal law . . . underlies ... its administration”). States have thus traditionally contributed to the provision of environmental and safety standards for maritime activities. See, e. g., Askew v. American Waterways Operators, Inc., 411 U. S. 325 (1973) (oil pollution); Huron Portland Cement Co. v. Detroit, 362 U. S. 440 (1960) (air pollution); Kelly v. Washington ex rel. Foss Co., 302 U. S. 1 (1937) (safety inspection); Cooley v. Board of Wardens of Port of Philadelphia ex rel. Soc. for Relief of Distressed Pilots, 12 How. 299 (1852) (pilot-age regulation). Permissible state regulation, we have recognized, must be consistent with federal maritime principles and policies. See Romero, 358 U. S., at 373-374.
The Third Circuit left for initial consideration by the District Court the question whether Pennsylvania’s wrongful-death remedies or Puerto Rico’s apply. 40 F. 3d 622, 644 (1994). The Court of Appeals also left open, as do we, the source — federal or state — of the standards governing liability, as distinguished from the rules on remedies. We thus reserve for another day reconciliation of the maritime personal injury decisions that rejected state substantive liability standards, and the maritime wrongful-death cases in which state law has held sway. Compare Kermarec, 358 U. S., at 628 (personal injury); Pope & Talbot, Inc. v. Hawn, 346 U. S. 406, 409 (1953) (same), with Hess v. United States, 361 U. S. 314, 319 (1960) (wrongful death); The Tungus v. Skovgaard, 358 U. S. 588, 592-594 (1959) (same).
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer:
|
H
|
sc_issuearea
|
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Justice Thomas
delivered the opinion of the Court.
This case arises out of the Commissioner of Social Security’s assignment, pursuant to the Coal Industry Retiree Health Benefit Act of 1992 (Coal Act or Act), 26 U. S. C. § 9701 et seq. (1994 ed. and Supp. V), of 86 retired coal miners to the Jericol Mining, Inc. (Jericol). The question presented is whether the Coal Act permits the Commissioner to assign retired miners to the successors in interest of out-of-business signatory operators. The United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit held that it does not. Sigmon Coal Co. v. Apfel, 226 F. 3d 291 (2000). We affirm.
HH
The Coal Act reconfigured the system for providing private health care benefits to retirees in the coal industry. In restructuring this system, Congress had to contend with over half a century of collective-bargaining agreements between the coal industry and the United Mine Workers of America (UMWA), the coal miners’ union. Tensions between coal operators and the UMWA had often led to lengthy strikes with serious economic consequences for both the industry and its employees. Confronted with an industry fraught with contention, Congress was faced with a difficult task.
This was not the first time that the Federal Government had been called on to intervene in negotiations within the industry. Such tensions motivated President Truman, in 1946, to issue an Executive Order directing the Secretary of the Interior to take possession of all bituminous coal mines and to negotiate with the UMWA over changes in the terms and conditions of miners’ employment. See Eastern Enterprises v. Apfel, 524 U. S. 498, 504-505 (1998) (plurality opinion) (quoting 11 Fed. Reg. 5593 (1946)). These negotiations culminated in the first of many agreements that resulted in the creation of benefit funds compensating miners, their dependents, and their survivors. 524 U. S., at 505.
Subsequently, in 1947, the UMWA and several coal operators-entered into a collectively bargained agreement, the National Bituminous Coal Wage Agreement (NBCWA), which established a fund under which three trustees “were given authority to determine,” among other things, the allocation of benefits to miners and their families. Id., at 505-506. Further disagreement prompted the parties to negotiate another NBCWA in 1950. The following year, the Bituminous Coal Operators’ Association (BCOA) was created as a multi-employer bargaining association and primary representative for the coal operators in their negotiations with the UMWA. Id., at 506.
While the NBCWA was amended occasionally and new NBCWAs were adopted in 1968 and 1971, the terms and structure of the 1950 agreement remained largely unchanged between 1950 and 1974. Ibid. In 1974, in order to comply with the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974, 29 U. S. C. § 1001 et seq. (1994 ed. and Supp. V), the UMWA and the BCOA negotiated a new agreement to finance benefits. 524 U. S., at 509. The 1974 NBCWA created four trusts that replaced the 1950 fund.
These benefit plans quickly developed financial problems. Thus, in 1978 the parties executed another NBCWA. This agreement assigned responsibility for the health care of active and retired employees to the respective coal mine operators who were signatories to the earlier NBCWAs, and left the 1974 Benefit Plan in effect only for those retirees whose former employers were no longer in business. Id., at 510.
Nonetheless, financial problems continued to plague the plans “as costs increased and employers who had signed the 1978 NBCWA withdrew from the agreement, either to continue in business with nonunion employees or to exit the coal business altogether.” Id., at 511. “As more and more coal operators abandoned the Benefit Plans, the remaining signatories were forced to absorb the increasing cost of covering retirees left behind by exiting employers.” Ibid. Pursuant to yet another NBCWA, the UMWA and the BCOA in 1988 attempted to remedy the problem, this time by imposing withdrawal liability on NBCWA signatories that seceded from the benefit plans.
Despite these efforts, the plans remained in serious financial crisis and, by June 1991, the 120,000 individuals who received health benefits from the funds were in danger of losing their benefits. Frieden, Congress Ponders Fate of Coal Miners’ Fund, 10 Business & Health 65 (Sept. 1992) (hereinafter Frieden). About 60% of these individuals were retired miners and their dependents whose former employers were no longer contributing to the benefit plans. Another 15% worked for employers that were no longer UMWA-represented or were never unionized. Karr, Union, Nonunion Coal Companies Head for Showdown on Retirement Benefits, Wall Street Journal, Mar. 3,1992, p. A6 (hereinafter Karr). These troubles were further aggravated by rising health care costs. Frieden 65.
The UMWA threatened to strike if a legislative solution was not reached. Karr A6. And BCOA members, which included those coal firms that were currently signatories to NBCWAs, threatened that they would not renew their commitments to cover retiree costs when their contracts expired.' Ibid. Following another strike and much unrest, Secretary of Labor Elizabeth Dole created the Advisory Commission on United Mine Workers of America Retiree Health Benefits (Coal Commission), which studied the problem and proposed several solutions. Eastern Enterprises, 524 U. S., at 511-512. In particular, the Coal Commission focused on how to finance the health care benefits of orphaned retirees.
Congress considered these and other proposals and eventually reconfigured the allocation of health benefits for coal miner retirees by enacting the Coal Act in 1992. Crafting the legislative solution to the crisis, however, was no easy task. The Coal Act was passed amidst a maelstrom of contract negotiations, litigation, strike threats, a Presidential veto of the first version of the bill and threats of a second veto, and high pressure lobbying, not to mention wide disagreements among Members of Congress.
The Act “merged the 1950 and 1974 Benefit Plans into a new multiemployer plan called the United Mine Workers of America Combined Benefit Fund (Combined Fund).” Id., at 514; see 26 U. S. C. § 9702(a) (1994 ed.). The Combined Fund “is financed by annual premiums assessed against'signatory coal operators,’ i. e., coal operators that signed any NBCWA or any other agreement requiring contributions to the 1950 or 1974 Benefits Plans.” Eastern Enterprises, 524 U. S., at 514. Where the signatory is no longer in business, the statute assigns liability for beneficiaries to a defined group of “related persons.” Ibid.; see §§ 9706(a), 9701(c)(2), (7). The Coal Act charged the Commissioner of Social Security with assigning each eligible beneficiary to a signatory operator or its related persons. § 9706(a). The statute identifies specific categories of signatory operators (and their related persons) and requires the Commissioner to assign beneficiaries among these categories in a particular order. Ibid. The Coal Act also ensures that if a beneficiary remains unassigned because no existing company falls within the aforementioned categories, then benefits will be financed by the Combined Fund, either with funds transferred from interest earned on the Department of the Interior’s Abandoned Mine Reclamation Fund or from an additional premium imposed on all assigned signatory operators on a pro rata basis. See §§ 9704(a), (d), 9705(b).
•II
Respondent Jericol was formed in 1973 as Irdell Mining, Inc. (Irdell). Shortly thereafter, Irdell and another company purchased the coal mining operating assets of Shackle-ford Coal Company, a company that was a signatory to a coal wage agreement while it was in business. Sigmon Coal Co. v. Apfel, 33 F. Supp. 2d 505, 507 (WD Va. 1998). They acquired the right to use the Shackleford name and assumed responsibility for Shackleford’s outstanding contracts, including its collective-bargaining agreement with the UMWA. App. 23-24, 26. “There was no common ownership between Irdell and Shackleford.” 226 F. 3d, at 297. Irdell subsequently changed its name, operating as the Shackleford Coal Company until 1977, when it again changed its name to Jeri-col. The new company was a signatory only to the 1974 NBCWA.
Acting pursuant to § 9706(a), between 1993 and 1997, the Commissioner assigned premium responsibility for over 100 retired miners and dependents to Jericol. Of these, 86 were assigned under § 9706(a)(3) because they had worked for Shackleford and the Commissioner determined that as a “successor” or “successor in interest” to the original Shackle-ford, Jericol qualified as a “related person" to Shackleford. The others were assigned because they had actually worked for Jericol. Jericol appealed most of the Commissioner’s determinations, arguing that the assignments were erroneous both because Jericol was not a successor in interest to Shack-leford and because Jericol was not a related person to Shack-leford. See, e. g., Pet. for Cert. 45a~62a.
Dissatisfied with the outcome of administrative proceedings, respondent Sigmon Coal-Company, Inc., and Jericol filed suit against the Commissioner, arguing that he wrongfully assigned retirees and dependents to Jericol. 33 F. Supp. 2d, at 506. The District Court concluded that the classification regime of the Coal Act does not provide, directly or indirectly, “for liability to be laid at the door of successors of defunct signatory operators.” Id., at 509. The District Court ordered the Commissioner to withdraw the challenged assignments and enjoined the Commissioner from assigning additional retirees to Jericol on the basis that it is a related person to the original Shackleford.
The Commissioner appealed, arguing that a “straight reading” of the statute shows that a successor in interest to a signatory operator qualifies as a related person, thereby permitting the assignment of the retirees and dependents to Jericol. 226 F. 3d, at 303. Alternatively, the Commissioner argued that the District Court’s “reading... produces inexplicable, anomalous results that are clearly at odds with congressional intent.” Ibid.
“[D]eclin[ing] the Commissioner’s invitation to rewrite the Coal Act,” the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit affirmed. Id., at 294. The Court of Appeals concluded that the “statute is clear and unambiguous” and that the court was “bound to read it exactly as it is written.” Ibid. Accordingly, the court held that Jericol was not a “related person” to Shackleford and thus could not be held responsible for Shackleford’s miners. The Court of Appeals rejected the Commissioner’s arguments that this reading either contravenes congressional intent or begets “some fairly odd results.” Id., at 305, 307. Rather, the Court of Appeals found plausible Jericol’s explanation that the plain text of the Act was consistent with Congress’ desire to promote the sale of coal companies and to respond to complaints by coal operators that they were being required to pay benefits for retired miners who had neither worked for them nor maintained any other relationship with them. Id., at 307. A plausible explanation, the court concluded, “is all we need to reject the assertion that the Coal Act’s definition of ‘related person’ is, on its face, absurd.” Id., at 308. Alternatively, the court reasoned, even if the literal text of the statute produced an arguably anomalous result, “we are not simply free to ignore unambiguous language because we can imagine a preferable version.” Ibid. This was not one of those rare cases, the court concluded, where Congress had drafted a statute that “produced an absurdity ‘so gross as to shock the general moral or common sense.’ ” Ibid, (quoting Maryland Dept. of Ed. v. Department of Veterans Affairs, 98 F. 3d 165, 169 (CA4 1996)).
We granted certiorari, 532 U. S. 993 (2001), and now affirm.
III
As in all statutory construction cases, we begin with the language of the statute. The first step “is to determine whether the language at issue has a plain and unambiguous meaning with regard to the particular dispute in the case.” Robinson v. Shell Oil Co., 519 U. S. 337, 340 (1997) (citing United States v. Ron Pair Enterprises, Inc., 489 U. S. 235, 240 (1989)). The inquiry ceases “if the statutory language is unambiguous and ‘the statutory scheme is coherent and consistent.’” 519 U. S., at 340.
With respect to the question presented in this case, this statute is unambiguous. The statutory text instructs that the Coal Act does not permit the Commissioner to assign beneficiaries to the successor in interest of a signatory operator. The statute provides:
“For purposes of this chapter, the Commissioner of Social Security shall, before October 1,1993, assign each coal industry retiree who is an eligible beneficiary to a signatory operator which (or any related person with respect to which) remains in business in the following order:
“(1) First, to the signatory operator which—
“(A) was a signatory to the 1978 coal wage agreement or any subsequent coal wage agreement, and
“(B) was the most recent signatory operator to employ the coal industry retiree in the coal industry for at least 2 years.
“(2) Second, if the retiree is not assigned under paragraph (1), to the signatory operator which—
“(A) was a signatory to the 1978 coal wage agreement or any subsequent coal wage agreement, and
“(B) was the most recent signatory operator to employ the coal industry retiree in the coal industry.
“(3) Third, if the retiree is not assigned under paragraph (1) or (2), to the signatory operator which employed the coal industry retiree in the coal industry for a longer period of time than any other signatory operator prior to the effective date of the 1978 coal wage agreement.” 26 U. S. C. § 9706(a) (1994 ed.).
In this case, the Commissioner determined that because Shackleford is a pre-1978 signatory and employed the disputed miners for over 24 months, assignment must be made under category 3. It then assigned the miners to Jericol after determining that Jericol was a successor in interest to Shackleford and was therefore a “related person” to Shackle-ford. 226 F. 3d, at 298.
We disagree with the Commissioner’s reasoning. Because the disputed retirees were employees of Shackleford, the “signatory operator” that sold its assets to Jericol (then-Irdell) in 1973, the Commissioner can only assign them to Jericol if it is a “related person” to Shackleford. The statute provides that “a person shall be considered to be a related person to a signatory operator if that person” falls within one of three categories:
“(i) a member of the controlled group of corporations (within the meaning of section 52(a)) which includes such signatory operator;
“(ii) a trade or business which is under common control (as determined under section 52(b)) with such signatory operator; or
“(iii) any other person who is identified as having a partnership interest or joint venture with a signatory operator in a business within the coal industry, but only if such business employed eligible beneficiaries, except that this clause shall not apply to a person whose only interest is as a limited partner.” § 9701(e)(2).
In addition, the last sentence of § 9701(c)(2)(A) states that “[a] related person shall also include a successor in interest of any person described in elause (i), (ii), or (iii).”
Although the Commissioner maintains that Jericol is a “related person” to Shackleford, Jericol does not fall within any of the three specified categories defining a “related person.” There is no contention that it was ever a member of a controlled group of corporations including Shackleford, that it was ever a business under common control with Shackleford, or that it ever had a partnership interest or engaged in a joint venture with Shackleford. Therefore, liability for these beneficiaries may attach to Jericol only if it is a successor in interest to an entity described in §§9701(c)(2)(A)(i)-(iii). Because Jericol is a successor in interest only to Shackleford, Jericol will be liable only if a signatory operator itself, here Shackleford, falls within one of these categories. None of the three categories, however, includes the signatory operator itself.
Nor should we infer as much, as it is a general principle of statutory construction that when “ ‘Congress includes particular language in one section of a statute but omits it in another section of the same Act, it is generally presumed that Congress acts intentionally and purposely in the disparate inclusion or exclusion.’” Russello v. United States, 464 U. S. 16, 23 (1983) (quoting United States v. Wong Kim Bo, 472 F. 2d 720, 722 (CA5 1972)). Where Congress wanted to provide for successor liability in the Coal Act, it did so explicitly, as demonstrated by other sections in the Act that give the option of attaching liability to “successors” and “successors in interest.”
For example, § 9706(b)(2) provides that with respect to beneficiaries of the Combined Fund, “[i]f a person becomes a successor of an assigned operator after the enactment date [of the Coal Act], the assigned operator may transfer the assignment of an eligible beneficiary... to such successor, and such successor shall be treated as the assigned operator with respect to such eligible beneficiary for purposes of this chapter.” (Emphasis added.) The subsection also provides, however, that “the assigned operator transferring such assignment (and any related person) shall remain the guarantor of the benefits provided to the eligible beneficiary under this chapter.” Ibid. While this provision gives a postenactment successor the option of transferring the assignment and assuming the signatory operator’s liability, it does not address the liability of preenactment successors.
Further, §9711 enumerates the continuing obligations of Individual Employer Plans (IEPs) maintained pursuant to a 1978 or subsequent coal wage agreement. Section 9711(g)(1) provides that “[f]or [the] purposes of” IEPs and the 1992 UMWA Benefit Plan, “[t]he term ‘last signatory operator’ shall include a successor in interest of such operator.” Thus, in §9711, Congress gave “last signatory operator” a subsection-specific definition that extends the IEP obligations of a preenactment signatory operator to include its “successors in interest.”
Those subsections stand in direct contrast to the provisions implicated here: §§ 9701(c)(1), (2), and (4), which define “signatory operator,” “related persons,” and “last signatory operator,” respectively, “[f]or [the] purposes of this section,” and do not specify that they include or impose liability on the signatory operator’s successor in interest.
Despite the unambiguous language of the statute with respect to those entities to whom successor liability attaches, the Commissioner essentially asks that we read into the statute mandatory liability for preenactment successors in interest to signatory operators. This we will not do. “We refrain from concluding here that the differing language in the two subsections has the same meaning in each. We would not presume to ascribe this difference to a simple mistake in draftsmanship.” Russello, supra, at 23. Congress wrote the statute in a manner that provides for liability only for successors in interest to certain signatory operators. If Congress meant to make a preenactment successor in interest like Jericol liable, it could have done so clearly and explicitly.
Therefore, because the statute is explicit as to who may be assigned liability for beneficiaries and neither the “related persons” provision nor any other provision states that successors in interest to signatory operators may be assigned liability, the plain language of the statute necessarily precludes the Commissioner from assigning the disputed miners to Jericol.
IV
The Commissioner admits that the “statute does not state in haec verba that an assignment may be made to a direct successor in interest of the entity that was the signatory operator itself.” Brief for Petitioner 10. Nonetheless, the Commissioner concludes that, in light of the text, structure, and purposes of the Coal Act, such direct successors in interest are included within the liability scheme and should be responsible for a signatory operator’s Combined Fund premiums if the signatory operator itself is defunct and there is no other “related person” still in business. Ibid. We address the Commissioner’s arguments below.
A
The Commissioner proposes several readings of the statute. First, the Commissioner argues that, because the last sentence of § 9701(c)(2)(A) states that the term “related person” “includefs]” a successor in interest of “any person described in clause (i), (ii), or (iii),” and because these clauses mention the “signatory operator” itself, the signatory operator is “described” in clause (i) by virtue of the express reference. Brief for Petitioner 24.
The text of the statute does not support this reading. Where Congress wanted to include successors in interest, it did so clearly and explicitly. See supra, at 452-453. Each category of “related persons” describes a definitive group of persons. § 9701(c)(2). Congress neither created a separate category for signatory operators nor included signatory operators within these categories. It is unlikely that Congress intended to attach liability to a group such as successors in interest to signatory operators through a general clause that was meant to reach persons “described” in one of three explicit categories.
Second, the Commissioner argues that, under § 9701(c)(2) (A)(i), a signatory operator is necessarily a member of a controlled group of corporations that includes itself. Brief for Petitioner 24. This subsection provides that “related persons” include “a member of the controlled group of corporations (within the meaning of section 52(a)) which includes such signatory operator.” §.9701(e)(2)(A)(i). Thus, according to the Commissioner’s logic, if corporation A is a member of a controlled group that includes corporations A, B, and C, then a “successor in interest” of a member of the group of corporations A, B, and C includes a successor in interest of corporation A. Ibid.
Standing alone, the subsection supports the Commissioner’s argument that a signatory operator is necessarily a member of a group of corporations that includes itself. But this provision cannot be divorced from the clause that begins the related persons provision: “A person shall be considered to be a related person to a signatory operator if that person is — § 9701(c)(2)(A) (emphasis added). Under the Commissioner’s reading, the signatory operator would be related to itself. But just as it makes little sense to say that I am a related person to myself, it makes little sense to say that a signatory operator is a related person to itself. The statute therefore necessarily implies that a “related person” is a separate entity from a signatory operator. Moreover, the Commissioner’s argument only works where the signatory operator is actually part of a “controlled group of corporations.” The Commissioner does not account for the situation where a signatory operator is not part of a controlled group. And because the Commissioner does not contend that Shackleford was part of such a controlled group of corporations, this argument, in any event, has no force here.
B
The Commissioner also contends that the background, legislative history, and purposes of the Coal Act confirm that Congress intended that liability for a signatory operator’s employees could be placed on the signatory’s direct successor in interest.
1
As support, the Commissioner turns to the floor statements of Senators Malcolm Wallop and Jay Rockefeller, arguing that, because these Senators sponsored the Coal Act, their views are entitled to special weight. In particular, the Commissioner relies on an explanation of the legislation placed into the record by Senator Wallop, making the point that, in addition to the three categories of related persons, “the statute provides that related persons” includes “(iv) in specific instances successors to the collective bargaining agreement obligations of a signatory operator.” 138 Cong. Rec. 34002 (1992). The Commissioner also points to Senator Rockefeller’s statement that “[t]he term ‘signatory operator,’ as defined in new section 9701(c)(1), includes a successor in interest of such operator.” Id., at 34033.
Floor statements from two Senators cannot amend the clear and unambiguous language of a statute. We see no reason to give greater weight to the views of two Senators than to the collective votes of both Houses, which are memorialized in the unambiguous statutory text.
2
The Commissioner also argues that construing the related person provision to exclude a signatory’s direct successor in interest would be contrary to Congress’ stated purpose of ensuring that each Combined Fund beneficiary’s health care costs is borne (if possible) by the person with the most direct responsibility for the beneficiary, not by persons that had no connection with the beneficiary or by the public fisc. The Commissioner contends that the Court should choose a construction of the statute that effectuates Congress’ “overriding purpose” of avoiding a recurrence of the orphan retiree catastrophe, which was caused in large part by operators avoiding responsibility for their beneficiaries by changing their corporate structures, selling assets, or ceasing operations. See Brief for Petitioner 30.
The Commissioner further suggests that the Court of Appeals’ construction of the statute leads to the counter-intuitive result that a direct successor in interest of a signatory may not be made responsible for a signatory’s beneficiaries — even though such successor liability would be supported by the background principles of successorship— while a more distantly related successor in interest of a corporate affiliate of a signatory operator may be made responsible for the signatory’s beneficiaries. Thus, the Commissioner appears to request that the Court invoke some form of an absurd results test. Id., at 32 (citing United States v. X-Citement Video, Inc., 513 U. S. 64, 70-71 (1994); United States v. Brown, 333 U. S. 18, 27 (1948)).
Respondents correctly note that the Court rarely invokes such a test to override unambiguous legislation. Moreover, respondents offer several explanations for why Congress would have purposefully exempted successors in interest of a signatory operator from the “related person” definition. First, respondents argue that coal operators undoubtedly would have opposed legislation that seriously expanded their liability with respect to miners that they had never employed, and that it is hard to imagine that the 1988 signatory companies would have agreed to a compromise that exposed them to open-ended statutory liability linked to decades of buying, selling, and trading property. Brief for Respondents 39-43.
Second, respondents speculate that Congress may have concluded that injecting coal industry successor issues into the Commissioner’s task, of allocating liability for more than 100,000 UMWA retirees and dependents would consume a disproportionate share of the agency’s resources, create gridlock in the assignment process, precipitate endless operator challenges under the Coal Act’s administrative review process, and thwart implementation of the program. Id., at 43-45. Finally, respondents suggest that Congress could have been concerned about the adverse impact that successor liability might have had on the valuation and sale of union companies and properties. Id., at 45-46.
Where the statutory language is clear and unambiguous, we need neither accept nor reject a particular “plausible” explanation for why Congress would have written a statute that imposes liability on the successors of the companies that fall within the categories of §§ 9701(c)(2)(A)(i) — (iii) but not on successors to the signatory operators themselves. Dissatisfied with the text of the statute, the Commissioner attempts to search for and apply an overarching legislative purpose to each section of the statute. Dissatisfaction, however, is often the cost of legislative compromise. And negotiations surrounding enactment of this bill tell a typical story of legislative battle among interest groups, Congress, and the President. See supra, at 445-446, and nn. 6-7. Indeed, this legislation failed to ease tensions among many of the interested parties. Its delicate crafting reflected a compromise amidst highly interested parties attempting to pull the provisions in different directions. See, e. g., 6 Legislative History 4569-4571. As such, a change in any individual provision could have unraveled the whole. It is quite possible that a bill that assigned liability to successors of signatory operators would not have survived the legislative process. The deals brokered during a Committee markup, on the floor of the two Houses, during a joint House and Senate Conference, or in negotiations with the President, however, are not for us to judge or second-guess.
Our role is to interpret the language of the statute enacted by Congress. This statute does not contain conflicting provisions or ambiguous language. Nor does it require a narrowing construction or application of any other canon or interpretative tool. “We have stated time and again that courts must presume that a legislature says in a statute what it means and means in a statute what it says there. When the words of a statute are unambiguous, then, this first canon is also the last: ‘judicial inquiry is complete.’” Connecticut Nat. Bank v. Germain, 503 U. S. 249, 253-254 (1992) (quoting Rubin v. United States, 449 U. S. 424, 430 (1981)) (citations omitted). We will not alter the text in order to satisfy the policy preferences of the Commissioner. These are battles that should be fought among the political branches and the industry. Those parties should not seek to amend the statute by appeal to the Judicial Branch.
C
The Commissioner’s final argument is that, even if the Coal Act did not affirmatively provide that responsibility for combined fund premiums may be imposed on a signatory’s direct successor, it was reasonable for the Commissioner to conclude that direct successors of a signatory operator should be responsible for the operator’s employees. Congress, however, did not delegate authority to the Commissioner to develop new guidelines or to assign liability in a manner inconsistent with the statute. In the context of an unambiguous statute, we need not contemplate deferring to the agency’s interpretation. See Chevron U. S. A. Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc., 467 U. S. 837, 842-843 (1984).
Accordingly, the judgment of the Court of Appeals is affirmed.
It is so ordered.
A signatory operator is a “coal operatofr] that signed any [National Bituminous Coal Wage Agreement] or any other agreement requiring contributions to the 1950 or 1974 Benefit Plans.” Eastern Enterprises v. Apfel, 524 U. S. 498, 514 (1998); see also 26 U. S. C. § 9701(c)(1) (1994 ed.) (“The term ‘signatory operator’ means a person which is or was a signatory to a coal wage agreement”).
In Eastern Enterprises, 524 U. S., at 504-514, we discussed at great length the history of negotiations between the coal industry and the UMWA over the provision of employee benefits to coal miners. We provide only a brief summary here.
These trusts included the UMWA 1950 Benefit Plan and Trust (1950 Benefit Plan), which provided nonpension benefits including medical benefits for miners who retired before January 1, 1976, and the UMWA 1974 Benefit Plan and Trust (1974 Benefit Plan), which provided such benefits for active miners and those who retired after 1975. Id., at 509.
The term “orphan retirees” encompassed both “true orphans,” whose former employers were no longer in business, and “reachback orphans,” whose former employers were still in business but no longer signatories to a coal wage agreement and possibly no longer in the coal business. House Committee on Ways and Means, Development and Implementation of the Coal Industry Retiree Health Benefit Act of 1992,104th Cong., 1st Sess., 1 (Comm. Print 1995) (hereinafter Development).
See, e. g., McGlothlin v. Connors, 142 F. R. D. 626 (WD Va. 1992). This lawsuit involved the beneficiaries of the 1950 Benefit Plan and the 1974 Benefit Plan, the trustees, and the BCOA. The District Court Judge encouraged them to “zealously seek passage of a bill in Congress to permit the transfer of other funds now in the possession of the Trustees, which are in excess of any future projected needs, to finance the Benefit Trusts.” Id., at 646.
Under the original proposal, introduced by Senator Jay Rockefeller, benefits would have been financed through taxes on the entire coal industry and premiums collected from reachback companies that were considered responsible for specific orphans. Development 12. With support from both the UMWA and the BCOA, but not the Private Benefits Alliance (PBA), a group of nonunion companies, Congress originally passed this bill as part of a comprehensive tax package. See Karr A6. President Bush, however, vetoed the entire package, in part because of the coal tax provisions. Tax Package Veto Kills Bailout Plan; Rockefeller Vows to Find Another Way, Mine Regulation Reporter, Mar. 27, 1992, 1992 WL 2219562. Members of Congress continued to push for legislation, using a comprehensive energy bill as the vehicle. While Senator Rockefeller attempted to add the coal tax provision to the energy bill, his measure was strongly opposed by a number of Senators and by the Bush administration. Cloture Motion on Energy Bill Fails but Dole Says Resolution of Dispute Over Controversial Coal Tax May Be Near; Bush Threatens Veto if it Remains, Foster Natural Gas Report, No. 1886, July 23,1992, p. 1. After much negotiation, the final version of the bill did not include the tax provision and provided that only companies that were party to the NBCWAs would be required to cover retiree health costs. Senate Adopts Compromise Amendment on Funding of Miner Health Benefits, 147 BNA Daily Labor Report No. 147, p. A-12 (July 30, 1992).
The UMWA and the BCOA, for example, had joined forces to support legislation that would require nonunion companies to share in the cost of providing the health benefits, thereby shifting the burden of paying into the funds to the entire industry. By contrast, the PBA, the alliance of nonunion companies, insisted that because they never employed any of the retirees, they should not be forced to pick up the other companies’ obligations. Karr A6.
The term “beneficiary” refers to an individual who “(1) is a coal industry retiree who, on July 20, 1992, was eligible to receive, and receiving, benefits from the 1950 UMWA Benefit Plan or the 1974 UMWA Benefit Plan, or (2) on such date was eligible to receive, and receiving, benefits in either such plan by reason of a relationship to such retiree.” § 9703(f).
Jericol did not appeal the most recent 1997 assignment to the Commissioner, arguing
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer:
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H
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What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Per Curiam.
The motion by Vermont for leave to file a bill oí complaint invoking our original jurisdiction against New York and against International Paper Co., a New York corporation doing business in New York, is granted. New York and International Paper Co. are given until June 19, 1972, to answer the bill of complaint.
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:
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I
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What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Mr. Justice Jackson
delivered the opinion of the Court.
This action by a lessee of coal-mining rights in public lands seeks to prevent leasing of similar rights in other lands to a competitor. The case is before us only on pleadings. The original complaint was dismissed by the District Court on several grounds but the Court of Appeals affirmed only on the ground that the complaint showed no standing to sue, there being no allegation of special injury to any property right of plaintiff. Sheridan-Wyoming Coal Co. v. Krug, 83 U. S. App. D. C. 162, 168 F. 2d 557. It gave leave to apply to the District Court to amend in this respect. The District Court denied the privilege, however, holding that the proposed new matter added nothing material, and that amendment would be idle and needlessly prolong the litigation. This, we think, was equivalent in effect to sustaining a demurrer to the amended complaint and requires us to treat well-pleaded facts as true. On this basis, the Court of Appeals reversed and, in substance, held that the amended complaint does state a cause of action. 84 U. S. App. D. C. 288, 172 F. 2d 282. We granted certiorari. 338 U. S. 810.
The hypothesis on which the legal issues are to be decided is this:
At all relevant times the following regulation, promulgated by the Secretary of the Interior, has been in effect:
“Showing required that an additional coal mine is needed. The General Land Office will make favorable recommendation that leasing units be segregated and that auctions be authorized only in cases where there has been furnished a satisfactory showing that an additional coal mine is needed and that there is an actual need for coal which cannot otherwise be reasonably met.” 43 CFR 1938, § 193.3.
It originated in 1934, when the coal industry was demoralized by excess production capacity described in opinions of this Court. Appalachian Coals, Inc. v. United States, 288 U. S. 344, 361; Carter v. Carter Coal Co., 298 U. S. 238, opinion of Cardozo, J., 324, 330; Sunshine Anthracite Coal Co. v. Adkins, 310 U. S. 381, 395. The policy which the Department embodied in this regulation, and to which it has since adhered, was stated in letters of the Secretary set forth in the margin.
In September, 1943, the Sheridan-Wyoming Coal Company leased additional lands located in Wyoming for coal-mining purposes from the Government and, “in reliance upon the Regulation,” has expended large sums in development and built up a prosperous business in the rather low-grade coal mined and largely consumed in that region.
In December, 1943, the Big Horn Company applied for a lease of nearby lands for production of competitive coal, and in 1945 applied for additional lands. Meanwhile Big Horn already had established mines on partially exhausted state-owned lands and desired the federal lands to prolong its business. The Sheridan-Wyoming Company, among others, protested on the basis of the regulation. The protest, after hearings, was overruled and, unless prevented, the Secretary will lease to Big Horn. The Secretary has made no finding that there is need for any additional supply of coal and, in fact, there is no such need. If he leases to Big Horn, the two companies will have capacity to produce in excess of the demand for that grade of coal in the limited market. The in vestment, of Sheridan-Wyoming will be substantially impaired and its volume of sales decreased and profitable markets lost. About these three ultimate facts — the regulation, the lease and the threatened lease to a competitor — the parties have argued several intricate and interesting questions as to the standing of the plaintiff to sue, whether the suit really is one against the United States without sovereign consent and whether the Secretary has abused his power in entertaining the application of Big Horn. These questions we do not need to discuss because of the view we take of more fundamental aspects of the case. We think the facts give rise to no cause of action, because the proposed lease does not breach any contract right or invade any property right of plaintiff and does not violate any law. Hence, the leasing is within the discretionary power of the Secretary and courts will not review its exercise.
I. Contract Rights.
The court below has sustained the complaint for the principal reason that a lease to Big Horn would breach the lease to plaintiff and that plaintiff has a property right to have the lands involved withheld from lease.
It is only on this basis of its property rights, created by contract, that plaintiff has been held to have standing to sue; for, if it has such rights, the court below truly said, “The prevention of a breach of a restrictive provision in a contract is one of equity’s most usual functions.” Credited with “the status of one claiming a property right by contract, threatened with invasion,” the plaintiff has been termed by the Court of Appeals “possessor of a valuable right, created by contract in the presence of valid and binding restrictive regulations.”
Of course, no express covenant of plaintiff’s lease restricts the Secretary from leasing other lands to other applicants. The restrictive covenant is sought to be supplied by implication. The lease, it is reasoned, was expressly made subject to the Mineral Lands Leasing Act, 41 Stat. 437, as amended, 30 U. S. C. §§ 181 et seq.; the lease constructively includes the statute; the regulation which was not referred to in the lease nevertheless had the force and sanction of statute; hence, the restrictive regulation was a covenant of the lease. It is said the threatened lease would violate the regulation. For the purpose of testing the contract-right theory, we shall assume that it does so.
What is the contract property right assumed? It is a right to nondevelopment of coal reserves in an indeterminate but substantial part of the public domain for benefit of its own lease. It is not a right necessary to the fullest physical development and enjoyment of all the lands plaintiff acquired for itself, and is one not normally appurtenant to real estate. The assumed covenant is purely negative in character and its whole burden is upon other premises owned by the United States in which the plaintiff has no other interest. They are premises, moreover, in which it is doubtful whether plaintiff could lawfully acquire any other interest in view of the limited areas which the statute allows to one lessee. By the assumed covenant, alienation and utilization of public lands in the manner authorized by Congress is restricted. This is for an unstated and indeterminable period. And it is accomplished not by a covenant expressed in the lease itself, but by one read into it from the regulations.
A competent grantor by appropriate covenants could, of course, convey the right claimed here, and equity would enforce it. But when a right “consists in restraining the owner from doing that with, and upon, his property which, but for the grant or covenant, he might lawfully have done,” it is an easement, sometimes called a negative easement, or an amenity. Trustees v. Lynch, 70 N. Y. 440, 447. “An equitable restriction,” which prevents development of property by building on it, has been said to be “an easement, or servitude in the nature of an easement,” a “right in the nature of an easement,” and an “interest iií a contractual stipulation which is made for their common benefit.” Such “equitable restrictions” are real estate, part and parcel of the land to which they are attached and pass by conveyance. Riverbank Improvement Co. v. Chadwick, 228 Mass. 242, 246, 117 N. E. 244, 245. A contractual restriction which limits the use one may make of his own lands in favor of another and his lands is “sometimes called a negative easement, which is the right in the owner of the dominant tenement to restrict the owner of the servient tenement in the exercise of general and natural rights of property.” It is an interest in lands which can pass only by deed and is in every legal sense an incumbrance. Uihlein v. Matthews, 172 N. Y. 154, 158, 64 N. E. 792, 793.
But whatever we might determine to be the technical nature of the collateral property right claimed to result from Sheridan’s lease, to any extent that it added a property right to the plaintiff’s lands it created an incumbrance or subtraction from the aggregate of rights in the United States. Courts would not lightly imply against any land owner a covenant which would restrict alienation or enjoyment of his estate. There are even stronger reasons against implied covenants imposing easements, servitudes, amenities or restrictions upon the public lands.
The Mineral Lands Leasing Acts confer broad powers on the Secretary as leasing agent for the Government. We find nothing that expressly prevents him from taking into consideration whether a public interest will be served or injured by opening a particular mine. But we find no grant of authority to create a private contract right that would override his continuing duty to be governed by the public interest in deciding to lease or withhold leases.
The leasing Acts strictly limit the area which any one lessee may acquire, either directly or indirectly. 30 U. S. C. § 184. But if, in taking up a permitted allotment of public lands, one may acquire a right that other areas far more extensive must lie fallow and unused for the benefit of his lands, he is acquiring an interest in prohibited lands and an interest that may be worth many times that interest which the statute allows him. And it is acquired without additional purchase price, rental, or royalty.
Moreover, it is not denied that the effect of sustaining plaintiff’s suit would be to create a monopoly. Of course, it is a little one, limited to low-grade coal and to an advantageous shipping zone. Big Horn, if it gets no lease, must eventually go out of business, leaving its customers to Sheridan. And the United States could not for some period — we do not know how long — admit any other competitor to the field, unless it can be shown that Sheridan’s supply is not equal to the market. It may, however, continue to acquire additional reserves as its own approach exhaustion. The whole claim of damage here is that competition from Big Horn will impair this snug little monopoly of the market to which plaintiff thinks it has acquired a property right.
But the policy of the leasing statute looks the other way. Besides limiting the leasehold of any one lessee, it prevents mineral rights, on pain of forfeiture, from passing into the hands of any unlawful trust or becoming the subject of any contract or conspiracy in restraint of trade. 30 U. S. C. § 184. Its whole policy seems to contemplate the opening of the public domain to competitive exploitation. It nowhere authorizes anyone to grant or to obtain exclusive rights of access to these coal resources. What lessees can acquire from the Government is a supply of coal, not an exclusive market. We do not say that the Secretary may not withhold, or by regulation provide for withholding, lands from lease because the public interest would be injured, through impairing private business, from excess production capacity. But we find no authority to freeze this public interest into an irrevocable private property right.
The allegations of the amended complaint therefore do not show a cause of action to enforce a restrictive covenant or property right against leasing other public lands as authorized by statute.
II. Violation op Law or Regulation.
Since the District Court was overruled by the Court of Appeals only because of the latter’s property rights theory and since the complaint without these allegations had earlier been held insufficient, it may be questioned whether other grounds to sustain the judgment below can be availed of. But even if the allegations fail to show a property right that equity will protect, they might be sufficient to show a special injury or interest, such as would enable plaintiff to raise the question of violation of law or regulation in the proposed leasing. To end a litigation already pending too long, we assume, without deciding, that plaintiff may raise this issue which we now consider.
The only claim of law violation is that the Secretary is proposing to violate his own regulation, promulgated pursuant to the Act and hence having the force of law. That it binds him as well as others while it is in effect is not doubted.
The regulation on literal reading does not purport to prohibit the Secretary from any leasing unless need for new mines be shown. It does direct the General Land Office (now the Bureau of Land Management) to find need for additional capacity before recommending new leasing. Its recommendation, however, is only advisory and can be overruled or disregarded. On its face, therefore, the regulation would seem to be directed primarily to a procedural matter within the Department of the Interior. However, it is claimed that the letters of Secretary Ickes at the time it was adopted and the uniform practice since, show it to have been a regulation fixing a controlling policy. We proceed on that assumption.
In the case before us the Secretary neither repudiates the regulation nor stands upon any right to depart from it. He says that, properly construed, it does not apply to the proposed Big Horn lease. It only prevents a lease which will introduce a new competitor to the field and not, he says, a lease which would only enable an existing mine and an established business to continue. Sheridan argues that this reasoning sanctions an evasion of the regulation in that Big Horn opened its mine on partially depleted state lands knowing it must get federal lands also or quit. The implication is that state lands were used as a sort of portal in which to stand while prying a federal lease out from under the regulation. Plaintiff insists that the Secretary is required to act in the light of conditions when Big Horn first applied, and not as of now when it has built up a going business on the inadequate state leases, aided by war conditions.
But the action is one in equity, and “equity will administer such relief as the exigencies of the case demand at the close of the trial.” Bloomquist v. Farson, 222 N. Y. 375, 380, 118 N. E. 855, 856; Lightfoot v. Davis, 198 N. Y. 261, 273, 91 N. E. 582, 586. The question on injunction is whether the action threatened will be a violation if it now takes place in light of conditions shown by the proposed amended complaint. That pleads findings of the Department which show what has happened since the Big Horn application was filed. Without recourse to federal lands, it has established a mine and a business in the face of Sheridan competition. If time has improved Big Horn’s position in this respect, it must be noted that the delay in acting on its application has been largely due to plaintiff’s protests and litigations.
We think a court of equity cannot term unreasonable the view of the Secretary that Big Horn’s lease is not for “an additional coal mine,” need for which must be proved. It does not use federal reserves to add a new competitor to the market. It uses them to keep one there. We think the distinction is substantial and the Secretary’s interpretation of the regulation is permissible, even if not inevitable. The declining market following the war and the growing use of oil may present difficult problems of survival for government lessees and of fair dealing for the Secretary. But courts can intervene only where legal rights are invaded or the law violated.
We think the District Court rightly concluded that the amended complaint fails to state a legal case for the relief asked. Accordingly, the judgment below is
Reversed.
Mr. Justice Douglas took no part in the consideration or decision of this case.
“Exhibit ‘A’
“Excerpt from Letter of January 24, 1934, from the Secretary of the Interior to the Director of the Bureau of Geological Survey.
“The question of the advisability of withholding new leases of coal lands of the United States has been presented to me.
“It is clear from the language of section 2 of the leasing act of February 25, 1920 (41 Stat. 437), and from the interpretation given to Section 13 of that act, relating to oil and gas, by the Supreme Court in the case of United States v. Wilbur, 283 U. S. 414, that it is within the discretionary authority of the Secretary of the Interior whether he shall issue any coal leases and coal prospecting permits. In the present situation of the coal industry it is desirable that very few, if any, new coal leases or prospecting permits be issued.
“Taking into consideration, however, that there may be some eases where new small coal mines for local needs are advisable and that there may also be cases where leases for shipping mines should not be denied, it is thought that no general order should be issued in effect suspending the operation of the leasing act as to new coal leases and prospecting permits. It is believed that substantially the same result can be reached by declining to offer coal lands for lease or to grant prospecting permits unless an actual need for coal which cannot otherwise be reasonably purchased or obtained is shown. . . .
“Hereafter the offering of coal lands for lease by competitive bidding or the granting of prospecting permits should not be recommended unless you have reliable information that there is an actual need for coal which cannot otherwise be reasonably met.”
“Exhibit ‘B’
“Excerpt prom Letter or January 24, 1934, prom the Secretary op the Interior to the Commissioner op the General Land Oppice.
“In the present situation of the coal industry it is desirable that very few, if any, new coal leases or prospecting permits be issued.
“Taking into consideration, however, that there may be some cases where new small coal mines for local needs are advisable and that there may also be cases where leases for shipping mines should not be denied, it is thought that no general order should be issued in effect suspending the leasing act as to new coal leases and prospecting permits. It is believed that substantially the same result can be reached by declining to offer coal lands for lease or to grant prospecting permits unless an actual need is shown for coal which cannot otherwise be reasonably purchased or obtained. . . .
“It is advisable that you in the first instance require lease applicants to show fully the need for additional production of coal.”
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer:
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I
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sc_issuearea
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What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Justice White
delivered the opinion of the Court.
This case concerns commercial relations among certain Indiana dentists, their patients, and the patients’ dental health care insurers. The question presented is whether the Federal Trade Commission correctly concluded that a conspiracy among dentists to refuse to submit x rays to dental insurers for use in benefits determinations constituted an “unfair method of competition” in violation of §5 of the Federal Trade Commission Act, 38 Stat. 719, as amended, 15 U. S. C. §45 (1982 ed. and Supp. II).
I
Since the 1970’s, dental health insurers, responding to the demands of their policyholders, have attempted to contain the cost of dental treatment by, among other devices, limiting payment of benefits to the cost of the “least expensive yet adequate treatment” suitable to the needs of individual patients. Implementation of such cost-containment measures, known as “alternative benefits” plans, requires evaluation by the insurer of the diagnosis and recommendation of the treating dentist, either in advance of or following the provision of care. In order to carry out such evaluation, insurers frequently request dentists to submit, along with insurance claim forms requesting payment of benefits, any dental x rays that have been used by the dentist in examining the patient as well as other information concerning their diagnoses and treatment recommendations. Typically, claim forms and accompanying x rays are reviewed by lay claims examiners, who either approve payment of claims or, if the materials submitted raise a question whether the recommended course of treatment is in fact necessary, refer claims to dental consultants, who are licensed dentists, for further review. On the basis of the materials available, supplemented where appropriate by further diagnostic aids, the dental consultant may recommend that the insurer approve a claim, deny it, or pay only for a less expensive course of treatment.
Such review of diagnostic and treatment decisions has been viewed by some dentists as a threat to their professional independence and economic well-being. In the early 1970’s, the Indiana Dental Association, a professional organization comprising some 85% of practicing dentists in the State of Indiana, initiated an aggressive effort to hinder insurers’ efforts to implement alternative benefits plans by enlisting member dentists to pledge no.t to submit x rays in conjunction with claim forms. The Association’s efforts met considerable success: large numbers of dentists signed the pledge, and insurers operating in Indiana found it difficult to obtain compliance with their requests for x rays and accordingly had to choose either to employ more expensive means of making alternative benefits determinations (for example, visiting the office of the treating dentist or conducting an independent oral examination) or to abandon such efforts altogether.
By the mid-1970’s, fears of possible antitrust liability had dampened the Association’s enthusiasm for opposing the submission of x rays to insurers. In 1979, the Association and a number of its constituent societies consented to a Federal Trade Commission order requiring them to cease and desist from further efforts to prevent member dentists from submitting x rays. In re Indiana Dental Assn., 93 F. T. C. 392. Not all Indiana dentists were content to leave the matter of submitting x rays to the individual dentist. In 1976, a group of such dentists formed the Indiana Federation of Dentists, respondent in this case, in order to continue to pursue the Association’s policy of resisting insurers’ requests for x rays. The Federation, which styled itself a “union” in the belief that this label would stave off antitrust liability, immediately promulgated a “work rule” forbidding its members to submit x rays to dental insurers in conjunction with claim forms. Although the Federation’s membership was small, numbering less than 100, its members were highly concentrated in and around three Indiana communities: Anderson, Lafayette, and Fort Wayne. The Federation succeeded in enlisting nearly 100% of the dental specialists in the Anderson area, and approximately 67% of the dentists in and around Lafayette. In the areas of its strength, the Federation was successful in continuing to enforce the Association’s prior policy of refusal to submit x rays to dental insurers.
In 1978, the Federal Trade Commission issued a complaint against the Federation, alleging in substance that its efforts to prevent its members from complying with insurers’ requests for x rays constituted an unfair method of competition in violation of §5 of the Federal Trade Commission Act. Following lengthy proceedings including a full evidentiary hearing before an Administrative Law Judge, the Commission ruled that the Federation’s policy constituted a violation of § 5 and issued an order requiring the Federation to cease and desist from further efforts to organize dentists to refuse to submit x rays to insurers. In re Indiana Federation of Dentists, 101 F. T. C. 57 (1983). The Commission based its ruling on the conclusion that the Federation’s policy of requiring its members to withhold x rays amounted to a conspiracy in restraint of trade that was unreasonable and hence unlawful under the standards for judging such restraints developed in this Court’s precedents interpreting §1 of the Sherman Act. E. g., Chicago Board of Trade v. United States, 246 U. S. 231 (1918); National Society of Professional Engineers v. United States, 435 U. S. 679 (1978). The Commission found that the Federation had conspired both with the Indiana Dental Association and with its own members to withhold cooperation with dental insurers’ requests for x rays; that absent such a restraint, competition among dentists for patients would have tended to lead dentists to compete with respect to their policies in dealing with patients’ insurers; and that in those areas where the Federation’s membership was strong, the Federation’s policy had had the actual effect of eliminating such competition among dentists and preventing insurers from obtaining access to x rays in the desired manner. These findings of anticompetitive effect, the Commission concluded, were sufficient to establish that the restraint was unreasonable even absent proof that the Federation’s policy had resulted in higher costs to the insurers and patients than would have occurred had the x rays been provided. Further, the Commission rejected the Federation’s argument that its policy of withholding x rays was reasonable because the provision of x rays might lead the insurers to make inaccurate determinations of the proper level of care and thus injure the health of the insured patients: the Commission found no evidence that use of x rays by insurance companies in evaluating claims would result in inadequate dental care. Finally, the Commission rejected the Federation’s contention that its actions were exempt from antitrust scrutiny because the withholding of x rays was consistent with the law and policy of the State of Indiana against the use of x rays in benefit determination by insurance companies. The Commission concluded that no such policy existed, and that in any event the existence of such a policy would not have justified the dentists’ private and unsupervised conspiracy in restraint of trade.
The Federation sought judicial review of the Commission’s order in the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, which vacated the order on the ground that it was not supported by substantial evidence. 745 F. 2d 1124 (1984). Accepting the Federation’s characterization of its rule against submission of x rays as merely an ethical and moral policy designed to enhance the welfare of dental patients, the majority concluded that the Commission’s findings that the policy was anticompetitive were erroneous. According to the majority, the evidence did not support the finding that in the absence of restraint dentists would compete for patients by offering cooperation with the requests of the patients’ insurers, nor, even accepting that finding, was there evidence that the Federation’s efforts had prevented such competition. Further, the court held that the Commission’s findings were inadequate because of its failure both to offer a precise definition of the market in which the Federation was alleged to have restrained competition and to establish that the Federation had the power to restrain competition in that market. Finally, the majority faulted the Commission for not finding that the alleged restraint on competition among dentists had actually resulted in higher dental costs to patients and insurers. The third member of the Court of Appeals panel concurred in the judgment solely on the ground that there was insufficient proof that cooperation with insurers was an element of dental services as to which dentists would tend to compete.
We granted certiorari, 474 U. S. 900 (1985), in order to consider the Commission’s claim that in vacating the Commission’s order the Court of Appeals misconstrued applicable principles of antitrust law and “‘misapprehended or grossly misapplied’ the substantial evidence test,” American Textile Manufacturers Institute, Inc. v. Donovan, 452 U. S. 490, 523 (1981) (citation omitted). We now reverse.
II
The issue is whether the Commission erred in holding that the Federation’s policy of refusal to submit x rays to dental insurers for use in benefits determinations constituted an “unfair method of competition,” unlawful under §5 of the Federal Trade Commission Act. The question involves review of both factual and legal determinations. As to the former, our review is governed by 15 U. S. C. § 45(c), which provides that “[t]he findings of the Commission as to the facts, if supported by evidence, shall be conclusive.” The statute forbids a court to “make its own appraisal of the testimony, picking and choosing for itself among uncertain and conflicting inferences.” FTC v. Algoma Lumber Co., 291 U. S. 67, 73 (1934). Rather, as under the essentially identical “substantial evidence” standard for review of agency factfinding, the court must accept the Commission’s findings of fact if they are supported by “such relevant evidence as a reasonable mind might accept as adequate to support a conclusion.” Universal Camera Corp. v. NLRB, 340 U. S. 474, 477 (1951); see also Beneficial Corp. v. FTC, 542 F. 2d 611, 616 (CA3 1976), cert. denied, 430 U. S. 983 (1977).
The legal issues presented — that is, the identification of governing legal standards and their application to the facts found — are, by contrast, for the courts to resolve, although even in considering such issues the courts are to give some deference to the Commission’s informed judgment that a particular commercial practice is to. be condemned as “unfair.” See FTC v. Sperry & Hutchinson Co., 405 U. S. 233 (1972); Atlantic Refining Co. v. FTC, 381 U. S. 357, 367-368 (1965); FTC v. Cement Institute, 333 U. S. 683, 720 (1948). The standard of “unfairness” under the FTC Act is, by necessity, an elusive one, encompassing not only practices that violate the Sherman Act and the other antitrust laws, see FTC v. Cement Institute, supra, at 689-695, but also practices that the Commission determines are against public policy for other reasons, see FTC v. Sperry & Hutchinson Co., 405 U. S., at 244. Once the Commission has chosen a particular legal rationale for holding a practice to be unfair, however, familiar principles of administrative law dictate that its decision must stand or fall on that basis, and a reviewing court may not consider other reasons why the practice might be deemed unfair. See id., at 245-250; cf. SEC v. Chenery Corp., 318 U. S. 80 (1943). In the case now before us, the sole basis of the FTC’s finding of an unfair method of competition was the Commission’s conclusion that the Federation’s collective decision to withhold x rays from insurers was an unreasonable and conspiratorial restraint of trade in violation of §1 of the Sherman Act, 26 Stat. 209, as amended, 15 U. S. C. § 1. Accordingly, the legal question before us is whether the Commission’s factual findings, if supported by evidence, make out a violation of Sherman Act § 1.
Ill
The relevant factual findings are that the members of the Federation conspired among themselves to withhold x rays requested by dental insurers for use in evaluating claims for benefits, and that this conspiracy had the effect of suppressing competition among dentists with respect to cooperation with the requests of the insurance companies. As to the first of these findings there can be no serious dispute: abundant evidence in the record reveals that one of the primary reasons — if not the primary reason — for the Federation’s existence was the promulgation and enforcement of the so-called “work rule” against submission of x rays in conjunction with insurance claim forms.
As for the second crucial finding — that competition was actually suppressed — the Seventh Circuit held it to be unsupported by the evidence, on two theories. First, the court stated that the evidence did not establish that cooperation with requests for information by patients’ insurance companies was an aspect of the provision of dental services with respect to which dentists would, in the absence of some restraint, compete. Second, the court found that even assuming that dentists would otherwise compete with respect to policies of cooperating or not cooperating with insurance companies, the Federation’s policy did not impair that competition, for the member dentists continued to allow insurance companies to use other means of evaluating their diagnoses when reviewing claims for benefits: specifically, “the IFD member dentists allowed insurers to visit the dental office to review and examine the patient’s x rays along with all of the other diagnostic and clinical aids used in formulating a proper course of dental treatment.” 745 F. 2d, at 1143.
Neither of these criticisms of the Commission’s findings is well founded. The Commission’s finding that “[i]n the absence of . . . concerted behavior, individual dentists would have been subject to market forces of competition, creating incentives for them to . . . comply with the requests of patients’ third-party insurers,” 101 F. T. C., at 173, finds support not only in common sense and economic theory, upon both of which the FTC may reasonably rely, but also in record documents, including newsletters circulated among Indiana dentists, revealing that Indiana dentists themselves perceived that unrestrained competition tended to lead their colleagues to comply with insurers’ requests for x rays. See App. to Pet. for Cert. 289a, 306a-308a. Moreover, there was evidence that outside of Indiana, in States where dentists had not collectively refused to submit x rays, insurance companies found little difficulty in obtaining compliance by dentists with their requests. 101 F. T. C., at 172. A “reasonable mind” could conclude on the basis of this evidence that competition for patients, who have obvious incentives for seeking dentists who will cooperate with their insurers, would tend to lead dentists in Indiana (and elsewhere) to cooperate with requests for information by their patients’ insurers.
The Commission’s finding that such competition was actually diminished where the Federation held sway also finds adequate support in the record. The Commission found that in the areas where Federation membership among dentists was most significant (that is, in the vicinity of Anderson and Lafayette) insurance companies were unable to obtain compliance with their requests for submission of x rays in conjunction with claim forms and were forced to resort to other, more costly, means of reviewing diagnoses for the purpose of benefit determination. Neither the opinion of the Court of Appeals nor the brief of respondent identifies any evidence suggesting that the Commission’s finding that the Federation’s policy had an actual impact on the ability of insurers to obtain the x rays they requested was incorrect. The lower court’s conclusion that this evidence is to be discounted because Federation members continued to cooperate with insurers by allowing them to use more costly — indeed, prohibitively costly — methods of reviewing treatment decisions is unpersuasive. The fact remains that the dentists’ customers (that is, the patients and their insurers) sought a particular service: cooperation with the insurers’ pretreatment review through the forwarding of x rays in conjunction with claim forms. The Federation’s collective activities resulted in the denial of the information the customers requested in the form that they requested it, and forced them to choose between acquiring that information in a more costly manner or forgoing it altogether. To this extent, at least, competition among dentists with respect to cooperation with the requests of insurers was restrained.
IV
The question remains whether these findings are legally sufficient to establish a violation of § 1 of the Sherman Act— that is, whether the Federation’s collective refusal to cooperate with insurers’ requests for x rays constitutes an “unreasonable” restraint of trade. Under our precedents, a restraint may be adjudged unreasonable either because it fits within a class of restraints that has been held to be “per se” unreasonable, or because it violates what has come to be known as the “Rule of Reason,” under which the “test of legality is whether the restraint imposed is such as merely regulates and perhaps thereby promotes competition or whether it is such as may suppress or even destroy competition.” Chicago Board of Trade v. United States, 246 U. S., at 238.
The policy of the Federation with respect to its members’ dealings with third-party insurers resembles practices that have been labeled “group boycotts”: the policy constitutes a concerted refusal to deal on particular terms with patients covered by group dental insurance. Cf. St. Paul Fire & Marine Insurance Co. v. Barry, 438 U. S. 531 (1978); Paramount Famous Lasky Corp. v. United States, 282 U. S. 30 (1930). Although this Court has in the past stated that group boycotts are unlawful per se, see United States v. General Motors Corp., 384 U. S. 127 (1966); Klor’s, Inc. v. Broadway-Hale Stores, Inc. 359 U. S. 207 (1959), we decline to resolve this case by forcing the Federation’s policy into the “boycott” pigeonhole and invoking the per se rule. As we observed last Term in Northwest Wholesale Stationers, Inc. v. Pacific Stationery & Printing Co., 472 U. S. 284 (1985), the category of restraints classed as group boycotts is not to be expanded indiscriminately, and the per se approach has generally been limited to eases in which firms with market power boycott suppliers or customers in order to discourage them from doing business with a competitor — a situation obviously not present here. Moreover, we have been slow to condemn rules adopted by professional associations as unreasonable per se, see National Society of Professional Engineers v. United States, 435 U. S. 679 (1978), and, in general, to extend per se analysis to restraints imposed in the context of business relationships where the economic impact of certain practices is not immediately obvious, see Broadcast Music, Inc. v. Columbia Broadcasting System, Inc., 441 U. S. 1 (1979). Thus, as did the FTC, we evaluate the restraint at issue in this case under the Rule of Reason rather than a rule of per se illegality.
Application of the Rule of Reason to these facts is not a matter óf any great difficulty. The Federation’s policy takes the form of a horizontal agreement among the participating dentists to withhold from their customers a particular service that they desire — the forwarding of x rays to insurance companies along with claim forms. “While this is not price fixing as such, no elaborate industry analysis is required to demonstrate the anticompetitive character of such an agreement.” National Society of Professional Engineers, supra, at 692. A refusal to compete with respect to the package of services offered to customers, no less than a refusal to compete with respect to the price term of an agreement, impairs the ability of the market to advance social welfare by ensuring the provision of desired goods and services to consumers at a price approximating the marginal cost of providing them. Absent some countervailing procompetitive virtue — such as, for example, the creation of efficiencies in the operation of a market or the provision of goods and services, see Broadcast Music, Inc. v. Columbia Broadcasting System, Inc., supra; Chicago Board of Trade, supra; cf. National Collegiate Athletic Assn. v. Board of Regents of Univ. of Okla., 468 U. S. 85 (1984)—such an agreement limiting consumer choice by impeding the “ordinary give and take of the market place,” National Society of Professional Engineers, supra, at 692, cannot be sustained under the Rule of Reason. No credible argument has been advanced for the proposition that making it more costly for the insurers and patients who are the dentists’ customers to obtain information needed for evaluating the dentists’ diagnoses has any such procompetitive effect.
The Federation advances three principal arguments for the proposition that, notwithstanding its lack of competitive virtue, the Federation’s policy of withholding x rays should not be deemed an unreasonable restraint of trade. First, as did the Court of Appeals, the Federation suggests that in the absence of specific findings by the Commission concerning the definition of the market in which the Federation allegedly restrained trade and the power of the Federation’s members in that market, the conclusion that the Federation unreasonably restrained trade is erroneous as a matter of law, regardless of whether the challenged practices might be impermissibly anticompetitive if engaged in by persons who together possessed power in a specifically defined market. This contention, however, runs counter to the Court’s holding in National Collegiate Athletic Assn. v. Board of Regents of Univ. of Okla., supra, that “[a]s a matter of law, the absence of proof of market power does not justify a naked restriction on price or output,” and that such a restriction “requires some competitive justification even in the absence of a detailed market analysis.” Id., at 109-110. Moreover, even if the restriction imposed by the Federation is not sufficiently “naked” to call this principle into play, the Commission’s failure to engage in detailed market analysis is not fatal to its finding of a violation of the Rule of Reason. The Commission found that in two localities in the State of Indiana (the Anderson and Lafayette areas), Federation dentists constituted heavy majorities of the practicing dentists and that as a result of the efforts of the Federation, insurers in those areas were, over a period of years, actually unable to obtain compliance with their requests for submission of x rays. Since the purpose of the inquiries into market definition and market power is to determine whether an arrangement has the potential for genuine adverse effects on competition, “proof of actual detrimental effects, such as a reduction of output,” can obviate the need for an inquiry into market power, which is but a “surrogate for detrimental effects.” 7 P. Areeda, Antitrust Law ¶ 1511, p. 429 (1986). In this case, we conclude that the finding of actual, sustained adverse effects on competition in those areas where IFD dentists predominated, viewed in light of the reality that markets for dental services tend to be relatively localized, is legally sufficient to support a finding that the challenged restraint was unreasonable even in the absence of elaborate market analysis.
Second, the Federation, again following the lead of the Court of Appeals, argues that a holding that its policy of withholding x rays constituted an unreasonable restraint of trade is precluded by the Commission’s failure to make any finding that the policy resulted in the provision of dental services that were more costly than those that the patients and their insurers would have chosen were they able to evaluate x rays in conjunction with claim forms. This argument, too, is unpersuasive. Although it is true that the goal of the insurers in seeking submission of x rays for use in their review of benefits claims was to minimize costs by choosing the least expensive adequate course of dental treatment, a showing that this goal was actually achieved through the means chosen is not an essential step in establishing that the dentists’ attempt to thwart its achievement by collectively refusing to supply the requested information was an unreasonable restraint of trade. A concerted and effective effort to withhold (or make more costly) information desired by consumers for the purpose of determining whether a particular purchase is cost justified is likely enough to disrupt the proper functioning of the price-setting mechanism of the market that it may be condemned even absent proof that it resulted in higher prices or, as here, the purchase of higher priced services, than would occur in its absence. National Society of Professional Engineers v. United States, 435 U. S. 679 (1978). Moreover, even if the desired information were in fact completely useless to the insurers and their patients in making an informed choice regarding the least costly adequate course of treatment — or, to put it another way, if the costs of evaluating the information were far greater than the cost savings resulting from its use — the Federation would still not be justified in deciding on behalf of its members’ customers that they did not need the information: presumably, if that were the case, the discipline of the market would itself soon result in the insurers’ abandoning their requests for x rays. The Federation is not entitled to pre-empt the working of the market by deciding for itself that its customers do not need that which they demand.
Third, the Federation complains that the Commission erred in failing to consider, as relevant to its Rule of Reason analysis, noncompetitive “quality of care” justifications for the prohibition on provision of x rays to insurers in conjunction with claim forms. This claim reflects the Court of Appeals’ repeated characterization of the Federation’s policy as a “legal, moral, and ethical policy of quality dental care, requiring that insurers examine and review all diagnostic and clinical aids before formulating a proper course of dental treatment.” 745 F. 2d, at 1144. The gist of the claim is that x rays, standing alone, are not adequate bases for diagnosis of dental problems or for the formulation of an acceptable course of treatment. Accordingly, if insurance companies are permitted to determine whether they will pay a claim for dental treatment on the basis of x rays as opposed to a full examination of all the diagnostic aids available to the examining dentist, there is a danger that they will erroneously decline to pay for treatment that is in fact in the interest of the patient, and that the patient will as a result be deprived of fully adequate care.
The Federation’s argument is flawed both legally and factually. The premise of the argument is that, far from having no effect on the cost of dental services chosen by patients and their insurers, the provision of x rays will have too great an impact: it will lead to the reduction of costs through the selection of inadequate treatment. Precisely such a justification for withholding information from customers was rejected as illegitimate in the National Society of Professional Engineers case. The argument is, in essence, that an unrestrained market in which consumers are given access to the information they believe to be relevant to their choices will lead them to make unwise and even dangerous choices. Such an argument amounts to “nothing less than a frontal assault on the basic policy of the Sherman Act.” National Society of Professional Engineers, supra, at 695. Moreover, there is no particular reason to believe that the provision of information will be more harmful to consumers in the market for dental services than in other markets. Insurers deciding what level of care to pay for are not themselves the recipients of those services, but it is by no means clear that they lack incentives to consider the welfare of the patient as well as the minimization of costs. They are themselves in competition for the patronage of the patients — or, in most cases, the unions or businesses that contract on their behalf for group insurance coverage — and must satisfy their potential customers not only that they will provide coverage at a reasonable cost, but also that that coverage will be adequate to meet their customers’ dental needs. There is thus no more reason to expect dental insurance companies to sacrifice quality in return for cost savings than to believe this of consumers in, say, the market for engineering services. Accordingly, if noncompetitive quality-of-service justifications are inadmissible to justify the denial of information to consumers in the latter market, there is little reason to credit such justifications here.
In any event, the Commission did not, as the Federation suggests, refuse even to consider the quality-of-care justification for the withholding of x rays. Rather, the Commission held that the Federation had failed to introduce sufficient evidence to establish such a justification: “IFD has not pointed to any evidence — or even argued — that any consumers have in fact been harmed by alternative benefits determinations, or that actual determinations have been medically erroneous.” 101 F. T. C., at 177. The evidence before the Administrative Law Judge on this issue appears to have consisted entirely of expert opinion testimony, with the Federation’s experts arguing that x rays generally provide an insufficient basis, standing alone, for dental diagnosis, and the Commission’s experts testifying that x rays may be useful in assessing diagnosis of and appropriate treatment for a variety of dental complaints. Id., at 128-132. The Commission was amply justified in concluding on the basis of this conflicting evidence that even if concern for the quality of patient care could under some circumstances serve as a justification for a restraint of the sort imposed here, the evidence did not support a finding that the careful use of x rays as a basis for evaluating insurance claims is in fact destructive of proper standards of dental care.
In addition to arguing that its conspiracy did not effect an unreasonable restraint of trade, the Federation appears to renew its argument, pressed before both the Commission and the Court of Appeals, that the conspiracy to withhold x rays is immunized from antitrust scrutiny by virtue of a supposed policy of the State of Indiana against the evaluation of dental x rays by lay employees of insurance companies. See Brief for Respondent 25-26, and n. 10. Allegedly, such use of x rays by insurance companies — even where no claim was actually denied without examination of an x ray by a licensed dentist — would constitute unauthorized practice of dentistry by the insurance company and its employees. The Commission found that this claim had no basis in any authoritative source of Indiana law, see 101 F. T. C., at 181-183, and the Federation has not identified any adequate reason for rejecting the Commission’s conclusion. Even if the Commission were incorrect in its reading of the law, however, the Federation’s claim of immunity would fail. That a particular practice may be unlawful is not, in itself, a sufficient justification for collusion among competitors to prevent it. See Fashion Originators’ Guild of America, Inc. v. FTC, 312 U. S. 457, 468 (1941). Anticompetitive collusion among private actors, even when its goal is consistent with state policy, acquires antitrust immunity only when it is actively supervised by the State. See Southern Motor Carriers Rate Conference, Inc. v. United States, 471 U. S. 48, 57 (1985). There is no suggestion of any such active supervision here; accordingly, whether or not the policy the Federation has taken upon itself to advance is consistent with the policy of the State of Indiana, the Federation’s activities are subject to Sherman Act condemnation.
V
The factual findings of the Commission regarding the effect of the Federation’s policy of withholding x rays are supported by substantial evidence, and those findings are sufficient as a matter of law to establish a violation of § 1 of the Sherman Act, and, hence, § 5 of the Federal Trade Commission Act. Since there has been no suggestion that the cease- and-desist order entered by the Commission to remedy this violation is itself improper for any reason distinct from the claimed impropriety of the finding of a violation, the Commission’s order must be sustained. The judgment of the Court of Appeals is accordingly
Reversed.
A presentation made in 1974 by Dr. David McClure, an Association official and later one of the founders of respondent Indiana Federation of Dentists, is revealing as to the motives underlying the dentists’ resistance to the provision of x rays for use by insurers in making alternative benefits determinations:
“The problems associated -with third party programs are many, but I believe the ‘Indiana Plan’ [i. e., the policy of refusing to submit x rays] to be sound and if we work together, we can win this battle. We are fighting an economic war where the very survival of our profession is at stake.
“How long can some of the leaders of dentistry in other states be so complacent and willing to fall into the trap that is being set for us. If only they would take the time, to see from whence come the arrows that are heading in our direction. The Delta Dental Plans have bedded down with the unions and have been a party to setting up the greatest controls that any profession has ever known in a free society. . . .
“The name of the game is money. The government and labor are determined to reduce the cost of the dental health dollar at the expense of the dentist. There is no way a dental service can be rendered cheaper when the third party has to have its share of the dollar.
“Already we are locked into a fee freeze that could completely control the quality of dental care, if left on long enough.” FTC Complaint Counsel’s Trial Exhibit CX 372A, F, App. 104.
Respondent no longer makes any pretense of arguing that it is immune from antitrust liability as a labor organization.
Because we find that the Commission’s findings can be sustained on this basis, we do not address the Commission’s contention that the Federation’s activities can be condemned regardless of market power or actual effect merely because they constitute a continuation of the restraints formerly imposed by the Indiana Dental Association, which allegedly had market power throughout the State of Indiana.
It is undisputed that lay claims examiners employed by insurance companies have no authority to deny claims on the basis of examination of x rays; rather, initial screening of x rays serves only as a means of identifying cases that merit further scrutiny by the licensed dentists serving as consultants to the insurers. Any recommendation that benefits be denied or a less expensive course of treatment be pursued is based on the professional judgment of a licensed dentist that the materials available to him— x rays, claim forms, and whatever further diagnostic aids he chooses to consult — are sufficient to indicate that the treating dentist’s recommendation is not necessary to the health of the patient. There is little basis for concluding that, where such a divergence of professional judgment exists, the treatment recommendation made by the patient’s dentist should be assumed to be the one that in fact represents the best interests of the patient.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
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 appellees for leave to proceed in forma pauperis is granted.
Appellees are mothers of illegitimate children who receive welfare benefits from the State of Connecticut under the Aid to Families with Dependent Children program administered for the Federal Government by the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare (HEW). They are prosecuting this litigation to challenge the constitutionality of § 52-440b, Conn. Gen. Stat. Ann. (1977), which would require them, under pain of contempt, to divulge to appellant the names of the fathers of their children.
In 1975, after a three-judge District Court upheld the constitutionality of § 52-440b, we vacated the judgment and remanded for further consideration in light of an intervening amendment to § 402 (a) of the Social Security Act, and, if a relevant state proceeding was pending, in light of Younger v. Harris, 401 U. S. 37 (1971), and Huffman. v. Pursue, Ltd., 420 U. S. 592 (1975). Roe v. Norton, 422 U. S. 391.
On remand the District Court held that the Younger/ Huffman doctrine did not prohibit the issuance of an injunction in this case. 414 F. Supp. 1368 (Conn. 1976). The court also held that § 52-440b remained valid provided the Connecticut welfare authorities first determine, in accordance with § 402 (a) of the federal statute, that the appellees did not have “good cause” for refusing to cooperate, under standards which take into account the “best interests of the child.” 414 F. Supp., at 1381.
Noting that the Secretary of HEW has not yet promulgated regulations defining “good cause” and “best interests of the child,” appellant reads the District Court’s opinion as enjoining any state proceedings under § 52-440b until such guidance is forthcoming. But the court’s opinion contains the following passage in a footnote:
“HEW has taken the position that the entire amendment [to § 402 (a)] will not become effective until the new regulations have been approved. We do not believe that this is the proper construction of the act.
“. . . [T]he wiser course is to require the Commissioner, if he is unable to determine without the aid of specific regulations that his proposed enforcement action is not against the best interests of the child, to postpone any enforcement until the new regulations have been issued and approved.” 414 F. Supp., at 1381 n. 20.
Though it is somewhat ambiguous, the quoted portion can be read to require appellant to make his own determination of “good cause” and “best interests of the child” if he is able to do so without the aid of the HEW regulations. If this is the correct reading, appellant’s apprehension that he is presently barred from proceeding in accordance with § 52-440b would be erroneous.
The day after the District Court issued its opinion on remand a new Connecticut statute became effective, 1976 Conn. Pub. Act No. 76-334, amending Conn. Gen. Stat. Ann. § 17~82b. In pertinent part that statute provides:
“All information required to be provided to the commissioner as a condition of such eligibility [for welfare assistance] under federal law shall be so provided by the supervising relative, provided, no person shall be determined to be ineligible if the supervising relative has good cause for the refusal to provide information concerning the absent parent or if the provision of such information would be against the best interests of the dependent child or children, or any of them. The commissioner of social services shall adopt by regulation . . . standards as to good cause and best interests of the child. Any person aggrieved by a decision of the commissioner as to the determination of good cause or the best interests of such child or children may request a fair hearing in accordance with the provisions of sections 17-2a and 17-2b ”
While it is obvious that this pronouncement is intended to have some effect in the general area of this litigation, its impact on § 52-440b is not clear.
Therefore, we must once again vacate the judgment of the District Court and remand this case. That court must now consider its interpretation of § 52-440b in light of the amendment to § 17-82b, and clarify whether appellant is free to make his own “good cause” and “best interests of the child” determinations in the absence of effective HEW regulations.
It is so ordered.
Pub. L. 93-647, 88 Stat. 2359, amending 42 U. S. C. § 602 (a) (26) (1970 ed., Supp. V). The District Court also considered a second, subsequent, change in § 402 (a), Pub. L. 94-88, 89 Stat. 436.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
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 SOTOMAYOR delivered the opinion of the Court.
This case is about the limits of a State's power to tax a trust. North Carolina imposes a tax on any trust income that "is for the benefit of" a North Carolina resident. N. C. Gen. Stat. Ann. § 105-160.2 (2017). The North Carolina courts interpret this law to mean that a trust owes income tax to North Carolina whenever the trust's beneficiaries live in the State, even if-as is the case here-those beneficiaries received no income from the trust in the relevant tax year, had no right to demand income from the trust in that year, and could not count on ever receiving income from the trust. The North Carolina courts held the tax to be unconstitutional when assessed in such a case because the State lacks the minimum connection with the object of its tax that the Constitution requires. We agree and affirm. As applied in these circumstances, the State's tax violates the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
I
A
In its simplest form, a trust is created when one person (a "settlor" or "grantor") transfers property to a third party (a "trustee") to administer for the benefit of another (a "beneficiary"). A. Hess, G. Bogert, & G. Bogert, Law of Trusts and Trustees § 1, pp. 8-10 (3d ed. 2007). As traditionally understood, the arrangement that results is not a "distinct legal entity, but a 'fiduciary relationship' between multiple people." Americold Realty Trust v. Conagra Foods, Inc., 577 U. S. ----, ----, 136 S.Ct. 1012, 1016, 194 L.Ed.2d 71 (2016). The trust comprises the separate interests of the beneficiary, who has an "equitable interest" in the trust property, and the trustee, who has a "legal interest" in that property. Greenough v. Tax Assessors of Newport, 331 U.S. 486, 494, 67 S.Ct. 1400, 91 L.Ed. 1621 (1947). In some contexts, however, trusts can be treated as if the trust itself has "a separate existence" from its constituent parts. Id., at 493, 67 S.Ct. 1400.
The trust that challenges North Carolina's tax had its first incarnation nearly 30 years ago, when New Yorker Joseph Lee Rice III formed a trust for the benefit of his children. Rice decided that the trust would be governed by the law of his home State, New York, and he appointed a fellow New York resident as the trustee. The trust agreement provided that the trustee would have "absolute discretion" to distribute the trust's assets to the beneficiaries "in such amounts and proportions" as the trustee might "from time to time" decide. Art. I, § 1.2(a), App. 46-47.
When Rice created the trust, no trust beneficiary lived in North Carolina. That changed in 1997, when Rice's daughter, Kimberley Rice Kaestner, moved to the State. She and her minor children were residents of North Carolina from 2005 through 2008, the time period relevant for this case.
A few years after Kaestner moved to North Carolina, the trustee divided Rice's initial trust into three subtrusts. One of these subtrusts-the Kimberley Rice Kaestner 1992 Family Trust (Kaestner Trust or Trust)-was formed for the benefit of Kaestner and her three children. The same agreement that controlled the original trust also governed the Kaestner Trust. Critically, this meant that the trustee had exclusive control over the allocation and timing of trust distributions.
North Carolina explained in the state-court proceedings that the State's only connection to the Trust in the relevant tax years was the in-state residence of the Trust's beneficiaries. App. to Pet. for Cert. 54a. From 2005 through 2008, the trustee chose not to distribute any of the income that the Trust accumulated to Kaestner or her children, and the trustee's contacts with Kaestner were "infrequent." 371 N.C. 133, 143, 814 S.E.2d 43, 50 (2018). The Trust was subject to New York law, Art. X, App. 69, the grantor was a New York resident, App. 44, and no trustee lived in North Carolina, 371 N.C., at 134, 814 S.E.2d at 45. The trustee kept the Trust documents and records in New York, and the Trust asset custodians were located in Massachusetts. Ibid. The Trust also maintained no physical presence in North Carolina, made no direct investments in the State, and held no real property there. App. to Pet. for Cert. 52a-53a.
The Trust agreement provided that the Kaestner Trust would terminate when Kaestner turned 40, after the time period relevant here. After consulting with Kaestner and in accordance with her wishes, however, the trustee rolled over the assets into a new trust instead of distributing them to her. This transfer took place after the relevant tax years. See N. Y. Est., Powers & Trusts Law Ann. § 10-6.6(b) (West 2002) (authorizing this action).
B
North Carolina taxes any trust income that "is for the benefit of" a North Carolina resident. N. C. Gen. Stat. Ann. § 105-160.2. The North Carolina Supreme Court interprets the statute to authorize North Carolina to tax a trust on the sole basis that the trust beneficiaries reside in the State. 371 N.C., at 143-144, 814 S.E.2d at 51.
Applying this statute, the North Carolina Department of Revenue assessed a tax on the full proceeds that the Kaestner Trust accumulated for tax years 2005 through 2008 and required the trustee to pay it. See N. C. Gen. Stat. Ann. § 105-160.2. The resulting tax bill amounted to more than $ 1.3 million. The trustee paid the tax under protest and then sued in state court, arguing that the tax as applied to the Kaestner Trust violates the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
The trial court decided that the Kaestners' residence in North Carolina was too tenuous a link between the State and the Trust to support the tax and held that the State's taxation of the Trust violated the Due Process Clause. App. to Pet. for Cert. 62a. The North Carolina Court of Appeals affirmed, as did the North Carolina Supreme Court. A majority of the State Supreme Court reasoned that the Kaestner Trust and its beneficiaries "have legally separate, taxable existences" and thus that the contacts between the Kaestner family and their home State cannot establish a connection between the Trust "itself" and the State. 371 N.C., at 140-142, 814 S.E.2d at 49.
We granted certiorari to decide whether the Due Process Clause prohibits States from taxing trusts based only on the in-state residency of trust beneficiaries. 586 U. S. ----, 139 S.Ct. 915, 202 L.Ed.2d 641 (2019).
II
The Due Process Clause provides that "[n]o State shall... deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law." Amdt. 14, § 1. The Clause "centrally concerns the fundamental fairness of governmental activity." Quill Corp. v. North Dakota, 504 U.S. 298, 312, 112 S.Ct. 1904, 119 L.Ed.2d 91 (1992), overruled on other grounds, South Dakota v. Wayfair, Inc., 585 U. S. ----, ----, 138 S.Ct. 2080, 2092-2093, 201 L.Ed.2d 403 (2018).
In the context of state taxation, the Due Process Clause limits States to imposing only taxes that "bea[r] fiscal relation to protection, opportunities and benefits given by the state." Wisconsin v. J. C. Penney Co., 311 U.S. 435, 444, 61 S.Ct. 246, 85 L.Ed. 267 (1940). The power to tax is, of course, "essential to the very existence of government,"
McCulloch v. Maryland, 4 Wheat. 316, 428, 4 L.Ed. 579 (1819), but the legitimacy of that power requires drawing a line between taxation and mere unjustified "confiscation." Miller Brothers Co. v. Maryland, 347 U.S. 340, 342, 74 S.Ct. 535, 98 L.Ed. 744 (1954). That boundary turns on "[t]he simple but controlling question... whether the state has given anything for which it can ask return." Wisconsin, 311 U.S. at 444, 61 S.Ct. 246.
The Court applies a two-step analysis to decide if a state tax abides by the Due Process Clause. First, and most relevant here, there must be "'some definite link, some minimum connection, between a state and the person, property or transaction it seeks to tax.' " Quill, 504 U.S. at 306, 112 S.Ct. 1904. Second, "the 'income attributed to the State for tax purposes must be rationally related to "values connected with the taxing State."'" Ibid.
To determine whether a State has the requisite "minimum connection" with the object of its tax, this Court borrows from the familiar test of International Shoe Co. v. Washington, 326 U.S. 310, 66 S.Ct. 154, 90 L.Ed. 95 (1945). Quill, 504 U.S. at 307, 112 S.Ct. 1904. A State has the power to impose a tax only when the taxed entity has "certain minimum contacts" with the State such that the tax "does not offend 'traditional notions of fair play and substantial justice.' " International Shoe Co., 326 U.S. at 316, 66 S.Ct. 154 ; see Quill, 504 U.S. at 308, 112 S.Ct. 1904. The "minimum contacts" inquiry is "flexible" and focuses on the reasonableness of the government's action. Quill, 504 U.S. at 307, 112 S.Ct. 1904. Ultimately, only those who derive "benefits and protection" from associating with a State should have obligations to the State in question. International Shoe, 326 U.S. at 319, 66 S.Ct. 154.
III
One can imagine many contacts with a trust or its constituents that a State might treat, alone or in combination, as providing a "minimum connection" that justifies a tax on trust assets. The Court has already held that a tax on trust income distributed to an in-state resident passes muster under the Due Process Clause. Maguire v. Trefry, 253 U.S. 12, 16-17, 40 S.Ct. 417, 64 L.Ed. 739 (1920). So does a tax based on a trustee's in-state residence. Greenough, 331 U.S. at 498, 67 S.Ct. 1400. The Court's cases also suggest that a tax based on the site of trust administration is constitutional. See Hanson v. Denckla, 357 U.S. 235, 251, 78 S.Ct. 1228, 2 L.Ed.2d 1283 (1958) ; Curry v. McCanless, 307 U.S. 357, 370, 59 S.Ct. 900, 83 L.Ed. 1339 (1939).
A different permutation is before the Court today. The Kaestner Trust made no distributions to any North Carolina resident in the years in question. 371 N.C., at 134-135, 814 S.E.2d at 45. The trustee resided out of State, and Trust administration was split between New York (where the Trust's records were kept) and Massachusetts (where the custodians of its assets were located). Id., at 134, 814 S.E.2d at 45. The trustee made no direct investments in North Carolina in the relevant tax years, App. to Pet. for Cert. 52a, and the settlor did not reside in North Carolina. 371 N.C., at 134, 814 S.E.2d at 45. Of all the potential kinds of connections between a trust and a State, the State seeks to rest its tax on just one: the in-state residence of the beneficiaries. Brief for Petitioner 34-36; see App. to Pet. for Cert. 54a.
We hold that the presence of in-state beneficiaries alone does not empower a State to tax trust income that has not been distributed to the beneficiaries where the beneficiaries have no right to demand that income and are uncertain ever to receive it. In limiting our holding to the specific facts presented, we do not imply approval or disapproval of trust taxes that are premised on the residence of beneficiaries whose relationship to trust assets differs from that of the beneficiaries here.
A
In the past, the Court has analyzed state trust taxes for consistency with the Due Process Clause by looking to the relationship between the relevant trust constituent (settlor, trustee, or beneficiary) and the trust assets that the State seeks to tax. In the context of beneficiary contacts specifically, the Court has focused on the extent of the in-state beneficiary's right to control, possess, enjoy, or receive trust assets.
The Court's emphasis on these factors emerged in two early cases, Safe Deposit & Trust Co. of Baltimore v. Virginia, 280 U.S. 83, 50 S.Ct. 59, 74 L.Ed. 180 (1929), and Brooke v. Norfolk, 277 U.S. 27, 48 S.Ct. 422, 72 L.Ed. 767 (1928), both of which invalidated state taxes premised on the in-state residency of beneficiaries. In each case the challenged tax fell on the entirety of a trust's property, rather than on only the share of trust assets to which the beneficiaries were entitled. Safe Deposit, 280 U.S. at 90, 92, 50 S.Ct. 59 ; Brooke, 277 U.S. at 28, 48 S.Ct. 422. In Safe Deposit, the Court rejected Virginia's attempt to tax a trustee on the "whole corpus of the trust estate," 280 U.S. at 90, 50 S.Ct. 59 ; see id., at 93, 50 S.Ct. 59, explaining that "nobody within Virginia ha[d] present right to [the trust property's] control or possession, or to receive income therefrom," id., at 91, 50 S.Ct. 59. In Brooke, the Court rejected a tax on the entirety of a trust fund assessed against a resident beneficiary because the trust property "[wa]s not within the State, d[id] not belong to the [beneficiary] and [wa]s not within her possession or control." 277 U.S. at 29, 48 S.Ct. 422.
On the other hand, the same elements of possession, control, and enjoyment of trust property led the Court to uphold state taxes based on the in-state residency of beneficiaries who did have close ties to the taxed trust assets. The Court has decided that States may tax trust income that is actually distributed to an in-state beneficiary. In those circumstances, the beneficiary "own[s] and enjoy[s]" an interest in the trust property, and the State can exact a tax in exchange for offering the beneficiary protection. Maguire, 253 U.S. at 17, 40 S.Ct. 417 ; see also Guaranty Trust Co. v. Virginia, 305 U.S. 19, 21-23, 59 S.Ct. 1, 83 L.Ed. 16 (1938).
All of the foregoing cases reflect a common governing principle: When a State seeks to base its tax on the in-state residence of a trust beneficiary, the Due Process Clause demands a pragmatic inquiry into what exactly the beneficiary controls or possesses and how that interest relates to the object of the State's tax. See Safe Deposit, 280 U.S. at 91, 50 S.Ct. 59.
Although the Court's resident-beneficiary cases are most relevant here, similar analysis also appears in the context of taxes premised on the in-state residency of settlors and trustees. In Curry, for instance, the Court upheld a Tennessee trust tax because the settlor was a Tennessee resident who retained "power to dispose of" the property, which amounted to "a potential source of wealth which was property in her hands." 307 U.S. at 370, 59 S.Ct. 900. That practical control over the trust assets obliged the settlor "to contribute to the support of the government whose protection she enjoyed." Id., at 371, 59 S.Ct. 900 ; see also Graves v. Elliott, 307 U.S. 383, 387, 59 S.Ct. 913, 83 L.Ed. 1356 (1939) (a settlor's "right to revoke [a] trust and to demand the transmission to her of the intangibles... was a potential source of wealth" subject to tax by her State of residence).
A focus on ownership and rights to trust assets also featured in the Court's ruling that a trustee's in-state residence can provide the basis for a State to tax trust assets. In Greenough, the Court explained that the relationship between trust assets and a trustee is akin to the "close relationship between" other types of intangible property and the owners of such property. 331 U.S. at 493, 67 S.Ct. 1400. The trustee is "the owner of [a] legal interest in" the trust property, and in that capacity he can incur obligations, become personally liable for contracts for the trust, or have specific performance ordered against him. Id., at 494, 67 S.Ct. 1400. At the same time, the trustee can turn to his home State for "benefit and protection through its law," id., at 496, 67 S.Ct. 1400, for instance, by resorting to the State's courts to resolve issues related to trust administration or to enforce trust claims, id., at 495, 67 S.Ct. 1400. A State therefore may tax a resident trustee on his interest in a share of trust assets. Id., at 498, 67 S.Ct. 1400.
In sum, when assessing a state tax premised on the in-state residency of a constituent of a trust-whether beneficiary, settlor, or trustee-the Due Process Clause demands attention to the particular relationship between the resident and the trust assets that the State seeks to tax. Because each individual fulfills different functions in the creation and continuation of the trust, the specific features of that relationship sufficient to sustain a tax may vary depending on whether the resident is a settlor, beneficiary, or trustee. When a tax is premised on the in-state residence of a beneficiary, the Constitution requires that the resident have some degree of possession, control, or enjoyment of the trust property or a right to receive that property before the State can tax the asset. Cf. Safe Deposit, 280 U.S. at 91-92, 50 S.Ct. 59. Otherwise, the State's relationship to the object of its tax is too attenuated to create the "minimum connection" that the Constitution requires. See Quill, 504 U.S. at 306, 112 S.Ct. 1904.
B
Applying these principles here, we conclude that the residence of the Kaestner Trust beneficiaries in North Carolina alone does not supply the minimum connection necessary to sustain the State's tax.
First, the beneficiaries did not receive any income from the trust during the years in question. If they had, such income would have been taxable. See Maguire, 253 U.S. at 17, 40 S.Ct. 417 ; Guaranty Trust Co., 305 U.S. at 23, 59 S.Ct. 1.
Second, the beneficiaries had no right to demand trust income or otherwise control, possess, or enjoy the trust assets in the tax years at issue. The decision of when, whether, and to whom the trustee would distribute the trust's assets was left to the trustee's "absolute discretion." Art. I, § 1.2(a), App. 46-47. In fact, the Trust agreement explicitly authorized the trustee to distribute funds to one beneficiary to "the exclusion of other[s]," with the effect of cutting one or more beneficiaries out of the Trust. Art. I, § 1.4, id., at 50. The agreement also authorized the trustee, not the beneficiaries, to make investment decisions regarding Trust property. Art. V, § 5.2, id., at 55-60. The Trust agreement prohibited the beneficiaries from assigning to another person any right they might have to the Trust property, Art. XII, id., at 70-71, thus making the beneficiaries' interest less like "a potential source of wealth [that] was property in [their] hands." Curry, 307 U.S. at 370-371, 59 S.Ct. 900.
To be sure, the Kaestner Trust agreement also instructed the trustee to view the trust "as a family asset and to be liberal in the exercise of the discretion conferred," suggesting that the trustee was to make distributions generously with the goal of "meet[ing] the needs of the Beneficiaries" in various respects. Art. I, § 1.4(c), App. 51. And the trustee of a discretionary trust has a fiduciary duty not to "act in bad faith or for some purpose or motive other than to accomplish the purposes of the discretionary power." 2 Restatement (Third) of Trusts § 50, Comment c, p. 262 (2003). But by reserving sole discretion to the trustee, the Trust agreement still deprived Kaestner and her children of any entitlement to demand distributions or to direct the use of the Trust assets in their favor in the years in question.
Third, not only were Kaestner and her children unable to demand distributions in the tax years at issue, but they also could not count on necessarily receiving any specific amount of income from the Trust in the future. Although the Trust agreement provided for the Trust to terminate in 2009 (on Kaestner's 40th birthday) and to distribute assets to Kaestner, Art. I, § 1.2(c)(1), App. 47, New York law allowed the trustee to roll over the trust assets into a new trust rather than terminating it. N. Y. Est., Powers & Trusts § 10-6.6(b). Here, the trustee did just that. 371 N.C., at 135, 814 S.E.2d at 45.
Like the beneficiaries in Safe Deposit, then, Kaestner and her children had no right to "control or posses[s]" the trust assets "or to receive income therefrom." 280 U.S. at 91, 50 S.Ct. 59. The beneficiaries received no income from the Trust, had no right to demand income from the Trust, and had no assurance that they would eventually receive a specific share of Trust income. Given these features of the Trust, the beneficiaries' residence cannot, consistent with due process, serve as the sole basis for North Carolina's tax on trust income.
IV
The State's counterarguments do not save its tax.
First, the State interprets Greenough as standing for the broad proposition that "a trust and its constituents" are always "inextricably intertwined." Brief for Petitioner 26. Because trustee residence supports state taxation, the State contends, so too must beneficiary residence. The State emphasizes that beneficiaries are essential to a trust and have an "equitable interest" in its assets. Greenough, 331 U.S. at 494, 67 S.Ct. 1400. In Stone v. White, 301 U.S. 532, 57 S.Ct. 851, 81 L.Ed. 1265 (1937), the State notes, the Court refused to "shut its eyes to the fact" that a suit to recover taxes from a trust was in reality a suit regarding "the beneficiary's money." Id., at 535, 57 S.Ct. 851. The State also argues that its tax is at least as fair as the tax in Greenough because the Trust benefits from North Carolina law by way of the beneficiaries, who enjoy secure banks to facilitate asset transfers and also partake of services (such as subsidized public education) that obviate the need to make distributions (for example, to fund beneficiaries'
educations). Brief for Petitioner 30-33.
The State's argument fails to grapple with the wide variation in beneficiaries' interests. There is no doubt that a beneficiary is central to the trust relationship, and beneficiaries are commonly understood to hold "beneficial interests (or 'equitable title') in the trust property," 2 Restatement (Third) of Trusts § 42, Comment a, at 186. In some cases the relationship between beneficiaries and trust assets is so close as to be beyond separation. In Stone, for instance, the beneficiary had already received the trust income on which the government sought to recover tax. See 301 U.S. at 533, 57 S.Ct. 851. But, depending on the trust agreement, a beneficiary may have only a "future interest," an interest that is "subject to conditions," or an interest that is controlled by a trustee's discretionary decisions. 2 Restatement (Third) of Trusts § 49, Comment b, at 243. By contrast, in Greenough, the requisite connection with the State arose from a legal interest that necessarily carried with it predictable responsibilities and liabilities. See 331 U.S. at 494, 67 S.Ct. 1400. The different forms of beneficiary interests counsels against adopting the categorical rule that the State urges.
Second, the State argues that ruling in favor of the Trust will undermine numerous state taxation regimes. Tr. of Oral Arg. 8, 68; Brief for Petitioner 6, and n. 1. Today's ruling will have no such sweeping effect. North Carolina is one of a small handful of States that rely on beneficiary residency as a sole basis for trust taxation, and one of an even smaller number that will rely on the residency of beneficiaries regardless of whether the beneficiary is certain to receive trust assets. Today's decision does not address state laws that consider the in-state residency of a beneficiary as one of a combination of factors, that turn on the residency of a settlor, or that rely only on the residency of noncontingent beneficiaries, see, e.g., Cal. Rev. & Tax. Code Ann. § 17742(a). We express no opinion on the validity of such taxes.
Finally, North Carolina urges that adopting the Trust's position will lead to opportunistic gaming of state tax systems, noting that trust income nationally exceeded $ 120 billion in 2014. See Brief for Petitioner 39, and n. 13. The State is concerned that a beneficiary in Kaestner's position will delay taking distributions until she moves to a State with a lower level of taxation, thereby paying less tax on the funds she ultimately receives. See id., at 40.
Though this possibility is understandably troubling to the State, it is by no means certain that it will regularly come to pass. First, the power to make distributions to Kaestner or her children resides with the trustee. When and whether to make distributions is not for Kaestner to decide, and in fact the trustee may distribute funds to Kaestner while she resides in North Carolina (or deny her distributions entirely). Second, we address only the circumstances in which a beneficiary receives no trust income, has no right to demand that income, and is uncertain necessarily to receive a specific share of that income. Settlors who create trusts in the future will have to weigh the potential tax benefits of such an arrangement against the costs to the trust beneficiaries of lesser control over trust assets. In any event, mere speculation about negative consequences cannot conjure the "minimum connection" missing between North Carolina and the object of its tax.
* * *
For the foregoing reasons, we affirm the judgment of the Supreme Court of North Carolina.
It is so ordered.
Justice ALITO, with whom THE CHIEF JUSTICE and Justice GORSUCH join, concurring.
I join the opinion of the Court because it properly concludes that North Carolina's tenuous connection to the income earned by the trust is insufficient to permit the State to tax the trust's income. Because this connection is unusually tenuous, the opinion of the Court is circumscribed. I write separately to make clear that the opinion of the Court merely applies our existing precedent and that its decision not to answer questions not presented by the facts of this case does not open for reconsideration any points resolved by our prior decisions.
* * *
Kimberley Rice Kaestner is the beneficiary of a trust established by her father. She is also a resident of North Carolina. Between 2005 and 2008, North Carolina required the trustee, who is a resident of Connecticut, to pay more than $ 1.3 million in taxes on income earned by the assets in the trust. North Carolina levied this tax because of Kaestner's residence within the State.
States have broad discretion to structure their tax systems. But, in a few narrow areas, the Federal Constitution imposes limits on that power. See, e.g., McCulloch v. Maryland, 4 Wheat. 316, 4 L.Ed. 579 (1819) ; Comptroller of Treasury of Md. v. Wynne, 575 U. S. ----, 135 S.Ct. 1787, 191 L.Ed.2d 813 (2015). The Due Process Clause creates one such limit. It imposes restrictions on the persons and property that a State can subject to its taxation authority. "The Due Process Clause'requires some definite link, some minimum connection, between a state and the person, property or transaction it seeks to tax.' " Quill Corp. v. North Dakota, 504 U.S. 298, 306, 112 S.Ct. 1904, 119 L.Ed.2d 91 (1992) (quoting Miller Brothers Co. v. Maryland, 347 U.S. 340, 344-345, 74 S.Ct. 535, 98 L.Ed. 744 (1954) ), overruled in part on other grounds by South Dakota v. Wayfair, Inc., 585 U. S. ----, 138 S.Ct. 2080, 201 L.Ed.2d 403 (2018). North Carolina assesses this tax against the trustee and calculates the tax based on the income earned by the trust. N. C. Gen. Stat. Ann. § 105-160.2 (2017). Therefore we must look at the connections between the assets held in trust and the State.
It is easy to identify a State's connection with tangible assets. A tangible asset has a connection with the State in which it is located, and generally speaking, only that State has power to tax the asset. Curry v. McCanless, 307 U.S. 357, 364-365, 59 S.Ct. 900, 83 L.Ed. 1339 (1939). Intangible assets-stocks, bonds, or other securities, for example-present a more difficult question.
In the case of intangible assets held in trust, we have previously asked whether a resident of the State imposing the tax has control, possession, or the enjoyment of the asset. See Greenough v. Tax Assessors of Newport, 331 U.S. 486, 493-495, 67 S.Ct. 1400, 91 L.Ed. 1621 (1947) ; Curry, supra, at 370-371, 59 S.Ct. 900 ; Safe Deposit & Trust Co. of Baltimore v. Virginia, 280 U.S. 83, 93-94, 50 S.Ct. 59, 74 L.Ed. 180 (1929) ; Brooke v. Norfolk, 277 U.S. 27, 28-29, 48 S.Ct. 422, 72 L.Ed. 767 (1928). Because a trustee is the legal owner of the trust assets and possesses the powers that accompany that status-power to manage the investments, to make and enforce contracts respecting the assets, to litigate on behalf of the trust, etc.-the trustee's State of residence can tax the trust's intangible assets. Greenough, supra, at 494, 498, 67 S.Ct. 1400. Here, we are asked whether the connection between a beneficiary and a trust is sufficient to allow the beneficiary's State of residence to tax the trust assets and the income they earn while the assets and income remain in the trust in another State. Two cases provide a clear answer.
In Brooke, Virginia assessed a tax on the assets of a trust whose beneficiary was a resident of Virginia. The trustee was not a resident of Virginia and administered the trust outside the Commonwealth. Under the terms of the trust, the beneficiary was entitled to all the income of the trust and had paid income taxes for the money that had been transferred to her. But the Court held that, despite the beneficiary's present and ongoing right to receive income from the trust, Virginia could not impose taxes on the undistributed assets that remained within the trust because "the property is not within the State, does not belong to the petitioner and is not within her possession or control." 277 U.S. at 29, 48 S.Ct. 422. Even though the beneficiary was entitled to and received income from the trust, we observed that "she [wa]s a stranger" to the assets within the trust because she lacked control, possession, or enjoyment of them. Ibid.
In Safe Deposit, Virginia again attempted to assess taxes on the intangible assets held in a trust whose trustee resided in Maryland. The beneficiaries were children who lived in Virginia. Under the terms of the trust, each child was entitled to one half of the trust's assets (both the original principal and the income earned over time) when the child reached the age of 25. Despite their entitlement to the entire corpus of the trust, the Court held that the beneficiaries' residence did not allow Virginia to tax the assets while they remained in trust. "[N]obody within Virginia has present right to [the assets'] control or possession, or to receive income therefrom, or to cause them to be brought physically within her borders." 280 U.S. at 91, 50 S.Ct. 59. The beneficiaries' equitable ownership of the trust did not sufficiently connect the undistributed assets to Virginia as to allow taxation of the trust. The beneficiaries' equitable ownership yielded to the "established fact of legal ownership, actual presence and control elsewhere." Id., at 92, 50 S.Ct. 59.
Here, as in Brooke and Safe Deposit, the resident beneficiary has neither control nor possession of the intangible assets in the trust. She does not enjoy the use of the trust assets. The trustee administers the trust and holds the trust assets outside the State of North Carolina. Under Safe Deposit and Brooke, that is sufficient to establish that North Carolina cannot tax the trust or the trustee on the intangible assets held by the trust.
* * *
The Due Process Clause requires a sufficient connection between an asset and a State before the State can tax the asset.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer:
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H
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sc_issuearea
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What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Justice Stevens
delivered the opinion of the Court.
In a private treble-damages action, the jury found that petitioner Aspen Skiing Company (Ski Co.) had monopolized the market for downhill skiing services in Aspen, Colorado. The question presented is whether that finding is erroneous as a matter of law because it rests on an assumption that a firm with monopoly power has a duty to cooperate with its smaller rivals in a marketing arrangement in order to avoid violating §2 of the Sherman Act.
Aspen is a destination ski resort with a reputation for “super powder,” “a wide range of runs,” and an “active night life,” including “some of the best restaurants in North America.” Tr. 765-767. Between 1945 and 1960, private investors independently developed three major facilities for downhill skiing: Aspen Mountain (Ajax), Aspen Highlands (Highlands), and Buttermilk. A fourth mountain, Snow-mass, opened in 1967.
The development of any major additional facilities is hindered by practical considerations and regulatory obstacles. The identification of appropriate topographical conditions for a new site and substantial financing are both essential. Most of the terrain in the vicinity of Aspen that is suitable for downhill skiing cannot be used for that purpose without the approval of the United States Forest Service. That approval is contingent, in part, on environmental concerns. Moreover, the county government must also approve the project, and in recent years it has followed a policy of limiting growth.
Between 1958 and 1964, three independent companies operated Ajax, Highlands, and Buttermilk. In the early years, each company offered its own day or half-day tickets for use of its mountain. Id., at 152. In 1962, however, the three competitors also introduced an interchangeable ticket. Id., at 1634. The 6-day, all-Aspen ticket provided convenience to the vast majority of skiers who visited the resort for weekly periods, but preferred to remain flexible about what mountain they might ski each day during the visit. App. 92. It also emphasized the unusual variety in ski mountains available in Aspen.
As initially designed, the all-Aspen ticket program consisted of booklets containing six coupons, each redeemable for a daily lift ticket at Ajax, Highlands, or Buttermilk. The price of the booklet was often discounted from the price of six daily tickets, but all six coupons had to be used within a limited period of time — seven days, for example. The revenues from the sale of the 3-area coupon books were distributed in accordance with the number of coupons collected at each mountain. Tr. 153, 1634-1638.
In 1964, Buttermilk was purchased by Ski Co., but the interchangeable ticket program continued. In most seasons after it acquired Buttermilk, Ski Co. offered 2-area, 6- or 7-day tickets featuring Ajax and Buttermilk in competition with the 3-area, 6-coupon booklet. Although it sold briskly, the all-Aspen ticket did not sell as well as Ski Co.’s multiarea ticket until Ski Co. opened Snowmass in 1967. Thereafter, the all-Aspen coupon booklet began to outsell Ski Co.’s ticket featuring only its mountains. Record Ex. LL; Tr. 1646, 1675-1676.
In the 1971-1972 season, the coupon booklets were discontinued and an “around the neck” all-Aspen ticket was developed. This refinement on the interchangeable ticket was advantageous to the skier, who no longer found it necessary to visit the ticket window every morning before gaining access to the slopes. Lift operators at Highlands monitored usage of the ticket in the 1971-1972 season by recording the ticket numbers of persons going onto the slopes of that mountain. Highlands officials periodically met with Ski Co. officials to review the figures recorded at Highlands, and to distribute revenues based on that count. Id., at 1622, 1639.
There was some concern that usage of the all-Aspen ticket should be monitored by a more scientific method than the one used in the 1971-1972 season. After a one-season absence, the 4-area ticket returned in the 1973-1974 season with a new method of allocating revenues based on usage. Like the 1971-1972 ticket, the 1973-1974 4-area ticket consisted of a badge worn around the skier’s neck. Lift operators punched the ticket when the skier first sought access to the mountain each day. A random-sample survey was commissioned to determine how many skiers with the 4-area ticket used each mountain, and the parties allocated revenues from the ticket sales in accordance with the survey’s results.
In the next four seasons, Ski Co. and Highlands used such surveys to allocate the revenues from the 4-area, 6-day ticket. Highlands’ share of the revenues from the ticket was 17.5% in 1973-1974, 18.5% in 1974-1975, 16.8% in 1975-1976, and 13.2% in 1976-1977. During these four seasons, Ski Co. did not offer its own 3-area, multiday ticket in competition with the all-Aspen ticket. By 1977, multiarea tickets accounted for nearly 35% of the total market. Id., at 614, 1367. Holders of multiarea passes also accounted for additional daily ticket sales to persons skiing with them.
Between 1962 and 1977, Ski Co. and Highlands had independently offered various mixes of 1-day, 3-day, and 6-day passes at their own mountains. In every season except one, however, they had also offered some form of all-Aspen, 6-day ticket, and divided the revenues from those sales on the basis of usage. Nevertheless, for the 1977-1978 season, Ski Co. offered to continue the all-Aspen ticket only if Highlands would accept a 13.2% fixed share of the ticket’s revenues.
Although that had been Highlands’ share of the ticket revenues in 1976-1977, Highlands contended that that season was an inaccurate measure of its market performance since it had been marked by unfavorable weather and an unusually low number of visiting skiers. Moreover, Highlands wanted to continue to divide revenues on the basis of actual usage, as that method of distribution allowed it to compete for the daily loyalties of the skiers who had purchased the tickets. Tr. 172. Fearing that the alternative might be no interchangeable ticket at all, and hoping to persuade Ski Co. to reinstate the usage division of revenues, Highlands eventually accepted a fixed percentage of 15% for the 1977-1978 season. Ibid. No survey was made during that season of actual usage of the 4-area ticket at the two competitors’ mountains.
In the 1970’s the management of Ski Co. increasingly expressed their dislike for the all-Aspen ticket. They complained that a coupon method of monitoring usage was administratively cumbersome. They doubted the accuracy of the survey and decried the “appearance, deportment, [and] attitude” of the college students who were conducting it. Id., at 1627. See also id., at 398, 405-407, 959. In addition, Ski Co.’s president had expressed the view that the 4-area ticket was siphoning off revenues that could be recaptured by Ski Co. if the ticket was discontinued. Id., at 586-587, 950, 960. In fact, Ski Co. had reinstated its 3-area, 6-day ticket during the 1977-1978 season, but that ticket had been outsold by the 4-area, 6-day ticket nearly two to one. Id., at 613-614.
In March 1978, the Ski Co. management recommended to the board of directors that the 4-area ticket be discontinued for the 1978-1979 season. The board decided to offer Highlands a 4-area ticket provided that Highlands would agree to receive a 12.5% fixed percentage of the revenue — considerably below Highlands’ historical average based on usage. Id., at 396, 585-586. Later in the 1978-1979 season, a member of Ski Co.’s board of directors candidly informed a Highlands official that he had advocated making Highlands “an offer that [it] could not accept.” Id., at 361.
Finding the proposal unacceptable, Highlands suggested a distribution of the revenues based on usage to be monitored by coupons, electronic counting, or random sample surveys. Id., at 188. If Ski Co. was concerned about who was to conduct the survey, Highlands proposed to hire disinterested ticket counters at its own expense — “somebody like Price Waterhouse” — to count or survey usage of the 4-area ticket at Highlands. Id,., at 191. Ski Co. refused to consider any counterproposals, and Highlands finally rejected the offer of the fixed percentage.
As far as Ski Co. was concerned, the all-Aspen ticket was dead. In its place Ski Co. offered the 3-area, 6-day ticket featuring only its mountains. In an effort to promote this ticket, Ski Co. embarked on a national advertising campaign that strongly implied to people who were unfamiliar with Aspen that Ajax, Buttermilk, and Snowmass were the only ski mountains in the area. For example, Ski Co. had a sign changed in the Aspen Airways waiting room at Stapleton Airport in Denver. The old sign had a picture of the four mountains in Aspen touting “Four Big Mountains” whereas the new sign retained the picture but referred only to three. Id., at 844, 847, 858-859.
Ski Co. took additional actions that made it extremely difficult for Highlands to market its own multiarea package to replace the joint offering. Ski Co. discontinued the 3-day, 3-area pass for the 1978-1979 season, and also refused to sell Highlands any lift tickets, either at the tour operator’s discount or at retail. Id., at 327. Highlands finally developed an alternative product, the “Adventure Pack,” which consisted of a 3-day pass at Highlands and three vouchers, each equal to the price of a daily lift ticket at a Ski Co. mountain. The vouchers were guaranteed by funds on deposit in an Aspen bank, and were redeemed by Aspen merchants at full value. Id., at 329-334. Ski Co., however, refused to accept them.
Later, Highlands redesigned the Adventure Pack to contain American Express Traveler’s Checks or money orders instead of vouchers. Ski Co. eventually accepted these negotiable instruments in exchange for daily lift tickets. Id., at 505, 507, 549. Despite some strengths of the product, the Adventure Pack met considerable resistance from tour operators and consumers who had grown accustomed to the convenience and flexibility provided by the all-Aspen ticket. Id., at 784-785, 1041.
Without a convenient all-Aspen ticket, Highlands basically “becomes a day ski area in a destination resort.” Id., at 1425. Highlands’ share of the market for downhill skiing services in Aspen declined steadily after the 4-area ticket based on usage was abolished in 1977: from 20.5% in 1976-1977, to 15.7% in 1977-1978, to 13.1% in 1978-1979, to 12.5% in 1979-1980, to 11% in 1980-1981. Record Ex. No. 97, App. 188. Highlands’ revenues from associated skiing services like the ski school, ski rentals, amateur racing events, and restaurant facilities declined sharply as' well.
HH HH
In 1979, Highlands filed a complaint in the United States District Court for the District of Colorado naming Ski Co. as a defendant. Among various claims, the complaint alleged that Ski Co. had monopolized the market for downhill skiing services at Aspen in violation of § 2 of the Sherman Act, and prayed for treble damages. The case was tried to a jury which rendered a verdict finding Ski Co. guilty of the §2 violation and calculating Highlands’ actual damages at $2.5 million. App. 187-190.
In her instructions to the jury, the District Judge explained that the offense of monopolization under §2 of the Sherman Act has two elements: (1) the possession of monopoly power in a relevant market, and (2) the willful acquisition, maintenance, or use of that power by anticompetitive or exclusionary means or for anticompetitive or exclusionary purposes. Tr. 2310. Although the first element was vigorously disputed at the trial and in the Court of Appeals, in this Court Ski Co. does not challenge the jury’s special verdict finding that it possessed monopoly power. Nor does Ski Co. criticize the trial court’s instructions to the jury concerning the second element of the § 2 offense.
On this element, the jury was instructed that it had to consider whether “Aspen Skiing Corporation willfully acquired, maintained, or used that power by anti-competitive or exclusionary means or for anti-competitive or exclusionary purposes.” App. 181. The instructions elaborated:
“In considering whether the means or purposes were anti-competitive or exclusionary, you must draw a distinction here between practices which tend to exclude or restrict competition on the one hand and the success of a business which reflects only a superior product, a well-run business, or luck, on the other. The line between legitimately gained monopoly, its proper use and maintenance, and improper conduct has been described in various ways. It has been said that obtaining or maintaining monopoly power cannot represent monopolization if the power was gained and maintained by conduct that was honestly industrial. Or it is said that monopoly power which is thrust upon a firm due to its superior business ability and efficiency does not constitute monopolization.
“For example, a firm that has lawfully acquired a monopoly position is not barred from taking advantage of scale economies by constructing a large and efficient factory. These benefits are a consequence of size and not an exercise of monopoly power. Nor is a corporation which possesses monopoly power under a duty to cooperate with its business rivals. Also a company which possesses monopoly power and which refuses to enter into a joint operating agreement with a competitor or otherwise refuses to deal with a competitor in some manner does not violate Section 2 if valid business reasons exist for that refusal.
“In other words, if there were legitimate business reasons for the refusal, then the defendant, even if he is found to possess monopoly power in a relevant market, has not violated the law. We are concerned with conduct which unnecessarily excludes or handicaps competitors. This is conduct which does not benefit consumers by making a better product or service available — or in other ways — and instead has the effect of impairing competition.
“To sum up, you must determine whether Aspen Skiing Corporation gained, maintained, or used monopoly power in a relevant market by arrangements and policies which rather than being a consequence of a superior product, superior business sense, or historic element, were designed primarily to further any domination of the relevant market or sub-market.” Id., at 181-182.
The jury answered a specific interrogatory finding the second element of the offense as defined in these instructions.
Ski Co. filed a motion for judgment notwithstanding the verdict, contending that the evidence was insufficient to support a § 2 violation as a matter of law. In support of that motion, Ski Co. incorporated the arguments that it had advanced in support of its motion for a directed verdict, at which time it had primarily contested the sufficiency of the evidence on the issue of monopoly power. Counsel had, however, in the course of the argument at that time, stated: “Now, we also think, Judge, that there clearly cannot be a requirement of cooperation between competitors.” Tr. 1452. The District Court denied Ski Co.’s motion and entered a judgment awarding Highlands treble damages of $7,500,000, costs, and attorney’s fees. App. 191-192.
The Court of Appeals affirmed in all respects. 738 F. 2d 1509 (CA10 1984). The court advanced two reasons for rejecting Ski Co.’s argument that “‘there was insufficient evidence to present a jury issue of monopolization because, as a matter of law, the conduct at issue was pro-competitive conduct that a monopolist could lawfully engage in.’” First, relying on United States v. Terminal Railroad Assn. of St. Louis, 224 U. S. 383 (1912), the Court of Appeals held that the multiday, multiarea ticket could be characterized as an “essential facility” that Ski Co. had a duty to market jointly with Highlands. 738 F. 2d, at 1520-1521. Second, it held that there was sufficient evidence to support a finding that Ski Co.’s intent in refusing to market the 4-area ticket, “considered together with its other conduct,” was to create or maintain a monopoly. Id., at 1522.
In its review of the evidence on the question of intent, the Court of Appeals considered the record “as a whole” and concluded that it was not necessary for Highlands to prove that each allegedly anticompetitive act was itself sufficient to demonstrate an abuse of monopoly power. Id., at 1522, n. 18. The court noted that by “refusing to cooperate” with Highlands, Ski Co. “became the only business in Aspen that could offer a multi-day multi-mountain skiing experience”; that the refusal to offer a 4-mountain ticket resulted in “skiers’ frustration over its unavailability”; that there was apparently no valid business reason for refusing to accept the coupons in Highlands’ Adventure Pack; and that after Highlands had modified its Adventure Pack to meet Ski Co.’s objections, Ski Co. had increased its single ticket price to $22 “thereby mhking it unprofitable... to market [the] Adventure Pack.” Id., at 1521-1522. In reviewing Ski Co.’s argument that it was entitled to a directed verdict, the Court of Appeals assumed that the jury had resolved all contested questions of fact in Highlands’ favor.
HH HH HH
In this Court, Ski Co. contends that even a firm with monopoly power has no duty to engage in joint marketing with a competitor, that a violation of §2 cannot be established without evidence of substantial exclusionary conduct, and that none of its activities can be characterized as exclusionary. It also contends that the Court of Appeals incorrectly relied on the “essential facilities” doctrine and that an “anti-competitive intent” does not transform nonexclusionary conduct into monopolization. In response, Highlands submits that, given the evidence in the record, it is not necessary to rely on the “essential facilities” doctrine in order to affirm the judgment. Tr. of Oral Arg. 34.
“The central messagé of the Sherman Act is that a business entity must find new customers and higher profits through internal expansion — that is, by competing successfully rather than by arranging treaties with its competitors.” United States v. Citizens & Southern National Bank, 422 U. S. 86, 116 (1975). Ski Co., therefore, is surely correct in submitting that even a firm with monopoly power has no general duty to engage in a joint marketing program with a competitor. Ski Co. is quite wrong, however, in suggesting that the judgment in this case rests on any such proposition of law. For the trial court unambiguously instructed the jury that a firm possessing monopoly power has no duty to cooperate with its business rivals. Supra, at 596-597.
The absence of an unqualified duty to cooperate does not mean that every time a firm declines to participate in a particular cooperative venture, that decision may not have evi-dentiary significance, or that it may not give rise to liability in certain circumstances. The absence of a duty to transact business with another firm is, in some respects, merely the counterpart of the independent businessman’s cherished right to select his customers and his associates. The high value that we have placed on the right to refuse to deal with other firms does not mean that the right is unqualified.
In Lorain Journal Co. v. United States, 342 U. S. 143 (1951), we squarely held that this right was not unqualified. Between 1933 and 1948 the publisher of the Lorain Journal, a newspaper, was the only local business disseminating news and advertising in that Ohio town. In 1948, a small radio station was established in a nearby community. In an effort to destroy its small competitor, and thereby regain its “pre-1948 substantial monopoly over the mass dissemination of all news and advertising,” the Journal refused to sell advertising to persons that patronized the radio station. Id., at 153.
In holding that this conduct violated §2 of the Sherman Act, the Court dispatched the same argument raised by the monopolist here:
“The publisher claims a right as a private business concern to select its customers and to refuse to accept advertisements from whomever it pleases. We do not dispute that general right. ‘But the word “right” is one of the most deceptive of pitfalls; it is so easy to slip from a qualified meaning in the premise to an unqualified one in the conclusion. Most rights are qualified.’ Ameri can Bank & Trust Co. v. Federal Bank, 256 U. S. 350, 358. The right claimed by the publisher is neither absolute nor exempt from regulation. Its exercise as a purposeful means of monopolizing interstate commerce is prohibited by the Sherman Act. The operator of the radio station, equally with the publisher of the newspaper, is entitled to the protection of that Act. ‘In the absence of any purpose to create or maintain a monopoly, the act does not restrict the long recognized right of trader or manufacturer engaged in an entirely private business, freely to exercise his own independent discretion as to parties with whom he will deal.’ (Emphasis supplied.) United States v. Colgate & Co., 250 U. S. 300, 307. See Associated Press v. United States, 326 U. S. 1, 15; United States v. Bausch & Bomb Co., 321 U. S. 707, 721-723.” 342 U. S., at 155.
The Court approved the entry of an injunction ordering the Journal to print the advertisements of the customers of its small competitor.
In Lorain Journal, the violation of § 2 was an “attempt to monopolize,” rather than monopolization, but the question of intent is relevant to both offenses. In the former case it is necessary to prove a “specific intent” to accomplish the forbidden objective — as Judge Hand explained, “an intent which goes beyond the mere intent to do the act.” United States v. Aluminum Co. of America, 148 F. 2d 416, 432 (CA2 1945). In the latter case evidence of intent is merely relevant to the question whether the challenged conduct is fairly characterized as “exclusionary” or “anticompetitive” — to use the words in the trial court’s instructions — or “predatory,” to use a word that scholars seem to favor. Whichever label is used, there is agreement on the proposition that “no monopolist monopolizes unconscious of what he is doing.” As Judge Bork stated more recently: “Improper exclusion (exclusion not the result of superior efficiency) is always deliberately intended.”
The qualification on the right of a monopolist to deal with whom he pleases is not so narrow that it encompasses no more than the circumstances of Lorain Journal. In the actual case that we must decide, the monopolist did not merely reject a novel offer to participate in a cooperative venture that had been proposed by a competitor. Rather, the monopolist elected to make an important change in a pattern of distribution that had originated in a competitive market and had persisted for several years. The all-Aspen, 6-day ticket with revenues allocated on the basis of usage was first developed when three independent companies operated three different ski mountains in the Aspen area. Supra, at 589, and n. 7. It continued to provide a desirable option for skiers when the market was enlarged to include four mountains, and when the character of the market was changed by Ski Co.’s acquisition of monopoly power. Moreover, since the record discloses that interchangeable tickets are used in other multimountain areas which apparently are competitive, it seems appropriate to infer that such tickets satisfy consumer demand in free competitive markets.
Ski Co.’s decision to terminate the all-Aspen ticket was thus a decision by a monopolist to make an important change in the character of the market. Such a decision is not necessarily anticompetitive, and Ski Co. contends that neither its decision, nor the conduct in which it engaged to implement that decision, can fairly be characterized as exclusionary in this case. It recognizes, however, that as the case is presented to us, we must interpret the entire record in the light most favorable, to Highlands and give to it the benefit of all inferences which the evidence fairly supports, even though contrary inferences might reasonably be drawn. Continental Ore Co. v. Union Carbide & Carbon Corp., 370 U. S. 690; 696 (1962).
Moreover, we must assume that the jury followed the court’s instructions. The jury must, therefore, have drawn a distinction “between practices which tend to exclude or restrict competition on the one hand, and the success of a business which reflects only a superior product, a well-run business, or luck, on the other.” Supra, at 596. Since the jury was unambiguously instructed that Ski Co.’s refusal to deal with Highlands “does not violate Section 2 if valid business reasons exist for that refusal,” supra, at 597, we must assume that the jury concluded that there were no valid business reasons for the refusal. The question then is whether that conclusion finds support in the record.
I — I
The question whether Ski Co.’s conduct may properly be characterized as exclusionary cannot be answered by simply considering its effect on Highlands. In addition, it is relevant to consider its impact on consumers and whether it has impaired competition in an unnecessarily restrictive way. If a firm has been “attempting to exclude rivals on some basis other than efficiency,” it is fair to characterize its behavior as predatory. It is, accordingly, appropriate to examine the effect of the challenged pattern of conduct on consumers, on Ski Co.’s smaller rival, and on Ski Co. itself.
Superior Quality of the All-Aspen Ticket
The average Aspen visitor “is a well-educated, relatively affluent, experienced skier who has skied a number of times in the past....” Tr. 764. Over 80% of the skiers visiting the resort each year have been there before — 40% of these repeat visitors havé skied Aspen at least five times. Id., at 768. Over the years, they developed a strong demand for the 6-day, all-Aspen ticket in its various refinements. Most experienced skiers quite logically prefer to purchase their tickets at once for the whole period that they will spend at the resort; they can then spend more time on the slopes and enjoying aprés-ski amenities and less time standing in ticket lines. The 4-area attribute of the ticket allowed the skier to purchase his 6-day ticket in advance while reserving the right to decide in his own time and for his own reasons which mountain he would ski on each day. It provided convenience and flexibility, and expanded the vistas and the number of challenging runs available to him during the week’s vacation.
While the 3-area, 6-day ticket offered by Ski Co. possessed some of these attributes, the evidence supports a conclusion that consumers were adversely affected by the elimination of the 4-area ticket. In the first place, the actual record of competition between a 3-area ticket and the all-Aspen ticket in the years after 1967 indicated that skiers demonstrably preferred four mountains to three. Supra, at 589-590, 592. Highlands’ expert marketing witness testified that many of the skiers who come to Aspen want to ski the four mountains, and the abolition of the 4-area pass made it more difficult to satisfy that ambition. Tr. 775. A consumer survey undertaken in the 1979-1980 season indicated that 53.7% of the respondents wanted to ski Highlands, but would not; 39.9% said that they would not be skiing at the mountain of their choice because their ticket would not permit it. Record Ex. No. 75, pp. 36-37.
Expert testimony and anecdotal evidence supported these statistical measures of consumer preference. A maj or wholesale tour operator asserted that he would not even consider marketing a 3-area ticket if a 4-area ticket were available. During the 1977-1978 and 1978-1979 seasons, people with Ski Co.’s 3-area ticket came to Highlands “on a very regular basis” and attempted to board the lifts or join the ski school. Highlands officials were left to explain to angry skiers that they could only ski at Highlands or join its ski school by paying for a 1-day lift ticket. Even for the affluent, this was an irritating situation because it left the skier the option of either wasting 1 day of the 6-day, 3-area pass or obtaining a refund which could take all morning and entailed the forfeit of the 6-day discount. An active officer in the Atlanta Ski Club testified that the elimination of the 4-area pass “infuriated” him. Tr. 978.
Highlands’ Ability to Compete
The adverse impact of Ski Co.’s pattern of conduct on Highlands is not disputed in this Court. Expert testimony described the extent of its pecuniary injury. The evidence concerning its attempt to develop a substitute product either by buying Ski Co.’s daily tickets in bulk, or by marketing its own Adventure Pack, demonstrates that it tried to protect itself from the loss of its share of the patrons of the all-Aspen ticket. The development of a new distribution system for providing the experience that skiers had learned to expect in Aspen proved to be prohibitively expensive. As a result, Highlands’ share of the relevant market steadily declined after the 4-area ticket was terminated. The size of the damages award also confirms the substantial character of the effect of Ski Co.’s conduct upon Highlands.
Ski Co.’s Business Justification
Perhaps most significant, however, is the evidence relating to Ski Co. itself, for Ski Co. did not persuade the jury that its conduct was justified by any normal business purpose. Ski Co. was apparently willing to forgo daily ticket sales both to skiers who sought to exchange the coupons contained in Highlands’ Adventure Pack, and to those who would have purchased Ski Co. daily lift tickets from Highlands if Highlands had been permitted to purchase them in bulk. The jury may well have concluded that Ski Co. elected to forgo these short-run benefits because it was more interested in reducing competition in the Aspen market over the long-run by harming its smaller competitor.
That conclusion is strongly supported by Ski Co.’s failure to offer any efficiency justification whatever for its pattern of conduct. In defending the decision to terminate the jointly offered ticket, Ski Co. claimed that usage could not be properly monitored. The evidence, however, established that Ski Co. itself monitored the use of the 3-area passes based on a count taken by lift operators, and distributed the revenues among its mountains on that basis. Ski Co. contended that coupons were administratively cumbersome, and that the survey takers had been disruptive and their work inaccurate. Coupons, however, were no more burdensome than the credit cards accepted at Ski Co. ticket windows. Tr. 330-331. Moreover, in other markets Ski Co. itself participated in interchangeable lift tickets using coupons, n. 30, supra. As for the survey, its own manager testified that the problems were much overemphasized by Ski Co. officials, and were mostly resolved as they arose. Tr. 663-667, 673. Ski Co.’s explanation for the rejection of Highlands’ offer to hire — at its own expense — a reputable national accounting firm to audit usage of the 4-area tickets at Highlands’ mountain, was that there was no way to “control” the audit. Id., at 598.
In the end, Ski Co. was pressed to justify its pattern of conduct on a desire to disassociate itself from — what it considered — the inferior skiing services offered at Highlands. Id., at 401, 422. The all-Aspen ticket based on usage, however, allowed consumers to make their own choice on these matters of quality. Ski Co.’s purported concern for the relative quality of Highlands’ product was supported in the record by little more than vague insinuations, and was sharply contested by numerous witnesses. Moreover, Ski Co. admitted that it was willing to associate with what it considered to be inferior products in other markets. Id., at 964.
Although Ski Co.’s pattern of conduct may not have been as “‘bold, relentless, and predatory’” as the publisher’s actions in Lorain Journal, the record in this case comfortably supports an inference that the monopolist made a deliberate effort to discourage its customers from doing business with its smaller rival. The sale of its 3-area, 6-day ticket, particularly when it was discounted below the daily ticket price, deterred the ticket holders from skiing at Highlands. The refusal to accept the Adventure Pack coupons in exchange for daily tickets was apparently motivated entirely by a decision to avoid providing any benefit to Highlands even though accepting the coupons would have entailed no cost to Ski Co. itself, would have provided it with immediate benefits, and would have satisfied its potential customers. Thus the evidence supports an inference that Ski Co. was not motivated by efficiency concerns and that it was willing to sacrifice short-run benefits and consumer goodwill in exchange for a perceived long-run impact on its smaller rival.
Because we are satisfied that the evidence in the record, construed most favorably in support of Highlands’ position, is adequate to support the verdict under the instructions given by the trial court, the jugment of the Court of Appeals is
Affirmed.
Justice White took no part in the decision of this case.
The statute provides, in relevant part:
“Every person who shall monopolize, or attempt to monopolize, or combine or conspire with any other person or persons, to monopolize any part of the trade or commerce among the several States, or with foreign nations, shall be deemed guilty of a felony....” 15 U. S. C. §2.
Ski Co. developed Ajax in 1946. The runs are quite steep and primarily designed for expert or advanced intermediate skiers. The base area of Ajax is located within the village of Aspen.
In 1957, the United States Forest Service suggested that Ajax “was getting crowded, and... that a ski area ought to be started at Highlands.” Tr. 150. Whipple V. N. Jones, who owned an Aspen lodge at the time, discussed the project with Ski Co. officials, but they expressed little interest, telling him that they had “plenty of problems at Aspen now, and we don’t think we want to expand skiing in Aspen.” Id., at 150-151. Jones went ahead with the project on his own, and laid out a well-balanced set of ski runs: 25% beginner, 50% intermediate, 25% advanced. The base area of Highlands Mountain is located lVz miles from the village of Aspen. Id., at 154. Respondent Aspen Highlands Skiing Corporation provides the downhill skiing services at Highlands Mountain. Throughout this opinion we refer to both the respondent and its mountain as Highlands.
In 1958, Friedl Pfeiffer and Arthur Pfister began developing the ranches they owned at the base of Buttermilk Mountain into a third ski area. Pfeiffer, a former Olympian, was the director of the ski school for Ski Co., and the runs he laid out were primarily for beginners and intermediate skiers. More advanced runs have since been developed. The base area of Buttermilk is located approximately 27i miles from the village of Aspen. Id., at 152, 147
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer:
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H
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sc_issuearea
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What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
JUSTICE BRENNAN
announced the judgment of the Court and delivered the opinion of the Court with respect to Parts I and II, and an opinion with respect to Part III, in which
JUSTICE MARSHALL, JUSTICE BLACKMUN, and JUSTICE STEVENS join.
This case presents the questions whether the Comprehen-sive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act of 1980 (CERCLA), 42 U. S. C. § 9601 et seq., as amended by the Superfund Amendments and Act of 1986 (SARA), Pub. L. 99&emdash;499, 100 Stat. 1613, a suit for monetary damages against a State in federal court and, if so, whether Congress has the authority to create such a cause of action when legislating pursuant to the Clause. The answer to both questions is "yes."
I
For about 50 years, the predecessors of respondent Union Gas Co. operated a coal gasification plant near Brodhead Creek in Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania, which produced coal tar as a by-product. The plant was dismantled around 1950. A few years later, Pennsylvania took part in major flood-control efforts along the creek. In 1980, shortly after acquiring easements to the property along the creek, the struck a large deposit of coal tar while excavating the creek. The coal tar began to seep into the creek, and the Environmental Protection Agency determined that the tar was a hazardous substance and declared the site the Nation’s first emergency Superfund site. Working together, Pennsylvania and the Federal Government cleaned up the area, and the Federal Government reimbursed the State for cleanup costs of $720,000.
To recoup these costs, the United States sued Union Gas under §§104 and 106 of CERCLA, 42 U. S. C. §§9604 and 9606, claiming that Union Gas was liable for such costs because the company and its predecessors had deposited coal tar into the ground near Brodhead Creek. Union Gas filed a third-party complaint against Pennsylvania, asserting that the Commonwealth was responsible for at least a portion of the costs because it was an “owner or operator” of the hazardous-waste site, 42 U. S. C. § 9607(a), and because its flood-control efforts had negligently caused or contributed to the release of the coal tar into the creek. The District Court dismissed the complaint, accepting Pennsylvania’s claim that its Eleventh Amendment immunity barred the suit. A divided panel of the Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit affirmed, finding no clear expression of congressional intent to hold States liable in monetary damages under CERCLA. United States v. Union Gas Co., 792 F. 2d 372 (1986).
While Union Gas’ petition for certiorari was pending, Congress amended CERCLA by passing SARA. We granted certiorari, vacated the Court of Appeals’ opinion, and remanded for reconsideration in light of these amendments. 479 U. S. 1025 (1987). On remand, the Court of Appeals held that the language of CERCLA, as amended, clearly rendered States liable for monetary damages and that Congress had the power to do so when legislating pursuant to the Commerce Clause. United States v. Union Gas Co., 832 F. 2d 1343 (1986). We granted certiorari, 485 U. S. 958 (1988), and now affirm.
i — < l-H
In Hans v. Louisiana, 134 U. S. 1 (1890), this Court held that the principle of sovereign immunity reflected in the Eleventh Amendment rendered the States immune from suits for monetary damages in federal court even where jurisdiction was premised on the presence of a federal question. Congress may override this immunity when it acts pursuant to the power granted it under § 5 of the Fourteenth Amendment, but it must make its intent to do so “unmistakably clear.” See Atascadero State Hospital v. Scanlon, 473 U. S. 234, 242 (1985). Before turning to the question whether Congress possesses the same power of abrogation under the Commerce Clause, we must first decide whether CERCLA, as amended by SARA, clearly expresses an intent to hold States liable in damages for conduct described in the statute. If we decide that it does not, then we need not consider the constitutional question.
CERCLA both provides a mechanism for cleaning up hazardous-waste sites, 42 U. S. C. §§9604, 9606 (1982 ed. and Supp. IV), and imposes the costs of the cleanup on those responsible for the contamination, §9607. Two general terms, among others, describe those who may be liable under CERCLA for the costs of remedial action: “persons” and “owners or operators.” § 9607(a). “States” are explicitly included within the statute’s definition of “persons.” § 9601(21). The term “owner or operator” is defined by reference to certain activities that a “person” may undertake. §9601(20)(A).
Section 101(20)(D) of SARA excludes from the category of “owners or operators” States that “acquired ownership or control involuntarily through bankruptcy, tax delinquency, abandonment, or other circumstances in which the government involuntarily acquires title by virtue of its function as sovereign.” §9601(20)(D). However, § 101(20)(D) continues, “[t]he exclusion provided under this paragraph shall not apply to any State or local government which has caused or contributed to the release or threatened release of a hazardous substance from the facility, and such a State or local government shall be subject to the provisions of this chapter in the same manner and to the same extent, both procedurally and substantively, as any nongovernmental entity, including liability under section 9607 of this title.” Ibid. The express inclusion of States within the statute’s definition of “persons,” and the plain statement that States are to be considered “owners or operators” in all but very narrow circumstances, together convey a message of unmistakable clarity: Congress intended that States be liable along with everyone else for cleanup costs recoverable under CERCLA. Section 101(20)(D) is an express acknowledgment of Congress’ background understanding — evidenced first in its inclusion of States as “persons” — that States would be liable in any circumstance described in § 107(a) from which they were not expressly excluded. The “exclusion” furnished to the States in § 101(20)(D) would be unnecessary unless such a background understanding were at work.
The plain language of another section of the statute reinforces this conclusion. Section 107(d)(2) of CERCLA, as set forth in 42 U. S. C. § 9607(d)(2) (1982 ed., Supp. IV), headed “State and local governments,” provides: “No State or local government shall be liable under this subchapter for costs or damages as a result of actions taken in response to an emergency created by the release or threatened release of a hazardous substance generated by or from a facility owned by another person. This paragraph shall not preclude liability for costs or damages as a result of gross negligence or intentional misconduct by the State or local government.” This section is, needless to say, an explicit recognition of the potential liability of States under this statute; Congress need not exempt States from liability unless they would otherwise be liable. Similarly, unless suits against the States were elsewhere permitted, Congress would have had no reason to specify that citizen suits — as opposed to the kind of lawsuit involved here — could be brought “against any person (including the United States and any other governmental instrumentality or agency, to the extent permitted by the eleventh amendment to the Constitution).” 42 U. S. C. §9659(a)(1). The reservation of States’ rights under the Eleventh Amendment would be unnecessary if Congress had not elsewhere in the statute overridden the States’ immunity from suit.
It is also highly significant that, in § 101(20)(D), Congress used language virtually identical to that it chose in waiving the Federal Government’s immunity from suits for damages under CERCLA. Section 120(a)(1) of CERCLA, as set forth in 42 U. S. C. § 9620(a)(1), provides: “Each department, agency, and instrumentality of the United States (including the executive, legislative, and judicial branches of government) shall be subject to, and comply with, this chapter in the same manner and to the same extent, both procedurally and substantively, as any nongovernmental entity, including liability under section 9607 of this title.” This is doubtless an “‘unequivocal!] expression]’” of the Federal Government’s waiver of its own sovereign immunity, United States v. Testan, 424 U. S. 392, 399 (1976), quoting United States v. King, 395 U. S. 1, 4 (1969), since we cannot imagine any other plausible explanation for this unqualified language. It can be no coincidence that in describing the potential liability of the States in §101(20)(D), Congress chose language mirroring that of § 120(a)(1). In choosing this mirroring language in §101(20)(D), therefore, Congress must have intended to override the States’ immunity from suit, just as it waived the Federal Government’s immunity in § 120(a)(1).
This cascade of plain language does not, however, impress Pennsylvania. In the face of such clarity, the Commonwealth bravely insists that CERCLA merely makes clear that States may be liable to the United States, not that they may be liable to private entities such as Union Gas. The Commonwealth relies principally on this Court’s decision in Employees v. Missouri Dept. of Public Health and Welfare, 411 U. S. 279 (1973). We held there that Congress had not abrogated the States’ immunity from suit in the Fair Labor Standards Act. Nevertheless, we found, the statute’s explicit inclusion of state-run hospitals among those to whom the law would apply was not meaningless: since the statute allowed the United States to sue, the inclusion of States within the entities covered by the statute served to permit suits by the United States against the States. Id., at 285-286.
Although it is true that the inclusion of States within CERCLA’s definition of “persons” would not be rendered meaningless if we held that CERCLA did not subject the States to suits brought by private citizens, it is equally certain that such a holding would deprive the last portion of §101(20)(D) of all meaning. Congress would have had no cause to stress that States would be liable “to the same extent... as any nongovernmental entity,” § 101(20)(D), if it had meant only that they could be liable to the United States. In United States v. Mississippi, 380 U. S. 128, 140-141 (1965), we recognized that the Constitution presents no barrier to lawsuits brought by the United States against a State. For purposes of such lawsuits, States are naturally just like “any nongovernmental entity”; there are no special rules dictating when they may be sued by the Federal Government, nor is there a stringent interpretive principle guiding construction of statutes that appear to authorize such suits. Indeed, this Court has gone so far as to hold that no explicit statutory authorization is necessary before the Federal Government may sue a State. See United States v. California, 332 U. S. 19, 26-28 (1947). Unless Congress intended to permit suits brought by private citizens against the States, therefore, the highly specific language of § 101(20)(D) was unnecessary.
The same can be said about the clause of § 101(20)(D) specifying that States would be subject to CERCLA’s provisions, “including liability under section 9607 of this title.” Section 9607 provides for liability in damages, and liability in damages is considered a special remedy, requiring special statutory language, only where the States’ immunity from suits by private citizens is involved. In light of § 101(20)(D)’s very precise language, it would be exceedingly odd to interpret this provision as merely a signal that the United States — rather than private citizens — could sue the States for damages under CERCLA.
Moreover, § 101(20)(D) does not, as Pennsylvania suggests, render States liable only if they acquire property involuntarily and then contribute to a release of harmful substances at that property. Section 101(20)(D) obviously explains and qualifies the entire definition of “owner or operator” — not just that part of the definition applicable to involuntary owners.
Nor can it be decisive that § 101(20)(D) mentions local governments as well as States. The Commonwealth argues that, because local governments do not enjoy immunity from suit, § 101(20)(D)’s reference to local governments means that the section shows no intent to abrogate States’ immunity. It was natural, however, for Congress to describe the potential liability of States and local governments in the same breath, since both are governmental entities and both enjoy special exemptions from liability under CERCLA. See §§ 101(20)(D), 107(d)(2). Pennsylvania also argues that § 101(20)(D) demonstrates no intent to hold the States liable because this provision limits the States’ liability.'It is true that this section rescues the States from liability where they obtained ownership of cleanup sites involuntarily. The Commonwealth fails to grasp, however, that a limitation of liability is nonsensical unless liability existed in the first place.
We thus hold that the language of CERCLA as amended by SARA clearly evinces an intent to hold States liable in damages in federal court.
Ill
Our conclusion that CERCLA clearly permits suits for money damages against States in federal court requires us to decide whether the Commerce Clause grants Congress the power to enact such a statute. Pennsylvania argues that the principle of sovereign immunity found in the Eleventh Amendment precludes such congressional authority. We do not agree.
A
Though we have never squarely resolved this issue of congressional power, our decisions mark a trail unmistakably leading to the conclusion that Congress may permit suits against the States for money damages. The trail begins with Parden v. Terminal Railway of Alabama Docks Dept., 377 U. S. 184 (1964). There, in responding to a state-owned railway’s argument that Congress had no authority to subject the railway to suit, we concluded that “the States surrendered a portion of their sovereignty when they granted Congress the power to regulate commerce,” id., at 191, and that “[b]y empowering Congress to regulate commerce,... the States necessarily surrendered any portion of their sovereignty that would stand in the way of such regulation,” id., at 192. Although it is true that we have referred to Farden as a case involving a waiver of immunity, Fitzpatrick v. Bitzer, 427 U. S. 445, 451 (1976), the statements quoted above lay a firm foundation for the argument that Congress’ authority to regulate commerce includes the authority directly to abrogate States’ immunity from suit.
The path continues in Employees v. Missouri Dept. of Public Health and Welfare, 411 U. S., at 286, in which we again acknowledged, quoting Farden, that “ ‘the States surrendered a portion of their sovereignty when they granted Congress the power to regulate commerce.’” Although we declined “to extend Parden to cover every exercise by Congress of its commerce power,” we did so in Employees itself only because “the purpose of Congress to give force to the Supremacy Clause by lifting the sovereignty of the States and putting the States on the same footing as other employers [was] not clear.” 411 U. S., at 286-287. Employees' message is plain: the power to regulate commerce includes the power to override States’ immunity from suit, but we will not conclude that Congress has overridden this immunity unless it does so clearly.
Since Employees, we have twice assumed that Congress has the authority to abrogate States’ immunity when acting pursuant to the Commerce Clause. See Welch v. Texas Dept. of Highways and Public Transportation, 483 U. S. 468, 475-476, and n. 5 (1987); County of Oneida v. Oneida Indian Nation of New York, 470 U. S. 226, 252 (1985). See also Green v. Mansour, 474 U. S. 64, 68 (1985) (“States may not be sued in federal court... unless Congress, pursuant to a valid exercise of power, unequivocally expresses its intent to abrogate the immunity”); Quern v. Jordan, 440 U. S. 332, 343 (1979) (referring to congressional power recognized in Employees as power “to abrogate Eleventh Amendment immunity”).
It is no accident, therefore, that every Court of Appeals to have reached this issue has concluded that Congress has the authority to abrogate States’ immunity from suit when legislating pursuant to the plenary powers granted it by the Constitution. See, e. g., United States v. Union Gas Co., 832 F. 2d 1343 (CA3 1987) (case below); In re McVey Trucking, Inc., 812 F. 2d 311 (CA7), cert. denied, 484 U. S. 895 (1987); County of Monroe v. Florida, 678 F. 2d 1124 (CA2 1982), cert. denied, 459 U. S. 1104 (1983); Peel v. Florida Dept, of Transportation, 600 F. 2d 1070 (CA5 1979); Mills Music, Inc. v. Arizona, 591 F. 2d 1278 (CA9 1979).
Even if we never before had discussed the specific connection between Congress’ authority under the Commerce Clause and States’ immunity from suit, careful regard for precedent still would mandate the conclusion that Congress has the power to abrogate immunity when exercising its plenary authority to regulate interstate commerce. In Fitzpatrick v. Bitzer, supra, we held that Congress may subject States to suits for money damages in federal court when legislating under § 5 of the Fourteenth Amendment, and further held that Congress had done so in the 1972 Amendments to Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Subsequent cases hold firmly to the principle that Congress can override States’ immunity under §5. See, e. g., Dellmuth v. Muth, post, p. 223; Atascadero State Hospital v. Scanlon, 473 U. S., at 238; Pennhurst State School and Hospital v. Halderman, 465 U. S. 89, 99 (1984); Quern v. Jordan, supra.
Fitzpatrick’s, rationale is straightforward: “When Congress acts pursuant to § 5, not only is it exercising legislative authority that is plenary within the terms of the constitutional grant, it is exercising that authority under one section of a constitutional Amendment whose other sections by their own terms embody limitations on state authority.” 427 U. S., at 456. In so reasoning, we emphasized the “shift in the federal-state balance” occasioned by the Civil War Amendments, id., at 455, and in particular quoted extensively from Ex parte Virginia, 100 U. S. 339 (1880). The following passage from Ex parte Virginia is worth quoting here as well:
“Such enforcement [of the prohibitions of the Fourteenth Amendment] is no invasion of State sovereignty. No law can be, which the people of the States have, by the Constitution of the United States, empowered Congress to enact.... [I]n exercising her rights, a State cannot disregard the limitations which the Federal Constitution has applied to her power. Her rights do not reach to that extent. Nor can she deny to the general government the right to exercise all its granted powers, though they may interfere with the full enjoyment of rights she would have if those powers had not been thus granted. Indeed, every addition of power to the general government involves a corresponding diminution of the governmental powers of the States. It is carved out of them.” Id., at 346, quoted in Fitzpatrick, supra, at 454-455.
Each of these points is as applicable to the Commerce Clause as it is to the Fourteenth Amendment. Like the Fourteenth Amendment, the Commerce Clause with one hand gives power to Congress while, with the other, it takes power away from the States. It cannot be relevant that the Fourteenth Amendment accomplishes this exchange in two steps (§§ 1-4, plus §5), while the Commerce Clause does it in one. The important point, rather, is that the provision both expands federal power and contracts state power; that is the meaning, in fact, of a “plenary” grant of authority, and the lower courts have rightly concluded that it makes no sense to conceive of § 5 as somehow being an “ultraplenary” grant of authority. See, e. g., In re McVey Trucking, supra, at 316. See also Quern, supra, at 343 (distinguishing Employees (Commerce Clause) from Fitzpatrick (§ 5) only by reference to the clarity of the congressional intent expressed in the relevant statutes).
Pennsylvania attempts to bring this case outside Fitzpatrick by asserting that “[t]he Fourteenth Amendment... alters what would otherwise be the proper constitutional balance between federal and state governments.” Brief for Petitioner 39. The Commonwealth believes, apparently, that the “constitutional balance” existing prior to the Fourteenth Amendment did not permit Congress to override the States’ immunity from suit. This claim, of course, begs the very question we face.
For its part, Justice Scalia’s opinion casually announces: “Nothing in [Fitzpatrick’s] reasoning justifies limitation of the principle embodied in the Eleventh Amendment through appeal to antecedent provisions of the Constitution.” Post, at 42. The operative word here is, it would appear, “antecedent”; and it is important to emphasize that, according to Justice Scalia, the Commerce Clause is antecedent, not to the Eleventh Amendment, but to “the principle embodied in the Eleventh Amendment.” But, according to Part II of Justice Scalia’s opinion, this “principle” has been with us since the days before the Constitution was ratified — since the days, in other words, before the Commerce Clause. In describing the “consensus that the doctrine of sovereign immunity... was part of the understood background against which the Constitution was adopted, and which its jurisdictional provisions did not mean to sweep away,” post, at 31-32, Justice Scalia clearly refers to a state of affairs that existed well before the States ratified the Constitution. Justice Scalia, therefore, has things backwards: it is not the Commerce Clause that came first, but “the principle embodied in the Eleventh Amendment” that did so. Antecedence takes this case closer to, not further from, Fitzpatrick.
Even if “the principle embodied in the Eleventh Amendment” made its first appearance at the same moment as the Commerce Clause, and not before, Justice Scalia could no longer rely on chronology in distinguishing Fitzpatrick. Only if it were the Eleventh Amendment itself that introduced the principle of sovereign immunity into the Constitution would the Commerce Clause have preceded this principle. Even then, the order of events would matter only if the Amendment changed things; that is, it would matter only if, before the Eleventh Amendment, the Commerce Clause did authorize Congress to abrogate sovereign immunity. But if Congress enjoyed such power prior to the enactment of this Amendment, we would require a showing far more powerful than Justice Scalia can muster that the Amendment was intended to obliterate that authority. The language of the Eleventh Amendment gives us no hint that it limits congressional authority; it refers only to “the judicial power” and forbids “construing]” that power to extend to the enumerated suits — language plainly intended to rein in the Judiciary, not Congress. It would be a fragile Constitution indeed if subsequent amendments could, without express reference, be interpreted to wipe out the original understanding of congressional power.
Justice Scalia attempts to avoid the pull of our prior decisions by claiming that Hans answered this constitutional question over 100 years ago. Because Hans was brought into federal court via the Judiciary Act of 1875 and because the Court there held that the suit was barred by the Eleventh Amendment, Justice Scalia argues, that case disposed of the question whether Congress has the authority to abrogate States’ immunity when legislating pursuant to the powers granted it by the Constitution. See post, at 36-37. This argument depends on the notion that, in passing the Judiciary Act, “Congress... sought to eliminate [the] state sovereign immunity” that Article III had not eliminated. Post, at 36 (emphasis in original). As Justice Sc alia is well aware, however, the Judiciary Act merely gave effect to the grant of federal-question jurisdiction under Article III, which was not self-executing. Thus, if Article III did not “automatically eliminate” sovereign immunity, see post, at 33, then neither did the Judiciary Act of 1875. That unsurprising conclusion does not begin to address the question whether other congressional enactments, not designed simply to implement Article Ill’s grants of jurisdiction, may override States’ immunity. When one recalls, in addition, our conclusion that “Art[icle] III ‘arising under’ jurisdiction is broader than federal-question jurisdiction under § 1331,” Verlinden B. V. v. Central Bank of Nigeria, 461 U. S. 480, 495 (1983), Justice Scalia’s conception of Hans’ holding looks particularly exaggerated.
Our prior cases thus indicate that Congress has the authority to override States’ immunity when legislating pursuant to the Commerce Clause. This conclusion is confirmed by a consideration of the special nature of the power conferred by that Clause.
B
We have recognized that the States enjoy no immunity where there has been “‘a surrender of this immunity in the plan of the convention.’” Monaco v. Mississippi, 292 U. S. 313, 322-323 (1934), quoting The Federalist No. 81, p. 657 (H. Dawson ed. 1876) (A. Hamilton). Because the Commerce Clause withholds power from the States at the same time as it confers it on Congress, and because the congressional power thus conferred would be incomplete without the authority to render States liable in damages, it must be that, to the extent that the States gave Congress the authority to regulate commerce, they also relinquished their immunity where Congress found it necessary, in exercising this authority, to render them liable. The States held liable under such a congressional enactment are thus not “unconsenting”; they gave their consent all at once, in ratifying the Constitution containing the Commerce Clause, rather than on a case-by-case basis.
It would be difficult to overstate the breadth and depth of the commerce power. See, e. g., NLRB v. Jones & Laughlin Steel Corp., 801 U. S. 1 (1937); Wickard v. Filburn, 317 U. S. 111, 127-128 (1942); Katzenbach v. McClung, 379 U. S. 294 (1964). It is not the vastness of this power, however, that is so important here: it is its effect on the power of the States. The Commerce Clause, we long have held, displaces state authority even where Congress has chosen not to act, see Gibbons v. Ogden, 9 Wheat. 1 (1824); Missouri Pacific R. Co. v. Stroud, U. S. 404, 408 (1925); Northwest Central Pipeline Corp. v. State Corp. Comm’n of Kansas, 489 U. S. 493 (1989), and it sometimes precludes state regulation even though existing federal law does not pre-empt it, see Philadelphia v. New Jersey, 437 U. S. 617, 621, n. 4, 628-629 (1978); Northwest Central Pipeline Corp., supra. Since the States may not legislate at all in these last two situations, a conclusion that Congress may not create a cause of action for money damages against the States would mean that no one could do so. And in many situations, it is only money damages that will carry out Congress’ legitimate objectives under the Commerce Clause.
The case before us brilliantly illuminates these points. The general problem of environmental harm is often not susceptible of a local solution. See Illinois v. Milwaukee, 406 U. S. 91 (1972) (recognizing authority of federal courts to create federal “common law” of nuisance to apply to interstate water pollution, displacing state nuisance laws). We have, in fact, invalidated one State’s effort to deal with the problem of waste disposal on a local level. See Philadelphia v. New Jersey, supra. A New Jersey statute prohibited the treatment and disposal, within the State, of any solid or liquid wastes generated outside the State. Indicating that a law applicable to all wastes would have survived under the Commerce Clause, id., at 626, we held that the exemption of locally produced wastes doomed the statute, id., at 626-629. As a practical matter, however, it is difficult to imagine that a State could forbid the disposal of all wastes. Hence, the Commerce Clause as interpreted in Philadelphia v. New Jersey ensures that we often must look to the Federal Government for environmental solutions. And often those solutions, to be satisfactory, must include a cause of action for money damages.
The cause of action under consideration, for example, came about only after Congress had tried to solve the problem posed by hazardous substances through other means. Prior statutes such as the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act of 1976, 90 Stat. 2796, as amended, 42 U. S. C. §6901 et seq., had failed in large part because they focused on preventive measures to the exclusion of remedial ones. See Note, Superfund and California’s Implementation: Potential Conflict, 19 C. W. L. R. 373, 376, n. 23 (1983). The remedy that Congress felt it needed in CERCLA is sweeping: everyone who is potentially responsible for hazardous-waste contamination may be forced to contribute to the costs of cleanup. See, e. g., 42 U. S. C. § 9613(f)(1) (1986 ed., Supp. IV). Congress did not think it enough, moreover, to permit only the Federal Government to recoup the costs of its own cleanups of hazardous-waste sites; the Government’s resources being finite, it could neither pay up front for all necessary cleanups nor undertake many different projects at the same time. Some help was needed, and Congress sought to encourage that help by allowing private parties who voluntarily cleaned up hazardous-waste sites to recover a proportionate amount of the costs of cleanup from the other potentially responsible parties. See ibid.; Mardan Corp. v. C. G. C. Music, Ltd., 804 F. 2d 1454, 1457, n. 3 (CA9 1986); Walls v. Waste Resource Corp., 761 F. 2d 311, 318 (CA6 1985). If States, which comprise a significant class of owners and operators of hazardous-waste sites, see Brief for Respondent 8, need not pay for the costs of cleanup, the overall effect on voluntary cleanups will be substantial. This case thus shows why the space carved out for federal legislation under the commerce power must include the power to hold States financially accountable not only to the Federal Government, but to private citizens as well.
It does not follow that Congress, pursuant to its authority under the Commerce Clause, could authorize suits in federal court that the bare terms of Article III would not permit. No one suggests that if the Commerce Clause confers on Congress the power of abrogation, it must also confer the power to direct that certain state-law suits (not falling under the diversity jurisdiction) be brought in federal court.
According to Pennsylvania, however, to decide that Congress may permit suits against States for money damages in federal court is equivalent to holding that Congress may expand the jurisdiction of the federal courts beyond the bounds of Article III. Pennsylvania argues that the federal judicial power as set forth in Article III does not extend to any suits for damages brought by private citizens against unconsenting States. See Brief for Petitioner 35-36, quoting Ex parte New York, 256 U. S. 490, 497 (1921) (‘“[T]he 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’ ”). We never have held, however, that Article III does not permit such suits where the States have consented to them. Pennsylvania’s argument thus is answered by our conclusion that, in approving the commerce power, the States consented to suits against them based on congressionally created causes of action. Its claim also is answered by Fitzpatrick v. Bitzer, 427 U. S. 445 (1976). The Fourteenth Amendment does not purport to expand or even change the scope of Article III. If Pennsylvania were right about the limitations on Article III, then our holding in Fitzpatrick would mean that the Fourteenth Amendment, though silent on the subject, expanded the judicial power as originally conceived. We do not share that view of Fitzpatrick.
IV
We hold that CERCLA renders States liable in money damages in federal court, and that Congress has the authority to render them so liable when legislating pursuant to the Commerce Clause. Given our ruling in favor of Union Gas, we need not reach its argument that Hans v. Louisiana, 134 U. S. 1 (1890), should be overruled. We affirm the judgment of the Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit and remand the case for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
Section 101(20)(D), as set forth in 42 U. S. C. 9601(20)(D), provides in full:
“(D) The term ‘owner or operator’ does not include a unit of State or local government which acquired ownership or control involuntarily through bankruptcy, tax delinquency, abandonment, or other circumstances in which the government involuntarily acquires title by virtue of its function as sovereign. The exclusion provided under this paragraph shall not apply to any State or local government which has caused or contributed to the release or threatened release of a hazardous substance from the facility, and such a State or local government shall be subject to the provisions of this chapter in the same manner and to the same extent, both procedurally and substantively, as any nongovernmental entity, including liability under section 9607 of this title.”
Justice White’s attack on the notion that the definition of the word “persons,” standing alone, abrogates the States’ immunity from suit, see post, at 46-50, is directed at an argument that we do not make. We do not say that CERCLA’s definition of “persons” alone overrides the States’ immunity, but instead read CERCLA and SARA together, and argue that SARA’s wording must inform our understanding of the other definitional sections of the statute.
The failure to appreciate this point leads to four mistakes. First, in his “judicial headcount,” post, at 46-47, Justice White counts the votes as to the wrong statute. The judges who ruled that CERCLA did not render States liable did so when they considered the unamended version of CERCLA; as to CERCLA as amended by SARA, the three-judge panel unanimously agreed that it clearly abrogated the States’ immunity. (This headcounting approach is flawed for another, more fundamental reason: surely judges can disagree about the content and rigor of the standard of “unmistakable clarity,” and if they do, they are likely 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:
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J
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sc_issuearea
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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.
Chief Justice ROBERTS delivered the opinion of the Court.
Chapter 13 of the Bankruptcy Code affords individuals receiving regular income an opportunity to obtain some relief from their debts while retaining their property. To proceed under Chapter 13, a debtor must propose a plan to use future income to repay a portion (or in the rare case all) of his debts over the next three -to five years. If the bankruptcy court confirms the plan and the debtor successfully carries it out, he receives a discharge of his debts according to the plan.
The bankruptcy court may, however, decline to confirm a proposed repayment plan because it is inconsistent with the Code. Although the debtor is usually given an opportunity to submit a revised plan, he may be convinced that the original plan complied with the Code and that the bankruptcy court was wrong to deny confirmation. The question presented is whether such an order denying confirmation is a “final” order that the debtor can immediately appeal. We hold that it is not.
I
In December 2010, Louis Bullard filed a petition for Chapter 13 bankruptcy in Federal Bankruptcy Court in Massachusetts. A week later he filed a proposed repayment plan listing the various claims he anticipated creditors would file and the monthly amounts he planned to pay on each claim over the five-year life of his plan. See 11 U.S.C. §§ 1321, 1322. Chief among Bullard’s debts was the roughly $346,000 he owed to Blue Hills Bank, which held a mortgage on a niultifamily house Bullard owned. Bullard’s plan indicated that the mortgage was significantly “underwater”: that is, the house was worth substantially less than the amount Bullard owed the Bank.
Before submitting his plan for court approval, Bullard amended it three times over the course of a year to more accurately reflect the value of the house, the terms of the mortgage, the amounts of creditors’ claims, and his proposed payments. See § 1323 (allowing preconfirmation modification). Bullard’s third amended plan — the one at issue here — proposed a “hybrid” treatment of his debt to the Bank. He proposed splitting the debt into a secured claim in the amount of the house’s then-current value (which he estimated at $245,000), and an unsecured claim for the remainder (roughly $101,000). Under the plan, Bullard would continue making his regular mortgage payments toward the secured claim, which he would eventually repay in full, long after the conclusion of his bankruptcy case. He would treat the unsecured claim, however, the same as any other unsecured debt, paying only as much on it as his income would allow over the course of his five-year plan. At the end of this period the remaining balance on the unsecured portion of the loan would be discharged. In total, Bullard’s plan called for him to pay only about $5,000 of the $101,000 unsecured claim.
The Bank (no surprise) objected to the plan and, after a hearing, the Bankruptcy Court declined to confirm it. In re Bul-lard, 475 B.R. 304 (Bkrtcy.Ct.D.Mass. 2012). The court concluded that Chapter 13 did not allow Bullard to split the Bank’s claim as he proposed unless he paid the secured portion in full during the plan period. Id., at 314. The court acknowledged, however, that other Bankruptcy Courts in the First Circuit had approved such arrangements. Id., at 309. The Bankruptcy Court ordered Bullard to submit a new plan within 30 days. Id., at 314.
Bullard appealed to the Bankruptcy Appellate Panel (BAP) of the First Circuit. The BAP first addressed its jurisdiction under the bankruptcy appeals statute, noting that a party can immediately appeal only “final” orders of a bankruptcy court. In re Bullard, 494 B.R. 92, 95 (2013) (citing 28 U.S.C. § 158(a)(1)). The BAP concluded that the order denying plan confirmation was not final because Bullard was “free to propose an alternate plan.” 494 B.R., at 95. The BAP nonetheless exercised its discretion to hear the appeal under a provision that allows interlocutory appeals “with leave of the court.” § 158(a)(3). The BAP granted such leave because the confirmation dispute involved a “controlling question of law ... as to which there is substantial ground for difference of opinion,” and “an immediate appeal [would] materially advance the ultimate termination of the litigation.” 494 B.R., at 95, and n. 5. On the merits, the BAP agreed with the Bankruptcy Court that Bullard’s proposed treatment of the Bank’s claim was not allowed. Id., at 96-101.
Bullard sought review in the Court of Appeals for the First Circuit, but that court dismissed his appeal for lack of jurisdiction. In re Bullard, 752 F.3d 483 (2014). The First Circuit noted that because the BAP had not certified the appeal under § 158(d)(2), the only possible source of Court of Appeals jurisdiction was § 158(d)(1), which allowed appeal of only a final order of the BAP. Id., at 485, and n. 3. And under First Circuit precedent “an order of the BAP cannot be final unless the underlying bankruptcy court order is final.” Id., at 485. The Court of Appeals accordingly examined whether a bankruptcy court’s denial of plan confirmation is a final order, a question that it recognized had divided the Circuits. Adopting the majority view, the First Circuit concluded that an order denying confirmation is not final so long as the debtor remains free to propose another plan. Id., at 486-490.
We granted certiorari. 574 U.S. -, 135 S.Ct. 781, 190 L.Ed.2d 649 (2014).
II
In ordinary civil litigation, a case in federal district court culminates in a “final decisiofn],” 28 U.S.C. § 1291, a ruling “by which a district court disassociates itself from a case,” Swint v. Chambers County Comm’n, 514 U.S. 35, 42, 115 S.Ct. 1203, 131 L.Ed.2d 60 (1995). A party can typically appeal as of right only from that final decision. This rule reflects the conclusion that “[p]ermitting piecemeal, prejudgment appeals ... undermines ‘efficient judicial administration’ and encroaches upon the prerogatives of district court judges, who play a ‘special role’ in managing ongoing litigation.” Mohawk Industries, Inc. v. Carpenter, 558 U.S. 100, 106, 130 S.Ct. 599, 175 L.Ed.2d 458 (2009) (quoting Firestone Tire & Rubber Co. v. Risjord, 449 U.S. 368, 374, 101 S.Ct. 669, 66 L.Ed.2d 571 (1981)).
The rules are different in bankruptcy. A bankruptcy case involves “an aggregation of individual controversies,” many of which would exist as stand-alone lawsuits but for the bankrupt status of the debtor. 1 Collier on Bankruptcy ¶ 5.08[l][b], p. 5-42 (16th ed. 2014). Accordingly, “Congress has long provided that orders in bankruptcy cases may be immediately appealed if they finally dispose of discrete disputes within the larger case.” Howard Delivery Service, Inc. v. Zurich American Ins. Co., 547 U.S. 651, 657, n. 3, 126 S.Ct. 2105, 165 L.Ed.2d 110 (2006) (internal quotation marks and emphasis omitted). The current bankruptcy appeals statute reflects this approach: It authorizes appeals as of right not only from final judgments in cases but from “final judgments, orders, and decrees ... in cases and proceedings.” § 158(a).
The present dispute is about how to define the immediately appealable “proceeding” in the context of the consideration of Chapter 13 plans. Bullard argues for a plan-by-plan approach. Each time the bankruptcy court reviews a proposed plan, he says, it conducts a separate proceeding. On this view, an order denying confirmation and an order granting confirmation both terminate that proceeding, and both are therefore final and appeal-able.
In the Bank’s view Bullard is slicing the ease too thin. The relevant “proceeding,” it argues, is the entire process of considering plans, which terminates only when a plan is confirmed or — if the debtor fails to offer any confirmable plan — when the case is dismissed. An order denying confirmation is not final, so long as it leaves the debtor free to propose another plan.
We agree with the Bank: The relevant proceeding is the process of attempting to arrive at an approved plan that would allow the bankruptcy to move forward. This is so, first and foremost, because only plan confirmation — or case dismissal — alters the status quo and fixes the rights and obligations of the parties. When the bankruptcy court confirms a plan, its terms become binding on debtor and creditor alike. 11 U.S.C. § 1327(a). Confirmation has preclusive effect, foreclosing relitigation of “any issue actually litigated by the parties and any issue necessarily determined by the confirmation order.” 8 Collier ¶ 1327.02[l][c], at 1327-6; see also United Student Aid Funds, Inc. v. Espinosa, 559 U.S. 260, 275, 130 S.Ct. 1367, 176 L.Ed.2d 158 (2010) (finding a confirmation order “enforceable and binding” on a creditor notwithstanding legal error when the creditor “had notice of the error and failed to object or timely appeal”). Subject to certain exceptions, confirmation “vests all of the property of the [bankruptcy] estate in the debtor,” and renders that property “free and clear of any claim or interest of any creditor provided for by the plan.” §§ 1327(b), (c). Confirmation also triggers the Chapter 13 trustee’s duty to distribute to creditors those funds already received from the debtor. § 1326(a)(2).
When confirmation is denied and the case is dismissed as a result, the consequences are similarly significant. Dismissal of course dooms the possibility of a discharge and the other benefits available to a debtor under Chapter 13. Dismissal lifts the automatic stay entered at the start of bankruptcy, exposing the debt- or to creditors’ legal actions and collection efforts. § 862(c)(2). And it can limit the availability of an automatic stay in a subsequent bankruptcy case. § 362(c)(3).
Denial of confirmation with leave to amend, by contrast, changes little. The automatic stay persists. The parties’ rights and obligations remain unsettled. The trustee continues to collect funds from the debtor in anticipation of a different plan’s eventual confirmation. The possibility of discharge lives on. “Final” does not describe this state of affairs. An order denying confirmation does rule out the specific arrangement of relief embodied in a particular plan. But that alone does not make the denial final any more than, say, a car buyer’s declining to pay the sticker price is viewed as a “final” purchasing decision by either the buyer or seller. “It ain’t over till it’s over.”
Several additional considerations bolster our conclusion that the relevant “proceeding” is the entire process culminating in confirmation or dismissal. First is a textual clue. Among the list of “core proceedings” statutorily entrusted to bankruptcy judges are “confirmations of plans.” 28 U.S.C. § 157(b)(2)(L). Although this item hardly clinches the matter for the Bank — the provision’s purpose is not' to explain appealability — it does cut in the Bank’s favor. The presence of the phrase “confirmations of plans,” combined with the absence of any reference to denials, suggests that Congress viewed the larger confirmation process as the “proceeding,” not the ruling on each specific plan.
In Bullard’s view the debtor can appeal the denial of the first plan he submits to the bankruptcy court. If the court of appeals affirms the denial, the debtor can then revise the plan. If the new plan is also denied confirmation, another appeal can ensue. And so on. As Bullard’s case shows, each climb up the appellate ladder and slide down the chute can take more than a year. Avoiding such delays and inefficiencies is precisely the reason for a rule of finality. It does not make much sense to define the pertinent proceeding so narrowly that the requirement of finality would do little work as a meaningful constraint on the availability of appellate review.
Bullard responds that concerns about frequent piecemeal appeals are misplaced in this context. Debtors do not typically have the money or incentives to take appeals over small beer issues. They will only appeal the relatively rare denials based on significant legal rulings — precisely the cases that should proceed promptly to the courts of appeals. Brief for Petitioner 43-46.
Bullard’s assurance notwithstanding, debtors may often view, in good faith or bad, the prospect of appeals as important leverage in dealing with creditors. An appeal extends the automatic stay that comes with bankruptcy, which can cost creditors money and allow a debtor to retain property he might lose if the Chapter 13 proceeding turns out not to be viable. These concerns are heightened if the same rule applies in Chapter 11, as the parties assume. Chapter 11 debtors, often business entities, are more likely to have the resources to appeal and may do so on narrow issues. See Tr. of Oral Arg. 51. But even if Bullard is correct that such appeals will be rare, that does not much support his broader point that an appeal of right should be allowed in every case. It is odd, after all, to argue in favor of allowing more appeals by emphasizing that almost nobody will take them.
We think that in the ordinary case treating only confirmation or dismissal as final will not unfairly burden a debtor. He retains the valuable exclusive right to propose plans, which he can modify freely. 11 U.S.C. §§ 1321,1323. The knowledge that he will have no guaranteed appeal from a denial should encourage the debtor to work with creditors and the trustee to develop a confirmable plan as promptly as possible. And expedition is always an important consideration in bankruptcy.
Ill
Bullard and the Solicitor General present several arguments for treating each plan denial as final, but we are not persuaded.
The Solicitor General notes that disputes in bankruptcy are generally classified as either “adversary proceedings,” essentially full civil lawsuits carried out under the umbrella of the bankruptcy case, or “contested matters,” an undefined catchall for other issues the parties dispute. See Fed. Rule Bkrtcy. Proc. 7001 (listing ten adversary proceedings); Rule 9014 (addressing “contested matter[s] not otherwise governed by these rules”). An objection to a plan initiates a contested matter. See Rule 3015(f). Everyone agrees that an order resolving that matter by overruling the objection and confirming the plan is final. As the Solicitor General sees it, an order denying confirmation would also resolve that contested matter, so such an order should also be considered final. Brief for United States as Amicus Curiae 19-22.
The scope of the Solicitor- General’s argument is unclear. At points his brief appears to argue that an order resolving any contested matter is final and immediately appealable. That version of the argument has the virtue of resting on a general principle — but the vice of being implausible. As a leading treatise notes, the list of contested matters is “endless” and covers all sorts of minor disagreements. 10 Collier ¶ 9014.01, at 9014-3. The concept of finality cannot stretch to cover, for example, an order resolving a disputed request for an extension of time.
At other points, the Solicitor General appears to argue that because one possible resolution of this particular contested matter (confirmation) is final, the other (denial) must be as well. But this argument begs the question. It simply assumes that confirmation is appealable because it resolves a contested matter, and that therefore anything else that resolves the contested matter must also be appealable. But one can just as easily contend that confirmation is appealable because it resolves the entire plan consideration process, and that therefore the entire process is the “proceeding.” A decision that does not resolve the entire plan consideration process — denial—is therefore not appeal-able.
Perhaps the Solicitor General’s suggestion is that a separately appealable “proceeding” must coincide precisely with a particular “adversary proceeding” or “contested matter” under the Bankruptcy Rules. He does not, however, provide any support for such a suggestion. More broadly, it is of course quite common for the finality of a decision to depend on which way the decision goes. An order granting a motion for summary judgment is final; an order denying such a motion is not.
Bullard and the Solicitor General also contend that our rule creates an unfair asymmetry: If the bankruptcy court sustains an objection and denies confirmation, the debtor (always the plan proponent in Chapter 13) must go back to the drafting table and try again; but if the bankruptcy court overrules an objection and grants confirmation, a creditor can appeal without delay. But any asymmetry in this regard simply reflects the fact that confirmation allows the bankruptcy to go forward and alters the legal relationships among the parties, while denial does not have such significant consequences.
Moreover, it is not clear that this asymmetry will always advantage creditors. Consider a creditor who strongly supports a proposed plan because it treats him well. If the bankruptcy court sustains an objection from another creditor — perhaps because the plan treats the first creditor too well — the first creditor might have as keen an interest in a prompt appeal as the debtor. And yet, under the rule we adopt, that creditor too would have to await further developments.
Bullard also raises a more practical objection. If denial orders are not final, he says, there will be no effective means of obtaining appellate review of the denied proposal. The debtor’s only two options would be to seek or accept dismissal of his case and then appeal, or to propose an amended plan and appeal its confirmation.
The first option is not realistic, Bullard contends, because dismissal means the end of the automatic stay against creditors’ collection efforts. Without the stay, the debtor might lose the very property at issue in the rejected plan. Even if a bankruptcy court agrees to maintain the stay pending appeal, the debtor is still risking his entire bankruptcy case on the appeal.
The second option is no better, says Bullard. An acceptable, confirmable alternative may not exist. Even if one does, its confirmation might have immediate and irreversible effects — such as the sale or transfer of property — and a court is unlikely to stay its execution. Moreover, it simply wastes time and money to place the. debtor in the position of seeking approval of a plan he does not want.
All good points. We do not doubt that in many cases these options may be, as the court below put it, “unappealing.” 752 F.3d, at 487. But our litigation system has long accepted that certain burdensome rulings will be “only imperfectly reparable” by the appellate process. Digital Equipment Corp. v. Desktop Direct, Inc., 511 U.S. 863, 872, 114 S.Ct. 1992, 128 L.Ed.2d 842 (1994). This prospect is made tolerable in part by our confidence that bankruptcy courts, like trial courts in ordinary litigation, rule correctly most of the time. And even when they slip, many of their errors — wrongly concluding, say, that a debtor should pay unsecured creditors $400 a month rather than $300 — will not be of a sort that justifies the costs entailed by a system of universal immediate appeals.
Sometimes, of course, a question will be important enough that it should be addressed immediately. Bul-lard’s case could well fit the bill: The confirmability of his hybrid plan presented a pure question of law that had divided bankruptcy courts in the First Circuit and would make a substantial financial difference to the parties. But there are several mechanisms for interlocutory review to address such cases. First, a district court or BAP can (as the BAP did in this case) grant leave to hear such an appeal. 28 U.S.C. § 158(a)(3). A debtor who appeals to the district court and loses there can seek certification to the court of appeals under the general interlocutory appeals statute, § 1292(b). See Connecticut Nat. Bank v. Germain, 503 U.S. 249, 112 S.Ct. 1146, 117 L.Ed.2d 391 (1992).
Another interlocutory mechanism is provided in § 158(d)(2). That provision allows a bankruptcy court, district court, BAP, or the parties acting jointly to certify a bankruptcy court’s order to the court of appeals, which then has discretion to hear the matter. Unlike § 1292(b), which permits certification only when three enumerated factors suggesting importance are all present, § 158(d)(2) permits certification when any one of several such factors exists, a distinction that allows a broader range of interlocutory decisions to make their way to the courts of appeals. While discretionary review mechanisms such as these “do not provide relief in every case, they serve as useful safety valves for promptly correcting serious errors” and addressing important legal questions. Mohawk Industries, 558 U.S., at 111, 130 S.Ct. 599 (internal quotation marks and brackets omitted).
Bullard maintains that interlocutory appeals are ineffective because lower courts have been too reticent in granting them. But Bullard did, after all, obtain one layer of interlocutory review when the BAP granted him leave to appeal under § 158(a)(3). He also sought certification to the Court of Appeals under § 158(d)(2); but the BAP denied his request for reasons that are not entirely clear. See App. to Pet. for Cert. 17a. The fact that Bul-lard was not able to obtain further merits review in the First Circuit in this particular instance does not undermine our expectation that lower courts will certify and accept interlocutory appeals from plan denials in appropriate cases.
Because the Court of Appeals correctly held that the order denying confirmation was not final, its judgment is
Affirmed.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer:
|
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 writ of certiorari is dismissed as improvidently granted.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer:
|
I
|
sc_issuearea
|
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Justice Souter
delivered the opinion of the Court, except as to Part III-B.
For the better part of two centuries States and their political subdivisions have issued bonds for public purposes, and for nearly half that time some States have exempted interest on their own bonds from their state income taxes, which are imposed on bond interest from other States. The question here is whether Kentucky’s version of this differential tax scheme offends the Commerce Clause. We hold that it does not.
I
A
Like most other States, the Commonwealth of Kentucky taxes its residents’ income. See Ky. Rev. Stat. Ann. §141.020(1) (West 2006). The tax is assessed on “net income,” see ibid., calculated by reference to “gross income” as defined by the Internal Revenue Code, see §§ 141.010(9)-(11) (West Supp. 2007), which excludes “interest on any State or local bond” (“municipal bond,” for short), 26 U. S. C. § 103(a). Kentucky piggybacks on this exclusion, but only up to a point: it adds “interest income derived from obligations of sister states and political subdivisions thereof” back into the taxable net. Ky. Rev. Stat. Ann. § 141.010(10)(c). Interest on bonds issued by Kentucky and its political subdivisions is thus entirely exempt, whereas interest on municipal bonds of other States and their subdivisions is taxable. (Interest on bonds issued by private entities is taxed by Kentucky regardless of the private issuer’s home.)
The ostensible reason for this regime is the attractiveness of tax-exempt bonds at “lower rates of interest... than that paid on taxable... bonds of comparable risk.” M. Graetz & D. Schenk, Federal Income Taxation 215 (5th ed. 2005) (hereinafter Graetz & Schenk). Under the Internal Revenue Code, for example, see 26 U. S. C. § 103, “if the market rate of interest is 10 percent on a comparable corporate bond, a municipality could pay only 6.5 percent on its debt and a purchaser in a 35 percent marginal tax bracket would be indifferent between the municipal and the corporate bond, since the after-tax interest rate on the corporate bond is 6.5 percent,” Graetz & Schenk 215. The differential tax scheme in Kentucky works the same way; the Commonwealth’s tax benefit to residents who buy its bonds makes lower interest rates acceptable, while limiting the exception to Kentucky bonds raises in-state demand for them without also subsidizing other issuers.
The significance of the scheme is immense. Between 1996 and 2002, Kentucky and its subdivisions issued $7.7 billion in long-term bonds to pay for spending on transportation, public safety, education, utilities, and environmental protection, among other things. IRS, Statistics of Income Bulletin, C. Belmonte, Tax-Exempt Bonds, 1996-2002, pp. 169-170, http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-soi/02govbnd.pdf (as visited Jan. 23, 2008, and available in Clerk of Court’s case file). Across the Nation during the same period, States issued over $750 billion in long-term bonds, with nearly a third of the money going to education, followed by transportation (13%) and utilities (11%). See ibid. Municipal bonds currently finance roughly two-thirds of capital expenditures by state and local governments. L. Thomas, Money, Banking and Financial Markets 55 (2006).
Funding the work of government this way follows a tradition going back as far as the 17th century. See Johnson & Rubin, The Municipal Bond Market: Structure and Changes, in Handbook of Public Finance 483, 485 (F. Thompson & M. Green eds. 1998) (“[In] 1690... Massachusetts issued bills of credit to pay soldiers who had participated in an unsuccessful raid on the City of Quebec”). Municipal bonds first appeared in the United States in the early 19th century: “New York City began to float [debt] securities in about 1812,” A. Hillhouse, Municipal Bonds: A Century of Experience 31 (1936) (hereinafter Hillhouse), and by 1822 Boston “had a bonded debt of $100,000,” id., at 32. The municipal bond market had swelled by the mid-1840s, when the aggregate debt of American cities exceeded $27 million, and the total debt of the States was nearly 10 times that amount. See ibid. Bonds funded some of the great public works of the day, including New York City’s first water system, see id., at 31, and the Erie Canal, see R. Amdursky & C. Gillette, Municipal Debt Finance Law §1.2.1, p. 15 (1992) (hereinafter Amdursky & Gillette). At the turn of the 20th century, the total state and municipal debt was closing in on $2 billion, see Hillhouse 35, and by the turn of the millennium, over “$1.5 trillion in municipal bonds were outstanding,” J. Temel, The Fundamentals of Municipal Bonds, p. ix (5th ed. 2001).
Differential tax schemes like Kentucky’s have a long pedigree, too. State income taxation became widespread in the early 20th century, see A. Comstock, State Taxation of Personal Incomes 11 (1921) (reprinted 2005) (hereinafter Com-stock), and along with the new tax regimes came exemptions and deductions, see id., at 171-184, to induce all sorts of economic behavior, including lending to state and local governments at favorable rates of untaxed interest. New York enacted the first of these statutes in 1919, see 1919 N. Y. Laws pp. 1641-1642, the same year it imposed an income tax, see Comstock 104, and other States followed, see, e. g., 1921 N. C. Sess. Laws p. 208; 1923 N. H. Laws p. 78; 1926 Va. Acts ch. 576, pp. 960-961, with Kentucky joining the pack in 1936, see 1936 Ky. Acts p. 71. Today, 41 States have laws like the one before us.
B
Petitioners (for brevity, Kentucky or the Commonwealth) collect the Kentucky income tax. Respondents George and Catherine Davis are Kentucky residents who paid state income tax on interest from out-of-state municipal bonds, and then sued the tax collectors in state court on a refund claim that Kentucky’s differential taxation of municipal bond income impermissibly discriminates against interstate commerce in violation of the Commerce Clause of the National Constitution. The trial court granted judgment to the Commonwealth, relying in part on our cases recognizing the “market-participant” exception to the dormant Commerce Clause limit on state regulation. See App. to Pet. for Cert. A18-A19 (citing Reeves, Inc. v. Stake, 447 U. S. 429 (1980), and Hughes v. Alexandria Scrap Corp., 426 U. S. 794 (1976)).
The Court of Appeals of Kentucky reversed. See 197 S. W. 3d 557 (2006). In a brief discussion, it rejected the reasoning of an Ohio case upholding a similar tax scheme challenged under the Commerce Clause, see id., at 563 (discussing Shaper v. Tracy, 97 Ohio App. 3d 760, 647 N. E. 2d 550 (1994)), and distinguished our market participant cases, see 197 S. W. 3d, at 564, as well as a decision from the 19th century the Commonwealth relied on, see id., at 563-564 (discussing Bonaparte v. Tax Court, 104 U. S. 592 (1882)). The Court of Appeals thought it had “no choice but to find that Kentucky’s system of taxing only extraterritorial bonds runs afoul of the Commerce Clause,” 197 S. W. 3d, at 564, and the Supreme Court of Kentucky denied the Commonwealth’s motion for discretionary review, see App. to Pet. for Cert. A14.
We granted certiorari owing to the conflict this raised on an important question of constitutional law, and because the*, result reached casts constitutional doubt on a tax regime adopted by a majority of the States. 550 U. S. 956 (2007). We now reverse.
II
The Commerce Clause empowers Congress “[t]o regulate Commerce... among the several States,” Art. I, §8, cl. 3, and although its terms do not expressly restrain “the several States” in any way, we have sensed a negative implication in the provision since the early days, see, e. g., Cooley v. Board of Wardens of Port of Philadelphia ex rel. Soc.for Relief of Distressed Pilots, 12 How. 299, 318-319 (1852); cf. Gibbons v. Ogden, 9 Wheat. 1,209 (1824) (Marshall, C. J.) (dictum). The modern law of what has come to be called the dormant Commerce Clause is driven by concern about “economic protectionism — that is, regulatory measures designed to benefit in-state economic interests by burdening out-of-state competitors.” New Energy Co. of Ind. v. Limbach, 486 U. S. 269, 273-274 (1988). The point is to “effectuatfe] the Framers’ purpose to 'prevent a State from retreating into [the] economic isolation,’” Fulton Corp. v. Faulkner, 516 U. S. 325, 330 (1996) (quoting Oklahoma Tax Comm’n v. Jefferson Lines, Inc., 514 U. S. 175,180 (1995); brackets omitted), “that had plagued relations among the Colonies and later among the States under the Articles of Confederation,” Hughes v. Oklahoma, 441 U. S. 322, 325-326 (1979).
The law has had to respect a cross-purpose as well, for the Framers’ distrust of economic Balkanization was limited by their federalism favoring a degree of local autonomy. Compare The Federalist Nos. 7 (A. Hamilton), 11 (A. Hamilton), and 42 (J. Madison), with The Federalist No. 51 (J. Madison); see also Garcia v. San Antonio Metropolitan Transit Authority, 469 U. S. 528, 546 (1985) (“The essence of our federal system is that within the realm of authority left open to them under the Constitution, the States must be equally free to engage in any activity that their citizens choose for the common weal”).
Under the resulting protocol for dormant Commerce Clause analysis, we ask whether a challenged law discriminates against interstate commerce. See Oregon Waste Systems, Inc. v. Department of Environmental Quality of Ore., 511 U. S. 93, 99 (1994). A discriminatory law is “virtually per se invalid,” ibid.; see also Philadelphia v. New Jersey, 437 U. S. 617, 624 (1978), and will survive only if it “advances a legitimate local purpose that cannot be adequately served by reasonable nondiscriminatory alternatives,” Oregon Waste Systems, supra, at 101 (internal quotation marks omitted); see also Maine v. Taylor, 477 U. S. 131,138 (1986). Absent discrimination for the forbidden purpose, however, the law “will be upheld unless the burden imposed on [interstate] commerce is clearly excessive in relation to the putative local benefits.” Pike y. Bruce Church, Inc., 397 U. S. 137, 142 (1970). State laws frequently survive this Pike scrutiny, see, e. g., United Haulers Assn., Inc. v. Oneida-Herkimer Solid Waste Management Authority, 550 U. S. 330, 346-347 (2007) (plurality opinion); Northwest Central Pipeline Corp. v. State Corporation Comm’n of Kan., 489 U. S. 493, 525-526 (1989); Minnesota v. Clover Leaf Creamery Co., 449 U. S. 456, 472-474 (1981), though not always, as in Pike itself, 397 U. S., at 146.
Some cases run a different course, however, and an exception covers States that go beyond regulation and themselves “participat[e] in the market” so as to “exercis[e] the right to favor [their] own citizens over others.” Alexandria Scrap, supra, at 810. This “market-participant” exception reflects a “basic distinction... between States as market participants and States as market regulators,” Reeves, 447 U. S., at 436, “[t]here [being] no indication of a constitutional plan to limit the ability of the States themselves to operate freely in the free market,” id., at 437. See also White v. Massachusetts Council of Constr. Employers, Inc., 460 U. S. 204, 208 (1983) (“[W]hen a state or local government enters the market as a participant it is not subject to the restraints of the Commerce Clause”). Thus, in Alexandria Scrap, we found that a state law authorizing state payments to processors of automobile hulks validly burdened out-of:state processors with more onerous documentation requirements than their in-state counterparts. Likewise, Reeves accepted South Dakota’s policy of giving in-state customers first dibs on cement produced by a state-owned plant, and White held that a Boston executive order requiring half the workers on city-financed construction projects to be city residents passed muster.
Our most recent look at the reach of the dormant Commerce Clause came just last Term, in a case decided independently of the market participation precedents. United Haulers, supra, upheld a “flow control” ordinance requiring trash haulers to deliver solid waste to a processing plant owned and operated by a public authority in New York State. We found “Compelling reasons” for “treating [the ordinance] differently from laws favoring particular private businesses over their competitors.” Id., at 342. State and local governments that provide public goods and services on their own, unlike private businesses, are “vested with the responsibility of protecting the health, safety, and welfare of [their] citizens,” ibid., and laws favoring such States and their subdivisions may “be directed toward any number of legitimate goals unrelated to protectionism,” id., at 343. That was true in United Haulers, where the ordinance addressed waste disposal, “both typically and traditionally a local government function.” Id., at 344 (quoting United Haulers Assn., Inc. v. Oneida-Herkimer Solid Waste Management Authority, 261 F. 3d 245, 264 (CA2 2001) (Calabresi, J., concurring); internal quotation marks omitted). And if more had been needed to show that New York’s object was consequently different from forbidden protectionism, we pointed out that “the most palpable harm imposed by the ordinances — more expensive trash removal — [was] likely to fall upon the very people who voted for the laws,” rather than out-of-state interests. United Haulers, 550 U. S., at 345. Being concerned that a “contrary approach... would lead to unprecedented and unbounded interference by the courts with state and local government,” id., at 343, we held that the ordinance did “not discriminate against interstate commerce for purposes of the dormant Commerce Clause,” id., at 342.
III
A
It follows a fortiori from United Haulers that Kentucky-must prevail. In United Haulers, we explained that a government function is not susceptible to standard dormant Commerce Clause scrutiny owing to its likely motivation by legitimate objectives distinct from the simple economic protectionism the Clause abhors. See id., at 343 (“Laws favoring local government... may be directed toward any number of legitimate goals unrelated to protectionism”); see also id., at 344 (noting that “[w]e should be particularly hesitant to interfere... under the guise of the Commerce Clause” where a local government engages in a traditional government function). This logic applies with even greater force to laws favoring a State’s municipal bonds, given that the issuance of debt securities to pay for public projects is a quintessentially public function, with the venerable history we have already sketched, see supra, at 334-335. By issuing bonds, state and local governments “sprea[d] the costs of public projects over time,” Amdursky & Gillette § 1.1.3, at 11, much as one might buy a house with a loan subject to monthly payments. Bonds place the cost of a project on the citizens who benefit from it over the years, see ibid., and they allow for public work beyond what current revenues could support, see id., § 1.2, at 12-13. Bond proceeds are thus the way to shoulder the cardinal civic responsibilities listed in United Haulers: protecting the health, safety, and welfare of citizens. It should go without saying that the apprehension in United Haulers about “unprecedented... interference” with a traditional government function is just as warranted here, where the Davises would have us invalidate a century-old taxing practice, see supra, at 335, presently employed by 41 States, see n. 7, supra, and affirmatively supported by all of them, see Brief for 49 States as Amici Curiae.
In fact, this emphasis on the public character of the enterprise supported by the tax preference is just a step in addressing a fundamental element of dormant Commerce Clause jurisprudence, the principle that “any notion of discrimination assumes a comparison of substantially similar entities.” United Haulers, supra, at 342 (quoting General Motors Corp. v. Tracy, 519 U. S. 278,298 (1997); internal quotation marks omitted). In Bonaparte, 104 U. S. 592, a case involving the Full Faith and Credit Clause, we held that a foreign State is properly treated as a private entity with respect to state-issued bonds that have traveled outside its borders. See id., at 595 (beyond its borders, a debtor State “is compelled to go into the market as a borrower, subject to the same disabilities in this particular as individuals,” and has none “of the attributes of sovereignty as to the debt it owes”). Viewed through this lens, the Kentucky tax scheme parallels the ordinance upheld in United Haulers: it “benefit[s] a clearly public [issuer, that is, Kentucky], while treating all private [issuers] exactly the same.” 550 U. S., at 342. There is no forbidden discrimination because Kentucky, as a public entity, does not have to treat itself as being “substantially similar” to the other bond issuers in the market.
Thus, United Haulers provides a firm basis for reversal. Just like the ordinances upheld there, Kentucky’s tax exemption favors a traditional government function without any differential treatment favoring local entities over substantially similar out-of-state interests. This type of law does “not 'discriminate against interstate commerce’ for purposes of the dormant Commerce Clause.” Id., at 345.
B
This case, like United Haulers, may also be seen under the broader rubric of the market participation doctrine, although the Davises say that market participant cases are inapposite here. In their view, we may not characterize state action under the Kentucky statutes as market activity for public purposes, because this would ignore a fact absent in United Haulers but central here: this is a case about differential taxation, and a difference that amounts to a heavier tax burden on interstate activity is forbidden, see, e. g., Camps New-found/Owatonna, Inc. v. Town of Harrison, 520 U. S. 564 (1997) (invalidating statute exempting charities from real estate and personal property taxes unless conducted or operated principally for the benefit of out-of-state residents); Fulton Corp., 516 U. S. 325 (striking down tax on corporate stock held by state residents, where rate of tax was inversely proportional to the corporation’s exposure to the State’s income tax); Bacchus Imports, Ltd. v. Dias, 468 U. S. 263 (1984) (holding excise tax on sale of liquor at wholesale unconstitutional because it exempted some locally produced alcoholic beverages).
The Davises make a fair point to the extent that they argue that Kentucky acts in two roles at once, issuing bonds and setting taxes, and if looked at as a taxing authority it seems to invite dormant Commerce Clause scrutiny of its regulatory activity, see Walling v. Michigan, 116 U. S. 446, 455 (1886) (“A discriminating tax imposed by a State operating to the disadvantage of the products of other States when introduced into the first mentioned State, is, in effect, a regulation in restraint of commerce among the States, and as such is a usurpation of the power conferred by the Constitution upon the Congress”); see also Camps Newfound, supra, at 578 (“[I]t is clear that discriminatory burdens on interstate commerce imposed by regulation or taxation may... violate the Commerce Clause”); Tracy, supra, at 287 (“The negative or dormant implication of the Commerce Clause prohibits state taxation... that discriminates against or unduly burdens interstate commerce”).
But there is no ignoring the fact that imposing the differential tax scheme makes sense only because Kentucky is also a bond issuer. The Commonwealth has entered the market for debt securities, just as Maryland entered the market for automobile hulks, see Alexandria Scrap, 426 U. S., at 806, and South Dakota entered the cement market, see Reeves, 447 U. S., at 440. It simply blinks this reality to disaggregate the Commonwealth’s two roles and pretend that in exempting the income from its securities, Kentucky is independently regulating or regulating in the garden variety way that has made a State vulnerable to the dormant Commerce Clause. States that regulated the price of milk, see, e. g., West Lynn Creamery, Inc. v. Healy, 512 U. S. 186 (1994); Baldwin v. G. A. F. Seelig, Inc., 294 U. S. 511 (1935), did not keep herds of cows or compete against dairy producers for the dollars of milk drinkers. But when Kentucky exempts its bond interest, it is competing in the market for limited investment dollars, alongside private bond issuers and its sister States, and its tax structure is one of the tools of competition.
The failure to appreciate that, regulation by taxation here goes hand in hand with market participation by selling bonds allows the Davises to advocate the error of focusing exclusively on the Commonwealth as regulator and ignoring the Commonwealth as bondseller, see Brief for Respondents 36-39, just as the state court did in saying that “ ‘when a state chooses to tax its citizens, it is acting as a market regulator!,]’ not as a market participant.” 197 S. W. 3d, at 564 (quoting Shaper, 97 Ohio App. 3d, at 764, 647 N. E. 2d, at 552). To indulge in this single vision, however, would require overruling most, if not all, of the cases on point decided since Alexandria Scrap.
White, for example, also scrutinized a government acting in dual roles. The mayor of Boston promulgated an executive order that bore the hallmarks of regulation: it applied to every construction project funded wholly or partially by city funds (or funds administered by the city), and it imposed general restrictions on the hiring practices of private contractors, mandating that 50% of their work forces be bona fide Boston residents and setting thresholds for minorities (25%) and women (10%) as well. See 460 U. S., at 205, n. 1; see also id., at 218-219 (Blackmun, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part) (“The executive order in this case... is a direct attempt to govern private economic relationships.... [It] is the essence of regulation”). At the same time, the city took part in the market by “expending]... its own funds in entering into construction contracts for public projects.” Id., at 214-215 (opinion of the Court). After speaking of “ ‘[t]he basic distinction... between States as market participants and States as market regulators/” id., at 207 (quoting Reeves, supra, at 436-437), White did not dissect Boston’s conduct and ignore the former. Instead, the Court treated the regulatory activity in favor of local and minority labor as terms or conditions of the government’s efforts in its market role, which was treated as dispositive.
Similarly, in Alexandria Scrap, Maryland employed the tools of regulation to invigorate its participation in the market for automobile hulks. The specific controversy there was over documentation requirements included in a “comprehensive statute designed to speed up the scrap cycle.” 426 U. S., at 796. Superficially, the scheme was regulatory in nature; but the Court’s decision was premised on its view that, in practical terms, Maryland had not only regulated but had also “entered into the market itself to bid up [the] price” of automobile hulks. See id., at 806.
United Haulers, though not placed under the market participant umbrella, may be seen as another example. Not only did the public authority acting in that case process trash, but its governmental superiors forbade trash haulers to deal with any other processors. This latter fact did not determine the outcome, however; the dispositive fact was the government’s own activity in processing trash. We upheld the government’s decision to shut down the old market for trash processing only because it created a new one all by itself, and thereby became a participant in a market with just one supplier of a necessary service. If instead the government had created a monopoly in favor of a private hauler, we would have struck down the law just as we did in C & A Carbone, Inc. v. Clarkstown, 511 U. S. 383 (1994). United Haulers accordingly turned on our decision to give paramount consideration to the public function in actively dealing in the trash market; if the Davises had their way, United Haulers would be overruled and the market participation doctrine would describe a null set (or maybe a set of one, see Reeves, supra).
In each of these cases the commercial activities by the governments and their regulatory efforts complemented each other in some way, and in each of them the fact of tying the regulation to the public object of the foray into the market was understood to give the regulation a civic objective different from the discrimination traditionally held to be unlawful: in the paradigm of unconstitutional discrimination the law chills interstate activity by creating a commercial advantage for goods or services marketed by local private actors, not by governments and those they employ to fulfill their civic objectives, see, e. g., Fulton Corp., 516 U. S. 325 (higher tax on the stock of corporations with little or no presence in the State); New Energy Co. of Ind., 486 U. S. 269 (tax credit to sellers of ethanol available only for ethanol produced in the State); Bacchus Imports, Ltd., 468 U. S. 263 (tax exemption that applied only to sales of certain locally produced liquors); Lewis v. BT Investment Managers, Inc., 447 U. S. 27 (1980) (prohibition on out-of-state banks owning in-state businesses that provided investment advisory services); Boston Stock Exchange v. State Tax Comm’n, 429 U. S. 318 (1977) (higher tax on sale of securities by nonresidents if the securities were sold on an out-of-state, not an in-state, exchange). In sum, our cases on market regulation without market participation prescribe standard dormant Commerce Clause analysis; our cases on market participation joined with regulation (the usual situation) prescribe exceptional treatment for this direct governmental activity in commercial markets for the public’s benefit.
The Kentucky tax scheme falls outside the forbidden paradigm because the Commonwealth’s direct participation favors, not local private entrepreneurs, but the Commonwealth and local governments. The Commonwealth enacted its tax code with an eye toward making some or all of its bonds more marketable. When it issues them for sale in the bond market, it relies on that tax code, and seller and purchaser treat the bonds and the tax rate as joined just as intimately, say, as the work force requirements and city construction contracts were in Boston. Issuing bonds must therefore have the same significance under the dormant Commerce Clause as government trash processing, junk car disposal, or construction; and United Haulers, Alexandria Scrap, and White can be followed only by rejecting the Davises’ argument that Kentucky’s regulatory activity should be viewed in isolation as Commerce Clause discrimination.
c
A look at the specific markets in which the exemption’s effects are felt both confirms the conclusion that no traditionally forbidden discrimination is underway and points to the distinctive character of the tax policy. The market as most broadly conceived is one of issuers and holders of all fixed-income securities, whatever their source or ultimate destination. In this interstate market, Kentucky treats income from municipal bonds of other States just like income from bonds privately issued in Kentucky or elsewhere; no preference is given to any local issuer, and none to any local holder, beyond what is entailed in the preference Kentucky grants itself when it engages in activities serving public objectives.
A more specialized market can be understood as commerce solely in federally tax-exempt municipal bonds, much of it conducted through interstate municipal bond funds. Here, of course, the distinction between the taxing State’s bonds and their holders and issuers and holders of out-of-state counterparts is at its most stark. But what is remarkable about the issuers in this and the broader interstate market is that nearly every taxing State believes its public interests are served by the same tax-and-exemption feature, which is supported in this Court by every one of the States (with or without an income tax) despite the ranges of relative wealth and tax rates among them. See Brief for 49 States as Amici Curiae. These facts suggest that no State perceives any local advantage or disadvantage beyond the permissible ones open to a government and to those who deal with it when that government itself enters the market. See supra, at 344-348.
An equally significant perception emerges from examining the third type of market for municipal bonds: the one for bonds within the State of issue, a large proportion of which market in each State is managed by one or more single-state funds. By definition, there is no discrimination against interstate activity within the market itself, but one of its features reveals an important benefit of intrastate bond markets as they operate through these funds. The intrastate funds absorb securities issued by smaller or lesser known municipalities that the interstate markets tend to ignore. See National Federation Brief 15 (compared with single-state funds, “[njational mutual funds... are less likely to dedicate the time necessary to evaluate a small, obscure or infrequent municipal bond issuer or to purchase bonds issued by such public entities”); id., at 19 (“[Njational mutual funds place a higher premium on the liquidity of their holdings than do single state funds, which are willing to purchase less liquid municipal bonds of smaller and less familiar issuers because of the state tax advantage and the fund’s mandate to purchase bonds issued within a specific state”).
There is little doubt that many single-state funds would disappear if the current differential tax schemes were upset. See id., at 18 (“[OJne predictable impact of the elimination of tax incentives for the purchase of municipal bonds issued in a specific state would be the disappearance, through consolidation into national mutual funds, of single state mutual funds”); ibid. (“Although a handful of single state funds might continue to exist for a small number of states (such as Florida) with high populations that have a high affinity for local bond issuers, the current state tax system is the raison d’etre for virtually all single state funds, and they would cease to be financially viable in the absence of a tax advantage that outweighed their relative lack of diversification vis-a-vis national funds and their reduced asset base”); accord, Brief for Respondents 29 (the States’ tax exemptions “have fostered the growth of funds that hold only the municipal bonds of a single state,” which “[a]s compared [with] national tax-exempt bonds funds... tend to be higher risk and higher cost”); 11 Kiplinger’s Retirement Report, Win With Home-State Muni Bond Funds, p. 2 (Dec. 2004) (noting that in States without a differential taxation scheme, “there’s little incentive to create [single-state] muni bond funds”).
Nor is there any suggestion that the interstate markets would discover some new reason to welcome the weaker municipal issues that would lose their local market homes after a victory for the Davises here. See National Federation Brief 18,19 (“The main adverse impact of the disappearance of single state funds... would be felt by small municipal issuers” because they “would stand to lose much of the intrastate market for the bonds that has developed under the currently prevailing state tax system without gaining much of an interstate market from its elimination”). Financing for long-term municipal improvements would thus change radically if the differential tax feature disappeared.
This probable indispensability of the current scheme to maintaining single-state markets serving smaller municipal borrowers not only underscores how far the States’ objectives probably lie from the forbidden protectionism for local business; it also tends to explain why the States are so committed to a taxing practice that much scholarship says often produces a net burden of tax revenues lost over interest expense saved. See, e. g., Brief for Alan D. Viard et al. as Amici Curiae 19 (“[Sjtates routinely fail to recoup the cost of the tax subsidy in the form of lower financing rates” (citing Chalmers, Default Risk Cannot Explain the Muni Puzzle: Evidence From Municipal Bonds That Are Secured by U. S. Treasury Obligations, 11 Rev. Financial Studies 281, 282-283 (1998))).
In sum, the differential tax scheme is critical to the operation of an identifiable segment of the municipal financial market as it currently functions, and this fact alone demonstrates that the unanimous desire of the States to preserve the tax feature is a far cry from the private protectionism that has driven the development of the dormant Commerce Clause. It is also fatal to the Davises’ backup argument that this case should be remanded for analysis under the rule in Pike, 397 U. S. 137.
IV
Concluding that a state law does not amount to forbidden discrimination against interstate commerce is not the death knell of all dormant Commerce Clause challenges, for we generally leave the courtroom door open to plaintiffs invoking the rule in Pike, that even nondiscriminatory burdens on commerce may be struck down on a showing that those burdens clearly outweigh the benefits of a state or local practice. See id., at 142. The Kentucky courts made no Pike enquiry, and the Davises ask us to remand for one now, see Brief for Respondents 43.
The Davises’ request for Pike balancing assumes an answer to an open question: whether Pike even applies to a case of this sort. United Haulers included a Pike analysis, see 550 U. S., at 346-347 (plurality opinion), but our cases applying the market participant exception have not, see, e. g., White, 460 U. S. 204; Alexandria Scrap, 426 U. S. 794. We need not decide this question today, however, for Kentucky has not argued that Pike is irrelevant, see Reply Brief for Petitioners 2, n. 1, and even on the assumption that a Pike examination might generally 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:
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H
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sc_issuearea
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What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Justice Powell
delivered the opinion of the Court.
This case involves the pre-emptive scope of the Clean Water Act, 86 Stat. 816, as amended, 33 U. S. C. § 1251 et seq. (CWA or Act). The question presented is whether the Act pre-empts a common-law nuisance suit filed in a Vermont court under Vermont law, when the source of the alleged injury is located in New York.
I — I
Lake Champlain forms part of the border between the States of New York and Vermont. Petitioner International Paper Company (IPC) operates a pulp and paper mill on the New York side of the lake. In the course of its business, IPC discharges a variety of effluents into the lake through a diffusion pipe. The pipe runs from the mill through the water toward Vermont, ending a short distance before the state boundary line that divides the lake.
Respondents are a group of property owners who reside or lease land on the Vermont shore. In 1978 the owners filed a class action suit against IPC, claiming, inter alia, that the discharge of effluents constituted a “continuing nuisance” under Vermont common law. Respondents alleged that the pollutants made the water “foul, unhealthy, smelly, and... unfit for recreational use,” thereby diminishing the value of their property. App. 29. The owners asked for $20 million in compensatory damages, $100 million in punitive damages, and injunctive relief that would require IPC to restructure part of its water treatment system. The action was filed in State Superior Court, and then later removed to Federal District Court for the District of Vermont.
IPC moved for summary judgment and judgment on the pleadings, claiming that the CWA pre-empted respondents’ state-law suit. With the parties’ consent, the District Judge deferred a ruling on the motion pending the decision by the Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit in a similar case involving Illinois and the city of Milwaukee. In that dispute, Illinois filed a nuisance action against the city under Illinois statutory and common law, seeking to abate the alleged pollution of Lake Michigan. Illinois v. Milwaukee, 731 F. 2d 403 (1984) (Milwaukee III), cert. denied, 469 U. S. 1196 (1985). The Court of Appeals ultimately remanded the case for dismissal of Illinois’ claim, finding that the CWA precluded the application of one State’s law against a pollution source located in a different State. The decision was based in part on the court’s conclusion that the application of different state laws to a single “point source” would interfere with the carefully devised regulatory system established by the CWA. 731 F. 2d, at 414. The court also concluded that the only suits that were not pre-empted were those alleging violations of the laws of the polluting, or “source,” State. Id., at 413-414.
IPC argued that the holding in Milwaukee III was dispos-itive in this case. The Vermont District Court disagreed and denied the motion to dismiss. 602 F. Supp. 264 (1985). The court acknowledged that federal law normally governs interstate water pollution. It found, however, that two sections of the CWA explicitly preserve state-law rights of action. First, § 510 of the Act provides:
“Except as expressly provided..., nothing in this chapter shall... be construed as impairing or in any manner affecting any right or jurisdiction of the States with respect to the waters (including boundary waters) of such States.” 33 U. S. C. § 1370.
In addition, § 505(e) states:
“Nothing in this section shall restrict any right which any person (or class of persons) may have under any statute or common law to seek enforcement of any effluent standard or limitation or to seek any other relief_” 33 U. S. C. § 1365(e).
The District Court held that these two provisions (together, “the saving clause”) made it clear that federal law did not pre-empt entirely the rights of States to control pollution. Therefore the question presented, said the court, was which types of state suits Congress intended to preserve. It considered three possibilities: first, the saving clause could be construed to preserve state law only as it applied to waters not covered by the CWA. But since the Act applies to virtually all surface water in the country, the District Court rejected this possibility. Second, the saving clause might preserve state nuisance law only as it applies to discharges occurring -within the source State; under this view a claim could be filed against IPC under New York common law, but not under Vermont law. This was the position adopted by the Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit in Milwaukee III. The District Court nevertheless rejected this option, finding that “there is simply nothing in the Act which suggests that Congress intended to impose such limitations on the use of state law.” 602 F. Supp., at 269.
The District Court therefore adopted the third interpretation of the saving clause, and held that a state action to redress interstate water pollution could be maintained under the law of the State in which the injury occurred. Ibid. The court was unpersuaded by the concern expressed in Milwaukee III that the application of out-of-state law to a point source would conflict with the CWA. It said there was no interference with the procedures established by Congress because a State’s “imposition of compensatory damage awards and other equitable relief for injuries caused... merely sup plement the standards and limitations imposed by the Act.” 602 F. Supp., at 271 (emphasis in original). The court also found that the use of state law did not conflict with the ultimate goal of the CWA, since in each case the objective was to decrease the level of pollution. Ibid.
The District Court certified its decision for interlocutory appeal, see 28 U. S. C. § 1292(b) (1982 ed., Supp. III), and the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit affirmed for the reasons stated by the District Court. 776 F. 2d 55, 56 (1985) (per curiam). We granted certiorari to resolve the circuit conflict on this important issue of federal pre-emption. 475 U. S. 1081 (1986). We now affirm the denial of IPC’s motion to dismiss, but reverse the decision below to the extent it permits the application of Vermont law to this litigation. We hold that when a court considers a state-law claim concerning interstate water pollution that is subject to the CWA, the court must apply the law of the State in which the point source is located.
II
A brief review of the regulatory framework is necessary to set the stage for this case. Until fairly recently, federal common law governed the use and misuse of interstate water. See, e. g., Hinderlider v. La Plata River & Cherry Creek Ditch Co., 304 U. S. 92, 110 (1938) (water apportionment); Missouri v. Illinois, 200 U. S. 496 (1906) (water pollution). This principle was called into question in the context of water pollution in 1971, when the Court suggested in dicta that an interstate dispute between a State and a private company should be resolved by reference to state nuisance law. Ohio v. Wyandotte Chemicals Corp., 401 U. S. 493, 499, n. 3 (1971) (“[A]n action such as this, if otherwise cognizable in federal district court, would have to be adjudicated under state law”) (citing Erie R. Co. v. Tompkins, 304 U. S. 64 (1938)).
We had occasion to address this issue in the first of two Supreme Court cases involving the dispute between Illinois and Milwaukee. In Milwaukee I, the State moved for leave to file an original action in this Court, seeking to enjoin the city from discharging sewage into Lake Michigan. Illinois v. Milwaukee, 406 U. S. 91 (1972). The Court’s opinion in that case affirmed the view that the regulation of interstate water pollution is a matter of federal, not state, law, thus overruling the contrary suggestion in Wyandotte. 406 U. S., at 102, n. 3. The Court was concerned, however, that the existing version of the Act was not sufficiently comprehensive to resolve all interstate disputes that were likely to arise. Milwaukee I therefore held that these cases should be resolved by reference to federal common law; the implicit corollary of this ruling was that state common law was preempted. See id., at 107, n. 9; Milwaukee III, 731 F. 2d, at 407. The Court noted, though, that future action by Congress to regulate water pollution might pre-empt federal common law as well. 406 U. S., at 107.
Congress thereafter adopted comprehensive amendments to the Act. We considered the impact of the new legislation when Illinois and Milwaukee returned to the Court several years later. Milwaukee v. Illinois, 451 U. S. 304 (1981) (Milwaukee II). There the Court noted that the amendments were a “ ‘complete rewriting’ ” of the statute considered in Milwaukee I, and that they were “ ‘the most comprehensive and far reaching’ ” provisions that Congress ever had passed in this area. 451 U. S., at 317-318 (citations to legislative history omitted). Consequently, the Court held that federal legislation now occupied the field, pre-empting all federal common law. The Court left open the question of whether injured parties still had a cause of action under state law. Id., at 310, n. 4. The case was remanded for further consideration; the result on remand was the decision of the Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit in Milwaukee III, discussed swpra.
One of the primary features of the 1972 amendments is the establishment of the National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES), a federal permit program designed to regulate the-discharge of polluting effluents. 33 U. S. C. § 1342; see generally EPA v. California ex rel. State Water Resources Control Board, 426 U. S. 200, 205-208 (1976) (describing NPDES system). Section 301(a) of the Act, 33 U. S. C. § 1311(a), generally prohibits the discharge of any effluent into a navigable body of water unless the point source has obtained an NPDES permit from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The permits contain detailed effluent limitations, and a compliance schedule for the attainment of these limitations.
The amendments also recognize that the States should have a significant role in protecting their own natural resources. 33 U. S. C. § 1251(b). The Act provides that the Federal Government may delegate to a State the authority to administer the NPDES program with respect to point sources located within the State, if the EPA Administrator determines that the proposed state program complies with the requirements set forth at 33 U. S. C. § 1342(b). The Administrator retains authority, however, to block the issuance of any permit to which he objects. § 1342(d). Even if the Federal Government administers the permit program, the source State may require discharge limitations more stringent than those required by the Federal Government. See 40 CFR § 122.1(f) (1986). Before the Federal Government may issue an NPDES permit, the Administrator must obtain certification from the source State that the proposed discharge complies with the State’s technology-based standards and water-quality-based standards. 33 U. S. C. § 1341(a)(1). The CWA therefore establishes a regulatory “partnership” between the Federal Government and the source State.
While source States have a strong voice in regulating their own pollution, the CWA contemplates a much lesser role for States that share an interstate waterway with the source (the affected States). Even though it may be harmed by the discharges, an affected State only has an advisory role in regulating pollution that originates beyond its borders. Before a federal permit may be issued, each affected State is given notice and the opportunity to object to the proposed standards at a public hearing. 33 U. S. C. § 1341(a)(2); Milwaukee III, supra, at 412. An affected State has similar rights to be consulted before the source State issues its own permit; the source State must send notification, and must consider the objections and recommendations submitted by other States before taking action. § 1342(b). Significantly, however, an affected State does not have the authority to block the issuance of the permit if it is dissatisfied with the proposed standards. An affected State’s only recourse is to apply to the EPA Administrator, who then has the discretion to disapprove the permit if he concludes that the discharges will have an undue impact on interstate waters. § 1342(d)(2). Also, an affected State may not establish a separate permit system to regulate an out-of-state source. See § 1342(b) (State may establish permit system for waters “within its jurisdiction”) (emphasis added), Lake Erie Alliance for Protection of Coastal Corridor v. U. S. Army Corps of Engineers, 526 F. Supp. 1063, 1074-1075 (WD Pa. 1981), aff’d, 707 F. 2d 1392 (CA3), cert. denied, 464 U. S. 915 (1983); State v. Champion International Corp., 709 S. W. 2d 569 (Tenn. 1986), cert. pending, No. 86-57. Thus the Act makes it clear that affected States occupy a subordinate position to source States in the federal regulatory program.
H — 4 hH HH
With this regulatory framework in mind, we turn to the question presented: whether the Act pre-empts Vermont common law to the extent that law may impose liability on a New York point source. We begin the analysis by noting that it is not necessary for a federal statute to provide explicitly that particular state laws are pre-empted. Hillsborough County v. Automated Medical Laboratories, Inc., 471 U. S. 707, 713 (1985). Although courts should not lightly infer pre-emption, it may be presumed when the federal legislation is “sufficiently comprehensive to make reasonable the inference that Congress ‘left no room’ for supplementary state regulation.” Ibid, (quoting Rice v. Santa Fe Elevator Corp., 331 U. S. 218, 230 (1947)). In addition to express or implied pre-emption, a state law also is invalid to the extent that it “actually conflicts with a... federal statute.” Ray v. Atlantic Richfield Co., 435 U. S. 151, 158 (1978). Such a conflict will be found when the state law “‘stands as an obstacle to the accomplishment and execution of the full purposes and objectives of Congress.’” Hillsborough County v. Automated Medical Laboratories, Inc., supra, at 713 (quoting Hines v. Davidowitz, 312 U. S. 52, 67 (1941)).
A
As we noted in Milwaukee II, Congress intended the 1972 Act amendments to “establish an all-encompassing program of water pollution regulation.” 451 U. S., at 318. We observed that congressional “views on the comprehensive nature of the legislation were practically universal.” Id., at 318, n. 12 (citing legislative history). An examination of the amendments amply supports these views. The Act applies to all point sources and virtually all bodies of water, and it sets forth the procedures for obtaining a permit in great detail. The CWA also provides its own remedies, including civil and criminal fines for permit violations, and “citizen suits” that allow individuals (including those from affected States) to sue for injunctions to enforce the statute. In light of this pervasive regulation and the fact that the control of interstate pollution is primarily a matter of federal law, Milwaukee I, 406 U. S., at 107, it is clear that the only state suits that remain available are those specifically preserved by the Act.
Although Congress intended to dominate the field of pollution regulation, the saving clause negates the inference that Congress “left no room” for state causes of action. Respondents read the language of the saving clause broadly to preserve both a State’s right to regulate its waters, 33 U. S. C. § 1370, and an injured party’s right to seek relief under “any statute or common law, ” § 1365(e) (emphasis added). They claim that this language and selected portions of the legislative history compel the inference that Congress intended to preserve the right to bring suit under the law of any affected State. We cannot accept this reading of the Act.
To begin with, the plain language of the provisions on which respondents rely by no means compels the result they seek. Section 505(e) merely says that “[n]othing in this section,” i. e., the citizen-suit provisions, shall affect an injured party’s right to seek relief under state law; it does not purport to preclude pre-emption of state law by other provisions of the Act. Section 510, moreover, preserves the authority of a State “with respect to the waters (including boundary waters) of such Stat[e].” This language arguably limits the effect of the clause to discharges flowing directly into a State’s own waters, i. e., discharges from within the State. The savings clause, then, does not preclude pre-emption of the law of an affected State.
Given that the Act itself does not speak directly to the issue, the Court must be guided by the goals and policies of the Act in determining whether it in fact pre-empts an action based on the law of an affected State. Cf. City of Rome v. United States, 446 U. S. 156, 199 (1980) (Powell, J., dissenting) (“We resort to legislative materials only when the congressional mandate is unclear on its face”). After examining the CWA as a whole, its purposes and its history, we are convinced that if affected States were allowed to impose separate discharge standards on a single point source, the inevitable result would be a serious interference with the achievement of the “full purposes and objectives of Congress.” See Hillsborough County v. Automated Medical Laboratories, Inc., supra, at 713. Because we do not believe Congress intended to undermine this carefully drawn statute through a general saving clause, we conclude that the CWA precludes a court from applying the law of an affected State against an out-of-state source.
B
In determining whether Vermont nuisance law “stands as an obstacle” to the full implementation of the CWA, it is not enough to say that the ultimate goal of both federal and state law is to eliminate water pollution. A state law also is pre-empted if it interferes with the methods by which the federal statute was designed to reach this goal. See Michigan Canners & Freezers Assn. v. Agricultural Marketing & Bargaining Bd., 467 U. S. 461, 477 (1984). In this case the application of Vermont law against IPC would allow respondents to circumvent the NPDES permit system, thereby upsetting the balance of public and private interests so carefully addressed by the Act.
By establishing a permit system for effluent discharges, Congress implicitly has recognized that the goal of the CWA — elimination of water pollution — cannot be achieved immediately, and that it cannot be realized without incurring costs. The EPA Administrator issues permits according to established effluent standards and water quality standards, that in turn are based upon available technology, 33 U. S. C. § 1314, and competing public and industrial uses, § 1312(a). The Administrator must consider the impact of the discharges on the waterway, the types of effluents, and the schedule for compliance, each of which may vary widely among sources. If a State elects to impose- its own standards, it also must consider the technological feasibility of more stringent controls. Given the nature of these complex decisions, it is not surprising that the Act limits the right to administer the permit system to the EPA and the source States. See § 1342(b).
An interpretation of the saving clause that preserved actions brought under an affected State’s law would disrupt this balance of interests. If a New York source were liable for violations of Vermont law, that law could effectively override both the permit requirements and the policy choices made by the source State. The affected State’s nuisance laws would subject the point source to the threat of legal and equitable penalties if the permit standards were less stringent than those imposed by the affected State. Such penalties would compel the source to adopt different control standards and a different compliance schedule from those approved by the EPA, even though the affected State had not engaged in the same weighing of the costs and benefits. This case illustrates the problems with such a rule. If the Vermont court ruled that respondents were entitled to the full amount of damages and injunctive relief sought in the complaint, at a minimum IPC would have to change its methods of doing business and controlling pollution to avoid the threat of ongoing liability. In suits such as this, an affected-state court also could require the source to cease operations by ordering immediate abatement. Critically, these liabilities would attach even though the source had complied fully with its state and federal permit obligations. The inevitable result of such suits would be that Vermont and other States could do indirectly what they could not do directly — regulate the conduct of out-of-state sources.
Application of an affected State’s law to an out-of-state source also would undermine the important goals of efficiency and predictability in the permit system. The history of the 1972 amendments shows that Congress intended to establish “clear and identifiable” discharge standards. See S. Rep. No. 92-414, p. 81 (1971), 2 Leg. Hist. 1499. As noted above, under the reading of the saving clause proposed by respondents, a source would be subject to a variety of common-law rules established by the different States along the interstate waterways. These nuisance standards often are “vague” and “indeterminate.” The application of numerous States’ laws would only exacerbate the vagueness and resulting uncertainty. The Court of Appeals in Milwaukee III identified the problem with such an irrational system of regulation:
“For a number of different states to have independent and plenary regulatory authority over a single discharge would lead to chaotic confrontation between sovereign states. Dischargers would be forced to meet not only the statutory limitations of all states potentially affected by their discharges but also the common law standards developed through case law of those states. It would be virtually impossible to predict the standard for a lawful discharge into an interstate body of water. Any permit issued under the Act would be rendered meaningless.” 731 F. 2d, at 414.
It is unlikely — to say the least — that Congress intended to establish'such a chaotic regulatory structure.
Nothing in the Act gives each affected State this power to regulate discharges. The CWA carefully defines the role of both the source and affected States, and specifically provides for a process whereby their interests will be considered and balanced by the source State and the EPA. This delineation of authority represents Congress’ considered judgment as to the best method of serving the public interest and reconciling the often competing concerns of those affected by the pollution. It would be extraordinary for Congress, after devising an elaborate permit system that sets clear standards, to tolerate common-law suits that have the potential to undermine this regulatory structure.
C
Our conclusion that Vermont nuisance law is inapplicable to a New York point source does not leave respondents without a remedy. The CWA precludes only those suits that may require standards of effluent control that are incompatible with those established by the procedures set forth in the Act. The saving clause specifically preserves other state actions, and therefore nothing in the Act bars aggrieved individuals from bringing a nuisance claim pursuant to the law of the source State. By its terms the CWA allows States such as New York to impose higher standards on their own point sources, and in Milwaukee II we recognized that this authority may include the right to impose higher common-law as well as higher statutory restrictions. 451 U. S., at 328 (suggesting that “States may adopt more stringent limitations... through state nuisance law, and apply them to in-state dischargers”); see also Committee for Jones Falls Sewage System v. Train, 539 F. 2d 1006, 1009, and n. 9 (CA4 1976) (CWA preserves common-law suits filed in source State).
An action brought against IPC under New York nuisance law would not frustrate the goals of the CWA as would a suit governed by Vermont law. First, application of the source State’s law does not disturb the balance among federal, source-state, and affected-state interests. Because the Act specifically allows source States to impose stricter standards, the imposition of source-state law does not disrupt the regulatory partnership established by the permit system. Second, the restriction of suits to those brought under source-state nuisance law prevents a source from being subject to an indeterminate number of potential regulations. Although New York nuisance law may impose separate standards and thus create some tension with the permit system, a source only is required to look to a single additional authority, whose rules should be relatively predictable. Moreover, States can be expected to take into account their own nuisance laws in setting permit requirements.
IPC asks the Court to go one step further and hold that all state-law suits also must be brought in source-state courts. As petitioner cites little authority or justification for this position, we find no basis for holding that Vermont is an improper forum. Simply because a cause of action is preempted does not mean that judicial jurisdiction over the claim is affected as well; the Act pre-empts laws, not courts. In the absence of statutory authority to the contrary, the rule is settled that a district court sitting in diversity is competent to apply the law of a foreign State.
I — I <J
The District Court correctly denied IPC’s motion for summary judgment and judgment on the pleadings. Nothing in the Act prevents a court sitting in an affected State from hearing a common-law nuisance suit, provided that jurisdiction otherwise is proper. Both the District Court and the Court of Appeals erred, however, in concluding that Vermont law governs this litigation. The application of affected-state laws would be incompatible with the Act’s delegation of authority and its comprehensive regulation of water pollution. The Act pre-empts state law to the extent that the state law is applied to an out-of-state point source.
The decision of the Court of Appeals is affirmed in part and reversed in part. The case is remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
The statute also is known as the Federal Water Pollution Control Act. See note following 33 U. S. C. § 1251.
The complaint also sought monetary and injunctive relief for air pollution allegedly caused by the IPC mill. App. 35-36. This claim is not before the Court.
The decisions in Illinois v. Milwaukee, 406 U. S. 91 (1972) (Milwaukee I), and Milwaukee v. Illinois, 451 U. S. 304 (1981) (Milwaukee II), are discussed in Part II, infra.
A “point source” is defined by the CWA as “any discernible, confined and discrete conveyance... from which pollutants are or may be discharged.” 33 U. S. C. § 1362(14); see 40 CFR § 122.2 (1986). It is not disputed that IPC is a point source within the meaning of the Act.
For a discussion of each of the three interpretations of the saving clause, see Note, City of Milwaukee v. Illinois: The Demise of the Federal Common Law of Water Pollution, 1982 Wis. L. Rev. 627, 664-671.
While the Act purports to regulate only “navigable waters,” this term has been construed expansively to cover waters that are not navigable in the traditional sense. See United States v. Riverside Bayview Homes, 474 U. S. 121 (1985); 38 U. S. C. § 1362(7) (defining navigable waters as “waters of the United States”); 118 Cong. Rec. 33756-33757 (1972), 1 Legislative History of Water Pollution Control Act Amendments of 1972 (Committee Print compiled for the Senate Committee on Public Works by the Library of Congress), Ser. No. 93-1, p. 250 (1973) (hereinafter Leg. Hist.).
Accord, North Dakota v. Minnesota, 263 U. S. 365 (1923); cf. Georgia v. Tennessee Copper Co., 206 U. S. 230 (1907) (air pollution); see also Milwaukee I, 406 U. S., at 104-107; Glicksman, Federal Preemption and Private Legal Remedies for Pollution, 134 U. Pa. L. Rev. 121, 152-155 (1985); Note, 1982 Wis. L. Rev., at 630-636.
Although the Court’s opinion could be read as distinguishing rather than overruling that part of Wyandotte, a later decision made it clear that state common-law actions did not survive Milwaukee I. See Milwaukee II, 451 U. S., at 327, n. 19; see also Glicksman, supra, at 156, n. 176.
In Milwaukee I the Court denied a motion to file an original áction but ruled that Illinois could maintain an action in federal district court. The State then filed suit in Illinois District Court, alleging that the city was liable for creating a public nuisance under both federal and Illinois common law. The complaint also alleged a violation of the State Environmental Protection Act. See Milwaukee II, supra, at 310, and n. 4; Milwaukee III, 731 P. 2d, at 404.
For a more detailed description of the permit system, see R. Zener, Guide to Federal Environmental Law 61-88 (1981).
At one point IPC was operating under a federal NPDES permit. App. 29-30. A draft of the permit was submitted to Vermont as an affected State, and Vermont as well as other interested parties objected to the proposed discharge standards. Id., at 65-66. Thereafter, New York obtained permitting authority under 33 U. S. C. § 1342(b) and it now administers the permit.
See Rice v. Santa Fe Elevator Corp., 331 U. S. 218, 230 (1947) (“[W]e start with the assumption that the historic police powers of the States were not to be superseded by the Federal Act unless that was the clear and manifest purpose of Congress”); Milwaukee II, 451 U. S., at 312; see also Silkwood v. Kerr-McGee Corp., 464 U. S. 238, 255 (1984).
See 33 U. S. C. §§ 1319(a), 1365(a), (h); see generally Middlesex County Sewerage Authority v. National Sea Clammers Assn., 453 U. S. 1, 13-14 (1981) (discussing “elaborate” remedial provisions).
A Senate Report accompanying the amendments states: “[I]f damages could be shown, other remedies [in addition to a citizen suit] would remain available. Compliance with requirements under this Act would not be a defense to a common law action for pollution damages.” S. Rep. No. 92-414, p. 81 (1971), 2 Leg. Hist. 1499. Respondents also note that after reviewing the legislative history, the District Court found no evidence that Congress intended to alter the traditional tort law principle that a party may bring suit in the State where the injury occurred. See Young v. Masci, 289 U. S. 253, 258-259 (1933).
We noted in Milwaukee II:
“The fact that the language of [the saving clause] is repeated in haec verba in the citizen-suit provisions of a vast array of environmental legislation... indicates that it does not reflect any considered judgment about what other remedies were previously available or continue to be available under any particular statute.” 451 U. S., at 329, n. 22.
The interpretation of the Act adopted by the courts below also would have the result of allowing affected States effectively to set discharge standards without consulting with the source State, even though source States are required by the Act to give affected States an opportunity to be heard and a chance to comment before issuing a permit.
"The citizen suit provision [§ 505] is consistent with principles underlying the... Act, [which are] the development of clear and identifiable requirements. Such requirements should provide manageable and precise benchmarks for performance.” S. Rep. No. 92-414, p. 81 (1971), 2 Leg. Hist. 1499.
See Milwaukee II, 451 U. S., at 317; see also W. Keeton, D. Dobbs, R. Keeton, & D. Owen, Prosser and Keeton on Law of Torts 616 (5th ed. 1984) (“There is perhaps no more impenetrable jungle in the entire law than that which surrounds the word ‘nuisance’ ”). The possibility that a source will have to meet a number of different standards is relatively small in this case, since Vermont is the only State that shares Lake Champlain with New York. But consider, for example, a plant that discharges effluents into the Mississippi River. A source located in Minnesota theoretically could be subject to the nuisance laws of any of the nine downstream States.
Nothing in our decision, of course, affects respondents’ right to pursue remedies that may be provided by the Act. If, as was also alleged in respondents’ complaint, IPC is violating the terms of its permit, respondents may bring a citizen suit to compel compliance. 33 U. S. C. § 1365. Respondents also had the opportunity to protect their interests before the fact by commenting and objecting to the proposed standard. See Milwaukee II, supra, at 326 (Act provides “ample” opportunity for affected States to protect their rights).
The District Court concluded that the interference with the Act is insignificant, in part because respondents are seeking to be compensated for a specific harm rather than trying to “regulate” IPC. 602 F. Supp. 264, 271-272 (Vt. 1985). The Solicitor General, on behalf of the United States as amicus curiae, adopts only a portion of this view. He acknowledges that suits seeking punitive or injunctive relief under affected-state law should be pre-empted because of the interference they cause with the CWA. The Government asserts that compensatory damages actions, however, may be brought under the law of the State where the injury occurred. The Solicitor General reasons that compensatory damages only require the source to pay for the external costs created by the pollution, and thus do not “regulate” in a way inconsistent with the Act. The Government cites Silkwood v. Kerr-McGee Corp., 464 U. S. 238 (1984), for the proposition that in certain circumstances a court may find pre-emption of some remedies and not others.
We decline the Government’s invitation to draw a line between the types of relief sought. There is no suggestion of such a distinction in either the Act or the legislative history. As the Court noted in Silkwood, unless there is evidence that Congress meant to “split” a particular remedy for pre-emption purposes, it is assumed that the full cause of action under state law is available (or as in this case, pre-empted). Id., at 255. We also think it would be unwise to treat compensatory damages differently under the facts of this case. If the Vermont court determined that respondents were entitled only
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer:
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J
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sc_issuearea
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What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Justice Thomas
delivered the opinion of the Court.
In this case, we consider whether a federal district court is required to instruct the jury regarding the consequences to the defendant of a verdict of “not guilty by reason of insanity,” either under the Insanity Defense Reform Act of 1984 or as a matter of general federal practice. We conclude that such an instruction is not required, and therefore affirm.
I
A
Prior to the enactment of the Insanity Defense Reform Act of 1984 (IDRA or Act), 18 U. S. C. §§17, 4241-4247, federal courts generally did not recognize a verdict of “not guilty by reason of insanity” (NGI). Defendants who mounted a successful insanity defense — that is, those who raised a reasonable doubt as to their sanity at the time of the offense — were simply found “not guilty.” See, e. g., United States v. McCracken, 488 F. 2d 406, 409, 418 (CA5 1974); Evalt v. United States, 359 F. 2d 534, 537 (CA9 1966). In addition, there was no general federal civil commitment procedure available to ensure that an insanity acquittee would receive proper care and treatment. Only in the District of Columbia was a defendant who successfully presented an insanity defense to a federal criminal charge subject to a federal commitment process — a process governed by a 1955 congressional enactment. See 69 Stat. 609, as amended, D. C. Code Ann. §24-301 (1981). Elsewhere, federal authorities were forced to rely on the willingness of state authorities to institute civil commitment proceedings. Reliance on state cooperation was “at best a partial solution to a serious problem,” however, and federal courts “[t]ime and again . . . decried this gaping statutory hole.” McCracken, supra, at 417.
Before the IDRA was enacted, the Federal Courts of Appeals generally disapproved of instructing the jury concerning the post-trial consequences of an insanity acquittal. Thus, jurors typically were given no information with regard to what would happen to a defendant acquitted by reason of insanity. The courts in general gave two reasons for disapproving such instructions. First, they pointed out that, given the absence of a federal commitment procedure, the consequences of an insanity acquittal were far from certain. Second, they concluded that such instructions would run afoul of the well-established principle that a jury is to base its verdict on the evidence before it, without regard to the possible consequences of the verdict. See, e. g., McCracken, supra, at 423; Evalt, supra, at 546; United States v. Borum, 464 F. 2d 896, 900-901 (CA10 1972).
The only Court of Appeals to endorse the practice of instructing the jury regarding the consequences of an insanity acquittal was the District of Columbia Circuit. See Lyles v. United States, 254 F. 2d 725 (1957) (en banc), cert. denied, 356 U. S. 961 (1958). In Lyles, the District of Columbia Circuit addressed the jury instruction question in the context of D. C. Code Ann. §24-301 (1951 ed., Supp. V), which, unlike generally applicable federal law, provided for a special verdict of NGI and, as noted above, a civil commitment procedure. The Lyles court recognized the “well established and sound” doctrine “that the jury has no concern with the consequences” of a verdict, but stated that the doctrine “d[id] not apply” to the situation before it. 254 F. 2d, at 728. According to the court, although jurors generally were “aware of the meanings of verdicts of guilty and not guilty,” they were unfamiliar with the meaning of an NGI verdict. Ibid. The court concluded that jurors had “a right to know” the meaning of an NGI verdict “as accurately as [they] kno[w] by common knowledge the meaning of the other two possible verdicts.” Ibid.
The acquittal of John Hinckley on all charges stemming from his attempt on President Reagan’s life, coupled with the ensuing public focus on the insanity defense, prompted Congress to undertake a comprehensive overhaul of the insanity defense as it operated in the federal courts. The result of this effort was the IDRA. In the IDRA, Congress made insanity an affirmative defense to be proved by the defendant by clear and convincing evidence, and created a special verdict of “not guilty only by reason of insanity.” 18 U. S. C. §§ 17 and 4242(b). In addition, Congress filled the “statutory hole” that had been identified by federal courts, see McCracken, supra, by creating a comprehensive civil commitment procedure. §4243. Under that procedure, a defendant found NGI is held in custody pending a court hearing, which must occur within 40 days of the verdict. § 4243(c). At the conclusion of the hearing, the court determines whether the defendant should be hospitalized or released. §§ 4243(d), (e).
B
At about 4 a.m. on August 25,1990, a police officer stopped petitioner Terry Lee Shannon, a convicted felon, on a street in Tupelo, Mississippi. For reasons not explained in the record before us, the officer asked Shannon to accompany him to the station house to speak with a detective. After telling the officer that he did not want to live anymore, Shannon walked across the street, pulled a pistol from his coat, and shot himself in the chest.
Shannon survived his suicide attempt and was indicted for unlawful possession of a firearm by a felon in violation of 18 U. S. C. § 922(g)(1). At trial, he raised the insanity defense, and asked the District Court to instruct the jury that he would be involuntarily committed if the jury returned an NGI verdict. The District Court refused to give Shannon’s proposed charge. Instead, it instructed the jury “to apply the law as [instructed] regardless of the consequence,” and that “punishment . . . should not enter your consideration or discussion.” App. A-27 to A-28. The jury returned a guilty verdict.
The Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit affirmed Shannon’s conviction. 981 F. 2d 759 (1993). The court noted that under its pre-IDRA precedent, juries were not to be instructed concerning the consequences of an insanity acquittal. Id., at 761-762 (discussing United States v. McCracken, 488 F. 2d 406 (CA5 1974)). Turning to the text of the IDRA, the court observed that Congress had “said nothing about informing juries of the consequences” of an NGI verdict. 981 F. 2d, at 764. Because there was no “statutory requirement” to the contrary, the court “adhere[d] to the established axiom that it is inappropriate for a jury to consider or be informed about the consequences of its verdict.” Ibid.
We granted certiorari, 510 U. S. 943 (1993), in order to consider whether federal district courts are. required to instruct juries with regard to the consequences of an NGI verdict.
II
It is well established that when a jury has no sentencing function, it should be admonished to “reach its verdict without regard to what sentence might be imposed.” Rogers v. United States, 422 U. S. 35, 40 (1975). The principle that juries are not to consider the consequences of their verdicts is a reflection of the basic division of labor in our legal system between judge and jury. The jury’s function is to find the facts and to decide whether, on those facts, the defendant is guilty of the crime charged. The judge, by contrast, imposes sentence on the defendant after the jury has arrived at a guilty verdict. Information regarding the consequences of a verdict is therefore irrelevant to the jury’s task. Moreover, providing jurors sentencing information invites them to ponder matters that are not within their province, distracts them from their factfinding responsibilities, and creates a strong possibility of confusion. See Pope v. United States, 298 F. 2d 507, 508 (CA5 1962); cf. Rogers, supra, at 40.
Despite these familiar precepts, Shannon contends that an instruction informing the jury of the consequences of an NGI verdict is required under the IDRA whenever requested by the defendant. He also argues that such an instruction is required as a matter of general federal criminal practice. We address each argument in turn.
A
To determine whether Congress intended courts to depart from the principle that jurors are not to be informed of the consequences of their verdicts, we turn first, as always, to the text of the statute. The IDRA refers to the subject of jury instructions only once, and that reference occurs in its description of the possible verdicts a jury may return. Under the Act, “the jury shall be instructed to find . . . the defendant — (1) guilty; (2) not guilty; or (8) not guilty only by reason of insanity.” 18 U. S. C. § 4242(b). The text of the Act gives no indication that jurors are to be instructed regarding the consequences of an NGI verdict. As the court below observed, the Act “leaves the jury solely with its customary determination of guilt or innocence.” 981 F. 2d, at 763. The Act’s text thus gives no support to Shannon’s contention that an instruction informing the jury of the consequences of an NGI verdict is required.
Shannon asserts, however, that an express statutory directive is not necessary because, by modeling the IDRA on D. C. Code Ann. §24-301 (1981), Congress impliedly adopted the District of Columbia Circuit’s decision in Lyles and the practice endorsed by that decision of instructing the jury as to the consequences of an NGI verdict. For this argument he relies on Capital Traction Co. v. Hof 174 U. S. 1, 36 (1899), in which we stated:
“By a familiar canon of interpretation, heretofore applied by this court whenever Congress ... has borrowed from the statutes of a State provisions which had received in that State a known and settled construction before their enactment by Congress, that construction must be deemed to have been adopted by Congress together with the text which it expounded, and the provisions must be construed as they were understood at the time in the State.”
See also Carolene Products Co. v. United States, 323 U. S. 18, 26 (1944) (“[T]he general rule [is] that adoption of the wording of a statute from another legislative jurisdiction carries with it the previous judicial interpretations of the wording”); Cathcart v. Robinson, 5 Pet. 264, 280 (1831). The canon of interpretation upon which Shannon relies, however, is merely a “presumption of legislative intention” to be invoked only “under suitable conditions.” Carotene Products, supra, at 26. We believe that the “conditions” are not “suitable” in this case. Indeed, although Congress may have had the District of Columbia Code in mind when it passed the IDRA, see United States v. Crutchfield, 893 F. 2d 376, 378 (CADC 1990), it did not, in the language of Hof, “borrow” the terms of the IDRA from the District of Columbia Code. Rather, Congress departed from the scheme embodied in D. C. Code Ann. §24-301 in several significant ways.
The IDRA, for example, requires a defendant at trial to prove insanity by clear and convincing evidence, 18 U. S. C. § 17(b); the District of Columbia statute, by contrast, employs a preponderance standard, D. C. Code Ann. § 24 — 301(j). A commitment hearing must be held under the IDRA within 40 days of an NGI verdict, 18 U. S. C. § 4243(c); the period is 50 days under the District of Columbia scheme, D. C. Code Ann. § 24-301(d)(2)(A). Under the IDRA, a defendant whose offense involved bodily injury to another or serious damage to another’s property, or the substantial risk thereof, must demonstrate at the hearing by clear and convincing evidence that he is entitled to release, 18 U. S. C. § 4243(d); under the District of Columbia scheme, an acquittee, regardless of the character of his offense, need only meet the preponderance standard, D. C. Code Ann. § 24-301(k)(3). The IDRA provides that an acquittee, once committed, may be released when he no longer presents a substantial risk of harm to others or to their property, 18 U. S. C. § 4243(f); an acquittee under the District of Columbia system may be released from commitment when he “will not in the reasonable future be dangerous to himself or others,” D. C. Code Ann. §24-301(e). Finally, in the IDRA, Congress rejected the broad test for insanity that had been utilized under the District of Columbia provision, and instead adopted a more restrictive formulation under which a person is deemed insane if he is unable “to appreciate the nature and quality or the wrongfulness of his acts.” 18 U. S. C. § 17(a). We believe that these significant differences between the IDRA and D. C. Code Ann. § 24-301 render the canon upon which Shannon relies inapplicable in this case.
Alternatively, Shannon contends that a provision explicitly requiring the instruction is unnecessary for a different reason: namely, that Congress made its intention to adopt the Lyles practice crystal clear in the IDRA’s legislative history. In particular, Shannon points to the following statement in the Senate Report:
“The Committee endorses the procedure used in the District of Columbia whereby the jury, in a case in which the insanity defense has been raised, may be instructed on the effect of a verdict of not guilty by reason of insanity. If the defendant requests that the instruction not be given, it is within the discretion of the court whether to give it or not.” S. Rep. No. 98-225, p. 240 (1983) (footnotes omitted).
Members of this Court have expressed differing views regarding the role that legislative history should play in statutory interpretation. Compare County of Washington v. Gunther, 452 U. S. 161, 182 (1981) (Rehnquist, J., dissenting) (“[I]t [is] well settled that the legislative history of a statute is a useful guide to the intent of Congress”), with Wisconsin Public Intervenor v. Mortier, 501 U. S. 597, 617 (1991) (Scalia, J., concurring in judgment) (legislative history is “unreliable ... as a genuine indicator of congressional intent”). We are not aware of any case, however (and Shannon does not bring one to our attention), in which we have given authoritative weight to a single passage of legislative history that is in no way anchored in the text of the statute. On its face, the passage Shannon identifies does not purport to explain or interpret any provision of the IDRA. Rather, it merely conveys the Committee’s “endorsement” of the Lyles “procedure” — a procedure that Congress did not include in the text of the Act. To give effect to this snippet of legislative history, we would have to abandon altogether the text of the statute as a guide in the interpretative process. We agree with the District of Columbia Circuit that “courts have no authority to enforce [a] principle] gleaned solely from legislative history that has no statutory reference point.” International Brotherhood of Elec. Workers, Local Union No. 474, AFL-CIO v. NLRB, 814 F. 2d 697, 712 (1987) (emphasis deleted). We thus conclude that there is no support in the Act for the instruction Shannon seeks.
B
Setting the Act aside, Shannon argues that the instruction he proposes is required as a matter of general federal criminal practice. Presumably, Shannon asks us to invoke our supervisory power over the federal courts. According to Shannon, the instruction is necessary because jurors are generally unfamiliar with the consequences of an NGI verdict, and may erroneously believe that a defendant who is found NGI will be immediately released into society. Jurors who are under this mistaken impression, Shannon continues, may also fear that the defendant, if released, would pose a danger to the community. Shannon concludes that such jurors, in order to ensure that the defendant will not be released, may be tempted to return a guilty verdict in a ease in which an NGI verdict would be appropriate.
Even assuming Shannon is correct that some jurors will harbor the mistaken belief that defendants found NGI will be released into society immediately — an assumption that is open to debate — the jury in his case was instructed “to apply the law as [instructed] regardless of the consequence,” and that “punishment... should not enter your consideration or discussion.” App. A-27 to A-28. That an NGI verdict was an option here gives us no reason to depart from “the almost invariable assumption of the law that jurors follow their instructions.” Richardson v. Marsh, 481 U. S. 200, 206 (1987). Indeed, although it may take effort on a juror’s part to ignore the potential consequences of the verdict, the effort required in a case in which an NGI defense is raised is no different from that required in many other situations. For example, if the Government fails to meet its burden of proof at trial, our judicial system necessarily assumes that a juror will vote to acquit, rather than to convict, even if he is convinced the defendant is highly dangerous and should be incarcerated. We do not believe that the situation involving an NGI verdict should be treated any differently.
We also are not persuaded that the instruction Shannon proposes would allay the fears of the misinformed juror about whom Shannon is concerned. “[I]f the members of a jury are so fearful of a particular defendant’s release that they would violate their oaths by convicting [the defendant] solely in order to ensure that he is not set free, it is questionable whether they would be reassured by anything short of an instruction strongly suggesting that the defendant, if found NGI, would very likely be civilly committed for a lengthy period.” United States v. Fisher, 10 F. 3d 115, 122 (CA3 1993), cert. pending, No. 93-7000. An accurate instruction about the consequences of an NGI verdict, however, would give no such assurance. Under the IDRA, a postverdict hearing must be held within 40 days to determine whether the defendant should be released immediately into society or hospitalized. See 18 U. S. C. §§ 4243(c), (d). Thus, the only mandatory period of confinement for an insanity acqúittee is the period between the verdict and the hearing. Instead of encouraging a juror to return an NGI verdict, as Shannon predicts, such information might have the opposite effect — that is, a juror might vote to convict in order to eliminate the possibility that a dangerous defendant could be released after 40 days or less. Whether the instruction works to the advantage or disadvantage of a defendant is, of course, somewhat beside the point. Our central concern here is that the inevitable result of such an instruction would be to draw the jury’s attention toward the very thing — the possible consequences of its verdict— it should ignore.
Moreover, Shannon offers us no principled way to limit the availability of instructions detailing the consequences of a verdict to cases in which an NGI defense is raised. Jurors may be as unfamiliar with other aspects of the criminal sentencing process as they are with NGI verdicts. But, as a general matter, jurors are not informed of mandatory minimum or maximum sentences, nor are they instructed regarding probation, parole, or the sentencing range accompanying a lesser included offense. See United States v. Thigpen, 4 F. 3d 1573, 1578 (CA11 1993) (en banc), cert. pending, No. 93-6747; United States v. Frank, 956 F. 2d 872, 879 (CA9 1991), cert. denied, 506 U. S. 932 (1992). Because it is conceivable that some jurors might harbor misunderstandings with regard to these sentencing options, a district court, under Shannon’s reasoning, might be obligated to give juries information regarding these possibilities as well. In short, if we pursue the logic of Shannon’s position, the rule against informing jurors of the consequences of their verdicts would soon be swallowed by the exceptions.
Finally, Congress’ recent action in this area counsels hesitation in invoking our supervisory powers. As noted above, the IDRA was the product of a thorough and exhaustive review of the insanity defense as used in the federal courts. Given the comprehensive nature of the task before it, Congress certainly could have included a provision requiring the instruction Shannon seeks. For whatever reason, Congress chose not to do so. Under these circumstances, we are reluctant to depart from well-established principles of criminal practice without more explicit guidance from Congress.
Ill
Although we conclude that the IDRA does not require an instruction concerning the consequences of an NGI verdict, and that such an instruction is not to be given as a matter of general practice, we recognize that an instruction of some form may be necessary under certain limited circumstances. If, for example, a witness or prosecutor states in the presence of the jury that a particular defendant would “go free” if found NGI, it may be necessary for the district court to intervene with an instruction to counter such a misstatement. The appropriate response, of course, will vary as is necessary to remedy the specific misstatement or error. We note this possibility merely so that our decision will not be misunderstood as an absolute prohibition on instructing the jury with regard to the consequences of an NGI verdict. Our observations in this regard are not applicable to Shannon’s situation, however, for there is no indication that any improper statement was made in the presence of the jury during his trial.
* * *
Because the District Court properly refused to give the instruction Shannon requested, we affirm.
So ordered.
See also United States v. Brawner, 471 F. 2d 969, 996 (CADC 1972) (en banc); United States v. Cohen, 733 F. 2d 128, 129-131 (CADC 1984) (en banc); United States v. Thigpen, 4 F. 3d 1573, 1576, and n. 1 (CA11 1993) (en banc), cert. pending, No. 93-6747.
Shannon asked the court to give either of the two following instructions: (1) “Tn the event it is your verdict that [Shannon] is not guilty only by reason of insanity, it is required that the Court commit [him]’ or (2) “ ‘[Y]ou should know that it is required that the Court commit [Shannon] to a suitable hospital facility until such time as [he] does not pose a substantial risk of bodily injury to another or serious damage to the property of another.’ ” App. A-22.
In addition to the court below, the Ninth and Eleventh Circuits recently have reaffirmed their pre-IDRA holdings that juries generally should not be instructed concerning the consequences of an insanity acquittal. See United States v. Frank, 956 F. 2d 872, 880-882 (CA9 1991), cert. denied, 506 U. S. 932 (1992); Thigpen, 4 F. 3d, at 1578. The Third Circuit has held that the decision to give such an instruction should be left to “the sound discretion of the trial judge.” United States v. Fisher, 10 F. 3d 115, 122 (1993), cert. pending, No. 93-7000. A panel of the Second Circuit recently divided three ways on the issue. See United States v. Blume, 967 F. 2d 45, 50 (1992) (Newman, J., concurring) (“I believe the instruction should always be given unless the defendant prefers its omission. Judge Winter believes the instruction should normally not be given. Judge Lumbard believes that the decision whether to give the instruction should be left to the discretion of the trial judge”).
Particularly in capital trials, juries may be given sentencing responsibilities. See, e. g., Simmons v. South Carolina, ante, p. 154. It is undisputed that the jury had no such responsibilities in Shannon’s case.
In Rogers, the jury had been deliberating for almost two horn’s without reaching a verdict. After the trial court informed the jury that it would accept a verdict of “Guilty as charged with extreme mercy of the Court,” the jury returned such a verdict within minutes. 422 U. S., at 36-37 (internal quotation marks omitted). We concluded that, instead of giving the jurors information about sentencing (that is, that they could recommend “extreme mercy”), the trial court should have “admoni[shed] [them] that [they] had no sentencing function and should reach [their] verdict without regard to what sentence might be imposed.” Id., at 40.
District of Columbia Code Ann. §24-301 continued to govern the operation of the insanity defense in federal criminal prosecutions in the District of Columbia until the passage of the IDRA. Cf. United States v. Crutchfield, 893 F. 2d 376, 377-379 (CADC 1990) (holding that the IDRA applies prospectively to insanity acquittees committed after its enactment).
Under the District of Columbia system, the courts had defined insanity as either the lack of substantial capacity to conform one’s conduct to the requirements of the law or the lack of substantial capacity to appreciate the wrongfulness of one’s acts. See Brawner, 471 F. 2d, at 973-995.
In addition, we note that the canon upon which Shannon relies is a canon of statutory construction. It stems from the notion that a court, in interpreting “borrowed” statutory language, should apply the same construction to that language that was placed upon it by the courts in the jurisdiction from which it was borrowed. In this case, however, the court in the jurisdiction from which the statutory text was supposedly borrowed — that is, the Lyles court — did not purport to construe the language of the District of Columbia Code provision; rather, in holding that jurors should be informed of the consequences of an NGI verdict, the court appears to have relied on its supervisory power over the Federal District Courts in the District of Columbia. Cf. infra, at 584. Thus, we conclude that the canon is also inapplicable in this case because there was no “known and settled construction,” Capital Traction Co. v. Hof, 174 U. S. 1, 36 (1899), of the statute that Congress could have adopted by virtue of borrowing language from the District of Columbia statutory scheme.
In the court below, Shannon made the additional argument that because Congress filled the “gap” that had been identified by the Federal Courts of Appeals prior to the IDRA with a general federal civil commitment procedure, “the practice announced in Lyles must now be applied nationwide.” 981 F. 2d 759, 763 (CA5 1993). We find this argument (which Shannon makes only implicitly before this Court) unpersuasive. As noted above, although the lack of a federal commitment procedure before the passage of the IDRA was one reason for rejecting a Lyles-type instruction, courts generally, and properly, relied additionally on the principle that juries are not to be concerned with the consequences of their verdicts. This principle is not altered by the fact that Congress established a civil commitment procedure. See Thigpen, 4 F. 3d, at 1577.
We are not convinced that jurors are as unfamiliar with the consequences of an NGI verdict as Shannon suggests. It may have been the case in 1957 that, in contrast to verdicts of guilty and not guilty, “a verdict of not guilty by reason of insanity ha[d] no . . . commonly understood meaning.” Lyles v. United States, 254 F. 2d 725, 728 (CADC 1957) (en banc), cert. denied, 356 U. S. 961 (1958). Today, however, there is no reason to assume that jurors believe that defendants found NGI are immediately set free. See Fisher, 10 F. 3d, at 122 (“[H]ighly publicized cases, such as that involving John Hinckley, have dramatized the possibility of civil commitment following an NGI verdict”). See also Blume, 967 F. 2d, at 54 (Winter, J., concurring in result).
As the court below observed, “a jury could assume that due to overcrowded mental hospitals, strapped social services budgets, sympathetic judges, etc., a defendant will be released after only a short period of commitment. To combat the prospect of early release, the jury could simply opt to find him guilty.” 981 F. 2d, at 763, n. 6. Indeed, depending upon the content of the instruction, information regarding the consequences of an NGI verdict could influence a juror’s decision in countless — and unpredictable — ways. See, e. g., Fisher, supra, at 121-122, and n. 7 (describing various scenarios in which sentencing information could induce compromise verdicts in the NGI context).
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer:
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A
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sc_issuearea
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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.
The Court having, by its decision of February 19, 1985, 469 U. S. 504, overruled all exceptions to the Report of its Special Master herein, adopted the Master’s recommendations, and confirmed his Report:
SUPPLEMENTAL DECREE
It Is Ordered, Adjudged, and Decreed As Follows:
1. For the purposes of the Court’s Decree herein dated October 6, 1975, 423 U. S. 1 (defining the boundary line between the submerged lands of the United States and the submerged lands of the States bordering the Atlantic Ocean), the coastline of the States of Rhode Island and New York shall be determined on the basis that the whole of Long Island Sound and that portion of Block Island Sound lying west of a straight line between Montauk Point on Long Island (at approximately 41°04'18'' N, 71°51'24" W) and Watch Hill Point on the Rhode Island mainland (at approximately 41°18'12.1'' N, 71°51'33" W) constitute state inland waters;
2. The parties shall bear their own costs of these proceedings and the actual expenses of the Special Master herein shall be borne half by the United States and half by Rhode Island and New York jointly;
3. The Court retains jurisdiction to entertain such further proceedings, enter such orders, and issue such writs as from time to time may be deemed necessary or advisable to effectuate and supplement the decree and the rights of the respective parties.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer:
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J
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sc_issuearea
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What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Justice ALITO delivered the opinion of the Court.
The State of New Jersey wants to legalize sports gambling at casinos and horseracing tracks, but a federal law, the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act, generally makes it unlawful for a State to "authorize" sports gambling schemes. 28 U.S.C. § 3702(1). We must decide whether this provision is compatible with the system of "dual sovereignty" embodied in the Constitution.
I
A
Americans have never been of one mind about gambling, and attitudes have swung back and forth. By the end of the 19th century, gambling was largely banned throughout the country, but beginning in the 1920s and 1930s, laws prohibiting gambling were gradually loosened.
New Jersey's experience is illustrative. In 1897, New Jersey adopted a constitutional amendment that barred all gambling in the State. But during the Depression, the State permitted parimutuel betting on horse races as a way of increasing state revenue, and in 1953, churches and other nonprofit organizations were allowed to host bingo games. In 1970, New Jersey became the third State to run a state lottery, and within five years, 10 other States followed suit.
By the 1960s, Atlantic City, "once the most fashionable resort of the Atlantic Coast," had fallen on hard times, and casino gambling came to be seen as a way to revitalize the city. In 1974, a referendum on statewide legalization failed, but two years later, voters approved a narrower measure allowing casino gambling in Atlantic City alone. At that time, Nevada was the only other State with legal casinos, and thus for a while the Atlantic City casinos had an east coast monopoly. "With 60 million people living within a one-tank car trip away," Atlantic City became "the most popular tourist destination in the United States." But that favorable situation eventually came to an end.
With the enactment of the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act in 1988, 25 U.S.C. § 2701 et seq., casinos opened on Indian land throughout the country. Some were located within driving distance of Atlantic City, and nearby States (and many others) legalized casino gambling. But Nevada remained the only state venue for legal sports gambling in casinos, and sports gambling is immensely popular.
Sports gambling, however, has long had strong opposition. Opponents argue that it is particularly addictive and especially attractive to young people with a strong interest in sports, and in the past gamblers corrupted and seriously damaged the reputation of professional and amateur sports. Apprehensive about the potential effects of sports gambling, professional sports leagues and the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) long opposed legalization.
B
By the 1990s, there were signs that the trend that had brought about the legalization of many other forms of gambling might extend to sports gambling, and this sparked federal efforts to stem the tide. Opponents of sports gambling turned to the legislation now before us, the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act (PASPA). 28 U.S.C. § 3701 et seq. PASPA's proponents argued that it would protect young people, and one of the bill's sponsors, Senator Bill Bradley of New Jersey, a former college and professional basketball star, stressed that the law was needed to safeguard the integrity of sports. The Department of Justice opposed the bill, but it was passed and signed into law.
PASPA's most important provision, part of which is directly at issue in these cases, makes it "unlawful" for a State or any of its subdivisions "to sponsor, operate, advertise, promote, license, or authorize by law or compact... a lottery, sweepstakes, or other betting, gambling, or wagering scheme based... on" competitive sporting events. § 3702(1). In parallel, § 3702(2) makes it "unlawful" for "a person to sponsor, operate, advertise, or promote" those same gambling schemes -but only if this is done "pursuant to the law or compact of a governmental entity." PASPA does not make sports gambling a federal crime (and thus was not anticipated to impose a significant law enforcement burden on the Federal Government). Instead, PASPA
allows the Attorney General, as well as professional and amateur sports organizations, to bring civil actions to enjoin violations. § 3703.
At the time of PASPA's adoption, a few jurisdictions allowed some form of sports gambling. In Nevada, sports gambling was legal in casinos, and three States hosted sports lotteries or allowed sports pools. PASPA contains "grandfather" provisions allowing these activities to continue. § 3704(a)(1)-(2). Another provision gave New Jersey the option of legalizing sports gambling in Atlantic City-provided that it did so within one year of the law's effective date. § 3704(a)(3).
New Jersey did not take advantage of this special option, but by 2011, with Atlantic City facing stiff competition, the State had a change of heart. New Jersey voters approved an amendment to the State Constitution making it lawful for the legislature to authorize sports gambling, Art. IV, § 7, ¶ 2 (D), (F), and in 2012 the legislature enacted a law doing just that, 2011 N.J. Laws p. 1723 (2012 Act).
The 2012 Act quickly came under attack. The major professional sports leagues and the NCAA brought an action in federal court against the New Jersey Governor and other state officials (hereinafter New Jersey), seeking to enjoin the new law on the ground that it violated PASPA. In response, the State argued, among other things, that PASPA unconstitutionally infringed the State's sovereign authority to end its sports gambling ban. See National Collegiate Athletic Assn. v. Christie, 926 F.Supp.2d 551, 561 (D.N.J.2013).
In making this argument, the State relied primarily on two cases, New York v. United States, 505 U.S. 144, 112 S.Ct. 2408, 120 L.Ed.2d 120 (1992), and Printz v. United States, 521 U.S. 898, 117 S.Ct. 2365, 138 L.Ed.2d 914 (1997), in which we struck down federal laws based on what has been dubbed the "anticommandeering" principle. In New York, we held that a federal law unconstitutionally ordered the State to regulate in accordance with federal standards, and in Printz, we found that another federal statute unconstitutionally compelled state officers to enforce federal law.
Relying on these cases, New Jersey argued that PASPA is similarly flawed because it regulates a State's exercise of its lawmaking power by prohibiting it from modifying or repealing its laws prohibiting sports gambling. See National Collegiate Athletic Assn. v. Christie, 926 F.Supp.2d, at 561-562. The plaintiffs countered that PASPA is critically different from the commandeering cases because it does not command the States to take any affirmative act. Id., at 562. Without an affirmative federal command to do something, the plaintiffs insisted, there can be no claim of commandeering. Ibid.
The District Court found no anticommandeering violation, id., at 569-573, and a divided panel of the Third Circuit affirmed, National Collegiate Athletic Assn. v. Christie, 730 F.3d 208 (2013) (Christie I ). The panel thought it significant that PASPA does not impose any affirmative command. Id., at 231. In the words of the panel, "PASPA does not require or coerce the states to lift a finger." Ibid. (emphasis deleted). The panel recognized that an affirmative command (for example, "Do not repeal") can often be phrased as a prohibition ("Repeal is prohibited"), but the panel did not interpret PASPA as prohibiting the repeal of laws outlawing sports gambling. Id., at 232. A repeal, it thought, would not amount to "authoriz[ation]" and thus would fall outside the scope of § 3702(1). "[T]he lack of an affirmative prohibition of an activity," the panel wrote, "does not mean it is affirmatively authorized by law. The right to do that which is not prohibited derives not from the authority of the state but from the inherent rights of the people." Id., at 232 (emphasis deleted).
New Jersey filed a petition for a writ of certiorari, raising the anticommandeering issue. Opposing certiorari, the United States told this Court that PASPA does not require New Jersey "to leave in place the state-law prohibitions against sports gambling that it had chosen to adopt prior to PASPA's enactment. To the contrary, New Jersey is free to repeal those prohibitions in whole or in part." Brief for United States in Opposition in Christie v. National Collegiate Athletic Assn., O.T. 2013, No. 13-967 etc., p. 11. See also Brief for Respondents in Opposition in No. 13-967 etc., p. 23 ("Nothing in that unambiguous language compels states to prohibit or maintain any existing prohibition on sports gambling"). We denied review. Christie v. National Collegiate Athletic Assn., 573 U.S. ----, 134 S.Ct. 2866, 189 L.Ed.2d 806 (2014).
Picking up on the suggestion that a partial repeal would be allowed, the New Jersey Legislature enacted the law now before us. 2014 N.J. Laws p. 602 (2014 Act). The 2014 Act declares that it is not to be interpreted as causing the State to authorize, license, sponsor, operate, advertise, or promote sports gambling. Ibid. Instead, it is framed as a repealer. Specifically, it repeals the provisions of state law prohibiting sports gambling insofar as they concerned the "placement and acceptance of wagers" on sporting events by persons 21 years of age or older at a horseracing track or a casino or gambling house in Atlantic City. Ibid. The new law also specified that the repeal was effective only as to wagers on sporting events not involving a New Jersey college team or a collegiate event taking place in the State. Ibid.
Predictably, the same plaintiffs promptly commenced a new action in federal court. They won in the District Court, National Collegiate Athletic Assn. v. Christie, 61 F.Supp.3d 488 (N.J.2014), and the case was eventually heard by the Third Circuit sitting en banc. The en banc court affirmed, finding that the new law, no less than the old one, violated PASPA by "author[izing]" sports gambling. National Collegiate Athletic Assn. v. Governor of N. J., 832 F.3d 389 (2016) (case below). The court was unmoved by the New Jersey Legislature's "artful[ ]" attempt to frame the 2014 Act as a repealer. Id., at 397. Looking at what the law "actually does," the court concluded that it constitutes an authorization because it "selectively remove[s] a prohibition on sports wagering in a manner that permissively channels wagering activity to particular locations or operators." Id., at 397, 401. The court disavowed some of the reasoning in the Christie I opinion, finding its discussion of "the relationship between a'repeal' and an 'authorization' to have been too facile." 832 F.3d, at 401. But the court declined to say whether a repeal that was more complete than the 2014 Act would still amount to an authorization. The court observed that a partial repeal that allowed only "de minimis wagers between friends and family would not have nearly the type of authorizing effect" that it found in the 2014 Act, and it added: "We need not... articulate a line whereby a partial repeal of a sports wagering ban amounts to an authorization under PASPA, if indeed such a line could be drawn." Id., at 402 (emphasis added).
Having found that the 2014 Act violates PASPA's prohibition of state authorization of sports gambling schemes, the court went on to hold that this prohibition does not contravene the anticommandeering principle because it "does not command states to take affirmative actions." Id., at 401.
We granted review to decide the important constitutional question presented by these cases, sub nom. Christie v. National Collegiate Athletic Assn., 582 U.S. ----, 137 S.Ct. 2327, 198 L.Ed.2d 754 (2017).
II
Before considering the constitutionality of the PASPA provision prohibiting States from "author[izing]" sports gambling, we first examine its meaning. The parties advance dueling interpretations, and this dispute has an important bearing on the constitutional issue that we must decide. Neither respondents nor the United States, appearing as an amicus in support of respondents, contends that the provision at issue would be constitutional if petitioners' interpretation is correct. Indeed, the United States expressly concedes that the provision is unconstitutional if it means what petitioners claim. Brief for United States 8, 19.
A
Petitioners argue that the anti-authorization provision requires States to maintain their existing laws against sports gambling without alteration. One of the accepted meanings of the term "authorize," they point out, is "permit." Brief for Petitioners in No. 16-476, p. 42 (citing Black's Law Dictionary 133 (6th ed. 1990); Webster's Third New International Dictionary 146 (1992)). They therefore contend that any state law that has the effect of permitting sports gambling, including a law totally or partially repealing a prior prohibition, amounts to an authorization. Brief for Petitioners in No. 16-476, at 42.
Respondents interpret the provision more narrowly. They claim that the primary definition of "authorize" requires affirmative action. Brief for Respondents 39. To authorize, they maintain, means " '[t]o empower; to give a right or authority to act; to endow with authority.' " Ibid. (quoting Black's Law Dictionary, at 133). And this, they say, is precisely what the 2014 Act does: It empowers a defined group of entities, and it endows them with the authority to conduct sports gambling operations.
Respondents do not take the position that PASPA bans all modifications of old laws against sports gambling, Brief for Respondents 20, but just how far they think a modification could go is not clear. They write that a State "can also repeal or enhance [laws prohibiting sports gambling] without running afoul of PASPA" but that it "cannot 'partially repeal' a general prohibition for only one or two preferred providers, or only as to sports-gambling schemes conducted by the state." Ibid. Later in their brief, they elaborate on this point:
"If, for example, a state had an existing felony prohibition on all lotteries, it could maintain the law, it could repeal the law, it could downgrade the crime to a misdemeanor or increase the penalty.... But if the state modified its law, whether through a new authorization or through an amendment partially repealing the existing prohibition, to authorize the state to conduct a sports lottery, that modified law would be preempted." Id., at 31.
The United States makes a similar argument. PASPA, it contends, does not prohibit a State from enacting a complete repeal because "one would not ordinarily say that private conduct is 'authorized by law' simply because the government has not prohibited it." Brief for United States 17. But the United States claims that "[t]he 2014 Act's selective and conditional permission to engage in conduct that is generally prohibited certainly qualifies" as an authorization. Ibid. The United States does not argue that PASPA outlaws all partial repeals, but it does not set out any clear rule for distinguishing between partial repeals that constitute the "authorization" of sports gambling and those that are permissible. The most that it is willing to say is that a State could "eliminat[e] prohibitions on sports gambling involving wagers by adults or wagers below a certain dollar threshold." Id., at 29.
B
In our view, petitioners' interpretation is correct: When a State completely or partially repeals old laws banning sports gambling, it "authorize[s]" that activity. This is clear when the state-law landscape at the time of PASPA's enactment is taken into account. At that time, all forms of sports gambling were illegal in the great majority of States, and in that context, the competing definitions offered by the parties lead to the same conclusion. The repeal of a state law banning sports gambling not only "permits" sports gambling (petitioners' favored definition); it also gives those now free to conduct a sports betting operation the "right or authority to act"; it "empowers" them (respondents' and the United States's definition).
The concept of state "authorization" makes sense only against a backdrop of prohibition or regulation. A State is not regarded as authorizing everything that it does not prohibit or regulate. No one would use the term in that way. For example, no one would say that a State "authorizes" its residents to brush their teeth or eat apples or sing in the shower. We commonly speak of state authorization only if the activity in question would otherwise be restricted.
The United States counters that, even if the term "authorize," standing alone, is interpreted as petitioners claim, PASPA contains additional language that precludes that reading. The provision at issue refers to "authoriz[ation] by law, " § 3702(1) (emphasis added), and the parallel provision governing private conduct, § 3702(2), applies to conduct done "pursuant to the law... of a governmental entity." The United States maintains that one "would not naturally describe a person conducting a sports-gambling operation that is merely left unregulated as acting 'pursuant to' state law." Brief for United States 18. But one might well say exactly that if the person previously was prohibited from engaging in the activity. ("Now that the State has legalized the sale of marijuana, Joe is able to sell the drug pursuant to state law.")
The United States also claims to find support for its interpretation in the fact that the authorization ban applies to all "governmental entities." It is implausible, the United States submits, to think that Congress "commanded every county, district, and municipality in the Nation to prohibit sports betting." Ibid. But in making this argument, the United States again ignores the legal landscape at the time of PASPA's enactment. At that time, sports gambling was generally prohibited by state law, and therefore a State's political subdivisions were powerless to legalize the activity. But what if a State enacted a law enabling, but not requiring, one or more of its subdivisions to decide whether to authorize sports gambling? Such a state law would not itself authorize sports gambling. The ban on legalization at the local level addresses this problem.
The interpretation adopted by the Third Circuit and advocated by respondents and the United States not only ignores the situation that Congress faced when it enacted PASPA but also leads to results that Congress is most unlikely to have wanted. This is illustrated by the implausible conclusions that all of those favoring alternative interpretations have been forced to reach about the extent to which the provision permits the repeal of laws banning sports gambling.
The Third Circuit could not say which, if any, partial repeals are allowed. 832 F.3d, at 402. Respondents and the United States tell us that the PASPA ban on state authorization allows complete repeals, but beyond that they identify no clear line. It is improbable that Congress meant to enact such a nebulous regime.
C
The respondents and United States argue that even if there is some doubt about the correctness of their interpretation of the anti-authorization provision, that interpretation should be adopted in order to avoid any anticommandeering problem that would arise if the provision were construed to require States to maintain their laws prohibiting sports gambling. Brief for Respondents 38; Brief for United States 19. They invoke the canon of interpretation that a statute should not be held to be unconstitutional if there is any reasonable interpretation that can save it. See Jennings v. Rodriguez, 583 U.S. ----, ----, 138 S.Ct. 830, 841-842, 200 L.Ed.2d 122 (2018). The plausibility of the alternative interpretations is debatable, but even if the law could be interpreted as respondents and the United States suggest, it would still violate the anticommandeering principle, as we now explain.
III
A
The anticommandeering doctrine may sound arcane, but it is simply the expression of a fundamental structural decision incorporated into the Constitution, i.e., the decision to withhold from Congress the power to issue orders directly to the States. When the original States declared their independence, they claimed the powers inherent in sovereignty-in the words of the Declaration of Independence, the authority "to do all... Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do." ¶ 32. The Constitution limited but did not abolish the sovereign powers of the States, which retained "a residuary and inviolable sovereignty." The Federalist No. 39, p. 245 (C. Rossiter ed. 1961). Thus, both the Federal Government and the States wield sovereign powers, and that is why our system of government is said to be one of "dual sovereignty." Gregory v. Ashcroft, 501 U.S. 452, 457, 111 S.Ct. 2395, 115 L.Ed.2d 410 (1991).
The Constitution limits state sovereignty in several ways. It directly prohibits the States from exercising some attributes of sovereignty. See, e.g., Art. I, § 10. Some grants of power to the Federal Government have been held to impose implicit restrictions on the States. See, e.g., Department of Revenue of Ky. v. Davis, 553 U.S. 328, 128 S.Ct. 1801, 170 L.Ed.2d 685 (2008) ; American Ins. Assn. v. Garamendi, 539 U.S. 396, 123 S.Ct. 2374, 156 L.Ed.2d 376 (2003). And the Constitution indirectly restricts the States by granting certain legislative powers to Congress, see Art. I, § 8, while providing in the Supremacy Clause that federal law is the "supreme Law of the Land... any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding," Art. VI, cl. 2. This means that when federal and state law conflict, federal law prevails and state law is preempted.
The legislative powers granted to Congress are sizable, but they are not unlimited. The Constitution confers on Congress not plenary legislative power but only certain enumerated powers. Therefore, all other legislative power is reserved for the States, as the Tenth Amendment confirms. And conspicuously absent from the list of powers given to Congress is the power to issue direct orders to the governments of the States. The anticommandeering doctrine simply represents the recognition of this limit on congressional authority.
Although the anticommandeering principle is simple and basic, it did not emerge in our cases until relatively recently, when Congress attempted in a few isolated instances to extend its authority in unprecedented ways. The pioneering case was New York v. United States, 505 U.S. 144, 112 S.Ct. 2408, 120 L.Ed.2d 120 (1992), which concerned a federal law that required a State, under certain circumstances, either to "take title" to low-level radioactive waste or to "regulat[e] according to the instructions of Congress." Id., at 175, 112 S.Ct. 2408. In enacting this provision, Congress issued orders to either the legislative or executive branch of state government (depending on the branch authorized by state law to take the actions demanded). Either way, the Court held, the provision was unconstitutional because "the Constitution does not empower Congress to subject state governments to this type of instruction." Id., at 176, 112 S.Ct. 2408.
Justice O'Connor's opinion for the Court traced this rule to the basic structure of government established under the Constitution. The Constitution, she noted, "confers upon Congress the power to regulate individuals, not States." Id., at 166, 112 S.Ct. 2408. In this respect, the Constitution represented a sharp break from the Articles of Confederation. "Under the Articles of Confederation, Congress lacked the authority in most respects to govern the people directly." Id., at 163, 112 S.Ct. 2408. Instead, Congress was limited to acting " 'only upon the States.' " Id., at 162, 112 S.Ct. 2408 (quoting Lane County v. Oregon, 7 Wall. 71, 76, 19 L.Ed. 101 (1869) ). Alexander Hamilton, among others, saw this as " '[t]he great and radical vice in... the existing Confederation.' " 505 U.S., at 163, 112 S.Ct. 2408 (quoting The Federalist No. 15, at 108). The Constitutional Convention considered plans that would have preserved this basic structure, but it rejected them in favor of a plan under which "Congress would exercise its legislative authority directly over individuals rather than over States." 505 U.S., at 165, 112 S.Ct. 2408.
As to what this structure means with regard to Congress's authority to control state legislatures, New York was clear and emphatic. The opinion recalled that "no Member of the Court ha[d] ever suggested" that even "a particularly strong federal interest" "would enable Congress to command a state government to enact state regulation." Id., at 178, 112 S.Ct. 2408 (emphasis in original). "We have always understood that even where Congress has the authority under the Constitution to pass laws requiring or prohibiting certain acts, it lacks the power directly to compel the States to require or prohibit those acts." Id., at 166, 112 S.Ct. 2408. "Congress may not simply 'commandee[r] the legislative processes of the States by directly compelling them to enact and enforce a federal regulatory program.' " Id., at 161, 112 S.Ct. 2408 (quoting Hodel v. Virginia Surface Mining & Reclamation Assn., Inc., 452 U.S. 264, 288, 101 S.Ct. 2352, 69 L.Ed.2d 1 (1981) ). "Where a federal interest is sufficiently strong to cause Congress to legislate, it must do so directly; it may not conscript state governments as its agents." 505 U.S., at 178, 112 S.Ct. 2408.
Five years after New York, the Court applied the same principles to a federal statute requiring state and local law enforcement officers to perform background checks and related tasks in connection with applications for handgun licenses. Printz, 521 U.S. 898, 117 S.Ct. 2365, 138 L.Ed.2d 914. Holding this provision unconstitutional, the Court put the point succinctly: "The Federal Government" may not "command the States' officers, or those of their political subdivisions, to administer or enforce a federal regulatory program." Id., at 935, 117 S.Ct. 2365. This rule applies, Printz held, not only to state officers with policymaking responsibility but also to those assigned more mundane tasks. Id., at 929-930, 117 S.Ct. 2365.
B
Our opinions in New York and Printz explained why adherence to the anticommandeering principle is important. Without attempting a complete survey, we mention several reasons that are significant here.
First, the rule serves as "one of the Constitution's structural protections of liberty." Printz, supra, at 921, 117 S.Ct. 2365. "The Constitution does not protect the sovereignty of States for the benefit of the States or state governments as abstract political entities." New York, supra, at 181, 112 S.Ct. 2408. "To the contrary, the Constitution divides authority between federal and state governments for the protection of individuals." Ibid. " '[A] healthy balance of power between the States and the Federal Government [reduces] the risk of tyranny and abuse from either front.' " Id., at 181-182, 112 S.Ct. 2408 (quoting Gregory, 501 U.S., at 458, 111 S.Ct. 2395 ).
Second, the anticommandeering rule promotes political accountability. When Congress itself regulates, the responsibility for the benefits and burdens of the regulation is apparent. Voters who like or dislike the effects of the regulation know who to credit or blame. By contrast, if a State imposes regulations only because it has been commanded to do so by Congress, responsibility is blurred. See New York, supra, at 168-169, 112 S.Ct. 2408 ; Printz, supra, at 929-930, 117 S.Ct. 2365.
Third, the anticommandeering principle prevents Congress from shifting the costs of regulation to the States. If Congress enacts a law and requires enforcement by the Executive Branch, it must appropriate the funds needed to administer the program. It is pressured to weigh the expected benefits of the program against its costs. But if Congress can compel the States to enact and enforce its program, Congress need not engage in any such analysis. See, e.g., E. Young, Two Cheers for Process Federalism, 46 Vill. L. Rev. 1349, 1360-1361 (2001).
IV
A
The PASPA provision at issue here-prohibiting state authorization of sports gambling-violates the anticommandeering rule. That provision unequivocally dictates what a state legislature may and may not do. And this is true under either our interpretation or that advocated by respondents and the United States. In either event, state legislatures are put under the direct control of Congress. It is as if federal officers were installed in state legislative chambers and were armed with the authority to stop legislators from voting on any offending proposals. A more direct affront to state sovereignty is not easy to imagine.
Neither respondents nor the United States contends that Congress can compel a State to enact legislation, but they say that prohibiting a State from enacting new laws is another matter. See Brief for Respondents 19; Brief for United States 12. Noting that the laws challenged in New York and Printz "told states what they must do instead of what they must not do," respondents contend that commandeering occurs "only when Congress goes beyond precluding state action and affirmatively commands it." Brief for Respondents 19 (emphasis deleted).
This distinction is empty. It was a matter of happenstance that the laws challenged in New York and Printz commanded "affirmative" action as opposed to imposing a prohibition. The basic principle-that Congress cannot issue direct orders to state legislatures-applies in either event.
Here is an illustration. PASPA includes an exemption for States that permitted sports betting at the time of enactment, § 3704, but suppose Congress did not adopt such an exemption. Suppose Congress ordered States with legalized sports betting to take the affirmative step of criminalizing that activity and ordered the remaining States to retain their laws prohibiting sports betting. There is no good reason why the former would intrude more deeply on state sovereignty than the latter.
B
Respondents and the United States claim that prior decisions of this Court show that PASPA's anti-authorization provision is constitutional, but they misread those cases. In none of them did we uphold the constitutionality of a federal statute that commanded state legislatures to enact or refrain from enacting state law.
In South Carolina v. Baker, 485 U.S. 505, 108 S.Ct. 1355, 99 L.Ed.2d 592 (1988), the federal law simply altered the federal tax treatment of private investments. Specifically, it removed the federal tax exemption for interest earned on state and local bonds unless they were issued in registered rather than bearer form. This law did not order the States to enact or maintain any existing laws. Rather, it simply had the indirect effect of pressuring States to increase the rate paid on their bearer bonds in order to make them competitive with other bonds paying taxable interest.
In any event, even if we assume that removal of the tax exemption was tantamount to an outright prohibition of the issuance of bearer bonds, see id., at 511, 108 S.Ct. 1355, the law would simply treat state bonds the same as private bonds. The anticommandeering doctrine does not apply when Congress evenhandedly regulates an activity in which both States and private actors engage.
That principle formed the basis for the Court's decision in Reno v. Condon, 528 U.S. 141, 120 S.Ct. 666, 145 L.Ed.2d 587 (2000), which concerned a federal law restricting the disclosure and dissemination of personal information provided in applications for driver's licenses. The law applied equally to state and private actors. It did not regulate the States' sovereign authority to "regulate their own citizens." Id., at 151, 120 S.Ct. 666.
In Hodel, 452 U.S., at 289, 101 S.Ct. 2352, the federal law, which involved what has been called "cooperative federalism," by no means commandeered the state legislative process. Congress enacted a statute that comprehensively regulated surface coal mining and offered States the choice of "either implement[ing]" the federal program "or else yield[ing] to a federally administered regulatory program." Ibid. Thus, the federal law allowed but did not require the States to implement a federal program. "States [were] not compelled to enforce the [federal] standards, to expend any state funds, or to participate in the federal regulatory program in any manner whatsoever." Id., at 288, 101 S.Ct. 2352. If a State did not "wish" to bear the burden of regulation, the "full regulatory burden [would] be borne by the Federal Government." Ibid.
Finally, in FERC v. Mississippi, 456 U.S. 742, 102 S.Ct. 2126, 72 L.Ed.2d 532 (1982), the federal law in question issued no command to a state legislature. Enacted to restrain the consumption of oil and natural gas, the federal law directed state utility regulatory commissions to consider, but not necessarily to adopt, federal " 'rate design' and regulatory standards." Id., at 746, 102 S.Ct. 2126. The Court held that this modest requirement did not infringe the States' sovereign powers, but the Court warned that it had "never... sanctioned explicitly a federal command to the States to promulgate and enforce laws and regulations." Id., at 761-762, 102 S.Ct. 2126. FERC was decided well before our decisions in New York and Printz, and PASPA, unlike the law in FERC, does far more than require States to consider Congress's preference that the legalization of sports gambling be halted. See Printz, 521 U.S., at 929, 117 S.Ct. 2365 (distinguishing FERC ).
In sum, none of the prior decisions on which respondents and the United States rely involved federal laws that commandeered the state legislative process. None concerned laws that directed the States either to enact or to refrain from enacting a regulation of the conduct of activities occurring within their borders. Therefore, none of these precedents supports the constitutionality of the PASPA provision at issue here.
V
Respondents and the United States defend the anti-authorization prohibition on the ground that it constitutes a valid preemption provision, but it is no such thing. Preemption is based on the Supremacy Clause, and that Clause is not an independent grant of legislative power to Congress. Instead, it simply provides "a rule of decision." Armstrong v. Exceptional Child Center, Inc., 575
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer:
|
J
|
sc_issuearea
|
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Justice Thomas
delivered the opinion of the Court.
A defendant convicted of a federal crime has a right under 18 U. S. C. § 3585(b) to receive credit for certain time spent in official detention before his sentence begins. In this case, we must decide whether the District Court calculates the credit at the time of sentencing or whether the Attorney General computes it after the defendant has begun to serve his sentence.
I
In the summer and early fall of 1988, respondent Richard Wilson committed several crimes in Putnam County, Tennessee. The precise details of these crimes do not concern us here. It suffices to state that Tennessee authorities arrested Wilson on October 5, 1988, and held him in jail pending the outcome of federal and state prosecutions. After certain preliminary proceedings, Wilson eventually pleaded guilty to various federal and state criminal charges.
On November 29, 1989, the United States District Court for the Middle District of Tennessee sentenced Wilson to 96 months’ imprisonment for violation of the Hobbs Act, 18 U. S. C. § 1951. The District Court denied Wilson’s request for credit for time served during his presentence state custody. On December 12, 1989, a Tennessee trial court sentenced Wilson to several years’ imprisonment for robbery and two other felonies. In contrast to the District Court, the state court granted Wilson 429 days of credit toward his state sentence. Later that day, Tennessee authorities transferred Wilson to federal custody, and he began serving his federal sentence.
Wilson appealed the District Court’s refusal to give him credit for the time that he had spent in state custody. Reversing the District Court, the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit held that Wilson had a right to credit and that the District Court should have awarded it to him. 916 F. 2d 1115 (1990). We granted certiorari, 502 U. S. 807 (1991), and now reverse.
II
The Attorney General, through the Bureau of Prisons (BOP), has responsibility for imprisoning federal offenders. See 18 U. S. C. § 3621(a). From 1966 until 1987, a provision codified at 18 U. S. C. § 3568 (1982 ed.) required the Attorney General to award federal prisoners credit for certain time spent in jail prior to the commencement of their sentences. This provision, in part, stated:
“The Attorney General shall give any such person credit toward service of his sentence for any days spent in custody in connection with the offense or acts for which sentence was imposed.” Pub. L. 89-465, §4, 80 Stat. 217 (emphasis added).
The Attorney General implemented this provision by computing the amount of credit after taking custody of the sentenced federal offender. Although the federal courts could review the Attorney General’s determination, the sentencing court did not participate in computation of the credit. See, e. g., United States v. Morgan, 425 F. 2d 1388, 1389-1390 (CA5 1970).
In the Sentencing Reform Act of 1984, 18 U. S. C. § 3551 et seq., which became effective in 1987, Congress rewrote § 3568 and recodified it at § 3585(b). Unlike its predecessor, § 3585(b) does not mention the Attorney General. Written in the passive voice, it states:
“A defendant shall be given credit toward the service of a term of imprisonment for any time he has spent in official detention prior to the date the sentence commences—
“(1) as a result of the offense for which the sentence was imposed; or
“(2) as a result of any other charge for which the defendant was arrested after the commission of the offense for which the sentence was imposed;
“that has not been credited against another sentence.” 18 U. S. C. § 3585(b) (emphasis added).
In describing the defendant’s right to receive jail-time credit in this manner, the provision has created doubt about whether district courts now may award credit when imposing a sentence. The question has significance in this case because the final clause of § 3585(b) allows a defendant to receive credit only for detention time “that has not been credited against another sentence.” When the District Court imposed Wilson’s 96-month sentence on November 29, 1989, Wilson had not yet received credit for his detention time from the Tennessee courts. However, by the time the Attorney General imprisoned Wilson on December 12, 1989, the Tennessee trial court had awarded Wilson 429 days of credit. As a result, Wilson could receive a larger credit if the statute permitted crediting at sentencing, and thus before the detention time had been credited against another sentence.
The United States argues that it is the Attorney General who computes the amount of the credit after the defendant begins his sentence and that the Court of Appeals erred in ordering the District Court to award credit to Wilson. Wilson counters that § 3585(b) authorizes the District Court to compute the amount of the credit at sentencing. We agree with the United States.
A
We do not accept Wilson’s argument that § 3585(b) authorizes a district court to award credit at sentencing. Section 3585(b) indicates that a defendant may receive credit against a sentence that “was imposed,” It also specifies that the amount of the credit depends on the time that the defendant “has spent” in official detention “prior to the date the sentence commences.” Congress’ use of a verb tense is significant in construing statutes. See, e. g., Otte v. United States, 419 U. S. 43, 49-50 (1974); Gwaltney of Smithfield, Ltd. v. Chesapeake Bay Foundation, Inc., 484 U. S. 49, 63-64, n. 4 (1987). By using these verbs in the past and present perfect tenses, Congress has indicated that computation of the credit must occur after the defendant begins his sentence. A district court, therefore, cannot apply § 3585(b) at sentencing.
Federal defendants do not always begin to serve their sentences immediately. In this case, the District Court sentenced Wilson on November 29, 1989, but Wilson did not begin his sentence until December 12, 1989. At sentencing, the District Court only could have speculated about the amount of time that Wilson would spend in detention prior to the commencement of his sentence; the court did not know when the state-court proceedings would end or when the federal authorities would take Wilson into custody. Because § 3585(b) bases the credit on how much time a defendant “has spent” (not “will have spent”) prior to beginning his sentence, the District Court could not compute the amount of the credit at sentencing.
The final phrase of § 3585(b) confirms this interpretation. As noted above, it authorizes credit only for time that “has not been credited against another sentence.” Wilson argues that this phrase does not prevent him from receiving credit because his official detention “ha[d] not been credited” against the state sentence when the District Court imposed the federal sentence. Under this logic, however, if the District Court had sentenced Wilson a few weeks later than it did, he would not have received credit under § 3585(b). This interpretation of the statute would make the award of credit arbitrary, a result not to be presumed lightly. See United States v. Turkette, 452 U. S. 576, 580 (1981) (absurd results are to be avoided). We can imagine no reason why Congress would desire the presentence detention credit, which determines how much time an offender spends in prison, to depend on the timing of his sentencing. For these reasons, we conclude that § 3585(b) does not authorize a district court to compute the credit at sentencing.
B
We agree with the United States that the Attorney General must continue to compute the credit under § 3585(b) as he did under the former §3568. When Congress writes a statute in the passive voice, it often fails to indicate who must take a required action. This silence can make the meaning of a statute somewhat difficult to ascertain. See, e. g., E. I. du Pont de Nemours & Co. v. Train, 430 U. S. 112, 128 (1977); Gladstone, Realtors v. Village of Bellwood, 441 U.S. 91, 102-103 (1979). Yet, even though § 3585(b) no longer mentions the Attorney General, we do not see how he can avoid determining the amount of a defendant’s jail-time credit.
After a district court sentences a federal offender, the Attorney General, through BOP, has the responsibility for administering the sentence. See 18 U. S. C. § 3621(a) (“A person who has been sentenced to a term of imprisonment. . . shall be committed to the custody of the Bureau of Prisons until the expiration of the term imposed”). To fulfill this duty, BOP must know how much of the sentence the offender has left to serve. Because the offender has a right to certain jail-time credit under § 3585(b), and because the district court cannot determine the amount of the credit at sentencing, the Attorney General has no choice but to make the determination as an administrative matter when imprisoning the defendant.
Crediting jail time against federal sentences long has operated in this manner. After Congress enacted § 3568 in 1966, BOP developed detailed procedures and guidelines for determining the credit available to prisoners. See Federal Prison System Program Statement No. 5880.24 (Sept. 5, 1979) and Federal Bureau of Prisons Operations Memorandum No. EMS DM 154-89 (Oct. 23, 1989), Apps. B and C to Brief for United States (stating BOP’s procedures for computing jail-time credit determinations); see also United States v. Lucas, 898 F. 2d 1554 (CA11 1990). Federal regulations have afforded prisoners administrative review of the computation of their credits, see 28 CFR §§542.10-542.16 (1990); Lucas, supra, at 1556, and prisoners have been able to seek judicial review of these computations after exhausting their administrative remedies, see United States v. Bayless, 940 F. 2d 300, 304-305 (CA8 1991); United States v. Flanagan, 868 F. 2d 1544, 1546 (CA11 1989); United States v. Martinez, 837 F. 2d 861, 865-866 (CA9 1988). Congress’ conversion of an active sentence in § 3568 into a passive sentence in § 3585(b) strikes us as a rather slim ground for presuming an intention to change these well-established procedures. “It is not lightly to be assumed that Congress intended to depart from a long established policy.” Robertson v. Railroad Labor Bd., 268 U. S. 619, 627 (1925).
C
Wilson argues that our conclusion conflicts with the familiar maxim that, when Congress alters the words of a statute, it must intend to change the statute’s meaning. See Russello v. United States, 464 U. S. 16, 23-24 (1983). He asserts that, by removing the explicit reference to the Attorney General when it enacted § 3585(b), Congress expressed a desire to remove the Attorney General from the process of computing sentences. Otherwise, Wilson contends, Congress would have had no reason to modify the provision as it did. We have no difficulty with the general presumption that Congress contemplates a change whenever it amends a statute. In this case, however, we find that presumption overcome by our conclusions that the District Court cannot perform the necessary calculation at the time of sentencing and that the Attorney General, in implementing the defendant’s sentence, cannot avoid computing the credit.
We candidly acknowledge that we do not know what happened to the reference to the Attorney General during the revision. We do know that Congress entirely rewrote § 3568 when it changed it to its present form in § 3585(b). It rearranged its clauses, rephrased its central idea in the passive voice, and more than doubled its length. In view of these changes, and because any other interpretation would require us to stretch the meaning of the words that § 3585(b) now includes, we think it likely that the former reference to the Attorney General was simply lost in the shuffle.
Our interpretation of § 3585(b), however, does not render the 1987 revision meaningless. Congress altered §3568 in at least three ways when it enacted § 3585(b). First, Congress replaced the term “custody” with the term “official detention.” Second, Congress made clear that a defendant could not receive a double credit for his detention time. Third, Congress enlarged the class of defendants eligible to receive credit. Under the old law, a defendant could receive credit only for time spent in custody in connection with “the offense ... for which sentence was imposed.” Under the new law, a defendant may receive credit both for this time and for time spent in official detention in connection with “any other charge for which the defendant was arrested after the commission of the offense for which the sentence was imposed.” In light of these revisions, and for the foregoing reasons, we conclude that the Attorney General may continue to compute the amount of the credit. 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:
|
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.
In Anderson v. Abbott, 321 U. S. 349, we held that the shareholders of BancoKentucky Company, a bank-stock-holding company, were liable under 12 U. S. C. § § 63, 64, for an assessment on shares of an insolvent national bank held in the portfolio of the holding company. That suit was brought in a Kentucky District Court against Banco stockholders residing in that District. These suits in equity were brought in Federal District Courts in Ohio and Pennsylvania to enforce assessments against Ohio and Pennsylvania stockholders of Banco. In No. 656 the District Court in Ohio overruled a motion to dismiss made on the ground, among others, that the bill showed on its face that the action was barred by an Ohio statute of limitations. The Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals reversed. 156 F. 2d 47. In No. 593 the Third Circuit Court of Appeals reversed the decision of the District Court in Pennsylvania which had held the action there barred by the Pennsylvania statute of limitations. 156 F. 2d 972. We granted certiorari to consider both cases. 329 U. S. 707.
There is no federal statute of limitations fixing the period within which suits must be brought to enforce the statutory double liability of shareholders of insolvent national banks. For this reason we look to Ohio and Pennsylvania law to determine the period in which these suits may be brought. McDonald v. Thompson, 184 U. S. 71; McClaine v. Rankin, 197 U. S. 154, 158; Rawlings v. Ray, 312 U. S. 96, 97. Even though these suits are in equity, the states' statutes of limitations apply. For it is only the scope of the relief sought and the multitude of parties sued which give equity concurrent jurisdiction to enforce the legal obligation here asserted. And equity will withhold its relief in such a case where the applicable statute of limitations would bar the concurrent legal remedy. Russell v. Todd, 309 U. S. 280, 289 and cases cited. See also Guaranty Trust Co. v. York, 326 U. S. 99; Holmberg v. Armbrecht, 327 U. S. 392, 395-396.
But even though the period in which suit must be brought is governed by state limitations statutes, we have previously decided that the question of when the applicable state statute of limitations begins to run depends upon when, under federal law, the Comptroller of the Currency, or his authorized agent, is empowered by federal law to bring suit. And the Comptroller’s agent, the Receiver here, could not bring these actions until the date for payment fixed by the Comptroller. Rawlings v. Ray, supra, 98, 99; Fisher v. Whiton, 317 U. S. 217, 220, 221. The date for payment fixed by the Comptroller in this instance was April 1, 1931. These actions were instituted more than five but less than six years after the payments became due under the Comptroller’s assessment order.
With regard to No. 656, the Ohio proceeding, the Ohio statute of limitations provides that suit “upon a liability created by statute other than a forfeiture or penalty, shall be brought within six years after the cause thereof accrued.” Ohio Gen. Code (Page, 1938) § 11222. This statute describes the liability sued on here, and if applicable does not bar this suit. But the scope of this general provision is narrowed by another known as the “borrowing statute” which reads:
“If the laws of any state or country where the cause of action arose limits the time for the commencement of the action to a less number of years than do the statutes of this state in like causes of action then said cause of action shall be barred in this state at the expiration of said lesser number of years.” Ohio Gen. Code (Page, 1938) § 11234.
If the cause of action arose in Kentucky, the “borrowing statute” applies Kentucky’s statute of limitations, and this suit is barred. For Kentucky’s law requires that an “action upon a liability created by statute . . . shall be commenced within five years after the cause of action accrued.” Ky. Rev. Stat. (Baldwin, 1943) § 413.120.
The Receiver contends that the Ohio borrowing statute’s language “the laws of any state or country where the cause.of action arose” has reference to “a system of jurisprudence other than Ohio’s,” and does not refer “necessarily to territorial limits” within which events occurred giving rise to an enforceable obligation. The place where the events giving rise to a cause of action occur is said to be “important only insofar as the laws of that place are controlling.” Under this argument, the cause of action here could not have “arisen” in any state since the statutory obligation of shareholders was not imposed or controlled by state law. Hence, the argument runs, the Ohio law did not contemplate borrowing any state statute of limitations in a case where liability is governed by federal law. And no federal statute of limitations could be borrowed in this case for none existed. Therefore, it is argued, only Ohio’s general six-year statute of limitations applies.
The consequence of accepting this contention would be that the Ohio borrowing statute would have no effect at all as to suits brought in Ohio state courts to enforce actions authorized by federal law. For, of course, Ohio courts could never borrow a non-existent federal statute of limitations. And if there were a federal statute of limitations governing a federally created right, that statute would control of its own force. Herget v. Central National Bank & Trust Co., 324 U. S. 4. We have been cited to no decision by any Ohio court which would lead us to believe that its borrowing statute should be given such a sterilizing interpretation. Cf. Townsend v. Eichelberger, 51 Ohio St. 213, 216, 38 N. E. 207, 208.
We find it unnecessary to our decision to discuss the contentions made here concerning differences between a “cause of action” and a “liability.” The Ohio Supreme Court has itself said that a “cause of action is the fact or combination of facts which gives rise to a right of action, the existence of which affords a party a right to judicial interference in his behalf.” Baltimore & O. R. Co. v. Larwill, 83 Ohio St. 108, 115-116, 93 N. E. 619, 621. We have been referred to nothing in Ohio statutes or decisions which indicates that it used “cause of action” in any different sense in its borrowing statute. The purpose of the state’s borrowing statute, as those of other states, was apparently to require its courts to bar suits against an Ohio resident if the right to sue him had already expired in another state where the combination of circumstances giving rise to the right to sue had taken place. Moreover, limitations on federally created rights to sue have similarly been considered to be governed by the limitations law of the state where the crucial combination of events transpired. Seaboard Terminals Corp. v. Standard Oil Co., 24 F. Supp. 1018, 104 F. 2d 659; Bluefields S. S. Co. v. United Fruit Co., 243 F. 1, 19-20. See Campbell v. Haverhill, 155 U. S. 610; Chattanooga Foundry & Pipe Works v. Atlanta, 203 U. S. 390, 397.
Our appraisal of the Ohio borrowing statute, the opinions of the courts of that state, and the circumstances leading to this suit, persuade us that the cause of action “arose” in Kentucky within the meaning of the Ohio borrowing statute. The bank was authorized to do its banking business in Louisville and did business in no other place. See 12 U. S. C. § 81. Nor was this bank’s business any the less local because its shares were held in the portfolio of a Delaware corporation. Many provisions of federal law make national banks, in important aspects, peculiarly local institutions. See 12 U. S. C. §§ 30, 33, 34 (a), 36, 51, 62, 72. For jurisdictional purposes, a national bank is a “citizen” of the state in which it is established or located, 28 U. S. C. § 41 (16), and in that district alone can it be sued. 12 U. S. C. § 94. True, when insolvency occurs, there is a shift in bank management, but the bank’s activities are still necessarily rooted in its local habitat. In this case the Receiver’s office was located in Louisville, the home of the bank; payment of assessments, like other obligations due the bank, could have been made there, and, in fact, shareholders were notified by the Receiver to pay at his office in Louisville. Liquidation of a local bank, like its daily operations, must from necessity and in the interest of good business be carried on, in the main, in the community where the bank did business with its depositors and other customers. Practically everything that preceded the final fixing of liability of shareholders derived from Kentucky transactions. We have been referred to no Ohio decisions, and have been unable to find any, which contradict our conclusion that events which culminated in this suit justify our holding that this “cause of action” “arose” in Kentucky within the meaning of the Ohio statute. See Hunter v. Niagara Fire Ins. Co., 73 Ohio St. 110, 76 N. E. 563; Atropa Corp. v. Kirchwehm, 138 Ohio St. 30, 33 N. E. 2d 655; Payne v. Kirchwehm, 141 Ohio St. 384, 48 N. E. 2d 224; Bowers v. Holabird, 51 Ohio App. 413, 1 N. E. 2d 326; National Bondholders Corp. v. Stoddard, 22 Ohio O. 145, 8 Ohio Supp. 19. See also Hilliard v. Pennsylvania R. Co., 73 F. 2d 473, 475-476; Note, 15 U. of Cin. L. Rev. 337 (1941); Note, 21 Ohio O. 107 (1941). Therefore the judgment in No. 656 is affirmed.
In No. 593, the Pennsylvania action, the same considerations are controlling. The general statute of limitations of that state which would be applicable to this action had it arisen in Pennsylvania, like Ohio’s general statute, provides a six-year period in which this suit could be brought. 12 Pa. Stat. § 31 (Purdon, 1931). But Pennsylvania also has a “borrowing statute” which provides : “When a cause of action has been fully barred by the laws of the state or country in which it arose, such bar shall be a complete defense to an action thereon brought in any of the courts of this commonwealth.” 12 Pa. Stat. § 39 (Purdon, 1931). Our review of Pennsylvania decisions construing this statute persuades us that the borrowing statute is applicable to this case, that under that statute this cause of action “arose” in Kentucky, and that the five-year statute of Kentucky bars this action. See Mister v. Burkholder, 56 Pa. Super. 517; Fletcher’s Estate, 45 Pa. D. & C. 673, 674; Bell v. Brady, 346 Pa. 666, 31 A. 2d 547; Shaffer’s Estate, 228 Pa. 36, 40, 76 A. 716, 717. Cf. Rosenzweig v. Heller, 302 Pa. 279, 153 A. 346. See also Notes, 88 U. of Pa. L. Rev. 878 (1940), 4 U. of Pitt. L. Rev. 215 (1938). The judgment of the Circuit Court of Appeals in No. 593 is therefore reversed.
So ordered.
The Chief Justice took no part in the consideration or decision of these cases.
For convenience, the motion was made by only four defendants who are respondents here. The case was continued as to the others pending final disposition of the question concerning the statute of limitations, the only ground of the motion to dismiss upon which the District Court passed.
See 25 Ohio Jurisprudence 435-440 (1932).
See Note, 75 A. L. R. 203 (1931); Note, 35 Col. L. Rev. 762 (1935).
Whether notice by the Receiver to pay at a particular place could alter the conclusive situation as to where a cause of action might be considered to “arise” under other circumstances is a question we need not decide.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer:
|
I
|
sc_issuearea
|
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Mr. Justice Frankfurter
announced the judgment of the Court and an opinion in which Mr. Justice Reed, Mr. Justice Jackson and Mr. Justice Burton join.
On the evening of May 19, 1950, the towboat Jane Smith in attempting to pass under a bridge over the Atchafalaya River in Louisiana collided with a concrete pier and capsized. The owner and charterer of the Jane Smith filed consolidated petitions in admiralty in the United States District Court in Louisiana to limit their liability under the provisions of 46 U. S. C. §§ 183 and 186. The owner and charterer having complied with the procedural requirements of the Limitation Act, the District Court issued an injunction prohibiting suit against them elsewhere than in the limitation proceeding.
Subsequently, in the same District Court, the plaintiffs below, as representatives of five seamen who had been drowned, brought this consolidated action against the owner of the bridge and the liability underwriters of the owner and charterer of the ship. Jurisdiction was based on diversity of citizenship and the Jones Act, 46 U. S. C. § 688. For their right to proceed against the insurance companies, the plaintiffs relied on § 655 of the Louisiana Insurance Code which authorizes direct suit “against the insurer within the terms and limits of the policy.”
The two policies sued upon are (1) a workmen’s compensation and employer’s liability policy, in the amount of $10,000, issued by the Maryland Casualty Co. in which the charterer alone is named as the insured and which contains a special endorsement making its terms applicable to maritime employment; and (2) a “protection and indemnity” policy in the amount of $170,000 issued by the Home Insurance Company of New York in which both the owner and the charterer are named. Both policies by their terms preclude payment to anyone until the insured shall have been held liable to pay damages.
The District Court granted a motion for summary judgment dismissing the consolidated suit against the insurers on the grounds that the Louisiana statute was, by its own terms, inapplicable to policies of marine insurance, and that in any case application of the statute here would “not only work material prejudice to the characteristic features of the general maritime law but would also contravene the essential purpose expressed by an Act of Congress in a field already covered by that Act. Title 46, § 183, U. S. C. A.” 99 F. Supp. 681, 684.
The Court of Appeals, relying solely on diversity jurisdiction, reversed, holding that as a matter of local law the District Court had read the Louisiana statute too restrictively, a question not open here, and that the statute was nothing more than a permissible regulation of insurance authorized by the McCarran Act, 15 U. S. C. § 1012, and not in “conflict with any feature of substantive admiralty law, nor with any remedy peculiar to admiralty jurisdiction.” 198 F. 2d 536, 539. Deeming this ruling important to the proper enforcement of the Limitation Act, we granted certiorari. 345 U. S. 902.
The only question presented in the petition for certio-rari is whether the application of the Louisiana statute in this case would violate “the Jones Act, the Limited Liability Act and the constitutional grant to the federal government of exclusive jurisdiction in maritime matters.” We agree with the Court of Appeals that since diversity supports federal jurisdiction, the Jones Act need not be drawn upon for jurisdiction. Nor need we be detained by petitioners’ contention that as applied to claims against petitioners as underwriters of the charterer who employed the decedents, the State statute here conflicts with the Jones Act in that it would provide an alternative remedy where Congress has prescribed the means of recovery. Since that Act itself makes its remedy available to a seaman “at his election,” we perceive no conflict between the Jones Act and the Louisiana direct action statute.
Respondents, on the other hand, seek to derive support for reliance on the Louisiana statute from the McCarran 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 . . . unless such Act specifically relates to the business of insurance . . . .” 15 U. S. C. § 1012. Suffice it to say that even the most cursory reading of the legislative history of this enactment makes it clear that its exclusive purpose was to counteract any adverse effect that this Court’s decision in United States v. South-Eastern Underwriters Association, 322 U. S. 533, might be found to have on State regulation of insurance. The House Report on the Bill as enacted is decisive:
“It is not the intention of Congress in the enactment of this legislation to clothe the States with any power to regulate or tax the business of insurance beyond that which they had been held to possess prior to the decision of the United States Supreme Court in the Southeastern Underwriters Association case.” H. R. Rep. No. 143, 79th Cong., 1st Sess. 3.
The question whether application of the direct action statute conflicts with federal maritime law is not touched by the South-Eastern Underwriters case. In the face of this unequivocal expression of congressional meaning, the statute cannot be read as doing something that Congress has told us it was not intended to do. The McCarran Act is not relevant here.
This brings us to the governing issue: does the Louisiana statute enter an area of maritime jurisdiction withdrawn from the States? Since Congress has provided a comprehensive legislative system for adjudicating maritime claims, we pass directly to considering whether the operation of the Louisiana statute conflicts with that system, putting to one side the question whether it encroaches upon the,, general body of non-statutory maritime law. Cf. Red Cross Line v. Atlantic Fruit Co., 264 U. S. 109; Just v. Chambers, 312 U. S. 383.
Legislation limiting shipowners’ liability was first enacted in 1851 to provide assistance to American shipowners and thereby place them in a favorable position in the competition for world trade. 9 Stat. 635. It provides that in event of a collision or other maritime mishap, occurring “without the privity or knowledge” of the owner (including therein a charterer), liability will be limited to the value of the ship and freight pending. The Act also permits the shipowner by instituting limitation proceedings to have all claims against him brought into concourse in an admiralty tribunal.
The legislation was designed to induce the heavy financial commitments the shipping industry requires by mitigating the threat of a multitude of suits and the hazards of vast, unlimited liability as a result of a maritime disaster. This Court has been faithful to this ultimate purpose and has read the statute’s words “in a broad and popular sense in order not to defeat the manifest intent.” Flink v. Paladini, 279 U. S. 59, 63. Particularly in view of the fact that Congress subjected the whole limitation scheme to scrutiny in 1935 and 1936 as a result of its application to personal injury and death claims resulting from the sinking of the Morro Castle, and did not alter those provisions of the legislation involved here, we must read the statute in the light of its expressed purposes. It is not for us to sit in judgment on the policy of Congress in having all claims disposed of in one proceeding or in apportioning maritime losses.
The direct action statute clashes with the federal system for marshalling all claims arising from certain maritime causes of action. See the detailed provisions in Admiralty Rules 51-54, 334 U. S. 864. The heart of this system is a concursus of all claims to ensure the prompt and economical disposition of controversies in which there are often a multitude of claimants. The benefits a concursus bestows on the shipping industry were thus described in the hearings on the 1936 amendments to the Limitation Act:
“Under the limitation statutes, as we have had them since 1851, they had two different purposes to serve; one was to limit the liability of the owner and the other was to draw into one court, in the case of a large accident, all of the claims, in order that they might be heard by one judge on one state of facts, in one trial, and intelligently disposed of. Suppose a big sea comes aboard a passenger liner and 15 or 20 people on that deck are washed up against the stanchions or something else, and the claim is that the ship ought to. have' slowed down, ought to have known by radio. Those passengers may live anywhere from Maine to Texas, and if you have 20 separate laws in 20 different jurisdictions, you just cannot handle an accident of that kind in any possibly intelligent way. One court will say the line was not negligent; another court will say it was negligent; a third court will say you are entitled to $1,500; the next one may say you are entitled to $45,000; and nobody knows where he is.
“So one of the most useful purposes of the limitation statute was that in a case like that you could file a petition bringing into one court all of the - claimants and have one trial. Otherwise you would have to keep the crew off of the ship traveling around the country for 2 or 3 -years.” Statement by Mr. Charles S. Haight, representing the French Line, Hearings before House Committee on Merchant Marine and Fisheries on H. R. 9969, Part 4, 74th Cong., 2d Sess. 69-70.
And commenting on the limitation of liability sections of the Admiralty Rules of this Court, Mr. Justice Bradley thus described their purpose:
“In promulgating the rules referred to, this court expressed its deliberate judgment as to the proper mode of proceeding on the part of shipowners for the purpose of having their rights under the act declared and settled by the definitive decree of a competent court, which should be binding on all parties interested, and protect the ship owners from being harassed by litigation in other tribunals. . . . The questions to be settled by the statutory proceedings being, first, whether the ship or its owners are liable . . . and secondly, if liable, whether the owners are entitled to a limitation of liability, must necessarily be decided by the district court having jurisdiction of the case; and, to render its decision conclusive, it must have entire control of the subject to the exclusion of other courts and jurisdictions. If another court may investigate the same questions at the same time, it may come to a conclusion contrary to that of the district court; and if it does (as happened in this case), the proceedings in the district court will be thwarted and rendered ineffective to secure to the ship owners the benefit of the statute.” Providence & New York S. S. Co. v. Hill Co., 109 U. S. 578, 594-595.
Direct actions against the liability underwriter of the shipowner or charterer would detract from the benefit of a concursus and undermine the operation of the congressional scheme for the “complete and just disposition of a many cornered controversy.” Hartford Accident & Indemnity Co. v. So. Pacific Co., 273 U. S. 207, 216. The ship's company would be subject to call as witnesses in more than one proceeding, perhaps in diverse forums. Conflicting judgments might result. Ultimate recoveries might vary from the proportions contemplated by the statute. Moreover, it is important to bear in mind that the concursus is not solely for the benefit of the shipowner. The elaborate notice provisions of the Admiralty Rules are designed to protect injured claimants. They ensure that all claimants, not just a favored few, will come in on an equal footing to obtain a pro rata share of their damages. To permit direct actions to drain away part or all of the insurance proceeds prejudices the rights of those victims who rely, and have every reason to rely, on the limitation proceeding to present their claims.
Furthermore, insurers, unable to rely on the limitation of liability of their insured and denied the benefits of the concursus, would in all likelihood reflect the increased costs in their premiums, thus passing on to the very class sought to be benefited by the federal legislation the short-circuiting effects of the State statute.
In addition to encroachment upon the federal statutory system for bringing all claims into concourse, the direct action statute is in conflict with the congressional policy of limited liability. The complaints in those two of the five consolidated suits which are by agreement part of the record here total $600,000 in alleged damages. Thus, we are certainly on notice that the total damages of the respondents may exceed the $180,000 sum which the policies would cover. If the present actions were to result in judgments equaling the face amount of the policies, the insurers would be exonerated of any further obligation to indemnify the owner and charterer under the policies. The shipowner and charterer would then have to face whatever claims may be presented stripped of their insurance protection. How this may come about is easily seen if we assume that the salvaged ship will finally be valued at $25,000 — the amount for which we are advised a stipulation has been filed in the limitation proceeding. If the five claimants were to succeed in obtaining judgments of $180,000 without exhausting all claims, there would be no bar to an additional $25,000 recovery from the shipowner and the charterer in the limitation proceeding by other claimants, or perhaps even by some of the respondents here. Yet in the absence of the direct action statute, the liability policies would be more than sufficient to cover any judgment that might be rendered in the limitation action. Under these circumstances, the extent to which the insured lose the benefits which Congress intended them to have is measured by the protective value of their insurance. Without having bought any policies they could only have been held for $25,000. If they buy the policies, and the Louisiana statute is applied to permit these suits, their liability is still $25,000.
Thus, to permit direct actions under the State statute would require that shipowners become self-insurers for liability risks in order to be sure of getting the full protection of the limitation legislation. In view of the fact that “substantially all maritime risks are insured,” Keen v. Overseas Tankship Corp., 194 F. 2d 515, 518 (L. Hand, J.), this sort of qualification would be completely inconsistent with the Limitation Act.
In 1886 the Court was called upon to decide whether the proceeds from a hull insurance policy are part of an owner’s “interest” in a ship and as such must be turned into the limitation proceeding. In The City of Norwich, 118 U. S. 468, the Court held that insurance proceeds need not be turned in. In part, the decision was based on a narrow interpretation of “interest.” But Mr. Justice Bradley, who had a commanding role in applying the Limitation Act, reviewed the history and policy of limited liability, and the language of that opinion is an illuminating guide here:
“Now, to construe the law in such a manner as to prevent the merchant from contracting with an insurance company for indemnity against the loss of his investment is contrary to the spirit of commercial jurisprudence. Why should he not be allowed to purchase such an indemnity? Is it against public policy? That cannot be, for public policy would equally condemn all insurance by which a man provides indemnity for himself against the risks of fire, losses at sea, and other casualties. To hold that this cannot be done tends to discourage those who might otherwise be willing to invest their money in the shipping business.” 118 U. S., at 504-505.
And the Court, in The City of Norwich, foreshadowed the consequences of permitting direct actions against liability insurers of shipowners: “No form of agreement could be framed by which [shipowners] could protect themselves. This is a result entirely foreign to the spirit of our legislation.” 118 U. S., at 505.
Of course, wholly apart from the respect to be accorded State legislation, this Court should be slow to find that even where Congress has exercised its legislative power it has not left room for State action. Kelly v. Washington, 302 U. S. 1. But where, as in this case, the evident design of Congress can only be carried out by barring State action, it must be barred.
It is true that the record before us does not establish with certainty that the present suits would in fact operate to leave the shipowner and charterer to face liability in the limitation action without indemnification. Judgments in the present actions against the insurers might satisfy all claims or leave enough insurance money to indemnify the shipowner and charterer for liability in the limitation action. The salvaged vessel may finally be valued as worthless, exonerating the shipowner and charterer from any liability in the limitation action. Or the right of the shipowner and charterer to limit their liability might be successfully challenged on the grounds that the mishap did not happen without their “privity or knowledge.”
These elements of uncertainty provide a temptation to let the present actions proceed. Further support for this view may reasonably be found in the fact that it is the insurers rather than the shipowner and charterer who are here seeking to rely on the Limitation Act as a defense. But the crucial fact which requires that the conflict between State and federal law be faced now is that the present actions are brought completely independently of the limitation proceeding. If the Court keeps hands off the direct actions, the draining away of the insurance proceeds cannot be challenged at any time by anyone.
This is not a case where some future action remains to be taken by one of the parties to a suit before the critical issue is presented to the Court as clearly as may be. See United Public Workers v. Mitchell, 330 U. S. 75. Nor is this a case where we can postpone our review until a State court gives meaning to a challenged. State statute. Albertson v. Millard, 345 U. S. 242. In the suits before us, the Court is at the point of no return. Once the respondents have recovered from the insurers the face amount of the insurance policies in the present actions, and they or other claimants are going after the shipowner and charterer in the limitation action, it will be too late to rely on the Limitation Act to preserve the insurance proceeds.
Thus, it is clear that if the present direct actions are permitted, they involve substantial hazard to rights granted by an Act of Congress, leaving no way for such impairment to be challenged. Respect for the Act precludes allowance of litigation, based on a State statute, which carries the potentiality of irreparable infringement upon federal law. The point of inadmissible conflict between State and federal legislation is reached as soon as suit is brought against the liability underwriters to get at proceeds of the policies. And if the federal legislation bars such a suit, it would be anomalous to say that the underwriters may not here contest the direct actions.
Of course, liability underwriters are not entitled to “limitation of liability” as that phrase is used as a term of art in admiralty. To state the issue in these terms is to misconceive it. The question is whether the Court is to disregard the effect of a direct action on the federal proceedings. The Louisiana statute, as applied to authorize suits against the insurers of shipowners and charterers who have instituted limitation proceedings, is a disturbing intrusion by a State on the harmony and uniformity of one aspect of maritime law. It is accentuated by the fact that the federal law involved is not a more or less ill-defined area of maritime common law, incursion upon which need not be here considered, but an Act of Congress, well-defined and consciously designed, with detailed rules for its execution established by this Court.
“If the courts having the execution of [the Limitation Act] administer it in a spirit of fairness, with the view of giving to ship owners the full benefit of the immunities intended to be secured by it, the encouragement it will afford to commercial operations (as before stated) will be of the last importance: but if it is administered with a tight and grudging hand, construing every clause most unfavorably against the ship owner, and allowing as little as possible to operate in his favor, the law will hardly be worth the trouble of its enactment. Its value and efficiency will also be greatly diminished, if not entirely destroyed, by allowing its administration to be hampered and interfered with by various and conflicting jurisdictions.” Providence & New York S. S. Co. v. Hill Co., 109 U. S. 578, 588-589.
Accordingly, Mr. Justice Reed, Mr. Justice Jackson, Mr. Justice Burton and I would reverse the judgment of the Court of Appeals and reinstate that of the District Court dismissing the complaints. For the reasons stated in his opinion, Mr. Justice Clark agrees that the direct action suits should not be permitted to impair the shipowner’s and charterer’s right to indemnification, but he would allow the District Court to adjudicate the liability of the petitioners to the respondents after the limitation proceeding has run its course.
In order to break the deadlock resulting from the differences of opinion within the Court and to enable a majority to dispose of this litigation, we vacate the judgment of the Court of Appeals and order the case to be remanded to the District Court to be continued until after the completion of the limitation proceeding.
It is so ordered.
46 U. S. C. § 183: “(a) The liability of the owner of any vessel, whether American or foreign ... for any loss, damage, or injury by collision, or for any act, matter, or thing, loss, damage, or forfeiture, done, occasioned, or incurred, without the privity or knowledge of such owner or owners, shall not, except in the cases provided for in subsection (b) of this section, exceed the amount or value of the interest of such owner in such vessel, and her freight then pending.”
§ 186: “The charterer of any vessel, in case he shall man, victual, and navigate such vessel at his own expense, or by his own procurement, shall be deemed the owner of .such vessel within the meaning of the provisions of this chapter relating to the limitation of the liability of the owners of vessels;
Prior to instituting this action, all five plaintiffs had filed in the limitation proceeding pleadings challenging the shipowner’s and charterer’s right to limit their liability and asserting claims for damages.
The Protection and Indemnity policy issued by the Home Insurance Company contained the following clauses. “It is agreed that if the Assured, as shipowners, shall have become liable to pay, and shall have in fact paid, any sum or sums in respect of any responsibility, claim, demand, damages and/or expenses, or shall become liable for and shall pay any other loss arising from or occasioned by any of the following matters or things . . . ." There follows the types of injury and loss for which the Company is liable. A subsequent proviso reads “Liability hereunder shall in no event exceed that which would be imposed on the Assured by law in the absence of Contract.”
Condition G of the policy issued by Maryland Casualty provides: “No action shall lie against the Company to recover upon any claim or for any loss under Paragraph I (b) foregoing unless brought after the amount of such claim or loss shall have been fixed and rendered certain either by final judgment against this Employer after trial of the issue or by agreement between the parties with the written consent of the Company, nor in any event unless brought within two years thereafter.”
This Court has interpreted this as meaning the value after the accident. Norwich Co. v. Wright, 13 Wall. 104.
After the Morro Castle disaster, in which 135 lives were lost and the owners sought to limit their liability to $20,000, Congress changed the statute to provide that if the value of the vessel and freight pending is not enough to cover all claims, that portion of the total recovery applicable to personal injury or death claims shall be at least $60 per ton. 49 Stat. 960; 49 Stat. 1479. 46 U. S. C. § 183 (b)-(e). This provision is applicable, however, only to “seagoing vessels,” defined as excluding towboats which is the type of vessel involved here. 46 U. S. C. § 183 (f).
For example, in this case the representatives of a sixth victim may be relying on the limitation action to prove “privity or knowledge” and thus seek a judgment substantially in excess of the ship’s value. They will be penalized for relying on the federal legislation and the Rules if the direct actions drain away the insurance proceeds and the shipowner and charterer are unable to meet additional judgments.
That the cost and indeed the availability of insurance depends on limited liability was brought to the attention of Congress in the hearings on the 1936 amendments to the Limitation Act. See Hearings before House Committee on Merchant Marine and Fisheries on H. R. 9969, Part 4, 74th Cong., 2d Sess. 66-67, 129.
This is equally true whatever the vessel is valued at. Of course, we do not know now that the vessel will finally be valued at $25,000. The final valuation may be more or less. Certainly, on the record before us we cannot assume that the ship is valueless, and it may be that shipowner and charterer will need the full $180,000 face value of the policy to indemnify them for a judgment in the limitation action. The very reason that the present suit should not be allowed to proceed is that it is for the limitation proceeding to determine value.
The allegation of “privity” and “knowledge” is not an assumption on the basis of which this case could be disposed of. The shipowner’s and charterer’s right to limitation must be determined, as provided by the Act and Rules of this Court, in the limitation proceeding itself, not in the present suits to which they are not parties.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer:
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H
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sc_issuearea
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What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Mr. Justice Clark
delivered the opinion of the Court.
This case brought here on writ of certiorari tests the validity under the Anti-Assignment Act, R. S. § 3477, of an assignment of a claim against the United States for property damage. In an effort to escape the prohibition of that Act, respondents joined their assignors, Mrs. Kathleen Boshamer et al., as well as the United States as parties defendant. The District Court, holding the assignment to be “of full force and effect,” entered judgment for respondents against the United States alone. The Court of Appeals affirmed, 186 F. 2d 430.
The Boshamers owned, in addition to adjoining land which they leased to the United States, two one-acre tracts of land not under lease on which were located two houses and a barn. During January and February, 1945, these buildings were damaged by soldiers of the United States. On April 30, 1946, the Boshamers agreed to sell the entire tract — including both the léased and unleased portions — to respondents Samuel and W. L. Shannon, and in that instrument agreed that “after completion of the sale and after delivery of the deed, the sellers hereby release to the purchasers any claim, reparation, or other cause of action against the United States Government for any damage caused the property . . . .”
Respondents brought the present action under the Federal Tort Claims Act, 28 U. S. C. (Supp. IV) § 1346 (b). In their complaint respondents alleged that the Boshamers “have a cause of action against the United States of America and since they have assigned this cause of action to [respondents] for a valuable consideration and since they must prosecute this action in their own names they are equitably liable to [respondents] for the amount of any judgment that they may recover against the United States of America,” and further alleged that the Boshamers had “refus[ed] to aid [respondents] in recovering the damages to which [respondents] are entitled.” The Boshamers filed an answer stating that they had made the assignment but -“are without knowledge or information as to any damages done . . . and . . . have been unwilling to institute or prosecute a damage suit against their Government for something they have no knowledge of.” At the trial respondents admitted that all of the damage had occurred before the claim had been assigned to them, and that they had known of the damage at the time of the assignment. The District Court, however, held the Anti-Assignment Act inapplicable on the ground . that the joinder of the assignors prevented any possible prejudice to the Government, since “[tjhe rights of all of the possible claimants and of the United States will be finally adjudicated in this one suit.”
The Court of Appeals affirmed, believing that the assignment had resulted from a “mutual mistake as to the law,” and holding that: '
“Relief is granted, not merely because [respondents] are assignees, nor even because the vendors have been made parties to the suit, but because of the mistake that led to the making of the assignment, which was a part of the consideration for the purchase price paid by [respondents] for the land conveyed to them. The relief is given to the assignees, not as a matter of law, but as a matter of equity because of the mistake involved and the hardship which would otherwise result.” 186 F. 2d 430, 434.
We cannot agree.' In our view the judgment is based entirely on the assignment, v/hich falls clearly within the ban. of the Anti-Assignment Act. -We have recently had occasion to review the Act’s purposes. In United States v. Aetna Surety Co., 338 U. S. 366, 373 (1949), we stated that “[i]ts primary purpose was undoubtedly to prevent persons of influence from buying up claims against the /United States, which might then be improperly urged upon officers of the Government,” and that a second purpose was “to prevent possible multiple payment of claims, to make unnecessary the investigation of alleged assignments, and to enable the Government to deal only with the original claimant.” Other courts have found yet another purpose of the statute, namely, to save to the United States “defenses which it has to claims by an assignor by way of set-off, counter claim, etc.,-which might not be. applicable to an assignee.”
In the Aetna case’, supra, this Court reaffirmed the principle that the statute does not' apply to assignments by operation of law, as distinguished from voluntary assignments. There can be no doubt that in the present case the assignment was voluntary. The Boshamers were free to sell their land as well as their damage claim to whomever they pleased, or, had they chosen, they could have sold the land and the plaim separately. The voluntary nature of the assignment is reflected, in the fact that one of the respondents testified on cross-examination that he understood that he was “buying a claim against the Government.”
That an assignment is voluntary is not an end to' the matter, however. In the ninety-nine-year history of the Anti-Assignment Act, this Court has recognized as exceptions to the broad sweep of the statute two types of voluntary assignments (aside from voluntary assignments made after a claim has been allowed): transfers by will, Erwin v. United States, 97 U. S. 392, 397 (1878), and general assignments for the benefit of creditors, Goodman v. Niblack, 102 U. S. 556, 560-561 (1881). The first of these exceptions is justified by analogy to transfers by intestacy, which are exempt from the statute as being transfers by operation of law* It would be unwise to make a distinction for purposes of the Act. between transfers which serve so much the same purposes as transfers by will and by intestacy. In similar fashion, the -exception for voluntary .assignments for the benefit t>f creditors has been justified by analogy to assignments in bankruptcy, See Goodman v. Niblack, supra. We find no such compelling analogies In the case at bar. On the contrary, this casé presents a situation productive of the very evils which Congress intended to prevent. For example, the assignors knew of no damage and refused to bring suit, yet by their assignment the Government is forced to defend this suit through the courts and deal with persons who were strangers to the damage and, are seeking to enforce a claim which their assignors have forsworn. One of Congress’ basic purposes in passing the Act was “that the government might not be harassed by multiplying the number of persons with whom it had to deal.” Hobbs v. McLean, 117 U. S. 567, 576 (1886). See also United States v. Aetna Surety Co., supra.
.Nor are we persuaded by the special considerations' which the Court of Appeals thought were controlling here. To hold the Anti-Assignment Act inapplicable be-' cause an assignment has been executed under a “mutual mistake of law” would require an inquiry into the state of mind of all parties to a challenged assignment, .and would reward those who are ignorant of a statute which has been on the books for nearly a century. The all-inclusive language of the Act permits no such easy escape from its prohibition. In like manner, to hold the Act inapplicable because all possible claimants are before the court would be to draw a distinction on the basis of a purely fortuitous factor — whether an assignee, in his suit against the Government, can get personal service on his assignor. Even more important, this theory that an assignee can avoid the Act by joining his assignor as a party defendant or an unwilling party plaintiff, would not only subvert the purposes of the Act but flood the courts with litigation by permitting them to recognize assigned claims which the accounting officers of the . Government would be obligated to reject. Since only a court cán give the binding adjudication of the rights of all parties to’the transaction — United States, assignor, and assignee— which .it is claimed prevents any possible prejudice to the Government, the courts would be applying a laxer rule under the statute than would the accounting officers. Such was not the intention of Congress. See United States v. Gillis, 95 U. S. 407 (1877). We do not believe the Act can be by-passed by the use of any such procedural contrivance.
The Court of Appeals also felt' that respondents’ claim should be upheld because “hardship” would otherwise result. If it were necessary only to balance equities in order to decide whether the Anti-Assignment Act applies — a view which this. Court has many times repudiated — respondents would have little weight on their side of the scales. They paid the Boshamers $30 per acre for the land and buildings plus the claim; yet they admitted at the trial that land adjoining the Boshamer farm was worth $100 an acre or more, and that the Boshamer farm was one of the best in the county. Furthermore, we find here no “unconscionable” conduct on the part of the government agents. They had no part in the making of the assignment upon which respondents rely, and in fact the first dealing between respondents and the government agents occurred at least six weeks after that assignment had been executed.
The judgment is
Reversed.
Mr. Justice Black and Mr. Justice Jackson dissent.
Mr. Justice Frankfurter.
I would dismiss these writs of certiorari.
After the argument of these cases it became manifest that they were legal sports. Each presents a unique set of circumstances. Neither is likely to recur; both are individualized instances outside the scope.of those considerations of importance which alone, as a matter of sound judicial discretion, justify disposition of a writ of certiorari on the merits.
The controlling purpose of the radical reforms introduced by the Judiciary Act of 1925, reinforced by an exercise of the Court’s rule-making power in regard to the residual jurisdiction on appeal (see Rule 12 and 275 U. S. 603-604, 43 Harv. L. Rev. 33, 42 et seq.), was to put the right to come here, for all practical purposes, in the Court’s judicial discretion. Needless to §ay, the reason for this is to enable the Court to adjudicate wisely, and therefore after adequate deliberation, the controversies that make the Court’s existence indispensable under our Federal system.
From time to tiine some cases which ought never to have been here in the first instance are bound to reach the stage of argument, despite the process by which the wheat of worthy petitions for certiorari is sifted from the vast chaff of cases for which review is sought here, too often because of the blind litigiousness of parties or of the irresponsibility and excessive zeal of their counsel. Since the Judiciary Act of 1925, successive Chief Justices have repeatedly brought this abuse of the certiorari privilege to the attention' of the Bar, but thus far without avail. When it is considered that at the last Term the Court passed on 987 such petitions, it is surprising, not that petitions are granted that escaped appropriate weeding-out— and, parenthetically, that a few are inappropriately denied — but that the process of rejection works as well as it does. And of course disposition of this volume of petitions for certiorari is the smaller part of the Court’s work.
The fact that a case inappropriate ~for review escaped denial through a weeding-out process that is bound to be circumscribed, is no reason for compounding the oversight by disposing of such a case on the merits, after argument has made more luminously clear than did the preliminary examination of the papers that the litigation ought to be allowed to rest where it is by dismissing the writ. The reason for this was set forth on behalf of the Court by Mr. Chief Justice Taft:
“If it be suggested that as much effort and time as we have given to the consideration of the alleged conflict would have enabled us to dispose of the case before us on the merits, the answer is that it is very important that‘we be consistent in not granting the writ of certiorari except in cases involving .principles the settlement of which is of importance to the public as distinguished from that of the parties, and in cases where there is a real and embarrassing conflict of opinion and authority between the circuit courts of appeal. The present case certainly comes under neither head.” Layne & Bowler Corp. v. Western Well Works, Inc., 261 U. S. 387, 393.
In fairness to the effective adjudication of those cases for which the Court sits, the Court has again and again acted on these considerations and dismissed the writ as “improvidently granted” after the preliminary and necessarily tentative consideration of the petition. These reasons are especially compelling when the Court’s mistake in assuming that an important issue of general law was involved does not survive argument as to cases like the present, which were part of the vast summer accumulation of petitions to come before the Court at the .opening of the Term.
342 U. S. 808.
10 Stat. 170, as amended, 31 U. S. C. § 203:
“All transfers and assignments made of any claim upon the United States, or of any part or share thereof, or interest therein, whether absolute or conditional, and whatever may be the consideration therefor, and all powers of attorney, orders, or other authorities for receiving payment of any such claim, or of aúy part or. share thereof, shall be absolutely null and void, unless they are freely made and executed in the presence of at least two attesting witnesses, after the allowance of such a claim, the ascertainment' of the amount due, and the issuing of a warrant for the payment thereof. . . .”
Hereafter referred to as “the Boshamers.”
R. 33.
Originally there were two cases, one under the Tucker Act, 28 U. S. C. (Supp. IV) § 1346 (a)(2), for damages to property under lease to the United States, and the second under the Tort Claims Act for damages to buildings on property not under lease. The District Court awarded respondents judgment for $2,050 in the first action and $975 in the second, and both judgments were affirmed by the Court of Appeals. The Tort Claims action alone is involved here.
R. 20.
R. 23.
R. 18.
Grace v. United States, 76 F. Supp. 174, 175 (1948).
R. 13.
[This opinion applies also to No. 46, United States v. Jordan, post, p. 911.]
Compare the 154 petitions for certiorari presented to the Court during the October Term, 1915. Even one-sixth of our current volume of petitions impelled the Court to emphasize the administrative importance of freeing this Court from the imposition of improperly-granted petitions for certiorari. Furness, Withy & Co. v. Yang-Tsze Ins. Assn., Ltd., 242 U. S. 430, 434.
In addition to passing upon the 987 petitions for certiorari, the Court during the last Term considered and disposed of 77 cases by the “per curiam decisions,” 121 “other applications” on the Miscellaneous Docket, and 5 cases on the Original Docket, and after argument decided with full opinion 114 cases. Journal Sup. Court U. S., October Term, 1950, i.
United States v. Rimer, 220 U. S. 547; Furness, Withy & Co. v. Yang-Tsze Ins. Assn., Ltd., supra; Tyrrell v. District of Columbia, 243 U. S. 1; Layne & Bowler Corp. v. Western Well Works, Inc., supra; Southern Power Co. v. North Carolina Public Service Co., 263 U. S. 508; Keller v. Adams-Campbell Co., 264 U. S. 314; Wisconsin Elec. Co. v. Dumore Co., 282 U. S. 813; Sanchez v. Borras, 283 U. S. 798; Franklin-American Trust Co. v. St. Louis Union Trust Co., 286 U. S. 533; Moor v. Texas & New Orleans R. Co., 297 U. S. 101; Texas & New Orleans R. Co. v. Neill, 302 U. S. 645; Goodman v. United States, 305 U. S. 578; Goins v. United States, 306 U. S. 622; McCullough v. Kammerer Corp., 323 U. S. 327; McCarthy v. Bruner, 323 U. S. 673. See also Washington Fidelity Nat. Ins. Co. v. Burton, 287 U. S. 97, 100; Wilkerson v. McCarthy, 336 U. S. 53, 64.
Both of the petitions in these cases were filed on May 3, 1951, and granted on October 8, 1951. 342 U. S. 808, 809. At this Term’s opening the Court passed on 224 petitions for certiorari accumulated during the summer. In addition, at the beginning of this Term 4 cases were dismissed on motion; 6 other cases were disposed of by “per curiam decisions,” and 14 Miscellaneous Docket “applications”, were disposed of.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer:
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H
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sc_issuearea
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What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Mr. Chief Justice Warren
delivered the opinion of the Court.
Presented for decision in this case is the constitutional validity, under the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Federal Constitution, of the apportionment of seats in the Delaware General Assembly.
I.
Shortly after this Court’s decision in Baker v. Carr, 369 U. S. 186, plaintiffs below, residents, taxpayers and qualified voters of New Castle County, Delaware, filed a complaint in the United States District Court for the District of Delaware, in their own behalf and on behalf of all persons similarly situated, challenging the apportionment of the Delaware Legislature. Defendants, sued in their representative capacities, were various officials charged with the performance of certain duties in connection with state elections. The complaint alleged deprivation of rights under the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, and asserted that the District Court had jurisdiction under the Fourteenth Amendment, 42 U. S. C. §§ 1983 and 1988, and 28 U. S. C. §§ 1343 and 2201.
Plaintiffs below alleged that the apportionment of seats in the Delaware Legislature resulted in an “invidious discrimination as to the inhabitants of New Castle County and the City of Wilmington,” operated to deny them the right to cast votes for Delaware legislators “that are of equal effect with that of every other citizen of the State of Delaware,” and was arbitrary and capricious in failing to provide a reasonable classification of those voting for members of the Delaware General Assembly. Plaintiffs also asserted that they were without any other adequate remedy since the existing legislative apportionment was frozen into the 1897 Delaware Constitution; that the present legislature was dominated by legislators representing the two less populous counties; that it was, as a practical matter, impossible to amend the State Constitution or convene a constitutional convention for the purpose of reapportioning the General Assembly; and that the Delaware Legislature had consistently failed to take,appropriate action with respect to reapportionment.
Plaintiffs below sought a declaration that Art. II, § 2, of the Delaware Constitution, which established the apportionment of seats in both houses of the Delaware Legislature, is unconstitutional, and an injunction against defendants to prevent the holding of any further elections under the existing apportionment scheme. Plaintiffs also requested that the District Court either reapportion the Delaware Legislature on a population basis or, alternatively, direct that the November 1962 general election be conducted on an at-large basis. A three-judge District Court was asked for by plaintiffs, and was promptly convened.
On July 25, 1962, the District Court entered an order staying the proceedings until August 7, 1962, in order to permit the Delaware Legislature to take “some appropriate action.” 207 F. Supp. 205. The court noted that, since publication of any proposed constitutional amendment at least three months prior to the next general election was required under Delaware law, it would serve no useful purpose to grant a stay beyond August 7, 1962.
On July 30, 1962, the General Assembly approved a proposed amendment to the legislative apportionment provisions of the Delaware Constitution, based upon recommendations of a bipartisan reapportionment committee appointed by the Delaware Governor. Under Delaware law this amendment could not, however, become effective unless again approved during the next succeeding session of the General Assembly.
On August 7, 1962, the District Court entered an order refusing to dismiss the suit, and stated that, while it had no desire to substitute its judgment for the collective wisdom of the Delaware General Assembly in matters of legislative apportionment, it had no alternative but to proceed promptly in deciding the case. 210 F. Supp. 395. Some of the defendants applied for a further stay of proceedings so that the General Assembly coming into office in January 1963 would have an opportunity to approve the proposed constitutional amendment. On August 8, 1962, plaintiffs applied for a preliminary injunction against the conducting of the November 1962 general election under the existing apportionment provisions. Plaintiffs were thereafter permitted to amend their complaint to request that the proposed constitutional amendment also be declared unconstitutional and that the court order a provisional reapportionment of the Delaware Legislature.
On October 16, 1962, the District Court denied both the applications for a preliminary injunction and for a further stay. 210 F. Supp. 396. Denial of a preliminary injunction effectively permitted the holding of the November 1962 general election pursuant to the legislative apportionment provisions of the 1897 Delaware Constitution. After extended pretrial proceedings, the court, on November 27, 1962, entered a pretrial order in which the parties agreed to the accuracy of a series of exhibits, statistics and various statistical computations. In early January 1963, the Delaware General Assembly, elected in November 1962, approved the proposed constitutional amendment by the requisite two-thirds vote. As a result, the amendment to the legislative apportionment provisions of Art. II, § 2, became effective on January 17, 1963, having been passed by two successive General Assemblies. Trial before the District Court ensued, with the expert testimony of various political scientists being presented.
On April 17, 1963, the District Court, in an opinion by Circuit Judge Biggs, held that Art. II, § 2, of the Delaware Constitution, both before and after the 1963 amendment, resulted in gross and invidious discrimination against the plaintiffs and others similarly situated, in violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. 215 F. Supp. 169. Stating that “the fundamental issue presented for . . . adjudication is whether or not the apportioning of members of the General Assembly of the State of Delaware offends the electors of the State because of an alleged debasement of their voting rights,” the court indicated that it would pass upon the constitutional validity of both the provisions of the 1897 Constitution and the provisions of the 1963 constitutional amendment. After considering in detail the apportionment of legislative seats under the provisions of the 1897 Delaware Constitution, the court below concluded that “[t]he uneven growth of the different areas of the State created a condition because of which the numbers of inhabitants in representative and senatorial districts differed not only on an intercounty basis but also on an intracounty basis.” After discussing the effect of the 1963 reapportionment amendment, the District Court turned to a consideration of plaintiffs’ claim under the Federal Constitution. Stating that the rights asserted by plaintiffs are “personal civil rights” of great importance, the court below continued:
. . Section 2 of Article II of the Constitution of Delaware as it existed prior to the 1963 Amendment and as it exists today creates such an inequality in voting power, resulting in invidious discrimination, as to bring it within the proscription of the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution of the United States. . . . This is true as to the apportionment of the Senate as well as to the apportionment of the House of Representatives of the General Assembly of Delaware. While mathematical exactitude in apportionment cannot be expected, and indeed is not possible in an absolute sense, disparities created by Section 2 of Article II, as it was prior to the 1963 Amendment and as it is now, are of such a startling nature as to demonstrate a debasement of franchise of individual electors of this State which the Equal Protection Clause of the Federal Constitution cannot tolerate.”
After holding that the apportionment of at least one house of a bicameral state legislature must be based substantially on population, the District Court rejected the relevancy of the so-called federal analogy as a justification for departures from a population-based apportionment scheme in the other house of a state legislature. Although finding no rational or reasonable basis for the Delaware apportionment, either as it previously existed or as amended, the court nevertheless concluded that reapportionment was basically a legislative function, and that a further opportunity should be given to the General Assembly to reapportion itself properly in accordance with the requirements of the Fourteenth Amendment. After attempting to delineate some guidelines for the Delaware Legislature to follow in reapportioning, the court below, with an eye toward the impending 1964 elections, gave the General Assembly until October 1, 1963, to adopt a constitutionally valid plan. The District Court entered a decree declaring Art. II, § 2, of the Delaware Constitution to be unconstitutional, and retained jurisdiction to order injunctive or other relief if it became necessary to do so.
On May 6, 1963, the Supreme Court of Delaware advised the Delaware Governor that, notwithstanding the holding of the District Court, he should proceed according to the provisions of the invalidated 1963 constitutional amendment to proclaim a redistricting plan for House of Representatives seats. The Delaware Supreme Court’s opinion was predicated on the view that the District Court’s decision was not a final one, since it was appealable and since no injunctive relief had been granted. Acting on this advice, while making reference to the District Court’s decision, the Governor, on May 17, 1963, proclaimed a plan providing for the redistricting of certain House districts in accordance with the provisions of the 1963 reapportionment amendment. Under these circumstances, on May 20,1963, the District Court entered an injunction against the holding of any elections for General Assembly seats under Art. II, § 2, of the Delaware Constitution, either as it had previously existed or as amended, and again reserved jurisdiction to make such further orders as it might deem necessary. The District Court denied a motion to stay its injunction pending appeal, but, on application by defendants below, Mr. Justice Brennan, on June 27, 1963, stayed the operation of the District Court’s injunction pending final disposition of the case by this Court. Notices of appeal from the District Court’s final decree, and from its injunction and denial of the motion for a stay, were timely filed by defendants. Pursuant to this Court’s Rule 15 (3), both appeals have been treated as a single case. When appellees filed a motion to affirm, appellants countered with a motion to advance. On October 21, 1963, we noted probable jurisdiction and granted appellants’ motion to advance. 375 U. S. 877.
II.
Under the provisions of the 1897 Delaware Constitution relating to legislative apportionment, in force when this litigation was commenced, the State was geographically divided into 17 Senate and 35 House districts for the purpose of electing members of the Delaware Legislature. Delaware senators serve four-year terms, with approximately half of the senators elected every two years, and all representatives are elected for two-year terms. Qualified voters in each Senate and House district elect one senator and one representative, under the 1897 Constitution's apportionment plan. Delaware is comprised of only three counties, and only one sizable metropolitan area — Wilmington. Under the 1897 apportionment, five senatorial districts and 10 representative districts were allocated to Kent County, to Sussex County, and to “rural” New Castle County (that part of the county outside of the City of Wilmington), and Wilmington was given two senatorial and five representative districts. The number and boundaries of both' the senatorial and representative districts were specifically fixed and described in the constitutional provisions, and no provision was made for their alteration. When the constitutional provisions were adopted, the population of the State of Delaware was approximately 180,000, with about 32,000 living in Kent County, 38,000 residing in Sussex County, and 105,000 living in New Castle County (of whom about 70,000 lived in the City.of Wilmington). By 1960, the total population of Delaware had increased to 446,292, of which 307,446 resided in New Castle County, 95,827 in Wilmington and 211,619 in “rural” New Castle County. And, under the 1960 census figures, 65,651 lived in Kent County and 73,195 resided in Sussex County.
Under the 1897 apportionment scheme, as perpetuated over 65 years later, Senate districts ranged in population from 4,177 to 64,820, resulting in a maximum population-variance ratio, between the most populous and least populous Senate districts, of about 15-to-l. Senatorial districts in Kent and Sussex Counties were consistently much smaller in population than those in New Castle County, with the exception of one New Castle County district which, with a population of only 4,177, was the smallest senatorial district in the State. Only 22% of the State’s total population resided in districts electing a majority of the members of the 17-member Senate, applying 1960 census figures to the senatorial apportionment scheme existing when this litigation was commenced.
Representative districts ranged in population, as of 1960, from 1,643 to 58,228, under Art. II, § 2, of the 1897 Delaware Constitution, resulting in a maximum population-variance ratio, in the Delaware House, of about 35-to-1. Again, the average population of House districts in Kent and Sussex Counties was significantly smaller than that of those in New Castle County, although several of the “rural” New Castle County districts were among the smallest in the State. Applying 1960 census figures to the 1897 apportionment scheme, with respect to the Delaware House, the 18 most sparsely populated representative districts, containing only about 18.5% of the State’s total 1960 population, elected a majority of the members of the House of Representatives. Persons living in the six most populous representative districts, 233,718, more than one-half of the total state population, had only the same voting power, under the 1897 Constitution’s scheme, as those 16,552 persons living in the six least populous districts, with respect to electing members of the Delaware House. Serious disparities in the population of districts, both House and Senate, within each county were also presented in the district population figures considered by the District Court.
Evidence before the District Court showed that, despite repeated attempts to reapportion the legislature or to call a constitutional convention for that purpose, the Delaware Legislature had consistently failed to take any action to change the existing apportionment of legislative seats. No initiative and referendum procedure exists in Delaware. Legislative apportionment has been traditionally provided for wholly by constitutional provisions in Delaware, and a concurrence of two-thirds of both houses of two consecutive state legislatures is required in order to amend the State Constitution. The Delaware General Assembly may also, by a two-thirds vote, submit to the State’s voters the question of whether to hold a constitutional convention.
Under the 1963 amendment to Art. II, § 2, of the Delaware Constitution, the size of the Senate is increased from 17 to 21 members, and the four added seats are allotted equally to Kent and Sussex Counties, giving each of the State’s three counties seven senators. The added senators are to be elected at large from districts comprising about one-half of the House districts in each of the two counties. As a result of this change, each voter in Kent and Sussex Counties is entitled to vote for two senators and one representative. With respect to the House of Representatives, the amendment provides that each existing representative district with a population in excess of 15,000 persons is to be allotted an additional representative for each additional 15,000 persons or major fraction thereof. The boundaries of the original 35 representative districts are not affected, and districts receiving additional representatives are to be divided, by a redistricting commission headed by the Governor, so that each of the new districts elects one representative. The net effect of the 1963 amendment, as regards immediate changes in House representation, is to allot 10 additional representatives to various districts in New Castle County, increasing the size of the House to 45 members. Representation of Kent and Sussex Counties is to be unaffected. Under the revised apportionment, the maximum population-variance ratio is reduced to about 12-to-l with respect to the House, but remains about 15-to-l in the Senate. A majority of the members of the House would be elected, under the 1963 amendment, from districts with only about 28% of the State’s total population. And, since the 1963 amendment added two Senate seats each for the two smaller counties, the change in senatorial apportionment would result in two-thirds of the Senate being elected from districts where only about 31% of the State’s population reside. About 21% of the State’s population would be represented by a majority of the members of the Delaware Senate, under the 1963 reapportionment.
The 1963 amendment also provided that, if a constitutional convention were to be called, the number of delegates and the method of their election were not to be affected by the amended apportionment provisions, and, for the purpose of any future constitutional convention, the representative districts were to elect delegates on the basis of the apportionment provided by Art. II, § 2, as it existed prior to the amendment. Thus, the number of constitutional convention delegates would continue to be 41, one from each of the 35 representative districts provided for under the 1897 scheme, with two elected at large from each of the three counties.
III.
In Reynolds v. Sims, ante, p. 533, decided also this date, we held that the Equal Protection Clause requires that seats in both houses of a bicameral state legislature-must be apportioned substantially on a population basis. Neither of the houses of the Delaware General Assembly, either before or after the 1963 constitutional amendment, was so apportioned. Thus, we hold that the District Court correctly found the Delaware legislative apportionment constitutionally invalid, and affirm the decisions below.
For the reasons stated in our opinion in Reynolds appellants’ reliance upon the so-called federal analogy to justify the deviations from a population basis in the apportionment of seats in the Delaware Legislature is misplaced. And appellants’ argument that the Delaware apportionment scheme should be upheld since Congress has admitted various States into the Union although the apportionment of seats in their legislatures was based on factors other than population is also unconvincing. In giving the Delaware Legislature an opportunity to adopt a constitutionally valid plan of legislative apportionment, and in deferring decision until after the November 1962 general election, because of the imminence of that election and the disruptive effect which its decision might have had, the District Court acted in a wise and temperate manner. And the court below did not err in granting injunctive relief after it had become apparent that, despite its decree holding that the 1963 constitutional amendment reapportioning seats in the Delaware Legislature failed to comply with federal constitutional requirements, no further reapportionment by the Delaware General Assembly was probable.
Our affirmance of the decision below is not meant to indicate approval of the District Court’s attempt to state in mathematical language the constitutionally permissible bounds of discretion in deviating from apportionment according to population. In our view the problem does not lend itself to any such uniform formula, and it is neither practicable nor desirable to establish rigid mathematical standards for evaluating the constitutional validity of a state legislative apportionment scheme under the Equal Protection Clause. Rather, the proper judicial approach is to ascertain whether, under the particular circumstances existing in the individual State whose legislative apportionment is at issue, there has been a faithful adherence to a plan of population-based representation, with such minor deviations only as may occur in recognizing certain factors that are free from any taint of arbitrariness or discrimination.
Apart from what we said in Reynolds, we express no view on questions relating to remedies at the present time. Regardless of the requirements of the Delaware Constitution and the fact that legislative apportionment has traditionally been considered a constitutional matter in Delaware, the delay inherent in following the state constitutional prescription for approval of constitutional amendments by two successive General Assemblies cannot be allowed to result in an impermissible deprivation of appellees’ right to an adequate voice in the election of legislators to represent them. Acting under general equitable principles, the court below must now determine whether it would be advisable, so as to avoid a possible disruption of state election processes and permit additional time for the Delaware Legislature to adopt a constitutionally valid apportionment scheme, to allow the 1964 election of Delaware legislators to be conducted pursuant to the provisions of the 1963 constitutional amendment, or whether those factors are insufficient to justify any further delay in the effectuation of appellees’ constitutional rights. We therefore affirm the decisions of the District Court here appealed from, and remand the case for further proceedings consistent with the views stated here and in our opinion in Reynolds v. Sims.
It is so ordered.
Mr. Justice Clark concurs in the affirmance for the reasons stated in his concurring opinion in Reynolds v. Sims, ante, p. 587, decided this date.
[For dissenting opinion of Mr. Justice Harlan, see ante, p. 589.]
Mr. Justice Stewart.
In this case the appellees showed that the apportionment of seats among the districts represented in the Delaware House of Representatives and within the counties represented in the Delaware Senate, apparently reflects "no policy, but simply arbitrary and capricious action.” The appellants have failed to dispel this showing by suggesting any possible rational explanation for these aspects of Delaware’s system of legislative apportionment. Accordingly, for the reasons stated in my dissenting opinion in Lucas v. Forty-Fourth General Assembly of Colorado, post, p. 744, I would affirm the judgment of the District Court insofar as it holds that Delaware’s system of apportionment violates the Equal Protection Clause.
Interestingly, Art. I, § 3, of the Delaware Constitution provides : "All elections shall be free and equal.”
See 207 F. Supp., at 207. The decisions of the court below are reported sub nom. Sincock v. Terry and Sincock v. Duffy.
By the requisite two-thirds vote in both houses of the General Assembly, pursuant to Art. XVI, § 1, of the Delaware Constitution.
Under Art. XVI, § 1, of the Delaware Constitution, a constitutional amendment must be passed by a two-thirds vote of both houses of successive General Assemblies before becoming part of the State Constitution.
53 Del. Laws, c. 425 (1962); 54 Del. Laws, c. 1 (1963).
215 F. Supp., at 184.
The other two judges both wrote short opinions. Chief District Judge Wright indicated that he concurred in the view that Art. II, § 2, of the Delaware Constitution, before and after amendment, was unconstitutional, since at least one house of a state legislature must be apportioned strictly on a population basis. He indicated that he also agreed with the “precatory observation” of Judge Biggs that the other house must also be apportioned substantially on a population basis.
District Judge Layton concurred in the result reached, finding that Art. II, §2, of the Delaware Constitution, prior to as well as after the 1963 amendment, was unconstitutional with respect to the House of Representatives. He stated that, since the 1963 amendment contained no severability clause, the whole amendment was unconstitutional because of the provisions relating to the House, and that therefore there was no need to consider whether the senatorial provisions were valid. He indicated, however, that he thought that it was permissible to apportion one house on a nonpopulation, area basis where the other house was apportioned strictly on population, since such a system would be patterned on the scheme of representation in the Federal Congress.
Included in the District Court’s opinion is a chart showing the population of the 17 senatorial districts established by Art. II, § 2, of the 1897 Delaware Constitution, and tracing the population changes in each during the period 1930-1960. 215 F. Supp., at 176.
A chart showing the population of the 35 representative districts established by Art. II, § 2, of the 1897 Delaware Constitution, and tracing the population changes in each during the period 1890-1960, is included in the District Court’s opinion. 215 F. Supp., at 17ár-175.
And, as pointed out by the court below, under the apportionment of House seats contained in Art. II, § 2, of the Delaware Constitution, “The inhabitants of the 18 least populated representative districts are less in number than those of the two districts having the heaviest concentration of population; nonetheless, the former elect 18 representatives in the House of Representatives, while the latter elect 2 representatives in the House of Representatives of the Delaware General Assembly.” 215 F. Supp., at 176.
The 35 representative districts tended to follow generally the boundaries of a “hundred,” a geographical subdivision of counties in Delaware since its founding, and the 17 senatorial districts, which were also described in a detailed fashion in Art. II, § 2, of the 1897 Delaware Constitution, were composed either of two representative districts each or two or more hundreds or portions of hundreds.
For a discussion of the lack of federal constitutional significance of the presence or absence of an available political remedy, see Lucas v. Forty-Fourth General Assembly of Colorado, post, pp. 736-737, decided also this date.
Under Art. XVI, § 1, of the Delaware Constitution.
Under Art. XVI, § 2, of the Delaware Constitution.
A chart showing the composition of the Senate and the population of each of the 21 senatorial districts under the 1963 amendment is included in the District Court’s opinion. 215 F. Supp., at 181.
Included in the District Court’s opinion are charts indicating the effect of the 1963 amendment on the representation of New Castle County in the House of Representatives and showing the composition of the Delaware House, as reapportioned, including the population of each of its 45 districts under 1960 census figures. 215 F. Supp., at 179-180.
Under Art. XVI, § 2, of the Delaware Constitution.
See Reynolds v. Sims, ante, pp. 571-576.
That the three Delaware counties may have possessed some attributes of limited sovereignty prior to the inception of Delaware as a State provides no basis for applying the federal analogy to legislative apportionment in Delaware while holding it inapplicable in other States. Whatever the role of counties in Delaware during the colonial period, they never have had those aspects of sovereignty which the States possessed when our federal system of government was adopted. And it could hardly be contended that Delaware’s counties retained any elements of sovereign power, when the State was formed, that at all compare with those retained by the States under our Federal Constitution. See 215 F. Supp., at 186, where the District Court stated that “there never was much and there is now no sovereignty in the Counties of Delaware . . . .”
Additionally, the Delaware legislative apportionment scheme here challenged, even after the 1963 constitutional amendment, fails to resemble the plan of representation in the Federal Congress in several significant respects: the Delaware House of Representatives is plainly not apportioned in accordance with population, and senators in Delaware are not chosen as representatives of counties. Although, under the 1963 amendment, each county is given an equal number of senators, the 21 senators are chosen one each from the 21 senatorial districts, seven per county, established solely for the purpose of their election. Each Delaware senator represents his district and not the county in which the district is located. Members of the Federal Senate are of course elected from a State at large, and represent the entire State.
See the discussion of and the reasons for rejecting this argument in Reynolds v. Sims, ante, p. 582.
The court below suggested that population-variance ratios smaller than 1%-to-l would presumably comport with minimal constitutional requisites, while ratios in excess thereof would necessarily involve deviations from population-based apportionment too extreme to be constitutionally sustainable. See 215 F. Supp., at 190.
See Reynolds v. Sims, ante, p. 585.
Particularly Art. XVI, § 1, which requires the approval by successive state legislatures before a proposed constitutional amendment can be adopted.
In its initial opinion, incident to its order granting a limited stay, the District Court suggested that the Delaware Legislature might desire to amend the State Constitution so as to make legislative apportionment a statutory instead of a constitutional matter, in order to obviate the delay inherently involved in complying with the requirement of the Delaware Constitution that constitutional amendments must be approved by two successive General Assemblies before becoming effective. 207 F. Supp., at 206-207. In this manner, the District Court suggested, if the Delaware Legislature's attempt at reapportionment should be found deficient under the Federal Constitution, the General Assembly elected in November 1962 would be free, under state law, to proceed expeditiously with the enactment of a revised statutory reapportionment plan consonant with the requirements of the Equal Protection Clause. Unfortunately, the Delaware Legislature failed to act on the Court’s suggestion, and instead proposed the constitutional amendment hereinbefore discussed, which was .approved by two consecutive state legislatures in late 1962 and in early 1963. However, in its opinion on the merits, the District Court intimated that, with the Delaware constitutional provisions relating to legislative apportionment declared invalid, the Delaware Legislature could “then proceed to pass an apportionment statute meeting the requirements of the Fourteenth Amendment . . . .” 215 F. Supp., at 191.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer:
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B
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sc_issuearea
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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.
Respondents were indicted for illegal game hunting in Yellowstone National Park. A jury trial in the United States District Court for the District of Montana resulted in a hung jury, and the District Court declared a mistrial. Four months later, while the Government was preparing to retry them, respondents moved to dismiss the indictment. The District Court, agreeing that the Government had consented to the activities which formed the basis of the indictment, dismissed it. The Government’s appeal pursuant to the Criminal Appeals Act, 18 U. S. C. § 3731, was dismissed by the Court of Appeals because that court thought retrial was barred by the Double Jeopardy Clause of the Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution. The Government petitioned for certiorari, and we vacated the judgment of the Court of Appeals and remanded for further consideration in the light of our intervening decision in Serfass v. United States, 420 U. S. 377 (1975). 421 U. S. 996 (1975).
On remand, the Court of Appeals, considering the trilogy of Serfass, supra, United States v. Wilson, 420 U. S. 332 (1975), and United States v. Jenkins, 420 U. S. 358 (1975), adhered to its prior determination. The Government now seeks certiorari from that ruling.
The reasoning of the Court of Appeals is best summarized by this language from its opinion:
“Here appellees have undergone trial. There is no question but that jeopardy has attached. That being so, and since the proceedings in the district court have ended in appellees’ favor and the consequences of a reversal in favor of the Government would be that appellees must be tried again, we conclude that they would, on retrial, be placed twice in jeopardy.” 536 F. 2d 871, 872 (CA9 1976).
We agree with the Court of Appeals that jeopardy attached at the time of the empaneling of the jury for the first trial of respondents. But we do not agree with that court’s conclusion that by reason of the sequence of events in the District Court the Government would be barred by the Double Jeopardy Clause from retrying respondents. The trial of respondents on the indictment terminated, not in their favor, but in a mistrial declared, sua sponte, by the District Court. Where the trial is terminated in this manner, the classical test for determining whether the defendants may be retried without violating the Double Jeopardy Clause is stated in Mr. Justice Story’s opinion for this Court in United States v. Perez, 9 Wheat. 579, 580 (1824):
“We are of opinion, that the facts constitute no legal bar to a future trial. The prisoner has not been convicted or acquitted, and may again be put upon his defence. We think, that in all cases of this nature, the law has invested courts of justice with the authority to discharge a jury from giving any verdict, whenever, in their opinion, taking all the circumstances into consideration, there is a manifest necessity for the act, or the ends of public justice would otherwise be defeated.”
The Government’s right to retry the defendant, after a mistrial, in the face of his claim of double jeopardy is generally governed by the test laid down in Perez, supra. The situation of a hung jury presented here is precisely the situation that was presented in Perez, supra, and therefore the Double Jeopardy Clause does not bar retrial of these respondents on the indictment which had been returned against them.
The District Court’s dismissal of the indictment occurred several months after the first trial had ended in a mistrial, but before the retrial of respondents had begun. This case is, therefore, governed by United States v. Serfass, supra, in which we held that a pretrial order of the District Court dismissing an indictment charging refusal to submit to induction into the Armed Torces was appealable under 18 U. S. C. § 3731. The dismissal in this case, like that in Serfass, was prior to a trial that the Government had a right to prosecute and that the defendant was required to defend. Since in such cases a trial following the Government’s successful appeal of a dismissal is not barred by double jeopardy, an appeal from the dismissal is authorized by 18 U. S. C. § 3731.
The petition for certiorari is granted, the judgment of the Court of Appeals is reversed, and the case is remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
Me. Justice Brennan and Mr. Justice Marshall dissent from summary reversal. They would set the case for oral argument.
The Criminal Appeals Act provides in pertinent part:
“In a criminal case an appeal by the United States shall lie to a court of appeals from a decision, judgment, or order of a district court dismissing an indictment or information as to any one or more counts, except that no appeal shall lie where the double jeopardy clause of the United States Constitution prohibits further prosecution.”
If the mistrial is declared at the behest of the defendant, the manifest necessity test does not apply. See United States v. Dinitz, 424 U. S. 600 (1976).
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer:
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A
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sc_issuearea
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What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Justice Blackmun
delivered the opinion of the Court.
This case presents the question whether prejudgment interest may be awarded in a suit against the United States Postal Service brought under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 78 Stat. 253, as amended, 42 U. S. C. §2000e et seq.
I
Petitioner Theodore J. Loeffler was discharged from his position as a rural letter carrier for the United States Postal Service. Petitioner appealed his termination to the Merit Systems Protection Board and, when his discharge was affirmed there, sought administrative relief from the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. This, also, was without success. Contending that his discharge resulted from sex discrimination, petitioner subsequently brought this suit against the Postmaster General of the United States in his official capacity, pursuant to § 717 of Title VII, as amended, 42 U. S. C. §2000e-16. After a bench trial, the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri concluded that petitioner was a victim of discrimination and ordered his reinstatement with backpay. App. to Pet. for Cert. A-26. Relying on a decision of its controlling court, Cross v. USPS, 733 F. 2d 1327, 1332 (CA8 1984) (en banc), cert. denied, 470 U. S. 1051 (1985), the District Court refused to award prejudgment interest. App. to Pet. for Cert. A-21. (In Cross, an equally divided Court of Appeals had affirmed the same District Judge’s conclusion that sovereign immunity barred an award of prejudgment interest in a Title VII suit against the Postal Service.)
The United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit affirmed the denial of prejudgment interest. Loeffler v. Carlin, 780 F. 2d 1365, 1370-1371 (1985). Concluding that the District Court’s reliance on Cross was “understandable and proper,” id., at 1370, the court stated: “If the question of prejudgment interest is to be reconsidered, it should be reconsidered by the Court en banc.” Id., at 1371.
Subsequently, the Eighth Circuit undertook that en banc reconsideration, and, by a 6-to-5 vote, affirmed the judgment of the District Court. Loeffler v. Tisch, 806 F. 2d 817 (1986). The majority adopted the reasoning of the majority of the original panel in Cross, 733 F. 2d 1327, which concluded that Congress had not waived the sovereign immunity of the Postal Service with regard to prejudgment interest in a Title VII suit. The majority found its conclusion “strongly reinforced” by this Court’s recent decision in Library of Congress v. Shaw, 478 U. S. 810 (1986), which the majority interpreted as “holding that Congress, in enacting Title VII, did not waive the Government’s immunity from interest.” 806 F. 2d, at 818. In the majority’s view, Congress’ provision in the 1970 Postal Reorganization Act, 39 U. S. C. § 401(1), that the Postal Service may “sue and be sued” was irrelevant to the question before it, because “a sue-and-be-sued clause does not expand the obligations of a federal entity in a suit brought pursuant to another statute that is itself a waiver of immunity and which constitutes an exclusive remedy.” 806 F. 2d, at 819.
The 5-judge dissent adopted the reasoning of the dissent in the Cross panel submission. That dissent had concluded that “limits on prejudgment interest have been imposed solely because of the barrier of sovereign immunity,” 733 F. 2d, at 1332, and that the sue-and-be-sued clause in the Postal Reorganization Act had eliminated that barrier in actions against the Postal Service. The dissent noted this Court’s observation in Shaw: “ ‘The no-interest rule is . . . inapplicable where the Government has cast off the cloak of sovereignty and assumed the status of a private commercial enterprise.’” 806 F. 2d, at 822, quoting Shaw, 478 U. S., at 317, n. 5. In the dissent’s view, the Postal Service fits within this exception and, therefore, “an award of prejudgment interest against the Postal Service under Title VII is not barred by sovereign immunity.” 806 F. 2d, at 823.
Because of a conflict with the views of the Eleventh Circuit expressed in Nagy v. USPS, 773 F. 2d 1190 (1985), we granted certiorari to decide whether, in a Title VII suit, prejudgment interest may be awarded against the Postal Service. Sub nom. Loeffler v. Tisch, 483 U. S. 1004 (1987).
H
>
The question of statutory interpretation here presented, involving the interaction of the Postal Reorganization Act and Title VII, lends itself to straightforward resolution. Absent a waiver of sovereign immunity, the Federal Government is immune from suit. United States v. Sherwood, 312 U. S. 584, 586 (1941). Congress, however, has waived the sovereign immunity of certain federal entities from the times of their inception by including in the enabling legislation provisions that they may sue and be sued. In FHA v. Burr, 309 U. S. 242, 245 (1940), the Court explained:
“[S]uch waivers by Congress of governmental immunity . . . should be liberally construed. . . . Hence, when Congress establishes such an agency, authorizes it to engage in commercial and business transactions with the public, and permits it to ‘sue and be sued,’ it cannot be lightly assumed that restrictions on that authority are to be implied. Rather if the general authority to ‘sue and be sued’ is to be delimited by implied exceptions, it must be clearly shown that certain types of suits are not consistent with the statutory or constitutional scheme, that an implied restriction of the general authority is necessary to avoid grave interference with the performance of a governmental function, or that for other reasons it was plainly the purpose of Congress to use the ‘sue and be sued’ clause in a narrow sense. In the absence of such showing, it must be presumed that when Congress launched a governmental agency into the commercial world and endowed it with authority to ‘sue or be sued,’ that agency is not less amenable to judicial process than a private enterprise under like circumstances would be.” (Footnote omitted.)
Accord, Franchise Tax Board of California v. USPS, 467 U. S. 512, 517-518 (1984); Reconstruction Finance Corporation v. J. G. Menihan Corp., 312 U. S. 81, 84-85 (1941); see also Keifer & Keifer v. Reconstruction Finance Corporation, 306 U. S. 381 (1939). Encompassed within this liberal-construction rule is the principle “that the words ‘sue and be sued’ normally include the natural and appropriate incidents of legal proceedings.” J. G. Menihan Corp., 312 U. S., at 85.
In accord with this approach, this Court has recognized that authorization of suits against federal entities engaged in commercial activities may amount to a waiver of sovereign immunity from awards of interest when such awards are an incident of suit. For example, in Standard Oil Co. v. United States, 267 U. S. 76 (1925), the Court reviewed a suit brought under § 5 of the Act of September 2,1914, ch. 293, 38 Stat. 711, on insurance claims issued by the Bureau of War Risk Insurance. The Court concluded: “When the United States went into the insurance business, issued policies in familiar form and provided that in case of disagreement it might be sued, it must be assumed to have accepted the ordinary incidents of suits in such business.” 267 U. S., at 79. Accordingly, interest was allowed. Ibid. See also National Home for Disabled Volunteer Soldiers v. Parrish, 229 U. S. 494 (1913) (interest allowed against eleemosynary agency that Congress had authorized “to sue and be sued”). Cf. Library of Congress v. Shaw, 478 U. S., at 317, n. 5.
When Congress created the Postal Service in 1970, it empowered the Service “to sue and be sued in its official name.” 39 U. S. C. § 401(1). This sue-and-be-sued clause was a part of Congress’ general design that the Postal Service “be run more like a business than had its predecessor, the Post Office Department.” Franchise Tax Board of California v. US PS, 467 U. S., at 520. In Franchise Tax Board, this Court examined, in the context of an order issued by a state administrative agency, the extent to which Congress had waived the sovereign immunity of the Postal Service. After noting that “Congress has ‘launched [the Postal Service] into the commercial world,”’ ibid., the Court held that the sue-and-be-sued clause must be liberally construed and that the Postal Service’s liability must be presumed to be the same as that of any other business. Because the order to the Postal Service to withhold employees’ wages had precisely the same effect on the Service’s ability to operate efficiently as did such orders on other employers subject to the state statute that had been invoked, and because the burden of complying with the order would not impair the Service’s ability to perform its functions, the Court concluded that there was no basis for overcoming the presumption that immunity from the state order had been waived. See id., at 520, and n. 14.
Our unanimous view of the Postal Service expressed in Franchise Tax Board is controlling here. By launching “the Postal Service into the commercial world,” and including a sue-and-be-sued clause in its charter, Congress has cast off the Service’s “cloak of sovereignty” and given it the “status of a private commercial enterprise.” Shaw, 478 U. S., at 317, n. 5. It follows that Congress is presumed to have waived any otherwise existing immunity of the Postal Service from interest awards.
None of the exceptions to the liberal-construction rule that guides our interpretation of the waiver of the. Postal Service’s immunity operates to overcome this presumption. Subjecting the Service to interest awards would not be inconsistent with the Postal Reorganization Act, 39 U. S. C. § 101 et seq., the statutory scheme that created the Postal Service, nor would it pose a threat of “grave interference” with the Service’s operation. FHA v. Burr, 309 U. S., at 245. Finally, we find nothing in the statute or its legislative history to suggest that “it was plainly the purpose of Congress to use the ‘sue and be sued’ clause in a narrow sense,” ibid., with regard to interest awards. To the- contrary, since Congress expressly included several narrow and specific limitations on the operation of the sue-and-be-sued clause, see 39 U. S. C. § 409, none of which is applicable here, the natural inference is that it did not intend other limitations to be implied.
Accordingly, we conclude that, at the Postal Service’s inception, Congress waived its immunity from interest awards, authorizing recovery of interest from the Postal Service to the extent that interest is recoverable against a private party as a normal incident of suit.'
B
Respondent concedes, and apparently all the United States Courts of Appeals that have considered the question agree, that Title YII authorizes prejudgment interest as part of the backpay remedy in suits against private employers. This conclusion surely is correct. The backpay award authorized by § 706(g) of Title VII, as amended, 42 U. S. C. §2000e-5(g), is a manifestation of Congress’ intent to make “persons whole for injuries suffered through past discrimination.” Albemarle Paper Co. v. Moody, 422 U. S. 405, 421 (1975). Prejudgment interest, of course, is “an element of complete compensation.” West Virginia v. United States, 479 U. S. 305, 310 (1987). Thus, since Title VII authorizes interest awards as a normal incident of suits against private parties, and since Congress has waived the Postal Service’s immunity from such awards, it follows that respondent may be subjected to an interest award in this case.
Ill
A
In order to address respondent’s arguments, it is necessary to explain briefly the manner in which Title VII provides a cause of action to federal employees. As originally enacted in 1964, Title VII, by excluding federal entities from its definition of employer, see § 701(b) of Title VII, 42 U. S. C. §2000e(b), did not provide a cause of action to federal employees. Brown v. GSA, 425 U. S. 820, 825 (1976). In 1972, Congress amended Title VII by adding its § 717, which brought federal employees, including employees of the Postal Service, within the ambit of Title VII. Equal Employment Opportunity Act of 1972, 86 Stat. 111, 42 U. S. C. §2000e-16. In so doing, Congress intended to provide federal employees with “‘the full rights available in the courts as are granted to individuals in the private sector under Title VIL’ ” Chandler v. Roudebush, 425 U. S. 840, 841 (1976), quoting S. Rep. No. 92-415, p. 16 (1971). Section 717(a) mandates that all personnel actions affecting federal employees covered by that section “shall be made free from any discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin.” 42 U. S. C. § 2000e-16(a). Section 717(b) provides a detailed administrative enforcement mechanism, and § 717(c) permits an aggrieved employee to file a civil action in federal district court, provided the employee has met certain requirements regarding exhaustion of administrative remedies. Thus, in enacting § 717, Congress simultaneously provided federal employees with a cause of action under Title VII and effected a waiver of the Government’s immunity from suit. See Library of Congress v. Shaw, 478 U. S., at 319. The waiver of sovereign immunity effected by § 717, however, was a limited one. “In making the Government liable as a defendant under Title VII, . . . Congress did not waive the Government’s traditional immunity from interest.” Id., at 323.
Based on this background, respondent channels his attack into two principal arguments. First, respondent contends that the waiver of sovereign immunity effected by the “sue- and-be-sued” clause of the ^Postal Reorganization Act, 39 U. S. C. §401(1), has no bearing here, regardless of its scope. In respondent’s view, the only waiver of sovereign immunity relevant to a Title VII suit against the Postal Service is the waiver of sovereign immunity found in Title VII itself. Second, respondent argues that, even if the waiver of sovereign immunity provided by § 401 does control, the cause of action that § 717 affords to a Postal Service employee is distinct from the cause of action afforded a private-sector employee and does not provide a basis for an award of prejudgment interest. We examine these contentions in turn.
B
In support of his argument that the sue-and-bé-sued clause of the Postal Reorganization Act, 39 U. S. C. § 401(1), has no force in this case, respondent initially relies on Congress’ failure, at the time it created the Postal Service in 1970, to extend Postal Service employees a cause of action under Title VII. In respondent’s view, this failure constituted a decision to leave intact what respondent characterizes as the “explicit” decision of the Congress that enacted Title VII in 1964 to preserve the sovereign immunity of federal employers in Title VII suits. But the history of the Postal Reorganization Act discussed in n. 7, supra, with its emphasis on the availability of strong remedies for discrimination in the federal employment context, makes clear that Congress’ failure to extend Title VII protections to Postal Service employees did not reflect an intent to circumscribe the waiver of sovereign immunity effected by the sue-and-be-sued clause, but, rather, was a determination that a Title VII cause of action was unnecessary in light of these alternative remedies. The reason Postal Service employees could not bring an employment discrimination suit under Title VII in 1970 — indeed, the reason that federal employees generally could not do so— stemmed not from the Postal Reorganization Act, but from a restriction in Title VII itself: the exclusion of federal entities from the definition of the term “employer.” The Postal Reorganization Act is utterly silent as to Title VII. We reject the notion that Congress’ silence when it creates a new federal entity, with regard to a cause of action that is generally unavailable to federal employees, can be construed as a limitation on the waiver of that entity’s sovereign immunity effected by the inclusion of a sue-and-be-sued clause.
Respondent would find further support for his argument that the sue-and-be-sued clause is irrelevant to this case in the manner in which Congress extended a Title VII cause of action to federal employees in 1972. Specifically, respondent relies on a distinction between causes of action that may be asserted against commercial entities generally, as, for example a state garnishment statute, see Franchise Tax Board of California v. USPS, 467 U. S. 512 (1984), and causes of action, such as § 717 of Title VII, that contain special procedures and limitations applicable only to federal defendants. Respondent contends that while a sue-and-be-sued clause may apply to a suit against a federal entity in the former class of actions, it has no bearing in the latter. We are not persuaded by this argument for two reasons.
First, this is an argument for an implied exception to the waiver of sovereign immunity effected by a sue-and-be-sued clause. Yet respondent offers no reason for concluding that Congress intended his implied exception to be added to those that this Court articulated in FHA v. Burr, 309 U. S., at 245, and we see no reason why we should do so.
Second, when Congress intends the waiver of sovereign immunity in a new cause of action directed against federal entities to be exclusive, —in effect, to limit the force of “sue- and-be-sued” clauses — it has said so expressly. Congress’ waiver of the sovereign immunity of the United States for certain torts of federal employees, in the Federal Tort Claims Act (FTCA), 28 U. S. C. §§ 1346, 2671-2680, provides an example. Prior to the FTCA’s enactment, certain federal agencies were already suable in tort. Although Congress enacted the FTCA to allow suits against many agencies that previously had been immune from suits in tort, it also wished to “place torts of ‘suable’ agencies of the United States upon precisely the same footing as torts of ‘nonsuable’ agencies.” H. R. Rep. No. 1287, 79th Cong., 1st Sess., 6 (1945). Accordingly, Congress expressly limited the waivers of sovereign immunity that it had previously effected through “sue- and-be-sued” clauses and stated that, in the context of suits for which it provided a cause of action under the FTCA, “sue- and-be-sued” agencies would be subject to suit only to the same limited extent as agencies whose sovereign immunity from tort suits was being waived for the first time:
“The authority of any federal agency, to sue and be sued in its own name shall not be construed to authorize suits against such federal agency on claims which are cognizable under section 1346(b) of this title, and the remedies provided by this title in such cases shall be exclusive.” 28 U. S. C. § 2679(a).
In contrast, neither the language of § 717 of Title VII nor its legislative history contains an expression that the waiver of sovereign immunity it effected was intended also to narrow the waiver of sovereign immunity of entities subject to sue- and-be-sued clauses. Accordingly, we reject respondent’s contention that 39 U. S. C. §401(1) has no application here.
c
Respondent next argues that, even if the waiver of sovereign immunity effected by § 401(1) is controlling, an award of prejudgment interest is inappropriate because the statute that provides petitioner with his cause of action, § 717 of Title VII, does not authorize interest awards. Respondent starts from the premise that had Congress expressly stated that prejudgment interest is unavailable in actions under §717, the outcome of this case would be beyond dispute. Therefore, it is claimed, “[t]he fact that the ‘no-interest’ rule is not made explicit in the statute, but rather is a conclusion drawn by this Court in Shaw . . . , does not make the rule any less binding.” Brief for Respondent 16. This argument, in our view, misunderstands both the nature of the remedy § 717 affords and the basis of our holding in Shaw.
Without doubt, petitioner’s cause of action in this case is derived from §717. We do not disagree with respondent that, had §717 explicitly stated that the cause of action it provided did not include prejudgment interest, such interest would be unavailable in this case. But Congress made no express statement of that kind. To the contrary, Congress expressly incorporated in §717 provisions of Title VII that allow an interest award. Specifically, § 717(c), 42 U. S. C. § 2000e-16(c), provides that, after pursuing various mandatory administrative remedies, an unsatisfied §717 plaintiff “may file a civil action as provided in section 2000e-5 of this title,” which governs enforcement actions against private employers.
Thus, although petitioner’s cause of action under § 717 is circumscribed by mandatory administrative prerequisites that are distinct from the prerequisites for a civil suit brought against a private employer, a § 717 suit, once commenced, is delineated by the same provisions as a suit against a private employer. Most importantly for the purposes of this case, § 717(d) explicitly incorporates § 706(g) of Title VII into the cause of action provided. Section 706(g) allows a court to “order such affirmative action as may be appropriate, . . . including]. . . back pay ... , or any other equitable relief as the court deems appropriate.” 42 U. S. C. §2000e-5(g). This provision thus governs the remedies available in both a Title VII suit brought against a federal employer under § 717 and a Title VII suit brought against a private employer. Cf. Chandler v. Roudebush, 425 U. S., at 843-848. And, just as this section provides for prejudgment interest in a Title VII suit against a private employer, it provides for prejudgment interest in a Title VII suit brought under § 717.
Respondent’s view that Shaw stands for the proposition that § 717 implicitly states that prejudgment interest is unavailable in all suits brought under that section misunderstands the basis of our holding in that case. In Shaw, the Court faced the question whether § 706(k) of Title VII, 42 U. S. C. § 2000e-5(k), which provides that a party prevailing against the United States may recover attorney’s fees from the United States, waived the sovereign immunity of the Library of Congress with respect to interest on an attorney’s fees award. Unlike the Postal Service, the Library of Congress was not a “sue-and-be-sued” agency that Congress had “‘launched . . . into the commercial world,’” and thereby broadly waived sovereign immunity. Franchise Tax Board of California v. USPS, 467 U. S., at 520, quoting FHA v. Burr, 309 U. S., at 245. Thus, the starting point for our analysis was the “no-interest rule,” which is to the effect that, absent express consent by Congress, the United States is immune from interest awards. See Shaw, 478 U. S., at 314. The dispositive question was not whether Title VII provided a cause of action that would allow recovery of interest, but, rather, whether Title VII contained an express waiver of the Library of Congress’ immunity from interest. Because no such waiver is contained within Title VII, the no-interest rule barred recovery of interest from the Library of Congress on the plaintiff’s attorney’s fees award. This conclusion had nothing to do with the scope of a § 717 cause of action.
The Court expressly noted in Shaw: “The no-interest rule is . . . inapplicable where the Government has cast off the cloak of sovereignty and assumed the status of a private commercial enterprise.” 478 U. S., at 317, n. 5. In creating the Postal Service, Congress did just that, and therefore, the no-interest rule does not apply to it. Thus, the search for an express waiver of immunity from interest within Title VII, which is all that Shaw was about, is unnecessary in this case. As discussed above, §401 of the Postal Reorganization Act provides the waiver of sovereign immunity from interest awards against the Postal Service, and § 717 of Title VII provides the cause of action under which petitioner may recover interest.
IV
Accordingly, we conclude that interest may be awarded against the Postal Service in a Title VII suit. The judgment of the Court of Appeals is reversed, and the case is remanded to that court for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
Justice Kennedy took no part in the consideration or decision of this case.
Petitioner’s discharge arose from his practice of casing boxholder mail. “Boxholder” mail is third-class mail that does not bear the name and address of a particular individual but is given to the postal carrier in a single bundle for delivery to each current resident or possessor of a rural-delivery mailbox. The District Court explained: “ ‘Casing’ is the practice of inserting the boxholders in each separation of the delivery case in the post office work area prior to delivery, and then inserting the first or second class mail inside the boxholders so that the boxholders form a convenient sleeve for the rest of the pieces of mail and thus make delivery quicker and easier. The alternative to easing the boxholders is to carry them as separate bundles and insert them into each individual post box during delivery.” App. to Pet. for Cert. A-28.
In 1979, pursuant to directives from Postal Service headquarters in Washington, D. C., all five rural carriers at the Chesterfield, Mo., Post Office, including petitioner, were instructed not to case the boxholders. The rule against casing was openly violated by petitioner and by two female rural carriers. Although all three carriers repeatedly ignored the rule, only petitioner was discharged, while the two female carriers were disciplined mildly or not at all.
At the time this suit was filed, William F. Bolger, then Postmaster General, was the named defendant. While the case was pending on appeal, Bolger was succeeded as Postmaster General and as defendant by Paul N. Carlin and, subsequently, by Preston R. Tisch. After oral argument before this Court, Tisch was succeeded by Anthony M. Frank. General Frank has been substituted as respondent pursuant to this Court’s Rule 40.3.
In Shaw, the Court held that sovereign immunity bars the payment of interest on attorney’s fees awarded against the Library of Congress under Title VII. The Court’s holding came “against the backdrop of the no-interest rule,” Shaw, 478 U. S., at 319, which provides: “Apart from constitutional requirements, in the absence of specific provision by contract or statute, or ‘express consent ... by Congress,’ interest does not run on a claim against the United States.” United States v. Louisiana, 446 U. S. 253, 264-265 (1980), quoting United States v. N. Y. Rayon Importing Co., 329 U. S. 654, 659 (1947).
Section 409 provides in part:
“(b) Unless otherwise provided in this title, the provisions of title 28 relating to service of process, venue, arid limitations of time for bringing action in suits in which the United States, its officers, or employees are parties, . . . shall apply in like manner to suits in which the Postal Service, its officers, or employees are parties.
“(c) The provisions of chapter 171 and all other provisions of title 28 relating to tort claims shall apply to tort claims arising out of activities of the Postal Service.”
See Brief for Respondent 9. See also Conway v. Electro Switch Corp., 825 F. 2d 593, 602 (CA1 1987); Green v. USX Cory., 843 F. 2d 1511, 1530 (CA3 1988); United States v. Gregory, 818 F. 2d 1114, 1118 (CA4), cert. denied, 484 U. S. 847 (1987); Parson v. Kaiser Aluminum & Chemical Corp., 727 F. 2d 473, 478 (CA5), cert. denied, 467 U. S. 1243 (1984); EEOC v. Wooster Brush Co. Emyloyees Relief Assn., 727 F. 2d 566, 578-579 (CA6 1984); Taylor v. Philips Industries, Inc., 593 F. 2d 783, 787 (CA7 1979); Washington v. Kroger Co., 671 F. 2d 1072, 1078 (CA8 1982); Domingo v. New England Fish Co., 727 F. 2d 1429, 1446 (CA9), modified on other grounds, 742 F. 2d 520 (1984); Nagy v. USPS, 773 F. 2d 1190 (CA11 1985). Cf. EEOC v. County of Erie, 751 F. 2d 79, 82 (CA2 1984) (interest allowed on backpay award under Equal Pay Act); Shaw v. Library of Congress, 241 U. S. App. D. C. 355, 361, 747 F. 2d 1469, 1475 (1984) (interest allowed on Title VII attorney’s fees award), rev’d on other grounds, 478 U. S. 310 (1986).
Indeed, to ensure that victims of employment discrimination would be provided complete relief, Congress also gave the courts broad equitable powers. See § 706(g) of Title VII, as amended, 42 U. S. C. §2000e-5(g); see generally Albemarle Paper Co. v. Moody, 422 U. S., at 418-421.
When the Senate was considering its version of the Postal Reorganization Act, Senator Cook proposed a floor amendment “to give postal service employees the equal employment opportunity rights provided by title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, that employees in private industry have benefited from since 1964.” 116 Cong. Rec. 22279 (1970). The Senate approved the amendment by a 93-0 vote. See id., at 22279-22280. The Cook amendment was deleted in conference, however, because the conferees were persuaded that the “present law affecting all Federal employees, including employees under the new Postal Service, guarantee® antidis-crimination provisions ... of greater benefit . . . than the provisions of title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.” Id., at 26953 (remarks of Sen. McGee); see also, id., at 26956, 26957 (remarks of Sen. McGee); id., at 27597 (remarks of Rep. Daniels). Senator McGee, who presented the Conference Report to the Senate, “guarantee®” that if the current bill did not “achieve the laudable purpose that the Cook amendment intended,” the Senate would immediately enact appropriate legislation. Id., at 26957 (remarks of Sen. McGee).
Respondent also seeks comfort from the concededly technical distinction that this suit, in accordance with the provisions of § 717(c) of Title VII, 42 U. S. C. § 2000e-16(c), named the head of the Postal Service as defendant, while 39 U. S. C. § 401(1) makes the Postal Service amenable to suit “in its official name.” In FHA v. Burr, 309 U. S. 242, 249-250 (1940), however, we found such a distinction between a suit against the head of an agency and a suit against the agency itself irrelevant to the force of a “sue- and-be-sued” clause. In Burr, the “sue-and-be-sued” clause in § 1 of the National Housing Act, 48 Stat. 1246, as amended by § 344 of the Banking Act of 1935, 49 Stat. 722, applied to the Administrator of the Federal Housing Authority acting in his official capacity. The Court concluded that this waiver of sovereign immunity permitted actions against the Authority itself, because under the terms of the Act, all the powers of the Authority were exercised through the Administrator. This case presents the inverse situation: the “sue-and-be-sued” clause authorizes suits against the agency, and the defendant before the Court is the head of the agency acting in his official capacity. However, the same logic applies. Whenever the head of the Postal Service acts in his official capacity, he is acting in the name of the Postal Service. Thus, here, as in Burr, the acts of the named defendant are always chargeable as acts of the person or entity subject to the sue-and-be-sued clause. We therefore are not persuaded by respondent’s procedural distinction.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
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
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sc_issuearea
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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.
Petitioner was tried on 18 counts of violating the mail fraud statute, 18 U. S. C. § 1341, and one count of using an assumed name, a violation of 18 U. S. C. § 1342. On the third day of trial, the Government rested its case. This was earlier than it had announced or than petitioner had anticipated. At recess time petitioner sought leave of the court to go to his office in order to gather additional evidence for the defense. Permission for this was granted. Forty-five minutes were allotted for the recess.
Petitioner, who had previously appeared promptly at every session of the trial, was this time tardy by 37 minutes in returning to court. Without warning, hearing, or explanation, the trial judge ordered petitioner into custody for the balance of the trial. Attempts by petitioner's counsel to offer explanations for petitioner’s lateness were to no avail.
Defense counsel was then advised that petitioner would be kept in custody in a county jail located some 18 miles from the court. In fact, petitioner was taken about 40 miles distant, to a different jail. Counsel’s endeavors throughout the trial to obtain petitioner’s release proved fruitless. Petitioner remained in custody for the duration of the trial. He was convicted on seven counts of mail fraud and given a sentence of one year and one day on each count, the sentences to run concurrently. He was also fined a total of $3,500.
Petitioner contended that his incarceration was unjustified and that it materially interfered with his right to counsel and severely impeded his defense. The Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit affirmed the conviction. 374 F. 2d 744 (1967). We grant certiorari and reverse.
A trial judge indisputably has broad powers to ensure the orderly and expeditious progress of a trial. For this purpose, he has the power to revoke bail and to remit the defendant to custody. But this power must be exercised with circumspection. It may be invoked only when and to the extent justified by danger which the defendant’s conduct presents or by danger of significant interference with the progress or order of the trial. See Fernandez v. United States, 81 S. Ct. 642 (1961) (memorandum of Mr. Justice Harlan in chambers); Carbo v. United States, 288 F. 2d 282 (C. A. 9th Cir. 1961); Christoffel v. United States, 89 U. S. App. D. C. 341, 196 F. 2d 560 (1951).
The record in this case shows only a single, brief incident of tardiness, resulting in commitment of the defendant to custody for the balance of the trial in a jail 40 miles distant from the courtroom. In these circumstances, the trial judge’s order of commitment, made without hearing or statement of reasons, had the appearance and effect of punishment rather than of an order designed solely to facilitate the trial. Punishment may not be so inflicted. Cf. Rule 42 of Fed. Rules Grim. Proc. (governing the contempt power). We therefore hold that the order was unjustified and that it constituted an unwarranted burden upon defendant and his counsel in the conduct of the case.
Accordingly, we grant certiorari and reverse the judgment.
Mr. Justice Marshall took no part in the consideration or decision of this case.
It does not appear whether defendant was at large on bail at the time of the order remitting him to custody. But the same principle would apply if he had been at liberty on his own recognizance. Cf. Bail Reform Act of 1966, 18 U. S. C. § 3146 (1964 ed., Supp. II).
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer:
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A
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sc_issuearea
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What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Mr. Justice Rehnquist
delivered the opinion of the Court.
Respondents are three black bricklayers who sought employment with petitioner Furnco Construction Corp. Two of the three were never offered employment. The third was employed only long after he initially applied. Upon adverse findings entered after a bench trial, the District Court for the Northern District of Illinois held that respondents had not proved a claim under either the “disparate treatment” theory of McDonnell Douglas Corp. v. Green, 411 U. S. 792 (1973), or the “disparate impact” theory of Griggs v. Duke Power Co., 401 U. S. 424 (1971). The Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, concluding that under McDonnell Douglas respondents had made out a prima facie case which had not been effectively rebutted, reversed the judgment of the District Court. 551 F. 2d 1085 (1977). We granted certiorari to consider important questions raised by this case regarding the exact scope of the prima facie case under McDonnell Douglas and the nature of the evidence necessary to rebut such a case. 434 U. S. 996 (1977). Having concluded that the Court of Appeals erred in its treatment of the latter question, we reverse and remand to that court for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
I
A few facts in this case are not in serious dispute. Petitioner Furnco, an employer within the meaning of §§ 701 (b) and (h) of Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, 42 U. S. C. §§2000e(b) and (h) (1970 ed., Supp. V), specializes in refractory installation in steel mills and, more particularly, the rehabilitation or relining of blast furnaces with what is called in the trade “firebrick.” Furnco does not, however, maintain a permanent force of bricklayers. Rather, it hires a superintendent for a specific job and then delegates to him the task of securing a competent work force. In August 1971, Furnco contracted with Interlake, Inc., to reline one of its blast furnaces. Joseph Dacies, who had been a job superintendent for Furnco since 1965, was placed in charge of the job and given the attendant hiring responsibilities. He did not accept applications at the jobsite, but instead hired only-persons whom he knew to be experienced and competent in this type of work or persons who had been recommended to him as similarly skilled. He hired his first four bricklayers, all of whom were white, on two successive days in August, the 26th and 27th, and two in September, the 7th and 8th. On September 9 he hired the first black bricklayer. By September 13, he had hired 8 more bricklayers, 1 of whom was black; by September 17, 7 more had been employed, another of whom was black; and by September 23, 17 more were on the payroll, again with 1 black included in that number. From October 12 to 18, he hired 6 bricklayers, all of whom were black, including respondent Smith, who had worked for Dacies previously and had applied at the jobsite somewhat earlier. Respondents Samuels and Nemhard were not hired, though they were fully qualified and had also attempted to secure employment by appearing at the jobsite gate. Out of the total of 1,819 man-days worked on the Interlake job, 242, or 13.3%-, were worked by black bricklayers.
Many of the remaining facts found by the District Court and the inferences to be drawn therefrom are in some dispute between the parties, but none was expressly found by the Court of Appeals to be clearly erroneous. The District Court elaborated at some length as to the “critical” necessity of insuring that only experienced and highly qualified fire-bricklayers were employed. Improper or untimely work would result in substantial losses both to Interlake, which was forced to shut down its furnace and lay off employees during the relining job, and to Furnco, which was paid for this work at a fixed price and for a fixed time period. In addition, not only might shoddy work slow this work process down, but it also might necessitate costly future maintenance work with its attendant loss of production and employee layoffs; diminish Furnco’s reputation and ability to secure similar work in the future; and perhaps even create serious safety hazards, leading to explosions and the like. App. to Pet. for Cert. A13-A15. These considerations justified Furnco’s refusal to engage in on-the-job training or to hire at the gate, a hiring process which would not provide an adequate method of matching qualified applications to job requirements and assuring that the applicants are sufficiently skilled and capable. Id., at A18-A19. Furthermore, there was no evidence that these policies and practices were a pretext to exclude black bricklayers or were otherwise illegitimate or had a disproportionate impact or effect on black bricklayers. Id., at A17-A18. From late 1969 through late 1973, 5.7% of the bricklayers in the relevant labor force were minority group members, see 41 CFR § 60-11 et seq. (1977), while, as mentioned before, 13.3% of the man-days on Furnco’s interlake job were worked by black bricklayers.
Because of the above considerations and following the established practice in the industry, most of the firebricklayers hired by Dacies were persons known by him to be experienced and competent in this type of work. The others were hired after being recommended as skilled in this type of work by his general foreman, an employee (a black), another Fumco superintendent in the area, and Furnco’s General Manager John Wright. Wright had not only instructed Dacies to employ, as far as possible, at least 16% black bricklayers, a policy due to Furnco’s self-imposed affirmative-action plan to insure that black bricklayers were employed by Furnco in Cook County in numbers substantially in excess of their percentage in the local union, but he had also recommended, in an effort to show good faith, that Dacies hire several specific bricklayers, who had previously filed a discrimination suit against Furnco, negotiations for the settlement of which had only recently broken down, see n. 3, supra.
From these factual findings, the District Court concluded that respondents had failed to make out a Title VII claim under the doctrine of Griggs v. Duke Power Co., 401 U. S. 424 (1971). Furnco’s policy of not hiring at the gate was racially neutral on its face and there was no showing that it had a disproportionate impact or effect. App. to Pet. for Cert. A20-A21. It also held that respondents had failed to prove a case of discrimination under McDonnell Douglas Corp. v. Green, 411 U. S. 792 (1973). App. to Pet. for Cert. A21. It is not entirely clear whether the court thought respondents had failed to make out a prima facie case of discrimination under McDonnell Douglas, see App. to Pet. for Cert. A20-A21, but the court left no doubt that it thought Furnco’s hiring practices and policies were justified as a “business necessity” in that they were required for the safe and efficient operation of Furnco’s business, and were “not used as a pretext to exclude Negroes.” Thus, even if a prima facie case had been made out, it had been effectively rebutted. Id., at A21.
“Not only have Plaintiffs entirely failed to establish that Furnco’s employment practices on the Interlake job discriminated against them on the basis of race or constituted retaliatory conduct but Defendant has proven what it was not required to. By its cross-examination and direct evidence, Furnco has proven beyond all reasonable doubt that it did not engage in either racial discrimination or retaliatory conduct in its employment practices in regard to bricklayers on the Interlake job.” Id., at A22.
The Court of Appeals reversed, holding that respondents had made out a prima facie case under McDonnell Douglas, supra, at 802, which Furnco had not effectively rebutted. Because of the “historical inequality of treatment of black workers” and the fact that the record failed to reveal that any white persons had applied at the gate, the Court of Appeals rejected Furnco’s argument that discrimination had not been shown because a white appearing at the jobsite would have fared no better than respondents. That court also disagreed with Furnco’s contention, which the District Court had adopted, that “the importance of selecting people whose capability had been demonstrated to defendant’s brick superintendent is a ‘legitimate, nondiscriminatory reason’ for defendant’s refusal to consider plaintiffs.” 551 F. 2d, at 1088. Instead, the appellate court proceeded to devise what it thought would be an appropriate hiring procedure for Furnco, saying that “[i]t seems to us that there is a reasonable middle ground between immediate hiring decisions on the spot and seeking out employees from among those known to the superintendent.” Ibid. This middle course, according to the Court of Appeals, was to take written applications, with inquiry as to qualifications and experience, and then check, evaluate, and compare those claims against the qualifications and experience of other bricklayers with whom the superintendent was already acquainted. We granted certiorari to consider whether'the Court of Appeals had gone too far in substituting its own judgment as to proper hiring practices in the case of an employer which claimed the practices it had chosen did not violate Title VII.
II
A
We agree with the Court of Appeals that the proper approach was the analysis contained in McDonnell Douglas, supra. We also think the Court of Appeals was justified in concluding that as a matter of law respondents made out a prima facie case of discrimination under McDonnell Douglas. In that case we held that a plaintiff could make out a prima facie claim by showing
“(i) that he belongs to a racial minority; (ii) that he applied and was qualified for a job for which the employer was seeking applicants; (iii) that, despite his qualifications, he was rejected; and (iv) that, after his rejection, the position remained open and the employer continued to seek applicants from persons of complainant’s qualifications.” 411 U. S., at 802 (footnote omitted).
This, of course, was not intended to be an inflexible rule, as the Court went on to note that “[t]he facts necessarily will vary in Title VII cases, and the specification ... of the prima facie proof required from respondent is not necessarily applicable in every respect to differing factual situations.” Id., at 802 n. 13. See Teamsters v. United States, 431 U. S. 324, 358 (1977). But McDonnell Douglas did make clear that a Title VII plaintiff carries the initial burden of showing actions taken by the employer from which one can infer, if such actions remain unexplained, that it is more likely than not that such actions were “based on a discriminatory criterion illegal under the Act.” 431 U. S., at 358. See also id., at 335 n. 15. And here respondents carried that initial burden by proving they were members of a racial minority; they did everything within their power to apply for employment; Furnco has conceded that they were qualified in every respect for the jobs which were about to be open; they were not offered employment, although Smith later was; and the employer continued to seek persons of similar qualifications.
B
We think the Court of Appeals went awry, however, in apparently equating a prima facie showing under McDonnell Douglas with an ultimate finding of fact as to discriminatory refusal to hire under Title VII; the two are quite different and that difference has a direct bearing on the proper resolution of this case. The Court of Appeals, as we read its opinion, thought Furnco’s hiring procedures not only must be reasonably related to the achievement of some legitimate purpose, but also must be the method which allows the employer to consider the qualifications of the largest number of minority applicants. We think the imposition of that second requirement simply finds no support either in the nature of the prima facie case or the purpose of Title VII.
The central focus of the inquiry in a case such as this is always whether the employer is treating “some people less favorably than others because of their race, color, religion, sex, or national origin.” Teamsters v. United States, supra, at 335 n. 15. The method suggested in McDonnell Douglas for pursuing this inquiry, however, was never intended to be rigid, mechanized, or ritualistic. Rather, it is merely a sensible, orderly way to evaluate the evidence in light of common experience as it bears on the critical question of discrimination. A prima facie case under McDonnell Douglas raises an inference of discrimination only because we presume these acts, if otherwise unexplained, are more likely than not based on the consideration of impermissible factors. See Teamsters v. United States, supra, at 358 n. 44. And we are willing to presume this largely because we know from our experience that more often than not people do not act in a totally arbitrary manner, without any underlying reasons, especially in a business setting. Thus, when all legitimate reasons for rejecting an applicant have been eliminated as possible reasons for the employer’s actions, it is more likely than not the employer, who we generally assume acts only with some reason, based his decision on an impermissible consideration such as race.
When the prima facie case is understood in the light of the opinion in McDonnell Douglas, it is apparent that the burden which shifts to the employer is merely that of proving that he based his employment decision on a legitimate consideration, and not an illegitimate one such as race. To prove that, he need not prove that he pursued the course which would both enable him to achieve his own business goal and allow him to consider the most employment applications. Title VII prohibits him from having as a goal a work force selected by any proscribed discriminatory practice, but it does not impose a duty to adopt a hiring procedure that maximizes hiring of minority employees. To dispel the adverse inference from a prima facie showing under McDonnell Douglas, the employer need only “articulate some legitimate, nondiscriminatory reason for the employee’s rejection.” 411 U. S., at 802.
The dangers of embarking on a course such as that charted by the Court of Appeals here, where the court requires businesses to adopt what it perceives to be the “best” hiring procedures, are nowhere more evident than in the record of this very case. Not only does the record not reveal that the court’s suggested hiring procedure would work satisfactorily, but also there is nothing in the record to indicate that it would be any less “haphazard, arbitrary, and subjective” than Fumco’s method, which the Court of Appeals criticized as deficient for exactly those reasons. Courts are generally less competent than employers to restructure business practices, and unless mandated to do so by Congress they should not attempt it.
This is not to say, of course, that proof of a justification which is reasonably related to the achievement of some legitimate goal necessarily ends the inquiry. The plaintiff must be given the opportunity to introduce evidence that the proffered justification is merely a pretext for discrimination. And as we noted in McDonnell Douglas, supra, at 804-805, this evidence might take a variety of forms. But the Court of Appeals, although stating its disagreement with the District Court’s conclusion that the employer’s hiring practices were a “legitimate, nondiscriminatory reason” for refusing to hire respondents, premised its disagreement on a view which we have discussed and rejected above. It did not conclude that the practices were a pretext for discrimination, but only that different practices would have enabled the employer to at least consider, and perhaps to hire, more minority employees. But courts may not impose such a remedy on an employer at least until a violation of Title VII has been proved, and here none had been under the reasoning of either the District Court or the Court of Appeals.
c
The Court of Appeals was also critical of petitioner’s effort to employ statistics in this type of case. While the matter is not free from doubt, it appears that the court thought that once a McDonnell Douglas prima facie showing had been made out, statistics of a racially balanced work force were totally irrelevant to the question of motive. See 551 F. 2d, at 1089. That would undoubtedly be a correct view of the matter if the McDonnell Douglas prima facie showing were the equivalent of an ultimate finding by the trier of fact that the original rejection of the applicant was racially motivated: A racially balanced work force cannot immunize an employer from liability for specific acts of discrimination. As we said in Teamsters v. United States, 431 U. S., at 341-342:
“[T]he District Court and the Court of Appeals found upon substantial evidence that the company had engaged in a course of discrimination that continued well after the effective date of Title VII. The company’s later changes in its hiring and promotion policies could be of little comfort to the victims of the earlier post-Act discrimination, and could not erase its previous illegal conduct or its obligation to afford relief to those who suffered because of it.”
See also Albemarle Paper Co. v. Moody, 422 U. S. 405, 412-413 (1975.) It is clear beyond cavil that the obligation imposed by Title VII is to provide an equal opportunity for each applicant regardless of race, without regard to whether members of the applicant’s race are already proportionately represented in the work force. See Griggs v. Duke Power Co., 401 U. S., at 430; McDonald v. Santa Fe Trail Transportation Co., 427 U. S. 273, 279 (1976).
A McDonnell Douglas prima facie showing is not the equivalent of a factual finding of discrimination, however. Rather, it is simply proof of actions taken by the employer from which we infer discriminatory animus because experience has proved that in the absence of any other explanation it is more likely than not that those actions were bottomed on impermissible considerations. When the prima facie showing is understood in this manner, the employer must be allowed some latitude to introduce evidence which bears on his motive. Proof that his work force was racially balanced or that it contained a disproportionately high percentage of minority employees is not wholly irrelevant on the issue of intent when that issue is yet to be decided. We cannot say that such proof would have absolutely no probative value in determining whether the otherwise unexplained rejection of the minority applicants was discriminatorily motivated. Thus, although we agree with the Court of Appeals that in this case such proof neither was nor could have been sufficient to conclusively demonstrate that Furnco’s actions were not discriminatorily motivated, the District Court was entitled to consider the racial mix of the work force when trying to make the determination as to motivation. The Court of Appeals should likewise give similar consideration to the proffered statistical proof in any further proceedings in this case.
Ill
The parties also press upon the Court a large number of alternative theories of liability and defense, none of which were directly addressed by the Court of Appeals as we read its opinion. Given the present posture of this case, however, we think those matters which are still preserved for review are best decided by the Court of Appeals in the first instance. Accordingly, we decline to address them as an original matter here. 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.
Respondents contend that two of these four blacks were not actually “hired,” but merely “transferred” from another Furnco job. Brief for Respondents 7-8. Both the District Court and the Court of Appeals spoke only of “hiring” bricklayers, however, and those parts of the record to which respondents point do not persuade us that this is a mischaracterization.
Respondents attempted to introduce a study conducted in late 1973 by the local union which matched members’ names and race in an effort to show what percentage of the union membership was black. The study concluded that approximately 500 of the 3,800 union members were black. The District Court excluded this evidence because the study had been conducted two years after Furnco completed its job. App. to Pet. for Cert. A16 n. 1. The Court of Appeals thought rejection of this evidence was an abuse of discretion, but in dealing with the merits did not rely on the racial proportions in the labor force, so did not remand the ease to permit introduction of that testimony. The Court of Appeals also noted that in any event respondents suffered no prejudice by the court’s refusal to admit the study because it would not have demonstrated discrimination. The study showed that 13.7% of the membership of the union was black, while the evidence demonstrated that 13.3% of the man-days were worked by black bricklayers, Furnco had set a goal of 16% black bricklayers, and 20% of the individuals hired were black. 551 F. 2d 1085, 1090 (1977).
According to the District Court, this affirmative-action program was initiated by Fumco following a job performed in 1969-1970 from which charges of racial discrimination in hiring were filed by several black bricklayers. These claims are apparently still pending on appeal in the Illinois courts and the merits of a parallel federal action remain to be adjudicated. See App. to Pet. for Cert. A15; Batiste v. Furnco Construction Corp., 503 F. 2d 447 (CA7 1974).
The District Court also found that certain other plaintiffs never attempted to apply for work at Interlake or were fired or not hired for valid reasons, such as insubordination or poor workmanship. App. to Pet. for Cert. A17-A19. The Court of Appeals, concluding that the District Court’s findings were not clearly erroneous, affirmed the judgment against these particular plaintiffs. 551 F. 2d, at 1087-1088. These rulings are not challenged here.
The court stated:
“The historical inequality of treatment of black workers seems to us to establish that it is prima jade racial discrimination to refuse to consider the qualifications of a black job seeker before hiring from an approved list containing only the names of white bricklayers. How else will qualified black applicants be able to overcome the racial imbalance in a particular craft, itself the result of past discrimination?” 551 F. 2d, at 1089.
The petition for certiorari set out three questions:
“1. Whether the Seventh Circuit, in reversing the judgment of the District Court, erred in finding as irrelevant to the issue of racial discrimination in hiring, statistics demonstrating that in hiring highly skilled bricklayers, the employer hired Negroes in a percentage far in excess of their statistical presence in the relevant labor force.
“2. Whether a court may find an employer guilty of racial discrimination in employment due to alleged disparate treatment in hiring without a finding of discriminatory intent or motive.
“3. Whether a hiring practice not shown to result in disparate impact or treatment of prospective minority employees and found by the District Court to be justified by business necessity and legitimate business reasons may be found to be racially discriminatory by the Court of Appeals merely because it is subjective and because the Court of Appeals substitutes its judgment for that of the District Court as to what constitutes legitimate business reasons.” Pet. for Cert. 2.
This case did not involve employment tests, which we dealt with in Griggs v. Duke Power Co., 401 U. S. 424 (1971), and in Albemarle Paper Co. v. Moody, 422 U. S. 405, 412-413 (1975), or particularized requirements such as the height and weight specifications considered in Dothard v. Rawlinson, 433 U. S. 321, 329 (1977), and it was not a “pattern or practice” case like Teamsters v. United States, 431 U. S. 324, 358 (1977).
We note that this case does not raise any questions regarding exactly what sort of requirements an employer can impose upon any particular job. Furnco has conceded that for all its purposes respondents were qualified in every sense. Thus, with respect to the McDonnell Douglas prima facie case, the only question it places in issue is whether its refusal to consider respondents’ applications at the gate was based upon legitimate, nondiscriminatory reasons and therefore permissible.
Respondents, for example, argue that regardless of the propriety of Furneo’s general refusal to hire at the gate or of a general policy of hiring only bricklayers known to the superintendent or referred to him by an insider, a foreman, or another bricklayer, Dacies’ particular method of hiring was discriminatory. Thus, the general hiring practice, though perhaps legitimate in the abstract, was discriminatorily applied in this case, and cannot be used to rebut the prima facie case. Brief for Respondents 19-26. In particular, respondents argue that the evidence proved that Dacies hired from a “list” he had prepared, which allegedly included competent firebricklayers with whom he had worked, but in fact included only white firebricklayers with whom he had worked. Exclusion from this list of competent blacks with whom he had worked, such as respondents Smith and Samuels, was itself discriminatory and thus cannot be used to rebut respondents’ prima facie case.
Fumco, on the other hand, vigorously disputes that Dacies hired only from this list and that the hiring process can be as neatly broken down into various components as respondents would like. It argues that even if most of the people with whom Dacies was familiar were white, Dacies made a concerted effort to speak with people who were familiar with competent black bricklayers and then hired a large number of black bricklayers. In fact, argues Fumco, the statistics indicate that he hired a disproportionately large number of blacks, thus clearly indicating that his so-called “list” certainly could not have been the exclusive source of potential employees even if it had been all white. It further disputes the notion that Fumco or Dacies had in any way put some sort of ceiling on the maximum number of blacks they were willing to hire. It asserts there is absolutely nothing in the record to support such a conclusion.
The District Court made no findings which would support respondents’ view of the evidence. The Court of Appeals mentioned the existence of such a list, 551 F. 2d, at 1086, but we do not read its opinion as expressly relying on this point either. Rather, as we read its opinion, the court found only that respondents had made out a prima facie case under McDonnell Douglas and that, for the reasons outlined in the text, Furnco had failed to rebut that prima facie case. On remand, respondents are of course free to pursue any such contentions which have been properly preserved.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer:
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B
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sc_issuearea
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What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Mr. Justice Blackmun
delivered the opinion of the Court.
Petitioner Jess H. Hisquierdo in 1975 sued to dissolve his marriage with respondent Angela Hisquierdo. The Supreme Court of California, in applying the- State’s community property rules, awarded respondent an interest in petitioner’s expectation of ultimately receiving benefits under the Railroad Retirement Act of 1974, 88 Stat. 1305, 45 U. S. C. § 231 et seq. The issue here is whether the Act prohibits this allocation and division of benefits.
I
The Railroad Retirement Act, first passed in 1934, 48 Stat. 1283, provides a system of retirement and disability benefits for persons who pursue careers in the railroad industry. Its sponsors felt that the. Act would encourage older workers to retire by providing them with the means “to enjoy the closing days of their lives with peace of mind and physical comfort,” and so would “assure more rapid advancement in the service” and also more jobs for younger workers. Both employees and carriers pay a federal tax which funds a Railroad Retirement Account. The Railroad Retirement Board, provided for by the Act, 45 U. S. C. § 231f, disburses benefits from the account to each eligible “individual,” 45 U. S. C. § 231a.
In its modern form, the Act resembles both a private pension program and a social welfare plan. It provides two tiers of benefits. The upper tier, like a private pension, is tied to earnings and career service. An employee, to be eligible for benefits, must work in the industry 10 years. Absent disability, no benefit is paid, however, until the employee either reaches age 62 or is at least 60 years old and has completed 30 years of service. 45 U. S. C. § 231a (a) (1). Like a social welfare or insurance scheme, the taxes paid by and on behalf of an employee do not necessarily correlate with the benefits to which the employee may be entitled. Since 1950, the Railroad Retirement Account has received substantial transfers from the social security system, and legislative changes made in 1974 were expected to require a one-time infusion of $7 billion in general tax revenues.
The lower, and larger, tier of benefits corresponds exactly to those an employee would expect to receive were he covered by the Social Security Act. 45 U. S. C. § 231b (a)(1). The Act provides special benefits for the children or parent of a worker who dies. §§ 231a (d)(1) (iii) and (iv). It also makes detailed provision for a worker’s spouse; the spouse qualifies for an individual benefit if the spouse lives with the employee, and receives regular contributions from the employee for support, or is entitled to support from the employee pursuant to a court order. § 231a (c)(3)(i). The benefits terminate, however, when the spouse and the employee are absolutely divorced. § 231d (c) (3).
Like Social Security, and unlike most private pension plans, railroad retirement benefits are not contractual. Congress may alter, and even eliminate, them at any time. This vulnerability to congressional edict contrasts strongly with the protection Congress has afforded recipients from creditors, taxgatherers, and all those who would “anticipate” the receipt of benefits:
“Notwithstanding any other law of the United States, or of any State, territory, or the District of Columbia, no annuity or supplemental annuity shall be assignable or be subject to any tax or to garnishment, attachment, or other legál process under any circumstances whatsoever, nor shall the payment thereof be anticipated... 45 U. S. C. § 231m.
In 1975, Congress made an exception to § 231m and similar provisions in all other federal benefit plans. Concerned about recipients who were evading support obligations and thereby throwing children and divorced spouses on the public dole, Congress amended the Social Security Act by adding a new provision, § 459, to the effect that, notwithstanding any contrary law, federal benefits may be reached to satisfy a legal obligation for child support or alimony. 88 Stat. 2357, 42 U. S. C. § 659. In 1977, shortly before the issuance of the Supreme Court of California's opinion in this case, Congress added to the Social Security Act a definitional statute, § 462 (c), which relates to §459 and limits “alimony” to its traditional common-law meaning of spousal support. That statute states specifically that “alimony”
“does not include any payment or transfer of property or its value by an individual to his spouse or former spouse in compliance with any community property settlement, equitable distribution of property, or other division of property between spouses or former spouses.” Pub. L. 95-30, Tit. V, § 501 (d), 91 Stat. 160.
II
Petitioner and respondent, who are California residents, were married in Nevada in 1958. They separated in 1972. In 1975 petitioner instituted this proceeding in the Superior Court of California, County of Los Angeles, for dissolution of the marriage. California, like seven other States, by statute has a form of community property law brought to our shores by the Spanish. In California the
“statute proceeds upon the theory that the marriage, in respect to property acquired during its existence, is a community of which each spouse is a member, equally contributing by his or her industry to its prosperity, and possessing an equal right to succeed to the property after dissolution, in case of surviving the other.” Meyer v. Kinzer, 12 Cal. 247, 251 (1859).
Community property includes the property earned by either spouse during the union, as well as that given to both during the marriage. See Cal. Civ. Code Ann. §687 (West 1954). It contrasts with separate property, which includes assets owned by a spouse before marriage or acquired separately by a spouse during marriage through gift. In community property States, ownership turns on the method and timing of acquisition, while the traditional view in common-law States is that ownership depends on title. On the theory that petitioner acquired an expectation of receiving Railroad Retirement Act benefits due in part to his labors while married, respondent (but not petitioner) in the California divorce proceeding listed that expectation as an item of community property subject to division upon dissolution of the marriage. App. 2, 3.
At the time, petitioner, a railroad machinist, was aged 55. He had worked from 1942 to 1975 for the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railway, and subsequently entered the employ of the Los Angeles Union Passenger Terminal. Both jobs fell within the Act. Because petitioner had 30 years’ service, the statute would permit him to receive benefits if and when he attained age 60. Respondent calculated that she was entitled to half the benefits attributable to his labor during the 14 years of their marriage, or, by her estimates, 19.6% of the total benefits to be received. The couple has no children.
Respondent in 1975 was 53. She had worked for the preceding eight years in a factory. She had been gainfully employed for 35 years and had an expectation that upon her retirement she would be entitled to benefits under the Social Security Act. Neither petitioner nor respondent claimed that her expectation of receiving those benefits was community property. App. 2, 3.
Respondent, and petitioner, too, waived their claims to spousal support. Tr. of Oral Arg. 5, 33. After its hearing, the Superior Court awarded petitioner the couple’s home, in which they had a $12,828 equity, and its furnishings. Respondent was awarded an automobile and a small interest in a mutual fund. The court, however, ordered petitioner to reimburse respondent, by installment payments, for her half of the equity in the home and protected this obligation with an imposed lien in her favor on the real estate. The court ruled that no community interest existed either in petitioner’s prospect of receiving Railroad Retirement Act benefits or in respondent’s anticipation of benefits under the Social Security Act. App. 4.
The California Court of Appeal affirmed. In re Hisquierdo, 133 Cal. Rptr. 684 (2d Dist. 1976). The court, noting that under this Court’s Supremacy Clause cases Congress has the power to determine the character of a federally created benefit, rejected respondent’s claim that petitioner’s expectation of receiving Railroad Retirement Act benefits was community property. The court reasoned that, because federal pension programs may be terminated by Congress at any time, petitioner had no enforceable contract right. Respondent contended that the state court, under the decision in In re Milhan, 13 Cal. 3d 129, 528 P. 2d 1145 (1974), cert. denied, 421 U. S. 976 (1975), could determine the expected value of her interest and award her a compensating amount of other property available for distribution. The court held, however, that such a remedy would be contrary to § 231m, which provides that benefits are not to be “anticipated,” and would frustrate the explicit and detailed terms of the Act that grant the employee a benefit separate and distinct from the nonemployee spouse’s benefit that terminates upon absolute divorce. See also In re Nizenkoff, 65 Cal. App. 3d 136, 135 Cal. Rptr. 189 (1st Dist. 1976) (expectation of receiving benefits under the Social Security Act); In re Kelley, 64 Cal. App. 3d 82, 134 Cal. Rptr. 259 (2d Dist. 1976) (the same).
Review was granted by the Supreme Court of California. Respondent there argued that “there is absolutely no evidence that Congress ever intended to prevent a community property state from recognizing a spouse’s community interest in a Railroad Retirement Act retirement plan.” In a unanimous opinion that court reversed the Court of Appeal. In re Hisquierdo, 19 Cal. 3d 613, 566 P. 2d 224 (1977). Relying on its recent case law, the Supreme Court of California held that because the benefits would flow in part from petitioner’s employment during marriage, they were community property even though under federal law petitioner had no enforceable contract right. Congress’ decision to terminate benefits for divorced spouses, the court believed, was evidence that Congress intended to rely on traditional state-law doctrines to protect them. The court rejected petitioner’s contention that § 231m barred respondent’s claim. The court reasoned that it was intended to bar creditors, and respondent was not a creditor but a present owner. The then very recent 1977 amendment to the Social Security Act (mentioned above as the new § 462 (c) of that Act) was not discussed. The question of remedy was left open for decision on remand. The court indicated that by awarding respondent compensating property under the doctrine of In re Milhan, supra, a court could avoid any infringement on the Act’s designation of petitioner as the “individual” recipient.
We granted certiorari to consider whether, under the standard of this Court’s decided Supremacy Clause cases, the award to respondent impermissibly conflicts with the Railroad Retirement Act. 435 U. S. 994 (1978).
Ill
Insofar as marriage is within temporal control, the States lay on the guiding hand. “The whole subject of the domestic relations of husband and wife, parent and child, belongs to the laws of the States and not to the laws of the United States.” In re Burrus, 136 U. S. 586, 593-594 (1890). Federal courts repeatedly have declined to assert jurisdiction over divorces that presented no federal question. See, e. g., Ohio ex rel. Popovici v. Agler, 280 U. S. 379 (1930). On the rare occasion when state family law has come into conflict with a federal statute, this Court has limited review under the Supremacy Clause to a determination whether Congress has “positively required by direct enactment” that state law be pre-empted. Wetmore v. Markoe, 196 U. S. 68, 77 (1904). A mere conflict in words is not sufficient. State family and family-property law must do “major damage” to “clear and substantial” federal interests before the Supremacy Clause will demand that state law be overridden. United States v. Yazell, 382 U. S. 341, 352 (1966).
Nevertheless, on at least four prior occasions this Court has found it necessary to forestall such an injury to federal rights by state law based on community property concepts. In McGune v. Essig, 199 U. S. 382 (1905), federal homestead law, which permitted a widow to patent federal land that had been entered by her husband, prevailed over a daughter’s asserted inheritance of her father’s expectancy that the patent would issue to him. And in a trilogy of cases, the Court held that the survivorship rules in federal savings bond and military life insurance programs override community property law, absent fraud or breach of trust by the decedent. Yiatchos v. Yiatchos, 376 U. S. 306, 309 (1964); Free v. Bland, 369 U. S. 663 (1962); Wissner v. Wissner, 338 U. S. 655 (1950).
This case, like those four, has to do with a conflict between federal and state rules for the allocation of a federal entitlement. The manipulation problem that concerned the Court in Yiatchos v. Yiatchos and Free v. Bland, however, cases in which savings bonds were purchased with community property, is not present here. Railroad Retirement Act benefits from their very inception have federal overtones. Compulsory federal taxes finance them and not just the taxes that fall on the employee. The benefits more closely parallel the land homesteaded in McCune v. Essig. Because the United States owned the land, title to it could not pass in a manner contrary to federal law, 199 U. S., at 390, even though a matter of that kind normally is left to the States. Here, California must defer to the federal statutory scheme for allocating Railroad Retirement Act benefits insofar as the terms of federal law require. The critical terms here include a specified beneficiary protected by a flat prohibition against attachment and anticipation. In Wissner v. Wissner, supra, the Court interpreted a somewhat similar provision to pre-elude a division for community property purposes, 338 U. S., at 659-660, even though. Congress had not spoken with the specificity that characterizes the Social Security Act amendments that inform our decision here.
The approach must be practical. The federal nature of the benefits does not by itself proscribe the entire field of state control. Petitioner contends, as the California Court of Appeal held, that the States may not create rights to these benefits that do not exist under federal law. Petitioner accordingly says that, because not even petitioner “owns” benefits until Congress has determined that they be paid, the Supreme Court of California erred in describing respondent as a present owner of an expectancy in those benefits. Such rights in the abstract, however, do not necessarily cause the injury to federal law that the Supremacy Clause forbids. The pertinent questions are whether the right as asserted conflicts with the express terms of federal law and whether its consequences sufficiently injure the objectives of the federal program to require nonrecognition.
A
The first way in which respondent seeks to vindicate her community property interest, one particularly pressed at oral argument, Tr. of Oral Arg. 32, 44, is that the Superior Court would retain jurisdiction and order petitioner to pay her an appropriate portion of his benefit, or its monetary equivalent, as petitioner receives it. See In re Brown, 15 Cal. 3d 838, 848-850, 544 P. 2d 561, 567-568 (1976). That course, however, runs contrary to the language and purpose of § 231m and would mechanically deprive petitioner of a portion of the benefit Congress, in § 231d (c)(3), indicated was designed for him alone.
Section 231m plays a most important role in the statutory scheme. Like anti-attachment provisions generally, see Philpott v. Essex County Welfare Board, 409 U. S. 413 (1973); Wissner v. Wissner, supra, it ensures that the benefits actually reach the beneficiary. It pre-empts all state law that stands in its way. It protects the benefits from legal process [notwithstanding any other law... of any State.” Even state tax-collection laws must bow to its command, for Congress added that phrase in an amendment designed in part to ensure that neither federal nor state tax collectors would encroach on the distribution of benefits. It prevents the vagaries of state law from disrupting the national scheme, and guarantees a national uniformity that enhances the effectiveness of congressional policy.
Congress carefully targeted the benefits created by the Railroad Retirement Act. It even embodied a community concept to an extent. The Act provides a benefit for a spouse, but the spouse need not have worked for a carrier. The spouse’s sole contribution is to the marital community that supports the employee who has made railroad employment a career. Congress purposefully abandoned that theory, however, in allocating benefits upon absolute divorce. In direct language the spouse is cut off:
“The entitlement of a spouse of an individual to an annuity... shall end on the last day of the month preceding the month in which... the spouse and the individual are absolutely divorced.” 45 U. S. C. § 231d (c)(3).
The choice was deliberate. When the Act was revised in 1974, a proposal was made to award a divorced spouse a benefit like that available to a divorced spouse under the Social Security Act. The labor-management negotiation committee, however, rejected that proposal, and Congress ratified its decision. It based its conclusion on the perilous financial state of the Railroad Retirement Account, and the need to devote funds to other purposes.
Congress has made a choice, and § 231m protects it. It is for Congress to decide how these finite funds are to be allocated. The statutory balance is delicate. Congress has fixed an amount thought appropriate to support an employee’s old age and to encourage the employee to retire. Any automatic diminution of that amount frustrates the congressional objective. By reducing benefits received, it discourages the divorced employee from retiring. And it provides the employee with an incentive to keep working, because the former spouse has no community property claim to salary earned after the marital community is dissolved. Section 231m shields the distribution of benefits from state decisions that would actually reverse the flow of incentives Congress originally intended.
Respondent contends that this interpretation of the Act is manifestly unjust, and could not have been intended by Congress. She suggests that her contribution to the marital community merits recompense, and she argues that, as a logical matter, Congress would not have terminated the spouse’s benefit upon absolute divorce if it had thought that a divorced spouse would be totally unable to assert a state-law claim against the benefits received by the employee spouse. She urges that, at least with respect to spousal claims, the Court should hold that § 231m does no more than restate the Government’s sovereign immunity from burdensome garnishment suits, and so has no effect on her right to require petitioner to reimburse her as he receives benefits. She notes that several courts have adopted this construction in holding that an errant spouse could be forced to pay child and spousal support upon receipt of Railroad Retirement Act payments.
We, however, cannot so lightly discard the settled view that anti-assignment statutes have substantive meaning. Section 231m goes far beyond garnishment. It states that the annuity shall not be subject to any “legal process under any circumstances whatsoever, nor shall the payment thereof be anticipated.” Its terms make no exception for a spouse. The judicial construction on which respondent relies is a child of equity, not of law. In Wissner, the Court held that a similar line of authority did not apply to community property claims:
“Venerable and worthy as this community is, it is not, we think, as likely to justify an exception to the congressional language as specific judicial recognition of particular needs, in the alimony and support eases.” 338 TJ. S., at 660.
Now Congress has written into law the same distinction Wissner drew as a matter of policy. The 1977 amendments to the Social Security Act, by way of amending the existing § 459 and adding a new § 462, expressly override § 231m, and even facilitate garnishment for claims based on spousal support. They decline to do so, however, for community property claims. The legislative history is sparse and does not mention Wissner. We know, however, that the purpose of § 459 was to help children and divorced spouses get off welfare. It is therefore logical to conclude that Congress, in adopting § 462 (c), thought that a family’s need for support could justify garnishment, even though it deflected other federal benefit programs from their intended goals, but that community property claims, which are not based on need, could not do so.
B
Respondent contends that she can vindicate her interest and leave the benefit scheme intact by pursuing her remedy under In re Milhan, 13 Cal. App. 3d 129, 528 P. 2d 1145 (1974). She seeks an offsetting award of presently available community property to compensate her for her interest in petitioner’s expected benefits. As petitioner’s counsel bluntly put it, respondent wants the house. Tr. of Oral Arg. 5. The expected value of the benefits is such that she could get it if this remedy were adopted.
An offsetting award, however, would upset the statutory balance and impair petitioner’s economic security just as surely as would a regular deduction from his benefit check. The harm might well be greater. Section 231m provides that payments are not to be “anticipated.” Legislative history throws little light on the meaning of this word.1 In the law of trusts, however, a prohibition against anticipation is commonly understood to mean that “the interest of a sole beneficiary shall not be paid to him before a certain date.” E. Griswold, Spendthrift Trusts § 512, p. 583 (2d ed. 1947). The Railroad Retirement Act resembles a trust in certain respects. If that definition is applied here, then the offsetting award respondent seeks would improperly anticipate payment by allowing her to receive her interest before.the date Congress has set for any interest to accrue.
Any such anticipation threatens harm to the employee, and corresponding frustration to federal policy, over and above the mere loss of wealth caused by the offset. If, for example, a nonemployee spouse receives offsetting property, and then the employee spouse dies before collecting any benefits, the employee's heirs or beneficiaries suffer to the extent that the offset exceeds the lump-sum death benefits the Act provides. See 45 U. S. C. § 231e. Similarly, if the employee leaves the industry before retirement, and so fails to meet the “current connection with the railroad industry" requirement for certain supplemental benefits, see 45 U. S. C. § 231a (b)(1) (iv), the employee never will fully regain the amount of the offset. A third possibility, of course, is that Congress might alter the terms of the Act. In 1974, Congress eliminated certain double benefits accruing after 1982. If past California property settlements had been based on those benefits, then the change in the Act would have worked a multiple penalty on future recipients. By barring lump-sum community property settlements based on mere expectations, the prohibition against anticipation prevents such an obvious frustration of congressional purpose. It also preserves congressional freedom to amend the Act, and so serves much the same function as the frequently stated understanding that programs of this nature' convey no future rights and so may be changed without taking property in violation of the Fifth Amendment. See Richardson v. Belcher, 404 U. S. 78, 80-81 (1971); Flemming v. Nestor, 363 U. S. 603, 608-611 (1960); Ruhl v. Railroad Retirement Board, 342 F. 2d 662, 666 (CA7), cert. denied, 382 U. S. 836 (1965).
IV
We are mindful that retirement benefits are increasingly important in American life and that divorce is becoming more frequent. The burden of marital dissolution may be particularly onerous for a spouse who, unlike respondent, has no expectation of receiving his or her own social security benefits. The 1975 and 1977 amendments, however, both permit and encourage garnishment of Railroad Retirement Act benefits for the purposes of spousal support, and those benefits will be claimed by those who are in need. Congress may find that the distinction it has drawn is undesirable. Indeed, Congress recently has passed special legislation to allow garnishment of Civil Service Retirement benefits for community property purposes. See Pub. L. 95-366, 92 Stat. 600.
For the present, however, the community property interest that respondent seeks conflicts with § 231m, promises to diminish that portion of the benefit Congress has said should go to the retired worker alone, and threatens to penalize one whom Congress has sought to protect. It thus causes the kind of injury to federal interests that the Supremacy Clause forbids. It is not the province of state courts to strike a balance different from the one Congress has struck.
The judgment of the Supreme Court of California is reversed, and the case is remanded for further proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
R. Rep. No. 1711, 74th Cong., 1st Sess., 10 (1935).
Railroad Retirement Tax Act, 26 U. S. C. §§ 3201-3233.
This Court ruled that the Railroad Retirement Act of 1934 was unconstitutional and did so on the ground that it took property in violation of the Fifth Amendment and exceeded Congress’ power under the Interstate Commerce Clause. Railroad Retirement Board v. Alton R. Co., 295 U. S. 330 (1935). Congress then promptly enacted substantially similar legislation in 1935 based on its power to tax and spend to promote the general welfare. 49 Stat. 967 and 974. The operation of that legislation was enjoined. Alton R. Co. v. Railroad Retirement Board, 16 F. Supp. 955 (DC 1936). After Presidential intervention and extensive negotiation, a bill was produced that became the Railroad Retirement Act of 1937. 50 Stat. 307. That Act was amended several times to make it conform more closely to the existing Social Security Act. In 1970 Congress established a Commission on Railroad Retirement to study the actuarial soundness of the system. The Commission submitted a report, The Railroad Retirement System: Its Coming Crisis, H. R. Doc. No. 92-350 (1972). Further industry negotiation produced the bill that became the 1974 Act. See id., at 55-75; Hearing on Women and Railroad Retirement before the Subcommittee on Retirement Income and Employment of the Select House Committee on Aging, 94th Cong., 1st Sess. (1976) (Hearing on Women and Railroad Retirement).
See H. R. Doc. No. 92-350 (1972); Skolnik, Restructuring the Railroad Retirement System, 38 Soc. Sec. Bull., No. 4, p. 23 (1975).
“The entitlement of a spouse of an individual to an annuity under section 231a (c) of this title shall end on the last day of the month preceding the month in which... the spouse and the individual are absolutely divorced....”
The Social Security Act specifically provides: “The right to alter, amend, or repeal any provision óf this [Act] is reserved to the Congress.” 49 Stat. 648, 42 U. S. C. § 1304. While the Railroad Retirement Act does not expressly incorporate that very language, it definitely does so indirectly, because the minimum Railroad Retirement Act benefit is the benefit that would have been received under the Social Security Act. See 45 U. S. C. § 231b (a)(1).
The goal of this provision, in the words of a union negotiator who testified, was “to make it sure that the annuitant gets the pension.” Hearings on S. 2395 before the Senate Committee on Interstate Commerce, 75th Cong., 1st Sess., 29 (1937) (statement of George M. Harrison, president of the Brotherhood of Railway Clerks).
The consent provision reads in its entirety:
“Notwithstanding any other provision of law, effective January 1, 1975, moneys (the entitlement to which is based upon remuneration for employment) due from, or payable by, the United States (including any agency or instrumentality thereof and any wholly owned Federal corporation) to an individual, including members of the armed services, shall be subject, in like manner and to the same extent as if the United States were a private person, to legal process brought for the enforcement, against such individual of his legal obligations to provide child support or make alimony payments.”
The entire definition reads:
“The term 'alimony/ when used in reference to the legal obligations of an individual to provide the same, means periodic payments of funds for the support and maintenance of the spouse (or former spouse) of such individual, and (subject to and in accordance with State law) includes but is not limited to, separate maintenance, alimony pendente lite, maintenance, and spousal support; such term also includes attorney’s fees, interest, and court costs when and to the extent that the same are expressly made recoverable as such pursuant to a decree, order, or judgment issued in accordance with applicable State law by a court of competent jurisdiction. Such term does not include any payment or transfer of property or its value by an individual to his spouse or former spouse in compliance with any community property settlement, equitable distribution of property, or other division of property between spouses or former spouses.”
See also Cal. Civ. Code Ann. § 4800 (West Supp. 1978); W. deFuniak & M. Vaughn, Principles of Community Property § 1 (2d ed. 1971).
Ibid. Only a small minority of common-law States still adhere strictly to the view that title alone controls the distribution of property on divorce. Foster & Freed, From a Survey of Matrimonial Laws in the United States: Distribution of Property Upon Dissolution, 3 Comm. Prop. J. 231, 232 (1976).
Reporter’s transcript on appeal in No. D 860954 (Super. Ct. Los Angeles) 23; Tr. of Oral Arg. 32.
Petition for Hearing in No. LA 30712 (Cal. Sup. Ct.), p. 14.
In re Fithian, 10 Cal. 3d 592, 517 P. 2d 449, cert. denied, 419 U. S. 825 (1974) (federal military retirement pay); cf. In re Brown, 15 Cal. 3d 838, 544 P. 2d 561 (1976) (nonvested interest in a private employer’s retirement plan); see generally Martin, Social Security Benefits for Spouses, 63 Cornell L. Rev. 789, 830-836 (1978); Reppy, Community and Separate Interests in Pensions and Social Security Benefits after Marriage of Brown and ERISA, 25 UCLA L. Rev. 417-421, 429-443, 483-511 (1978) (discussing cases) (hereinafter Interests in Pensions).
Texas courts have divided on the question whether an expectation of receiving Railroad Retirement Act benefits is community property. Compare Allen v. Allen, 363 S. W. 2d 312 (Tex. Civ. App., Houston, 1962) with Eichelberger v. Eichelberger, 557 S. W. 2d 587 (Tex. Civ. App., Waco, 1977) (writ dismissed).
The statute provided that payments to the named beneficiary “shall be exempt from the claims of creditors, and shall not be liable to attachment, levy; or seizure by or under any legal or equitable process whatever, either before or after receipt by the beneficiary.” 49 Stat. 609, 38 U. S. C. § 454a (1946 ed.).
Senator John F. Kennedy described the amendment on the floor of the Senate:
“[The amendment] makes it clear that railroad retirement and unemployment benefits are still exempt from Federal or State taxation, garnishment and attachment, a clarification made necessary by an inadvertent oversight in last year’s new tax law and doubts raised in several States.” 101 Cong. Rec. 11772 (1955).
See S. Rep. No. 1040, 84th Cong., 1st Sess., 9-10 (1955); Hearing on S. 1589 before the Subcommittee on Railroad Retirement of the Senate Committee on Labor and Public Welfare, 84th Cong., 1st Sess., 29-30 (1955) (remarks of Lester P. Schoene, representing all standard railway labor organizations). See also Rev. Rui. 70-343, 1970-2 Cum. Bull. 4.
Hearing on Women and Railroad Retirement 5. The 1972 Report of the Commission on Railroad Retirement said that industry employment, 1.68 million during World War II, had fallen to 582,000 by the first quarter of 1972. The system’s beneficiaries already outnumbered the employees who were contributing. The Commission said that, without the changes that it suggested and that Congress embodied in the 1974 Act, the system’s funds would be consumed by 1988. H. R. Doc. No. 92-350, pp. 10, 12, 18 (1972).
See LaFarr v. LaFarr, 132 Vt. 191, 315 A. 2d 235 (1974); Heuchan v. Heuchan, 38 Wash. 2d 207, 228 P. 2d 470 (1951); Commonwealth v. Berfield, 160 Pa. Super. 438, 51 A. 2d 523 (1947). (Before the 1974 revision of the Act, the § 231m exemption was codified as § 228i. See 45 U. S. C. § 2281 (1970 ed.).)
The dissenting opinion, post, at 598-600, argues that § 231m is irrelevant because respondent is a co-owner. Surely, however, inability to use any “legal process under any circumstances whatsoever” to enforce her asserted rights is a severe limitation on the nature of any ownership interest she might otherwise enjoy under state law.
Section 459, added to the Social Security Act in 1975, overrides § 231m for “alimony” claims. It was part of a package of measures primarily designed to combat increases in welfare payments resulting from an inability to compel payment of support obligations from solvent but unwilling parents. S. Rep. No. 93-1356, pp. 42-43 (1974). After the section’s adoption, courts disagreed on whether the alimony that could be made the subject of garnishment included community property. Compare United States v. Stelter, 553 S. W. 2d 227, 229 (Tex. Civ. App. 1977), rev’d, 567 S. W. 2d 797 (Tex. 1978); Williams v. Williams, 338 So. 2d 869 (Fla. App. 1976), with
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
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.
The National Labor Relations Board refused to include, in a cease-and-desist order against Heck’s Inc., a provision sought by respondent union, as charging party, that Heck’s reimburse respondent’s litigation expenses and excess organizational costs incurred as a result of Heck’s unlawful conduct. The Board’s stated reason was that “it would not on balance effectuate the policies of the [National Labor Relations] Act to require reimbursement with respect to such costs in the circumstances here.” Heck’s Inc., 191 N. L. R. B. 886, 889 (1971). Respondent prevailed, however, in enforcement and review proceedings in the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. That court enlarged the Board’s order by adding provisions, paragraphs 2 (e) and (f), that Heck’s “[p]ay to the Union any extraordinary organizational costs which the Union incurred by reason of Heck’s policy of resisting organizational efforts and refusing to bargain, such costs to be determined at the compliance stage of these proceedings,” and “[p]ay to the Board and the Union the costs and expenses incurred by them in the investigation, preparation, presentation, and conduct of these cases before the National Labor Relations Board and the courts, such costs to be determined at the compliance stage of these proceedings.” 155 U. S. App. D. C. 101, 476 F. 2d 546 (1973). We granted certiorari to consider whether the enlargement of this order was a proper exercise of the authority of courts of appeals under §§ 10 (e) and (f) of the National Labor Relations Act, as amended, 61 Stat. 146,, 29 U. S. C. §§ 160 (e) and (f), to “make and enter a decree . . . modifying, and enforcing as so modified” the order of the Board, 414 U. S. 1062 (1973). We reverse.
Heck’s Inc. operates a chain of discount stores in the Southeast section of the country. Its resistance to union organization has resulted in some 11 proceedings before the National Labor Relations Board. This case grew out of its efforts to prevent organization by respondent union of Heck’s employees at its store in Clarksburg, West Virginia. The case was twice before the Board. In its first decision, the Board determined that Heck’s violated § 8 (a) (1) of the Act, 29 U. S. C. § 158 (a) (1), by threatening and coercively interrogating employees during respondent’s organizational campaign, and by conducting a nonsecret poll to ascertain employee support for the union. Further, the Board found that Heck’s “flagrant repetition” of similar unfair labor practices at its other stores and its “extensive violations of the Act” in the Clarksburg store justified an inference that Heck’s did not entertain any good-faith doubt concerning majority support for respondent union when the company refused to recognize and bargain with the union on the basis of authorization cards signed by a majority of employees. Accordingly, the Board found that Heck’s violated §§ 8 (a)(5) and (1) of the Act, 29 U. S. C. §§ 158 (a)(5) and (1). Finally, because Heck’s extensive violations were found to have made a free and fair election impossible, an order directing Heck’s to bargain with the union was entered. The Board rejected, however, the union’s argument that adequate relief required certain additional remedies, including reimbursement of litigation expenses and excess organizational costs incurred as a result of Heck’s unlawful behavior. Heck’s Inc., 172 N. L. R. B. 2231 n. 2 (1968).
The Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit enforced the Board’s order, but remanded to the Board for further consideration of additional remedies including reimbursement of litigation expenses and excess organizational costs. 139 U. S. App. D. C. 383, 433 F. 2d 541 (1970). On remand, the Board amended its original order to encompass certain supplemental remedies, but again refused to order reimbursement of litigation expenses and excess organizational costs. 191 N. L. R. B. 886. Although the Board found that Heck’s unfair labor practices were "aggravated and pervasive” and that its intransigence had probably caused the union to incur greater litigation expenses and organizational costs, the Board’s rationale, previously mentioned, was that the provision would not effectuate the policies of the Act. The Board reasoned that its “orders must be remedial, not punitive, and collateral losses are not considered in framing a reimbursement order.” Id., at 889 (footnotes omitted). Moreover, a charging party’s participation in the case is, the Board found, primarily for the purpose of protecting its private interests, whereas the Board has the primary responsibility for protecting the public interest. The Board therefore concluded that, although the public interest might also arguably be served “in allowing the Charging Party to recover the costs of its participation in this litigation,” that consideration did not “override the general and well-established principle that litigation expenses are ordinarily not recoverable.” Ibid. (Footnote omitted.)
Prior to review of its supplementary decision by the Court of Appeals, the Board issued its decision in Tiidee Products, Inc., 194 N. L. R. B. 1234 (1972), in which the Board ordered reimbursement of litigation expenses in the context of a finding that an employer had engaged in “frivolous litigations.” The Board’s opinion in Tiidee reasoned that industrial peace could be best achieved if “speedy access to uncrowded Board and court dockets [were] available” and therefore that an assessment of legal fees would serve the public interest by “discouraging] future frivolous litigation,” id., at 1236. The Board did not explain why those considerations had not led it to order similar relief in this case. The Court of Appeals therefore concluded in the present case that the Board had abandoned its policy against award of litigation expenses and excess organizational costs, stating:
“Although the Board in its Supplemental Decision in this case has nowhere characterized the litigation as frivolous, it has used the language of ‘clearly aggravated and pervasive’ misconduct; and in its original opinion it questioned Heck’s good faith because of its ‘flagrant repetition of conduct previously found unlawful’ at other Heck’s stores. It would appear that the Board has now recognized that employers who follow a pattern of resisting union organization, and who to that end unduly burden the processes of the Board and the courts, should be obliged, at the very least, to respond in terms of making good the legal expenses to which they have put the charging parties and the Board. We hold that the case before us is an appropriate one for according such relief.” 155 U. S. App. D. C., at 106, 476 F. 2d, at 551.
The Court of Appeals also viewed Tiidee as the signal of a shift in the Board’s attitude toward excess organizational costs. In Tiidee, the Board refused to order reimbursement of excess organizational costs because “ ‘no nexus between [the employer’s] unlawful conduct’ ” had been proved. Ibid. Since, in the instant case, the Board had indicated that Heck’s violations had probably caused respondent to incur excess organizational costs, a nexus' was proved and accordingly the court held that respondent was entitled to an order directing reimbursement of organizational costs.
In the circumstances of this case, the Court of Appeals, in our view, improperly exercised its authority under §§10 (e) and (f) to modify Board orders, and the case must therefore be returned to the Board. Congress has invested the Board, not the courts, with broad discretion to order a violator “to take such affirmative action ... as will effectuate the policies of [the Act].” 29 U. S. C. § 160 (c); see, e. g., Golden State Bottling Co. v. NLRB, 414 U. S. 168, 176 (1973). This case does not present the exceptional situation in which crystal-clear Board error renders a remand an unnecessary formality. See NLRB v. Express Publishing Co., 312 U. S. 426 (1941); Communications Workers v. NLRB, 362 U. S. 479 (1960). For it cannot be gainsaid that the finding here that Heck’s asserted at least “debatable” defenses to the unfair labor practice charges, whereas objections to the representation election in Tiidee were “patently frivolous,” might have been viewed by the Board as putting the question of remedy in a different light. We cannot say that the Board, in performing its appointed function of balancing conflicting interests, could not reasonably decide that where “debatable” defenses are asserted, the public and private interests in affording the employer a determination of his “debatable” defenses, unfettered by the prospect of bearing his adversary’s litigation costs, outweigh the public interest in uncrowded dockets.
There are, however, facial inconsistencies between the Board’s opinion in this case and the Tiidee decision, and the Court of Appeals therefore correctly declined to resolve those inconsistencies by substituting Board counsel’s rationale for that of the Board. 155 U. S. App. D. C., at 107 n. 8, 476 F. 2d, at 552 n. 8; see NLRB v. Metropolitan Life Ins. Co., 380 U. S. 438, 444 (1965); Burlington Truck Lines v. United States, 371 U. S. 156, 168-169 (1962). The integrity of the administrative process demands no less than that the Board, not its legal representative, exercise the discretionary judgment which Congress has entrusted to it. But since a plausible reconciliation by the Board of the seeming inconsistency was reasonably possible, it was “incompatible with the orderly function of the process of judicial review,” NLRB v. Metropolitan Life Ins. Co., supra, at 444, for the Court of Appeals to enlarge the Heck’s order without first affording the Board an opportunity to clarify the inconsistencies.
It is a guiding principle of administrative law, long recognized by this Court, that “an administrative determination in which is imbedded a legal question open to judicial review does not impliedly foreclose the administrative agency, after its error has been corrected, from enforcing the legislative policy committed to its charge.” FCC v. Pottsville Broadcasting Co., 309 U. S. 134, 145 (1940); see Fly v. Heitmeyer, 309 U. S. 146, 148 (1940); FTC v. Morton Salt Co., 334 U. S. 37, 55 (1948); FPC v. Idaho Power Co., 344 U. S. 17, 20 (1952); Konigs- berg v. State Bar, 366 U. S. 36, 43-44 (1961). Thus, when a reviewing court concludes that an agency invested with broad discretion to fashion remedies has apparently abused that discretion by omitting a remedy justified in the court’s view by the factual circumstances, remand to the agency for reconsideration, and not enlargement of the agency order, is ordinarily the reviewing court’s proper course. Application of that general principle in this case best respects the congressional scheme investing the Board and not the courts with broad powers to fashion remedies - that will effectuate national labor policy. It also affords the Board the opportunity, through additional evidence or findings, to reframe its order better to effectuate that policy. See FPC v. Idaho Power Co., supra, at 20; FTC v. Morton Salt Co., supra, at 55. Moreover, in this case, if the Court of Appeals correctly read Tiidee as having signaled a change of policy in respect of reimbursement, a remand was necessary, because the Board should be given the first opportunity to determine whether the new policy should be applied retroactively.
The judgment of the Court of Appeals is reversed insofar as paragraphs 2 (e) and (f) were added to the Board’s order, and the case is remanded to the Court of Appeals with direction that it be remanded to the Board for further proceedings.
It is so ordered.
The many proceedings are cited in the opinion of the Court of Appeals, 155 U. S. App. D. C. 101, 102 n. 1, 476 F. 2d 546, 547 n. 1.
The Board also rejected respondent’s requests for provisions directing the mailing of notices to employees; either a company-wide bargaining order or a shifting of the burden of proof in future cases to require Heck’s to demonstrate its good faith in rejecting authorization cards; injunctions under § 10 (j) of the Act, 29 U. S. C. §160(j); increased access to employees; and a “make-whole” provision directing compensation to employees for collective-bargaining benefits lost as a result of the employer’s unlawful conduct.
The remand was ordered in light of the Court of Appeals’ intervening decision in International Union of Elec., Radio & Mach. Workers v. NLRB, 138 U. S. App. D. C. 249, 426 F. 2d 1243 (1970), known as the Tiidee Products case, in which the court had remanded for further Board consideration a union’s submission that similar supplementary remedies were necessary where an employer’s refusal to bargain was found to be "a clear and flagrant violation of the law,” and its objections to a representation election were determined to be “patently frivolous.” Id., at 254, 426 F. 2d, at 1248.
The Board directed Heck’s to mail notices of the Board’s amended order to the homes of all employees at each of Heck’s store locations; to provide the union with reasonable access for a one-year period to bulletin boards and other places where union notices are normally posted; and to provide the union with a list of names and addresses of all employees at all locations, to be kept current for one year.
The Board also refused to order, as sought by respondent, that notices of the Board’s decision be read to assembled groups of employees; that a company wide bargaining order be issued; that the company be required to bargain whenever the union obtained an authorization card majority at other locations; that greater access to employees on company property be granted; and that a “make-whole” provision for reimbursement of dues and fees, and collective-bargaining benefits, lost as a result of the unlawful refusal to bargain, be ordered.
In support of this proposition, the Board relied upon Republic Steel Corp. v. NLRB, 311 U. S. 7, 11-12 (1940), and NLRB v. Gullett Gin Co., 340 U. S. 361, 364 (1951).
The Board’s decision in Tiidee was issued after supplementary proceedings following a remand from the Court of Appeals. See n. 3, supra. In an opinion filed April 25, 1974, the Court of Appeals, on review of the Board’s supplementary decision in Tiidee, enforced as modified the Board’s" amended order. International Union of Elec., Radio & Mach. Workers v. NLRB, 163 U. S. App. D. C. 347, 502 F. 2d 349.
The Court of Appeals made clear that the enlargement of the Board order was based squarely on the Board’s change of policy perceived to have been made by Tiidee. The court refused to decide the question argued by respondent union that, independently of Tiidee, an order of reimbursement should be directed. The Court of Appeals said:
“There are, it seems to us, obvious difficulties [in relying upon the subsidiary role of the charging party as a basis for denial of litigation expenses], certainly in the case of an employer who appears to look upon litigation as a convenient means of delaying — and thereby perhaps avoiding — the fatal day of union recognition and collective bargaining. We need not pursue those difficulties in detail, however, for the reason that the Board itself has subsequently departed from the rationale upon which its refusal of litigation expenses in this case is based.” 155 U. S. App. D. C., at 105, 476 F. 2d, at 550 (emphasis added).
We thus have no occasion at this time to address the question whether the Board’s broad powers under § 10 (c), 29 U. S. C. § 160 (c), to fashion remedies include power to order reimbursement of litigation expenses and excess organizational costs.
Appellate courts ordinarily apply the law in effect at the time of the appellate decision, see Bradley v. School Board, 416 U. S. 696, 711 (1974). However, a court reviewing an agency decision following an intervening change of policy by the agency should remand to permit the agency to decide in the first instance whether giving the change retrospective effect will best effectuate the policies underlying the agency’s governing act.
In its present posture the case does not, of course, present the question whether Board failure, on remand, to clarify the apparent inconsistency in its decisions would warrant reversal on review. Compare Barrett Line v. United States, 326 U. S. 179 (1945), with FCC v. WOKO, Inc., 329 U. S. 223, 227-228 (1946). See L. Jaffe, Judicial Control of Administrative Action 587-588 (1965); Shapiro, The Choice of Rulemaking or Adjudication in the Development of Administrative Policy, 78 Harv. L. Rev. 921, 947-950 (1965).
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
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 Douglas
delivered the opinion of the Court.
This is a suit for damages under § 4 of the Clayton Act, 38 Stat. 731, 15 U. S. C. § 15, for violation of §§ 1 and 2 of the Sherman Act, 26 Stat. 209, as amended, 50 Stat. 693, 15 U. S. C. §§ 1, 2. The complaint grows out of a so-called retail dealer “consignment” agreement which, it is alleged, Union Oil requires lessees of its retail outlets to sign, of which Simpson was one. The “consignment” agreement is for one year and thereafter until canceled, is terminable by either party at the end of any year and, by its terms, ceases upon any termination of the lease. The lease is also for one year; and it is alleged that it is used to police the retail prices charged by the consignees, renewals not being made if the conditions prescribed by the company are not met. The company, pursuant to the “consignment” agreement, sets the prices at which the retailer sells the gasoline. While “title” to the consigned gasoline “shall remain in Consignor until sold by Consignee,” and while the company pays all property taxes on all gasoline in possession of Simpson, he must carry personal liability and property damage insurance by reason of the “consigned” gasoline and is responsible for all losses of the “consigned” gasoline in his possession, save for specified acts of God. Simpson is compensated by a minimum commission and pays all the costs of operation in the familiar manner.
The retail price fixed by the company for the gasoline during the period in question was 29.9 cents per gallon; and Simpson, despite the company’s demand that he adhere to the authorized price, sold it at 27.9 cents, allegedly to meet a competitive price. Solely because Simpson sold gasoline below the fixed price, Union Oil refused to renew the lease; termination of the “consignment” agreement ensued; and this suit was filed. The terms of the lease and “consignment” agreement are not in dispute nor the method of their application in this case. The interstate character of Union Oil’s business is conceded, as is the extensive use by it of the lease-consignment agreement in eight western States.
After two pretrial hearings, the company moved for a summary judgment. Simpson moved for a partial summary judgment — that the consignment lease program is in violation of § § 1 and 2 of the Sherman Act. The District Court, concluding that “all the factual disputes” had been eliminated from the case, entertained the motions. The District Court granted the company’s motion and denied Simpson’s, holding as to the latter that he had not established a violation of the Sherman Act and, even assuming such a violation, that he had not suffered any actionable damage. The Court of Appeals affirmed. While it assumed that there were triable issues of law, it concluded that Simpson suffered no actionable wrong or damage, 311 F. 2d 764. The case is here on a writ of cer-tiorari. 373 U. S. 901.
We disagree with the Court of Appeals that there is no actionable wrong or damage if a Sherman Act violation is assumed. If the “consignment” agreement achieves resale price maintenance in violation of the Sherman Act, it and the lease are being used to injure interstate commerce by depriving independent dealers of the exercise of free judgment whether to become consignees at all, or remain consignees, and, in any event, to sell at competitive prices. The fact that a retailer can refuse to deal does not give the supplier immunity if the arrangement is one of those schemes condemned by the antitrust laws.
There is actionable wrong whenever the restraint of trade or monopolistic practice has an impact on the market ; and it matters not that the complainant may be only one merchant. See Klor’s v. Broadway-Hale Stores, 359 U. S. 207, 213; Radiant Burners v. Peoples Gas Co., 364 U. S. 656, 660. As we stated in Radovich v. National Football League, 352 U. S. 445, 453-454:
“Congress has, by legislative fiat, determined that such prohibited activities are injurious to the public and has provided sanctions allowing private enforcement of the antitrust laws by an aggrieved party. These laws protect the victims of the forbidden practices as well as the public.”
The fact that, on failure to renew a lease, another dealer takes Simpson’s place and renders the same service to the public is no more an answer here than it was in Poller v. Columbia Broadcasting System, 368 U. S. 464, 473. For Congress, not the oil distributor, is the arbiter of the public interest; and Congress has closely patrolled price fixing whether effected through resale price maintenance agreements or otherwise. The exclusive requirements contracts struck down in Standard Oil Co. v. United States, 337 U. S. 293, were not saved because dealers need not have agreed to them, but could have gone elsewhere. If that were a defense, a supplier could regiment thousands of otherwise competitive dealers in resale price maintenance programs merely by fear of nonrenewal of short-term leases.
We made clear in United States v. Parke, Davis & Co., 362 U. S. 29, that a supplier may not use coercion on its retail outlets to achieve resale price maintenance. We reiterate that view, adding that it matters not what the coercive device is. United States v. Colgate, 250 U. S. 300, as explained in Parke, Davis, 362 U. S., at 37, was a case where there was assumed to be no agreement to maintain retail prices. Here we have such an agreement; it is used coercively, and, it promises to be equally if not more effective in maintaining gasoline prices than were the Parke, Davis techniques in fixing monopoly prices on drugs.
Consignments perform an important function in trade and commerce, and their integrity has been recognized by many courts, including this one. See Ludvigh v. American Woolen Co., 231 U. S. 522. Yet consignments, though useful in allocating risks between the parties and determining their rights inter se, do not necessarily control the rights of others, whether they be creditors or sovereigns. Thus the device has been extensively regulated by the States. 22 Am. Jur., Factors, § 8; Hartford Indemnity Co. v. Illinois, 298 U. S. 155. Congress, too, has entered parts of the field, establishing by the Act of June 10, 1930, 46 Stat. 531, as amended, 7 U. S. C. § 499a et seg., a pervasive system of control over commission merchants dealing in perishable agricultural commodities.
One who sends a rug or a painting or other work of art to a merchant or a gallery for sale at a minimum price can, of course, hold the consignee to the bargain. A retail merchant may, indeed, have inventory on consignment, the terms of which bind the parties inter se. Yet the consignor does not always prevail over creditors in case of bankruptcy, where a recording statute or a “traders act” or a “sign statute” is in effect. 4 Collier, Bankruptcy (14th ed.), pp. 1090-1097, 1484-1486. The interests of the Government also frequently override agreements that private parties make. Here we have an antitrust policy expressed in Acts of Congress. Accordingly, a consignment, no matter how lawful it might be as a matter of private contract law, must give way before the federal antitrust policy. Thus a consignment is not allowed to be used as a cloak to avoid § 3 of the Clayton Act. See Standard Fashion Co. v. Magrane-Houston Co., 258 U. S. 346, 353-356; cf. Straus v. Victor Talking Mach. Co., 243 U. S. 490, 500-501. Nor does § 1 of the Sherman Act tolerate agreements for retail price maintenance. See United States v. Socony-Vacuum Oil Co., 310 U. S. 150, 221-222; United States v. Parke, Davis & Co., supra.
We are enlightened on present-day marketing methods by recent congressional investigations. In the automobile field the price is “the manufacturer’s suggested retail price,” not a price coercively exacted; nor do automobiles go on consignment; they are sold. Resale price maintenance of gasoline through the “consignment” device is increasing. The “consignment” device in the gasoline field is used for resale price maintenance. The theory and practice of gasoline price fixing in vogue under the “consignment” agreement has been well exposed by Congress. A Union Oil official in recent testimony before a House Committee on Small Business explained the price mechanism:
“Mr. Roosevelt. Who sets the price in your consignment station, dealer consignment station?
“Mr. Rath. We do.
“Mr. Roosevelt. You do?
“Mr. Rath. Yes. We do it on this basis: You see, he is paid a commission to sell these products for us. Now, we go out into the market area and find out what the competitive major price is, what that level is, and we set our house-brand price at that.”
Dealers, like Simpson, are independent businessmen; and they have all or most of the indicia of entrepreneurs, except for price fixing. The risk of loss of the gasoline is on them, apart from acts of God. Their return is affected by the rise and fall in the market price, their commissions declining as retail prices drop. Practically the only power they have to be wholly independent businessmen, whose service depends on their own initiative and enterprise, is taken from them by the proviso that they must sell their gasoline at prices fixed by Union Oil. By reason of the lease and “consignment” agreement dealers are coercively laced into an arrangement under which their supplier is able to impose noncompetitive prices on thousands of persons whose prices otherwise might be competitive. The evil of this resale price maintenance program, like that of the requirements contracts held illegal by Standard Oil Co. v. United States, supra, is its inexorable potentiality for and even certainty in destroying competition in retail sales of gasoline by these nominal “consignees” who are in reality small struggling competitors seeking retail gas customers.
As we have said, an owner of an article may send it to a dealer who may in turn undertake to sell it only at a price determined by the owner. There is nothing illegal about that arrangement. • When, however, a “consignment” device is used to cover a vast gasoline distribution system, fixing prices through many retail outlets, the antitrust laws prevent calling the “consignment” an agency, for then the end result of United States v. Socony- Vacuum Oil Co., supra, would be avoided merely by clever manipulation of words, not by differences in substance. The present, coercive “consignment” device, if successful against challenge under- the antitrust laws, furnishes a wooden formula for administering prices on a vast scale.
Reliance is placed on United States v. General Electric Co., 272 U. S. 476, where a consignment arrangement was utilized to market patented articles. Union Oil correctly argues that the consignment in that case somewhat parallels the one in the instant case. The Court in the General Electric case did not restrict its ruling to patented articles; it, indeed, said that the use of the consignment device was available to the owners of articles “patented or otherwise.” Id., at 488. But whatever may be said of the General Electric case on its special facts, involving patents, it is not apposite to the special facts here.
The Court in that case particularly relied on the fact that patent rights have long included licenses “to make, use and vend” the patented article “for any royalty or upon any condition the performance of which is reasonably within the reward which the patentee by the grant of the patent is entitled to secure.” Id., at 489. Congress in establishing the patent system included 35 U. S. C. § 154, which provides in part: “Every patent shall contain a short title of the invention and a grant to the patentee, his heirs or assigns, for the term of seventeen years, of the right to exclude others from, making, using, or selling the invention throughout the United States, referring to the specification for the particulars thereof.” (Italics added.)
“The right to manufacture, the right to sell, and the right to use are each substantive rights, and may be granted or conferred separately by the patentee.” Adams v. Burke, 17 Wall. 453, 456. Long prior to the General Electric case, price fixing in the marketing of patented articles had been condoned (Bement v. National Harrow Co., 186 U. S. 70), provided it did not extend to sales by purchasers of the patented articles. Adams v. Burke, supra; Ethyl Gasoline Corp. v. United States, 309 U. S. 436.
The patent laws which give a 17-year monopoly on “making, using, or selling the invention” are in pari materia with the antitrust laws and modify them pro tanto. That was the ratio decidendi of the General Electric case. See 272 U. S., at 485. We decline the invitation to extend it.
To allow Union Oil to achieve price fixing in this vast distribution system through this “consignment” device would be to make legality for antitrust purposes turn on clever draftsmanship. We refuse to let a matter so vital to a competitive system rest on such easy manipulation. Cf. United States v. Masonite Corp., 316 U. S. 265, 280.
Hence on the issue of resale price maintenance under the Sherman Act there is nothing left to try, for there was an agreement for resale price maintenance, coercively employed.
The case must be remanded for a hearing on all the other issues in the case, including those raised under the McGuire Act, 66 Stat. 631,15 U. S. C. § 45, and the damages, if any, suffered. We intimate no views on any other issue; we hold only that resale price maintenance through the present, coercive type of “consignment” agreement is illegal under the antitrust laws, and that petitioner suffered actionable wrong or damage. We reserve the question whether, when all the facts are known, there may be any equities that would warrant only prospective application in damage suits of the rule governing price fixing by the “consignment” device which we announce today.
Reversed and remanded.
Me. Justice Harlan took no part in the disposition of this case.
As of December 31, 1957, Union Oil supplied gasoline to 4,133 retail stations in the eight western States of California, Washington, Oregon, Nevada, Arizona, Montana, Utah and Idaho. Of that figure, 2,003 stations were owned or leased by Union Oil and, in turn, leased or subleased to an independent retailer; 14 were company-operated training stations; and the remaining 2,116 stations were owned by the retailer or leased by him from third persons. Union Oil had “consignment” agreements as of that date with 1,978 (99%) of the lessee-retailers and with 1,327 (63%) of the nonlessee-retailers.
See the McGuire Act, 66 Stat. 631, 15 U. S. C. §45; the Miller-Tydings Act, 50 Stat. 693, 15 U. S. C. § 1; United States v. Socony-Vacuum Oil Co., 310 U. S. 150.
H. R. Rep. No. 1958, 85th Cong., 2d Sess., S. Rep. No. 1555, 85th Cong., 2d Sess.
H. R. Rep. No. 1958, supra, note 3, at 1.
See H. R. Rep. No. 1157, 85th Cong., 1st Sess., pp. 6-7. The Assistant Attorney General in charge of the Antitrust Division, Department of Justice, testified:
“Another issue relating to price fixing concerns certain of the practices which the major oil companies have used to preserve their tank wagon price structure; for example, the placing of the dealer on a commission or consignment agency basis, which narrows his normal margin of profit and effectively fixes the retail price.” Id., at 7. The Committee report said:
“One of the effects of this expansion of commission and consignment outlets is that more and more service station operators lose their status as independent businessmen. The selling price and gross margin of profit per gallon in the commission-type stations are wholly within the control of the supplier.” Ibid.
See Hearings, House Select Committee on Small Business, 85th Cong., 1st Sess., H. R. Res. 56, Pt. Ill, pp. 79-80. The same official gave this justification for the consignment program — a justification similar to that traditionally advanced for resale price maintenance:
“Consignment is our method of protecting our dealers’ profit margins during disturbed retail price conditions, at the same time maintaining our dealers’ positions as people handling a premium quality product. We have not used consignment as a means of unfair competition, nor has it been used to price any dealer out of any station. It has instead been used by us to maintain a competitive relationship between our dealers’ prices and those of our competitors.
“We are proud of our retail consignment program which has accomplished the ends outlined above. We have been able to make these accomplishments without taking away any of the independence of our dealers. Through our consignment program we have established and maintained under all conditions the minimum guaranteed margins for our dealers that are the best in the industry. It has brought our dealers one other substantial benefit also — and I would like to point this out strongly — they have available for other uses the investment which otherwise would be in gasoline inventories. This amounts to an average of $2,500 per dealer.
“If there is any suspicion or resentment by any dealers or dealer groups, it certainly appears that Union Oil Co.’s retail consignment program is a greatly misunderstood one. It does not remove any aspect of a dealer’s independence other than giving us the right to name the dealer’s selling prices. It has not been used to create or disturb any retail price situations and instead has, as a matter of fact, contributed materially to the economic welfare of our dealers.
“If we were today to withdraw the consignment program as it is now set up, we know that such action would be bitterly opposed by our dealers. Any problems that are laid at its doorstep — and there were some problems as there are in any new program — have been corrected to the point that a survey of our dealers today would reveal that the great majority of them are heartily in favor of consignment. We are able to offer the names of hundreds of our dealers who are in favor of the program.” Id., at 86-87.
The basic agreement in force during most of the period when Simpson was a consignee provided that his commission was per gallon more than the amount by which the price at which the company “authorized” him to sell exceeded a posted “tank wagon” price applicable to those gallons. However, if the “authorized” price fell below a posted “minimum retail” price, the commission was reduced by 50% of the difference between “minimum retail” and “authorized” retail. In no event could the commission be less than 5.950 for regular and 5.750 for ethyl.
Shortly before Simpson ceased to be a consignee the program was changed. The guaranteed minimum was eliminated and the consignee absorbed 20% of the difference if “authorized” prices fell below “minimum retail.” If the “authorized” price exceeded “minimum retail,” the commission increased by 80% of the excess, as compared with 100% thereof under the former plan.
See Klaus, Sale, Agency and Price Maintenance, 28 Col. L. Rev. 312, 441, 443-454 (1928).
A. A. Berle recently described the critical importance of price control to money making by the large oligarchies of business, or the “behemoths" as he calls them:
“Are these behemoths good at making goods — or merely good at making money ? Do they come out better because they manufacture more efficiently — or because they ‘control the market' and collect unduly high prices from the long-suffering American consumer?
“Again, no one quite knows. It is pretty clear that most prices are established only partly by competition, and partly by administration. Economists are just beginning to wrestle with the problem of 'administered' prices. The three or four ‘bigs’ in any particular line are happy to stay with a good price level for their product. If the price gets too high, some smart vice president in charge of sales may see a chance to take a fat slice of business away from his competitors.
“But while any one of the two or three bigs knows he can reduce prices and start taking all the business there is, he knows, too, that one or all of his associates will soon drop the price below that. In the ensuing price war, nobody will make money for quite a while.
“So, an uneasy balance is struck, and everyone’s price remains about the same. Shop around for an automobile and you will see how this works. Economists call it ‘imperfect competition’ — a tacitly accepted price that is not necessarily the price a stiff competitive free market would create. Only big concerns can swing this sort of competition effectively.
“We do not really know whether bigs make more money because they are efficient or because, through their size, they can ‘administer’ prices.” Bigness: Curse or Opportunity? New York Times Magazine, Feb. 18, 1962, pp. 18, 55, 58.
In General Electric the consignee was responsible for lost, damaged or missing items from the stock in his possession and the consignor assumed all risks of fire, flood and obsolescence, while in the instant case the consignee is “responsible to Consignor for all gasolines consigned to him, or for loss thereof or damage thereto from any cause whatsoever other than earthquake, lightning, flood, fire or explosion.not caused by his negligence and will pay Consignor for all gasolines sold, lost or damaged."
In General Electric the consignees were, in their regular business, wholesale or retail merchants of other merchandise and some of them had previously so handled the consignor’s lamps, while in the instant case the consignees, although some of them had previously been regular retail merchants, deal exclusively in the consignor’s gasoline.
General Electric Co. paid “all” taxes assessed on the stock of lamps, whereas Union Oil pays only property taxes.
General Electric Co. carried “whatever insurance is carried” on the stock held by consignees, while Union Oil apparently is not obligated to carry any insurance.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer:
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H
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sc_issuearea
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What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Justice O’Connor
delivered the opinion of the Court.
This case presents two questions regarding the enforceability of predispute arbitration agreements between brokerage firms and their customers. The first is whether a claim brought under § 10(b) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 (Exchange Act), 48 Stat. 891, 15 U. S. C. §78j(b), must be sent to arbitration in accordance with the terms of an arbitration agreement. The second is whether a claim brought under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO), 18 U. S. C. § 1961 et seq., must be arbitrated in accordance with the terms of such an agreement.
f — i
Between 1980 and 1982, respondents Eugene and Julia McMahon, individually and as trustees for various pension and profit-sharing plans, were customers of petitioner Shear-son/American Express Inc. (Shearson), a brokerage firm registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC or Commission). Two customer agreements signed by Julia McMahon provided for arbitration of any controversy relating to the accounts the McMahons maintained with Shearson. The arbitration provision provided in relevant part as follows:
“Unless unenforceable due to federal or state law, any controversy arising out of or relating to my accounts, to transactions with you for me or to this agreement or the breach thereof, shall be settled by arbitration in accordance with the rules, then in effect, of the National Association of Securities Dealers, Inc. or the Boards of Directors of the New York Stock Exchange, Inc. and/or the American Stock Exchange, Inc. as I may elect.” 618 F. Supp. 384, 385 (1985).
In October 1984, the McMahons filed an amended complaint against Shearson and petitioner Mary Ann McNulty, the registered representative who handled their accounts, in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York. The complaint alleged that McNulty, with Shearson’s knowledge, had violated § 10(b) of the Exchange Act and Rule 10b-5, 17 CFR §240.10b-5 (1986), by engaging in fraudulent, excessive trading on respondents’ accounts and by making false statements and omitting material facts from the advice given to respondents. The complaint also alleged a RICO claim, 18 U. S. C. § 1962(c), and state law claims for fraud and breach of fiduciary duties.
Relying on the customer agreements, petitioners moved to compel arbitration of the McMahons’ claims pursuant to § 3 of the Federal Arbitration Act, 9 U. S. C. §3. The District Court granted the motion in part. 618 F. Supp. 384 (1985). The court first rejected the McMahons’ contention that the arbitration agreements were unenforceable as contracts of adhesion. It then found that the McMahons’ § 10(b) claims were arbitrable under the terms of the agreement, concluding that such a result followed from this Court’s decision in Dean Witter Reynolds Inc. v. Byrd, 470 U. S. 213 (1985), and the “strong national policy favoring the enforcement of arbitration agreements.” 618 F. Supp., at 388. The District Court also held that the McMahons’ state law claims were ar-bitrable under Dean Witter Reynolds Inc. v. Byrd, supra. It concluded, however, that the McMahons’ RICO claim was not arbitrable “because of the important federal policies inherent in the enforcement of RICO by the federal courts.” 618 F. Supp., at 387.
The Court of Appeals affirmed the District Court on the state law and RICO claims, but it reversed on the Exchange Act claims. 788 F. 2d 94 (1986). With respect to the RICO claim, the Court of Appeals concluded that “public policy” considerations made it “inappropriat[e]” to apply the provisions of the Arbitration Act to RICO suits. Id., at 98. The court reasoned that RICO claims are “not merely a private matter.” Ibid. Because a RICO plaintiff may be likened to a “private attorney general” protecting the public interest, ibid., the Court of Appeals concluded that such claims should be adjudicated only in a judicial forum. It distinguished this Court’s reasoning in Mitsubishi Motors Corp. v. Soler Chrysler-Plymouth, Inc., 473 U. S. 614 (1985), concerning the arbitrability of antitrust claims, on the ground that it involved international business transactions and did not affect the law “as applied to agreements to arbitrate arising from domestic transactions.” 788 F. 2d, at 98.
With respect to respondents’ Exchange Act claims, the Court of Appeals noted that under Wilko v. Swan, 346 U. S. 427 (1953), claims arising under § 12(2) of the Securities Act of 1933 (Securities Act), 48 Stat. 84, 15 U. S. C. § 77((2), are not subject to compulsory arbitration. The Court of Appeals observed that it previously had extended the Wilko rule to claims arising under § 10(b) of the Exchange Act and Rule 10b-5. See, e. g., Allegaert v. Perot, 548 F. 2d 432 (CA2), cert. denied, 432 U. S. 910 (1977); Greater Continental Corp. v. Schechter, 422 F. 2d 1100 (CA2 1970). The court acknowledged that Scherk v. Alberto-Culver Co., 417 U. S. 506 (1974), and Dean Witter Reynolds Inc. v. Byrd, supra, had “cast some doubt on the applicability of Wilko to claims under § 10(b).” 788 F. 2d, at 97. The Court of Appeals nevertheless concluded that it was bound by the “clear judicial precedent in this Circuit,” and held that Wilko must be applied to Exchange Act claims. 788 F. 2d, at 98.
We granted certiorari, 479 U. S. 812 (1986), to resolve the conflict among the Courts of Appeals regarding the arbitra-bility of § 10(b) and RICO claims.
HH HH
The Federal Arbitration Act, 9 U. S. C. §1 et seq., provides the starting point for answering the questions raised in this case. The Act was intended to “revers[e] centuries of judicial hostility to arbitration agreements,” Scherk v. Alberto-Culver Co., supra, at 510, by “placing] arbitration agreements ‘upon the same footing as other contracts.’ ” 417 U. S., at 511, quoting H. R. Rep. No. 96, 68th Cong., 1st Sess., 1, 2 (1924). The Arbitration Act accomplishes this purpose by providing that arbitration agreements “shall be valid, irrevocable, and enforceable, save upon such grounds as exist at law or in equity for the revocation of any contract.” 9 U. S. C. §2. The Act also provides that a court must stay its proceedings if it is satisfied that an issue before it is arbitrable under the agreement, § 3; and it authorizes a federal district court to issue an order compelling arbitration if there has been a “failure, neglect, or refusal” to comply with the arbitration agreement, § 4.
The Arbitration Act thus establishes a “federal policy favoring arbitration,” Moses H. Cone Memorial Hospital v. Mercury Construction Corp., 460 U. S. 1, 24 (1983), requiring that “we rigorously enforce agreements to arbitrate.” Dean Witter Reynolds Inc. v. Byrd, supra, at 221. This duty to enforce arbitration agreements is not diminished when a party bound by an agreement raises a claim founded on statutory rights. As we observed in Mitsubishi Motors Corp. v. Soler Chrysler-Plymouth, Inc., “we are well past the time when judicial suspicion of the desirability of arbitration and of the competence of arbitral tribunals” should inhibit enforcement of the Act “‘in controversies based on statutes.’” 473 U. S., at 626-627, quoting Wilko v. Swan, supra, at 432. Absent a well-founded claim that an arbitration agreement resulted from the sort of fraud or excessive economic power that “would provide grounds ‘for the revocation of any contract,’” 473 U. S., at 627, the Arbitration Act “provides no basis for disfavoring agreements to arbitrate statutory claims by skewing the otherwise hospitable inquiry into arbitra-bility.” Ibid.
The Arbitration Act, standing alone, therefore mandates enforcement of agreements to arbitrate statutory claims. Like any statutory directive, the Arbitration Act’s mandate may be overridden by a contrary congressional command. The burden is on the party opposing arbitration, however, to show that Congress intended to preclude a waiver of judicial remedies for the statutory rights at issue. See id., at 628. If Congress did intend to limit or prohibit waiver of a judicial forum for a particular claim, such an intent “will be deducible from [the statute’s] text or legislative history,” ibid., or from an inherent conflict between arbitration and the statute’s underlying purposes. See id., at 632-637; Dean Witter Reynolds Inc. v. Byrd, 470 U. S., at 217.
To defeat application of the Arbitration Act in this case, therefore, the McMahons must demonstrate that Congress intended to make an exception to the Arbitration Act for claims arising under RICO and the Exchange Act, an intention discernible from the text, history, or purposes of the statute. We examine the McMahons’ arguments regarding the Exchange Act and RICO in turn.
rH J — I I — I
When Congress enacted the Exchange Act in 1934, it did not specifically address the question of the arbitrability of § 10(b) claims. The McMahons contend, however, that congressional intent to require a judicial forum for the resolution of § 10(b) claims can be deduced from § 29(a) of the Exchange Act, 15 U. S. C. § 78cc(a), which declares void “[a]ny condition, stipulation, or provision binding any person to waive compliance with any provision of [the Act].”
First, we reject the McMahons’ argument that § 29(a) forbids waiver of § 27 of the Exchange Act, 15 U. S. C. § 78aa. Section 27 provides in relevant part:
“The district courts of the United States... shall have exclusive jurisdiction of violations of this title or the rules and regulations thereunder, and of all suits in equity and actions at law brought to enforce any liability or duty created by this title or the rules and regulations thereunder.”
The McMahons contend that an agreement to waive this jurisdictional provision is unenforceable because § 29(a) voids the waiver of “any provision” of the Exchange Act. The language of § 29(a), however, does not reach so far. What the antiwaiver provision of § 29(a) forbids is enforcement of agreements to waive “compliance” with the provisions of the statute. But § 27 itself does not impose any duty with which persons trading in securities must “comply.” By its terms, § 29(a) only prohibits waiver of the substantive obligations imposed by the Exchange Act. Because § 27 does not impose any statutory duties, its waiver does not constitute a waiver of “compliance with any provision” of the Exchange Act under § 29(a).
We do not read Wilko v. Swan, 346 U. S. 427 (1953), as compelling a different result. In Wilko, the Court held that a predispute agreement could not be enforced to compel arbitration of a claim arising under § 12(2) of the Securities Act, 15 U. S. C. § 772(2). The basis for the ruling was § 14 of the Securities Act, which, like § 29(a) of the Exchange Act, declares void any stipulation “to waive compliance with any provision” of the statute. At the beginning of its analysis, the Wilko Court stated that the Securities Act’s jurisdictional provision was “the kind of ‘provision’ that cannot be waived under § 14 of the Securities Act.” 346 U. S., at 435. This statement, however, can only be understood in the context of the Court’s ensuing discussion explaining why arbitration was inadequate as a means of enforcing “the provisions of the Securities Act, advantageous to the buyer.” Ibid. The conclusion in Wilko was expressly based on the Court’s belief that a judicial forum was needed to protect the substantive rights created by the Securities Act: “As the protective provisions of the Securities Act require the exercise of judicial direction to fairly assure their effectiveness, it seems to us that Congress must have intended § 14...to apply to waiver of judicial trial and review.” Id., at 437. Wilko must be understood, therefore, as holding that the plaintiff’s waiver of the “right to select the judicial forum,” id., at 435, was unenforceable only because arbitration was judged inadequate to enforce the statutory rights created by § 12(2).
Indeed, any different reading of Wilko would be inconsistent with this Court’s decision in Scherk v. Alberto-Culver Co., 417 U. S. 506 (1974). In Scherk, the Court upheld enforcement of a predispute agreement to arbitrate Exchange Act claims by parties to an international contract. The Scherk Court assumed for purposes of its opinion that Wilko applied to the Exchange Act, but it determined that an international contract “involve[d] considerations and policies significantly different from those found controlling in Wilko.” 417 U. S., at 515. The Court reasoned that arbitration reduced the uncertainty of international contracts and obviated the danger that a dispute might be submitted to a hostile or unfamiliar forum. At the same time, the Court noted that the advantages of judicial resolution were diminished by the possibility that the opposing party would make “speedy resort to a foreign court.” Id., at 518. The decision in Scherk thus turned on the Court’s judgment that under the circumstances of that case, arbitration was an adequate substitute for adjudication as a means of enforcing the parties’ statutory rights. Scherk supports our understanding that Wilko must be read as barring waiver of a judicial forum only where arbitration is inadequate to protect the substantive rights at issue. At the same time, it confirms that where arbitration does provide an adequate means of enforcing the provisions of the Exchange Act, § 29(a) does not void a pre-dispute waiver of § 27 — Scherk upheld enforcement of just such a waiver.
The second argument offered by the McMahons is that the arbitration agreement effects an impermissible waiver of the substantive protections of the Exchange Act. Ordinarily, “[b]y agreeing to arbitrate a statutory claim, a party does not forgo the substantive rights afforded by the statute; it only submits to their resolution in an arbitral, rather than a judicial, forum.” Mitsubishi Motors Corp. v. Soler-Chrysler-Plymouth, Inc., 473 U. S., at 628. The McMahons argue, however, that § 29(a) compels a different conclusion. Initially, they contend that predispute agreements are void under § 29(a) because they tend to result from broker overreaching. They reason, as do some commentators, that Wilko is premised on the belief “that arbitration clauses in securities sales agreements generally are not freely negotiated.” See, e. g., Sterk, Enforceability of Agreements to Arbitrate: An Examination of the Public Policy Defense, 2 Cardozo L. Rev. 481, 519 (1981). According to this view, Wilko barred enforcement of predispute agreements because of this frequent inequality of bargaining power, reasoning that Congress intended for § 14 generally to ensure that sellers did not “maneuver buyers into a position that might weaken their ability to recover under the Securities Act.” 346 U. S., at 432. The McMahons urge that we should interpret § 29(a) in the same fashion.
We decline to give Wilko a reading so far at odds with the plain language of § 14, or to adopt such an unlikely interpretation of § 29(a). The concern that § 29(a) is directed against is evident from the statute’s plain language: it is a concern with whether an agreement “waive[s] compliance with [a] provision” of the Exchange Act. The voluntariness of the agreement is irrelevant to this inquiry: if a stipulation waives compliance with a statutory duty, it is void under § 29(a), whether voluntary or not. Thus, a customer cannot negotiate a reduction in commissions in exchange for a waiver of compliance with the requirements of the Exchange Act, even if the customer knowingly and voluntarily agreed to the bargain. Section 29(a) is concerned, not with whether brokers “maneuvered customers] into” an agreement, but with whether the agreement “weaken[s] their ability to recover under the [Exchange] Act.” 346 U. S., at 432. The former is grounds for revoking the contract under ordinary principles of contract law; the latter is grounds for voiding the agreement under § 29(a).
The other reason advanced by the McMahons for finding a waiver of their § 10(b) rights is that arbitration does “weaken their ability to recover under the [Exchange] Act.” Ibid. That is the heart of the Court’s decision in Wilko, and respondents urge that we should follow its reasoning. Wilko listed several grounds why, in the Court’s view, the “effectiveness [of the Act’s provisions] in application is lessened in arbitration.” 346 U. S., at 435. First, the Wilko Court believed that arbitration proceedings were not suited to cases requiring “subjective findings on the purpose and knowledge of an alleged violator.” Id., at 435-436. Wilko also was concerned that arbitrators must make legal determinations “without judicial instruction on the law,” and that an arbitration award “may be made without explanation of [the arbitrator’s] reasons and without a complete record of their proceedings.” Id., at 436. Finally, Wilko noted that the “[p]ower to vacate an award is limited,” and that “interpretations of the law by the arbitrators in contrast to manifest disregard are not subject, in the federal courts, to judicial review for error in interpretation.” Id., at 436-437. Wilko concluded that in view of these drawbacks to arbitration, §12(2) claims “require[d] the exercise of judicial direction to fairly assure their effectiveness.” Id., at 437.
As Justice Frankfurter noted in his dissent in Wilko, the Court’s opinion did not rest on any evidence, either “in the record... [or] in the facts of which [it could] take judicial notice,” that “the arbitral system... would not afford the plaintiff the rights to which he is entitled.” Id., at 439. Instead, the reasons given in Wilko reflect a general suspicion of the desirability of arbitration and the competence of arbitral tribunals — most apply with no greater force to the arbitration of securities disputes than to the arbitration of legal disputes generally. It is difficult to reconcile Wilko’s mistrust of the arbitral process with this Court’s subsequent decisions involving the Arbitration Act. See, e. g., Mitsubishi Motors Corp. v. Soler Chrysler-Plymouth, Inc., supra; Dean Witter Reynolds Inc. v. Byrd, 470 U. S. 213 (1985); Southland Corp. v. Keating, 465 U. S. 1 (1984); Moses H. Cone Memorial Hospital v. Mercury Construction Corp., 460 U. S. 1 (1983); Scherk v. Alberto-Culver Co., 417 U. S. 506 (1974).
Indeed, most of the reasons given in Wilko have been rejected subsequently by the Court as a basis for holding claims to be nonarbitrable. In Mitsubishi, for example, we recognized that arbitral tribunals are readily capable of handling the factual and legal complexities of antitrust claims, notwithstanding the absence of judicial instruction and supervision. See 473 U. S., at 633-634. Likewise, we have concluded that the streamlined procedures of arbitration do not entail any consequential restriction on substantive rights. Id., at 628. Finally, we have indicated that there is no reason to assume at the outset that arbitrators will not follow the law; although judicial scrutiny of arbitration awards necessarily is limited, such review is sufficient to ensure that arbitrators comply with the requirements of the statute. See id., at 636-637, and n. 19 (declining to assume that arbitration will not be resolved in accordance with statutory law, but reserving consideration of “effect of an arbitral tribunal’s failure to take cognizance of the statutory cause of action on the claimant’s capacity to reinstate suit in federal court”).
The suitability of arbitration as a means of enforcing Exchange Act rights is evident from our decision in Scherk. Although the holding in that case was limited to international agreements, the competence of arbitral tribunals to resolve § 10(b) claims is the same in both settings. Courts likewise have routinely enforced agreements to arbitrate § 10(b) claims where both parties are members of a securities exchange or the National Association of Securities Dealers (NASD), suggesting that arbitral tribunals are fully capable of handling such matters. See, e. g., Axelrod & Co. v. Kordich, Victor & Neufeld, 320 F. Supp. 193 (SDNY 1970), aff’d, 451 F. 2d 838 (CA2 1971); Brown v. Gilligan, Will & Co., 287 F. Supp. 766 (SDNY 1968). And courts uniformly have concluded that Wilko does not apply to the submission to arbitration of existing disputes, see, e. g., Gardner v. Shearson, Hammill & Co., 433 F. 2d 367 (CA5 1970); Moran v. Paine, Webber, Jackson & Curtis, 389 F. 2d 242 (CA3 1968), even though the inherent suitability of arbitration as a means of resolving § 10(b) claims remains unchanged. Cf. Mitsubishi, 473 U. S., at 633.
Thus, the mistrust of arbitration that formed the basis for the Wilko opinion in 1953 is difficult to square with the assessment of arbitration that has prevailed since that time. This is especially so in light of the intervening changes in the regulatory structure of the securities laws. Even if Wilko’s assumptions regarding arbitration were valid at the time Wilko was decided, most certainly they do not hold true today for arbitration procedures subject to the SEC’s oversight authority.
In 1953, when Wilko was decided, the Commission had only limited authority over the rules governing self-regulatory organizations (SROs) — the national securities exchanges and registered securities associations — and this authority appears not to have included any authority at all over their arbitration rules. See Brief for Securities and Exchange Commission as Amicus Curiae 14-15. Since the 1975 amendments to § 19 of the Exchange Act, however, the Commission has had expansive power to ensure the adequacy of the arbitration procedures employed by the SROs. No proposed rule change may take effect unless the SEC finds that the proposed rule is consistent with the requirements of the Exchange Act, 15 U. S. C. § 78s(b)(2); and the Commission has the power, on its own initiative, to “abrogate, add to, and delete from” any SRO rule if it finds such changes necessary or appropriate to further the objectives of the Act, 15 U. S. C. § 78s(c). In short, the Commission has broad authority to oversee and to regulate the rules adopted by the SROs relating to customer disputes, including the power to mandate the adoption of any rules it deems necessary to ensure that arbitration procedures adequately protect statutory rights.
In the exercise of its regulatory authority, the SEC has specifically approved the arbitration procedures of the New York Stock Exchange, the American Stock Exchange, and the NASD, the organizations mentioned in the arbitration agreement at issue in this case. We conclude that where, as in this case, the prescribed procedures are subject to the Commission’s § 19 authority, an arbitration agreement does not effect a waiver of the protections of the Act. While stare decisis concerns may counsel against upsetting Wilko’s contrary conclusion under the Securities Act, we refuse to extend Wilko’s reasoning to the Exchange Act in light of these intervening regulatory developments. The McMahons’ agreement to submit to arbitration therefore is not tantamount to an impermissible waiver of the McMahons’ rights under § 10(b), and the agreement is not void on that basis under § 29(a).
The final argument offered by the McMahons is that even if § 29(a) as enacted does not void predispute arbitration agreements, Congress subsequently has indicated that it desires § 29(a) to be so interpreted. According to the McMahons, Congress expressed this intent when it failed to make more extensive changes to § 28(b), 15 U. S. C. §78bb(b), in the 1975 amendments to the Exchange Act. Before its amendment, § 28(b) provided in relevant part:
“Nothing in this chapter shall be construed to modify existing law (1) with regard to the binding effect on any member of any exchange of any action taken by the authorities of such exchange to settle disputes between its members, or (2) with regard to the binding effect of such action on any person who has agreed to be bound thereby, or (3) with regard to the binding effect on any such member of any disciplinary action taken by the authorities of the exchange.” 48 Stat. 903.
The chief aim of this provision was to preserve the self-regulatory role of the securities exchanges, by giving the exchanges a means of enforcing their rules against their members. See, e. g., Tullis v. Kohlmeyer & Co., 551 F. 2d 632, 638 (CA5 1977) (“[P]reserv[ing] for the stock exchanges a major self-regulatory role... is the basis of § 28(b)”); Axelrod & Co. v. Kordich, Victor & Neufeld, 451 F. 2d, at 840-841. In 1975, Congress made extensive revisions to the Exchange Act intended to “clarify the scope of the self-regulatory responsibilities of national securities exchanges and registered securities associations... and the manner in which they are to exercise those responsibilities.” S. Rep. No. 94-75, p. 22 (1975). In making these changes, the Senate Report observed: “The self-regulatory organizations must exercise governmental-type powers if they are to carry out their responsibilities under the Exchange Act. When a member violates the Act or a self-regulatory organization’s rules, the organization must be in a position to impose appropriate penalties or to revoke relevant privileges.” Id., at 24.
The amendments to § 28 reflect this objective. Paragraph (3) of § 28(b) was deleted and replaced with new § 28(c), which provided that the validity of any disciplinary action taken by an SRO would not be affected by a subsequent decision by the SEC to stay or modify the sanction. See 15 U. S. C. §78bb(c). At the same time, § 28(b) was expanded to ensure that all SROs as well as the Municipal Securities Rule-making Board had the power to enforce their substantive rules against their members. Section 28(b), as amended, provides:
“Nothing in this chapter shall be construed to modify existing law with regard to the binding effect (1) on any member of or participant in any self-regulatory organization of any action taken by the authorities of such organization to settle disputes between its members or participants, (2) on any municipal securities dealer or municipal securities broker of any action taken pursuant to a procedure established by the Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board to settle disputes between municipal securities dealers and municipal securities brokers, or (3) of any action described in paragraph (1) or (2) on any person who has agreed to be bound thereby.”
Thus, the amended version of § 28(b), like the original, mentions neither customers nor arbitration. It is directed at an entirely different problem: enhancing the self-regulatory function of the SROs under the Exchange Act.
The McMahons nonetheless argue that we should find it significant that Congress did not take this opportunity to address the general question of the arbitrability of Exchange Act claims. Their argument is based entirely on a sentence from the Conference Report, which they contend amounts to a ratification of Wilko’s extension to Exchange Act claims. The Conference Report states:
“The Senate bill amended section 28 of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 with respect to arbitration proceedings between self-regulatory organizations and their participants, members, or persons dealing with members or participants. The House amendment contained no comparable provision. The House receded to the Senate. It was the clear understanding of the conferees that this amendment did not change existing law, as articulated in Wilko v. Swan, 346 U. S. 427 (1953), concerning the effect of arbitration proceedings provisions in agreements entered into by persons dealing with members and participants of self-regulatory organizations.” H. R. Conf. Rep. No. 94-229, p. 111 (1975).
The McMahons contend that the conferees would not have acknowledged Wilko in a revision of the Exchange Act unless they were aware of lower court decisions extending Wilko to § 10(b) claims and intended to approve them. We find this argument fraught with difficulties. We cannot see how Congress could extend Wilko to the Exchange Act without enacting into law any provision remotely addressing that subject. See Train v. City of New York, 420 U. S. 35, 45 (1975). And even if it could, there is little reason to interpret the Report as the McMahons suggest. At the out-. set, the committee may well have mentioned Wilko for a reason entirely different from the one postulated by the Mc-Mahons — lower courts had applied § 28(b) to the Securities Act, see, e. g., Axelrod & Co. v. Kordich, Victor & Neufeld, supra, at 843, and the committee may simply have wished to make clear that the amendment to § 28(b) was not otherwise intended to affect Wilko’s construction of the Securities Act. Moreover, even if the committee were referring to the arbitrability of § 10(b) claims, the quoted sentence does not disclose what committee members thought “existing law” provided. The conference members might have had in mind the two Court of Appeals decisions extending Wilko to the Exchange Act, as the McMahons contend. See Greater Continental Corp. v. Schechter, 422 F. 2d 1100 (CA2 1970); Moran v. Paine, Webber, Jackson & Curtis, 389 F. 2d 242 (CA3 1968). It is equally likely, however, that the committee had in mind this Court’s decision the year before expressing doubts as to whether Wilko should be extended to § 10 (b) claims. See Scherk v. Alberto-Culver Co., 417 U. S., at 513 (“[A] colorable argument could be made that even the semantic reasoning of the Wilko opinion does not control [a case based on § 10(b)]”). Finally, even assuming the conferees had an understanding of existing law that all agreed upon, they specifically disclaimed any intent to change it. Hence, the Wilko issue was left to the courts: it was unaffected by the amendment to § 28(b). This statement of congressional inaction simply does not support the proposition that the 1975 Congress intended to engraft onto unamended § 29(a) a meaning different from that of the enacting Congress.
We conclude, therefore, that Congress did not intend for § 29(a) to bar enforcement of all predispute arbitration agreements. In this case, where the SEC has sufficient statutory authority to ensure that arbitration is adequate to vindicate Exchange Act rights, enforcement does not effect a waiver of “compliance with any provision” of the Exchange Act under § 29(a). Accordingly, we hold the McMahons’ agreements to arbitrate Exchange Act claims “enforceable]... in accord with the explicit provisions of the Arbitration Act.” Scherk v. Alberto-Culver Co., supra, at 520.
> hH
Unlike the Exchange Act, there is nothing in the text of the RICO statute that even arguably evinces congressional intent to exclude civil RICO claims from the dictates of the Arbitration Act. This silence in the text is matched by silence in the statute’s legislative history. The private treble-damages provision codified as 18 U. S. C. § 1964(c) was added to the House version of the bill after the bill had been passed by the Senate, and it received only abbreviated discussion in either House. See Sedima, S. P. R. L. v. Imrex Co., 473 U. S. 479, 486-488 (1985). There is no hint in these legislative debates that Congress intended for RICO treble-damages claims to be excluded from the ambit of the Arbitration Act. See Genesco, Inc. v. T. Kakiuchi & Co., Ltd., 815 F. 2d 840, 850-851 (CA2 1987); Mayaja, Inc. v. Bodkin, 803 F. 2d 157, 164 (CA5 1986).
Because RICO’s text and legislative history fail to reveal any intent to override the provisions of the Arbitration Act, the McMahons must argue that there is an irreconcilable conflict between arbitration and RICO’s underlying purposes. Our decision in Mitsubishi Motors Corp. v. Soler Chrysler-Plymouth, Inc., 473 U. S. 614 (1985), however, already has addressed many of the grounds given by the McMahons to support this claim. In Mitsubishi, we held that nothing in the nature of the federal antitrust laws prohibits parties from agreeing to arbitrate antitrust claims arising out of international commercial transactions. Although the holding in Mitsubishi was limited to the international context, see id., at 629, much of its reasoning is equally applicable here. Thus, for example, the McMahons have argued that RICO claims are too complex to be subject to arbitration. We determined in Mitsubishi, however, that “potential complexity should not suffice to ward off arbitration.” Id., at 633. Antitrust matters are every bit as complex as RICO claims, but we found that the “adaptability and access to expertise” characteristic of arbitration rebutted the view “that an arbitral tribunal could not properly handle an antitrust matter.” Id., at 633-634.
Likewise, the McMahons contend that the “overlap” between RICO’s civil and criminal provisions renders § 1964(c) claims nonarbitrable. See Page v. Moseley, Hallgarten, Estabrook & Weeden, Inc., 806 F. 2d 291, 299, n. 13 (CA1 1986) (“[T]he makings of a ‘pattern of racketeering’ are not yet clear, but the fact remains that a ‘pattern’ for civil purposes is a ‘pattern
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer:
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H
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sc_issuearea
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What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Mr. Justice Rutledge
delivered the opinion of the Court.
The principal question is whether a lessee of mineral rights in allotted and restricted Indian lands is immunized by the Constitution against payment of nondiscriminatory state gross production taxes and state excise taxes on petroleum produced from such lands. In effect the issue is whether this Court’s previous decisions in Howard v. Gipsy Oil Co., 247 U. S. 503; Large Oil Co. v. Howard, 248 U. S. 549; and Oklahoma v. Barnsdall Refineries, 296 U. S. 521, invalidating such taxes as applied to like lessees, have been so undermined by later decisions, in particular Helvering v. Mountain Producers Corp., 303 U. S. 376, that they should now be overruled.
With certain exceptions, the lands from which was extracted the petroleum sought to be taxed are held in trust by the United States, pursuant to allotments made under the General Allotment Act, for various members of the Pottawatomie, Apache, Comanche, and Otoe and Missouria Tribes. All the lands are located within the State of Oklahoma and at all material times they were restricted against alienation by the Indian cestui owners without the consent of the Secretary of the Interior. He approved each of the leases now in question. The respondents Texas Company (No. 40) and Magnolia Petroleum Company (No. 41) acquired their leases before Oklahoma levied the assessments now in issue, either as original lessees or by assignment from non-Indians who were such lessees. The companies thus became owners of all right, title and interest in their respective leases, subject only to the one-eighth royalty interest reserved to the Indian lessors, and were such owners at the times of the respective assessments. It may be taken that they have operated the leases in conformity with the applicable regulations of the Department of the Interior and of the State of Oklahoma, except for the payment of the state taxes in question.
The Oklahoma gross production tax requires payment of five per cent of the gross value of production, including royalty interests. It is imposed on every person engaged in the production in Oklahoma of petroleum, crude oil or other mineral oil, and natural gas and casinghead gas. The tax is exacted in lieu of all taxes by the state and its political subdivisions on property rights in minerals and mineral rights, producing leases, machinery used in connection with any oil or gas well, the oil and gas during the tax year in which it is produced, and any investment in any leases, minerals, or other property. The statute authorizes the state board of equalization to raise or lower the rate of tax to equate the amount payable with the amount which would be payable if the general ad valorem property tax were assessed against the property of the producers subject to taxation. The board’s rate changes are subject to review by the state supreme court. In consequence of these provisions, the tax has been construed consistently by the state courts to be a tax on the lessee’s property, not an occupation or excise tax.
The petroleum excise tax requires payment of one mill, formerly one-eighth of one cent, per barrel on every barrel of petroleum produced in Oklahoma. The statute was enacted first in 1933 to defray the expenses of administering the state’s newly adopted proration law and has been reenacted at each subsequent session of the legislature. The tax, unlike the gross production tax, is construed by the Oklahoma Supreme Court as an excise tax on the production of oil. Barnsdall Refineries v. Oklahoma Tax Commission, 171 Okla. 145, affirmed, 296 U. S. 521.
In No. 40 the Oklahoma Tax Commission, petitioner here, assessed both gross production and petroleum excise taxes against the Texas Company for production, less royalties to the Indian lessors, during September, October and November, 1942. In No. 41 the commission likewise assessed both taxes, less royalties, on the Magnolia Company’s production for various periods between June 1, 1942, and March 1, 1946. The orders were entered after the cases were consolidated for hearing before the commission and were thus heard by it.
In No. 40 the Texas Company paid the taxes under protest and brought suit to recover them in an Oklahoma trial court. After hearing, that court sustained the commission’s demurrer to the company’s amended petition and ordered it dismissed. Appeal was duly taken to the state supreme court. In No. 41, following a different statutory procedure, the Magnolia Company appealed from the assessments against it directly to that court.
In both cases the Supreme Court of Oklahoma, with one judge dissenting, held the assessments invalid. The decisions rested flatly on the ground that the lessee was an instrumentality of the Federal Government and as such, under prior and controlling decisions of this Court, particularly in the Large Oil, Gipsy Oil, and Barnsdall Refineries cases, supra, not subject to the taxes in question. In the Texas Company case the court expressly distinguished Helvering v. Mountain Producers Corp., supra, on the ground that the decision in that case related to income taxes assessed against the lessee there situated as were the lessees here. The opinion, indicating the writer’s personal view that reconsideration of the earlier decisions well might be sought, nevertheless stated:
“But it is thought beyond the power of this court to now engage in such reconsideration, in view of the cited decisions of the higher authority which thus far wholly sustain the claim of [the Texas Company] to immunity from the tax here involved.
“Upon questions of federal law, citizens and their attorneys have the right to rely upon decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States, and upon such questions it is our fixed duty to follow such decisions, leaving to the United States Congress or Supreme Court the making of the necessary changes in such legal rules.”
From the state supreme court’s decisions the Oklahoma Tax Commission filed appeals in this Court. We dismissed the appeals for want of jurisdiction. But treating them as applications for certiorari, we granted the writs and consolidated the cases for argument. 333 U. S. 870. The Solicitor General was requested to file a brief as amicus curiae.
I.
But for the course of decision here from Choctaw, O. & G. R. Co. v. Harrison, 235 U. S. 292, decided in 1914, to Oklahoma v. Barnsdall Refineries, 296 U. S. 521, decided in 1936, the problems of taxation and intergovernmental immunity these cases present would seem subject to solution on well-settled or fairly obvious legal principles.
It has long been established that property owned by a private person and used by him in performing services for the Federal Government is subject to state and local ad valorem taxes. And the oil and gas produced is, of course, subject to such taxation. Indian Territory Illuminating Oil Co. v. Board of Equalization, 288 U. S. 325. Both by the substance of the statute’s explicit provisions and by the consistent construction of the Oklahoma Supreme Court,' that state’s so-called gross production tax in its presently applicable form is a tax on the lessee’s property used in carrying- out its contractual obligations with the Federal Government and on the oil and gas during the tax year in which it was produced. The tax is levied expressly in lieu of all property taxes which the state might constitutionally impose in ad valorem form, the gross production levy being a tentative measure for the value of that property. To guard against that measure’s being utilized to lay in effect a tax not actually of that character, the state board of equalization is authorized, indeed is required upon complaint, to equate the amount payable with what would be payable if the general ad valorem tax were assessed against the property of the producing lessees subject to taxation, with provision for judicial review of the board’s action.
Unembarrassed by some of this Court’s prior decisions, therefore, Oklahoma’s so-called gross production tax would seem to be sustained by the well-established line of decisions cited above.
Moreover, even if the status of respondents as federal instrumentalities, in the sense in which they use the term, were fully conceded, it seems difficult to imagine how any substantial interference with performing their functions as such in developing the leaseholds could be thought to flow from requiring them to pay the small tax Oklahoma exacts to satisfy their shares of the state’s expense in maintaining and administering its proration program. That system works for respondents’ benefit in performing their producing function, as it does for the benefit of all other producers, by stabilizing, production, eliminating waste, and preventing runaway competition in an industry notorious for those evils in the absence of some such control. Cf. Railroad Commission v. Rowan & Nichols Oil Co., 310 U. S. 573; Republic Gas Co. v. Oklahoma, 334 U. S. 62, dissenting opinion Part III, 89. Indeed respondents do not claim they are exempt from the plan’s regulatory features. They claim only that they are constitutionally immune from contributing to the plan’s support. As a matter entirely fresh, the contention would not seem weighty.
II.
But neither issue is fresh. Each is complicated by this Court’s prior decisions squarely ruling that the taxes are invalid as unconstitutional intrusions by the state upon the performance of federal functions. Those decisions have not been explicitly overruled. But it is strongly urged that our later decisions, especially in Helvering v. Mountain Producers Corp., supra, have stricken the foundation from beneath the Gipsy Oil, Large Oil and Barnsdall Refineries decisions, supra, so that the latter no longer can stand in reason and consistency with the former.
It is true that this Court’s more recent pronouncements have beaten a fairly large retreat from its formerly prevailing ideas concerning the breadth of so-called intergovernmental immunities from taxation, a retreat which has run in both directions — to restrict the scope of immunity of private persons seeking to clothe themselves with governmental character from both federal and state taxation. The history of the immunity, by and large in both aspects, represents a rising or expanding curve, tapering off into a falling or contracting one.
Our present problem lies on the constitutional level. It requires reconsideration of former decisions specifically in point, together with later ones deviating in rationale. It is of substantial importance both for the states’ powers of taxation and for the subjects on which they may impinge. Moreover, even though the immediate questions are closely related to federal policies concerning Indian lands, they are equally tangent to considerations affecting other types of situation raising questions of immunity. For these reasons it will not be amiss to consider the questions in the context of two conflicting courses of decision.
Before we turn to the survey, however, two delimitations of the specific issues should be made.
These cases present no question concerning the immunity of the Indian lands themselves from state taxation. There is no possibility that ultimate liability for the taxes may fall upon the owner of the land. Cf. Wilson v. Cook, 327 U. S. 474, dissenting opinion, 489. Nor, as has been noted, do the cases involve challenges to the immunity from state taxation of royalty oil, the Indian’s share of production.
III.
Despite the possibility that the prospect of taxation by the state may reduce the amount the United States might receive from the sale of its property, it is well established that property purchased by a private person from the Federal Government becomes a part of the general mass of property in the state and must bear its fair share of the expenses of local government. The theoretical burden which state ad valorem property taxation thus imposes upon the Federal Government is regarded as too remote and indirect to justify tax immunity for property purchased from that Government. New Brunswick v. United States, 276 U. S. 547; Forbes v. Gracey, 94 U. S. 762; Tucker v. Ferguson, 22 Wall. 527; see Weston v. Charleston, 2 Pet. 449, 468. Also subject to local ad valorem taxation, as has been noted above, is property owned by a private party and used by him in performing services for the Federal Government. Where oil produced by a private lessee from restricted Indian lands was owned solely by the lessee and had been removed from the leased lands and stored in the lessee’s tanks, it was held subject to state ad valorem taxation. Indian Territory Illuminating Oil Co. v. Board of Equalization, 288 U. S. 325. And equipment used by a lessee of restricted Indian lands has been held subject to the same sort of exaction. Taber v. Indian Territory Illuminating Oil Co., 300 U. S. 1. Cf. Thomas v. Gay, 169 U. S. 264, sustaining a state tax on cattle grazing on tribal lands leased from Indians by the non-Indian owner of the cattle.
Anomalous in the light of these rulings was the evolution of a line of decisions of this Court condemning forms of taxation which would have imposed no more direct or substantial burden upon the United States than would an ad valorem property tax applied to property purchased from the United States. Private lessees of restricted or tribal Indian lands came to be held “federal instrumentalities” like the lands themselves, and so immune from various forms of state taxation ranging from a gross production tax on production from the leased lands to a tax upon the lessee’s net income. The theory of the Court was the one which was rejected in directly analogous cases: A state tax on the lessee, the lease, or the profits from the lease would be “a direct hamper upon the effort of the United States to make the best terms that it can for its wards.” Gillespie v. Oklahoma, 257 U. S. 501, 506. Alternatively, “A tax upon the leases is a tax upon the power to make them, and could be used to destroy the power to make them.” Indian Territory Illuminating Oil Co. v. Oklahoma, 240 U. S. 522, 530.
The history of this development is a progression “from exemption of the gross income of the lessee of Indian lands... through exemption of net receipts to serious impairment of the taxing powers of Oklahoma.” Cohen, Handbook of Federal Indian Law 257, n. 29 (1942). The development is an outgrowth and a progressive extension of early rulings that tribal lands themselves are immune from state taxation. More immediately it stems from the later ruling that allotted Indian lands held in trust by the United States were “an instrumentality employed by the United States for the benefit and control of this dependent race,” and so were immune from state taxation. United States v. Rickert, 188 U. S. 432, 437-439.
In 1908 Oklahoma imposed, in addition to ad valorem property taxes, a gross production tax, the progenitor of the present tax bearing that label, on oil, gas and other minerals produced within the state. Okla. Laws, 1908, c. 71, Art. II, § 6. The Oklahoma court held that the 1910 reenactment of the statute imposed a property tax. McAlester-Edwards Coal Co. v. Trapp, 43 Okla. 510. But the statute, as applied to a lessee of restricted Indian coal lands, was held by this Court to be an occupational tax and so an unconstitutional burden on the lessee, who was held to be an instrumentality of the Federal Government. Choctaw, O. & G. R. Co. v. Harrison, supra. Next the Court held the lease itself a federal instrumentality immune from state taxation. Indian Territory Illuminating Oil Co. v. Oklahoma, supra.
The Oklahoma legislature revised the gross production tax statute in 1915 and again in 1916, a principal change being the provision that the tax was in lieu of all other ad valorem taxes. The revised tax was held by the Oklahoma Supreme Court to be a property tax. But this Court rejected that construction sub silentio and invalidated the tax in memorandum opinions citing only the Choctaw, O. & G. R. Co. case (235 U. S. 292) and the Indian Territory Illuminating Oil Co. case (240 U. S. 522). Howard v. Gipsy Oil Co., 247 U. S. 503; Large Oil Co. v. Howard, 248 U. S. 549.
Suspicions that this Court had overlooked the fact that under the revised statute the gross production tax was in lieu of rather than in addition to all other ad valorem property taxes, were dispelled by Mr. Justice Holmes’ remark in Gillespie v. Oklahoma, supra at 504 — 505, that the statutory change had been noticed and regarded as immaterial. If a gross receipts tax was a burden on the Federal Government “so as to interfere with the performance of its functions, it could not be saved because it was in lieu of a tax upon property or was so characterized.” See James v. Dravo Contracting Co., 302 U. S. 134, 158.
The high-water mark of immunity for non-Indian lessees of restricted and allotted Indian lands came in 1922 when the Gillespie decision, supra, invalidated an Oklahoma net income tax upon income derived by a lessee from sales of his share of oil produced from restricted lands.
The non-Indian lessee’s immunity was last sustained here by Oklahoma v. Barnsdall Refineries, supra. That decision held, on application of a rule of strict construction of congressional waivers, that Congress’ express waiver of immunity from gross production taxes on oil produced from the specified Indian lands did not extend to petroleum excise taxes. The state did not challenge the implied constitutional immunity but pitched its argument on the ground of statutory exemption.
The instrumentality doctrine has been applied to confer a correlative immunity upon private lessees of state-owned lands. The Texas rule that oil and gas leases are present sales to the lessees of the oil and gas in place caused this Court to sustain the imposition of the federal income tax upon income of the lessee derived from the sale of oil and gas produced from lands leased from that state. It was observed that “... the remote and indirect effects upon the one government of such a non-discriminatory tax by the other have never been considered adequate grounds for thus aiding the one at the expense of the taxing power of the other.” Group No. 1 Oil Corp. v. Bass, 283 U. S. 279, 282.
Although this decision may be taken to mark a turning point in expansion of the lessee’s immunity, it was not immediately permitted to impair the Gillespie rationale. A tax on income would be no greater burden where, under applicable state law, “title” to the oil did not “pass” until the oil was removed from the ground. And although Justices Brandéis, Stone, Roberts and Cardozo contended that the Gillespie decision could not stand consistently with the principles which had been reaffirmed in the Group No. 1 Oil case, a majority of one in Burnet v. Coronado Oil & Gas Co., 285 U. S. 393, provided a corollary to the rule of the Gillespie case. This was done by holding that the Federal Government was barred from taxing the income of a lessee of state lands as the state was barred from taxing the income of the lessee of federal lands.
A parallel immunity from state occupational or privilege taxes was once accorded private contractors with, or agencies of, the Government, Williams v. Talladega, 226 U. S. 404, notwithstanding the venerable rule that the property of such a contractor or agency is liable to state property taxation. See the cases cited supra in note 18. Decisions curtailing this immunity were presaged by Metcalf & Eddy v. Mitchell, 269 U. S. 514. It held subject to federal income taxation income received by a consulting engineer from a state for services in connection with temporary work. Equally significant was Alward v. Johnson, 282 U. S. 509, 514, which sustained a state tax measured by gross receipts on the property of a stage line engaged in carrying the mails.
Later this Court sustained a state tax on the gross receipts of a contractor with the Federal Government, James v. Dravo Contracting Co., 302 U. S. 134; Silas Mason Co. v. Tax Commission, 302 U. S. 186; a state tax on the net income of such a contractor, Atkinson v. Tax Commission, 303 U. S. 20; state sales and use taxes on purchases of materials used by a contractor in performing a cost-plus contract with the United States, Alabama v. King & Boozer, 314 U. S. 1; Curry v. United States, 314 U. S. 14; and a state severance tax imposed on a contractor who severed and purchased timber from lands owned by the United States, Wilson v. Cook, 327 U. S. 474. It was pointed out that
“... the Constitution, unaided by Congressional legislation,... [does not prohibit] a tax exacted from the contractors merely because it is passed on economically, by the terms of the contract or otherwise, as a part of the construction cost to the Government. So far as such a non-discriminatory state tax upon the contractor enters into the cost of the materials to the Government, that is but a normal incident of the organization within the same territory of two independent taxing sovereignties. The asserted right of the one to be free of taxation by the other does not spell immunity from paying the added costs, attributable to the taxation of those who furnish supplies to the Government and who have been granted no tax immunity.” Alabama v. King & Boozer, 314 U. S. 1, 8-9.
The opportunity to reexamine the Gillespie and Coronado cases arose in 1938 in Helvering v. Mountain Producers Corp., 303 U. S. 376, the decision upon which the Oklahoma commission relies most strongly to secure reversal of the judgments in the present cases. The Mountain Producers case involved the application of the federal income tax law to a cestui of an express trust which received the proceeds of the sale of oil taken from school lands owned by the State of Wyoming. The Court declined to distinguish the Gillespie and Coronado decisions on the narrow ground available, the fact that the taxpayer was a cestui of a trust which received the proceeds of the sale of the oil rather than the lessee itself. 303 U. S. at 383.
Rather the Court sought broader grounding, which lay in reconsideration of the foundations of the Gillespie and Coronado decisions. The opinion stated:
“The ground of the decision in the Gillespie case, as stated by Mr. Justice Holmes in speaking for the Court, was that ‘a tax upon the leases’ was ‘a tax upon the power to make them, and could be used to destroy the power to make them’ (240 U. S. p. 630) and that a tax ‘upon the profits of the leases’ was ‘a direct hamper upon the effort of the United States to make the best terms that it can for its wards.’ [257 U. S. at 506.] In the light of the expanding needs of State and Nation, the inquiry has been pressed whether this conclusion has adequate basis....” 303 U. S. at 384.
Noting that it had held that the Gillespie ruling should be limited strictly to cases closely analogous, and asserting that “the distinctions thus maintained have attenuated its teaching and raised grave doubt as to whether it should longer be supported,” 303 U. S. at 384-385, the Court went on to say:
“In numerous decisions we have had occasion to declare the competing principle, buttressed by the most cogent considerations, that the power to tax should not be crippled ‘by extending the constitutional exemption from taxation to those subjects which fall within the general application of nondiscriminatory laws, and where no direct burden is laid upon the governmental instrumentality and there is only remote, if any, influence upon the exercise of the functions of government.’ Willcuts v. Bunn, 282 U. S. 216, 225, and illustrations there cited.” 303 U. S. at 385.
That competing principle the Court found applicable to the case before it and to require that the decisions in the Gillespie and Coronado cases be overruled. Rejecting as insubstantial the distinction based on the passage of title to the oil at the time of making the lease, compare Group No. 1 Oil Corp. v. Bass, supra, with Burnet v. Coronado Oil & Gas Co., supra, and after reviewing various other decisions denying the immunity when claimed by private persons, 303 U. S. at 385-386, the Court said:
“These decisions in a variety of applications enforce what we deem to be the controlling view— that immunity from non-discriminatory taxation sought by a private person for his property or gains because he is engaged in operations under a government contract or lease cannot be supported by merely theoretical conceptions of interference with the functions of government. Regard must be had to substance and direct effects.” 303 U. S. at 386.
IV.
Respondents strongly urge that the Mountain Producers decision is not controlling or effective to require reversal in these cases, since it involved a tax on net income rather than gross production and excise taxes. And they insist that a sharp line should be drawn between what they call lessees performing a governmental function and independent contractors doing work for the Government. The latter distinction is largely, if not altogether verbal, in the context of the fact situations in these cases. As for the former difference, although the Court explicitly overruled only the Gillespie and Coro nado cases, the groundings of the Mountain Producers decision do not permit limiting its effects to so narrow an application.
The language last quoted above is as applicable to the present cases as it was to the Gillespie and Coronado decisions. The taxes here are nondiscriminatory. The respondents are “private persons” who seek immunity “for their property or gains because they are engaged in operations under a government contract or lease.” The functions they perform in operating the leases are hardly more governmental in character than those performed by lessees of school lands or, indeed, by many contractors with the Government. The lessees in the Mountain Producers case stood identically with the respondents in all these respects.
Moreover the burdens of the taxes here, if any of a character likely to interfere with respondents in carrying out the terms of their leases, are as appropriately to be judged by “regard... to substance and direct effects,” and as inappropriately to be determined “by merely theoretical conceptions of interference with the functions of government,” as were those in the Mountain Producers case. True, as respondents say, a net income tax may be a step farther removed from interfering effect than a gross production tax or an excise tax on production. But this all depends upon the rate at which each tax is levied.
To the adaptation of Marshall’s oft-quoted aphorism made by Mr. Justice McKenna in Indian Territory Illuminating Oil Co. v. Oklahoma, 240 U. S. at 530, and followed by Mr. Justice Holmes in Gillespie v. Oklahoma, 257 U. S. at 505, namely, that “A tax upon the leases is a tax upon the power to make them, and could be used to destroy the power to make them,” Chief Justice Hughes in the Mountain Producers case did not explicitly make the rejoinder given by Holmes in another connection, “The power to tax is not the power to destroy while this Court sits.” Panhandle Oil Co. v. Knox, 277 U. S. 218, 223. But this was the effect of the Mountain Producers decision, when in a single paragraph it challenged both the aphorism and the assumption that “a tax upon the profits of the leases” was “a direct hamper upon the effort of the United States to make the best terms that it can for its wards.”
The Mountain Producers case was not decided on narrow, merely technical or presumptive grounds. Its very foundation was a repudiation of those insubstantial bases for securing broad private tax exemptions, unjustified by actual interfering or destructive effects upon the performance of obligations to or work for the government, state or national. The decision came as the result of experience and of observation of the constant widening of the exempting process from tax to tax to tax.
Since that decision, as we have noted, the process has been reversed in direction. True intergovernmental immunity remains for the most part. But, so far as concerns private persons claiming immunity for their ordinary business operations (even though in connection with governmental activities), no implied constitutional immunity can rest on the merely hypothetical interferences with governmental functions here asserted to sustain exemption. In the light of the broad groundings of the Mountain Producers decision and of later decisions, we cannot say that the Gipsy Oil, Large Oil and Barnsdall Refineries decisions remain immune to the effects of the Mountain Producers decision and others which have followed it. They “are out of harmony with correct principle,” as were the Gillespie and Coronado decisions and, accordingly, they should be, and they now are, overruled. This accords with the result reached in Santa Rita Oil Co. v. State Board of Equalization, 112 Mont. 359. Moreover, since the decisions in Choctaw, O. & G. R. Co. v. Harrison, supra, and Indian Territory Illuminating Oil Co. v. Oklahoma, supra, rest upon the same foundations as those underlying the Gipsy Oil, Large Oil and Barnsdall Refineries decisions, indeed supplied those foundations, we think they too should be, and they now are, overruled.
We do not imply, by this decision, that Congress does not have power to immunize these lessees from the taxes we think the Constitution permits Oklahoma to impose in the absence of such action. The question whether immunity shall be extended in situations like these is essentially legislative in character. But Congress has not created an immunity here by affirmative action, and “The immunity formerly said to rest on constitutional implication cannot now be resurrected in the form of statutory implication.” Oklahoma Tax Commission v. United States, 319 U. S. 598, 604. And see Graves v. New York ex rel. O’Keefe, 306 U. S. 466, 480: “... if it appears that there is no ground for implying a constitutional immunity, there is equally a want of any ground for assuming any purpose on the part of Congress to create an immunity.”
The Oklahoma Supreme Court appears to suggest, though the opinions do not flatly so state, as a possible alternative support for its conclusion in these cases that “Congress has acted on the theory that such immunity exists in the case of leases of this character unless waived,” that is, several congressional enactments permit Oklahoma to impose a gross production tax on minerals produced from the lands of the Osages, the Kaws, the Quapaws, and the Five Civilized Tribes, and authorize payment of taxes due on account of the Indians’ royalty interest. But Congress’ purpose in enacting these statutes was the removal of the immunities of the Indians themselves, immunities which are not challenged in these cases; the action was occasioned by the favorable economic position of the particular Indians. The resulting removal of the immunity of private lessees of those Indian lands was an incidental effect of this legislation.
Finally, we refuse to infer from mere congressional silence approval of the doctrine of immunity enunciated in the Choctaw, O. & G. R. Co., Indian Territory Illuminating Oil (240 U. S. 522), Gipsy Oil, Large Oil and Barnsdall Refineries decisions, supra. Congress’ silence prior to the Mountain Producers decision did not preclude this Court from curtailing the lessee’s immunity in that case; and Congress seems to have accepted that decision with equanimity. Cf. Girouard v. United States, 328 U. S. 61, 69-70; Graves v. New York ex rel. O’Keefe, 306 U. S. 466, 479-480.
Reversed and remanded.
Mr. Justice Jackson concurs in the result.
Interests in the lands to which the United States does not hold title are of two kinds: (1) undivided interests acquired by non-Indians; (2) an interest (which is still restricted) conveyed to the son of an allottee by approved noncompetent Indian deeds, pursuant to the Act of March 1, 1907, 34 Stat. 1018, 25 U. S. C. § 405.
February 8, 1887, 24 Stat. 388, as amended, 25 U. S. C. § 331 et seq.
The allotments were made to members of the Apache and Comanche tribes pursuant to the agreement approved by Congress on June 6, 1900, 31 Stat. 676. Members of the Citizen Band of the Pottawatomie Tribe were allotted land pursuant to the agreement of March 3, 1891, 26 Stat. 1016. Allotments were made to the Otoe and Missouria Indians under the General Allotment Act without special agreement. Mills, Oklahoma Indian Land Laws § 438 (1924).
The nature of the Indians’ interest has been described as follows: "... the United States retained the legal title, giving the Indian allottee a paper or writing, improperly called a patent, showing that at a particular time in the future, unless it was extended by the President, he would be entitled to a regular patent conveying the fee.” United States v. Rickert, 188 U. S. 432, 436.
With these exceptions: (1) In a single immaterial instance in No. 40, an undivided 7/16th interest in one of the leases was alienable and was owned by non-Indians. The Texas Company paid without protest the taxes levied against it which were attributable to this 7/16th interest. (2) In No. 41, an undivided l/4th interest in the lands subject to one of the leases and an undivided l/3d interest in the land subject to another lease were owned by non-Indians. The effect of the decision of the Oklahoma Supreme Court was to deny the portion of the assessments applicable to these interests. However, it was conceded at the argument here that the assessments were valid insofar as they applied to interests in lands owned, when the assessments were made, by non-Indian owners or by Indian owners not under restriction.
24 Stat. 389, 390, as amended, 25 U. S. C. §§ 348, 349. See Cohen, Handbook of Federal Indian Law 108-109 (1942). Leases of allotted land for mining purposes may be made with the approval of the Secretary of the Interior under 35 Stat. 783, 25 U. S. C. § 396.
52 Stat. 348, 25 U. S. C. § 396d; 30 C. F. R. Cum. Supp. §§ 221.1-221.67.
52 Okla. Stat. §§81-286.17 (Conservation of Oil and Gas), §§ 291-303 (Regulation and Inspection of Wells) (Cum. Supp. 1947) ; Order No. 1299 — Cause No. 2935, Thirty-seventh Annual Report of Corporation Comm’n of Okla., 1944, p. 84.
The assumption stated in the text is made, although in No. 41 the commission excluded, as irrelevant, evidence tendered to show compliance with the federal and state regulations, and in No. 40 no evidence of compliance was introduced.
The three oil and gas leases involved in No. 40 were made by members of the Apache Tribe
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer:
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J
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sc_issuearea
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What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Justice Stevens
delivered the opinion of the Court.
Petitioners manufacture and sell home video tape recorders. Respondents own the copyrights on some of the television programs that are broadcast on the public airwaves. Some members of the general public use video tape recorders sold by petitioners to record some of these broadcasts, as well as a large number of other broadcasts. The question presented is whether the sale of petitioners’ copying equipment to the general public violates any of the rights conferred upon respondents by the Copyright Act.
Respondents commenced this copyright infringement action against petitioners in the United States District Court for the Central District of California in 1976. Respondents alleged that some individuals had used Betamax video tape recorders (VTR’s) to record some of respondents’ copyrighted works which had been exhibited on commercially sponsored television and contended that these individuals had thereby infringed respondents’ copyrights. Respondents further maintained that petitioners were liable for the copyright infringement allegedly committed by Betamax consumers because of petitioners’ marketing of the Betamax VTR’s. Respondents sought no relief against any Beta-max consumer. Instead, they sought money damages and an equitable accounting of profits from petitioners, as well as an injunction against the manufacture and marketing of Betamax VTR’s.
After a lengthy trial, the District Court denied respondents all the relief they sought and entered judgment for petitioners. 480 F. Supp. 429 (1979). The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit reversed the District Court’s judgment on respondents’ copyright claim, holding petitioners liable for contributory infringement and ordering the District Court to fashion appropriate relief. 659 F. 2d 963 (1981). We granted certiorari, 457 U. S. 1116 (1982); since we had not completed our study of the case last Term, we ordered reargument, 463 U. S. 1226 (1983). We now reverse.
An explanation of our rejection of respondents’ unprecedented attempt to impose copyright liability upon the distributors of copying equipment requires a quite detailed recitation of the findings of the District Court. In summary, those findings reveal that the average member of the public uses a VTR principally to record a program he cannot view as it is being televised and then to watch it once at a later time. This practice, known as “time-shifting,” enlarges the television viewing audience. For that reason, a significant amount of television programming may be used in this manner without objection from the owners of the copyrights on the programs. For the same reason, even the two respondents in this case, who do assert objections to time-shifting in this litigation, were unable to prove that the practice has impaired the commercial value of their copyrights or has created any likelihood of future harm. Given these findings, there is no basis in the Copyright Act upon which respondents can hold petitioners liable for distributing VTR’s to the general public. The Court of Appeals’ holding that respondents are entitled to enjoin the distribution of VTR’s, to collect royalties on the sale of such equipment, or to obtain other relief, if affirmed, would enlarge the scope of respondents’ statutory monopolies to encompass control over an article of commerce that is not the subject of copyright protection. Such an expansion of the copyright privilege is beyond the limits of the grants authorized by Congress.
The two respondents m this action, Universal City Studios, Inc., and Walt Disney Productions, produce and hold the copyrights on a substantial number of motion pictures and other audiovisual works. In the current marketplace, they can exploit their rights in these works in a number of ways: by authorizing theatrical exhibitions, by licensing limited showings on cable and network television, by selling syndication rights for repeated airings on local television stations, and by marketing programs on prerecorded videotapes or videodiscs. Some works are suitable for exploitation through all of these avenues, while the market for other works is more limited.
Petitioner Sony manufactures millions of Betamax video tape recorders and markets these devices through numerous retail establishments, some of which are also petitioners in this action. Sony’s Betamax VTR is a mechanism consisting of three basic components: (1) a tuner, which receives electromagnetic signals transmitted over the television band of the public airwaves and separates them into audio and visual signals; (2) a recorder, which records such signals on a magnetic tape; and (3) an adapter, which converts the audio and visual signals on the tape into a composite signal that can be received by a television set.
Several capabilities of the machine are noteworthy. The separate tuner in the Betamax enables it to record a broadcast off one station while the television set is tuned to another channel, permitting the viewer, for example, to watch two simultaneous news broadcasts by watching one “live” and recording the other for later viewing. Tapes may be reused, and programs that have been recorded may be erased either before or after viewing. A timer in the Betamax can be used to activate and deactivate the equipment at predetermined times, enabling an intended viewer to record programs that are transmitted when he or she is not at home. Thus a person may watch a program at home in the evening even though it was broadcast while the viewer was at work during the afternoon. The Betamax is also equipped with a pause button and a fast-forward control. The pause button, when depressed, deactivates the recorder until it is released, thus enabling a viewer to omit a commercial advertisement from the recording, provided, of course, that the viewer is present when the program is recorded. The fast-forward control enables the viewer of a previously recorded program to run the tape rapidly when a segment he or she does not desire to see is being played back on the television screen.
The respondents and Sony both conducted surveys of the way the Betamax machine was used by several hundred owners during a sample period in 1978. Although there were some differences in the surveys, they both showed that the primary use of the machine for most owners was “time-shifting” — the practice of recording a program to view it once at a later time, and thereafter erasing it. Time-shifting enables viewers to see programs they otherwise would miss because they are not at home, are occupied with other tasks, or are viewing a program on another station at the time of a broadcast that they desire to watch. Both surveys also showed, however, that a substantial number of interviewees had accumulated libraries of tapes. Sony’s survey indicated that over 80% of the interviewees watched at least as much regular television as they had before owning a Betamax. Respondents offered no evidence of decreased television viewing by Betamax owners.
Sony introduced considerable evidence describing television programs that could be copied without objection from any copyright holder, with special emphasis on sports, religious, and educational programming,. For example, their survey indicated that 7.3% of all Betamax use is to record sports events, and representatives of professional baseball, football, basketball, and hockey testified that they had no objection to the recording of their televised events for home use.
Respondents offered opinion evidence concerning the future impact of the unrestricted sale of VTR’s on the commercial value of their copyrights. The District Court found, however, that they had failed to prove any likelihood of future harm from the use of VTR’s for time-shifting. 480 F. Supp., at 469.
The District Court’s Decision
The lengthy trial of the case in the District Court concerned the private, home use of VTR’s for recording programs broadcast on the public airwaves without charge to the viewer. No issue concerning the transfer of tapes to other persons, the use of home-recorded tapes for public performances, or the copying of programs transmitted on pay or cable television systems was raised. See id., at 432-433, 442.
The District Court concluded that noncommercial home use recording of material broadcast over the public airwaves was a fair use of copyrighted works and did not constitute copyright infringement. It emphasized the fact that the material was broadcast free to the public at large, the noncommercial character of the use, and the private character of the activity conducted entirely within the home. Moreover, the court found that the purpose of this use served the public interest in increasing access to television programming, an interest that “is consistent with the First Amendment policy of providing the fullest possible access to information through the public airwaves. Columbia Broadcasting System, Inc. v. Democratic National Committee, 412 U. S. 94, 102.” Id., at 454. Even when an entire copyrighted work was recorded, the District Court regarded the copying as fair use “because there is no accompanying reduction in the market for ‘plaintiff’s original work.’” Ibid.
As an independent ground of decision, the District Court also concluded that Sony could not be held liable as a contributory infringer even if the home use of a VTR was considered an infringing use. The District Court noted that Sony had no direct involvement with any Betamax purchasers who recorded copyrighted works off the air. Sony’s advertising was silent on the subject of possible copyright infringement, but its instruction booklet contained the following statement:
“Television programs, films, videotapes and other materials may be copyrighted. Unauthorized recording of such material may be contrary to the provisions of the United States copyright laws.” Id., at 436.
The District Court assumed that Sony had constructive knowledge of the probability that the Betamax machine would be used to record copyrighted programs, but found that Sony merely sold a “product capable of a variety of uses, some of them allegedly infringing.” Id., at 461. It reasoned:
“Selling a staple article of commerce — e. g., a typewriter, a recorder, a camera, a photocopying machine— technically contributes to any infringing use subsequently made thereof, but this kind of ‘contribution,’ if deemed sufficient as a basis for liability, would expand the theory beyond precedent and arguably beyond judicial management.
“... Commerce would indeed be hampered if manufacturers of staple items were held liable as contributory in-fringers whenever they ‘constructively’ knew that some purchasers on some occasions would use their product for a purpose which a court later deemed, as a matter of first impression, to be an infringement.” Ibid.
Finally, the District Court discussed the respondents’ prayer for injunctive relief, noting that they had asked for an injunction either preventing the future sale of Betamax machines, or requiring that the machines be rendered incapable of recording copyrighted works off the air. The court stated that it had “found no case in which the manufacturers, distributors, retailers and advertisers of the instrument enabling the infringement were sued by the copyright holders,” and that the request for relief in this case “is unique.” Id., at 465.
It concluded that an injunction was wholly inappropriate because any possible harm to respondents was outweighed by the fact that “the Betamax could still legally be used to record noncopyrighted material or material whose owners consented to the copying. An injunction would deprive the public of the ability to use the Betamax for this noninfringing off-the-air recording.” Id., at 468.
The Court of Appeals’ Decision
The Court of Appeals reversed the District Court’s judgment on respondents’ copyright claim. It did not set aside any of the District Court’s findings of fact. Rather, it concluded as a matter of law that the home use of a VTR was not a fair use because it was not a “productive use.” It therefore held that it was unnecessary for plaintiffs to prove any harm to the potential market for the copyrighted works, but then observed that it seemed clear that the cumulative effect of mass reproduction made possible by VTR’s would tend to diminish the potential market for respondents’ works. 659 F. 2d, at 974.
On the issue of contributory infringement, the Court of Appeals first rejected the analogy to staple articles of commerce such as tape recorders or photocopying machines. It noted that such machines “may have substantial benefit for some purposes” and do not “even remotely raise copyright problems.” Id., at 975. VTR’s, however, are sold “for the primary purpose of reproducing television programming” and “[virtually all” such programming is copyrighted material. Ibid. The Court of Appeals concluded, therefore, that VTR’s were not suitable for any substantial noninfringing use even if some copyright owners elect not to enforce their rights.
The Court of Appeals also rejected the District Court’s reliance on Sony’s lack of knowledge that home use constituted infringement. Assuming that the statutory provisions defining the remedies for infringement applied also to the non-statutory tort of contributory infringement, the court stated that a defendant’s good faith would merely reduce his damages liability but would not excuse the infringing conduct. It held that Sony was chargeable with knowledge of the homeowner’s infringing activity because the reproduction of copyrighted materials was either “the most conspicuous use” or “the major use” of the Betamax product. Ibid.
On the matter of relief, the Court of Appeals concluded that “statutory damages may be appropriate” and that the District Court should reconsider its determination that an injunction would not be an appropriate remedy; and, referring to “the analogous photocopying area,” suggested that a continuing royalty pursuant to a judicially created compulsory license may very well be an acceptable resolution of the relief issue. Id., at 976.
II
Article I, § 8, of the Constitution provides:
“The Congress shall have 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.”
The monopoly privileges that Congress may authorize are neither unlimited nor primarily designed to provide a special private benefit. Rather, the limited grant is a means by which an important public purpose may be achieved. It is intended to motivate the creative activity of authors and inventors by the provision of a special reward, and to allow the public access to the products of their genius after the limited period of exclusive control has expired.
“The copyright law, like the patent statutes, makes reward to the owner a secondary consideration. In Fox Film Corp. v. Doyal, 286 U. S. 123, 127, Chief Justice Hughes spoke as follows respecting the copyright monopoly granted by Congress, ‘The sole interest of the United States and the primary object in conferring the monopoly lie in the general benefits derived by the public from the labors of authors.’ It is said that reward to the author or artist serves to induce release to the public of the products of his creative genius.” United States v. Paramount Pictures, Inc., 334 U. S. 131, 158 (1948).
As the text of the Constitution makes plain, it is Congress that has been assigned the task of defining the scope of the limited monopoly that should be granted to authors or to inventors in order to give the public appropriate access to their work product. Because this task involves a difficult balance between the interests of authors and inventors in the control and exploitation of their writings and discoveries on the one hand, and society’s competing interest in the free flow of ideas, information, and commerce on the other hand, our patent and copyright statutes have been amended repeatedly.
From its beginning, the law of copyright has developed in response to significant changes in technology. Indeed, it was the invention of a new form of copying equipment — the printing press — that gave rise to the original need for copyright protection. Repeatedly, as new developments have occurred in this country, it has been the Congress that has fashioned the new rules that new technology made necessary. Thus, long before the enactment of the Copyright Act of 1909, 35 Stat. 1075, it was settled that the protection given to copyrights is wholly statutory. Wheaton v. Peters, 8 Pet. 591, 661-662 (1834). The remedies for infringement “are only those prescribed by Congress.” Thompson v. Hubbard, 131 U. S. 123, 151 (1889).
The judiciary’s reluctance to expand the protections afforded by the copyright without explicit legislative guidance is a recurring theme. See, e. g., Teleprompter Corp. v. Columbia Broadcasting System, Inc., 415 U. S. 394 (1974); Fortnightly Corp. v. United Artists Television, Inc., 392 U. S. 390 (1968); White-Smith Music Publishing Co. v. Apollo Co., 209 U. S. 1 (1908); Williams & Wilkins Co. v. United States, 203 Ct. Cl. 74, 487 F. 2d 1345 (1973), aff’d by an equally divided Court, 420 U. S. 376 (1975). Sound policy, as well as history, supports our consistent deference to Congress when major technological innovations alter the market for copyrighted materials. Congress has the constitutional authority and the institutional ability to accommodate fully the varied permutations of competing interests that are inevitably implicated by such new technology.
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. In doing so, we are guided by Justice Stewart’s exposition of the correct approach to ambiguities in the law of copyright:
“The limited scope of the copyright holder’s statutory monopoly, like the limited copyright duration required by the Constitution, reflects a balance of competing claims upon the public interest: Creative work is to be encouraged and rewarded, but private motivation must ultimately serve the cause of promoting broad public availability of literature, music, and the other arts. The immediate effect of our copyright law is to secure a fair return for an ‘author’s’ creative labor. But the ultimate aim is, by this incentive, to stimulate artistic creativity for the general public good. ‘The sole interest of the United States and the primary object in conferring the monopoly,’ this Court has said, ‘lie in the general benefits derived by the public from the labors of authors.’ Fox Film Corp. v. Doyal, 286 U. S. 123, 127. See Kendall v. Winsor, 21 How. 322, 327-328; Grant v. Raymond, 6 Pet. 218, 241-242. When technological change has rendered its literal terms ambiguous, the Copyright Act must be construed in light of this basic purpose.” Twentieth Century Music Corp. v. Aiken, 422 U. S. 151, 156 (1975) (footnotes omitted).
Copyright protection “subsists... in original works of authorship fixed in any tangible medium of expression.” 17 U. S. C. § 102(a) (1982 ed.). This protection has never accorded the copyright owner complete control over all possible uses of his work. Rather, the Copyright Act grants the copyright holder “exclusive” rights to use and to authorize the use of his work in five qualified ways, including reproduction of the copyrighted work in copies. § 106. All reproductions of the work, however, are not within the exclusive domain of the copyright owner; some are in the public domain. Any individual may reproduce a copyrighted work for a “fair use”; the copyright owner does not possess the exclusive right to such a use. Compare § 106 with § 107.
“Anyone who violates any of the exclusive rights of the copyright owner,” that is, anyone who trespasses into his exclusive domain by using or authorizing the use of the copyrighted work in one of the five ways set forth in the statute, “is an infringer of the copyright.” § 501(a). Conversely, anyone who is authorized by the copyright owner to use the copyrighted work in a way specified in the statute or who makes a fair use of the work is not an infringer of the copyright with respect to such use.
The Copyright Act provides the owner of a copyright with a potent arsenal of remedies against an infringer of his work, including an injunction to restrain the infringer from violating his rights, the impoundment and destruction of all reproductions of his work made in violation of his rights, a recovery of his actual damages and any additional profits realized by the infringer or a recovery of statutory damages, and attorney’s fees. §§502-505.
The two respondents in this case do not seek relief against the Betamax users who have allegedly infringed their copyrights. Moreover, this is not a class action on behalf of all copyright owners who license their works for television broadcast, and respondents have no right to invoke whatever rights other copyright holders may have to bring infringement actions based on Betamax copying of their works. As was made clear by their own evidence, the copying of the respondents’ programs represents a small portion of the total use of VTR’s. It is, however, the taping of respondents’ own copyrighted programs that provides them with standing to charge Sony with contributory infringement. To prevail, they have the burden of proving that users of the Betamax have infringed their copyrights and that Sony should be held responsible for that infringement.
t-H H-Í h — l
The Copyright Act does not expressly render anyone liable for infringement committed by another. In contrast, the Patent Act expressly brands anyone who “actively induces infringement of a patent” as an infringer, 35 U. S. C. § 271(b), and further imposes liability on certain individuals labeled “contributory” infringers, § 271(c). The absence of such express language in the copyright statute does not preclude the imposition of liability for copyright infringements on certain parties who have not themselves engaged in the infringing activity. For vicarious liability is imposed in virtually all areas of the law, and the concept of contributory infringement is merely a species of the broader problem of identifying the circumstances in which it is just to hold one individual accountable for the actions of another.
Such circumstances were plainly present in Kalem Co. v. Harper Brothers, 222 U. S. 55 (1911), the copyright decision of this Court on which respondents place their principal reliance. In Kalem, the Court held that the producer of an unauthorized film dramatization of the copyrighted book Ben Hur was liable for his sale of the motion picture to jobbers, who in turn arranged for the commercial exhibition of the film. Justice Holmes, writing for the Court, explained:
“The defendant not only expected but invoked by advertisement the use of its films for dramatic reproduction of the story. That was the most conspicuous purpose for which they could be used, and the one for which especially they were made. If the defendant did not contribute to the infringement it is impossible to do so except by taking part in the final act. It is liable on principles recognized in every part of the law.” Id., at 62-63.
The use for which the item sold in Kalem had been “especially” made was, of course, to display the performance that had already been recorded upon it. The producer had personally appropriated the copyright owner’s protected work and, as the owner of the tangible medium of expression upon which the protected work was recorded, authorized that use by his sale of the film to jobbers. But that use of the film was not his to authorize: the copyright owner possessed the exclusive right to authorize public performances of his work. Further, the producer personally advertised the unauthorized public performances, dispelling any possible doubt as to the use of the film which he had authorized.
Respondents argue that Kalem stands for the proposition that supplying the “means” to accomplish an infringing activity and encouraging that activity through advertisement are sufficient to establish liability for copyright infringement. This argument rests on a gross generalization that cannot withstand scrutiny. The producer in Kalem did not merely provide the “means” to accomplish an infringing activity; the producer supplied the work itself, albeit in a new medium of expression. Sony in the instant case does not supply Betamax consumers with respondents’ works; respondents do. Sony supplies a piece of equipment that is generally capable of copying the entire range of programs that may be televised: those that are uncopyrighted, those that are copyrighted but may be copied without objection from the copyright holder, and those that the copyright holder would prefer not to have copied. The Betamax can be used to make authorized or unauthorized uses of copyrighted works, but the range of its potential use is much broader than the particular infringing use of the film Ben Hur involved in Kalem. Kalem does not support respondents’ novel theory of liability.
Justice Holmes stated that the producer had “contributed” to the infringement of the copyright, and the label “contributory infringement” has been applied in a number of lower court copyright cases involving an ongoing relationship between the direct infringer and the contributory infringer at the time the infringing conduct occurred. In such cases, as in other situations in which the imposition of vicarious liability is manifestly just, the “contributory” infringer was in a position to control the use of copyrighted works by others and had authorized the use without permission from the copyright owner. This case, however, plainly does not fall in that category. The only contact between Sony and the users of the Betamax that is disclosed by this record occurred at the moment of sale. The District Court expressly found that “no employee of Sony, Sonam or DDBI had either direct involvement with the allegedly infringing activity or direct contact with purchasers of Betamax who recorded copyrighted works off-the-air.” 480 F. Supp., at 460. And it further found that “there was no evidence that any of the copies made by Griffiths or the other individual witnesses in this suit were influenced or encouraged by [Sony’s] advertisements.” Ibid.
If vicarious liability is to be imposed on Sony in this case, it must rest on the fact that it has sold equipment with constructive knowledge of the fact that its customers may use that equipment to make unauthorized copies of copyrighted material. There is no precedent in the law of copyright for the imposition of vicarious liability on such a theory. The closest analogy is provided by the patent law cases to which it is appropriate to refer because of the historic kinship between patent law and copyright law.
In the Patent Act both the concept of infringement and the concept of contributory infringement are expressly defined by statute. The prohibition against contributory infringement is confined to the knowing sale of a component especially made for use in connection with a particular patent. There is no suggestion in the statute that one patentee may object to the sale of a product that might be used in connection with other patents. Moreover, the Act expressly provides that the sale of a “staple article or commodity of commerce suitable for substantial noninfringing use” is not contributory infringement. 35 U. S. C. § 271(c).
When a charge of contributory infringement is predicated entirely on the sale of an article of commerce that is used by the purchaser to infringe a patent, the public interest in access to that article of commerce is necessarily implicated. A finding of contributory infringement does not, of course, remove the article from the market altogether; it does, however, give the patentee effective control over the sale of that item. Indeed, a finding of contributory infringement is normally the functional equivalent of holding that the disputed article is within the monopoly granted to the patentee.
For that reason, in contributory infringement cases arising under the patent laws the Court has always recognized the critical importance of not allowing the patentee to extend his monopoly beyond the limits of his specific grant. These cases deny the patentee any right to control the distribution of unpatented articles unless they are “unsuited for any commercial noninfringing use.” Dawson Chemical Co. v. Rohm & Hass Co., 448 U. S. 176, 198 (1980). Unless a commodity “has no use except through practice of the patented method,” id., at 199, the patentee has no right to claim that its distribution constitutes contributory infringement. “To form the basis for contributory infringement the item must almost be uniquely suited as a component of the patented invention.” P. Rosenberg, Patent Law Fundamentals § 17.02[2] (2d ed. 1982). “[A] sale of an article which though adapted to an infringing use is also adapted to other and lawful uses, is not enough to make the seller a contributory infringer. Such a rule would block the wheels of commerce.” Henry v. A. B. Dick Co., 224 U. S. 1, 48 (1912), overruled on other grounds, Motion Picture Patents Co. v. Universal Film Mfg. Co., 243 U. S. 502, 517 (1917).
We recognize there are substantial differences between the patent and copyright laws. But in both areas the contributory infringement doctrine is grounded on the recognition that adequate protection of a monopoly may require the courts to look beyond actual duplication of a device or publication to the products or activities that make such duplication possible. The staple article of commerce doctrine must strike a balance between a copyright holder’s legitimate demand for effective — not merely symbolic — protection of the statutory monopoly, and the rights of others freely to engage in substantially unrelated areas of commerce. Accordingly, the sale of copying equipment, like the sale of other articles of commerce, does not constitute contributory infringement if the product is widely used for legitimate, unobjectionable purposes. Indeed, it need merely be capable of substantial noninfringing uses.
IV
The question is thus whether the Betamax is capable of commercially significant noninfringing uses. In order to resolve that question, we need not explore all the different potential uses of the machine and determine whether or not they would constitute infringement. Rather, we need only consider whether on the basis of the facts as found by the District Court a significant number of them would be non-infringing. Moreover, in order to resolve this case we need not give precise content to the question of how much use is commercially significant. For one potential use of the Beta-max plainly satisfies this standard, however it is understood: private, noncommercial time-shifting in the home. It does so both (A) because respondents have no right to prevent other copyright holders from authorizing it for their programs, and (B) because the District Court’s factual findings reveal that even the unauthorized home time-shifting of respondents’ programs is legitimate fair use.
A. Authorized, Time-Shifting
Each of the respondents owns a large inventory of valuable copyrights, but in the total spectrum of television programming their combined market share is small. The exact percentage is not specified, but it is well below 10%. If they were to prevail, the outcome of this litigation would have a significant impact on both the producers and the viewers of the remaining 90% of the programming in the Nation. No doubt, many other producers share respondents’ concern about the possible consequences of unrestricted copying. Nevertheless the findings of the District Court make it clear that time-shifting may enlarge the total viewing audience and that many producers are willing to allow private time-shifting to continue, at least for an experimental time period.
The District Court found:
“Even if it were deemed that home-use recording of copyrighted material constituted infringement, the Beta-max could still legally be used to record noncopyrighted material or material whose owners consented to the copying. An injunction would deprive the public of the ability to use the Betamax for this noninfringing off-the-air recording.
“Defendants introduced considerable testimony at trial about the potential for such copying of sports, religious, educational and other programming. This included testimony from representatives of the Offices of the Commissioners of the National Football, Basketball, Baseball and Hockey Leagues and Associations, the Executive Director of National Religious Broadcasters and various educational communications agencies. Plaintiffs attack the weight of the testimony offered and also contend that an injunction is warranted because infringing uses outweigh noninfringing uses.
“Whatever the future percentage of legal versus illegal home-use recording might be, an injunction which seeks to deprive the public of the very tool or article of commerce capable of some noninfringing use would be an extremely harsh remedy, as well as one unprecedented in copyright law.” 480 F. Supp., at 468.
Although the District Court made these statements in the context of considering the propriety of injunctive relief, the statements constitute a finding that the evidence concerning “sports, religious, educational and other programming” was sufficient to establish a significant quantity of broadcasting whose copying is now authorized, and a significant potential for future authorized copying. That finding is amply supported by the record. In addition to the religious and sports officials identified explicitly by the District Court, two items in the record deserve specific mention.
First is the testimony of John Kenaston, the station manager of Channel 58, an educational station in Los Angeles affiliated with the Public Broadcasting Service. He explained and authenticated the station’s published guide to its programs. For each program, the guide tells whether unlimited home taping is authorized, home taping is authorized subject to certain restrictions (such as erasure within seven days), or home taping is not authorized at all. The Spring 1978 edition of the guide described 107 programs. Sixty-two of those programs or 58% authorize some home taping. Twenty-one of them or almost 20% authorize unrestricted home taping.
Second is the testimony of Fred Rogers, president of the corporation that produces and owns the copyright on Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood. The program is carried by more public television stations than any other program. Its audience numbers over 3,000,000 families a day. He testified that he had absolutely no objection to home taping for noncommercial use and expressed the opinion that it is a real service to families to be able to record children’s programs and to show them at appropriate times.
If there are millions of owners of VTR’s who make copies of televised sports events, religious broadcasts, and educational programs such as Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood, and if the proprietors of those programs welcome the practice, the business of supplying the equipment that makes such copying feasible should not be stifled simply because the equipment is used by some individuals to make unauthorized reproductions of respondents’ works. The respondents do not represent a class composed of all copyright holders. Yet a finding of contributory infringement would inevitably frustrate the interests of broadcasters in reaching the portion of their audience that is available only through time-shifting.
Of course, the fact that other copyright holders may welcome the practice of time-shifting does not mean that respondents should be deemed to have granted a license to copy their programs. Third-party conduct would be wholly irrelevant in an action for direct infringement of respondents’ copyrights. But in an action for contributory infringement against the seller of copying equipment, the copyright holder may not prevail unless the relief that he seeks affects only his programs, or unless he speaks for virtually all copyright holders with an interest in the outcome. In this case, the record makes it perfectly clear that there are many important producers of national and local television programs who find nothing objectionable about the enlargement in the size of the television audience that results from the practice of time-shifting for private home use. The seller of the equipment that expands those producers’ audiences cannot be a contributory infringer if, as is true in this case, it has had no direct involvement with any infringing activity.
B. Unauthorized Time-Shifting
Even unauthorized uses of a copyrighted work are not necessarily infringing. An unlicensed use of the copyright is not an infringement unless it conflicts with one of the specific exclusive rights conferred by the copyright statute. Twentieth Century Music Corp. v. Aiken, 422 U. S., at 154-155. Moreover, the definition of exclusive rights in § 106 of the present Act is prefaced by the words “subject to sections 107 through 118.” Those sections describe a variety of uses of copyrighted material that “are not infringements of copyright” “notwithstanding the provisions of section 106.” The most pertinent in this case is § 107, the legislative endorsement of the doctrine of “fair use.”
That section identifies various factors that enable a court to apply an “equitable rule of reason” analysis to particular claims of infringement. Although not conclusive, the first factor requires that “the commercial or nonprofit character of an activity” be weighed in any fair use decision. If the Betamax were used to make copies for a commercial or profit-making purpose, such use would presumptively be unfair. The contrary presumption is appropriate here, however, because the District Court’s findings plainly establish that time-shifting for private home use must be characterized as a noncommercial, nonprofit activity. Moreover, when one considers the nature of a televised copyrighted audiovisual work, see 17 U. S. C. § 107(2) (1982 ed.), and that time-shifting merely enables a viewer to see such a work which he had been invited to witness in its entirety free of charge, the fact that the entire work is reproduced, see § 107(3), does not have its ordinary effect of
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer:
|
H
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sc_issuearea
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What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Justice Kennedy
announced the judgment of the Court and delivered an opinion, in which The Chief Justice, Justice Thomas, and Justice Alito joined.
The question in this case is whether a state employee is allowed to recover damages from the state entity that employs him by invoking one of the provisions of a federal statute that, in express terms, seeks to abrogate the States’ immunity from suits for damages. The statute in question is the Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993, 107 Stat. 6, 29 U. S. C. § 2601 et seq. The provision at issue requires employers, including state employers, to grant unpaid leave for self care for a serious medical condition, provided other statutory requisites are met, particularly requirements that the total amount of annual leave taken under all the Act’s provisions does not exceed a stated maximum. § 2612(a)(1)(D). In agreement with every Court of Appeals to have addressed this question, this Court now holds that suits against States under this provision are barred by the States’ immunity as sovereigns in our federal system. See 626 F. 3d 187 (CA4 2010) (case below); Nelson v. University of Tex., 535 F. 3d 318 (CA5 2008); Miles v. Bellfontaine Habilitation Center, 481 F. 3d 1106 (CA8 2007) (per curiam); Toeller v. Wisconsin Dept. of Corrections, 461 F. 3d 871 (CA7 2006); Touvell v. Ohio Dept, of Mental Retardation & Developmental Disabilities, 422 F. 3d 392 (CA6 2005); Brockman v. Wyoming Dept. of Family Servs., 342 F. 3d 1159 (CA10 2003); Laro v. New Hampshire, 259 F. 3d 1 (CA1 2001).
I
A
The Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993 (FMLA or Act) entitles eligible employees to take up to 12 workweeks of unpaid leave per year. An employee may take leave under the FMLA for: (A) “the birth of a son or daughter ... in order to care for such son or daughter,” (B) the adoption or foster-care placement of a child with the employee, (C) the care of a “spouse, . . . son, daughter, or parent” with “a serious health condition,” or (D) the employee’s own serious health condition when the condition interferes with the employee’s ability to perform at work. 29 U. S. C. § 2612(a)(1). The Act creates a private right of action to seek both equitable relief and money damages “against any employer (including a public agency) in any Federal or State court of competent jurisdiction.” § 2617(a)(2). As noted, subparagraph (D) is at issue here.
This Court considered subparagraph (C) in Nevada Dept. of Human Resources v. Hibbs, 538 U. S. 721 (2003). Subpar-agraph (C), like (A) and (B), grants leave for reasons related to family care, and those three provisions are referred to here as the family-care provisions. Hibbs held that Congress could subject the States to suit for violations of subpar-agraph (C), § 2612(a)(1)(C). That holding rested on evidence that States had family-leave policies that differentiated on the basis of sex and that States administered even neutral family-leave policies in ways that discriminated on the basis of sex. See id., at 730-732. Subparagraph (D), the self-care provision, was not at issue in Hibbs.
B
Petitioner Daniel Coleman was employed by the Court of Appeals of the State of Maryland. When Coleman requested sick leave, he was informed he would be terminated if he did not resign. Coleman then sued the state court in the United States District Court for the District of Maryland, alleging, inter alia, that his employer violated the FMLA by failing to provide him with self-care leave.
The District Court dismissed the suit on the basis that the Maryland Court of Appeals, as an entity of a sovereign State, was immune from the suit for damages. The parties do not dispute the District Court’s ruling that the Maryland Court of Appeals is an entity or instrumentality of the State for purposes of sovereign immunity. The District Court concluded the FMLA’s self-care provision did not validly abrogate the State’s immunity from suit. App. to Pet. for Cert. 15-20. The Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit affirmed, reasoning that, unlike the family-care provision at issue in Hibbs, the self-care provision was not directed at an identified pattern of gender-based discrimination and was not congruent and proportional to any pattern of sex-based discrimination on the part of States. 626 F. 3d 187. Certio-rari was granted. 564 U. S. 1035 (2011).
II
A
A foundational premise of the federal system is that States, as sovereigns, are immune from suits for damages, save as they elect to waive that defense. See Kimel v. Florida Bd. of Regents, 528 U. S. 62, 72-73 (2000); Alden v. Maine, 527 U. S. 706 (1999). As an exception to this principle, Congress may abrogate the States’ immunity from suit pursuant to its powers under § 5 of the Fourteenth Amendment. See, e. g., Fitzpatrick v. Bitzer, 427 U. S. 445 (1976).
Congress must “mak[e] its intention to abrogate unmistakably clear in the language of the statute.” Hibbs, 538 U. S., at 726. On this point the Act does express the clear purpose to abrogate the States’ immunity. Ibid. (“The clarity of Congress’ intent” to abrogate the States’ immunity from suits for damages under the FMLA “is not fairly debatable”). Congress subjected any “public agency” to suit under the FMLA, 29 U. S. C. § 2617(a)(2), and a “public agency” is defined to include both “the government of a State or political subdivision thereof” and “any agency of ... a State, or a political subdivision of a State,” §§203(x), 2611(4)(A)(iii).
The question then becomes whether the self-care provision and its attempt to abrogate the States’ immunity are a valid exercise of congressional power under § 5 of the Fourteenth Amendment. Section 5 grants Congress the power “to enforce” the substantive guarantees of § 1 of the Amendment by “appropriate legislation.” The power to enforce “‘includes the authority both to remedy and to deter violation[s] of rights guaranteed’” by §1. See Board of Trustees of Univ. of Ala. v. Garrett, 531 U. S. 356, 365 (2001) (quoting Kimel, supra, at 81). To ensure Congress’ enforcement powers under § 5 remain enforcement powers, as envisioned by the ratifiers of the Amendment, rather than powers to redefine the substantive scope of § 1, Congress “must tailor” legislation enacted under § 5 to “ ‘remedy or prevent’ ” “conduct transgressing the Fourteenth Amendment’s substantive provisions.” Florida Prepaid Postsecondary Ed. Expense Bd. v. College Savings Bank, 527 U. S. 627, 639 (1999).
Whether a congressional Act passed under § 5 can impose monetary liability upon States requires an assessment of both the “‘evil’ or ‘wrong’ that Congress intended to remedy,” ibid., and the means Congress adopted to address that evil, see City of Boerne v. Flores, 521 U. S. 507, 520 (1997). Legislation enacted under § 5 must be targeted at “conduct transgressing the Fourteenth Amendment’s substantive provisions.” Florida Prepaid, supra, at 639; see Kimel, supra, at 88; City of Boerne, 521 U. S., at 525. And “[t]here must be a congruence and proportionality between the injury to be prevented or remedied and the means adopted to that end.” Id., at 520.
Under this analysis Hibbs permitted employees to recover damages from States for violations of subparagraph (C). In enacting the FMLA, Congress relied upon evidence of a well-documented pattern of sex-based discrimination in family-leave policies. States had facially discriminatory leave policies that granted longer periods of leave to women than to men. 538 U. S., at 730-731. States also administered facially neutral family-leave policies in gender-biased ways. Id., at 732. These practices reflected what Congress found to be a “pervasive sex-role stereotype that caring for family members is women’s work,” id., at 731, a stereotype to which even this Court had succumbed in earlier times, id., at 729. Faced with “the States’ record of unconstitutional participation in, and fostering of, gender-based discrimination in the administration of leave benefits,” Hibbs concluded that requiring state employers to give all employees the opportunity to take family-care leave was “narrowly targeted at the faultline between work and family — precisely where sex-based overgeneralization has been and remains strongest.” Id., at 735, 738.
B
The same cannot be said for requiring the States to give all employees the opportunity to take self-care leave. Petitioner advances three arguments for allowing employees to recover damages from States that violate the FMLA’s self-care provision: The self-care provision standing alone addresses sex discrimination and sex stereotyping; the provision is a necessary adjunct to the family-care provision sustained in Hibbs; and the provision eases the burden on single parents. But what the family-care provisions have to support them, the self-care provision lacks, namely, evidence of a pattern of state constitutional violations accompanied by a remedy drawn in narrow terms to address or prevent those violations.
1
Standing alone, the self-care provision is not a valid abrogation of the States’ immunity from suit. When the FMLA was enacted, “ninety-five percent of full-time state- and local-government employees were covered by paid sick leave plans and ninety-six percent of such employees likewise enjoyed short-term disability protection.” Brief for State of Texas et al. as Amici Curiae 13-14 (hereinafter Texas Brief) (citing Bureau of Labor Statistics, U. S. Dept, of Labor, Employee Benefits in State and Local Governments 17-26 (1994) (hereinafter BLS Rept.)). The evidence did not suggest States had facially discriminatory self-care leave policies or that they administered neutral self-care leave policies in a discriminatory way. And there is scant evidence in the legislative history of a purported stereotype harbored by employers that women take self-care leave more often than men. Congress considered evidence that “men and women are out on medical leave approximately equally.” H. R. Rep. No. 101-28, pt. 1, p. 15 (1989) (hereinafter H. R. Rep.). Nothing in the record shows employers formulated self-care leave policies based on a contrary view.
Without widespread evidence of sex discrimination or sex stereotyping in the administration of sick leave, it is apparent that the congressional purpose in enacting the self-care provision is unrelated to these supposed wrongs. The legislative history of the self-care provision reveals a concern for the economic burdens on the employee and the employee’s family resulting from illness-related job loss and a concern for discrimination on the basis of illness, not sex. See, e. g., S. Rep. No. 103-3, pp. 11-12 (1993); H. R. Rep., at 23. In the findings pertinent to the self-care provision, the statute makes no reference to any distinction on the basis of sex. See 29 U. S. C. § 2601(a)(4) (“[Tjhere is inadequate job security for employees who have serious health conditions that prevent them from working for temporary periods”). By contrast, with regard to family care Congress invoked concerns related to gender. See § 2601(a)(5) (“[D]ue to the nature of the roles of men and women in our society, the primary responsibility for family caretaking often falls on women, and such responsibility affects the working lives of women more than it affects the working lives of men”).
It is true the self-care provision offers some women a benefit by allowing them to take leave for pregnancy-related illnesses; but as a remedy, the provision is not congruent and proportional to any identified constitutional violations. At the time of the FMLA’s enactment, “ninety-five percent” of state employees had paid sick-leave plans at work, and “ninety-six percent” had short-term disability protection. Texas Brief 13-14 (citing BLS Rept. 17-26). State employees presumably could take leave for pregnancy-related illnesses under these policies, and Congress did not document any pattern of States excluding pregnancy-related illnesses from sick-leave or disability-leave policies. “Congress . . . said nothing about the existence or adequacy of state remedies.” Florida Prepaid, 527 U. S., at 644. It follows that abrogating the States’ immunity from suits for damages for failure to give self-care leave is not a congruent and proportional remedy if the existing state leave policies would have sufficed.
2
As an alternative justification for the self-care provision, it has been suggested that the provision is a necessary adjunct to the family-care provisions. Petitioner argues that employers may assume women are more likely to take family-care leave than men and that the FMLA therefore offers up to 12 weeks of leave for family care and self care combined. According to petitioner, when the self-care provision is coupled with the family-care provisions, the self-care provision could reduce the difference in the expected number of weeks of FMLA leave that different employees take for different reasons.
The fact that self-care leave could have this effect does not mean that it would. If, for example, women are expected to take 20 days of family-care leave per year and men to take 10, and women and men are each expected to take 5 days of self-care leave per year, the difference in the expected number of days of leave and cost to the employer remains the same regardless of the availability of self-care leave. Congress made no findings, and received no specific testimony, to suggest the availability of self-care leave equalizes the expected amount of FMLA leave men and women will take. Even if women take family-care leave more often than men, men do not take self-care leave more often than women; and there is little evidence that employers assume they do. See H. R. Rep., at 15. Petitioner suggests that some women will be expected to take all 12 weeks of leave under the FMLA for family-care purposes, and therefore that any amount of self-care leave taken by men will diminish the difference in the amount of FMLA leave taken by men and women. But there is little evidence to support petitioner’s assumption about the magnitude of women’s expected FMLA leave for family-care purposes. And men are only expected to take five days of sick leave per year, see ibid., so the self-care provision diminishes the difference in expected leave time by a maximum of five days. And that is only to the extent women use all their available FMLA leave for family-care reasons. Petitioner’s overly complicated argument about how the self-care provision works in tandem with the family-care provisions is unconvincing and in the end does not comply with the clear requirements of City of Boerne.
In addition petitioner’s first defense of the self-care provision contradicts his second defense of the provision. In the first defense, the Court is told employers assume women take more self-care leave than men. See Tr. of Oral Arg. 10-12. In the second defense, the Court is told the self-care provision provides an incentive to hire women that will counteract the incentives created by the family-care provisions because employers assume women take more family-care leave than men. But if the first defense is correct, the second defense is wrong. In other words, if employers assume women take self-care leave more often than men (the first defense), a self-care provision will not provide an incentive to hire women. To the contrary, the self-care provision would provide an incentive to discriminate against women.
There is “little support in the record for the concerns that supposedly animated” the self-care provision. Florida Prepaid, supra, at 639. Only supposition and conjecture support the contention that the self-care provision is necessary to make the family-care provisions effective. The evidence documented in support of the self-care provision is, to a large degree, unrelated to sex discrimination, or to the administration of the family-care provisions. See supra, at 38. Congress made no findings and did not cite specific or detailed evidence to show how the self-care provision is necessary to the family-care provisions or how it reduces an employer’s incentives to discriminate against women. And “Congress . . . said nothing about the existence or adequacy of state” sick-leave policies. Florida, Prepaid, supra, at 644; see Garrett, 531 U. S., at 373. Under this Court’s precedents, more is required to subject unconsenting States to suits for damages, particularly where, as here, it is for violations of a provision (the self-care provision) that is a supposedly preventive step in aid of already preventive provisions (the family-care provisions). See Florida Prepaid, supra, at 642 (“[T]he legislative record still provides little support for the proposition that Congress sought to remedy a Fourteenth Amendment violation in enacting the Patent Remedy Act”); Kimel, 528 U. S., at 88 (“One means by which we have made such a determination ... is by examining the legislative record containing the reasons for Congress’ action”).
The “few fleeting references” to how self-care leave is inseparable from family-care leave fall short of what is required for a valid abrogation of States’ immunity from suits for damages. Florida Prepaid, supra, at 644. These “isolated sentences clipped from floor debates” and testimony, Kimel, supra, at 89, are stated as conclusions, unsupported by evidence or findings about how the self-care provision interrelates to the family-care provisions to counteract employers’ incentives to discriminate against women. Congress must rely on more than abstract generalities to subject the States to suits for damages. Otherwise, Congress could choose to combat the purported effects of the family-care provisions by allowing employees to sue States that do not permit employees to take vacation time under the FMLA. There is nothing in particular about self-care leave, as opposed to leave for any personal reason, that connects it to gender discrimination. And when the issue, as here, is whether subparagraph (D) can abrogate a State’s immunity from damages, there is no sufficient nexus, or indeed any demonstrated nexus, between self-care leave and gender discrimination by state employers. Documented discrimination against women in the general workplace is a persistent, unfortunate reality, and, we must assume, a still prevalent wrong. An explicit purpose of the Congress in adopting the FMLA was to improve workplace conditions for women. See 29 U. S. C. §§ 2601(b)(4), (5). But States may not be subject to suits for damages based on violations of a comprehensive statute unless Congress has identified a specific pattern of constitutional violations by state employers. See City of Boerne, 521 U. S., at 532.
3
Petitioner’s last defense of the self-care provision is that the provision helps single parents retain their jobs when they become ill. This, however, does not explain how the provision remedies or prevents constitutional violations. The fact that most single parents happen to be women, see, e. g., S. Rep. No. 103-3, at 7, demonstrates, at most, that the self-care provision was directed at remedying employers’ neutral leave restrictions which have a disparate effect on women. “Although disparate impact may be relevant evidence of... discrimination ... such evidence alone is insufficient [to prove a constitutional violation] even where the Fourteenth Amendment subjects state action to strict scrutiny.” Garrett, supra, at 372-373; see Tuan Anh Nguyen v. INS, 533 U. S. 53, 82-83 (2001) (O’Connor, J., dissenting); Washington v. Davis, 426 U. S. 229, 239 (1976). To the extent, then, that the self-care provision addresses neutral leave policies with a disparate impact on women, it is not directed at a pattern of. constitutional violations. Because, moreover, it is “unlikely that many of the [neutral leave policies]... affected by” the self-care provision are unconstitutional, “the scope of the [self-care provision is] out of proportion to its supposed remedial or preventive objectives.” Kimel, supra, at 82; see City of Boerne, supra, at 519.
Of course, a State need not assert its Eleventh Amendment immunity from suits for damages. See, e. g., Sossamon v. Texas, 563 U. S. 277, 284 (2011) (“A State . . . may choose to waive its immunity in federal court at its pleasure”). Discrimination against women is contrary to the public policy of the State of Maryland, see, e. g., Maryland’s Fair Employment Practices Act, Md. State Govt. Code Ann. § 20-606 (Lexis 2009), and the State has conceded that the Act is good social policy, see Tr. of Oral Arg. 35. If the State agrees with petitioner that damages liability for violations of the self-care provision is necessary to combat discrimination against women, the State may waive its immunity or create a parallel state-law cause of action.
⅜ * *
As a consequence of our constitutional design, money damages are the exception when sovereigns are defendants. See, e. g., Pennhurst State School and Hospital v. Halderman, 451 U. S. 1, 29 (1981). Subjecting States to suits for damages pursuant to §5 requires more than a theory for why abrogating the States’ immunity aids in, or advances, a stated congressional purpose. To abrogate the States’ immunity from suits for damages under § 5, Congress must identify a pattern of constitutional violations and tailor a remedy congruent and proportional to the documented violations. It failed to do so when it allowed employees to sue States for violations of the FMLA’s self-care provision. 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:
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J
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sc_issuearea
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What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Mr. Justice Blackmun
announced the judgments of. the Court and an opinion in which The Chief Justice, Mr. Justice Stewart, and Mr. Justice White join..
These cases present the narrow but precise issue whether the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth.Amendment assures the right to trial by jury in the adjudicative..phase of a state juvenile court delinquency proceeding.
1
The issue arises understandably, for. the Court in a series of cases already has emphasized due.process factors protective of the juvenile:
1. Haley v. Ohio, 332 U. S. 596 (1948), concerned the admissibility of a confession taken from a 15-year-old boy on trial for first-degree murder. It was held that, upon, the facts there developed, the Due Process. Clause barred the use of the confession. Mr. Justice Douglas, in an opinion in which three other Justices joined, said, “Neither man nor child can be allowed to stand condemned by methods which, flout constitutional requirements of due process of law.” 332 U. S., at 601.
2. Gallegos v. Colorado, 370 U. S. 49 (1962), where a 14-yeár-old was on trial, is to the same effect.
3. Kent v. United States, 383 U. S. 541 (1966), concerned a 16-year-old charged with housebreaking, robbery, and rape in the District of Columbia; The issue was the propriety of the juvenile court’s waiver of jurisdiction “after, full investigation,” as permitted by the applicable statute. It was emphasized that the latitude the court possessed within which to-determine whether it should retain or waive jurisdiction “assumes procedural regularity sufficient in the particular circumstances to satisfy the basic requirements of due process and fairness, as well as compliance with the statutory requirement of a- ‘full investigation.’ ” 383 U. S., at 553.
4. In re Gault, 387 U. S. 1 (1967), concerned a 15-year-old, already on probation, committed in Arizona as a delinquent after being apprehended, upon a complaint of lewd remarks by telephone. Mr. Justice Fortas, in writing for the Court, reviewed the cases just cited and observed,
“Accordingly, while these cases relate only to restricted aspects of the subject, they unmistakably indicate that, whatever may be their precise impact, neither the Fourteenth Amendment nor the Bill of Rights is for adults alone.” 387 U. S., at 13.
The Court focused on “the proceedings by which' a determination is made as to whether a juvenile is a ‘delinquent’ as a result of alleged misconduct on his part, with the consequence that he may be committed to a state institution” and, as to this, said that “there appears to be little current dissent from the proposition that the Due Process Clause has a role to play.” Ibid. Kent was adhered to: “We reiterate this view, here in connection with a juvenile court adjudication of ‘delinquency,’ as a requirement which is part of the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment of our Constitution.” Id., at 30-31. Due process, in that proceeding, was held to embrace adequate written notice; advice as to the right to counsel, retained or appointed; confrontation; and cross-examination. The privilege against self-incrimination was also held available to the juvenile. The Court refrained from deciding whether a State must provide appellate review in juvenile cases or a transcript or recording of the hearings.
5. DeBacker v. Brainard, 396 U. S. 28 (1969), presented, by state habeas corpus, a challenge to a Nebraska statute providing that juvenile court hearings “shall be conducted by the judge without a jury in an informal manner.” However, because that appellant’s hearing had antedated the decisions in Duncan v. Louisiana, 391 U. S. 146 (1968), and Bloom v. Illinois, 391 U. S. 194 (1968), and because- Duncan and Bloom had-been given only prospective application by DeStefano v. Woods, 392 U. S. 631 (1968), DeBacker’s case was deemed an inappropriate one for resolution of the.jury trial issue. His appeal was therefore dismissed. Mr. Justice Black and Mr. Justice Douglas, in separate dissents, took the position that a juvenile is entitled to a.jury trial at the adjudicative stage. Mr. Justice Black described this as “a right which is surely one of the fundamental aspects of criminal justice in the English-speaking world,” 396 U. S., at 34, and Mr. Justice Douglas described it as a right required by the Sixth and Four-teénth Amendments "where the delinquency charged is an offense that, if the person were an adult, would be a crime triable by jury.” 396 U. S., at 35.
6. In re Winship, 397 U. S. 358 (1970), concerned a 12-year-old charged with delinquency for having taken money from a woman’s purse. The Court held that “the Due Process Clause protects the accused against conviction except upon proof beyond a reasonable doubt of every fact necessary to constitute the crime with which he is charged,” 397 U. S., at 364, and then went on to hold, at 368, that this standard was :applicable, too, “during the adjudicatory stage of a delinquency proceeding.”
From these six cases — Haley, Gallegos, Kent, Gault, DeBacker, and Winship■ — -it is apparent that:
.1. Some of the constitutional requirements attendant upon the state criminal trial have equal application to that part of the state juvenile proceeding that is adjudicative in nature. Among these are the rights to appropriate notice, to counsel, to confrontation and to cross-examination, and the privilege against self-incrimination. Included, also, is the standard of proof beyond a reasonable doubt.
2. The Court, however, has not yet said that all rights constitutionally assured to an adult accused of crime also are to be enforced or made available to the juvenile in his delinquency proceeding. Indeed, the Court specifically has refrained from going that far:
“We do not mean by this to indicate that the hearing to be held must conform with all of the requirements of a criminal trial or even of the usual admin.istrative hearing; but we do hold that the hearing must measure up to the essentials of due process and •fair treatment.” Kent, 383 U. S., at 562; Gault, 387 U. S., at 30.
3. The Court, although recognizing the high hopes and aspirations of Judge Julian Mack, the leaders of the Jane Addams School and the other supporters of the juvenile court concept, has also noted the disappointments of the system’s performance and experience and the resulting widespread disaffection. Kent, 383 U. S., at 555-556; Gault, 387 U. S., at 17-19. There have been, at one and the same time, both an appreciation for the juvenile court judge who is devoted, sympathetic, and conscientious, and a disturbed concern about the judge who is untrained and less than fully imbued with an understanding.approach to the complex problems of childhood and adolescence. There has been praise for the system and its purposes, and there has been alarm over its defects.
4. The Court has insisted that these successive decisions do-not spell the doom of the juvenile court system or even deprive it of its “informality, flexibility, or speed.” Winship, 397 U. S., at 366. On the other hand, a concern precisely to the opposite effect was expressed, by two dissenters in Winship. Id., at 375-376.
II
With, this substantial background already developed, we turn to the facts of'the present cases:
No. 322. Joseph McKeiver, then 'age 16, in May 1968 was charged with robbery, larceny, and receiving stolen goods (felonies under Pennsylvania law, Pa. Stat. Ann., Tit. 18, §§ 4704, 4807, and 4817 (1963)) as acts of juvenile delinquency. At the time of the adjudication hearing he was represented by counsel. His request for a jury trial was denied and his case was heard by Judge' Theodore S. Gutowicz of the''Court of Common Pleas, Family Division, Juvenile. Branch,' of Philadelphia County, Pennsylvania. McKeiver was adjudged a delinquent upon findings that he had violated a law of. the Commonwealth. Pa. Stat. Ann., Tit. 11, § 243 (4) (a) (1965).. He was placed on probation. On appeal, the Superior Court affirmed without opinion. In re McKeiver, 215 Pa. Super. 760, 255 A. 2d 921 (1969).
Edward Terry, then age 15, in January 1969 was charged with assault and battery on a police officer and conspiracy (misdemeanors under Pennsylvania law, Pa. Stat. Ann., Tit. 18, §§ 4708 and 4302 (1963)) as acts of juvenile delinquency. His counsel’s request for a jury trial was denied and his case was heard by Judge Joseph C. Bruno of the same Juvenile Branch of the Court of Common Pleas of Philadelphia County. Terry was adjudged a delinquent on the charges. This followed an adjudication and commitment!m the preceding week for an assault on a teacher. He was committed, as he had been on the earlier charge, to the Youth Development Center at Cornwells Heights. On appeal, the Superior Court affirmed without opinion. In re Terry, 215 Pa. Super. 762, 255 A. 2d 922 (1969).
The Supreme Court of Pennsylvania granted leave to appeal in both cases and consolidated them. The single question considered, as phrased by ’ the court, was “whether there is a constitutional right to a jury trial in juvenile court.” The answer, one justice dissenting, was ■ in the negative. In re Terry, 438 Pa. 339, 265 A. 2d 350 (1970). We noted probable jurisdiction. 399 U. S. 925 (1970).
The details of the McKeiver and Terry offenses are set forth in Justice Roberts’ opinion for the Pennsylvania court, 438 Pa., at 341-342, nn. 1 and 2, 265. A. 2d, at 351 nn. 1 and 2, and need not be.repeated at any length here. It suffices to say that McKeiver’s offense was his participating with 20 or 30 youths who pursued three young teenagers and took 25 cents from them; that McKeiver never before had been arrested and had a record of gainful employment; that the testimony of two of the victims was described by the court as somewhat inconsistent and as “weak”; and that Terry’s offense consisted of hitting a police officer with his fists and" with a stick when the officer broke up a boys’ fight Terry and others were watching.
No. 128. Barbara Burrus and approximately 45 other black children, ranging in age from 11 to 15 years, were the subjects of juvenile court summonses issued in Hyde County, North Carolina, in January 1969.
The charges arose out of á series of demonstrations in the county in late 1968 by black adults and children protesting school assignments and a school consolidation plan. Petitions were filed by North Carolina state highway patrolmen. Except for one relating to James Lambert Howard, the petitions charged the respective juveniles with wilfully impeding traffic. The charge against Howard was that he wilfully made riotous noise and was disorderly in the O. A. Peay School in Swan Quarter ; interrupted and disturbed the school during its regular sessions; and defaced school furniture. The acts so charged are misdemeanors under North Carolina law. N. C. Gen. Stat. §§ 20-174.1 (1965 and Supp. 1969), 14-132 (a), 14-273 (1969).
The several cases were - consolidated into groups for hearing before District Judge Hallett S. Ward, sitting as a juvenile court. The same lawyer -.appeared for all the juveniles. Over counsel’s objection, made in all except two of the eases, the general public was excluded. A request for a jury trial in each case was denied.
The evidence as to the juveniles other than Howard consisted solely of testimony of highway patrolmen. No juvenile took the stand or offered any witness. The testimony was to the effect that on various occasions the. juveniles and adults were observed walking along High-' way 64 singing, shouting, clapping, and playing basketball.. As a result, there was interference with traffic. The marchers were asked to.leave the paved portion of the highway and they were warned that they were committing a statutory offense. They either refused or left the roadway and immediately returned. The juveniles and participating adults were taken into custody. Juvenile petitions were then filed with respect to those under the age of 16.
The evidence as to Howard was that on the morning of December 5, he was in the office of the principal of the O. A. Peay School with 15 other persons while school was in session and was moving furniture around; that the office was in disarray; that as a result the school closed before noon; and that neither he nor any of the others was a student at the school or authorized to enter the principal’s office.
In each case the court found that the juvenile had committed “an act for which an adult may be punished by law;.” A custody order was entered declaring the juvenile a delinquent “in need of more suitable, guardianship” and committing him to the custody of the County Department of Public Welfare for placement in'a suitable institution “until such time as the Board of Juvenile Correction or the Superintendent of said institution may’ determine, not inconsistent with the laws of this State.” The court, however, suspended these commitments and placed each juvenile on probation for either one or two years conditioned upon his violating none of the State’s laws, upon his reporting monthly to the County Department of Welfare, upon his being home by 11 p. m. each evening, and upon his attending a school approved by the Welfare Director. None of the juveniles has been confined on these charges.
On appeal, the cases were consolidated into two groups. The North Carolina Court of Appeals affirmed. In re Burrus, 4 N. C. App. 523, 167 S. E. 2d 454 (1969); In re Shelton, 5 N. C. App. 487, 168 S. E. 2d 695 (1969). In its turn the Supreme Court of North Carolina deleted that portion of the order in each case relating to commitment, but otherwise affirmed. In re Burrus, 275 N. C. 517, 169 S. E. 2d 879 (1969). Two justices dissented without opinion. We granted certiorari. 397 U. S. 1036 (1970)..
Ill
It is instructive to review, as an illustration, the substance of Justice Roberts’ opinion for the Pennsylvania court. He observes, 438 Pa., at 343, 265 A. 2d, at 352, that “[f]or over sixty-five years the Supreme Court gave no consideration at all to the constitutional problems involved in the juvenile court area”; that Gault “is somewhat of a paradox, being both broad and narrow at the same time”; that it “is broad in that it evidences a- fun- ■ damental and far-reaching disillusionment with the anticipated benefits of the juvenile court system’’; that it" is narrow because the court enumerated four due process rights which it held applicable in juvenile proceedings, but declined to rule on two other claimed rights, id., at 344-345, 265 A. 2d, at 353; that as a consequence the Pennsylvania court was “confronted with.a sweeping rationale and a carefully tailored holding,” id., at 345, 265 A. 2d, at 353; that the procedural safeguards “Gault specifically made applicable to juvenile courts have already caused a significant 'constitutional domestication’ of juvenile court proceedings,” id., at 346, 265 A. 2d, at 354; that those safeguards and other rights, including the reasonable-doubt standard established by Winship, “insure that the juvenile court will operate in an atmosphere which is orderly enough to impress thé juvenile with the gravity of the situation and the impartiality of the tribunal and at the same time informal enough to permit the benefits of the juvenile system to operate” (footnote-omitted), id., at 347, 265 A. 2d, at 354; that the “proper •inquiry, then, is whether the right to á trial by jury is 'fundamental’ within the meaning of Duncan, in the context of a juvenile court which operates with all of the-above constitutional safeguards,” id., at 348, 265 A. 2d, at 354; and that his court’s inquiry turned “upon whether there are elements in the juvenile process which render the right to a trial by jury less essential to the protection of an accused’s rights in the juvenile system-than in the normal criminal process.” Ibid.
Justice Roberts then concluded that such factors do inhere in the Pennsylvania juvenile system: (1) Although realizing that “faith in the quality of the juvenile bench is not an entirely satisfactory substitute for due process,” id., at 348, 265 A. 2d, at 355, the judges in the juvenile courts “do take a different view of their role than that taken by their counterparts in the criminal courts.”' Id., at 348, 265 A. 2d, at 354-355. (2) While one regrets its inadequacies, “the juvenile system has available and utilizes much more fully various diagnostic and rehabilitative services” that, are “far superior to those aváilable in the regular criminal process.” Id., at 348-349, 265 A. 2d, at 355. (3) Although conceding that the post-adjudication process - “has in many respects fallen far short of its goals, and its reality is far harsher than its theory,” the end result of a declaration of delinquency “is significantly different from and less onerous than a finding of criminal guilt” and “we are not yet convinced that the current practices do not contain the seeds from which a truly appropriate system can be brought forth.” (4) Finally; “of all the possible due process rights which could be applied in the juvenile courts, the right to trial by jury is the one which would most likely be disruptive of the unique nature of the juvenile process.” It is the jury trial that “would probably require substantial alteration of the traditional practices.” The other procedural rights held applicable to the juvenile process “will give the juveniles sufficient protection” and the addition of the trial by jury “might well destroy the traditional character- of juvenile proceedings.” Id., at 349-350, 265 A. 2d, at 355.
The court concluded, id., at 350, 265 A. 2d, at 356, that it was confident “that a properly structured and fairly administered juvenile court system can serve our present societal needs without infringing on individual freedoms.”
IV
The right to an impartial jury “[i]n all criminal prosecutions” under federal law is guaranteed by the Sixth Amendment. Through the Fourteenth Amendment that requirement has now been imposed upon the States “in all criminal cases which — were they to be tried in a federal court — would come within the Sixth Amendment’s guarantee.” This is because the Court has said it believes “that trial by jury in criminal cases is fundamental to> the American scheme of justice.” Duncan v. Louisiana, 391 U. S. 145, 149 (1968); Bloom v. Illinois, 391 U. S. 194, 210-211 (1968).
This, of course,„ does not automatically provide the answer to the present jury trial issue, if for no other reason than that the juvenile court proceeding has not yet been held to be a “criminal prosecution,” within the meaning and reach of the Sixth Amendment, and also has not yet been regarded as devoid of criminal aspects merely because it usually has been given the civil label. Kent, 383 U. S., at 554; Gault, 387 U. S., at 17, 49-50; Winship, 397 U. S., at 365-366.
Littlé, indeed, is to be gained-by any attempt simplistically to call the juvenile court proceeding either “civil” or “criminal.” The Court carefully has avoided this wooden approach. Before Gault was decided in 1967, the Fifth Amendment’s guarantee against self-'incrimination had been imposed upon the state criminal trial. Malloy v. Hogan, 378 U. S. 1 (1964). So, too, had the Sixth Amendment’s rights of confrontation and cross-examination. Pointer v. Texas, 380 U. S. 400 (1965), and Douglas v. Alabama, 380 U. S. 415 (1965). Yet the Court did not automatically.and peremptorily apply those rights to the juvenile proceeding. A reading of Gault reveals the opposite. And the same separate approach to the standard-of-proof issue is evident from the carefully separated application of the standard, first to the criminal trial, and then to the juvenile proceeding, displayed in Winship. 397 U. S., at 361 and 365.
Thus, accepting “the proposition that the Due Process Clause has a role to play,” Gault, 387 U. S., at 13, our task here with respect to trial by jury, as it was in Gault with respect to other claimed rights, “is to ascertain the precise impact of the due process requirement.” Id., at 13-14.
V
The Pennsylvania juveniles’ basic argument is that they were tried in proceedings “substantially similar to a criminal trial.” They say that a delinquency proceeding in their State is initiated by a petition charging a penal code violation in the eonclusory language of an indictment; that a juvenile detained prior to trial is held in a building substantially similar to an adult prison; that in Philadelphia juveniles over 16 are, in fact, held in the cells of a prison; that counsel and the prosecution engage in plea bargaining; that motions to suppress are routinely heard and decided; that the usual rules of evidence are. applied; that the customary common-law defenses are available; that the press is generally admitted in the Philadelphia juvenile courtrooms; that members of the public enter the room; that, arrest and prior record may be reported by the press (from police sources, however, rather than from the juvenile court records); that, once adjudged delinquent, a juvenile may be confined until his majority in what amounts to a prison (see In re Bethea, 215 Pa. Super. 75, 76, 257 A. 2d 368, 369 (1969), describing the state correctional institution at Camp Hill as a “maximum security prison for adjudged delinquents and youthful criminal offenders”) ; and that the stigma attached upon delinquency adjudication approximates that resulting from conviction in an adult criminal proceeding.
The Norfh ■ Carolina juveniles particularly urge that the requirement of a jury trial would not operate to deny the supposed benefits of the juvenile court system; that the system’s primary benefits are its discretionary intake procedure permitting disposition short of adjudication, •and its flexible sentencing permitting emphasis on rehabilitation; that. realization of these benefits does not depend upon dispensing with the jury; that adjudication of factual issues on the one hand and disposition of the case on the other are very different matters with very different purposes; that the phrpose of the former is indistinguishable from that of the criminal trial; that the jury trial provides an independent protective factor; that experience has shown that jury trials in juvenile courts are manageable; that no reason exists why protection traditionally accorded in criminal proceedings should be denied young people subject to involuntary incarceration for lengthy periods;, and that the juvenile courts deserve healthy public scrutiny.
VI
All the litigants here agree that- the applicable due process standard in juvenile proceedings, as developed by Gault and Winship, is fundamental fairness. As that standard was applied in those two cases, we have an emphasis on factfinding procedures. The requirements of notice, counsel, confrontation, cross-examination, and standard of proof naturally flowed from this emphasis. But one cannot say that in our legal system the jury is a necessary component of accurate factfinding. There is much to be said for it, to be sure, but we have been con-, tent to pursue other ways for determining facts. Juries are not required, and have not been, for example, in equity cases,.in workmen’s compensation, in probate, or in deportation cases. Neither have they been generally used in military trials. In Duncan the Court stated, “We would not assert, however, that every criminal trial- — or any particular trial — held before a judge alone is unfair or that a defendant may never be as fairly treated by a judge as he would be by a jury.” 391 U. S., at 158. In DeStefano, for this reason and others, the Court refrained from retrospective application of Duncan, an action it surely would have not taken had it felt that the integrity of the result was seriously-at issue; And in Williams v. Florida, 399 U. S. 78 (1970), the Court saw no particular magic in a 12-man jury for á criminal case, •thus revealing that even jury concepts' themselves are not inflexible.
We must recognize, as the Court has recognized before, that the fond and idealistic hopes of the juvenile court.proponents and early reformers of three generations ago have not been realized. The devastating commentary upon the system’s failures as a whole, contained in the President’s Commission on Law Enforcement and Administration of Justice, Task Force Report: Juvenile Delinquency and Youth Crime 7-9 (1967), reveals the depth of disappointment in what has been accomplished. Too often the juvenile court judge falls far short of that stalwart, protective, and communicating figure the system envisaged. The community’s unwillingness to provide people and facilities and to be concerned, the insufficiency of time devoted, the scarcity of professional help, the inadequacy of dispositional alternatives, and our general lack of knowledge all contribute to dissatisfaction with the experiment.
The Task Force Report, however, also said, id., at,7, “To say that juvenile courts have failed to achieve their goals is to say no more than what is true of criminal courts in the United States, But failure is most striking when hopes are highest.”
Despite all these disappointments, all these failures, and all these shortcomings, we conclude that trial by jury in the juvenile court’s adjudicative stage is not a constitutional requirement. We so conclude for a number of reasons:
1. The Court has refrained, in the cases heretofore decided, from taking the easy way with a flat holding that all rights constitutionally assured for the adult accused are.to be imposed upon the state juvenile proceeding. What was done in Gault and in Winship is aptly described in Commonwealth v. Johnson, 211 Pa. Super. 62, 74, 234 A. 2d 9, 15 (1967):
“It is clear to us that the Supreme Court has properly attempted to strike a judicious balance by injecting procedural orderliness into the juvenile court system. It is seeking to reverse the trend [pointed out in Kent, 383 U.S., at 556] whereby The child receives the worst of both worlds....’”
2. There is a possibility, at least, that the jury trial, if required as a matter of constitutional precept, will remake the juvenile proceeding into a fully adversary process and will put an effective end to what has.been the idealistic prospect of an intimate, informal protective proceeding.
3. The Task Force Report, although concededly pre-Gault, is notable for its not making any recommendation that the jury trial be imposed upon the- juvenile court system. This is so despite its vivid description of the system’s deficiencies and disappointments. Had the Commission deemed this vital to the integrity, of the juvenile process, or to the handling of juveniles, surely a recommendation or suggestion to this effect would have appeared. The intimations, instead, are quite the other way. Task Force Report 38. Further, it expressly recommends against abandonment of the system and' against the return of the juvenile to the criminal courts.
4. The Court specifically has recognized by dictum that a jury is not a necessary part even of every criminal process that is fair and equitable. Duncan v. Louisiana, 391 U. S., at 149-150, n. 14, and 158.
5. The imposition of the jury trial on the juvenile court system would not strengthen gréatly, if at all, the factfinding function, and would, contrarily, provide an attrition of the juveniie court’s assumed ability to function in a unique manner. It would not remedy the defects of the system. Meager as has been the hoped-for advance in the juvenile field, the alternative would be regressive, would lose what has been gained, and would tend once again to place the juvenile squarely in.the routine of the criminal process.
6. The juvenile, concept held high promise. We are reluctant to say that, despite disappointments of grave dimensions, it still does not hold promise, and we are particularly reluctant to say, as do the Pennsylvania appellants here, that the system cannot accomplish its rehabilitative goals. So much- depends on the availability of resources, on the interest and commitment of the public, on willingness to learn, and on understanding as to cause and effect and cure. In this field, as in so many others, one perhaps learns best by doing. We are reluctant- to disallow the States to experiment further and to seek in new and different ways the elusive answers to the problems of the young, and we feel that we would be impeding that. experimentation by imposing the jury trial. The States, indeed, must go forward. If, in its wisdom, any State feels the jury trial is desirable in all cases, or in certain kinds, there appears to. be no impediment to its installing a system embracing that feature. That, however,' is the State’s privilege and not its obligation;
7. Of course there have been abuses. The Task Force Report has noted them. We refrain from saying at this point that those abuses are of constitutional dimension. They relate to the lack of resources and of dedication rather than to inherent, unfairness.
8. There is, of course, nothing to prevent a juvenile court judge, in a particular ease where he feels the need, or when the need is demonstrated, from using an advisory jury.
9. “The fact that a practice is followed by a large number of states is not conclusive in a decision as to whether that practice accords with due process, but it is plainly worth considering in determining whether the practice ‘offends some principle of justice so rooted in the traditions and conscience of our people as to be ranked as fundamental.’ Snyder v. Massachusetts, 291 U. S. 97, 105 (1934).” Leland v. Oregon, 343 U. S. 790, 798 (1952). It therefore is of more than passing interest that at least 29 States and the District of Columbia by statute deny the juvenile a right to a jury trial in cases such as these. The same result is achieved in other States by judicial decision. In 10 States statutes provide for a jury trial under certain circumstances.
10. Since. Gault and since Duncan the great majority of States, in addition to Pennsylvania and North Carolina, that have faced, the issue have concluded that the considerations that led to the result in those two cases do not compel trial by -jury in the juvenile court. In re Fucini, 44 Ill. 2d 305, 255 N. E. 2d 380 (1970); Bible v. State, - Ind. -, 254 N. E. 2d 319 (1970); Dryden v. Commonwealth, 435 S. W. 2d 457 (Ky. 1968); In re Johnson, 254 Md. 517, 255 A. 2d 419 (1969); Hopkins v. Youth Court, 227 So. 2d 282 (Miss. 1969); In re J. W., 106 N. J. Super. 129, 254 A. 2d 334 (1969); In re D., 27 N. Y. 2d 90, 261 N. E. 2d 627 (1970); In re Agler, 19 Ohio St. 2d 70, 249 N. E. 2d 808 (1969); State v. Turner, 253 Ore. 235, 453 P. 2d 910 (1969). See In re Estes v. Hopp, 73 Wash. 2d 263, 438 P. 2d 205 (1968); McMullen v. Geiger, 184 Neb. 581, 169 N. W. 2d 431 (1969). To the contrary are Peyton v. Nord, 78 N. M. 717, 437 P. 2d 716 (1968), and, semble, Nieves v. United States, 280 F. Supp. 994 (SDNY 1968).
11. Stopping short of proposing the jury trial for juvenile proceedings are the Uniform Juvenile Court Act, § 24 (a), approved in July 1968 by the National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws; the Standard Juvenile Court Act, Art. V, § 19, proposed by the National Council on Crime and Delinquency (see W. Sheridan, Standards for Juvenile and Family Courts 73, Dept, of H. E. W., Children’s Bureau Pub. No. 437-1966); and the Legislative Guide for Drafting Family and Juvenile Court Acts § 29 (a) (Dept. of H. E. W.,' Children’s Bureau Pub. No. 472-1969).
12. If the jury trial were to be injected into the juvenile court system as a matter of right, it would bring with it into that system the traditional delay, the formality, and the clamor of the adversary system and, possibly,. the public trial. It is of.interest that these very factors were stressed.by the District Committee of the Senate when, through Senator Tydings, it recommended, and Congress then approved, as a provision in the District of Columbia Crime Bill, the abolition of the jury trial in the juvenile court. S. Rep. No. 91-620, pp. 13-14 (1969).
13. Finally, the arguments advanced by the juveniles here are, of course, the identical arguments that underlie the demand for the jury trial for criminal proceedings. The arguments necessarily equate the juvenile proceeding — or at least the adjudicative phase of it — with the criminal trial. Whether they should be so equated is our issue. Concern about the inapplicability of exclusionary and other rules of evidence, about the juvenile ■court judge’s possible awareness of the juvenile’s prior record and of the contents of the social file; about repeated appearances of the same familiar witnesses, in the persons of juvenile and probation officers and social workers — all to the effect that this will create the likelihood of pre-judgment — chooses to ignore, it seems to us, every aspect of fairness, of concern, of sympathy, and of paternal attention that the juvenile court system contemplates.
If the formalities
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer:
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B
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sc_issuearea
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What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Justice White
delivered the opinion of the Court.
Chapter 96 of Title 18 of the United States Code, 18 U. S. C. §§ 1961-1968 (1976 ed. and Supp. Ill), entitled Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO), was added to Title 18 by Title IX of the Organized Crime Control Act of 1970, Pub. L. 91-452, 84 Stat. 941. The question in this case is whether the term “enterprise” as used in RICO encompasses both legitimate and illegitimate enterprises or is limited in application to the former. The Court of Appeals for the First Circuit held that Congress did not intend to include within the definition of “enterprise” those organizations which are exclusively criminal. 632 F. 2d 896 (1980). This position is contrary to that adopted by every other Circuit that has addressed the issue. We granted cer-tiorari to resolve this conflict. 449 U. S. 1123 (1981).
I
Count Nine of a nine-count indictment charged respondent and 12 others with conspiracy to conduct and participate in the affairs of an enterprise engaged in interstate commerce through a pattern of racketeering activities, in violation of 18 U. S. C. § 1962 (d). The indictment described the enterprise as “a group of individuals associated in fact for the purpose of illegally trafficking in narcotics and other dangerous drugs, committing arsons, utilizing the United States mails to defraud insurance companies, bribing and attempting to bribe local police officers, and corruptly influencing and attempting to corruptly influence the outcome of state court proceedings... The other eight counts of the indictment charged the commission of various substantive criminal acts by those engaged in and associated with the criminal enterprise, including possession with intent to distribute and distribution of controlled substances, and several counts of insurance fraud by arson and other means. The common thread to all counts was respondent’s alleged leadership of this criminal organization through which he orchestrated and participated in the commission of the various crimes delineated in the RICO count or charged in the eight preceding counts.
After a 6-week jury trial, in which the evidence focused upon both the professional nature of this organization and the execution of a number of distinct criminal acts, respondent was convicted on all nine counts. He was sentenced to a term of 20 years on the substantive counts, as well as a 2-year special parole term on the drug count. On the RICO conspiracy count he was sentenced to a 20-year concurrent term and fined $20,000.
On appeal, respondent argued that RICO was intended solely to protect legitimate business enterprises from infiltration by racketeers and that RICO does not make criminal the participation in an association which performs only illegal acts and which has not infiltrated or attempted to infiltrate a legitimate enterprise. The Court of Appeals agreed. We reverse.
II
In determining the scope of a statute, we look first to its language. If the statutory language is unambiguous, in the absence of “a clearly expressed legislative intent to the contrary, that language must ordinarily be regarded as conclusive.” Consumer Product Safety Comm’n v. GTE Sylvania, Inc., 447 U. S. 102, 108 (1980). Of course, there is no errorless test for identifying or recognizing “plain” or “unambiguous” language. Also, authoritative administrative constructions should be given the deference to which they are entitled, absurd results are to be avoided and internal inconsistencies in the statute must be dealt with. Trans Alaska Pipeline Rate Cases, 436 U. S. 631, 643 (1978); Commissioner v. Brown, 380 U. S. 563, 571 (1965). We nevertheless begin with the language of the statute.
Section 1962 (c) makes it unlawful “for any person employed by or associated with any enterprise engaged in, or the activities of which affect, interstate or foreign commerce, to conduct or participate, directly or indirectly, in the conduct of such enterprise’s affairs through a pattern of racketeering activity or collection of unlawful debt.” The term “enterprise” is defined as including “any individual, partnership, corporation, association, or other legal entity, and any union or group of individuals associated in fact although not a legal entity.” § 1961 (4). There is no restriction upon the associations embraced by the definition: an enterprise includes any union or group of individuals associated in fact. On its face, the definition appears to include both legitimate and illegitimate enterprises within its scope; it no more ex-eludes criminal enterprises than it does legitimate ones. Had Congress not intended to reach criminal associations, it could easily have narrowed the sweep of the definition by inserting a single word, “legitimate.” But it did nothing to indicate that an enterprise consisting of a group of individuals was not covered by RICO if the purpose of the enterprise was exclusively criminal.
The Court of Appeals, however, clearly departed from and limited the statutory language. It gave several reasons for doing so, none of which is adequate. First, it relied in part on the rule of ejusdem generis, an aid to statutory construction problems suggesting that where general words follow a specific enumeration of persons or things, the general words should be limited to persons or things similar to those specifically enumerated. See 2A C. Sands, Sutherland on Statutory Construction §47.17 (4th ed. 1973). The Court of Appeals ruled that because each of the specific enterprises enumerated in § 1961 (4) is a “legitimate” one, the final catchall phrase— “any union or group of individuals associated in fact”— should also be limited to legitimate enterprises. There are at least two flaws in this reasoning. The rule of ejusdem generis is no more than an aid to construction and comes into play only when there is some uncertainty as to the meaning of a particular clause in a statute. Harrison v. PPG Industries, Inc., 446 U. S. 578, 588 (1980); United States v. Powell, 423 U. S. 87, 91 (1975); Gooch v. United States, 297 U. S. 124, 128 (1936). Considering the language and structure of § 1961 (4), however, we not only perceive no uncertainty in the meaning to be attributed to the phrase, “any union or group of individuals associated in fact” but we are convinced for another reason that ejusdem generis is wholly inapplicable in this context.
Section 1961 (4) describes two categories of associations that come within the purview of the “enterprise” definition. The first encompasses organizations such as corporations and partnerships, and other “legal entities.” The second covers “any union or group of individuals associated in fact although not a legal entity.” The Court of Appeals assumed that the second category was merely a more general description of the first. Having made that assumption, the court concluded that the more generalized description in the second category should be limited by the specific examples enumerated in the first. But that assumption is untenable. Each category describes a separate type of enterprise to be covered by the statute — those that are recognized as legal entities and those that are not. The latter is not a more general description of the former. The second category itself not containing any specific enumeration that is followed by a general description, ejusdem generis has no bearing on the meaning to be attributed to that part of § 1961 (4)
A second reason offered by the Court of Appeals in support of its judgment was that giving the definition of “enterprise” its ordinary meaning would create several internal inconsistencies in the Act. With respect to § 1962 (c), it was said:
“If ‘a pattern of racketeering’ can itself be an ‘enterprise’ for purposes of section 1962 (e), then the two phrases ‘employed by or associated with any enterprise’ and ‘the conduct of such enterprise’s affairs through [a pattern of racketeering activity]’ add nothing to the meaning of the section. The words of the statute are coherent and logical only if they are read as applying to legitimate enterprises.” 632 F. 2d, at 899.
This conclusion is based on a faulty premise. That a wholly criminal enterprise comes within the ambit of the statute does not mean that a “pattern of racketeering activity” is an “enterprise.” In order to secure a conviction under RICO, the Government must prove both the existence of an “enterprise” and the connected “pattern of racketeering activity.” The enterprise is an entity, for present purposes a group of persons associated together for a common purpose of engaging in a course of conduct. The pattern of racketeering activity is, on the other hand, a series of criminal acts as defined by the statute. 18 U. S. C. § 1961 (1) (1976 ed., Supp. III). The former is proved by evidence of an ongoing organization, formal or informal, and by evidence that the various associates function as a continuing unit. The latter is proved by evidence of the requisite number of acts of racketeering committed by the participants in the enterprise. While the proof used to establish these separate elements may in particular cases coalesce, proof of one does not necessarily establish the other. The “enterprise” is not the “pattern of racketeering activity”; it is an entity separate and apart from the pattern of activity in which it engages. The existence of an enterprise at all times remains a separate element which must be proved by the Government.
Apart from § 1962 (c)’s proscription against participating in an enterprise through a pattern of racketeering activities, RICO also proscribes the investment of income derived from racketeering activity in an enterprise engaged in or which affects interstate commerce as well as the acquisition of an interest in or control of any such enterprise through a pattern of racketeering activity. 18 TJ. S. C. §§ 1962 (a) and (b). The Court of Appeals concluded that these provisions of RICO should be interpreted so as to apply only to legitimate enterprises. If these two sections are so limited, the Court of Appeals held that the proscription in § 1962 (c), at issue here, must be similarly limited. Again, we do not accept the premise from which the Court of Appeals derived its conclusion. It is obvious that §§ 1962 (a) and (b) address the infiltration by organized crime of legitimate businesses, but we cannot agree that these sections were not also aimed at preventing racketeers from investing or reinvesting in wholly illegal enterprises and from acquiring through a pattern of racketeering activity wholly illegitimate enterprises such as an illegal gambling business or a loan-sharking operation. There is no inconsistency or anomaly in recognizing that § 1962 applies to both legitimate and illegitimate enterprises. Certainly the language of the statute does not warrant the Court of Appeals’ conclusion to the contrary.
Similarly, the Court of Appeals noted that various civil remedies were provided by § 1964, including divestiture, dissolution, reorganization, restrictions on future activities by violators of RICO, and treble damages. These remedies it thought would have utility only with respect to legitimate enterprises. As a general proposition, however, the civil remedies could be useful in eradicating organized crime from the social fabric, whether the enterprise be ostensibly legitimate or admittedly criminal. The aim is to divest the association of the fruits of its ill-gotten gains. See infra, at 591-593. Even if one or more of the civil remedies might be inapplicable to a particular illegitimate enterprise, this fact would not serve to limit the enterprise concept. Congress has provided civil remedies for use when the circumstances so warrant. It is untenable to argue that their existence limits the scope of the criminal provisions.
Finally, it is urged that the interpretation of RICO to include both legitimate and illegitimate enterprises will substantially alter the balance between federal and state enforcement of criminal law. This is particularly true, so the argument goes, since included within the definition of racketeering activity are a significant number of acts made criminal under state law. 18 U. S. C. § 1961 (1) (1976 ed., Supp. III). But even assuming that the more inclusive definition of enterprise will have the effect suggested, the language of the statute and its legislative history indicate that Congress was well aware that it was entering a new domain of federal involvement through the enactment of this measure. Indeed, the very purpose of the Organized Crime Control Act of 1970 was to enable the Federal Government to address a large and seemingly neglected problem. The view was that existing law, state and federal, was not adequate to address the problem, which was of national dimensions. That Congress included within the definition of racketeering activities a number of state crimes strongly indicates that RICO criminalized conduct that was also criminal under state law, at least when the requisite elements of a RICO offense are present. As the hearings and legislative debates reveal, Congress was well aware of the fear that RICO would “mov[e] large substantive areas formerly totally within the police power of the State into the Federal realm.” 116 Cong. Rec. 35217 (1970) (remarks of Rep. Eckhardt). See also id., at 35205 (remarks of Rep. Mikva); id.,' at 35213 (comments of the American Civil Liberties Union); Hearings on Organized Crime Control before Subcommittee No. 5 of the House Committee on the Judiciary, 91st Cong., 2d Sess., 329, 370 (1970) (statement of Sheldon H. Eisen on behalf of the Association of the Bar of the City of New York). In the face of these objections, Congress nonetheless proceeded to enact the measure, knowing that it would alter somewhat the role of the Federal Government in the war against organized crime and that the alteration would entail prosecutions involving acts of racketeering that are also crimes under state law. There is no argument that Congress acted beyond its power in so doing. That being the case, the courts are without authority to restrict the application of the statute. See United States v. Culbert, 435 U. S. 371, 379-380 (1978).
Contrary to the judgment below, neither the language nor structure of RICO limits its application to legitimate “enterprises.” Applying it also to criminal organizations does not render any portion of the statute superfluous nor does it create any structural incongruities within the framework of the Act. The result is neither absurd nor surprising. On the contrary, insulating the wholly criminal enterprise from prosecution under RICO is the more incongruous position.
Section 904 (a) of RICO, 84 Stat. 947, directs that “ft]he provisions of this Title shall be liberally construed to effectuate its remedial purposes.” With or without this admonition, we could not agree with the Court of Appeals that illegitimate enterprises should be excluded from coverage. We are also quite sure that nothing in the legislative history of RICO requires a contrary conclusion.
Ill
The statement of findings that prefaces the Organized Crime Control Act of 1970 reveals the pervasiveness of the problem that Congress was addressing by this enactment:
“The Congress finds that (1) organized crime in the United States is a highly sophisticated, diversified, and widespread activity that annually drains billions of dollars from America’s economy by unlawful conduct and the illegal use of force, fraud, and corruption; (2) organized crime derives a major portion of its power through money obtained from such illegal endeavors as syndicated gambling, loan sharking, the theft and fencing of property, the importation and distribution of narcotics and other dangerous drugs, and other forms of social exploitation; (3) this money and power are increasingly used to infiltrate and corrupt legitimate business and labor unions and to subvert and corrupt our democratic processes; (4) organized crime activities in the United States weaken the stability of the Nation’s economic system, harm innocent investors and competing organizations, interfere with free competition, seriously burden interstate and foreign commerce, threaten the domestic security, and undermine the general welfare of the Nation and its citizens; and (5) organized crime continues to grow because of defects in the evidence-gathering process of the law inhibiting the development of the legally admissible evidence necessary to bring criminal and other sanctions or remedies to bear on the unlawful activities of those engaged in organized crime and because the sanctions and remedies available to the Government are unnecessarily limited in scope and impact.” 84 Stat. 922-923.
In light of the above findings, it was the declared purpose of Congress “to seek the eradication of organized crime in the United States by strengthening the legal tools in the evidence-gathering process, by establishing new penal prohibitions, and by providing enhanced sanctions and new remedies to deal with the unlawful activities of those engaged in organized crime.” Id., at 923. The various Titles of the Act provide the tools through which this goal is to be accomplished. Only three of those Titles create substantive offenses, Title VIII, which is directed at illegal gambling operations, Title IX, at issue here, and Title XI, which addresses the importation, distribution, and storage of explosive materials. The other Titles provide various procedural and remedial devices to aid in the prosecution and incarceration of persons involved in organized crime.
Considering this statement of the Act’s broad purposes, the construction of RICO suggested by respondent and the court below is unacceptable. Whole areas of organized criminal activity would be placed beyond the substantive reach of the enactment. For example, associations of persons engaged solely in “loan sharking, the theft and fencing of property, the importation and distribution of narcotics and other dangerous drugs,” id., at 922-923, would be immune from prosecution under RICO so long as the association did not deviate from the criminal path. Yet these are among the very crimes that Congress specifically found to be typical of the crimes committed by persons involved in organized crime, see 18 TJ. S. C. § 1961 (1) (1976 ed., Supp. Ill), and as a major source of revenue and power for such organizations. See Hearings on S. 30 et al. before the' Subcommittee on Criminal Laws and Procedures of the Senate Committee on the Judiciary, 91st Cong., 1st Sess., 1-2 (1969). Along these same lines, Senator McClellan, the principal sponsor of the bill, gave two examples of types of problems RICO was designed to address. Neither is consistent with the view that substantive offenses under RICO would be limited to legitimate enterprises: “Organized criminals, too, have flooded the market with cheap reproductions of hit records and affixed counterfeit popular labels. They are heavily engaged in the illicit prescription drug industry.” 116 Cong. Rec. 592 (1970). In view of the purposes and goals of the Act, as well as the language of the statute, we are unpersuaded that Congress nevertheless confined the reach of the law to only narrow aspects of organized crime, and, in particular, under RICO, only the infiltration of legitimate business.
This is not to gainsay that the legislative history forcefully supports the view that the major purpose of Title IX is to address the infiltration of legitimate business by organized crime. The point is made time and again during the debates and in the hearings before the House and Senate. But none of these statements requires the negative inference that Title IX did not reach the activities of enterprises organized and existing for criminal purposes. See United States v. Naftalin, 441 U. S. 768, 774-775 (1979); United States v. Culbert, 435 U. S., at 377.
On the contrary, these statements are in full accord with the proposition that RICO is equally applicable to a criminal enterprise that has no legitimate dimension or has yet to acquire one. Accepting that the primary purpose of RICO is to cope with the infiltration of legitimate businesses, applying the statute in accordance with its terms, so as to reach criminal enterprises, would seek to deal with the problem at its very source. Supporters of the bill recognized that organized crime uses its primary sources of revenue and power— illegal gambling, loan sharking and illicit drug distribution— as a springboard into the sphere of legitimate enterprise. Hearings on S. 30, supra, at 1-2. The Senate Report stated:
“What is needed here, the committee believes, are new approaches that will deal not only with individuals, but also with the economic base through which those individuals constitute such a serious threat to the economic well-being of the Nation. In short, an attack must be made on their source of economic power itself, and the attack must take place on all available fronts.” S. Rep. No. 91-617, p. 79 (1969) (emphasis supplied).
Senator Byrd explained in debate on the floor, that “loan sharking paves the way for organized criminals to gain access to and eventually take over the control of thousands of legitimate businesses.” 116 Cong. Rec. 606 (1970). Senator Hruska declared that “the combination of criminal and civil penalties in this title offers an extraordinary potential for striking a mortal blow against the property interests of organized crime.” Id., at 602. Undoubtedly, the infiltration of legitimate businesses was of great concern, but the means provided to prevent that infiltration plainly included striking at the source of the problem. As Representative Poff, a manager of the bill in the House, stated: “[T]itle IX... will deal not only with individuals, but also with the economic base through which those individuals constitute such a serious threat to the economic well-being of the Nation. In short, an attack must be made on their source of economic power itself...” Id., at 35193.
As a measure to deal with the infiltration of legitimate businesses by organized crime, RICO was both preventive and remedial. Respondent’s view would ignore the preventive function of the statute. If Congress had intended the more circumscribed approach espoused by the Court of Appeals, there would have been some positive sign that the law was not to reach organized criminal activities that give rise to the concerns about infiltration. The language of the statute, however — the most reliable evidence of its intent — reveals that Congress opted for a far broader definition of the word “enterprise,” and we are unconvinced by anything in the legislative history that this definition should be given less than its full effect.
The judgment of the Court of Appeals is accordingly
Reversed.
Justice Stewart agrees with the reasoning and conclusion of the Court of Appeals as to the meaning of the term “enterprise” in this statute. See 632 F. 2d 896. Accordingly, he respectfully dissents.
See United States v. Sutton, 642 F. 2d 1001, 1006-1009 (CA6 1980) (en banc), cert. pending, Nos. 80-6058, 80-6137, 80-6141, 80-6147, 80-6253, 80-6254, 80-6272; United States v. Errico, 635 F. 2d 152, 155 (CA2 1980); United States v. Provenzano, 620 F. 2d 985, 992-993 (CA3), cert. denied, 449 U. S. 899 (1980); United States v. Whitehead, 618 F. 2d 523, 525, n. 1 (CA4 1980); United States v. Aleman, 609 F. 2d 298, 304-305 (CA7 1979), cert. denied, 445 U. S. 946 (1980); United States v. Rone, 598 F. 2d 564, 568-569 (CA9 1979), cert. denied, 445 U. S. 946 (1980); United States v. Swiderski, 193 U. S. App. D. C. 92, 94-95, 593 F. 2d 1246, 1248-1249 (1978), cert. denied, 441 U. S. 933 (1979); United States v. Elliott, 571 F. 2d 880, 896-898 (CA5), cert. denied, 439 U. S. 953 (1978). See also United States v. Anderson, 626 F. 2d 1358, 1372 (CA8 1980), cert. denied, 450 U. S. 912 (1981). But see United States v. Sutton, 605 F. 2d 260, 264-270 (CA6 1979), vacated, 642 F. 2d 1001 (1980); United States v. Rone, supra, at 573 (Ely, J., dissenting); United States v. Altese, 542 F. 2d 104, 107 (CA2 1976) (Van Graafeiland, J., dissenting), cert. denied, 429 U. S. 1039 (1977).
Title 18 U. S. C. § 1961 (4) provides:
“ 'enterprise’ includes any individual, partnership, corporation, association, or other legal entity, and any union or group of individuals associated in fact although not a legal entity.”
Title 18 U. S. C. § 1962 (d) provides that “[i]t shall be unlawful for any person to conspire to violate any of the provisions of subsections (a), (b), or (c) of this section.” Pertinent to these charges, subsection (c) provides:
“It shall be unlawful for any person employed by or associated with any enterprise engaged in, or the activities of which affect, interstate or foreign commerce, to conduct or participate, directly or indirectly, in the conduct of such enterprise’s affairs through a pattern of racketeering activity or collection of unlawful debt.”
The Court of Appeals’ application of ejusdem generis is further flawed by the assumption that “any individual, partnership, corporation, association or other legal entity” could not act totally beyond the pale of the law. The mere fact that a given enterprise is favored with a legal existence does not prevent that enterprise from proceeding along a wholly illegal course of conduct. Therefore, since legitimacy of purpose is not a universal characteristic of the specifically listed enterprises, it would be improper to engraft this characteristic upon the second category of enterprises.
The Government takes the position that proof of a pattern of racketeering activity in itself would not be sufficient to establish the existence of an enterprise: “We do not suggest that any two sporadic and isolated offenses by the same actor or actors ipso facto constitute an ‘illegitimate’ enterprise; rather, the existence of the enterprise as an independent entity must also be shown.” Reply Brief for United States 4. But even if that were not the case, the Court of Appeals’ position on this point is of little force. Language in a statute is not rendered superfluous merely because in some contexts that language may not be pertinent.
Title 18 U. S. C. §§ 1962 (a) and (b) provide:
“(a) It shall be unlawful for any person who has received any income derived, directly or indirectly, from a pattern of racketeering activity or through collection of an unlawful debt in which such person has participated as a principal within the meaning of section 2, title 18, United States Code, to use or invest, directly or indirectly, any part of such income, or the proceeds of such income, in acquisition of any interest in, or the establishment or operation of, any enterprise which is engaged in, or the activities of which affect, interstate or foreign commerce. A purchase of securities on the open market for purposes of investment, and without the intention of controlling or participating in the control of the issuer, or of assisting another to do so, shall not be unlawful under this subsection if the securities of the issuer held by the purchaser, the members of his immediate family, and his or their accomplices in any pattern or racketeering activity or the collection of an unlawful debt after such purchase do not amount in the aggregate to one percent of the outstanding securities of any one class, and do not confer, either in law or in fact, the power to elect one or more directors of the issuer.
“ (b) It shall be unlawful for any person through a pattern of racketeering activity or through collection of an unlawful debt to acquire or maintain, directly or indirectly, any interest in or control of any enterprise which is engaged in, or the activities of which affect, interstate or foreign commerce.”
Title 18 U. S. C. §§ 1964 (a) and (c) provide:
“(a) The district courts of the United States shall have jurisdiction to prevent and restrain violations of section 1962 of this chapter by issuing appropriate orders, including, but not limited to: ordering any person to divest himself of any interest, direct or indirect, in any enterprise; imposing reasonable restrictions on the future activities or investments of any person, including, but not limited to, prohibiting any person from engaging in the same type of endeavor as the enterprise engaged in, the activities of which affect interstate or foreign commerce; or ordering dissolution or reorganization of any enterprise, making due provision for the rights of innocent persons.
“(e) Any person injured in his business or property by reason of a violation of section 1962 of this chapter may sue therefor in any appropriate United States district court and shall recover threefold the damages he sustains and the cost of the suit, including a reasonable attorney’s fee.”
In discussing these civil remedies, the Senate Report on the Organized Crime Control Act of 1970 specifically referred to two state cases in which equitable relief had been granted against illegitimate enterprises. S. Rep. No. 91-617, p. 79, n. 9, p. 81, n. 11 (1969). These references were in the context of a discussion on the need to expand the remedies available to combat organized crime.
RICO imposes no restrictions upon the criminal justice systems of the States. See 84 Stat. 947 (“Nothing in this title shall supersede any provision of Federal, State, or other law imposing criminal penalties or affording civil remedies in addition to those provided for in this title”). Thus, under RICO, the States remain free to exercise their police powers to the fullest constitutional extent in defining and prosecuting crimes within their respective jurisdictions. That some of those crimes may also constitute predicate acts of racketeering under RICO, is no restriction on the separate administration of criminal justice by the States.
We find no occasion to apply the rule of lenity to this statute. “[T]hat 'rule/ as is true of any guide to statutory construction, only serves as an aid for resolving an ambiguity; it is not to be used to beget one.... The rule comes into operation at the end of the process of construing what Congress has expressed, not at the beginning as an overriding consideration of being lenient to wrongdoers.” Callanan v. United States, 364 U. S. 587, 596 (1961) (footnote omitted). There being no ambiguity in the RICO provisions at issue here, the rule of lenity does not come into play. See United States v. Moore, 423 U. S. 122, 145 (1975), quoting United States v. Brown, 333 U. S. 18, 25-26 (1948) (“ ‘The canon in favor of strict construction [of criminal statutes] is not an inexorable command to override common sense and evident statutory purpose.... Nor does it demand that a statute be given the “narrowest meaning”; it is satisfied if the words are given their fair meaning in accord with the manifest intent of the lawmakers’ ”); see also Lewis v. United States, 445 U. S. 55, 60-61 (1980).
See also 116 Cong. Rec. 602 (1970) (remarks of Sen. Yarborough) (“a full scale attack on organized crime”); id., at 819 (remarks of Sen. Scott) (“purpose is to eradicate organized crime in the United States”); id., at 35199 (remarks of Rep. Rodino) (“a truly full-scale commitment to destroy the insidious power of organized crime groups”); id., at 35300 (remarks of Rep. Mayne) (organized crime “must be sternly and irrevocably eradicated”).
See also id., at 601 (remarks of Sen. Hruska); id., at 606-607 (remarks of Sen. Byrd); id., at 819 (remarks of Sen. Seott); id., at 962 (remarks of Sen. Murphy); id., at 970 (remarks of Sen. Bible); id., at 18913, 18937 (remarks of Sen. McClellan); id., at 35199 (remarks of Rep. Rodino); id., at 35216 (remarks of Rep. McDade); id., at 35300 (remarks of Rep. Mayne); id., at 35312 (remarks of Rep. Brock); id., at 35319 (remarks of Rep. Anderson of California); id., at 35326 (remarks of Rep. Vanik); id., at 35328 (remarks of Rep. Meskill); Hearings on S. 30 et al. before the Subcommittee on Criminal Laws and Procedures of the Senate Committee on the Judiciary, 91st Cong., 1st Sess., 108 (1969) (statement of Attorney General Mitchell); H. R. Rep. No. 1574, 90th Cong., 2d Sess., 5 (1968).
116 Cong. Rec. 591 (1970) (remarks of Sen. McClellan) (“title IX is aimed at removing organized crime from our legitimate organizations”); id., at 602 (remarks of Sen. Hruska) (“Title IX of this act is designed to remove the influence of organized crime from legitimate business by attacking its property interests and by removing its members from control of legitimate businesses which have been acquired or operated by unlawful racketeering methods”); id., at 607 (remarks of Sen. Byrd) (“alarming expansion into the field of legitimate business”); id., at 953 (remarks of Sen. Thurmond) (“racketeers... gaining inroads into legitimate business”); id., at 845 (remarks of Sen. Kennedy) (“title IX... may provide us with new tools to prevent organized crime from taking over legitimate businesses and activities”); S. Rep. No. 91-617, p. 76 (1969).
See also, e. g., 115 Cong. Rec. 827 (1969) (remarks of Sen. McClellan) (“Organized crime... uses its ill-gotten gains... to infiltrate and secure control of legitimate business and labor union activities”); 116 Cong. Rec. 591 (1970) (remarks of Sen. McClellan) (“illegally gained revenue also makes it possible for organized crime to infiltrate and pollute legitimate business”); id., at 603 (remarks of Sen. Yarborough) (“[RICO] is designed to root out the influence of organized crime in legitimate business, into which billions of dollars of illegally obtained money is channeled”) ; id., at 606 (remarks of Sen. Byrd) (“loan sharking paves the way for organized criminals to gain access to and eventually take over the control of thousands of legitimate businesses”); id., at 35193 (remarks of Rep. Poff) (“[T]itle IX... will deal not only with individuals, but also with the economic base through which those individuals constitute such a serious threat to the economic well-being of the Nation. In short, an attack must be made on their source of economic power itself...”) ; S. Rep. No. 91-617, supra, at 78-80; H. R. Rep. No. 1574, supra, at 5 (“The President’s Crime Commission found that the greatest menace that organized crime presents is its ability through the accumulation of illegal
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer:
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A
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What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Mr. Justice Powell
delivered the opinion of the Court.
The building trades union in this case supported its efforts to organize mechanical subcontractors by picketing certain general contractors, including petitioner. The union’s sole objective was to compel the general contractors to agree that in letting subcontracts for mechanical work they would deal only with firms that were parties to the union’s current collective-bargaining agreement. The union disclaimed any interest in representing the general contractors’ employees. In this case the picketing succeeded, and petitioner seeks to annul the resulting agreement as an illegal restraint on competition under federal and state law. The union claims immunity from federal antitrust statutes and argues that federal labor regulation pre-empts state law.
I
Local 100 is the bargaining representative for workers in the plumbing and mechanical trades in Dallas. When this litigation began, it was party to a.multiemployer bargaining agreement with the Mechanical Contractors Association of Dallas, a group of about 75 mechanical contractors. That contract contained a “most favored nation” clause, by which the union agreed that if it granted a more favorable contract to any other employer it would extend the same terms to all members of the Association.
Connell Construction Co. is a general building contractor in Dallas. It obtains jobs by competitive bidding and subcontracts all plumbing and mechanical work. Connell has followed a policy of awarding these subcontracts on the basis of competitive bids, and it has done business with both union and nonunion subcontractors. Connell’s employees are represented by various building trade unions. Local 100 has never sought to represent them or to bargain with Connell on their behalf.
In November 1970, Local 100 asked Connell to agree that it would subcontract mechanical work only to firms that had a current contract with the union. It demanded that Connell sign the following agreement:
“WHEREAS, the contractor and the union are engaged in the construction industry, and
“WHEREAS, the contractor and the union desire to make an agreement applying in the- event of subcontracting in accordance with Section 8 (e) of the Labor-Management Relations Act;
“WHEREAS, it is understood that by this agreement the contractor does not grant, nor does the union seek, recognition as the collective bargaining representative of any employees of the signatory contractor; and
“WHEREAS, it is further understood that the subcontracting limitation provided herein applies only to mechanical work which the contractor does not perform with his own employees but uniformly subcontracts to other firms;
“THEREFORE, the contractor and the union mutually agree with respect to work falling within the scope of this agreement that is to be done at the site of construction, alteration, painting or repair of any building, structure, or other works, that [if] the contractor should contract or subcontract any of the aforesaid work falling within the normal trade jurisdiction of the union, said contractor shall contract or subcontract such work only to firms that are parties to an executed, current collective bargaining agreement with Local Union 100 of the United Association of Journeymen and Apprentices of the Plumbing and Pipefitting Industry.”
When Connell refused to sign this agreement, Local 100 stationed a single picket at one of Connell’s major construction sites. About 150 workers walked off the job, and construction halted. Connell filed suit in state court to enjoin the picketing as a violation of Texas antitrust laws. Local 100 removed the case to federal court. Connell then signed the subcontracting agreement under protest. It amended its complaint to claim that the agreement violated §§ 1 and 2 of the Sherman Act, 26 Stat. 209, as amended, 15 U. S. C. §§ 1 and 2, and was therefore invalid. Connell sought a declaration to this effect and an injunction against any further efforts to force it to sign such an agreement.
By the time the case went to trial, Local 100 had submitted identical agreements to a number of other general contractors in Dallas. Five others had signed, and the Union was waging a selective picketing campaign against those who resisted.
The District Court held that the subcontracting agreement was exempt from federal antitrust laws because it was authorized by the construction industry proviso to § 8 (e) of the National Labor Relations Act, 49 Stat. 452, as added, 73 Stat. 543, 29 U. S. C. § 158 (e). The court also held that federal labor legislation pre-empted the State’s antitrust laws. 78 L. R. R. M. 3012 (ND Tex. 1971). The Court of Appeals for. the Fifth Circuit affirmed, 483 F. 2d 1154 (1973), with one judge dissenting. It held that Local 100’s goal of organizing nonunion subcontractors was a legitimate union interest and that its efforts toward that goal were therefore exempt from federal antitrust laws. On the second issue, it held that state law was pre-empted under San Diego Building Trades Council v. Garmon, 359 U. S. 236 (1959). We granted certiorari on Connell’s petition. 416 U. S. 981 (1974). We reverse on the question of federal antitrust immunity and affirm the ruling on state law pre-emption.
II
The basic sources of organized labor’s exemption from federal antitrust laws are §§ 6 and 20 of the Clayton Act, 38 Stat. 731 and 738, 15 U. S. C. § 17 and 29 U. S. C. § 52, and the Norris-La Guardia Act, 47 Stat. 70, 71, and 73, 29 U. S. C. §§ 104, 105, and 113. These statutes declare that labor unions are not combinations or conspiracies in restraint of trade, and exempt specific union activities, including secondary picketing and boycotts, from the operation of the antitrust laws. See United States v. Hutcheson, 312 U. S. 219 (1941). They do not exempt concerted action or agreements between unions and nonlabor parties. Mine Workers v. Pennington, 381 U. S. 657, 662 (1965). The Court has recognized, however, that a proper accommodation between the congressional policy favoring collective bargaining under the NLRA and the congressional policy favoring free competition in business markets requires that some union-employer agreements be accorded a limited nonstatutory exemption from antitrust sanctions. Meat Cutters v. Jewel Tea Co., 381 U. S. 676 (1965).
The nonstatutory exemption has its source in the strong labor policy favoring the association of employees to eliminate competition over wages and working conditions. Union success in organizing workers and standardizing wages ultimately will affect price competition among employers, but the goals of federal labor law never could be achieved if this effect on business competition were held a violation of the antitrust laws. The Court therefore has acknowledged that labor policy requires tolerance for the lessening of business competition based on differences in wages and working conditions. See Mine Workers v. Pennington, supra, at 666; Jewel Tea, supra, at 692-693 (opinion of White, J.). Labor policy clearly does not require, however, that a union have freedom to impose direct restraints on competition among those who employ its members. Thus, while the statutory.exemption allows unions to accomplish some restraints by acting unilaterally, e. g., Federation of Musicians v. Carroll, 391 U. S. 99 (1968), the nonstatutory exemption offers no similar protection when a union and a nonlabor party agree to restrain competition in a business market. See Allen Bradley Co. v. Electrical Workers, 325 U. S. 797, 806-811 (1945); Cox, Labor and the Antitrust Laws — A Preliminary Analysis, 104 U. Pa. L. Rev. 252 (1955); Meltzer, Labor Unions, Collective Bargaining, and the Antitrust Laws, 32 U. Chi. L. Rev. 659 (1965).
In this case Local 100 used direct restraints on the business market to support its organizing campaign. The agreements with Connell and other general contractors indiscriminately excluded nonunion subcontractors from a portion of the market, even if their competitive advantages were not derived from substandard wages and working conditions but rather from more efficient operating methods. Curtailment of competition based on efficiency is neither a goal of federal labor policy nor a necessary effect of the elimination of competition among workers. Moreover, competition based on efficiency is a positive value that the antitrust laws strive to protect.
The multiemployer bargaining agreement between Local 100 and the Association, though not challenged in this suit, is relevant in determining the effect that the agreement between Local 100 and Connell would have on the business market. The “most favored nation” clause in the multiemployér agreement promised to eliminate competition between members of the Association and any other subcontractors that Local 100 might organize. By giving members of the Association a contractual right to insist on terms as favorable as those given any competitor, it guaranteed that the union would make no agreement that would give an unaffiliated contractor a competitive advantage over members of the Association. Subcontractors in the Association thus stood to benefit from any extension of Local 100’s organization, but the method Local 100 chose also had the effect of sheltering them from outside competition in that portion of the market covered by subcontracting agreements between general contractors and Local 100. In that portion of the market, the restriction on subcontracting would eliminate competition on all subjects covered by the multiemployer agreement, even on subjects unrelated to wages, hours, and working conditions.
Success in exacting agreements from general contractors would also give Local 100 power to control access to the market for mechanical subcontracting work. The agreements with general contractors did not simply prohibit subcontracting to any nonunion firm; they prohibited subcontracting to any firm that did not have a contract with Local 100. The union thus had complete control over subcontract work offered by general contractors that had signed these agreements. Such control could result in significant adverse effects on the market and on consumers — effects unrelated to the union’s legitimate goals of organizing workers and standardizing working conditions. For example, if the union thought the interests of its members would be served by having fewer subcontractors competing for the available work, it could refuse to sign collective-bargaining agreements with marginal firms. Cf. Mine Workers v. Pennington, supra. Or, since Local 100 has a well-defined geographical jurisdiction, it could exclude “traveling” subcontractors by refusing to deal with them. Local 100 thus might be able to create a geographical enclave for local contractors, similar to the closed market in Allen Bradley, supra.
This record contains no evidence that the union’s goal was anything other than, organizing as many subcontractors as possible. This goal was legal, even though a successful organizing campaign ultimately would reduce the competition that unionized employers face from nonunion firms. But the methods the union chose are not immune from antitrust sanctions simply because the goal is legal. Here Local 100, by agreement with several contractors, made nonunion subcontractors ineligible to compete for a portion of the available work. This kind of direct restraint on the business market has substantial anticompetitive effects, both actual and potential, that would not follow naturally from the elimination of competition over wages and working conditions. It contravenes antitrust policies to a degree not justified by congressional labor policy, and therefore cannot claim a nonstatutory exemption from the antitrust laws.
There can be no argument in this case, whatever its force in other contexts, that a restraint of this magnitude might be entitled to an antitrust exemption if it were included in a lawful collective-bargaining agreement. Cf. Mine Workers v. Pennington, 381 U. S., at 664-665 ; Jewel Tea, 381 U. S., at 689-690 (opinion of White, J.); id., at 709-713, 732-733 (opinion of Goldberg, J.). In this case, Local 100 had no interest in representing Connell’s employees. The federal policy favoring collective bargaining therefore can offer no shelter for the union’s coercive action against Connell or its campaign to exclude nonunion firms from the subcontracting market.
Ill
Local 100 nonetheless contends that the kind of agreement it obtained from Connell is explicitly allowed by the construction-industry proviso to § 8 (e) and that antitrust policy therefore must defer to the NLRA. The majority in the Court of Appeals declined to decide this issue, holding that it was subject to the “exclusive jurisdiction” of the NLRB. 483 F. 2d, at 1174. This Court has held, however, that the federal courts may decide labor law questions that emerge as collateral issues in suits brought under independent federal remedies, including the antitrust laws. We conclude that § 8 (e) does not allow this type of agreement.
Local 100’s argument is straightforward: the first proviso to § 8 (e) allows “an agreement between a labor organization and an employer in the construction industry relating to the contracting or subcontracting of work to be done at the site of the construction, alteration, painting, or repair of a building, structure, or other work.” Local 100 is a labor organization, Connell is an employer in the construction industry, and the agreement covers only work “to be done at the site of construction, alteration, painting or repair of any building, structure, or other works.” Therefore, Local 100 says, the agreement comes within the proviso. Connell responds by arguing that despite the unqualified language of the proviso, Congress intended only to allow subcontracting agreements within the context of a collective-bargaining relationship; that is, Congress did not intend to permit a union to approach a “stranger” contractor and obtain a binding agreement not to deal with nonunion subcontractors. On its face, the proviso suggests no such limitation. This Court has held, however, that § 8 (e) must be interpreted in light of the statutory setting and the circumstances surrounding its enactment:
“It is a 'familiar rule, that a thing may be within the letter of the statute and yet not within the statute, because not within its spirit, nor within the intention of its makers.’ Holy Trinity Church v. United States, 143 U. S. 457, 459.” National Woodwork Mfrs. Assn. v. NLRB, 386 U. S. 612, 619 (1967).
Section 8 (e) was part of a legislative program designed to plug technical loopholes in § 8 (b)(4)’s general prohibition of secondary activities. In § 8 (e) Congress broadly proscribed using contractual agreements to achieve the economic coercion prohibited by § 8 (b) (4). See National Woodwork Mfrs. Assn., supra, at 634. The provisos exempting the construction and garment industries were added by the Conference Committee in an apparent compromise between the House bill, which prohibited all “hot cargo” agreements, and the Senate bill, which prohibited them only in the trucking industry. Although the garment-industry proviso was supported by detailed explanations in both Houses, the construction-industry proviso was explained only by bare references to “the pattern of collective bargaining” in the industry. It seems, however, to have been adopted as a partial substitute for an attempt to overrule this Court’s decision in NLRB v. Denver Building & Construction Trades Council, 341 U. S. 675 (1951). Discussion of “special problems” in the construction industry, applicable to both the § 8 (e) proviso and the attempt to overrule Denver Building Trades, focused on the problems of picketing a single nonunion subcontractor on a multiemployer building project, and the close relationship between contractors and subcontractors at the jobsite. Congress limited the construction-industry proviso to that single situation, allowing subcontracting agreements only in relation to work done on a jobsite. In contrast to the latitude it provided in the garment-industry proviso, Congress did not afford construction unions an exemption from § 8 (b) (4) (B) or otherwise indicate that they were free to use subcontracting agreements as a broad organizational weapon. In keeping with these limitations, the Court has interpreted the construction-industry proviso as
“a measure designed to allow agreements pertaining to certain secondary activities on the construction site because of the close community of interests there, but to ban secondary-objective agreements concerning non jobsite work, in which respect the construction industry is no different from any other.” National Woodwork Mfrs. Assn., 386 U. S., at 638-639 (footnote omitted).
Other courts have suggested that it serves an even narrower function:
“[T]he purpose of the section 8 (e) proviso was to alleviate the frictions that may arise when union men work continuously alongside nonunion men on the same construction site.” Drivers Local 695 v. NLRB, 124 U. S. App. D. C. 93, 99, 361 F. 2d 547, 553 (1966).
See also Denver Building Trades, 341 U. S., at 692-693 (Douglas, J., dissenting); Essex County & Vicinity District Council of Carpenters v. NLRB, 332 F. 2d 636, 640 (CA3 1964).
Local 100 does not suggest that its subcontracting agreement is related to any of these policies. It does not claim to be protecting Connell’s employees from having to work alongside nonunion men. The agreement apparently was not designed to protect Local 100’s members in that regard, since it was not limited to jobsites on which they were working. Moreover, the subcontracting restriction applied only to the work Local 100’s members would perform themselves and allowed free subcontracting of all other work, thus leaving open a possibility that they would be employed alongside nonunion subcontractors. Nor was Local 100 trying to organize a nonunion subcontractor on the building project it picketed. The union admits that it sought the agreement solely as a way of pressuring mechanical subcontractors in the Dallas area to recognize it as the representative of their employees.
If we agreed with Local 100 that the construction-industry proviso authorizes subcontracting agreements with “stranger” contractors, not limited to any particular jobsite, our ruling would give construction unions an almost unlimited organizational weapon. The unions would be free to enlist any general contractor to bring economic pressure on nonunion subcontractors, as long as the agreement recited that it only covered work to be performed on some jobsite somewhere. The proviso’s jobsite restriction then would serve only to prohibit agreements relating to subcontractors that deliver their work complete to the jobsite.
It is highly improbable that Congress intended such a result. One of the major aims of the 1959 Act was to limit “top-down” organizing campaigns, in which unions used economic weapons to force recognition from an employer regardless of the wishes of his employees. Congress accomplished this goal by enacting § 8 (b)(7), which restricts primary recognitional picketing, and by further tightening §8 (b)(4)(B), which prohibits the use of most secondary tactics in organizational campaigns. Construction unions are fully covered by these sections. The only special consideration given them in organizational campaigns is § 8 (f), which allows “prehire” agreements in the construction industry, but only under careful safeguards preserving workers’ rights to decline union representation. The legislative history accompanying § 8 (f) also suggests that Congress may not have intended that strikes or picketing could be used to extract prehire agreements from unwilling employers.
These careful limits on the economic pressure unions may use in aid of their organizational campaigns would be undermined seriously if the proviso to § 8 (e) were construed to allow unions to seek subcontracting agreements, at large, from any general contractor vulnerable to picketing. Absent a clear indication that Congress intended to leave such a glaring loophole in its restrictions on “top-down” organizing, we are unwilling to read the construction-industry proviso as broadly as Local 100 suggests. Instead, we think its authorization extends only to agreements in the context of collective-bargaining relationships and, in light of congressional references to the Denver Building Trades problem, possibly to common-situs relationships on particular jobsites as well.
Finally, Local 100 contends that even if the subcontracting agreement is not sanctioned by the construction-industry proviso and therefore is illegal under § 8 (e), it cannot be the basis for antitrust liability because the remedies in the NLRA are exclusive. This argument is grounded in the legislative history of the 1947 TaftHartley amendments. Congress rejected attempts to regulate secondary activities by repealing the antitrust exemptions in the Clayton and Norris-LaGuardia Acts, and created special remedies under the labor law instead. It made secondary activities unfair labor practices under § 8 (b)(4), and drafted'special provisions for preliminary injunctions at the suit of the NLRB and for recovery of actual damages in the district courts. § 10 (l) of the NLRA, 49 Stat. 453, as added, 61 Stat. 149, as amended, 29 U. S. C. § 160 (l), and § 303 of the Labor Management Relations Act, 61 Stat. 158, as amended, 29 U. S. C. § 187. But whatever significance this legislative choice has for antitrust suits based on those secondary activities prohibited by 18(b)(4), it has no relevance to the question whether Congress meant to preclude antitrust suits based on the “hot cargo” agreements that it outlawed in 1959. There is no legislative history in the 1959 Congress suggesting that labor-law remedies for § 8 (e) violations were intended to be exclusive, or that Congress thought allowing antitrust remedies in cases like the present one would be inconsistent with the remedial scheme of the NLRA.
We therefore hold that this agreement, which is outside the context of a collective-bargaining relationship and not restricted to a particular jobsite, but which nonetheless obligates Connell to subcontract work only to firms that have a contract with Local 100, may be the basis of a federal antitrust suit because it has a potential for restraining competition in the business market in ways that would not follow naturally from elimination of competition over wages and working conditions.
IV
Although we hold that the union’s agreement with Connell is subject to the federal antitrust laws, it does not follow that state antitrust law may apply as well. The Court has held repeatedly that federal law pre-empts state remedies that interfere with federal labor policy or with specific provisions of the. NLRA. E. g., Motor Coach Employees v. Lockridge, 403 U. S. 274 (1971); Teamsters v. Morton, 377 U. S. 252 (1964); Teamsters v. Oliver, 358 U. S. 283 (1959). The use of state antitrust law to regulate union activities in aid of organization must also be pre-empted because it creates a substantial risk of conflict with policies central to federal labor law.
In this area, the accommodation between federal labor and antitrust policy is delicate. Congress and this Court have carefully tailored the antitrust statutes to avoid conflict with the labor policy favoring lawful employee organization, not only by delineating exemptions from antitrust coverage but also by adjusting the scope of the antitrust remedies themselves. See Apex Hosiery Co. v. Leader, 310 U. S. 469 (1940). State antitrust laws generally have not been subjected to this process of accommodation. If they take account of labor goals at all, they may represent a totally different balance between labor and antitrust policies. Permitting state antitrust law to operate in this field could frustrate the basic federal policies favoring employee organization and allowing elimination of competition among wage earners, and interfere with the detailed system Congress has created for regulating organizational techniques.
Because employee organization is central to federal labor policy and regulation of organizational procedures is comprehensive, federal law does not admit the use of state antitrust law to regulate union activity that is closely related to organizational goals. Of course, other agreements between unions and nonlabor parties may yet be subject to state antitrust laws. See Teamsters v. Oliver, supra, at 295-297. The governing factor is the risk of conflict with the NLRA or with federal labor policy.
Y
Neither the District Court nor the Court of Appeals decided whether the agreement between Local 100 and Connell, if subject to the antitrust laws, would constitute an agreement that restrains trade within the meaning of the Sherman Act. The issue was not briefed and argued fully in this Court. Accordingly, we remand for consideration whether the agreement violated the Sherman Act.
Reversed in part, affirmed in part, and remanded.
The primary effect of the agreement seems to have been to inhibit the union from offering any other employer a more favorable • contract. When asked at trial whether another subcontractor could get an agreement on any different terms, Local 100’s business agent answered:
“No. The agreement says that no one will be given a more favorable agreement. I couldn’t, if I desired, as an agent, sign an agreement other than the ones in existence between the local contractors and the Local 100.
“Q. I see. So that’s — in other words, once you sign that contract with the Mechanical Contractors’ Association, that sets the only type of agreement which your Union can enter into with any other mechanical contractors; is that correct, sir?
“A. That is true.” Tr. 45-46.
There was no evidence that Local 100’s organizing campaign was connected with any agreement with members of the multiemployer bargaining unit, and the only evidence of agreement among those subcontractors was the “most favored nation” clause in the collective-bargaining agreement. In fact, Connell has not argued the case on a theory of conspiracy between the union and unionized subcontractors. It has simply relied on the multiemployer agreement as a factor enhancing the restraint of trade implicit in the subcontracting agreement it signed.
Meat Cutters v. Jewel Tea Co., 381 U. S. 676, 684-688 (1965) (opinion of White, J.); id., at 710 n. 18 (opinion of Goldberg, J.); cf. Vaca v. Sipes, 386 U. S. 171, 176-188 (1967); Smith v. Evening News Assn., 371 U. S. 195 (1962).
Section 8 (e) provides:
“It shall be an unfair labor practice for any labor organization and any employer to enter into any contract or agreement, express or implied, whereby such employer ceases or refrains or agrees to cease or refrain from handling, using, selling, transporting or otherwise dealing in any of the products of any other employer, or to cease doing business with any other person, and any contract or agreement entered into heretofore or hereafter containing such an agreement shall be to such extent unenforcible and void: Provided, That nothing in this subsection shall apply to an agreement between a labor organization and an employer in the construction industry relating to the contracting or subcontracting of work to be done at the site of the construction, alteration, painting, or repair of a building, structure, or other work: Provided further, That for the purposes of this subsection and subsection (b)[(4)(B)] of this section the terms ‘any employer,’ ‘any person engaged in commerce or an industry affecting commerce,’ and ‘any person’ when used in-relation to the terms ‘any other producer, processor, or manufacturer,’ 'any other employer,’ or ‘any other person’ shall not include persons in the relation of a jobber, manufacturer, contractor, or subcontractor working on the goods or premises of the jobber or manufacturer or performing parts of an integrated process of production in the apparel and clothing industry: Provided further, That nothing in this subchapter shall prohibit the enforcement of any agreement which is within the foregoing exception.” 29 U. S. C. §158 (e).
See H. R. Conf. Rep. No. 1147, 86th Cong., 1st Sess., 39-40 (1959).
105 Cong. Rec. 17327 (1959) (remarks by Sen. Kennedy); id., at 17381 (remarks by Sens. Javits and Goldwater); id., at 15539 (memorandum by Reps. Thompson and Udall); id., at 16590 (memorandum by Sen. Kennedy and Rep. Thompson). These debates are reproduced in 2 NLRB, Legislative History of the Labor-Management Reporting and Disclosure Act of 1959, pp. 1377, 1385, 1576, 1708 (1959) (hereinafter Leg. Hist, of LMRDA).
105 Coug. Rec. 17899 (1959) (remarks by Sen. Kennedy); id., at 18134 (remarks by Rep. Thompson); 2 Leg. Hist, of LMRDA 1432, 1721.
President Eisenhower’s message to Congress reconunending labor reform legislation urged amendment of the secondary-boycott provisions to permit secondary activity “under certain circumstances, against secondary employers engaged in work at a common construction site with the primary employer.” S. Doc. No. 10, 86th Cong., 1st Sess., 3 (1959) (emphasis added). Various bills introduced in both Houses included such provisions, see 2 Leg. Hist, of LMRDA 1912-1915, but neither the bill that passed the Senate nor the one that passed the House contained a Denver Building Trades provision. The Conference Committee proposed to include such an amendment to § 8 (b) (4) (B) in the Conference agreement, along with a closely linked construction-industry exemption from §8 (e). 105 Cong. Rec. 17333 (1959) (proposed Senate resolution), 2 Leg. Hist, of LMRDA 1383. But a parliamentary obstacle killed the § 8 (b) (4) (B) amendment, and only the § 8 (e) proviso survived. See 105 Cong. Rec. 17728-17729, 17901-17903, 2 Leg. Hist, of LMRDA 1397-1398, 1434-1436. References to the proviso suggest that the Committee may have intended the § 8 (e) proviso simply to preserve the status quo under Carpenters v. NLRB (Sand Door), 357 U. S. 93 (195S), pending action on the Denver Building Trades problem in the following session. See H. R. Rep. No. 1147, supra, n. 5, at 39-40; 105 Cong. Rec. 17900 (1959) (report of Sen. Kennedy on Conference agreement), 2 Leg. Hist, of LMRDA 1433. Although Senator Kennedy introduced a bill to amend §8 (b)(4), S. 2643, 86th Cong., 1st Séss. (1959), it was never reported out of committee.
See 105 Cong. Rec. 17881 (1959) (remarks by Sen. Morse); id., at 15541 (memorandum by Reps. Thompson and Udall); id., at 15551-15552 (memorandum by Sen. Elliott); id., at 15852 (remarks by Rep. Goodell); see also id., at 20004-20005 (post-legislative remarks by Rep. Kearns); 2 Leg. Hist, of LMRDA 1425, 1577, 1588, 1684, and 1861.
Local 100 contends, unsoundly we think, that the NLRB has decided this issue in its favor. It cites Los Angeles Building & Construction Trades Council (B & J Investment Co.), 214 N. L. R. B. No. 86, 87 L. R. R. M. 1424 (1974), and a memorandum from the General Counsel explaining his decision not to file unfair labor practice charges in a similar case, Plumbers Local 100 (Hagler Construction Co.), No. 16-CC-447 (May 1, 1974). In B & J Investment the Board approved, without comment, an administrative law judge’s conclusion that the § 8 (e) proviso authorized a subcontracting agreement between the Council and a general contractor who used none of his own employees in the particular construction project. The agreement in question may have been a prehire contract under § 8 (f), and it is not clear that the contractor argued that it was invalid for lack of a collective-bargaining relationship. The General Counsel’s memorandum in Hagler Construction is plainly addressed to a different argument — that a subcontracting clause should be allowed only if there is a pre-existing collective-bargaining relationship with the general contractor or if the general contractor has employees who perform the kind of work covered by the agreement.
105 Cong. Rec. 6428-6429 (1959) (remarks of Sen. Goldwater); id., at 6648-6649 (remarks of Sen. McClellan); id., at 6664-6665 (remarks of Sen. Goldwater); id., at 14348 (memorandum of Rep. Griffin); 2 Leg. Hist, of LMRDA 1079, 1175-1176, 1191-1192, 1523.
H. R. Rep. No. 1147, supra, n. 5, at 42; 105 Cong. Rec. 10104 (1959) (memorandum of Sen. Goldwater); id., at 18128 (remarks by Rep. Barden); 2 Leg. Hist, of LMRDA 1289, 1715. The NLRB has taken this view. Operating Engineers Local 51$, 142 N. L. R. B. 1132 (1963), enforced, 331 F. 2d 99 (CA3), cert. denied, 379 U. S. 889 (1964).
As noted above, supra, at 628-630, the garment-industry proviso reflects different considerations. The text of the proviso and the treatment in congressional debates and reports suggest that Congress intended to authorize garment workers’ unions to continue using subcontracting agreements as an organizational weapon. See Danielson v. Joint Board, 494 F. 2d 1230 (CA2 1974) (Friendly, J.).
Connell also has argued that the subcontracting agreement was subject to antitrust sanctions because the construction-industry proviso authorizes only voluntary agreements. The foundation of this argument is a contention that § 8 (b) (4) (B) forbids picketing to secure an otherwise lawful “hot cargo” agreement in the construction industry. Because we hold that the agreement in this case is outside the § 8 (e) proviso, it is unnecessary to consider this alternative contention.
See H. R. Conf. Rep. No. 510, 80th Cong., 1st Sess. (House Managers’ statement), 65-67 (1947); 93 Cong. Rec. 4757, 4770, 4834-4874 (1947) (debates over Sen. Ball’s proposal for antitrust sanctions and Sen. Taft’s compromise proposal for actual damages, which became § 303 of the NLRA).
The dissenting opinion of Mr. Justice Stewart argues that § 303 provides the exclusive remedy for violations of § 8 (e), thereby precluding recourse to antitrust remedies. For that proposition the dissenting opinion relies upon “considerable evidence in the legislative materials.” Post, at 650. In our view, these materials are unpersuasive. In the first place, Congress did not amend § 303 expressly to provide a remedy for violations of § 8 (e
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer:
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G
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sc_issuearea
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Justice Sotomayor
delivered the opinion of the Court.
The Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act (ISDA or Act), 25 U. S. C. § 450 et seq., directs the Secretary of the Interior to enter into contracts with willing tribes, pursuant to which those tribes will provide services such as education and law enforcement that otherwise would have been provided by the Federal Government. ISDA mandates that the Secretary shall pay the full amount of “contract support costs” incurred by tribes in performing their contracts. At issue in this case is whether the Government must pay those costs when Congress appropriates sufficient funds to pay in full any individual contractor’s contract support costs, but not enough funds to cover the aggregate amount due every contractor. Consistent with longstanding principles of Government contracting law, we hold that the Government must pay each tribe’s contract support costs in full.
I
A
Congress enacted ISDA in 1975 in order to achieve “maximum Indian participation in the direction of educational as well as other Federal services to Indian communities so as to render such services more responsive to the needs and desires of those communities.” 25 U. S. C. § 450a(a). To that end, the Act directá the Secretary of the Interior, “upon the request of any Indian tribe . . . , to enter into a self-determination contract... to plan, conduct, and administer” health, education, economic, and social programs that the Secretary otherwise would have administered. § 450f(a)(1).
As originally enacted, ISDA required the Government to provide contracting tribes with an amount of funds equivalent to those that the Secretary “would have otherwise provided for his direct operation of the programs.” § 106(h), 88 Stat. 2211. It soon became apparent that this secretarial amount failed to account for the full costs to tribes of providing services. Because of “concern with Government’s past failure adequately to reimburse tribes’ indirect administrative costs,” Cherokee Nation of Okla. v. Leavitt, 543 U. S. 631, 639 (2005), Congress amended ISDA to require the Secretary to contract to pay the “full amount” of “contract support costs” related to each self-determination contract, §§ 450j-1(a)(2), (g). The Act also provides, however, that “[Notwithstanding any other provision in [ISDA], the provision of funds under [ISDA] is subject to the availability of appropriations.” § 450j-1(b).
Congress included a model contract in ISDA and directed that each tribal self-determination contract “shall . . . contain, or incorporate [it] by reference.” § 450l(a)(1). The model contract specifies that “‘[s]ubject to the availability of appropriations, the Secretary shall make available to the Contractor the total amount specified in the annual funding agreement’ ” between the Secretary and the tribe. § 450Z(c) (model agreement § 1(b)(4)). That amount “‘shall not be less than the applicable amount determined pursuant to [§450j-1(a)],’ ” which includes contract support costs. Ibid.; § 450j-l(a)(2). The contract indicates that “ ‘[e]ach provision of [ISDA] and each provision of this Contract shall be liberally construed for the benefit of the Contractor . . . § 450Z(c) (model agreement § 1(a)(2)). Finally, the Act makes clear that if the Government fails to pay the amount contracted for, then tribal contractors are entitled to pursue “money damages” in accordance with the Contract Disputes Act. § 450m-l(a).
B
During Fiscal Years (FYs) 1994 to 2001, respondent Tribes contracted with the Secretary of the Interior to provide services such as law enforcement, environmental protection, and agricultural assistance. The Tribes fully performed. During each FY, Congress appropriated a total amount to the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) “for the operation of Indian programs.” See, e. g., Department of the Interior and Belated Agencies Appropriations Act, 2000,113 Stat. 1501A-148. Of that sum, Congress provided that “not to exceed [a particular amount] shall be available for payments to tribes and tribal organizations for contract support costs” under ISDA. E. g., ibid. Thus, in FY 2000, for example, Congress appropriated $1,670,444,000 to the BIA, of which “not to exceed $120,229,000” was allocated for contract support costs. Ibid.
During each relevant FY, Congress appropriated sufficient funds to pay in full any individual tribal contractor’s contract support costs. Congress did not, however, appropriate sufficient funds to cover the contract support costs due all tribal contractors collectively. Between FYs 1994 and 2001, appropriations covered only between 77% and 92% of tribes’ aggregate contract support costs. The extent of the shortfall was not revealed until each FY was well underway, at which point a tribe’s performance of its contractual obligations was largely complete. See 644 F. 3d 1054, 1061 (CA10 2011). Lacking funds to pay each contractor in full, the Secretary paid tribes’ contract support costs on a uniform, pro rata basis. Tribes responded to these shortfalls by reducing ISDA services to tribal members, diverting tribal resources from non-ISDA programs, and forgoing opportunities to contract in furtherance of Congress’ self-determination objective. GAO, V. Rezendes, Indian Self-Determination Act: Shortfalls in Indian Contract Support Costs Need to Be Addressed 3-4 (GAO/RCED-99-150, 2009).
Respondent Tribes sued for breach of contract pursuant to the Contract Disputes Act, 41 U. S. C. §§ 601-613, alleging that the Government failed to pay the full amount of contract support costs due from FYs 1994 through 2001, as required by ISDA and their contracts. The United States District Court for the District of New Mexico granted summary judgment for the Government. A divided panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit reversed. The court reasoned that Congress made sufficient appropriations “legally available” to fund any individual tribal contractor’s contract support costs, and that the Government’s contractual commitment was therefore binding. 644 F. 3d, at 1063-1065. In such cases, the Court of Appeals held that the Government is liable to each contractor for the full contract amount. Judge Hartz dissented, contending that Congress intended to set a maximum limit on the Government’s liability for contract support costs. We granted certiorari to resolve a split among the Courts of Appeals, 565 U. S. 1104 (2012), and now affirm.
I—!
A
In evaluating the Government’s obligation to pay tribes for contract support costs, we do not write on a clean slate. Only seven years ago, in Cherokee Nation, we also considered the Government’s promise to pay contract support costs in ISDA self-determination contracts that made the Government’s obligation “subject to the availability of appropriations.” 543 U. S., at 634-637. For each FY at issue, Congress had appropriated to the Indian Health Service (IHS) a lump sum between $1,277 and $1,419 billion, “far more than the [contract support cost] amounts” due under the Tribes’ individual contracts. Id., at 637; see id., at 636 (Cherokee Nation and Shoshone-Paiute Tribes filed claims seeking $3.4 and $3.5 million, respectively). The Government contended, however, that Congress had appropriated inadequate funds to enable the IHS to pay the Tribes’ contract support costs in full, while meeting all of the agency’s competing fiscal priorities.
As we explained, that did not excuse the Government’s responsibility to pay the Tribes. We stressed that the Government’s obligation to pay contract support costs should be treated as an ordinary contract promise, noting that ISDA “uses the word ‘contract’ 426 times to describe the nature of the Government’s promise.” Id., at 639. As even the Government conceded, “in the case of ordinary contracts ... ‘if the amount of an unrestricted appropriation is sufficient to fund the contract, the contractor is entitled to payment even if the agency has allocated the funds to another purpose or assumes other obligations that exhaust the funds.’ ” Id., at 641. It followed, therefore, that absent “something special about the promises here at issue,” the Government was obligated to pay the Tribes’ contract support costs in full. Id., at 638.
We held that the mere fact that ISDA self-determination contracts are made “subject to the availability of appropriations” did not warrant a special rule. Id., at 643 (internal quotation marks omitted). That commonplace provision, we explained, is ordinarily satisfied so long as Congress appropriates adequate legally unrestricted funds to pay the contracts at issue. See ibid. Because Congress made sufficient funds legally available to the agency to pay the Tribes’ contracts, it did not matter that the BIA had allocated some of those funds to serve other purposes, such that the remainder was insufficient to pay the Tribes in full. Rather, we agreed with the Tribes that “as long as Congress has appropriated sufficient legally unrestricted funds to pay the contracts at issue,” the Government’s promise to pay was binding. Id., at 637-638.
Our conclusion in Cherokee Nation followed directly from well-established principles of Government contracting law. When a Government contractor is one of several persons to be paid out of a larger appropriation sufficient in itself to pay the contractor, it has long been the rule that the Government is responsible to the contractor for the full amount due under the contract, even if the agency exhausts the appropriation in service of other permissible ends. See Ferris v. United States, 27 Ct. Cl. 542, 546 (1892); Dougherty v. United States, 18 Ct. Cl. 496, 503 (1883); see also 2 GAO, Principles of Federal Appropriations Law, p. 6-17 (2d ed. 1992) (hereinafter GAO Redbook). That is so “even if an agency’s total lump-sum appropriation is insufficient to pay all the contracts the agency has made.” Cherokee Nation, 543 U. S., at 637. In such cases, “[t]he United States are as much bound by their contracts as are individuals.” Lynch v. United States, 292 U. S. 571, 580 (1934) (internal quotation marks omitted). Although the agency itself cannot disburse funds beyond those appropriated to it, the Government’s “valid obligations will remain enforceable in the courts.” GAO Redbook, p. 6-17.
This principle safeguards both the expectations of Government contractors and the long-term fiscal interests of the United States. For contractors, the Ferris rule reflects that when “a contract is but one activity under a larger appropriation, it is not reasonable to expect the contractor to know how much of that appropriation remains available for it at any given time.” GAO Redbook, p. 6-18. Contractors are responsible for knowing the size of the pie, not how the agency elects to slice it. Thus, so long as Congress appropriates adequate funds to cover a prospective contract, contractors need not keep track of agencies’ shifting priorities and competing obligations; rather, they may trust that the Government will honor its contractual promises. Dougherty, 18 Ct. Cl., at 503. In such cases, if an agency over-commits its funds such that it cannot fulfill its contractual commitments, even the Government has acknowledged that “[t]he risk of over-obligation may be found to fall on the agency,” not the contractor. Brief for Federal Parties in Cherokee Nation v. Leavitt, O. T. 2004, No. 02-1472 etc., p. 24 (hereinafter Brief for Federal Parties).
The rule likewise furthers “the Government’s own long-run interest as a reliable contracting partner in the myriad workaday transaction of its agencies.” United States v. Winstar Corp., 518 U. S. 839, 883 (1996) (plurality opinion). If the Government could be trusted to fulfill its promise to pay only when more pressing fiscal needs did not arise, would-be contractors would bargain warily—if at all—and only at a premium large enough to account for the risk of nonpayment. See, e. g., Logue, Tax Transitions, Opportunistic Retroactivity, and the Benefits of Government Precommitment, 94 Mich. L. Rev. 1129, 1146 (1996). In short, contracting would become more cumbersome and expensive for the Government, and willing partners more scarce.
B
The principles underlying Cherokee Nation and Ferris dictate the result in this case. Once “Congress has appropriated sufficient legally unrestricted funds to pay the contracts at issue, the Government normally cannot back out of a promise to pay on grounds of ‘insufficient appropriations,’ even if the contract uses language such as ‘subject to the availability of appropriations,’ and even if an agency’s total lump-sum appropriation is insufficient to pay all the contracts the agency has made.” Cherokee Nation, 543 U. S., at 637; see also id., at 638 (“[T]he Government denies none of this”).
That condition is satisfied here. In each FY between 1994 and 2001, Congress appropriated to the BIA a lump sum from which “not to exceed” between $91 and $125 million was allocated for contract support costs, an amount that exceeded the sum due any tribal contractor. Within those constraints, the ability to direct those funds was “ ‘committed to agency discretion by law.’” Lincoln v. Vigil, 508 U. S. 182, 193 (1993) (quoting 5 U. S. C. § 701(a)(2)). Nothing, for instance, prevented the BIA from paying in full respondent Ramah Navajo Chapter’s contract support costs rather than other tribes’, whether based on its greater need or simply because it sought payment first. See International Union, United Auto., Aerospace & Agricultural Implement Work ers of Am. v. Donovan, 746 F. 2d 855, 861 (CADC 1984) (Scalia, J.) (“A lump-sum appropriation leaves it to the recipient agency (as a matter of law, at least) to distribute the funds among some or all of the permissible objects as it sees fit”). And if there was any doubt that that general rule applied here, ISDA’s statutory language itself makes clear that the BIA may allocate funds to one tribe at the expense of another. See § 450j-1(b) (“[T]he Secretary is not required to reduce funding for programs, projects, or activities serving a tribe to make funds available to another tribe or tribal organization under this [Act]”). The upshot is that the funds appropriated by Congress were legally available to pay any individual tribal contractor in full. See 1 GAO Redbook, p. 4-6 (3d ed. 2004).
The Government’s contractual promise to pay each tribal contractor the “full amount of funds to which the contractor [was] entitled,” § 450j-l(g), was therefore binding. We have expressly rejected the Government’s argument that “the tribe should bear the risk that a total lump-sum appropriation (though sufficient to cover its own contracts) will not prove sufficient to pay all similar contracts.” Cherokee Nation, 543 U. S., at 638. Rather, the tribal contractors were entitled to rely on the Government’s promise to pay because they were “not chargeable with knowledge” of the BIA’s administration of Congress’ appropriation, “nor [could their] legal rights be affected or impaired by its maladministration or by its diversion.” Ferris, 27 Ct. Cl., at 546.
As in Cherokee Nation, we decline the Government’s invitation to ascribe “special, rather than ordinary,” meaning to the fact that ISDA makes contracts “subject to the availability of appropriations.” 543 U. S., at 644. Under our previous interpretation of that language, that condition was satisfied here because Congress appropriated adequate funds to pay in full any individual contractor. It is important to afford that language a “uniform interpretation” in this and comparable statutes, “lest legal uncertainty undermine contractors’ confidence that they will be paid, and in turn increase the cost to the Government of purchasing goods and services.” Ibid. It would be particularly anomalous to read the statutory language differently here. Contracts made under ISDA specify that “ ‘[e]ach provision of [ISDA] and each provision of this Contract shall be liberally construed for the benefit of the Contractor . . . .’” § 450l(c) (model agreement § 1(a)(2)). The Government, in effect, must demonstrate that its reading is clearly required by the statutory language. Accordingly, the Government cannot back out of its contractual promise to pay each Tribe’s full contract support costs.
Ill
A
The Government primarily seeks to distinguish this case from Cherokee Nation and Ferris on the ground that Congress here appropriated “not to exceed” a given amount for contract support costs, thereby imposing an express cap on the total funds available. See Brief for Petitioners 26, 49. The Government argues, on this basis, that Ferris and Cherokee Nation involved “contracts made against the backdrop of unrestricted, lump-sum appropriations,” while this case does not. See Brief for Petitioners 49, 26.
That premise, however, is inaccurate. In Ferris, Congress appropriated “[f]or improving Delaware River below Bridesburg, Pennsylvania, forty-five thousand dollars.” 20 Stat. 364. As explained in the Government’s own appropriations law handbook, the “not to exceed” language at issue in this case has an identical meaning to the quoted language in Ferris. See GAO Redbook, p. 6-5 (“Words like ‘not to exceed’ are not the only way to establish a maximum limitation. If the appropriation includes a specific amount for a particular object (such as ‘For Cuban cigars, $100’), then the appropriation is a maximum which may not be exceeded”). The appropriation in Cherokee Nation took a similar form. See, e. g., 108 Stat. 2527-2528 (“For expenses necessary to carry out . . . [ISDA and certain other enumerated Acts], $1,713,052,000”). There is no basis, therefore, for distinguishing the class of appropriation in those cases from this one. In each case, the agency remained free to allocate funds among multiple contractors, so long as the contracts served the purpose Congress identified.
This result does not leave the “not to exceed” language in Congress’ appropriation without legal effect. To the contrary, it prevents the Secretary from reprogramming other funds to pay contract support costs—thereby protecting funds that Congress envisioned for other BIA programs, including tribes that choose not to enter ISDA contracts. But when an agency makes competing contractual commitments with legally available funds and then fails to pay, it is the Government that must bear the fiscal consequences, not the contractor.
B
The dissent attempts to distinguish this case from Cherokee Nation and Ferris on different grounds, relying on §450j-l(b)’s proviso that “the Secretary is not required to reduce funding for programs, projects, or activities serving a tribe to make funds available to another tribe.” In the dissent’s view, that clause establishes that each dollar allocated by the Secretary reduces the amount of appropriations legally available to pay other contractors. In effect, the dissent understands § 450j-l(b) to make the legal availability of appropriations turn on the Secretary’s expenditures rather than the sum allocated by Congress.
That interpretation, which is inconsistent with ordinary principles of Government contracting law, is improbable. We have explained that Congress ordinarily controls the availability of appropriations; the agency controls whether to make funds from that appropriation available to pay a contractor. See Cherokee Nation, 543 U. S., at 642-643. The agency’s allocation choices do not affect the Government’s liability in the event of an underpayment. See id., at 641 (when an “‘unrestricted appropriation is sufficient to fund the contract, the contractor is entitled to payment even if the agency has allocated the funds to another purpose’ ”). In Cherokee Nation, we found those ordinary principles generally applicable to ISDA. See id., at 637-646. We also found no evidence that Congress intended that “the tribe should bear the risk that a total lump-sum appropriation (though sufficient to cover its own contracts) will not prove sufficient to pay all similar contracts.” Id., at 638 (citing Brief for Federal Parties 23-25). The dissent’s reading, by contrast, would impose precisely that regime. See post, at 204-206.
The better reading of §450j-l(b) accords with ordinary Government contracting principles. As we explained, supra, at 190-192, the clause underscores the Secretary’s discretion to allocate funds among tribes, but does not alter the Government’s legal obligation when the agency fails to pay. That reading gives full effect to the clause’s text, which addresses the “amount of funds provided,” and specifies that the Secretary is not required to reduce funding for one tribe to make “funds available” to another. 450j-l(b). Indeed, even the Government acknowledges the clause governs the Secretary’s discretion to distribute funds. See Brief for Petitioners 52 (pursuant to § 450j-l(b), the Secretary was not obligated to pay tribes’ “contract support costs on a first-come, first-served basis, but had the authority to distribute the available money among all tribal contractors in an equitable fashion”).
At minimum, the fact that we, the court below, the Government, and the Tribes do not share the dissent’s reading of § 450j-1(b) is strong evidence that its interpretation is not, as it claims, “unambiguous[ly]” correct. Post, at 207 (opinion of Roberts, C. J.). Because ISDA is construed in favor of tribes, that conclusion is fatal to the dissent.
C
The remaining counterarguments are unpersuasive. First, the Government suggests that today’s holding could cause the Secretary to violate the Anti-Deficiency Act, which prevents federal officers from “mak[ing] or authorizing] an expenditure or obligation exceeding an amount available in an appropriation.” 31 U. S. C. § 1341(a)(1)(A). But a predecessor version of that Act was in place when Ferris and Dou-gherty were decided, see GAO Redbook, pp. 6-9 to 6-10, and the Government did not prevail there. As Dougherty explained, the Anti-Deficiency Act’s requirements “apply to the official, but they do not affect the rights in this court of the citizen honestly contracting with the Government.” 18 Ct. Cl., at 503; see also Ferris, 27 Ct. Cl., at 546 (“An appropriation per se merely imposes limitations upon the Government’s own agents;.. . but its insufficiency does not pay the Government’s debts, nor cancel its obligations”).
Second, the Government argues that Congress could not have intended for respondents to recover from the Judgment Fund, 31 U. S. C. § 1304, because that would allow the Tribes to circumvent Congress’ intent to cap total expenditures for contract support costs. That contention is puzzling. Congress expressly provided in ISDA that tribal contractors were entitled to sue for “money damages” under the Contract Disputes Act upon the Government’s failure to pay, 25 U. S. C. §§ 450m-1(a), (d), and judgments against the Government under that Act are payable from the Judgment Fund, 41 U. S. C. § 7108(a) (2006 ed., Supp. IV). Indeed, we cited the Contract Disputes Act, Judgment Fund, and Anti-Deficiency Act in Cherokee Nation, explaining that if the Government commits its appropriations in a manner that leaves contractual obligations unfulfilled, “the contractor [is] free to pursue appropriate legal remedies arising because the Government broke its contractual promise.” 543 U. S., at 642.
Third, the Government invokes cases in which courts have rejected contractors’ attempts to recover for amounts beyond the maximum appropriated by Congress for a particular purpose. See, e. g., Sutton v. United States, 256 U. S. 575 (1921). In Sutton, for instance, Congress made a specific line-item appropriation of $23,000 for the completion of a particular project. Id., at 577. We held that the sole contractor engaged to complete that project could not recover more than that amount for his work.
The Ferris and Sutton lines of cases are distinguishable, however. GAO Redbook, p. 6-18. “[I]t is settled that contractors paid from a general appropriation are not barred from recovering for breach of contract even though the appropriation is exhausted,” but that “under a specific line-item appropriation, the answer is different.” Ibid. The different results “follo[w] logically from the old maxim that ignorance of the law is no excuse.” Ibid. “If Congress appropriates a specific dollar amount for a particular contract, that amount is specified in the appropriation act and the contractor is deemed to know it.” Ibid. This ease is far different. Hundreds of tribes entered into thousands of independent contracts, each for amounts well within the lump sum appropriated by Congress to pay contract support costs. Here, where each Tribe’s “contract is but one activity under a larger appropriation, it is not reasonable to expect [each] contractor to know how much of that appropriation remain[ed] available for it at any given time.” Ibid.; see also Ferris, 27 Ct. Cl., at 546.
Finally, the Government argues that legislative history suggests that Congress approved of the distribution of available funds on a uniform, pro rata basis. But “a fundamental principle of appropriations law is that where Congress merely appropriates lump-sum amounts without statutorily restricting what can be done with those funds, a clear inference arises that it does not intend to impose legally binding restrictions.” Lincoln, 508 U. S., at 192 (internal quotation marks omitted). “[I]ndicia in committee reports and other legislative history as to how the funds should or are expected to be spent do not establish any legal requirements on the agency.” Ibid, (internal quotation marks omitted). An agency’s discretion to spend appropriated funds is cabined only by the “text of the appropriation,” not by Congress’ expectations of how the funds will be spent, as might be reflected by legislative history. International Union, UAW, 746 F. 2d, at 860-861. That principle also reflects the same ideas underlying Ferris. If a contractor’s right to payment varied based on a future court’s uncertain interpretation of legislative history, it would increase the Government’s cost of contracting. Cf. Cherokee Nation, 543 U. S., at 644. That long-run expense would likely far exceed whatever money might be saved in any individual case.
> hH
As the Government points out, the state of affairs resulting in this case is the product of two congressional decisions which the BIA has found difficult to reconcile. On the one hand, Congress obligated the Secretary to accept every qualifying ISDA contract, which includes a promise of “full” funding for all contract support costs. On the other, Congress appropriated insufficient funds to pay in full each tribal contractor. The Government’s frustration is understandable, but the dilemma’s resolution is the responsibility of Congress.
Congress is not short of options. For instance, it could reduce the Government’s financial obligation by amending ISDA to remove the statutory mandate compelling the BIA to enter into self-determination contracts, or by giving the BIA flexibility to pay less than the full amount of contract support costs. It could also pass a moratorium on the formation of new self-determination contracts, as it has done before. See § 328, 112 Stat. 2681-291 to 2681-292. Or Congress could elect to make line-item appropriations, allocating funds to cover tribes’ contract support costs on a contractor-by-contractor basis. On the other hand, Congress could appropriate sufficient funds to the BIA to meet the tribes’ total contract support cost needs. Indeed, there is some evidence that Congress may do just that. See H. R. Rep. No. 112-151, p. 42 (2011) (“The Committee believes that the Bureau should pay all contract support costs for which it has contractually agreed and directs the Bureau to include the full cost of the contract support obligations in its fiscal year 2013 budget submission”).
The desirability of these options is not for us to say. We make clear only that Congress has ample means at hand to resolve the situation underlying the Tribes’ suit. Any one of the options above could also promote transparency about the Government’s fiscal obligations with respect to ISDA’s directive that contract support costs be paid in full. For the period in question, however, it is the Government—not the Tribes—that must bear the consequences of Congress’ decision to mandate that the Government enter into binding contracts for which its appropriation was sufficient to pay any individual tribal contractor, but “insufficient to pay all the contracts the agency has made.” Cherokee Nation, 543 U. S., at 637.
The judgment of the Court of Appeals is affirmed.
It is so ordered.
As defined by ISDA, contract support costs “shall consist of an amount for the reasonable costs for activities which must be carried on by a tribal organization as a contractor to ensure compliance with the terms of the contract and prudent management, but which . . . (A) normally are not carried on by the respective Secretary in his direct operation of the program; or (B) are provided by the Secretary in support of the contracted program from resources other than those under contract.” §450j-l(a)(2). Such costs include overhead administrative costs, as well as expenses such as federally mandated audits and liability insurance. See Cherokee Nation of Okla., 543 U. S., at 635.
Compare 644 F. 3d 1054 (case below) with Arctic Slope Native Assn., Ltd. v. Sebelius, 629 F. 3d 1296 (CA Fed. 2010) (no liability to pay total contract support costs beyond cap in appropriations Act).
In Ferris, for instance, Congress appropriated $45,000 for the improvement of the Delaware River below Bridesburg, Pennsylvania. Act of Mar. 3, 1879, ch. 181, 20 Stat. 364. The Government contracted with Ferris for $37,000 to dredge the river. Halfway through Ferris’ performance of his contract, the United States Army Corps of Engineers ran out of money to pay Ferris, having used $17,000 of the appropriation to pay for other improvements. Nonetheless, the Court of Claims found that Ferris could recover for the balance of his contract. As the court explained, the appropriation “merely impose[d] limitations upon the Government’s own agents; ... its insufficiency [did] not pay the Government’s debts, nor cancel its obligations, nor defeat the rights of other parties.” 27 Ct. Cl., at 546; see also Dougherty, 18 Ct. Cl., at 503 (rejecting Government’s argument that a contractor could not recover upon similar facts because the “appropriation had, at the time of the purchase, been covered by other contracts”).
Indeed, the IHS once allocated its appropriations for new ISDA contracts on a first-come, first-serve basis. See Dept, of Health and Human Services, Indian Self-Determination Memorandum No. 92-2, p. 4 (Feb. 27, 1992).
The Government’s reliance on this statutory language is particularly curious because it suggests it is superfluous. See Brief for Petitioners 30-31 (it is “unnecessary” to specify that contracts are “subject to the availability of appropriations” (internal quotation marks omitted)); see also Reply Brief for Petitioners 7 (“[A]ll government contracts are contingent upon the appropriations provided by Congress”).
The dissent’s view notwithstanding, it is beyond question that Congress appropriated sufficient unrestricted funds to pay any contractor in full. The dissent’s real argument is that §450j-1(b) reverses the applicability of the Ferris rule to ISDA, so that the Secretary’s allocation of funds to one contractor reduces the legal availability of fends to others. See post, at 204 (opinion of Roberts, C. J.) (“[T]hat the Secretary could have allocated the fends to [a] tribe is irrelevant. What matters is what the Secretary actually does, and once he allocates the fends to one tribe, they are not ‘available’ to another”). We are not persuaded that § 450j—1(b) was intended to enact that radical departure from ordinary Government contracting principles. Indeed, Congress has spoken clearly and directly when limiting the Government’s total contractual liability to an amount appropriated in similar schemes; that it did not do so here further counsels against the dissent’s reading. See, e. g., 25 U. S. C. § 2008( j)(2) (“If the total amount of funds necessary to provide grants to tribes ... for a fiscal year exceeds the amount of fends appropriated . . . , the Secretary shall reduce the amount of each grant [pro rata]”).
We have some doubt whether a Government employee would violate the Anti-Deficiency Act by obeying an express statutory command to enter a contract, as was the case here. But we need not decide the question, for this case concerns only the contractual rights of tribal contractors, not the consequences of entering into such contracts for agency employees.
The Judgment Fund is a “permanent, indefinite appropriation” enacted by Congress to pay final judgments against the United States when, inter alia, “[pjayment may not legally be made from any other source of funds.” 31 CFR § 256.1(a)(4) (2011).
For that reason, the Government’s reliance on Office of Personnel Management v. Richmond, 496 U. S. 414 (1990), is misplaced. In Richmond, we held that the Appropriations Clause does not permit plaintiffs to recover money for Government-caused injuries for which Congress “appropriated no money.” Id., at 424. Richmond, however, indicated that the Appropriations Clause is no bar to recovery in a case like this one, in which “the express terms of a specific statute” establish “a substantive right to compensation” from the Judgment Fund. Id., at 432.
Of course, “[t]he terms ‘lump-sum’ and ‘line-item’ are relative concepts.” GAO Redbook, p. 6-165. For example, an appropriation for building two ships “could be viewed as a line-item appropriation in relation to the broader ‘Shipbuilding and Conversion’ category, but it was also a lump-sum appropriation in relation to the two specific vessels included.” Ibid. So long as a contractor does not seek payment beyond the amount Congress made legally available for a given purpose, “[t]his factual distinction does not affect the legal principle.” Ibid. See also In re Newport News Shipbuilding & Dry Dock Co., 55 Comp. Gen. 812 (1976).
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer:
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B
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What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Mr. Chief Justice Burger
delivered the opinion of the Court.
We granted certiorari in this case to determine whether an accused who is compelled to wear identifiable prison clothing at his trial by a jury is denied due process or equal protection of the laws.
In November 1970, respondent Williams was convicted in state court in Harris County, Tex., for assault with intent to commit murder with malice. The crime occurred during an altercation between respondent and his former landlord on the latter’s property. The evidence showed that respondent returned to the apartment complex where he had formerly resided to visit a female tenant. While there, respondent and his former landlord became involved in a quarrel. Heated words were exchanged, and a fight ensued. Respondent struck the landlord with a knife in the neck, chest, and abdomen, severely wounding him.
Unable to post bond, respondent was held in custody while awaiting trial. When he learned that he was to go on trial, respondent asked an officer at the jail for his civilian clothes. This request was denied. As a result, respondent appeared at trial in clothes that were distinctly marked as prison issue. Neither respondent nor his counsel raised an objection to the prison attire at any time.
A jury returned a verdict of guilty on the charge of assault with intent to murder with malice. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals affirmed the conviction. Williams v. State, 477 S. W. 2d 24 (1972). Williams then sought release in the United States District Court on a petition for a writ of habeas corpus. Although holding that requiring a defendant to stand trial in prison garb was inherently unfair, the District Court denied relief on the ground that the error was harmless.
The Court of Appeals reversed on the basis of its own prior holding in Hernandez v. Beto, 443 F. 2d 634 (CA5), cert. denied, 404 U. S. 897 (1971). 500 F. 2d 206. The Fifth Circuit disagreed with the District Court solely on the issue of harmless error.
(1)
The right to a fair trial is a fundamental liberty secured by the Fourteenth Amendment. Drope v. Missouri, 420 U. S. 162, 172 (1975). The presumption of innocence, although not articulated in the Constitution, is a basic component of a fair trial under our system of criminal justice. Long ago this Court stated:
“The principle that there is a presumption of innocence in favor of the accused is the undoubted law, axiomatic and elementary, and its enforcement lies at the foundation of the administration of our criminal law.” Coffin v. United States, 156 U. S. 432, 453 (1895).
To implement the presumption, courts must be alert to factors that may undermine the fairness of the fact-finding process. In the administration of criminal justice, courts must carefully guard against dilution of the principle that guilt is to be established by probative evidence and beyond a reasonable doubt. In re Winship, 397 U. S. 358, 364 (1970).
The actual impact of a particular practice on the judgment of jurors cannot always be fully determined. But this Court has left no doubt that the probability of deleterious effects on fundamental rights calls for close judicial scrutiny. Estes v. Texas, 381 U. S. 532 (1965); In re Murchison, 349 U. S. 133 (1955). Courts must do the best they can to evaluate the likely effects of a particular procedure, based on reason, principle, and common human experience.
The potential effects of presenting an accused before the jury in prison attire need not, however, be measured in the abstract. Courts have, with few exceptions, determined that an accused should not be compelled to go to trial in prison or jail clothing because of the possible impairment of the presumption so basic to the adversary system. Gaito v. Brierley, 485 F. 2d 86 (CA3 1973); Hernandez v. Beto, supra; Brooks v. Texas, 381 F. 2d 619 (CA5 1967); Commonwealth v. Keeler, 216 Pa. Super. 193, 264 A. 2d 407 (1970); Miller v. State, 249 Ark. 3, 457 S. W. 2d 848 (1970); People v. Shaw, 381 Mich. 467, 164 N. W. 2d 7 (1969); People v. Zapata, 220 Cal. App. 2d 903, 34 Cal. Rptr. 171 (1963), cert. denied, 377 U. S. 406 (1964); Eaddy v. People, 115 Colo. 488, 174 P. 2d 717 (1946). The American Bar Association’s Standards for Criminal Justice also disapprove the practice. ABA Project on Standards for Criminal Justice, Trial by Jury § 4.1 (b), p. 91 (App. Draft 1968). This is a recognition that the constant reminder of the accused’s condition implicit in such distinctive, identifiable attire may affect a juror’s judgment. The defendant’s clothing is so likely to be a continuing influence throughout the trial that, not unlike placing a jury in the custody of deputy sheriffs who were also witnesses for the prosecution, an unacceptable risk is presented of impermissible factors coming into play. Turner v. Louisiana, 379 U. S. 466, 473 (1965).
That such factors cannot always be avoided is manifest in Illinois v. Allen, 397 U. S. 337 (1970), where we expressly recognized that “the sight of shackles and gags might have a significant effect on the jury’s feelings about the defendant . . . ,” id., at 344; yet the Court upheld the practice when necessary to control a contumacious defendant. For that reason, the Court authorized removal of a disruptive defendant from the courtroom or, alternatively, binding and gagging of the accused until he agrees to conduct himself properly in the courtroom.
Unlike physical restraints, permitted under Allen, supra, compelling an accused to wear jail clothing furthers no essential state policy. That it may be more convenient for jail administrators, a factor quite unlike the substantial need to impose physical restraints upon contumacious defendants, provides no justification for the practice. Indeed, the State of Texas asserts no interest whatever in maintaining this procedure.
Similarly troubling is the fact that compelling the accused to stand trial in jail garb operates usually against only those who cannot post bail prior to trial. Persons who can secure release are not subjected to this condition. To impose the condition on one category of defendants, over objection, would be repugnant to the concept of equal justice embodied in the Fourteenth Amendment. Griffin v. Illinois, 351 U. S. 12 (1956).
(2)
The Fifth Circuit, in this as well as in prior decisions, has not purported to adopt a per se rule invalidating all convictions where a defendant had appeared in identifiable prison clothes. That court has held, for instance, that the harmless-error doctrine is applicable to this line of cases. 500 F. 2d, at 210-212. See also Thomas v. Beto, 474 F. 2d 981, cert. denied, 414 U. S. 871 (1973); Hernandez v. Beto, supra, at 637. Other courts are in accord. Bentley v. Crist, 469 F. 2d 854, 856 (CA9 1972) Watt v. Page, 452 F. 2d 1174, 1176-1177 (CA10), cert. denied, 405 U. S. 1070 (1972). In this case, the Court of Appeals quoted the language of Mr. Justice Douglas, speaking for the Court in Harrington v. California, 395 U. S. 250 (1969):
“We held in Chapman v. California 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.’ We said that. .. not all ‘trial errors which violate the Constitution automatically call for reversal.’ ” Id., at 251-252 (citations omitted).
In Chapman v. California, 386 U. S. 18 (1967), the Court, speaking through Mr. Justice Black, held:
“We are urged by petitioners to hold that all federal constitutional errors, regardless of the facts and circumstances, must always be deemed harmful. Such a holding, as petitioners correctly point out, would require an automatic reversal of their convictions and make further discussion unnecessary. We decline to adopt any such rule. All 50 States have harmless-error statutes or rules, and the United States long ago through its Congress established for its courts the rule that judgments shall not be reversed for 'errors or defects which do not affect the substantial rights of the parties.' . . . We conclude that there may be some constitutional errors which in the setting of a particular case are so unimportant and insignificant that they may, consistent with the Federal Constitution, be deemed harmless, not requiring the automatic reversal of the conviction.” Id., at 21-22 (citation and footnote omitted).
In other situations, when, for example, the accused is being tried for an offense committed in confinement, or in an attempted escape, courts have refused to find error in the practice. In United States ex rel. Stahl v. Henderson, 472 F. 2d 556 (CAS), cert. denied, 411 U. S. 971 (1973), the Court of Appeals declined to overturn a conviction where the defendant, albeit tried in jail clothes, was charged with having murdered another inmate while confined in prison. “No prejudice can result from seeing that which is already known.” 472 F. 2d, at 557. In the present case, the Court of Appeals concluded :
“A different result may be appropriate where the defendant is on trial for an offense allegedly committed while he was in prison, because the jury would learn of his incarceration in any event.” 500 F. 2d, at 209 n. 5.
Contra: People v. Roman, 35 N. Y. 2d 978, 324 N. E. 2d 885 (1975).
Consequently, the courts have refused to embrace a mechanical rule vitiating any conviction, regardless of the circumstances, where the accused appeared before the jury in prison garb. Instead, they have recognized that the particular evil proscribed is compelling a defendant, against his will, to be tried in jail attire. The reason for this judicial focus upon compulsion is simple; instances frequently arise where a defendant prefers to stand trial before his peers in prison garments. The cases show, for example, that it is not an uncommon defense tactic to produce the defendant in jail clothes in the hope of eliciting sympathy from the jury. Anderson v. Watt, 475 F. 2d 881, 882 (CA10 1973); Watt v. Page, supra, at 1176. Cf. Garcia v. Beto, 452 F. 2d 655, 656 (CA5 1971). This is apparently an accepted practice in Texas courts, Barber v. State, 477 S. W. 2d 868, 870 (Tex. Crim. App. 1972), including the court where respondent was tried.
Courts have therefore required an accused to object to being tried in jail garments, just as he must invoke or abandon other rights. The Fifth Circuit has held: “A defendant may not remain silent and willingly go to trial in prison garb and thereafter claim error.” Hernandez v. Beto, 443 F. 2d, at 637. The essential meaning of the Court of Appeals’ decision in Hernandez has been described by that court as follows:
“We held [in Hernandez] that the defendant and his attorney had the burden to make known that the defendant desired to be tried in civilian clothes before the state could be accountable for his being tried in jail clothes . . . .” United States ex rel. Stahl v. Henderson, 472 F. 2d, at 557.
Similarly, the Ninth Circuit has indicated that the courts must determine whether an accused “was in fact compelled to wear prison clothing at his state court trial.” Bentley v. Crist, 469 F. 2d, at 856. See also Dennis v. Dees, 278 F. Supp. 354, 359 (ED La. 1968), disapproved on other grounds, United States ex rel. Stahl v. Henderson, supra, at 557; People v. Roman, 35 N. Y. 2d, at 978-979, 324 N. E. 2d, at 885-886; People v. Shaw, 381 Mich. 467, 164 N. W. 2d 7 (1969).
(3)
The record is clear that no objection was made to the trial judge concerning the jail attire either before or at any time during the trial. This omission plainly did not result from any lack of appreciation of the issue, for respondent had raised the question with the jail attendant prior to trial. At trial, defense counsel expressly referred to respondent’s attire during voir dire. The trial judge was thus informed that respondent’s counsel was fully conscious of the situation.
Despite respondent’s failure to raise the issue at trial, the Court of Appeals held:
“Waiver of the objection cannot be inferred merely from failure to object if trial in prison garb is customary in the jurisdiction.” 500 F. 2d, at 208.
The District Court had concluded that at the time of respondent’s trial the majority of nonbailed defendants in Harris County were indeed tried in jail clothes. From this, the Court of Appeals concluded that the practice followed in respondent’s case was customary. Ibid.
However, that analysis ignores essential facts adduced at the evidentiary hearing. Notwithstanding the evidence as to the general practice in Harris County, there was no finding that nonbailed defendants were compelled to stand trial in prison garments if timely objection was made to the trial judge. On the contrary, the District Court concluded that the practice of the particular judge presiding in respondent’s case was to permit any accused who so desired to change into civilian clothes:
“There is no doubt but that the [judge] had a practice of allowing defendants to stand trial in civilian clothing, if requested, a practice evidently-followed by certain of the other judges as well.” Williams v. Beto, 364 F. Supp. 335, 343 (1973).
The state judge’s policy was confirmed at the eviden-tiary hearing by the prosecutor and by a defense attorney who practiced in the judge’s court.
Significantly, at the evidentiary hearing respondent’s trial counsel did not intimate that he feared any adverse consequences attending an objection to the procedure. There is nothing to suggest that there would have been any prejudicial effect on defense counsel had he made objection, given the decisions on this point in that jurisdiction. Four years before respondent’s trial the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit had held: “It is inherently unfair to try a defendant for crime while garbed in his jail uniform . . . .” Brooks v. Texas, 381 F. 2d, at 624. Similarly, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals had held: “[E]very effort should be made to avoid trying an accused while in jail garb.” Ring v. State, 450 S. W. 2d 85, 88 (1970). Prior Texas cases had made it clear that an objection should be interposed. See Wilkinson v. State, 423 S. W. 2d 311, 313 (Tex. Crim. App. 1968); Ring v. State, supra, at 88.
Nothing in this record, therefore, warrants a conclusion that respondent was compelled to stand trial in jail garb or that there was sufficient reason to excuse the failure to raise the issue before trial. Nor can the trial judge be faulted for not asking the respondent or his counsel whether he was deliberately going to trial in jail clothes. To impose this requirement suggests that the trial judge operates under the same burden here as he would in the situation in Johnson v. Zerbst, 304 U. S. 458 (1938), where the issue concerned whether the accused willingly stood trial without the benefit of counsel. Under our adversary system, once a defendant has the assistance of counsel the vast array of trial decisions, strategic and tactical, which must be made before and during trial rests with the accused and his attorney. Any other approach would rewrite the duties of trial judges and counsel in our legal system.
Accordingly, although the State cannot, consistently with the Fourteenth Amendment, compel an accused to stand trial before a jury while dressed in identifiable prison clothes, the failure to make an objection to the court as to being tried in such clothes, for whatever reason, is sufficient to negate the presence of compulsion necessary to establish a constitutional violation.
The judgment of the Court of Appeals is therefore reversed, and the cause is remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
Reversed and remanded.
Mr. Justice Stevens took no part in the consideration or decision of this case.
None of the authorities relied on by petitioner expressly approves the practice. Several cases hold, however, that a showing of actual prejudice must be made by a defendant seeking to have his conviction overturned on this ground. Hall v. Cox, 324 F. Supp. 786 (WD Va. 1971); McFalls v. Peyton, 270 F. Supp. 577 (WD Va. 1967), aff’d, 401 F. 2d 890 (CA4 1968), cert. denied, 394 U. S. 951 (1969).
The contumacious defendant brings his plight upon himself and presents the court with a limited range of alternatives. Obviously, a defendant cannot be allowed to abort a trial and frustrate the process of justice by his own acts.
We are not confronted with an alleged relinquishment of a fundamental right of the sort at issue in Johnson v. Zerbst, 304 U. S. 458 (1938). There, the Court understandably found it difficult to conceive of an accused making a knowing decision to forgo the fundamental right to the assistance of counsel, absent a showing of conscious surrender of a known right. The Court has not, however, engaged in this exacting analysis with respect to strategic and tactical decisions, even those with constitutional implications, by a counseled accused. See, e. g., On Lee v. United States, 343 U. S. 747, 749 n. 3 (1952). Cf. Fed. Rule Crim. Proc. 11.
The Second Circuit has noted in a different context:
“Federal courts, including the Supreme Court, have declined to notice [alleged] errors not objected to below even though such errors involve a criminal defendant’s constitutional rights.” United States v. Indiviglio, 352 F. 2d 276, 280 (1965), cert. denied, 383 U. S. 907 (1966).
The reason for this rule is clear: if the defendant has an objection, there is an obligation to call the matter to the court's attention so the trial judge will have an opportunity to remedy the situation.
Significantly, in the Henderson case the Fifth Circuit interpreted Hernandez as requiring the accused to take aifirmative steps to apprise the trial court of his desire to be tried in civilian clothes. The Hernandez court had simply found, under the circumstances presented there, that the defendant “had met his burden.” 472 F. 2d, at 557. This interpretation is particularly meaningful since the author of the Hernandez opinion was a member of the panel in the subsequent decision in Henderson. Moreover, the court in Hernandez indicated:
“We do not paint with a broad brush these types of eases. Each case must be considered in its own factual context.” 443 F. 2d, at 637.
Moreover, there is nothing in the record in Hernandez to suggest that the state trial judge had, as here, a longstanding practice, known to members of the bar, to permit any defendant to change into civilian clothes on request. See infra, at 510-511.
The evidence showed that respondent was a Caucasian in his sixties. At the evidentiary hearing, he testified that he felt he had no real case to present at trial. The testimony of several eyewitnesses was clear and consistent. Under these circumstances, a desire to elicit jury sympathy would have been a reasonable approach and one which the trial judge might reasonably have assumed was deliberately undertaken.
This was based on the state judge's affidavit, which stated in part:
"I have never compelled a defendant to go to trial in jail clothes, and on every occasion when a defendant or his attorney requested that he be allowed to wear civilian clothes at his trial I have granted the request.” 364 F. Supp., at 338.
Counsel testified that on a prior occasion, a different state judge had overruled his objection to the trial of his client in jail clothes. He also testified that he had seen other defendants dressed in jail garments in the courtroom where respondent was tried.
The Texas courts had admittedly not established a rigid rule invalidating the practice -per se. Instead, the courts ordinarily looked to whether actual injury or prejudice had resulted from the defendant’s appearance in jail garb. Garcia v. State, 429 S. W. 2d 468, 471 (Tex. Crim. App. 1968); Xanthull v. State, 403 S. W. 2d 807, 809 (Tex. Crim. App. 1966). But these cases provided ample grounds for objection to the procedure, since they at least implicitly recognized that reversible error could result from the practice. Similarly, the 1970 decision in Xanthull v. Beto, 307 F. Supp. 903 (SD Tex.), did not render fruitless any objection on respondent's part. Instead, that case, like various state cases, simply imposed a burden on federal habeas petitioners to show actual prejudice resulting from a jury trial in jail garments.
It is not necessary, if indeed it were possible, for us to decide whether this was a defense tactic or simply indifference. In either case, respondent's silence precludes any suggestion of compulsion.
Petitioner has contended in his brief and in oral argument that the Court of Appeals’ decision in Hernandez should not be applied retroactively. The petition for certiorari did not raise this issue and our disposition of the case renders it unnecessary to decide it.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer:
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A
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sc_issuearea
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What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Justice Thomas
delivered the opinion of the Court.
In this case we must determine the operation of §318 of the Department of the Interior and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 1990.
I
This case arises out of two challenges to the Federal Government’s continuing efforts to allow the harvesting and sale of timber from old-growth forests in the Pacific Northwest. These forests are home to the northern spotted owl, a bird listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act of 1973, 16 U. S. C. § 1531 et seq. (1988 ed. and Supp. II), since June 1990. See 55 Fed. Reg. 26114. Harvesting the forests, say environmentalists, would kill the owls. Restrictions on harvesting, respond local timber industries, would devastate the region’s economy.
Petitioner Robertson is Chief of the United States Forest Service, which manages 13 national forests in Oregon and Washington known to contain the northern spotted owl. In 1988, the Service amended its regional guide to prohibit timber harvesting on certain designated areas within those forests. Respondent Seattle Audubon Society (joined by various other environmental groups) and the Washington Contract Loggers Association (joined by various other industry groups) filed separate lawsuits in the District Court for the Western District of Washington, complaining respectively that the amendment afforded the owl either too little protection, or too much. Seattle Audubon alleged violations of three federal statutes: the Migratory Bird Treaty Act (MBTA), 40 Stat. 755, ch. 128, as amended, 16 U. S. C. §703 et seq. (1988 ed. and Supp. II); the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 (NEPA), 83 Stat. 852, as amended, 42 U. S. C. §4321 et seq.; and the National Forest Management Act of 1976 (NFMA), 90 Stat. 2949, as amended, 16 U. S. C. §1600 et seq. The District Court consolidated the actions and preliminarily enjoined 163 proposed timber sales. Seattle Audubon Soc. v. Robertson, No. 89-160 (WD Wash., Mar. 24, 1989).
Petitioner Lujan is Secretary of the Department of the Interior. The Bureau of Land Management (BLM), an agency within the Department, manages several old-growth forests in western Oregon. Between 1979 and 1983, the BLM developed timber management plans that permitted harvesting on some areas within these forests and prohibited it on others. In 1987, the BLM and the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife executed an agreement that expanded the areas on which harvesting was prohibited. Also in 1987, respondent Portland Audubon Society (among others) filed suit in the District Court for the District of Oregon, challenging certain proposed harvesting under- four federal statutes: MBTA; NEPA; the Federal Land Policy and Management Act of 1976 (FLPMA), 90 Stat. 2744, as amended, 43 U. S. C. § 1701 et seq.; and the Oregon-California Railroad Land Grant Act (OCLA), 50 Stat. 874, 43 U.S.C. § 1181a. Twice, the District Court dismissed the action. Twice before reversing (on grounds not relevant here), the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit enjoined some of the challenged harvesting pending appeal. See Portland Audubon Soc. v. Lujan, 884 F. 2d 1233, 1234 (1989), cert. denied, 494 U. S. 1026 (1990); Portland Audubon Soc. v. Hodel, 866 F. 2d 302, 304, cert. denied sub nom. Northwest Forest Resource Council v. Portland Audubon Soc., 492 U. S. 911 (1989).
In response to this ongoing litigation, Congress enacted § 318 of the Department of the Interior and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 1990, 103 Stat. 745, popularly known as the Northwest Timber Compromise. The Compromise established a comprehensive set of rules to govern harvesting within a geographically and temporally limited domain. By its terms, it applied only to “the thirteen national forests in Oregon and Washington and [BLM] districts in western Oregon known to contain northern spotted owls.” §318(i). It expired automatically on September 30, 1990, the last day of fiscal year 1990, except that timber sales offered under § 318 were to remain subject to its terms for the duration of the applicable sales contracts. § 318(k).
The Compromise both required harvesting and expanded harvesting restrictions. Subsections (a)(1) and (a)(2) required the Forest Service and the BLM respectively to offer for sale specified quantities of timber from the affected lands before the end of fiscal year 1990. On the other hand, subsections (b)(3) and (b)(5) prohibited harvesting altogether from various designated areas within those lands, expanding the applicable administrative prohibitions and then codifying them for the remainder of the fiscal year. In addition, subsections (b)(1), (b)(2), and (b)(4) specified general environmental criteria to govern the selection of harvesting sites by the Forest Service. Subsection (g)(1) provided for limited, expedited judicial review of individual timber sales offered under § 318.
This controversy centers around the first sentence of subsection (b)(6)(A), which stated in part:
“[T]he Congress hereby determines and directs that management of areas according to subsections (b)(3) and (b)(5) of this section on the thirteen national forests in Oregon and Washington and Bureau of Land Management lands in western Oregon known to contain northern spotted owls is adequate consideration for the purpose of meeting the statutory requirements that are the basis for the consolidated cases captioned Seattle Audubon Society et al., v. F. Dale Robertson, Civil No. 89-160 and Washington Contract Loggers Assoc. et al., v. F. Dale Robertson, Civil No. 89-99 (order granting preliminary injunction) and the case Portland Audubon Society et al., v. Manuel Lujan, Jr., Civil No. 87-1160-FR.”
Subsection (b)(6)(A) also declined to pass upon “the legal and factual adequacy” of the administrative documents produced by the 1988 Forest Service amendment and the 1987 BLM agreement.
After §318 was enacted, both the Seattle Audubon and Portland Audubon defendants sought dismissal, arguing that the provision had temporarily superseded all statutes on which the plaintiffs’ challenges had been based. The plaintiffs resisted on the ground that the first sentence of subsection (b)(6)(A), because it purported to direct the results in two pending cases, violated Article III of the Constitution. In Seattle Audubon, the District Court held that subsection (b)(6)(A) “can and must be read as a temporary modification of the environmental laws.” Seattle Audubon Soc. v. Robertson, No. 89-160 (WD Wash., Nov. 14, 1989). Under that construction, the court upheld the provision as constitutional and therefore vacated its preliminary injunction. Nonetheless, the court retained jurisdiction to determine whether the challenged harvesting would violate § 318 (if done in fiscal year 1990) or other provisions (if done later). In Portland Audubon, the District Court likewise upheld subsection (b)(6)(A), but dismissed the action entirely (without prejudice to future challenges arising after fiscal year 1990). Portland Audubon Soc. v. Lujan, No. 87-1160 (Ore., Dec. 21, 1989).
The Ninth Circuit consolidated the ensuing appeals and reversed. 914 F. 2d 1311 (1990). The court held that the first sentence of § 318(b)(6)(A) “does not, by its plain language, repeal or amend the environmental laws underlying this litigation,” but rather “directs the court to reach a specific result and make certain factual findings under existing law in connection with two [pending] cases.” Id., at 1316. Given that interpretation, the court held the provision unconstitutional under United States v. Klein, 13 Wall. 128 (1872), which it construed as prohibiting Congress from “directing] ... a particular decision in a case, without repealing or amending the law underlying the litigation.” 914 F. 2d, at 1315. The Ninth Circuit distinguished this Court’s decision in Pennsylvania v. Wheeling & Belmont Bridge Co., 18 How. 421 (1856), which it construed as permitting Congress to “amend or repeal any law, even for the purpose of ending pending litigation.” 914 F. 2d, at 1315 (emphasis in original).
On remand, the plaintiffs renewed their original claims. In Seattle Audubon, the District Court enjoined under NFMA 16 timber sales offered by the Forest Service during fiscal year 1990 in order to meet its harvesting quota under § 318(a)(1). See Seattle Audubon Soc. v. Robertson, No. 89-160 (WD Wash., Dec. 18,1990, and May 24,1991). While the District Court proceedings were ongoing, the agencies jointly sought review of the Ninth Circuit’s judgment that the first sentence of subsection (b)(6)(A) was unconstitutional. We granted certiorari, 501 U. S. 1249 (1991), and now reverse.
II
The first sentence of subsection (b)(6)(A) provided that “management of areas according to subsections (b)(3) and (b)(5)... is adequate consideration for the purpose of meeting the statutory requirements that are the basis for [Seattle Audubon] and [Portland Audubon].” The Ninth Circuit held that this language did not “amend” any previously existing “laws,” but rather “directed]” certain “factual findings” and “specific result[s]” under those laws. 914 F. 2d, at 1316. Petitioners interpret the provision differently. They argue that subsection (b)(6)(A) replaced the legal standards underlying the two original challenges with those set forth in subsections (b)(3) and (b)(5), without directing particular applications under either the old or the new standards. We agree.
We describe the operation of subsection (b)(6)(A) by example. The plaintiffs in both cases alleged violations of MBTA § 2, 16 U. S. C. § 703, which makes it unlawful to “kill” or “take” any “migratory bird.” ■ Before the Compromise was enacted, the courts adjudicating these MBTA claims were obliged to determine whether the challenged harvesting would “kill” or “take” any northern spotted owl, within the meaning of §2. Subsection (b)(6)(A), however, raised the question whether the harvesting would violate different prohibitions — those described in subsections (b)(3) and (b)(5). If not, then the harvesting would constitute “management . . . according to” subsections (b)(3) and (b)(5), and would therefore be deemed to “mee[t]” MBTA §2 regardless of whether or not it would cause an otherwise prohibited killing or taking. Thus under subsection (b)(6)(A), the agencies could satisfy their MBTA obligations in either of two ways: by managing their lands so as neither to “kill” nor “take” any northern spotted owl within the meaning of §2, or by managing their lands so as not to violate the prohibitions of subsections (b)(3) and (b)(5). Subsection (b)(6)(A) operated identically as well upon all provisions of NEPA, NFMA, FLPMA, and OCLA that formed “the basis for” the original lawsuits.
We conclude that subsection (b)(6)(A) compelled changes in law, not findings or results under old law. Before subsection (b)(6)(A) was enacted, the original claims would fail only if the challenged harvesting violated none of five old provisions. Under subsection (b)(6)(A), by contrast, those same claims would fail if the harvesting violated neither of two new provisions. Its operation, we think, modified the old provisions. Moreover, we find nothing in subsection (b)(6)(A) that purported to direct any particular findings of fact or applications of law, old or new, to fact. For challenges to sales offered before or after fiscal year 1990, subsection (b)(6)(A) expressly reserved judgment upon “the legal and factual adequacy” of the administrative documents authorizing the sales. For challenges to sales offered during fiscal year 1990, subsection (g)(1) expressly provided for judicial determination of the lawfulness of those sales. Section 318 did not instruct the courts whether any particular timber sales would violate subsections (b)(3) and (b)(5), just as the MBTA, for example, does not instruct the courts whether particular sales would “kill” or “take” any northern spotted owl. Indeed, § 318 could not instruct that any particular BLM timber sales were lawful under the new standards, because subsection (b)(5) incorporated by reference the harvesting prohibitions imposed by a BLM agreement not yet in existence when the Compromise was enacted. See n. 1, supra.
Respondents cite three textual features of subsection (b)(6)(A) in support of their conclusion that the provision failed to supply new law, but directed results under old law. First, they emphasize the imperative tone of the provision, by which Congress “determine^] and directed]” that compliance with two new provisions would constitute compliance with five old ones. Respondents argue that “Congress was directing the subsection [only] at the courts.” Brief for Respondents Seattle Audubon Society et al. 34. Petitioners, for their part, construe the subsection as “a directive [only] to the Forest Service and BLM.” Brief for Petitioners 30. We think that neither characterization is entirely correct. A statutory directive binds both the executive officials who administer the statute and the judges who apply it in particular cases — even if (as is usually the case) Congress fails to preface its directive with an empty phrase like “Congress . . . directs that.” Here, we fail to see how inclusion of the “Congress . . . directs that” preface undermines our conclusion that what Congress directed — to agencies and courts alike — was a change in law, not specific results under old law.
Second, respondents argue that subsection (b)(6)(A) did not modify old requirements because it deemed compliance with new requirements to “mee[t]” the old requirements. We fail to appreciate the significance of this observation. Congress might have modified MBTA directly, for example, in order to impose a new obligation of complying either with the current §2 or with subsections (b)(3) and (b)(5). Instead, Congress enacted an entirely separate statute deeming compliance with subsections (b)(3) and (b)(5) to constitute compliance with § 2 — a “modification” of the MBTA, we conclude, through operation of the canon that specific provisions qualify general ones, see, e. g., Simpson v. United States, 435 U. S. 6, 15 (1978). As explained above, each formulation would have produced an identical task for a court adjudicating the MBTA claims — determining either that the challenged harvesting did not violate § 2 as currently written or that it did not violate subsections (b)(3) and (b)(5).
Finally, respondents emphasize that subsection (b)(6)(A) explicitly made reference to pending cases identified by name and caption number. The reference to Seattle Audubon and Portland Audubon, however, served only to identify the five “statutory requirements that are the basis for” those cases— namely, pertinent provisions of MBTA, NEPA, NFMA, FLPMA, and OCLA. Subsection (b)(6)(A) named two pending cases in order to identify five statutory provisions. To the extent that subsection (b)(6)(A) affected the adjudication of the cases, it did so by effectively modifiying the provisions at issue in those cases.
In the alternative, the Ninth Circuit held that subsection (b)(6)(A) “could not” effect an implied modification of substantive law because it was embedded in an appropriations measure. See 914 F. 2d, at 1317. This reasoning contains several errors. First, although repeals by implication are especially disfavored in the appropriations context, see, e. g., TVA v. Hill, 437 U. S. 153, 190 (1978), Congress nonetheless may amend substantive law in an appropriations statute, as long as it does so clearly. See, e. g., United States v. Will, 449 U. S. 200, 222 (1980). Second, because subsection (b)(6)(A) provided by its terms that compliance with certain new law constituted compliance with certain old law, the intent to modify was not only clear, but express. Third, having determined that subsection (b)(6)(A) would be unconstitutional unless it modified previously existing law, the court then became obliged to impose that “saving interpretation,” 914 F. 2d, at 1317, as long as it was a “possible” one. See NLRB v. Jones & Laughlin Steel Corp., 301 U. S. 1, 30 (1937) (“[A]s between two possible interpretations of a statute, by one of which it would be unconstitutional and by the other valid, our plain duty is to adopt that which will save the act”).
We have no occasion to address any broad question of Article III jurisprudence. The Court of Appeals held that subsection (b)(6)(A) was unconstitutional under Klein because it directed decisions in pending cases without amending any law. Because we conclude that subsection (b)(6)(A) did amend applicable law, we need not consider whether this reading of Klein is correct. The Court of Appeals stated additionally that a statute would be constitutional under Wheeling Bridge if it did amend law. Respondents’ amicus Public Citizen challenges this proposition. It contends that even a change in law, prospectively applied, would be unconstitutional if the change swept no more broadly, or little more broadly, than the range of applications at issue in the pending cases. This alternative theory was neither raised below nor squarely considered by the Court of Appeals; nor was it advanced by respondents in this Court. Accordingly, we decline to address it here. 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.
Subsection (b)(3) provided:
“No timber sales offered pursuant to this section from the thirteen national forests in Oregon and Washington known to contain northern spotted owls may occur within [spotted owl habitat areas (SOHA’s)'] identified pursuant to the Final Supplement to the Environmental Impact Statement for an Amendment to the Pacific Northwest Regional Guide — Spotted Owl and the accompanying Record of Decision issued by the Forest Service on December 8,1988 as adjusted by this subsection:
“(A) For the Olympic Peninsula Province, which includes the Olympic National Forest, SOHA size is to be 3,200 acres;
“(B) For the Washington Cascades Province, which includes the Mt. Baker-Snoqualmie, Okanogan, Wenatchee, and Gifford-Pinchot National Forests, SOHA size is to be 2,600 acres;
“(C) For the Oregon Cascades Province, which includes the Mt. Hood, Willamette, Rogue River, Deschutes, Winema, and Umpqua National Forests, SOHA size is to be 1,875 acres;
“(D) For the Oregon Coast Range Province, which includes the Siuslaw National Forest, SOHA size is to be 2,500 acres; and
“(E) For the Klamath Mountain Province, which includes the Siskiyou National Forest, SOHA size is to be 1,250 acres.
“(F) All other standards and guidelines contained in the Chief’s Record of Decision are adopted.”
Subsection (b)(5) provided:
“No timber sales offered pursuant to this section on Bureau of Land Mangagement lands in western Oregon known to contain northern spotted owls shall occur within the 110 areas identified in the December 22, 1987 agreement, except sales identified in said agreement, between the Bureau of Land Management and the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife. Not later than thirty days after enactment of this Act, the Bureau of Land Management, after consulting with the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife and the United States Fish and Wildlife Service to identify high priority spotted owl area sites, shall select an additional twelve spotted owl habitat areas. No timber sales may be offered in the areas identified pursuant to this subsection during fiscal year 1990.”
In its entirety, subsection (b)(6)(A) provided:
“Without passing on the legal and factual adequacy of the Pinal Supplement to the Environmental Impact Statement for an Amendment to the Pacific Northwest Regional Guide — Spotted Owl Guidelines and the accompanying Record of Decision issued by the Forest Service on December 8,1988 or the December 22,1987 agreement between the Bureau of Land Management and the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife for management of the Spotted Owl, the Congress hereby determines and directs that management of areas according to subsections (b)(3) and (b)(5) of this section on the thirteen national forests in Oregon and Washington and Bureau of Land Management lands in western Oregon known to contain northern spotted owls is adequate consideration for the purpose of meeting the statutory requirements that are the basis for the consolidated cases captioned Seattle Audubon Society et al., v. F. Dale Robertson, Civil No. 89-160 and Washington Contract Loggers Assoc. et al., v. F. Dale Robertson, Civil No. 89-99 (order granting preliminary injunction) and the case Portland Audubon Society et al., v. Manuel Lujan, Jr., Civil No. 87-1160-FR. The guidelines adopted by subsections (b)(3) and (b)(5) of this section shall not be subject to judicial review by any court of the United States.”
Because no timber sales offered by the BLM during fiscal year 1990 were ever enjoined, the §318 controversy between Portland Audubon and the BLM appears moot. We decide the case, however, because there remains a live controversy between Seattle Audubon and the Forest Service over the 16 sales offered during fiscal year 1990 and still enjoined under the NFMA.
The northern spotted owl is a “migratory bird” within the meaning of MBTA. See 50 CFR § 10.13 (1991).
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer:
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H
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sc_issuearea
|
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 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.
Property and casualty insurance companies maintain accounting reserves for “unpaid losses.” Under the Tax Reform Act of 1986, increases in loss reserves that constitute “reserve strengthening” do not qualify for a certain one-time tax benefit. We must decide whether the term “reserve strengthening” reasonably encompasses any increase in reserves, or only increases that result from changes in the methods or assumptions used to compute them.
HH
Atlantic Mutual Insurance Co. is the common parent of an affiliated group of corporations, including Centennial Insurance Co., a property and casualty (PC) insurer. From 1985 to 1993, the two corporations (Atlantic) maintained what insurers call “loss reserves.” Loss reserves are estimates of amounts insurers will have to pay for losses that have been reported but not yet paid, for losses that have been incurred but not yet reported, and for administrative costs of resolving claims.
Before enactment of the Tax Reform Act of 1986, Pub. L. 99-514, 100 Stat. 2085, the Internal Revenue Code gave PC insurers a full deduction for loss reserves as “losses incurred.” In each taxable year, not only losses paid, but the full amount of the loss reserves, reduced by the amount of the loss reserves claimed for the prior taxable year, would be treated as a business expense. 26 U. S. C. §§ 832(b)(5) and (c)(4) (1982 ed.). This designation enabled the PC insurer to take, in effect, a current deduction for future loss payments without adjusting for the “time value of money”— the fact that “ '[a] dollar today is worth more than a dollar tomorrow,’ ” D. Herwitz & M. Barrett, Accounting for Lawyers 221 (2d ed. 1997). Section 1023 of the 1986 Act amended the Code to require PC insurers, for taxable years beginning after December 31,1986, to discount unpaid losses to present value when claiming them as a deduction. 100 Stat. 2399, 2404, 26 U. S. C. §§ 832(b)(5)(A), 846 (1982 ed., Supp. V). Absent a transitional rule, PC insurers would have been left to subtract undiscounted year-end 1986 reserves from discounted year-end 1987 reserves for purposes of computing losses incurred for taxable year 1987 — producing artificially low deductions. The 1986 Act softened this consequence by requiring PC insurers, for purposes of that 1987 tax computation, to discount 1986 reserves as well. 100 Stat. 2404, note following 26 U. S. C. §846.
Because the requirement that PC insurers discount 1986 reserves changed the “method of accounting” for computing taxable income, PC insurers, absent another transitional rule, would have been required to recognize as income the difference between undiscounted and discounted year-end 1986 loss reserves. See 26 U. S. C. § 48.1(a) (1988 ed.). To avoid this consequence, § 1023(e)(3)(A) of the 1986 Act afforded PC insurers a “fresh start,” to wit, an exclusion from taxable income of the difference between undiscounted and discounted year-end 1986 loss reserves. 100 Stat. 2404, note following 26 U. S. C. §846. Of course the greater the 1986 reserves, the greater the exclusion. Section 1023(e)(3)(B) of the 1986 Act foreclosed the possibility that insurers would inflate reserves to manipulate the “fresh start” by excepting “reserve strengthening” from the exclusion:
“(B) Reserve strengthening in years after 1985. — Subparagraph (A) [the fresh-start provision] shall not apply to any reserve strengthening in a taxable year beginning in 1986, and such strengthening shall be treated as occurring in the taxpayer’s 1st taxable year beginning after December 31, 1986.” 100 Stat. 2404, note following 26 U. S. C. § 846.
Regulations promulgated by the Treasury Department set forth rules for determining the amount of “reserve strengthening”:
“(1) In general. The amount of reserve strengthening (weakening) is the amount that is determined under paragraph (c)(2) or (3) to have been added to (subtracted from) an unpaid loss reserve in a taxable year beginning in 1986. For purposes of section 1023(e)(3)(B) of the 1986 Act, the amount of reserve strengthening (weakening) must be determined separately for each unpaid loss reserve by applying the rules of this paragraph (e). This determination is made without regard to the reasonableness of the amount of the unpaid loss reserve and without regard to the taxpayer’s discretion, or lack thereof, in establishing the amount of the unpaid loss reserve....
“(3) Accident years before 1986 — (i) In general For each taxable year beginning in 1986, the amount of reserve strengthening (weakening) for an unpaid loss reserve for an accident year before 1986 is the amount by which the reserve at the end of that taxable year exceeds (is less than)—
“(A) The reserve at the end of the immediately preceding taxable year; reduced by
“(B) Claims paid and loss adjustment expenses paid (“loss payments”) in the taxable year beginning in 1986 with respect to losses that are attributable to the reserve....” Treas. Reg. § 1.846-3(c), 26 CFR § 1.846-3(e) (1997).
In short, any net additions to reserves (with two exceptions not here at issue, § 1.846-3(c)(3)(ii)) constitute “reserve strengthening” under the regulation.
The Commissioner of Internal Revenue determined that Atlantic made net additions to reserves — “reserve strengthening” — during 1986, reducing the “fresh start” entitlement by an amount that resulted in a tax deficiency of $519,987. The Tax Court disagreed, holding that Atlantic had not strengthened its reserves. “Reserve strengthening,” the Tax Court held, refers only to increases in reserves that result from changes in the methods or assumptions used to compute them. (Atlantic’s reserve increases, there is no dispute, did not result from any such change.) The United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit reversed the Tax Court, concluding that the Treasury Regulation’s definition of “reserve strengthening” to include any net additions to reserves is based on a permissible construction of the statute. 111 F. 3d 1056 (1997). (It expressly disagreed with the Eighth Circuit’s conclusion in Western National Mutual Insurance Co. v. Commissioner, 65 F. 3d 90 (1995), that the Treasury Regulation is invalid.) We granted certiorari. 522 U. S. 931 (1997).
II
The 1986 Act does not define “reserve strengthening.” Atlantic contends that the term has a plain meaning under the statute: reserve increases attributable to changes in methods or assumptions. If that is what the term plainly means, Atlantic must prevail, “for the court, as well as the agency, must give effect to the unambiguously expressed intent of Congress.” Chevron U. S. A. Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc., 467 U. S. 837, 842-843 (1984).
Atlantic contends that the plain meaning of “reserve strengthening” can be discerned, first, from its use in the PC insurance industry. It presented at trial two expert reports which, by “constructing a working definition of the term” that requires “a material change in methodology and/or assumptions,” App. 68, 74, purport to demonstrate that Atlantic “did not strengthen reserves,” id., at 99. Our task, of course, is to determine not what the term ought to mean, but what it does mean. Atlantic’s first expert, before “constructing” a definition, expressly acknowledged that “reserve strengthening” is “not a well-defined PC insurance or actuarial term of art to be found in PC actuarial, accounting, or insurance regulatory literature.” Id., at 60. On this point she was in agreement with the Commissioner’s experts: “In the property-casualty industry the term ‘reserve strengthening’ has various meanings, rather than a single universal meaning,” id., at 124. If the expert reports establish anything, it is that “reserve strengthening” does not have an established meaning in the PC insurance industry.
Atlantic next contends that a plain meaning can be discerned from prior use of the term in life insurance tax legislation. According to Atlantic, the term has its roots in the Life Insurance Company Income Tax Act of 1959, which provided tax consequences for changes in the “basis” for determining life insurance reserves. 73 Stat. 125, 26 U. S. C. § 810(d) (1958 ed., Supp. I). But that provision does not define, or for that matter even use, the term “reserve strengthening.” Though the regulation that implemented the provision uses the term “reserve strengthening” in a caption, Treas. Reg. § 1.810-3(a), 26 CFR § 1.810-3(a) (1997), its text does not mention the term, and one of its Examples speaks only of “reserve strengthening attributable to the change in basis which occurred in 1959,” § 1.810-3(b), Ex. 2. If, as Atlantic argues, “basis” and “assumptions or methodologies” are interchangeable terms, Brief for Petitioner 17, n. 8, and a change in basis is necessary for “reserve strengthening,” it is redundant to say “reserve strengthening attributable to the change in basis which occurred in 1959,” much as it would be to say “a sunburn attributable to the sun in 1959.” On Atlantic’s assumptions, the more natural formulation would have been simply “reserve strengthening in 1959.” Thus, the 1959 Act and implementing regulation suggest, if anything, that a change in basis is a sufficient, but not a necessary, condition for “reserve strengthening.”
Atlantic further contends that the term “reserve strengthening” draws a plain meaning from a provision of the Tax Reform Act of 1984 that accorded a “fresh start” adjustment to life insurance reserves. Div. A, 98 Stat. 758, note following 26 U. S. C. § 801 (1984 Act). That provision, like the “fresh start” adjustment for PC insurers in the 1986 Act, said that the “fresh start” would not apply to reserve strengthening, specifically, “to any reserve strengthening reported for Federal income tax purposes after September 27, 1983, for a taxable year ending before January 1,1984.” 98 Stat. 759. Unlike the 1986 Act, however, the 1984 Act expressly provided that “reserve strengthening” would not be excluded from the “fresh start” if the insurer “employs the reserve practice used for purposes of the most recent annual statement filed before September 27, 1988 ....” Ibid. If, as Atlantic contends, reserve strengthening encompasses only reserve increases that result from a change in reserve practices (viz., change in methods or assumptions), the saving clause is superfluous. Thus, to the extent the definition of “reserve strengthening” in the life insurance context is relevant to its meaning here (which is questionable, see 111 F. 3d, at 1061-1062), the 1984 Act, like the regulations under the 1959 Act, tends to contradict, rather than support, petitioner’s interpretation. We conclude that neither prior legislation nor industry use establishes the plain meaning Atlantic ascribes to “reserve strengthening.”
III
Since the term reserve strengthening is ambiguous, the task that confronts us is to decide, not whether the Treasury Regulation represents the best interpretation of the statute, but whether it represents a reasonable one. See Cottage Savings Assn. v. Commissioner, 499 U. S. 554, 560-561 (1991). We conclude that it does.
As a purely linguistic matter, the phrase is certainly broad enough to embrace all increases in (all “strengthening of”) the amount of the reserve, for whatever reason and from whatever source. Atlantic contends that this interpretation is unreasonable because, in theory, it produces absurd results, as the following example supposedly illustrates: Assume that in 1985 a PC insurer had four case reserves of $500 each (total reserves of $2,000). If two eases settled in 1986 for $750 each ($1,500 total), the remaining loss reserve would be $1,000. Under the regulation, according to Atlantic, the Commissioner would find “reserve strengthening” of $500 (1986 loss reserves ($1,000) less (first year reserves ($2,000) less second year payments ($1,500))), even though reserves did not increase. The Commissioner denies this consequence, contending that under the stipulation in this ease the increase in the reserve would be “reduced to zero” by an offsetting adjustment when the payment is made, and that adjustments in the IBNR reserve (reserve for claims “incurred but not reported”) may result from payments in excess of prior reserve amounts, offsetting changes in other reserves. Brief for Respondent 36-39.
We need not resolve that dispute, because we agree with the Commissioner that Atlantic’s horrific example is in any event unrealistic. The property and casualty insurer that had only four cases would not be in business very long, with or without the benefit of the tax adjustment — or if he would, his talents could be put to better use in Las Vegas. The whole point of the insurance business is to spread the insured risk over a large number of eases, where experience and the law of probabilities can be relied upon. And where hundreds (or more likely thousands) of claims are involved, claims resolved for less than estimated reserves will tend to offset claims that settle for more than estimated reserves. See Notice of Proposed Rulemaking Discounted Unpaid Losses, PI-139-86, 1991-2 Cum. Bull. 946, 947 (“For most unpaid loss reserves ... any potential inaccuracies are likely to offset each other in the aggregate”). There may, to be sure, be some discrepancy in one direction or the other, but it would not approach the relative proportions claimed by Atlantic.
It should be borne in mind that the provision at issue here is a limitation upon an extraordinary deduction accorded to PC insurers. There was certainly no need for that deduction to be microscopically fair, and the interpretation adopted by the Treasury Regulation seems to us a reasonable accommodation — and one that the statute very likely intended — of the competing interests of fairness, administra-bility, and avoidance of abuse.
Because the Treasury Regulation represents a reasonable interpretation of the term “reserve strengthening,” we affirm the judgment of the Court of Appeals.
It is so ordered.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer:
|
L
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sc_issuearea
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What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
MR. Justice Brennan
delivered the opinion of the Court.
The Court of Appeals for the First Circuit, reversing the District Court’s dismissal of respondent’s petition for a writ of federal habeas corpus, held that “the procedure by which [respondent] was brought to trial deprived him of the Fourteenth Amendment’s guarantee of equal protection of the laws.” 434 F. 2d 673, 674 (1970). The Court of Appeals acknowledged that respondent had not attacked his conviction on the equal protection ground, either in the state courts or in his federal habeas petition:
“[Respondent] did not present the constitutional question to' the Massachusetts court in the particular focus in which this opinion is directed. We suggested it when the case reached us, and invited the Commonwealth to file a supplemental brief. Not unnaturally its first contention was to assert that [respondent] had not exhausted his state remedy . . . .” Ibid.
The Court of Appeals rejected that contention and held that respondent had exhausted available state judicial remedies, as required by 28 U. S. C. § 2254, because he had “presented the [state] court with 'an opportunity to apply controlling legal principles to the facts bearing upon [his] constitutional claim.’ ” Ibid. We granted certiorari to consider that ruling in light of the command of § 2254. 402 U. S. 942 (1971). We hold that the State’s objection should have been sustained, and we therefore reverse for further proceedings, see Slayton v. Smith, ante, p. 53, without reaching the merits of the constitutional question decided by the Court of Appeals.
A Massachusetts grand jury returned an indictment for murder against Donald Landry “and John Doe, the true name and a more particular description of the said John Doe being to the said Jurors unknown.” After respondent’s arrest, the indictment was amended in a proceeding pursuant to a fictitious-name statute, Mass. Gen. Laws Ann., c. 277, § 19, to substitute respondent’s name for “John Doe.” The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court affirmed respondent’s subsequent conviction, sub nom. Commonwealth v. Doherty, 353 Mass. 197, 229 N. E. 2d 267 (1967). Among other grounds of appeal, respondent challenged the legality of the indictment. The gist of respondent’s argument, which he also asserted during various trial proceedings, was that the amending procedure did not comply with the statute as construed by the Massachusetts courts, with the result that he had not been lawfully indicted for the crime. See Commonwealth v. Gedzium, 259 Mass. 453, 156 N. E. 890 (1927). The only suggestions of a claimed denial of a federal right were statements in respondent’s brief questioning the continuing validity of the holding in Gedzium that the provision of the Fifth Amendment that “[n]o person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury” was inapplicable to the States. Id., at 457, 156 N. E., at 891; see Hurtado v. California, 110 U. S. 516 (1884). We have examined the pretrial, trial, and appellate papers and do not discover any indication of an attack upon the prosecution under the indictment as violative of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
It has been settled since Ex parte Royall, 117 U. S. 241 (1886), that a state prisoner must normally exhaust available state judicial remedies before a federal court will entertain his petition for habeas corpus. See, e. g., Nelson v. George, 399 U. S. 224, 229 (1970); Irvin v. Dowd, 359 U. S. 394, 404-405 (1959); Ex parte Hawk, 321 U. S. 114 (1944). The exhaustion-of-state-remedies doctrine, now codified in the federal habeas statute, 28 U. S. C. §§ 2254 (b) and (c), reflects a policy of federal-state comity, Fay v. Noia, 372 U. S. 391, 419-420 (1963); Bowen v. Johnston, 306 U. S. 19, 27 (1939), "an accommodation of our federal system designed to give the State the initial `opportunity to pass upon and correct’ alleged violations of its prisoners’ federal rights." Wilwording v. Swenson, ante, p. 249, at 250. We have consistently adhered to this federal policy, for "it would be unseemly in our dual system of government for a federal district court to upset a state court conviction without an opportunity to the state courts to correct a constitutional violation." Darr v. Burford, 339 U. S. 200, 204 (1950) (overruled in other respects, Fay v. Noia, supra, at 435-436). It follows, of course, that once the federal claim has been fairly presented to the state courts, the exhaustion requirement is satisfied. See, e. g., Wilwording v. Swenson, supra, at 250; Roberts v. LaVallee, 389 U. S. 40, 42-43 (1967); Brown v. Allen, 344 U. S. 443, 447-450 (1953).
We emphasize that the federal claim must be fairly presented to the state courts. If the exhaustion doctrine is to prevent “unnecessary conflict between courts equally bound to guard and protect rights secured by the Constitution,” Ex parte Royall, supra, at 251, it is not sufficient merely that the federal habeas applicant has been through the state courts. The rule would serve no purpose if it could be satisfied by raising one claim in the state courts and another in the federal courts. Only if the state courts have had the first opportunity to hear the claim sought to be vindicated in a federal habeas proceeding does it make sense to speak of the exhaustion of state remedies. Accordingly, we have required a state prisoner to present the state courts with the same claim he urges upon the federal courts. See Darr v. Burford, supra, at 203; Davis v. Burke, 179 U. S. 399, 401-403 (1900).
Respondent challenged the validity of his indictment at every stage of the proceedings in the Massachusetts courts. As the Court of Appeals pointed out, 434 F. 2d, at 674, this is not a case in which factual allegations were made to the federal courts that were not before the state courts, see, e. g., United States ex rel. Boodie v. Herold, 349 F. 2d 372 (CA2 1965); Schiers v. California, 333 F. 2d 173 (CA9 1964), nor a case in which an intervening change in federal law cast the legal issue in a fundamentally different light, see, e. g., Blair v. California, 340 F. 2d 741 (CA9 1965); Pennsylvania ex rel. Raymond v. Rundle, 339 F. 2d 598 (CA3 1964). We therefore put aside consideration of those types of cases. The question here is simply whether, on the record and argument before it, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court had a fair opportunity to consider the equal protection claim and to correct that asserted constitutional defect in respondent’s conviction. We think not.
Until he reached this Court, respondent never contended that the method by which he was brought to trial denied him equal protection of the laws. Rather, from the outset respondent consistently argued that he had been improperly indicted under Massachusetts law and, to the extent he raised a federal constitutional claim at all, that the indictment procedure employed in his case could not be approved without reference to whether the Fifth Amendment’s requirement of a grand jury indictment applied to the States. He adverted to the Fourteenth Amendment solely as it bore Upon that submission. The equal protection issue entered this case only because the Court of Appeals injected it.
We are thus unable to agree with that court that respondent provided the Massachusetts “court with ‘an opportunity to apply controlling legal principles to the facts bearing upon [his] constitutional claim.’ ” 434 F. 2d, at 674. To be sure, respondent presented all the facts. Yet the constitutional claim the Court of Appeals found inherent in those facts was never brought to the attention of the state courts. The Supreme Judicial Court dealt with the arguments respondent offered; we cannot fault that court for failing also to consider sua sponte whether the indictment procedure denied respondent equal protection of the laws. Obviously there are instances in which “the ultimate question for disposition,” United States ex rel. Kemp v. Pate, 359 F. 2d 749, 751 (CA7 1966), will be the same despite variations in the legal theory or factual allegations urged in its support. A ready example is a challenge to a confession predicated upon psychological as well as physical coercion. See Sanders v. United States, 373 U. S. 1, 16 (1963). Hence, we do not imply that respondent could have raised the equal protection claim only by citing “book and verse on the federal constitution.” Daugharty v. Gladden, 257 F. 2d 750, 758 (CA9 1958); see Kirby v. Warden, 296 F. 2d 151 (CA4 1961). We simply hold that the substance of a federal habeas corpus claim must first be presented to the state courts. The claim that an indictment is invalid is not the substantial equivalent of a claim that it results in an unconstitutional discrimination. See Rose v. Dickson, 327 F. 2d 27, 29 (CA9 1964); Morris v. Mayo, 277 F. 2d 103 (CA5 1960). The judgment of the Court of Appeals is therefore reversed, and the case is remanded to that court for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
308 D. Supp. 843 (Mass. 1970).
Title 28 U. S. C. §2254 provides in pertinent part:
“(b) An application for a writ of habeas corpus in behalf of a person in custody pursuant to the judgment of a State court shall not be granted unless it appears that' the applicant has exhausted the remedies available in the courts of the State, or that there is either an absence of available State corrective process or the existence of circumstances rendering such process ineffective to protect the rights of the prisoner.
“(c) An applicant shall not be deemed to have exhausted the remedies available in the courts of the State, within the meaning of this section, if he has the right under the law of the State to raise, by any available procedure, the question presented.”
Respondent does not contend that there are no available state judicial remedies through which he can present the equal protection claim. It appears that Massachusetts provides postconviction procedures adequate to adjudicate that, claim, either by motion for a new trial, Mass. Gen. Laws Ann., c. 278, § 29; see Earl v. Commonwealth, 356 Mass. 181, 248 N. E. 2d 498 (1969), or by writ of error, Mass. Gen. Laws Ann., c. 250; see Cortellesso v. Commonwealth, 354 Mass. 514, 238 N. E. 2d 516 (1968); Crowell v. Commonwealth, 352 Mass. 288, 225 N. E. 2d 330 (1967); Shoppers’ World, Inc. v. Board of Assessors, 348 Mass. 366, 376 n. 9, 203 N. E. 2d 811, 819 n. 9 (1965).
“If the name of an accused person is unknown to the grand jury, he may be described by a fictitious name or by any other practicable description, with an allegation that his real name is unknown. An indictment of the defendant by a fictitious or erroneous name shall not be ground for abatement; but if at any subsequent stage of the proceedings his true name is discovered, it shall be entered on the record and may be used in the subsequent proceedings, with a reference to the fact that he was indicted by the name or description mentioned in the indictment.”
Although the Massachusetts Constitution does not expressly provide for grand jury indictments, the Massachusetts courts have construed Art. XII of the Declaration of Rights to require that “ 'no person . . . shall be held to answer for a capital or otherwise infamous crime . . . unless he shall have been previously charged on the presentment or indictment of a grand jury.’” Jones v. Robbins, 74 Mass. 329, 344-345 (1857).
In arguing his first assignment of error:
“[T]he dismissal in the Gedzium case of the applicability of the Fifth Amendment provision . . . would appear to be in need of reexamination, in the light of the development by the United States Supreme Court ... of the doctrine of applicability of guarantees of the Federal Bill of Rights to the states by virtue of the Fourteenth Amendment.” Brief for Connor in the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court 13.
In arguing his third and fourth assignments of error:
“As set forth supra in the argument in support of the first Assignment, the indictment of ‘John Doe’ was a nullity because it was a general indictment, not limited to any identifiable individual. Since this is a capital case, the defendant Connor was prosecuted in violation of his constitutional right to due process in that he was put to trial without having been indicted by a Grand Jury.” Id., at 14.
Nor did respondent’s federal habeas petition assert a denial of equal protection. The petition alleges that “[h]e was brought to trial without indictment or presentment in violation of the Fifth Amendment and of the Massachusetts Constitution, . . . [of] the statutory provisions of [the fictitious-name statute], and of the rule of the common law that an indictment in a capital case . . . forbids any amendment to such an indictment.” In his memorandum in support of the petition, respondent argued that the Massachusetts indictment procedure “must be administered in accordance with the principles pertaining to the Grand Jury as established by the law of the land, i. e., in accordance with due process as created by the common law and adopted by our Constitution. ... In accordance with these principles, since the indictment did not name nor describe [respondent], it was, as to him, a nullity, and remained so after amendment.” The District Court, noting that respondent had “argued indiscriminately on the basis of the statutes and constitution of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as upon federal grounds,” 308 F. Supp., at 845 n. 2, considered respondent’s contention to be “that the amendment of the indictment to substitute Connor’s name for John Doe was a violation of the Fifth Amendment.” The court rejected that contention on the ground “that the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment does not make applicable to the states the grand jury requirement of the Fifth Amendment.” Id., at 845.
See n. 2, supra.
The decision of the Court of Appeals prompted respondent, for the first time in any court, to advance the argument in this Court that “since indictment is the only process provided for the finding of probable cause in Massachusetts prior to trial, its denial in Connor’s case alone was undoubtedly a violation of Connor’s federal rights not only as to due process, but also equal protection, under the Fourteenth Amendment, as stated by the Chief Judge of the Circuit Court.” Brief for Respondent 15.
Respondent reiterated these contentions in his federal habeas petition. See n. 7, supra.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer:
|
A
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sc_issuearea
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What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Justice Kennedy
delivered the opinion of the Court.
Petitioners seek review of a decision of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit holding that Article II, § 6(b), of the California Constitution violates the First and Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution of the United States. Section 6(b) reads: “No political party or party central committee may endorse, support, or oppose a candidate for nonpartisan office.” Its companion provision, §6(a), provides that “[a]ll judicial, school, county, and city offices shall be nonpartisan.”
I
In view of our determination that the case is nonjusticiable, the identity of the parties has crucial relevance. Petitioners are the City and County of San Francisco, its board of supervisors, and certain local officials. The individual respondents are 10 registered voters residing in the City and County of San Francisco. They include the chairman and three members of the San Francisco Republican County Central Committee and one member of the San Francisco Democratic County Central Committee. Election Action, an association of voters, is also a respondent, but it asserts no interest in relation to the issues before us different from that of the individual voters. Hence, we need not consider it further.
Respondents filed this suit in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California. Their third cause of action challenged § 6(b) and petitioners’ acknowledged policy, based on that provision, of deleting any references to a party endorsement from the candidate statements included in voter pamphlets. As we understand it, petitioners print the pamphlets and pay the postage required to mail them to voters. The voter pamphlets contain statements prepared by candidates for office and arguments submitted by interested persons concerning other measures on the ballot. The complaint sought a declaration that Article II, § 6, is unconstitutional and an injunction preventing petitioners from editing candidate statements to delete references to party endorsements.
The District Court granted summary judgment for respondents on their third cause of action, declaring § 6(b) unconstitutional and enjoining petitioners from enforcing it. 708 F. Supp. 278 (1988). The court entered judgment on this claim pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 54(b), and petitioners appealed. A Ninth Circuit panel reversed, 880 F. 2d 1062 (1989), but the en banc Court of Appeals affirmed the District Court’s decision, 911 F. 2d 280 (1990).
We granted certiorari, 498 U. S. 1046 (1991), to determine whether § 6(b) violates the First Amendment. At oral argument, doubts arose concerning the justiciability of that issue in the case before us. Having examined the complaint and the record, we hold that respondents have not demonstrated a live controversy ripe for resolution by the federal courts. As a consequence of our finding of nonjusticiability, we vacate the Ninth Circuit’s judgment and remand with instructions to dismiss respondents’ third cause of action.
II
Concerns of justiciability go to the power of the federal courts to entertain disputes, and to the wisdom of their doing so. We presume that federal courts lack jurisdiction “unless ‘the contrary appears affirmatively from the record.’” Bender v. Williamsport Area School Dist., 475 U. S. 534, 546 (1986), quoting King Bridge Co. v. Otoe County, 120 U. S. 225, 226 (1887). “‘It is the responsibility of the complainant clearly to allege facts demonstrating that he is a proper party to invoke judicial resolution of the dispute and the exercise of the court’s remedial powers.’” Bender, supra, at 546, n. 8, quoting Warth v. Seldin, 422 U. S. 490, 517-518 (1975).
A
Proper resolution of the justiciability issues presented here requires examination of the pleadings and record to determine the nature of the dispute and the interests of the parties in having it resolved in this judicial proceeding. According to the complaint, the respondent committee members “desire to endorse, support, and oppose candidates for city and county office through their county central committees, and to publicize such endorsements by having said endorsements printed in candidate’s statements published in the voter’s pamphlet.” App. 4, ¶ 36. All respondents “desire to read endorsements of candidates for city and county office as part of candidate’s statements printed in the San Francisco voter’s pamphlet. ” Id., at 5, ¶ 37.
The complaint alleges that in the past certain of these petitioners “have deleted all references in candidate’s statements for City and County offices to endorsements by political party central committees or officers or members of such committees,” and that they will continue such deletions in the future unless restrained by court order. ¶ 38. Respondents believe an actual controversy exists because they contend § 6 and any other law relied upon to refuse to print the endorsements are unconstitutional in that they “abridge [respondents’] rights to free speech and association,” while petitioners dispute these contentions. ¶ 39. The third cause of action concludes with general assertions that respondents have been harmed by the past and threatened deletion of endorsements from candidate statements, and that because of those deletions they have suffered and will suffer irreparable injury to their rights of free speech and association. Id., at 5-6, ¶¶ 40-41.
An affidavit submitted by the chairman of the Republican committee in connection with respondents’ motion for summary judgment illuminates and supplements the allegations of the complaint. It indicates the committee has a policy of endorsing candidates for nonpartisan offices:
“In 1987, the Republican Committee endorsed Arlo Smith for District Attorney, Michael Hennessey for Sheriff, and John Molinari for Mayor, despite objections from some that such endorsements are prohibited by California Constitution Article [II], Section 6. It is the plan and intention of the Republican Committee to endorse candidates for nonpartisan offices in as many future elections as possible. The Republican Committee would like to have such endorsements publicized by endorsed candidates in their candidate’s statements in the San Francisco voter’s pamphlet, and to encourage endorsed candidates to so publish their endorsements by the Republican Committee.
“In the future, I and other Republican Committee members . . . would like to use our titles as Republican County Committeemen in endorsements we make of local candidates which are printed in the San Francisco voter’s pamphlet. We cannot presently do so as [petitioner] Jay Patterson has a policy of deleting the word ‘Republican’ from all such endorsements.” Id., at 15-16.
An affidavit submitted by a Democratic committeeman states that “[i]n elections since 1986, the Democratic committee has declined to endorse candidates for nonpartisan office solely out of concern that committee members may be criminally or civilly prosecuted for violation of the endorsement ban contained in” §6. Id., at 12. It also provides two examples of elections in which the word “Democratic” had been deleted from candidate statements. One involved an endorsement by a committee member of one of these respondents, then a candidate for local office, and in another the respondent committee member wished to mention that position in his own candidate statement. Ibid. Those elections occurred prior to the adoption of § 6(b), but at least one and perhaps both were held at a time when a California appellate court had found a ban on party endorsements implicit in the state constitutional provision designating which offices are nonpartisan, now § 6(a). See Unger v. Superior Court of Marin County, 102 Cal. App. 3d 681, 162 Cal. Rptr. 611 (1980), overruled by Unger v. Superior Court of City and County of San Francisco, 37 Cal. 3d 612, 692 P. 2d 238 (1984).
B
Respondents’ allegations indicate that, relevant to this suit, petitioners interpret § 6(b) to apply to three different categories of speakers. First, as suggested by the language of the provision, it applies to party central committees. Second, petitioners’ reliance on § 6(b) to edit candidate statements demonstrates that they believe the provision applies as well to the speech of candidates for nonpartisan office, at least in the forum provided by the voter pamphlets. Third, petitioners have interpreted § 6(b) to apply to members and officers of party central committees, as shown by their policy of deleting references to endorsements by these individuals from candidate statements. The first of these interpretations flows from the plain language of § 6(b), while the second and third require inferences from the text.
As an initial matter, serious questions arise concerning the standing of respondents to defend the rights of speakers in any of these categories except to the extent that certain respondents in the third category may assert their own rights. In their capacity as voters, respondents only allege injury flowing from application of § 6(b) to prevent speech by candidates in the voter pamphlets. We have at times permitted First Amendment claims by those who did not themselves intend to engage in speech, but instead wanted to challenge a restriction on speech they desired to hear. See, e. g., Virginia State Bd. of Pharmacy v. Virginia Citizens Consumer Council, Inc., 425 U. S. 748 (1976). There is reason to doubt, however, that the injury alleged by these voters can be redressed by a declaration of § 6(b)’s invalidity or an injunction against its enforcement. See ASARCO Inc. v. Kadish, 490 U. S. 605, 615-616 (1989) (opinion of Kennedy, J., joined by Rehnquist, C. J., and Stevens and Scalia, JJ.) (party seeking to invoke authority of federal courts must show injury “likely to be redressed by the requested relief”); Allen v. Wright, 468 U. S. 737, 751 (1984) (“relief from the injury must be ‘likely’ to follow from a favorable decision”); Simon v. Eastern Ky. Welfare Rights Organization, 426 U. S. 26, 38 (1976). A separate California statute, the constitutionality of which was not litigated in this case, provides that a candidate’s statement “shall not include the party affiliation of the candidate, nor membership or activity in partisan political organizations.” Cal. Elec. Code Ann. § 10012 (West 1977 and Supp. 1991). This statute might be construed to prevent candidates from mentioning party endorsements in voter pamphlets, even in the absence of §6(b). Overlapping enactments can be designed to further differing state interests, and invalidation of one may not impugn the validity of another.
The respondent committee members allege injury to their rights, either through their committees or as individual committee members, to endorse candidates for nonpartisan offices, and also allege injury from the inability of candidates to include those endorsements in voter pamphlets. Respondents of course have standing to claim that § 6(b) has been applied in an unconstitutional manner to bar their own speech. Apart, though, from the possibility of an overbreadth challenge, an alternative we discuss below, the standing of the committee members to litigate based on injuries to the rights of their respective committees is unsettled. See Bender v. Williamsport Area School Dist., 475 U. S., at 543-545 (school board member, as member of a “collegial body,” could not take appeal board as a whole declined to take). It may be that rights the committee members can exercise only in conjunction with the other members of the committee must be defended by the committee itself. Nor is it clear, putting aside our concerns about redressability, that the committee members have third-party standing to assert the rights of candidates, since no obvious barrier exists that would prevent a candidate from asserting his or her own rights. See Powers v. Ohio, 499 U. S. 400, 414-415 (1991).
C
Justiciability concerns not only the standing of litigants to assert particular claims, but also the appropriate timing of judicial intervention. See Regional Rail Reorganization Act Cases, 419 U. S. 102, 136-148 (1974). Respondents have failed to demonstrate a live dispute involving the actual or threatened application of § 6(b) to bar particular speech. Respondents’ generalized claim that petitioners have deleted party endorsements from candidate statements in past elections does not demonstrate a live controversy. So far as we can discern from the record, those disputes had become moot by the time respondents filed suit. While the mootness exception for disputes capable of repetition yet evading review has been applied in the election context, see Moore v. Ogilvie, 394 U. S. 814, 816 (1969), that doctrine will not revive a dispute which became moot before the action commenced. “Past exposure to illegal conduct does not in itself show a present case or controversy regarding injunctive relief... if unaccompanied by any continuing, present adverse effects.” O’Shea v. Littleton, 414 U. S. 488, 495-496 (1974); see Los Angeles v. Lyons, 461 U. S. 95 (1983).
The allegation that the Democratic committee has not endorsed candidates “[i]n elections since 1986” for fear of the consequences of violating § 6, App. 12, provides insufficient indication of a controversy continuing at the time this litigation began or arising thereafter. The affidavit provides no indication whom the Democratic committee wished to endorse, for which office, or in what election. Absent a contention that § 6(b) prevented a particular endorsement, and that the controversy had not become moot prior to the litigation, this allegation will not support an action in federal court.
Nor can a ripe controversy be found in the fact that the Republican committee endorsed candidates for nonpartisan elections in 1987, the year this suit was filed. Whether or not all of those endorsements involved elections pending at the time this action commenced, a point on which the affidavit is not clear, we have no reason to believe that § 6(b) had any impact on the conduct of those involved. The committee made these endorsements “despite objections from some that such endorsements are prohibited” by the provision at issue. App. 15. Nothing in the record suggests that any action was taken to enforce § 6(b) as a result of those endorsements. We know of no adverse consequences suffered by the Republican committee or its members due to the apparent violation of §6(b). We also have no indication that any of the three endorsed candidates desired or attempted to include the party’s endorsement in a candidate statement.
We also discern no ripe controversy in the allegations that respondents desire to endorse candidates in future elections, either as individual committee members or through their committees. Respondents do not allege an intention to endorse any particular candidate, nor that a candidate wants to include a party’s or committee member’s endorsement in a candidate statement. We possess no factual record of an actual or imminent application of § 6(b) sufficient to present the constitutional issues in “clean-cut and concrete form.” Rescue Army v. Municipal Court of Los Angeles, 331 U. S. 549, 584 (1947); see Socialist Labor Party v. Gilligan, 406 U. S. 583 (1972); Public Affairs Associates, Inc. v. Rickover, 369 U. S. 111 (1962) (per curiam); Alabama State Federation of Labor v. McAdory, 325 U. S. 450 (1945). We do not know the nature of the endorsement, how it would be publicized, or the precise language petitioners might delete from the voter pamphlet. To the extent respondents allege that a committee or a committee member wishes to “support” or “oppose” a candidate other than through endorsements, they do not specify what form that support or opposition would take.
The record also contains no evidence of a credible threat that § 6(b) will be enforced, other than against candidates in the context of voter pamphlets. The only instances disclosed by the record in which parties endorsed specific candidates did not, so far as we can tell, result in petitioners taking any enforcement action. While the record indicates that the Democratic committee feared prosecution of its members if it endorsed a candidate, we find no explanation of what criminal provision that conduct might be held to violate. Petitioners’ counsel indicated at oral argument that § 6(b) carries no criminal penalties, and may only be enforced by injunction. Nothing in the record suggests that petitioners have threatened to seek an injunction against county committees or their members if they violate § 6(b).
While petitioners have threatened not to allow candidates to include endorsements by county committees or their members in the voter pamphlets prepared by the government, we do not believe deferring adjudication will impose a substantial hardship on these respondents. In all probability, respondents can learn which candidates have been endorsed by particular parties or committee members through other means. If respondents or their committees do desire to make a particular endorsement in the future, and a candidate wishes to include the endorsement in a voter pamphlet, the constitutionality of petitioners’ refusal to publish the endorsement can be litigated in the context of a concrete dispute.
Postponing consideration of the questions presented, until a more concrete controversy arises, also has the advantage of permitting the state courts further opportunity to construe §6(b), and perhaps in the process to “materially alter the question to be decided.” Babbitt v. Farm Workers, 442 U. S. 289, 306 (1979); see also Webster v. Reproductive Health Services, 492 U. S. 490, 506 (1989) (plurality opinion). It is not clear from the language of the provision, for instance, that it applies to individual members of county committees. This apparent construction of the provision by petitioners, which may give respondents standing in this case, could be held invalid by the state courts. State courts also may provide further definition to §6(b)’s operative language, “endorse, support, or oppose.” “Determination of the scope and constitutionality of legislation in advance of its immediate adverse effect in the context of a concrete case involves too remote and abstract an inquiry for the proper exercise of the judicial function.” Longshoremen v. Boyd, 347 U. S. 222, 224 (1954).
D
We conclude with a word about the propriety of resolving the facial constitutionality of § 6(b) without first addressing its application to a particular set of facts. In some First Amendment contexts, we have permitted litigants injured by a particular application of a statute to assert a facial over-breadth challenge, one seeking invalidation of the statute because its application in other situations would be unconstitutional. See Broadrick v. Oklahoma, 413 U. S. 601 (1973). We have some doubt that respondents’ complaint should be construed to assert a facial challenge to § 6(b). Beyond question, the gravamen of the complaint is petitioners’ application of § 6(b) to delete party endorsements from candidate statements in voter pamphlets. While the complaint seeks a declaration of §6(b)’s unconstitutionality, the only injunctive relief it requests relates to the editing of candidate statements. References to other applications of § 6(b) are at best conclusory.
But even if one may read the complaint to assert a facial challenge, the better course might have been to address in the first instance the constitutionality of § 6(b) as applied in the context of voter pamphlets. “It is not the usual judicial practice, . . . nor do we consider it generally desirable, to proceed to an overbreadth issue unnecessarily — that is, before it is determined that the statute would be valid as applied. Such a course would convert use of the overbreadth doctrine from a necessary means of vindicating the plaintiff’s right not to be bound by a statute that is unconstitutional into a means of mounting gratuitous wholesale attacks upon state and federal laws.” Board of Trustees of State University of N. Y. v. Fox, 492 U. S. 469, 484-485 (1989); see also Brockett v. Spokane Arcades, Inc., 472 U. S. 491, 503-504 (1985). If the as-applied challenge had been resolved first in this case, the problems of justiciability that determine our disposition might well have concluded the litigation at an earlier stage.
HH f-H
The free speech issues argued in the briefs filed here have fundamental and far-reaching import. For that very reason, we cannot decide the case based upon the amorphous and ill-defined factual record presented to us. Rules of justiciability serve to make the judicial process a principled one. Were we to depart from those rules, our disposition of the case would lack the clarity and force which ought to inform the exercise of judicial authority.
The judgment is vacated, and the case is remanded with instructions to dismiss respondents’ third cause of action without prejudice.
It is so ordered.
Justice Scalia joins all but Part II-B of this opinion.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer:
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I
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sc_issuearea
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What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Mr. Justice Black
delivered the opinion of the Court.
Petitioner brought this action for damages in the Federal District Court under the Federal Employers’ Liability Act, 35 Stat. 65, 53 Stat. 1404, 45 U. S. C. § 51 et seq., for causing the death of her intestate. Count I alleged that “By reason of a defect or insufficiency, due to the negligence of the defendant, in its car, track, or roadbed, the car upon which the plaintiff’s decedent was riding was derailed . . .,” causing the decedent to be thrown from the car and killed. Count II, without specifying any particular acts of negligence, charged generally that the derailment and decedent’s death were the “result of the negligence of the defendant.” After the evidence was in, the Court, at the request of the respondent, directed the jury to return a verdict for the respondent on the first count. Respondent’s motion for directed verdict on the second count, on the ground that the evidence failed to justify a finding of negligence and that it showed that deceased was killed as the sole result of his own negligence, was overruled. The jury rendered a verdict for petitioner and judgment was entered on it. The Circuit Court of Appeals reversed and remanded to the District Court with directions to render judgment for the respondent. 154 F. 2d 703.
The trial court charged the jury that the burden was upon petitioner to prove by a fair preponderance of the evidence that the deceased's death was caused by respondent's negligence. It invoked the trial rule under which negligence may be inferred from unusual happenings growing out of conditions under a defendant’s control. Referring to this rule under the name of res ipsa loquitur, the court charged: “Of course if the deceased’s negligence was the sole cause of the accident the plaintiff here cannot recover. And since there can be no application of the doctrine of res ipsa loquitur if other causes than the negligence of the defendant, its agents or servants, might have produced the accident, the plaintiff is bound, she has the burden, to exclude the operation of such causes by a fair preponderance of the evidence before the rule can be applied. This is so because if there are other causes than the negligence of the defendant that might have caused the accident, the defendant cannot be said to be in exclusive control — one of the prerequisites to the application of the rule here invoked.” The Circuit Court of Appeals reversed because it thought that the jury should not be permitted to draw an inference of defendant’s negligence from an extraordinary accident growing out of a general set of circumstances which included activities of the injured person, even though a jury, under proper instructions, could find from the evidence that the injured person’s activities did not cause the injury. The Circuit Court’s limitation of the jury’s province by this interpretation of a doctrine of res ipsa loquitur raised a question of importance in the trial of cases arising under federal law. We granted certiorari to consider this question. 328 U. S. 830.
The testimony, so far as relevant to point the issues, may be briefly summarized. Four railroad cars were being pushed backward and eastward by an engine in order to put them on a siding north of the main track. It was the duty of deceased, a brakeman, to throw the switch before the first car reached it in order that the four cars would take the siding. There was evidence that he threw the switch and gave a signal to the engineer to back the cars. Respondent’s evidence was sufficient to authorize, but not to compel, the jury to find that the deceased negligently threw the switch while the lead car in the backward movement straddled the switch with one set of the car wheels on one side of the switch and one on the other. If true, this could mean that the wheels east of the switch would move down the main line and the others would enter the siding when the switch was thrown and the backward movement took place, thus probably causing derailment. If the jury had believed respondent’s evidence that this last car was astride the switch when it was thrown, it would have been authorized, under the court’s charge, to find for the respondent. But about 75 feet east of this switch, at a point where the south rail of the siding track intersected the north rail of the main track, there was a frog. There was testimony that this frog operated with a spring mechanism, and that if the spring failed to work when the wheels passed over it, the cars might be derailed. Some other evidence tended to show that, at the time the derailment occurred, splinters and planks were thrown into the air near the frog. Other evidence tended to show that planks and splinters were found on the track. Some testimony showed that they were close to the switch, and some that they were close to the frog. There was evidence that the frog and switch had been in good condition before the derailment and after the derailment. The cars had been operated and the tracks had been used previously, so far as the evidence showed, without any similar mishap.
In San Juan Light Co. v. Requena, 224 U. S. 89, 98-99, this Court said: “when a thing which causes injury, without fault of the injured person, is shown to be under the exclusive control of the defendant, and the injury is such as in the ordinary course of things does not occur if the one having such control uses proper care, it affords reasonable evidence, in the absence of an explanation, that the injury arose from the defendant’s want of care.” Both prior to and after that case was decided, this Court has acted upon this rule in varying types of cases. Transportation Co. v. Downer, 11 Wall. 129; Inland & Seaboard Coasting Co. v. Tolson, 139 U. S. 551, 555; Gleeson v. Virginia M. R. R., 140 U. S. 435; Sweeney v. Erving, 228 U. S. 233, 240. See also Southern Ry. v. Bennett, 233 U. S. 80; Foltis, Inc. v. City of New York, 287 N. Y. 108, 38 N. E. 2d 455, and cases collected, 153 A. L. R. 1134. The Circuit Court of Appeals thought, however, that the rule was improperly applied in this case because the railroad instrumentalities here were not under the “exclusive control” of the railroad; that “The thing that caused the injury could have been Jesionowski’s fault, or it could have been the railroad corporation’s fault.” 154 F. 2d 703, 705.
The Court’s reasoning was this: Petitioner was not entitled to have her case submitted to the jury except under the rule of res ipsa loquitur. That rule has rigidly defined prerequisities, one of which is that, to apply it, the defendant must have exclusive control of all the things used in an operation which might probably have caused injury. Here the railroad did not have exclusive control of all probable causative factors, since deceased had some immediate control over switching and signaling. “Exclusive control” of all probable causative factors, the court reasoned, means that res ipsa loquitur cannot be applied even though those non-exclusively controlled factors are clearly shown to have had no causal connection with the accident.
We cannot agree. Res ipsa loquitur, thus applied, would bar juries from drawing an inference of negligence on account of unusual accidents in all operations where the injured person had himself participated in the operations, even though it was proved that his operations of the things under his control did not cause the accident. This viewpoint unduly restricts the power of juries to decide questions of fact, and in this case the jury’s right to draw inferences from evidence and the sufficiency of that evidence to support a verdict are federal questions. A conceptualistic interpretation of res ipsa loquitur has never been used by this Court to reduce the jury’s power to draw inferences from facts. Such an interpretation unduly narrows the doctrine as this Court has applied it.
This Court said, in Sweeney v. Erving, 228 U. S. 233, 240, a decision which cut through the mass of verbiage built up around the doctrine of res ipsa loquitur, that “res ipsa loquitur means that the facts of the occurrence warrant the inference of negligence, not that they compel such an inference; that they furnish circumstantial evidence of negligence where direct evidence of it may be lacking, but it is evidence to be weighed, not necessarily to be accepted as sufficient; that they call for explanation or rebuttal, not necessarily that they require it; that they make a case to be decided by the jury, not that they forestall the verdict.” Thus, the question here really is not whether the application of the rule relied on fits squarely into some judicial definition, rigidly construed, but whether the circumstances were such as to justify a finding that this derailment was a result of the defendant’s negligence. We hold that they were.
Derailments are extraordinary, not usual, happenings. When they do occur, a jury may fairly find that they occurred as a result of negligence. It is true that the jury might have found here that this accident happened as a result of the negligence of the deceased; but although the respondent offered evidence to establish this fact, it “did not satisfy the jury.” Southern Ry. v. Bennett, supra at 86. With the deceased freed from any negligent conduct in connection with the switch or the signaling, we have left an accident, ordinarily the result of negligence, which may be attributed only to the lack of care of the railroad, the only other agency involved. Once a jury, having been appropriately instructed, finds that the employee’s activities did not cause the derailment, the defendant remains as the exclusive controller of all the factors which may have caused the accident. It would run counter to common everyday experience to say that, after a finding by the jury that the throwing of the switch and the signaling did not contribute to the derailment, the jury was without authority to infer that either the negligent operation of the train or the negligent maintenance of the instrumentalities other than the switch was the cause of the derailment. It was uncontroverted that the railroad had exclusive control of both. We think that the facts support the jury’s findings both that the deceased’s conduct did not cause the accident and that the railroad’s negligence did.
Respondent also urges here, as it did in the Circuit Court of Appeals, that because the trial judge directed a verdict for it on the first count of the complaint, which charged a defect in the car, track or roadbed, the court was not justified in submitting to the jury the question of a defect in these respects under the second count. The Circuit Court held that this question was hot properly raised before it because respondent had failed on appeal to make “a concise statement” of the point as required by Rule 75 (d) of the Rules of Civil Procedure. Respondent argues that the question was properly raised, though not specifically, by its general point that “the doctrine of res ipsa loquitur is not applicable to the facts of this case.” We cannot hold that the Circuit Court erred when it refused to consider the question because of respondent’s failure to comply with Rule 75 (d).
Reversed.
Mr. Justice Reed, Mr. Justice Jackson and Mr. Justice Burton would affirm on the grounds stated in the opinion of the Circuit Court of Appeals for the First Circuit.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer:
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H
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What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Per Curiam.
The motion for leave to file a bill of complaint is denied.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer:
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I
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What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Mr. Justice White
delivered the opinion of the Court.
Upon a special verdict of the jury, the Common Pleas Court of Cuyahoga County, Ohio, entered judgment awarding damages to petitioner in this Federal Employers’ Liability Act suit. The Court of Appeals reversed, 173 N. E. 2d 382, and the Ohio Supreme Court refused further appellate review, 172 Ohio St. 488, 178 N. E. 2d 597, making the decision of the intermediate appellate court the final judgment rendered by the state courts. This Court granted certiorari, 369 U. S. 848, to consider the question whether the decision below improperly invaded the jury’s function. We have concluded that the decision below is erroneous and must be reversed.
Petitioner was a spotting crew foreman working on or about August 10, 1954, along the respondent railroad’s right of way in the Cuyahoga River “flats” section of Cleveland, Ohio. At the particular stretch of roadbed where petitioner was working on that afternoon, there had been for many years a pool of stagnant water, in and about which were dead and decayed rats and pigeons, or portions thereof. Insects had been seen on, over, and about this stagnant pool, and the evidence showed, as the Court of Appeals stated, that respondent had long been aware of the fetid condition of this pool. 173 N. E. 2d, at 383. While he was temporarily working near the pool, petitioner experienced a bite on his left leg just above the knee. He grasped the spot with his hand and felt an object under his trousers which seemed to be a large insect and which, when he crushed it, dropped out of his trouser leg. The wound subsequently became infected. The infection failed to respond to medical treatment, and worsened progressively until it spread throughout petitioner’s body, creating pus-forming lesions and eventually necessitating the amputation of both his legs. None of the doctors who treated and studied petitioner’s case could explain the etiology of his present condition, although some of them diagnosed or characterized it as “pyoderma-gangrenosa, secondary to insect bite.” See id., at 384.
The Federal Employers’ Liability Act makes railroads liable in damages to any employee suffering “injury or death resulting in whole or in part from the negligence of . . . [the] carrier, or by reason of any defect or insufficiency, due to its negligence, in its . . . roadbed ... or other equipment.” 45 U. S. C. § 51. In his complaint petitioner alleged respondent’s negligence both in permitting the stagnant pool to accumulate dead vermin and attract insects, and in its furnishing a defective and unsafe place for petitioner’s work. The respondent denied any negligence and contended that if petitioner’s serious injuries resulted from an insect bite sustained while working on railroad property, such consequences “were beyond the realm of reasonable probability or foreseeability, with the result that no duty arose” to exercise due care to protect petitioner “from any such risk.” 173 N. E. 2d, at 384.
After a lengthy trial, the court, pursuant to the State’s special verdict statute, Ohio Rev. Code, § 2315.15, under which no general verdict is rendered by the jury, submitted some two dozen interrogatories to the jury and charged them as to what it deemed the applicable law of negligence. The special verdict of the jury, to the extent that it is relevant here, follows (answers italicized):
“10. On approximately August 10,1954, was plaintiff bitten by an insect? Yes.
“13. Did the defendant B & 0 provide the plaintiff Mr. Gallick a reasonably safe place to work under the facts and circumstances existing at the time? Jury can’t decide on this question.
“14. [D]id the defendant B & 0 know that by permitting the accumulation of said pool of stagnant water, dead pigeons, dead rats, bugs, and vermin would be attracted to said area? Yes.
“15. If the answer to 14 is yes, did the defendant B & 0 know that its employees would have to work in this area? Yes.
“16. Was the defendant negligent in one or more of the particulars alleged in the petition? Fes.
“17. If the answer to Question 16 is yes, indicate in the words of the petition the acts or omissions which constitute defendant’s negligence. There existed ia pool of stagnant water on the premises in the possession of and under the control of defendant into which was accumulated dead pigeons, rats, and various forms of bugs and vermin.
“18. Was the illness or diseases from which Mr. Gallick now suffers caused in whole or in part by an insect bite sustained by him on defendant B & O’s premises? Yes.
“19. Were the injuries to the plaintiff proximately caused . . . by . . . the acts or omissions of the defendant? Yes.
“20. [W]as there any reason for the defendant B & 0 to anticipate that such [maintaining stagnant, infested pool] would or might probably result in a mishap or an injury? No.
“21. Is there a proximate causal relationship to the stagnant water, the dead rats, the dead pigeons, the insect bite, and the present physical condition of the plaintiff ? Yes.
“22. If the answer to Question 21 is yes, was it within the realm of reasonable probability or foreseeability of the defendant B & O to appreciate this proximate causal relationship between the stagnant water, the dead rats, the dead pigeons, the insect bite and the present physical condition of the plaintiff? No.”
The trial court entered judgment for petitioner and respondent appealed, assigning as error various trial rulings, none of which the Court of Appeals found “prejudicial to the rights of the appellant,” except the fundamental one, in the court’s view, that judgment for respondent should have been entered on a directed verdict because the trial evidence was insufficient to support a judgment for petitioner. The court said that the evidence showed that an insect bit petitioner and caused his severe injuries. It also found that “to maintain for a period of years a stagnant, vermin-infested pool of water on and over which insects gather,” on property where the railroad’s employees were required to work “could furnish the gravamen of an offense [sic] under the Federal Employers’ Liability Act.” 173 N. E. 2d, at 387. The court emphasized, however, that there was no “direct evidence that the existence of the unidentified bug at the time and place had any connection with the stagnant and infested pool,” or had become infected by the pool with the substance that caused petitioner’s infection, evidence which would negative the alternative possibility that the insect had emanated from “the nearby putrid mouth of the Cuyahoga River, or from weeds, or unsanitary places situated on property not owned or controlled by the railroad.” The Court of Appeals therefore deemed the evidence merely “a series of guesses and speculations ... a chain of causation too tenuous to support a conclusion of liability.” Id., at 388. “[W]e have a chain of possibilities that the negligence of the defendant might have shared in subjecting the plaintiff to damage and injury, but the proof of a legal causal connection between the negligence and the damage falls short of that required for the consideration of a jury.” Ibid. Accordingly, it reversed the judgment of the Court of Common Pleas and entered final judgment for respondent.
I.
We think that the Court of Appeals improperly invaded the function and province of the jury in this Federal Employers’ Liability Act case. According to the Court of Appeals, the break in the causal chain that turned it into a mere “series of guesses and speculations” was the want of evidence from which the jury could properly conclude that respondent’s fetid pool had had something to do with the insect that bit petitioner. The only question was whether or not the insect was from or had been attracted by the pool. We hold that the record shows sufficient evidence to warrant the jury’s conclusion that petitioner’s injuries were caused by the acts or omissions of respondent.
As the Court of Appeals stated, “insects were seen on, over and about this stagnant pool.” According to petitioner’s undisputed testimony, he stood near the pool for about a half a minute; then he started to walk away and was bitten on the leg after he took a few steps, perhaps one or two seconds later. Petitioner also testified, on cross-examination, that he had at times seen insects of about the same size as that which bit him crawling over the dead rats and pigeons in the stagnant pool. And on cross-examination by respondent two medical witnesses testified that stagnant, rat-infested pools breed and attract insects. Moreover, the jury specifically found that the pool accumulated and attracted bugs and vermin.
The Court of Appeals erred in demanding either direct evidence that the existence of the unidentified bug at the time and place had any connection with the stagnant and infested pool” or else more substantial circumstantial evidence than that adduced here “that the pool created conditions and influences which helped to incubate or furnish an environment for the bug ... or that the insect, having traveled from other areas, became contaminated or infected by the pool.” 173 N. E. 2d, at 388. Under the ruling cases in this Court the evidence present was sufficient to raise an issue for the jury’s determination as to whether the insect emanated from the pool.
In Tennant v. Peoria & P. U. R. Co., 321 U. S. 29, one of the leading cases, the Court granted certiorari “because of important problems as to petitioner’s right to a jury determination of the issue of causation.” There was no direct evidence of how the decedent was killed. There was evidence that the respondent railroad had been negligent or careless in failing to ring a warning bell before moving an engine, and evidence that the victim was killed by being run over by a train. The question of how the victim met his death was susceptible to various answers, all somewhat conjectural because of the want of direct evidence, some of which supported petitioner’s claims and others respondent’s. The Court of Appeals set aside a jury verdict for petitioner for failure of the evidence to make out proximate cause, but this Court reversed:
“It is not the function of a court to search the record for conflicting circumstantial evidence in order to take the case away from the jury on a theory that the proof gives equal support to inconsistent and uncertain inferences. The focal point of judicial review is the reasonableness of the particular inference or conclusion drawn by the jury. It is the jury, not the court, which is the fact-finding body. It weighs the contradictory evidence and inferences, judges the credibility of witnesses, receives expert instructions, and draws the ultimate conclusion as to the facts. The very essence of its function is to select from among conflicting inferences and conclusions that which it considers most reasonable. Washington & Georgetown R. Co. v. McDade, 135 U. S. 554, 571, 572; Tiller v. Atlantic Coast Line R. Co., supra, 68; Bailey v. Central Vermont By., 319 U. S. 350, 353, 354. That conclusion, whether it relates to negligence, causation or any other factual matter, cannot be ignored. Courts are not free to reweigh the evidence and set aside the jury verdict merely because the jury could have drawn different inferences or conclusions or because judges feel that other results are more reasonable.” 321 U. S., at 35.
Later Federal Employers’ Liability Act cases involving sufficiency of the evidence on causation where several explanations are plausible follow the teaching of the Tennant case. In Schulz v. Pennsylvania R. Co., 350 U. S. 523, a tug fireman was drowned in undetermined circumstances arising from his “work on . . . dark, icy and undermanned boats”; the lower court said: “There is some evidence of negligence, and there is an accidental death. But there is not a shred of evidence connecting the two.” This Court held that there was sufficient evidence of causation to require submission of the case to the jury. Lavender v. Kurn, 327 U. S. 645, was another Federal Employers’ Liability Act case in which it was uncertain which of various alternative explanations for the cause of the injury was correct. Petitioner’s theory was that a mail-hook protruding from a train had hit the victim, while respondent’s theory was that an unknown murderer was responsible. Both theories were plausible; the jury found for petitioner, but the lower court reversed for insufficient evidence. This Court reversed on the ground that the lower appellate court had committed “an undue invasion of the jury’s historic function.”
These cases, as does the instant case, all involved the question of whether there was evidence that any employer negligence caused the harm, or, more precisely, enough to justify a jury’s determination that employer negligence had played any role in producing the harm. In the more recent case, Rogers v. Missouri Pac. R. Co., 352 U. S. 500, one of the questions was whether, given the antecedent negligence or carelessness of the employer in maintaining a roadside surface with loose, slippery gravel instead of a firm, flat footing, the causal impact of such neglectfulness was negatived by the subsequent or concurrent negligence of the employee in failing to pay attention to what he was supposed to be doing. Although the context is thus somewhat dissimilar to the present one, the language used in the opinion is most apposite:
“Under this statute the test of a jury case is simply whether the proofs justify with reason the conclusion that employer negligence played any part ... in producing the injury .... It does not matter that, from the evidence, the jury may also with reason, on grounds of probability, attribute the result to other causes .... Judicial appraisal of the proofs to determine whether a jury question is presented is narrowly limited to the single inquiry whether, with reason, the conclusion may be drawn that negligence of the employer played any part at all in the injury or death. Judges are to fix their sights primarily to make that appraisal and, if that test is met, are bound to find that a case for the jury is made out whether or not the evidence allows the jury a choice of other probabilities.” 352 U. S., at 506-507.
The facts before the jury fall within this standard and the Court of Appeals therefore erred in refusing to accept the jury’s verdict.
II.
Although we have concluded that the jury could properly find that there was a causal relationship between the railroad’s negligence and petitioner’s injuries, that does not end the case. Respondent makes the further argument that the judgment under review may be sustained on the alternative ground, not accepted by the Court of Appeals, that the injury was not reasonably foreseeable, and that therefore there was no negligence.
We agree with respondent that reasonable foreseeability of harm is an essential ingredient of Federal Employers’ Liability Act negligence. Inman v. Baltimore & O. R. Co., 361 U. S. 138, 140; see Brady v. Southern R. Co., 320 U. S. 476, 483-484; Tiller v. Atlantic C. L. R. Co., 318 U. S. 54, 67; Ringhiser v. Chesapeake & O. R. Co., 354 U. S. 901, 903, 905 (dissenting opinions); Rogers v. Missouri Pac. R. Co., 352 U. S. 500, 503; cf. Morales v. City of Galveston, 370 U. S. 165, 171; Dalehite v. United States, 346 U. S. 15, 42. But this requirement has been satisfied in the present case by the jury’s findings (Nos. 10, 14-19, 21) of negligence in maintaining the filthy pool of water. The jury had been instructed that negligence is the failure to observe that degree of care which people of ordinary prudence and sagacity would use under the same or similar circumstances; and that defendant’s duty was measured by what a reasonably prudent person would anticipate as resulting from a particular condition— "defendant’s duties are measured by what is reasonably foreseeable under like circumstances” — by what “in the light of the facts then known, should or could reasonably have been anticipated.” Thus when the jury found these facts: petitioner was bitten by an insect; the insect bite caused illness or disease and led to petitioner’s present physical condition; the stagnant pool attracted bugs and vermin and was responsible for the insect bite and the injuries to petitioner; and respondent knew that the accumulation of the pool of water would attract bugs and vermin to the area — it is clear that the jury concluded that respondent should have realized the increased likelihood of an insect’s biting petitioner while he was working in the vicinity of the pool.
Respondent places reliance, however, upon two special interrogatories returned by the jury. In one, No. 22, the jury found that respondent could not foresee that the stagnant pool would set into being a chain of events that would culminate in petitioner’s present physical condition — loss of two limbs, widespread ulcerations, and permanent disability. In the other, No. 20, the jury found that respondent did not have reason to anticipate that its maintenance of the pool “would or might probably result in a mishap or an injury.” It is said that interrogatories Nos. 20 and 22 are findings of no foreseeability, and that there is therefore a fatal inconsistency among the jury’s findings and that they cancel one another out, necessitating a judgment for the defendant, or at least a new trial. See Freightways, Inc., v. Stafford, 217 F. 2d 831, 835 (C. A. 8th Cir.); Fed. Rules Civ. Proc. 49 (b). See also Larrissey v. Norwalk Lines, 155 Ohio St. 207, 214-215, 98 N. E. 2d 419, 423-424; Klever v. Reid Bros., 151 Ohio St. 467, 476, 86 N. E. 2d 608, 612. But it is the duty of the courts to attempt to harmonize the answers, if it is possible under a fair reading of them: “Where there is a view of the case that makes the jury’s answers to special interrogatories consistent, they must be resolved that way.” Atlantic & Gulf Stevedores, Inc., v. Ellerman Lines, Ltd., 369 U. S. 355, 364. We therefore must attempt to reconcile the jury’s findings, by exegesis if necessary, as in Arnold v. Panhandle & S. F. R. Co., 353 U. S. 360; McVey v. Phillips Co., 288 F. 2d 53 (C. A. 5th Cir.); Morris v. Pennsylvania R. Co., 187 F. 2d 837 (C. A. 2d Cir.) (collecting authorities), before we are free to disregard the jury’s special verdict and remand the case for a new trial.
We do not believe that the conclusion of fatal inconsistency is compelled by these findings. In the first place, the Jury might not have equated a foreseeable insect bite with a mishap or injury. The trial judge more than once in his instructions separated an “insect bite” from “injury,” “infection,” “illness” or “disease.” The answer to Question 20 thus might mean simply that while an insect bite was foreseeable, there was no reason to anticipate a “mishap” or “injury” from such a bite. This answer therefore falls in the same category as the jury’s response to Question 22, where the jury found that there was no reasonably foreseeable causal relationship between the insect bite and the present physical condition of the plaintiff. It is widely held that for a defendant to be liable for consequential damages he need not foresee the particular consequences of his negligent acts: assuming the existence of a threshold tort against the person, then whatever damages flow from it are recoverable. See, e. g., Boat v. Electric Battery Co., 98 F. 2d 815, 819 (C. A. 3d Cir.); Koehler v. Waukesha Milk Co., 190 Wis. 52, 57-63, 208 N. W. 901, 903-905 (collecting authorities); Restatement, Torts, §435; 2 Harper and James, Torts, 1139-1140; Prosser, Torts, 260 (2d ed.); Seavey, Mr. Justice Cardozo and the Law of Torts, 48 Yale L. J. 390, 402-403. And we have no doubt that under a statute where the tort-feasor is liable for death or injuries in producing which his “negligence played any part, even the slightest” (Rogers v. Missouri Pac. B. Co., 352 U. S. 500, 506) such a tort-feasor must compensate his victim for even the improbable or unexpectedly severe consequences of his wrongful act. Cf. Kernan v. American Dredging Co., 355 U. S. 426; Coray v. Southern Pac. Co., 335 U. S. 520; Lillie v. Thompson, 332 U. S. 459. The answers to these two interrogatories are therefore not controlling for Federal Employers’ Liability Act purposes.
In the second place, in deciding whether respondent had reason to anticipate and foresee any harm to petitioner, the trial court instructed the jury to take into account “the past experience respecting the location and conditions in question” and the fact “that no occurrence of the kind here alleged either occurred, or was known by defendant to have occurred, at or near this place before August of 1954.” The jury thus might have determined that, since there had been no similar incidents at this pool in the past, the respondent had no specific “reason” for anticipating a mishap or injury to petitioner — a far too narrow a concept of foreseeable harm to negative negligence under the Federal Employers’ Liability Act. Thus there is a second and independent ground for the court to have put aside No. 20 as immaterial. Looking at No. 20 in the context of the charge and the total context of the special verdict, see McVey v. Phillips Co., 288 F. 2d 53, 59 (C. A. 5th Cir.); Halprin v. Mora, 231 F. 2d 197, 201 (C. A. 3d Cir.), we cannot assign it sufficient weight to warrant overturning the judgment of the trial court entered pursuant to the jury’s special verdict.
We.have examined respondent’s other contentions and found them without merit, including the contention that there was insufficient evidence to support the finding of negligence. The Court of Appeals erred in depriving petitioner of the judgment entered upon the special verdict of the jury. Arnold v. Panhandle & S. F. R. Co., 353 U. S. 360. The judgment of the Ohio Court of Appeals is reversed and the case is remanded for further proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion.
Reversed.
35 Stat. 65, as amended, 45 U. S. C. § 51.
For the same reason the Court of Appeals found error in the trial court’s refusal to enter a judgment n. o. v. See Journal Entry, R. 629.
The Court of Appeals emphasized the fact that no similar bite was ever complained about, as a factor in gauging the probability that the actual causal chain corresponded to petitioner’s theory of the case, 173 N. E. 2d, at 387; it accepted as supported by “sufficient credible evidence” the finding that an insect bit petitioner, but it disagreed with the finding that pool and insect bite were related. Although the record does not show that any complaint was ever made to respondent about insect bites, petitioner testified that he had complained to the section foreman about the vermin-infested pool several times and another witness testified that he was bitten by an insect near it in or about September 1954.
See B. F. Goodrich Co. v. United States, 321 U. S. 126, 127; United States v. American R. Exp. Co., 265 U. S. 425, 435; Frey & Son, Inc., v. Cudahy Packing Co., 256 U. S. 208, 210.
Kernan v. American Dredging Co., 355 U. S. 426, was concerned with the breach of a statutory or regulatory duty and does not control or purport to define the content of nonstatutory or nonregulatory duties amounting to negligence for the purposes of the Federal Employers’ Liability Act.
“Negligence is sometimes said to be a failure to observe for the protection of the rights of others that degree of care, precaution, and vigilance which the circumstances justly demand, and sometimes, in other words, it is said that negligence is the failure to observe ordinary care, and ordinary care is that degree of care which people of ordinary prudence and sagacity use under the same or similar circumstances. What would ordinarily prudent persons have done under like circumstances?”
“The B & O in this case was not required to guard against that which a reasonably prudent person, under the circumstances, would not anticipate as likely to happen. If a person has no reasonable ground to anticipate that a particular condition . . . would or might result in a mishap and injury, then the party is not required to do anything to correct such a condition. You must apply this rule to this case. . . . Defendant’s duties are measured by what is reasonably foreseeable under like circumstances. ... In measuring the B & O’s conduct here, the point of view to be taken should be the view before the mishap occurred, to see what, in the light of the facts then known, should or could reasonably have been anticipated. And you must follow this rule in this case.”
“If the actor’s conduct is a substantial factor in bringing about harm to another, the fact that the actor neither foresaw nor should have foreseen the extent of the harm or the manner in which it occurred does not prevent him from being liable.” Restatement, Torts, §435. “In these and like cases of what well may be called direct consequences, the courts generally hold defendant liable for the full extent of the injury without regard to foreseeability.” 2 Harper and James, Torts, p. 1140. “There is almost universal agreement upon . . . liability for unforeseeable consequences when they follow an impact upon the person of the plaintiff.” Prosser, Torts, 260.
“In.measuring the B & O's duty to anticipate — that is, in considering how much and how far the defendant ought to have gone in foreseeing and guarding against possible mishaps and dangers — the past experience respecting the location and conditions in question may properly be drawn upon. It is entirely proper in this case to take into account the fact . . . that no occurrence of the kind here alleged either occurred, or was known by defendant to have occurred, at or near this place before August of 1954, as . . . indicating what the defendant here should reasonably have foreseen for the future.”
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
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
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sc_issuearea
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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.
Chief Justice Rehnquist
delivered the opinion of the Court.
This case presents the question whether the Federal Tort Claims Act (FTCA), 28 U. S. C. §§ 1346(b), 1402(b), 2401(b), 2671-2680 (1988 ed. and Supp. II), applies to tortious acts or omissions occurring in Antarctica, a sovereignless region without civil tort law of its own. We hold that it does not.
Petitioner Sandra Jean Smith is the widow of John Emmett Smith and the duly appointed representative of his estate. At the time of his death, Smith worked as a carpenter at McMurdo Station on Ross Island, Antarctica, for a construction company under contract to the National Science Foundation, an agency of the United States. Smith and two companions one day took a recreational hike to Castle Rock, located several miles outside of McMurdo Station. On their return, they departed from the marked route to walk across a snow field in the direction of Scott Base, a New Zealand outpost not far from McMurdo Station. After stopping for a snack, one of the three men took a step and suddenly dropped from sight. Smith followed, and he, too, disappeared. Both men had fallen into a crevasse. Despite search and rescue efforts, Smith died from exposure and internal injuries suffered as a result of the fall.
Petitioner filed this wrongful-death action against the United States under the FTCA in the District Court for the District of Oregon, the district where she resides. Petitioner alleged that the United States was negligent in failing to provide adequate warning of the dangers posed by crevasses in areas beyond the marked paths. It is undisputed that petitioner’s claim is based exclusively on acts or omissions occurring in Antarctica. Upon the motion of the United States, the District Court dismissed petitioner’s complaint for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction, 702 F. Supp. 1480 (1989), holding that her claim was barred by 28 U. S. C. §2680(k), the foreign-country exception. Section 2680(k) precludes the exercise of jurisdiction over “[a]ny claim arising in a foreign country.”
The Court of Appeals affirmed, 953 F. 2d 1116 (CA9 1991). It noted that the term “foreign country” admits of multiple interpretations, and thus looked to the language and structure of the FTCA as a whole to determine whether Antarctica is a “foreign country” within the meaning of the statute. Adopting the analysis and conclusion of then-judge Scalia, see Beattie v. United States, 244 U. S. App. D. C. 70, 85-109, 756 F. 2d 91, 106-130 (1984) (Scalia, J., dissenting), the Court of Appeals ruled that the FTCA does not apply to claims arising in Antarctica. To hold otherwise, the Court of Appeals stated, would render two other provisions of the FTCA, 28 U.S.C. §§ 1402(b), 1346(b), nonsensical. The Court of Appeáls held, in the alternative, that petitioner’s suit would be barred even if Antarctica were not a “foreign country” for purposes of the FTCA. Because the FTCA was a limited relinquishment of the common-law immunity of the United States, the Court of Appeals concluded that the absence of any clear congressional intent to subject the United States to liability for claims arising in Antarctica precluded petitioner’s suit. We granted certiorari to resolve a conflict between two Courts of Appeals, 504 U. S. 984 (1992), and now affirm.
Petitioner argues that the scope of the foreign-country exception turns on whether the United States has recognized the legitimacy of another nation’s sovereign claim over the foreign land. Otherwise, she contends, the land is not a “country” for purposes of the FTCA. Petitioner points out that the United States does not recognize the validity of other nations’ claims to portions of Antarctica. She asserts, moreover, that this construction of the term “foreign country” is most consistent with the purpose underlying the foreign-country exception. According to petitioner, Congress enacted the foreign-country exception in order to insulate the United States from tort liability imposed pursuant to foreign law. Because Antarctica has no law of its own, petitioner claims that conventional choice-of-law rules control and require the application of Oregon law, the law of her domicil. Thus, petitioner concludes, the rationale for the foreign-country exception would not be compromised by the exercise of jurisdiction here, since the United States would not be subject to liability under the law of a foreign nation.
Petitioner’s argument for governmental liability here faces significant obstacles in addition to the foreign-country exception, but we turn first to the language of that proviso. It states that the FTCA’s waiver of sovereign immunity does not apply to “[a]ny claim arising in a foreign country.” 28 U. S. C. § 2680(k). Though the FTCA offers no definition of “country,” the commonsense meaning of the term undermines petitioner’s attempt to equate it with “sovereign state.” The first dictionary definition of “country” is simply “[a] region or tract of land.” Webster’s New International Dictionary 609 (2d ed. 1945). To be sure, this is not the only possible interpretation of the term, and it is therefore appropriate to examine other parts of the statute before making a final determination. But the ordinary meaning of the language itself, we think, includes Antarctica, even though it has no recognized government.
Our construction of the term “foreign country” draws support from the language of § 1346(b), “[t]he principal provision of the Federal Tort Claims Act.” Richards v. United States, 369 U. S. 1, 6 (1962). That section waives the sovereign immunity of the United States for certain torts committed by federal employees “under circumstances where the United States, if a private person, would be liable to the claimant in accordance with the law of the place where the act or omission occurred.” 28 U. S. C. § 1346(b) (emphasis added). We have construed § 1346(b) in determining what law should apply in actions brought under the FTCA. See Richards, supra. But by its terms the section is more than a choice-of-law provision: It delineates the scope of the United States’ waiver of sovereign immunity. If Antarctica were not a “foreign country,” and for that reason included within the FTCA’s coverage, § 1346(b) would instruct courts to look to the law of a place that has no law in order to determine the liability of the United States — surely a bizarre result. Of course, if it were quite clear from the balance of the statute that governmental liability was intended for torts committed in Antarctica, then the failure of § 1346(b) to specify any governing law might be treated as a statutory gap that the courts could fill by decisional law. But coupled with what seems to us the most natural interpretation of the foreign-country exception, this portion of § 1346(b) reinforces the conclusion that Antarctica is excluded from the coverage of the FTCA.
Section 1346(b) is not, however, the only FTCA provision that contradicts petitioner’s interpretation of the foreign-country exception. The statute’s venue provision, § 1402(b), provides that claims under the FTCA may be brought “only in the judicial district where the plaintiff resides or wherein the act or omission complained of occurred.” Because no federal judicial district encompasses Antarctica, petitioner’s interpretation of the FTCA would lead to yet another anomalous result: The FTCA would establish jurisdiction for all tort claims against the United States arising in Antarctica, but no venue would exist unless the claimant happened to reside in the United States. As we observed in Brunette Machine Works, Ltd. v. Kockum Industries, Inc., 406 U. S. 706, 710, n. 8 (1972), “Congress does not in general intend to create venue gaps, which take away with one hand what Congress has given by way of jurisdictional grant with the other.” Thus, in construing the FTCA, it is “reasonable to prefer the construction that avoids leaving such a gap,” ibid., especially when that construction comports with the usual meaning of a disputed term.
Our decisions interpreting the FTCA contain varying statements as to how it should be construed. See, e.g., United States v. Yellow Cab Co., 340 U. S. 543, 547 (1951); Dalehite v. United States, 346 U. S. 15, 31 (1953); United States v. Orleans, 425 U. S. 807, 813 (1976); Kosak v. United States, 465 U. S. 848, 853, n. 9 (1984). See also United States v. Nordic Village, Inc., 503 U. S. 30, 34 (1992). A recent statement of this sort, and the one to which we now adhere, is found in United States v. Kubrick, 444 U. S. 111, 117-118 (1979) (citations omitted): “We should also have in mind that the Act waives the immunity of the United States and that ... we should not take it upon ourselves to extend the waiver beyond that which Congress intended. Neither, however, should we assume the authority to narrow the waiver that Congress intended.” Reading the foreign-country exception to the FTCA to exclude torts committed in Antarctica accords with this canon of construction.
Lastly, the presumption against extraterritorial application of United States statutes requires that any lingering doubt regarding the reach of the FTCA be resolved against its encompassing torts committed in Antarctica. “It is a longstanding principle of American law ‘that legislation of Congress, unless a contrary intent appears, is meant to apply only within the territorial jurisdiction of the United States.’” EEOC v. Arabian American Oil Co., 499 U. S. 244, 248 (1991) (quoting Foley Bros., Inc. v. Filardo, 336 U. S. 281, 285 (1949)). In applying this principle, “[w]e assume that Congress legislates against the backdrop of the presumption against extraterritoriality.” Arabian American Oil Co., supra, at 248; accord, e. g., Argentine Republic v. Amerada Hess Shipping Corp., 488 U. S. 428, 440 (1989) (“When it desires to do so, Congress knows how to place the high seas within the jurisdictional reach of a statute”). The applicability of the presumption is not defeated here just because the FTCA specifically addresses the issue of extraterritorial application in the foreign-country exception. To the contrary, as we stated in United States v. Spelar, 338 U. S. 217, 222 (1949), “[t]hat presumption, far from being overcome here, is doubly fortified by the language of this statute and the legislative purpose underlying it.” Petitioner does not assert, nor could she, that there is clear evidence of congressional intent to apply the FTCA to claims arising in Antarctica.
For all of these reasons, we hold that the FTCA’s waiver of sovereign immunity does not apply to tort claims arising in Antarctica. Some of these reasons are based on the language and structure of the statute itself; others are based on presumptions as to extraterritorial application of Acts of Congress and as to waivers of sovereign immunity. We think these norms of statutory construction have quite likely led us to the same conclusion that the 79th Congress would have reached had it expressly considered the question we now decide: It would not have included a desolate and extraordinarily dangerous land such as Antarctica within the scope of the FTCA. The judgment of the Court of Appeals is therefore
Affirmed.
Without indigenous human population and containing roughly one-tenth of the world’s land mass, Antarctica is best described as “an entire continent of disputed territory.” F. Auburn, Antarctic Law and Politics 1 (1982). Seven nations — Argentina, Australia, Chile, France, New Zea-land, Norway, and the United Kingdom — presently assert formal claims to pie-shaped portions of the continent that total about 85 percent of its expanse. Boczek, The Soviet Union and the Antarctic Regime, 78 Am. J. Int’l L. 834, 840 (1984); Hayton, The Antarctic Settlement of 1959, 54 Am. J. Int’l L. 349 (1960). The United States does not recognize other nations’ claims and does not itself assert a sovereign interest in Antarctica, although it maintains a basis for such a claim. Lissitzyn, The American Position on Outer Space and Antarctica, 53 Am. J. Int’l L. 126, 128 (1969). In any event, these sovereign claims have all been suspended by the terms of the Antarctic Treaty, concluded in 1959. Antarctic Treaty, Dec. 1, 1959, [1961] 12 U. S. T. 794, T. I. A. S. No. 4780. Article IV of the treaty states that no claim may be enforced, expanded, or compromised while the treaty is in force, id., art. IV, 12 U. S. T., at 796, thus essentially freezing nations’ sovereign claims as of the date of the treaty’s execution.
Cf. Beattie v. United States; 244 U. S. App. D. C. 70, 756 F. 2d 91 (1984) (holding that Antarctica is not a “foreign country” within the meaning of the FTCA).
Nor can the law of the plaintiff’s domicil, Oregon here, be substituted in FTCA actions based on torts committed in Antarctica. “Congress has expressly stated that the Government’s liability is to be determined by the application of a particular law, the law of the place where the act or omission occurred ....” Richards v. United States, 369 U. S. 1, 9 (1962). Petitioner does not contend that her cause of action is based on acts or omissions occurring in Oregon.
The history of the FTCA reveals that Congress declined to enact earlier versions of the statute that would have differentiated between foreign and United States residents. Those versions would have barred claims “arising in a foreign country in behalf of an alien.” S. 2690, 76th Cong., 1st Sess., § 303(12) (1939) (emphasis added); H. R. 7236, 76th Cong., 1st Sess., § 303(12) (1939) (emphasis added). At the suggestion of the Attorney General, the last five words of the proposed bills were dropped. See Hearings on H. R. 6373 and H. R. 6463 before the House Committee on the Judiciary, 77th Cong., 2d Sess., 29, 35, 66 (1942). As we observed in United States v. Spelar, 338 U. S. 217, 220 (1949), “[t]he superseded draft had made the waiver of the Government’s traditional immunity turn upon the fortuitous circumstance of the injured party’s citizenship.” The amended version, however, “identified the coverage of the Act with the scope of United States sovereignty.” Id., at 220-221. At least insofar as Antarctica is concerned, petitioner’s interpretation of the FTCA would effectively resurrect the scheme rejected by Congress; it would deny relief to foreign residents in circumstances where United States residents could recover.
Petitioner instead argues that the presumption against extraterritoriality applies only if it serves to avoid “ ‘unintended clashes between our laws and those of other nations which could result in international discord.’ ” Brief for Petitioner 16 (quoting EEOC v. Arabian American Oil Co., 499 U. S., at 248). But the presumption is rooted in a number of considerations, not the least of which is the commonsense notion that Congress generally legislates with domestic concerns in mind.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
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 case presents the question whether an acquittal of conspiracy to defraud the United States precludes a subsequent prosecution for commission of the substantive offense, on the particular facts here involved.
Two indictments were returned against petitioner and others. One charged a conspiracy to defraud the United States of its governmental function of conserving and rationing sugar by presenting false invoices and making false representations to a ration board to the effect that certain sales of sugar products were made to exempt agencies. The other indictment charged petitioner and Greenberg with the commission of the substantive offense, viz., uttering and publishing as true the false invoices. The conspiracy indictment was tried first and the following facts were shown:
Defendant Greenberg manufactured syrup and approached Sanford Doctors, a salesman for a brokerage concern, to sell vanilla syrup. Doctors negotiated some sales to petitioner who did a wholesale business under the name of Sero Syrup Co. Thereafter Greenberg asked Doctors to get a list from petitioner showing the places where petitioner made sales and told him that if any sales were made to exempt agencies, Greenberg could sell to petitioner in larger quantities. Doctors so informed petitioner and some time thereafter petitioner wrote to Green-berg saying, “at the present time some of our syrups are being sold at the Brooklyn Navy Yard” and various defense plants. Petitioner did sell some of his syrup to a vending company which had machines at the Navy Yard but it was not vanilla syrup and no sales were made to the Navy Yard as such. Greenberg thereafter presented a series of false invoices to the ration board purporting to show sales to petitioner for delivery to the Navy Yard. Petitioner’s letter was never shown to the board. On the basis of these invoices Greenberg received replacement certificates for 21 million pounds of sugar, 10 million of which he sold to petitioner in the form of vanilla syrup, and which was by petitioner sold to non-exempt consumers, mostly the National Biscuit Company. Petitioner at first made payments to Greenberg by check but thereafter gave checks to his trucker which the latter cashed, deducted his trucking fee, and paid Greenberg.
The jury returned a verdict of not guilty as to petitioner. Thereafter a trial was had on the other indictment which charged petitioner and Greenberg with uttering and publishing as true the false invoices introduced in the conspiracy trial. Greenberg pleaded guilty and the trial proceeded against petitioner on the theory that he aided and abetted Greenberg in the commission of the substantive offense. The false invoices, the letter from petitioner to Greenberg, and essentially the same testimony were again introduced against petitioner. In addition, it was brought out on cross-examination that petitioner had unsuccessfully sought replacement certificates from his ration board for sugar contained in syrups sold at the Navy Yard and defense plants. Greenberg gave testimony from which the jury could conclude that petitioner was a moving factor in the scheme to defraud which was constructed around petitioner’s letter and that he was familiar with Greenberg’s intention to submit false invoices. Greenberg further testified that petitioner received $500,000 in cash under the agreement as a rebate of two cents a pound on all replacement sugar which Greenberg received on Navy Yard invoices whether or not it was used in syrup sold to petitioner. This time the jury returned a verdict of guilty and petitioner was sentenced to five years’ imprisonment and fined $12,000.
Petitioner moved to quash the second indictment on grounds of double jeopardy (abandoned in this Court) and res judicata, and also objected to the introduction of the evidence adduced at the first trial. The district judge ruled against petitioner, and the court below affirmed. 161 F. 2d 481. We granted the petition for a writ of certiorari because of the importance of the question to the administration of the criminal law.
It has long been recognized that the commission of the substantive offense and a conspiracy to commit it are separate and distinct offenses. Pinkerton v. United States, 328 U. S. 640, 643. Thus, with some exceptions, one may be prosecuted for both crimes. Ibid. But res judicata may be a defense in a second prosecution. That doctrine applies to criminal as well as civil proceedings (United States v. Oppenheimer, 242 U. S. 85, 87; United States v. De Angelo, 138 F. 2d 466, 468: 147 A. L. R. 991; see Frank v. Mangum, 237 U. S. 309, 334) and operates to conclude those matters in issue which the verdict determined though the offenses be different. See United States v. Adams, 281 U. S. 202, 205.
Thus the only question in this case is whether the jury’s verdict in the conspiracy trial was a determination favorable to petitioner of the facts essential to conviction of the substantive offense. This depends upon the facts adduced at each trial and the instructions under which the jury arrived at its verdict at the first trial.
Respondent argues that the basis of the jury’s verdict cannot be known with certainty, that the conspiracy trial was predicated on the theory that petitioner was a party to an over-all conspiracy ultimately involving petitioner, Greenberg, and the Baron Corporation. Thus it is said that the verdict established with certainty only that petitioner was not a member of such conspiracy, and that therefore the prosecution was not foreclosed from showing in the second trial that petitioner wrote the letter pursuant to an agreement with Greenberg to defraud the United States. The theory is that under the instructions given the jury might have found that petitioner conspired with Greenberg and yet refused to infer that he was a party to the over-all conspiracy.
The instructions under which the verdict was rendered, however, must be set in a practical frame and viewed with an eye to all the circumstances of the proceedings. We look to them only for such light as they shed on the issues determined by the verdict. Cf. De Bollar v. Hanscome, 158 U. S. 216, 222. Petitioner was the only one on trial under the conspiracy indictment. There was no evidence to connect him directly with anyone other than Greenberg. Only if an agreement with at least Green-berg was inferred by the jury could petitioner be convicted. And in the only instruction keyed to the particular facts of the case the jury was told that petitioner must be acquitted if there was reasonable doubt that he conspired with Greenberg. Nowhere was the jury told that to return a verdict of guilty it must be found that petitioner was a party to a conspiracy involving not only Greenberg but the Baron Corporation as well. Viewed in this setting, the verdict is a determination that petitioner, who concededly wrote and sent the letter, did not do so pursuant to an agreement with Greenberg to defraud.
So interpreted, the earlier verdict precludes a later conviction of the substantive offense. The basic facts in each trial were identical. As we read the records of the two trials, petitioner could be convicted of either offense only on proof that he wrote the letter pursuant to an agreement with Greenberg. Under the evidence introduced, petitioner could have aided and abetted Green-berg in no other way. Indeed, respondent does not urge that he could. Thus the core of the prosecutor’s case was in each case the same: the letter, and the circumstances surrounding it and to be inferred from it, and the false invoices. There was, of course, additional evidence on the second trial adding detail to the circumstances leading up to the alleged agreement, petitioner’s participation therein, and what he may have got out of it. But at most this evidence only made it more likely that petitioner had entered into the corrupt agreement. It was a second attempt to prove the agreement which at each trial was crucial to the prosecution’s case and which was necessarily adjudicated in the former trial to be non-existent. That the prosecution may not do.
Reversed.
See § 28 Criminal Code, 18 U. S. C. § 72.
See § 332 Criminal Code, 18 U. S. C. § 550.
The conspiracy indictment also named Leo and Murray Green-berg, Fresh Grown Preserves Corporation in which the Greenbergs were officers (all of whom we refer to simply as Greenberg), the S. J. Baron Corporation, the Royal Crown Bottling Co. of Baltimore, Inc., Royal Crown Bottling Co. of Washington, Inc., and William C. Franklin, president of the Royal Crown companies. Greenberg pleaded guilty, Baron Corporation pleaded nolo contendere, and verdicts were directed for Royal Crown and Franklin. It was charged that the Baron Corporation participated in the conspiracy by writing a letter similar to that written by petitioner, discussed hereafter.
See note 3, supra.
That was the view of the judge who tried both cases. At the second trial he characterized as follows the charge and the verdict at the first: “. . . what was tried on the 11th of December was a charge of conspiracy and what the jury by its verdict determined was that Sealfon had not entered into common agreement with the Green-bergs and the Fresh Grown Company to violate the law.”
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer:
|
A
|
sc_issuearea
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What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Mr. Justice White
delivered the opinion of the Court.
The principal question in this case is whether prices for in-plant cafeteria and vending machine food and beverages are “terms and conditions of employment” subject to mandatory collective bargaining under §§ 8 (a)(5) and 8 (d) of the National Labor Relations Act. 49 Stat. 452, as amended, 29 U. S. C. §§ 158 (a)(5) and 158 (d).
I
Petitioner, Ford Motor Co., operates an automotive parts stamping plant in Chicago Heights, Ill., employing 3,600 hourly rated production employees. These employees are represented in collective bargaining with Ford by the International Union, United Automobile, Aerospace and Agricultural Implement Workers of America, and by its administrative component, Local 588, a respondent here.
For many years, Ford has undertaken to provide in-plant food services to its Chicago Heights employees. These services, which include both cafeterias and vending machines, are managed by an independent caterer, ARA Services, Inc. Under its contract with Ford, ARA furnishes the food, management, machines, and personnel in exchange for reimbursement of all direct costs and a 9% surcharge on net receipts. Ford has the right to review and approve the quality, quantity, and price of the food served.
Over the years, Ford and the Union have negotiated about food services. The National Labor Relations Board (Board) found:
“Since 1967, the local contract has included provisions dealing with vending and cafeteria services. The contracts have covered the staffing of service lines, adequate cafeteria supervision, restocking and repairing vending machines, and menu variety. The 1974 local agreement also states, 'the Company recognized its continuing responsibility for the satisfactory performance of the caterer and for the expeditious handling of complaints concerned with such performance.’ ” Ford Motor Co. (Chicago Stamping Plant), 230 N. L. R. B. 716 (1977), enf’d, 571 F. 2d 993 (CA7 1978).
Ford, however, has always refused to bargain about the prices of food and beverages served in its in-plant facilities.
On February 6, 1976, Ford notified the Union that cafeteria and vending machine prices would be increased shortly by unspecified amounts. The Union requested bargaining over both price and services and also asked for information relevant to Ford’s involvement in food services in order to assist bargaining. These requests were refused by Ford, which took the position that food prices and services are not terms or conditions of employment subject to mandatory bargaining.
The Union then filed an unfair labor practice charge with the Board, alleging a refusal to bargain contrary to § 8 (a) (5). The Board sustained the charge, ordering Ford to bargain on both food prices and services and to supply the Union with the relevant information requested. Ford Motor Co. (Chicago Stamping Plant), supra. In doing so, the Board reaffirmed its position, expressed in several prior cases, that prices of in-plant-supplied food and beverages are generally mandatory bargaining subjects, a position that had not been accepted by reviewing courts. The Board also noted that the circumstances of this case made it a particularly strong one for invoking the duty to bargain.
The case came before the Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit on Ford’s petition for review and the Board’s cross-petition for enforcement. That court, while adhering to its prior decision in NLRB v. Ladish Co., 538 F. 2d 1267 (1976), which had refused enforcement of a Board order to bargain about in-plant food prices, enforced the Board’s order here because, “under the facts and circumstances of this case, in-plant cafeteria and vending machine food prices and services materially and significantly affect and have an impact upon terms and conditions of employment and therefore are mandatory subjects of bargaining.” 571 F. 2d, at 1000. The court was particularly influenced by the lack of reasonable eating alternatives for employees, declaring that “[t]he food one must pay for and eat as a captive customer within the employer’s plant can be viewed as a physical dimension of one’s working environment.” Ibid.
Because of the importance of the issue and the apparent conflict between the decision below and decisions of other Circuits, see n. 6, supra, we granted certiorari. 439 U. S. 891 (1978). We affirm the judgment of the Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit enforcing the Board’s order to bargain.
II
The Board has consistently held that in-plant food prices are among those terms and conditions of employment defined in § 8 (d) and about which the employer and union must bargain under §§8(a)(5) and 8(b)(3). See n. 6, supra. Because it is evident that Congress assigned to the Board the primary task of construing these provisions in the course of adjudicating charges of unfair refusals to bargain and because the “classification of bargaining subjects as ‘terms or conditions of employment’ is a matter concerning which the Board has special expertise,” Meat Cutters v. Jewel Tea Co., 381 U. S. 676, 685-686 (1965), its judgment as to what is a mandatory bargaining subject is entitled to considerable deference.
Section 8 (a) (5) of the National Labor Relations Act, as originally enacted, declared it an unfair practice for the employer to refuse to bargain collectively. Act of July 5, 1935, 49 Stat. 453. Although the Act did not purport to define the subjects of collective bargaining, § 9 (a) made the union selected by a majority in a bargaining unit the exclusive representative of the employees for bargaining about “rates of pay, wages, hours of employment, or other conditions of employment.” Under these provisions, the Board was left with the task of identifying on a case-by-case basis those “other conditions of employment” over which management was required to bargain.
In 1947, the Taft-Hartley Act amended the National Labor Relations Act to obligate unions as well as management to bargain; and § 8 (d) explicitly defined the duty of both sides to bargain as the obligation to “meet at reasonable times and confer in good faith with respect to wages, hours, and other terms and conditions of employment. .. .” 61 Stat. 142, now codified at 29 U. S. C. § 158 (d). The original House bill had contained a specific listing of the issues subject to mandatory bargaining, H. R. 3020, 80th Cong., 1st Sess., § 2 (11) (1947); H. R. Rep. No. 245, 80th Cong., 1st Sess., 22-23, 49 (1947), but this attempt to “strait-jacke[t]” and to “limit narrowly the subject matters appropriate for collective bargaining,” id., at 71 (minority report); see also 93 Cong. Rec. 3446-3447 (1947) (remarks of Rep. Klein), was rejected in conference in favor of the more general language adopted by the Senate and now appearing in § 8 (d). S. 1126, 80th Cong., 1st Sess., § 8 (d) (1947); see 93 Cong. Rec. 6444 (1947) (summary report of Sen. Taft); cf. H. R. Conf. Rep. No. 510, 80th Cong., 1st Sess., 8, 34 (1947). It is thus evident that Congress made a conscious decision to continue its delegation to the Board of the primary responsibility of marking out the scope of the statutory language and of the statutory duty to bargain. This case, therefore, is one of those situations in which we should “recognize without hesitation the primary function and responsibility of the Board . . . ,” NLRB v. Insurance Agents, 361 U. S. 477, 499 (1960), which is that “of applying the general provisions of the Act to the complexities of industrial life ... and of ‘[appraising] carefully the interests of both sides of any labor-management controversy in the diverse circumstances of particular cases’ from its special understanding of ‘the actualities of industrial relations.’ ” NLRB v. Erie Resistor Corp., 373 U. S. 221, 236 (1963), quoting NLRB v. Steelworkers, 357 U. S. 357, 362-363 (1958).
Of course, the judgment of the Board is subject to judicial review; but if its construction of the statute is reasonably defensible, it should not be rejected merely because the courts might prefer another view of the statute. NLRB v. Iron Workers, 434 U. S. 335, 350 (1978). In the past we have refused enforcement of Board orders where they had “no reasonable basis in law,” either because the proper legal standard was not applied or because the Board applied the correct standard but failed to give the plain language of the standard its ordinary meaning. Chemical & Alkali Workers v. Pittsburgh Plate Glass Co., 404 U. S. 157, 166 (1971). We have also parted company with the Board’s interpretation where it was “fundamentally inconsistent with the structure of the Act” and an attempt to usurp “major policy decisions properly made by Congress.” American Ship Building Co. v. NLRB, 380 U. S. 300, 318 (1965). Similarly, in NLRB v. Insurance Agents, supra, at 499, we could not accept the Board’s application of the Act where we were convinced that the Board was moving “into a new area of regulation which Congress had not committed to it.”
The Board is vulnerable on none of these grounds in this case. Construing and applying the duty to bargain and the language of § 8 (d), “other terms and conditions of employment,” are tasks lying at the heart of the Board’s function. With all due respect to the Courts of Appeals that have held otherwise, we conclude that the Board’s consistent view that in-plant food prices and services are mandatory bargaining subjects is not an unreasonable or unprincipled construction of the statute and that it should be accepted and enforced.
It is not suggested by petitioner that an employee should work a full 8-hour shift without stopping to eat. It reasonably follows that the availability of food during working hours and the conditions under which it is to be consumed are matters of deep concern to workers, and one need not strain to consider them to be among those “conditions” of employment that should be subject to the mutual duty to bargain. By the same token, where the employer has chosen, apparently in his own interest, to make available a system of in-plant feeding facilities for his employees, the prices at which food is offered and other aspects of this service may reasonably be considered among those subjects about which management and union must bargain. The terms and conditions under which food is available on the job are plainly germane to the “working environment,” Fibreboard Paper Products Corp. v. NLRB, 379 U. S. 203, 222 (1964) (Stewart, J., concurring). Furthermore, the company is not in the business of selling food to its employees, and the establishment of in-plant food prices is not among those “managerial decisions, which lie at the core of entrepreneurial control.” Id., at 223 (Stewart, J., concurring). The Board is in no sense attempting to permit the Union to usurp managerial decisionmaking; nor is it seeking to regulate an area from which Congress intended to exclude it.
Including within § 8 (d) the prices of in-plant-supplied food and beverages would also serve the ends of the National Labor Relations Act. “The object of this Act was not to allow governmental regulation of the terms and conditions of employment, but rather to insure that employers and their employees could work together to establish mutually satisfactory conditions. The basic theme of the Act was that through collective bargaining the passions, arguments, and struggles of prior years would be channeled into constructive, open discussions leading, it was hoped, to mutual agreement.” H. K. Porter Co. v. NLRB, 397 U. S. 99, 103 (1970). As illustrated by the facts of this case, substantial disputes can arise over the pricing of in-plant-supplied food and beverages. National labor policy contemplates that areas of common dispute between employers and employees be funneled into collective bargaining. The assumption is that this is preferable to allowing recurring disputes to fester outside the negotiation process until strikes or other forms of economic warfare occur.
The trend of industrial practice supports this conclusion. In response to increasing employee concern over the issue, many contracts are now being negotiated that contain provisions concerning in-plant food services. In this case, as already noted, local agreements between Ford and the Union have contained detailed provisions about nonprice aspects of in-plant food services for several years. Although not conclusive, current industrial practice is highly relevant in construing the phrase "terms and conditions of employment.”
III
Ford nevertheless argues against classifying food prices and services as mandatory bargaining subjects because they do not “vitally affect” the terms and conditions of employment within the meaning of the standard assertedly established by Chemical & Alkali Workers v. Pittsburgh Plate Glass Co., 404 U. S., at 176, and because they are trivial matters over which neither party should be required to bargain.
There is no merit to either of these aguments. First, Ford has misconstrued Pittsburgh Plate Glass. That case made it clear that while § 8 (d) normally reaches “only issues that settle an aspect of the relationship between the employer and employees[,] matters involving individuals outside the employment relationship ... are not wholly excluded.” 404 U. S., at 178. In such instances, as in Teamsters v. Oliver, 358 U. S. 283 (1959), and Fibreboard Paper Products Corp. v. NLRB, 379 U. S. 203 (1964), the test is not whether the “third-party concern is antagonistic to or compatible with the interests of bargaining-unit employees, but whether it vitally affects the ‘terms and conditions’ of their employment.” 404 U. S., at 179. Here, however, the matter of in-plant food prices and services is an aspect of the relationship between Ford and its own employees. No third-party interest is directly implicated, and the standard of Pittsburgh Plate Glass has no application.
As for the argument that in-plant food prices and service are too trivial to qualify as mandatory subjects, the Board has a contrary view, and we have no basis for rejecting it. It is also clear that the bargaining-unit employees in this case considered the matter far from trivial since they pressed an unsuccessful boycott to secure a voice in setting food prices. They evidently felt, and common sense also tells us, that even minor increases in the cost of meals can amount to a substantial sum of money over time. In any event, we accept the Board’s view that in-plant food prices and service are conditions of employment and are subject to the duty to bargain.
Ford also argues that the Board’s position will result in unnecessary disruption because any small change in price or service will trigger the obligation to bargain. The problem, it is said, will be particularly acute in situations where several unions are involved, possibly requiring endless rounds of negotiations over issues as minor as the price of a cup of coffee or a soft drink.
These concerns have been thought exaggerated by the Board. Its position in this case, as in all past cases involving the same issue, is that it is sufficient compliance with the statutory mandate if management honors a specific union request for bargaining about changes that have been made or are to be made. Ford Motor Co. (Chicago Stamping Plant), 230 N. L. R. B., at 718; Westinghouse Electric Corp., 156 N. L. R. B. 1080, 1081, enf'd, 369 F. 2d 891 (CA4 1966), rev’d en banc, 387 F. 2d 542 (1967). The Board apparently assumes that, as a practical matter, requests to bargain will not be lightly made. Moreover, problems created by constantly shifting food prices can be anticipated and provided for in the collective-bargaining agreement. Furthermore, if it is true that disputes over food prices are likely to be frequent and intense, it follows that more, not less, collective bargaining is the remedy. This is the assumption of national labor policy, and it is soundly supported by both reason and experience.
Finally, Ford asserts that to require it to engage in bargaining over in-plant food service prices would be futile because those prices are set by a third-party supplier, ARA. It is true that ARA sets vending machine and cafeteria prices, but under Ford’s contract with ARA, Ford retains the right to review and control food services and prices. In any event, an employer can always affect prices by initiating or altering a subsidy to the third-party supplier such as that provided by Ford in this case, and will typically have the right to change suppliers at some point in the future. To this extent the employer holds future, if not present, leverage over in-plant food services and prices.
We affirm, therefore, the Court of Appeals’ judgment upholding the Board’s determination in this case that in-plant food services and prices are “terms and conditions of employment” subject to mandatory bargaining under §§ 8 (a) (5) and 8 (d) of the National Labor Relations Act.
So ordered.
The National Labor Relation Board’s order at issue here directed petitioner to bargain with respondent Union “with respect to food services and changes in food prices in [petitioner’s in-plant] vending machines and cafeteria. . . .” Ford Motor Co. (Chicago Stamping Plant), 230 N. L. R. B. 716, 719 (1977), enf’d, 571 F. 2d 993 (CA7 1978). The duty to bargain over nonprice aspects of in-plant food services is thus also at issue here. The Board’s order also obligated petitioner to supply respondent Union with the information necessary for bargaining. 230 N. L. R. B., at 719. It seems agreed that if food prices and service are mandatory bargaining subjects, the order to furnish information should stand. See Detroit Edison Co. v. NLRB, 440 U. S. 301, 303 (1979).
The relevant provisions of the National Labor Relations Act are as follows:
“Sec. 8. (a) It shall be an unfair labor practice for an employer—
“(5) to refuse to bargain collectively with the representatives of his employees, subject to the provisions of section 9 (a).
“(d) For the purposes of this section, to- bargain collectively is the performance of the mutual obligation of the employer and the representative of the employees to meet at reasonable times and confer in good faith with respect to wages, hours, and other terms and conditions of employment, or the negotiation of an agreement, or any question arising thereunder, and the execution of a written contract incorporating any agreement reached if requested by either party, but such obligation does not compel either party to agree to a proposal or require the making of a concession ....
“Sec. 9. (a) Representatives designated or selected for the purposes of collective bargaining by the majority of the employees in a unit appropriate for such purposes, shall be the exclusive representatives of all the employees in such unit for the purposes of collective bargaining in respect to rates of pay, wages, hours of employment, or other conditions of employment. . ..” As amended, 61 Stat. 140,142,143.
As originally enacted, the Wagner Act did not define the subjects of §8 (a)(5)’s obligation to bargain, although §9 (a), which was contained in the Wagner Act, made reference to “rates of pay, wages, hours of employment, or other conditions of employment.” Section 8 (d) was added by the Taft-Hartley amendments to the Act in 1947, and expressly defined the scope of the duty to bargain as including “wages, hours, and other terms and conditions of employment.” The relevant details of this development are discussed infra, at 495-496.
It is difficult for employees to eat away from the plant during their shifts. The lunch period is 30 minutes, and the few restaurants in the vicinity are all over a mile away, in an area heavily saturated with industrial plants employing thousands of workers. As a result, very few of the 3,600 workers leave the plant during the lunch period. Two 22-minute rest breaks are also provided during the shifts, but employees are not permitted to leave the plant then.
Some workers bring food to work. No refrigerated storage facilities are provided, however, and spoilage and vermin are a problem, particularly in the summer.
If receipts exceed ARA's cost plus the 9% surcharge, Ford is entitled to the excess. If revenues do not meet the costs of the operation plus the surcharge, the company is obligated to pay ARA up to $52,000 a year. In recent years, deficits have occurred often. In meeting the deficits, Ford has thereby subsidized employee meals and indirectly influenced the price of the food sold.
The Union also began a boycott of food services in which more than half of the employees participated. The boycott ended slightly more than three months later without any reductions in prices.
Westinghouse Electric Corp., 156 N. L. R. B. 1080, 1081, enf d, 369 F. 2d 891 (CA4 1966), rev’d en banc, 387 F. 2d 542 (1967); McCall Corp., 172 N. L. R. B. 540 (1968), enf. denied, 432 F. 2d 187 (CA4 1970); Package Machinery Co., 191 N. L. R. B. 268 (1971), enf. denied, 457 F. 2d 936 (CA1 1972); Ladish Co., 219 N. L. R. B. 354 (1975), enf. denied, 538 F. 2d 1267 (CA7 1976).
See Ford Motor Co. (Chicago Stamping Plant), 230 N. L. R. B., at 717-718, n. 11:
“We note that the instant case, on its facts, is in many respects a stronger case than Ladish for adhering to our position. Unlike Ladish, where the respondent had no input on prices, the Respondent in this case retains influence over cafeteria and vending machine prices by its right to review prices and its leverage of the subsidy agreement. In addition, there also exists the possibility for the Respondent to make a profit on the food service operation. Also, since 1967, the parties in this case have bargained over in-plant food services. No such bargaining history was present in Ladish. Moreover, in Ladish, the court implied that ‘brown-bagging’ is a viable alternative to purchasing lunch from the commercial food service. However, in this case, employees have complained about spoilage of food stored in their lockers until lunch, as well as unsanitary conditions in the locker room (wherein the Respondent has found it necessary on occasion to exterminate). Additionally, the employees have apparently been so concerned with the food pricing that over half of them participated in a boycott of the Respondent’s food service operations. There was no such labor strife involved in Ladish. Lastly, in Ladish the employees were represented by seven unions. The court therein projected that each time the food prices were raised 'the Company could be compelled to engage in seven rounds of negotiations.’ 538 F. 2d at 1272. This fact, the court declared, ‘provides a good example of a situation in which bargaining could be both disruptive of stable relations and economically wasteful.’ Id. In the instant case, however, the employees are represented by a single union. While we adhere to the view that the number of unions representing employees at a single plant is not a factor in resolving this issue, we nevertheless note that, even in the court’s view, there is no potential for conflicting union demands in this case.”
The Report declared:
“The appropriate scope of collective bargaining cannot be determined by a formula; it will inevitably depend upon the traditions of an industry, the social and political climate at any given time, the needs of employers and employees, and many related factors. What are proper subject matters for collective bargaining should be left in the first instance to employers and trade unions, and in the second place, to any administrative agency skilled in the field and competent to devote the necessary time to a study of industrial practices and traditions in each industry or area of the country, subject to review by the courts. It cannot and should not be straitjacketed by legislative enactment.” H. R. Rep. No. 245, 80th Cong., 1st Sess., 71 (1947) (minority report).
See also Chemical & Alkali Workers v. Pittsburgh Plate Glass Co., 404 U. S. 157, 178 (1971) (“Section 8 (d) of the Act, of course, does not immutably fix a list of subjects for mandatory bargaining”); East Bay Union of Machinists v. NLRB, 116 U. S. App. D. C. 198, 201, 322 F. 2d 411, 414 (1963) (Burger, J.) (“The use of this language was a reflection of the congressional awareness that the act covered a wide variety of industrial and commercial activity and a recognition that collective bargaining must be kept flexible without precise delineation of what subjects were covered so that the Act could be administered to meet changing conditions”), aff’d sub nom. Fibreboard Paper Products Corp. v. NLRB, 379 U. S. 203 (1964).
We should not be understood as holding that whether in-plant food services are to be provided where such services do not already exist is a mandatory bargaining subject. That issue is not involved here.
See, e. g., 2 Bureau of National Affairs, Collective Bargaining (Negotiation and Contracts) 95:421-95:424 (1976). See also the following arbitration decisions construing collective-bargaining agreements to cover the cost of employer-supplied food as a condition of employment: Universal Form Clamp Co., 68 Lab. Arb. 1223 (Miller, 1977) (cost of coffee); Hilton Hotels Corp., 42 Lab. Arb. 1267, 1270-1272 (Hanlon, 1964) (cost and type of meals); Greater Los Angeles Zoo Assn., 60 Lab. Arb. 838 (Christopher, 1973) (employer may not discontinue practice of providing free meals to zoo food venders when contract provided that there would be no reduction of employee benefits); Alpena General Hospital, 50 Lab. Arb. 48 (Jones, 1967), and Lutheran Medical Center, 44 Lab. Arb. 107 (Wolf, 1964) (free meals are working condition).
A survey conducted by the Bureau of National Affairs’ Personnel Policies Forum found that 54% of the responding companies provided food services for employees using a lunchroom with vending machines; 43% of the companies provided cafeterias; and 15% provided vending machines with snackbar service. BNA, Labor Policy and Practice Series (Personnel Management) 245:201-245:204 (1976). The National Industrial Conference Board in 1964 reported that 47% of the manufacturing companies that responded to a survey provided cafeteria services, and 55% of the companies subsidized the operation. Only 8% of the companies reported that they were trying to operate the cafeterias at a profit. NICB, Personnel Practices in Factory and Office: Manufacturing, Personnel Policy Study No. 194, pp. 76-77 (1964). Cf. Fisher, Operating Your Firm’s Dining Area — Profitably, Administrative Management, Oct. 1966, pp. 66-67; Scheer, The Company Cafeteria, 45 Personnel J. 85-86 (1966); Feeding the Big Captive Customers, Business Week, Oct. 27, 1975, pp. 46-54.
Although the decision below by the Seventh Circuit was the first to uphold the Board's order to bargain about the prices of in-plant-supplied food services, other aspects of food services have been found to be covered by §8(d). These include improvement in lunchroom equipment and supplies, Preston Products Co., 158 N. L. R. B. 322 (1966), aff’d in relevant part, 129 U. S. App. D. C. 196, 392 F. 2d 801 (1967), cert. denied, 392 U. S. 906 (1968); coffeebreak scheduling and service of free coffee, Missourian Pub. Co., 216 N. L. R. B. 175, 180 (1975); D & C Textile Corp., 189 N. L. R. B. 769, 771, 783 (1971); Fleming Mfg. Co., 119 N. L. R. B. 452, 455 (1957); free meal policy, O’Land, Inc., d/b/a Ramada Inn South, 206 N. L. R. B. 210, 214-215 (1973); cancellation of catering truck service, Bralco Metals, Inc., 214 N. L. R. B. 143, 146-150 (1974); meal areas, Hasty Print, Inc., d/b/a Walker Color Graphics, 227 N. L. R. B. 455, 461 (1976); and cleanup of lunchroom areas by employees, Cosmo Graphics, Inc., 217 N. L. R. B. 1061, 1066 (1975).
And, where no in-plant facilities exist, employers are still obligated to bargain about meal hours and coffee breaks. See, e. g., Fibreboard Paper Products Corp. v. NLRB, 379 U. S., at 222 (Stewart, J., concurring) ; Meat Cutters v. Jewel Tea Co., 381 U. S. 676, 691 (1965).
“While not determinative, it is appropriate to look to industrial bargaining practices in appraising the propriety of including a particular subject within the scope of mandatory bargaining. Labor Board v. American Nat. Ins. Co., 343 U. S. 395, 408. Industrial experience is not only reflective of the interests of labor and management in the subject matter but is also indicative of the amenability of such subjects to the collective bargaining process.” Fibreboard Paper Products Corp. v. NLRB, supra, at 211.
This factor is essentially irrelevant to the determination in this case. The definition of a mandatory collective-bargaining subject does not depend on the number of unions within the bargaining unit. Westinghouse Electric Corp., 156 N. L. R. B., at 1089; McCall Corp., 172 N. L. R. B., at 547.
See, e. g., Fibreboard Paper Products Corp. v. NLRB, supra, at 211 (“The Act was framed with an awareness that refusals to confer and negotiate had been one of the most prolific causes of industrial strife”) ; Westinghouse Electric Corp. v. NLRB, 369 F. 2d, at 895 (“The underlying philosophy of the Labor Act is that discussion of issues between labor and management serves as a valuable prophylactic by removing grievances, real or fancied, and tends to improve and stabilize labor relations”); see also Cox, The Duty to Bargain in Good Faith, 71 Harv. L. Rev. 1401, 1412 (1958): “Participation in debate often produces changes in a seemingly fixed position either because new facts are brought to light or because the strengths and weaknesses of the several arguments become apparent. Sometimes the parties hit upon some novel compromise of an issue which has been thrashed over and over. Much is gained even by giving each side a better picture of the strength of the other’s convictions. The cost is so slight that the potential gains easily justify legal compulsion to engage in the discussion.”
In-plant food services provided by third parties are not unlike other kinds of benefits, such as health insurance, implicating outside suppliers. In each case, the employer contracts with a third party to provide a benefit to employees and, during the term of the contract, is unable to change the price at which that benefit is available to the employee except by employee subsidies.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer:
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G
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sc_issuearea
|
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 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.
Montana’s venue rules permit a plaintiff to sue a corporation incorporated in that State only in the county of its principal place of business, but permit suit in any county against a corporation incorporated elsewhere. This case presents the question whether the distinction in treatment offends the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, U. S. Const., Arndt. 14, § 1. We hold that it does not.
Respondents William D. Ford and Thomas L. Johnson were employed by petitioner Burlington Northern Railroad Company, a corporation owing its existence to the laws of Delaware and having a principal place of business in Fort Worth, Texas. Ford and Johnson raised a claim under the Federal Employers’ Liability Act (FELA), 35 Stat. 65, as amended, 45 U. S. C. §§51-60, and brought suit in the state trial court for Yellowstone County, Montana, alleging injuries sustained while working at Burlington’s premises in Sheridan, Wyoming. In each case, Burlington moved to change venue to Hill County, Montana, where it claimed to have its principal place of business in that State. The trial court denied each motion, and Burlington brought interlocutory appeals.
The Supreme Court of Montana consolidated the two cases and affirmed the decisions of the trial court. 250 Mont. 188, 819 P. 2d 169 (1991). Under the Montana venue rules, the court said, a foreign corporation may be sued in any of Montana’s counties. Id., at 190, 819 P. 2d, at 171. The court rejected Burlington’s argument that the State’s venue rules worked a discrimination violating the Fourteenth Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause. The Montana venue rules, the court explained, were subject merely to rational-basis review, id., at 193, 819 P. 2d, at 173, which was satisfied, at least in these cases, by the consonance of the rules with federal policy, embodied in FELA, of facilitating recovery by injured railroad workers, id., at 194-195, 819 P. 2d, at 173-174. Besides, the court said, Montana’s venue rules did not even discriminate against Burlington, since Ford and Johnson could have sued the corporation in the Federal District Court for Montana, which sits in Yellowstone County, among other places. Id., at 197, 819 P. 2d, at 175. We granted cer-tiorari, 502 U. S. 1070 (1992), and, although our reasoning differs from that of the State Supreme Court, now affirm.
A Montana statute provides that “the proper place of trial for all civil actions is the county in which the defendants or any of them may reside at the commencement of the action.” Mont. Code Ann. §25-2-118(1) (1991). But, “if none of the defendants reside in the state, the proper place of trial is any county the plaintiff designates in the complaint.” §25-2-118(2). The Supreme Court of Montana has long held that a corporation does not “reside in the state” for venue purposes unless Montana is its State of incorporation, see, e. g., Haug v. Burlington Northern R. Co., 236 Mont. 368, 371, 770 P. 2d 517, 519 (1989); Foley v. General Motors Corp., 159 Mont. 469, 472-473, 499 P. 2d 774, 776 (1972); Hanlon v. Great Northern R. Co., 83 Mont. 15, 21, 268 P. 547, 549 (1928); Pue v. Northern Pacific R. Co., 78 Mont. 40, 43, 252 P. 313, 315 (1926), and that a Montana corporation resides in the Montana county in which it has its principal place of business, see, e. g., Mapston v. Joint School District No. 8, 227 Mont. 521, 523, 740 P. 2d 676, 677 (1987); Platt v. Sears, Roebuck & Co., 222 Mont. 184, 187, 721 P. 2d 336, 338 (1986). In combination, these venue rules, with exceptions not here relevant, permit a plaintiff to sue a domestic company in just the one county where it has its principal place of business, while a plaintiff may sue a foreign corporation in any of the State’s 56 counties. Burlington claims the distinction offends the Equal Protection Clause.
The Fourteenth Amendment forbids a State to “deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.” U. S. Const., Arndt. 14, § 1. Because the Montana venue rules neither deprive Burlington of a fundamental right nor classify along suspect lines like race or religion, they do not deny equal protection to Burlington unless they fail in rationally furthering legitimate state ends. See, e. g., United States v. Sperry Corp., 493 U. S. 52, 64 (1989); Dallas v. Stanglin, 490 U. S. 19, 25 (1989).
Venue rules generally reflect equity or expediency in resolving disparate interests of parties to a lawsuit in the place of trial. See, e. g., Citizens & Southern Nat. Bank v. Bougas, 434 U. S. 35, 44, n. 10 (1977); Denver & R. G. W. R. Co. v. Trainmen, 387 U. S. 556, 560 (1967); Van Dusen v. Barrack, 376 U. S. 612, 623 (1964); F. James & G. Hazard, Civil Procedure 47 (3d ed. 1985). The forum preferable to one party may be undesirable to another, and the adjustment of such warring interests is a valid state concern. Cf. United States Railroad Retirement Bd. v. Fritz, 449 U. S. 166, 178 (1980). In striking the balance between them, a State may have a number of choices, any of which would survive scrutiny, each of them passable under the standard tolerating some play in the joints of governmental machinery. See Bain Peanut Co. of Texas v. Pinson, 282 U. S. 499, 501 (1931). Thus, we have no doubt that a State would act within its constitutional prerogatives if it were to give so much weight to the interests of plaintiffs as to allow them to sue in the counties of their choice under all circumstances. It is equally clear that a State might temper such an “any county” rule to the extent a reasonable assessment of defendants’ interests so justified.
Here, Montana has decided that the any-county rule should give way to a single-county rule where a defendant resides in Montana, arguably on the reasonable ground that a defendant should not be subjected to a plaintiff’s tactical advantage of forcing a trial far from the defendant’s residence. At the same time, Montana has weighed the interest of a defendant who does not reside in Montana differently, arguably on the equally reasonable ground that for most nonresident defendants the inconvenience will be great whether they have to defend in, say, Billings or Havre. See Power Manufacturing Co. v. Saunders, 274 U. S. 490, 498 (1927) (Holmes, J., dissenting). Montana could thus have decided that a nonresident defendant’s interest in convenience is too slight to outweigh the plaintiff’s interest in suing in the forum of his choice.
Burlington does not, indeed, seriously contend that such a decision is constitutionally flawed as applied to individual nonresident defendants. Nor does it argue that such a rule is unconstitutional even when applied to corporate defendants without a fixed place of business in Montana. Burlington does claim, however, that the rule is unconstitutional as applied to a corporate defendant like Burlington that not only has its home office in some other State or country, but also has a place of business in Montana that would qualify as its “principal place of business” if it were a Montana corporation.
Burlington’s claim fails. Montana could reasonably have determined that a corporate defendant’s home office is generally of greater significance to the corporation’s convenience in litigation than its other offices, that foreign corporations are unlikely to have their principal offices in Montana, and that Montana’s domestic corporations will probably keep headquarters within the State. We cannot say, at least not on this record, that any of these assumptions is irrational. Cf. G. D. Searle & Co. v. Cohn, 455 U. S. 404, 410 (1982); Metropolitan Casualty Ins. Co. v. Brownell, 294 U. S. 580, 585 (1935). And upon them Montana may have premised the policy judgment, which we find constitutionally unimpeachable, that only the convenience to a corporate defendant of litigating in the county containing its home office is sufficiently significant to outweigh a plaintiff’s interest in suing in the county of his choice.
Of course Montana’s venue rules would have implemented that policy judgment with greater precision if they had turned on the location of a corporate defendant’s principal place of business, not on its State of incorporation. But this is hardly enough to make the rules fail rational-basis review, for “rational distinctions may be made with substantially less than mathematical exactitude.” New Orleans v. Dukes, 427 U. S. 297, 303 (1976); see Hughes v. Alexandria Scrap Corp., 426 U. S. 794, 814 (1976); Lindsley v. Natural Carbonic Gas Co., 220 U. S. 61, 78 (1911). Montana may reasonably have thought that the location of a corporate defendant’s principal place of business would not be as readily verifiable as its State of incorporation, that a rule hinging on the former would invite wasteful sideshows of venue litigation, and that obviating the sideshows would be worth the loss in precision. These possibilities, of course, put Burlington a far cry away from the point of discharging its burden of showing that the underinclusiveness and overinclusiveness of Montana’s venue rules is so great that the rules can no longer be said rationally to implement Montana’s policy judgment. See, e. g., Brownell, supra, at 584. Besides, Burlington, having headquarters elsewhere, would not benefit even from a scheme based on domicile, and is therefore in no position to complain of Montana’s using State of incorporation as a surrogate for domicile. See Roberts & Schaefer Co. v. Emmerson, 271 U. S. 50, 53-55 (1926); cf. United States v. Raines, 362 U. S. 17, 21 (1960).
Burlington is left with the argument that Power Manufacturing Co. v. Saunders, supra, controls this case. But it does not. In Saunders, we considered Arkansas’ venue rules, which restricted suit against a domestic corporation to those counties where it maintained a place of business, 274 U. S., at 491-492, but exposed foreign corporations to suit in any county, id., at 492. We held that the distinction lacked a rational basis and therefore deprived foreign corporate defendants of the equal protection of the laws. Id., at 494. The statutory provision challenged in Saunders, however, applied only to foreign corporations authorized to do business in Arkansas, ibid., so that most of the corporations subject to its any-county rule probably had a place of business in Arkansas. In contrast, most of the corporations subject to Montana’s any-county rule probably do not have their principal place of business in Montana. Thus, Arkansas’ special rule for foreign corporations was tailored with significantly less precision than Montana’s, and, on the assumption that Saunders is still good law, see American Motorists Ins. Co. v. Starnes, 425 U. S. 637, 645, n. 6 (1976), its holding does not invalidate Montana’s venue rules.
In sum, Montana’s venue rules can be understood as rationally furthering a legitimate state interest. The judgment of the Supreme Court of Montana is accordingly
Affirmed.
The decision below is final for purposes of 28 U. S. C. § 1267(a). See American Motorists Ins. Co. v. Starnes, 426 U. S. 637, 642, n. 3 (1976).
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
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 Rutledge
delivered the opinion of the Court.
The Federal Escape Act requires that a sentence for escape or attempt to escape “shall begin upon the expiration of, or upon legal release from, any sentence under which such person is held at the time of” the escape or attempt. The narrow question is whether the Act requires that a sentence for attempt to escape shall begin upon the expiration of the particular sentence being served when the attempt occurs or at the expiration of the aggregate term of consecutive sentences then in effect, of which the one being served is the first.
The facts are these. Respondent was charged under two indictments in the District Court for the Western District of Arkansas. One contained two counts, the first charging conspiracy to escape, the second attempt to escape. The other indictment was for violation of the National Motor Vehicle Theft Act. 41 Stat. 324, 59 Stat. 536. Respondent pleaded guilty to all three charges. On October 26, 1945, he was sentenced as follows: under the first indictment charging the escape offenses, imprisonment for one year on the second count, and for two years on the first count, the sentences to run consecutively in that order; under the motor vehicle theft indictment, imprisonment for two years, to run consecutively to the other two. Thus the aggregate of the three consecutive sentences was five years.
On November 2, 1945, respondent was serving the one-year term of the first sentence as ordered by the court. On that date he was being transported in custody of a United States marshal from an Arkansas jail to Leavenworth Penitentiary in Kansas. During the journey’s progress through Missouri he attempted to escape. This resulted in another indictment, in the Western District of Missouri, to which also respondent pleaded guilty. The District Court sentenced him to imprisonment for five years, the term “to begin at the expiration of any sentence he is now serving, or to be served which was imposed prior to this date . . . .”
Respondent filed a motion to correct this last sentence. He contended that at the time of the last attempt he was being “held,” within the meaning of the last sentence of the Federal Escape Act, only under the one-year sentence pronounced in the Western District of Arkansas, and that the Act required the five-year sentence under the indictment returned in Missouri to commence at the expiration of that one-year term.
The District Court overruled the motion. It held that under the statute the sentencing court could order that the sentence begin to run after the service of any one or all of respondent’s three prior sentences. 67 F. Supp. 116. The Circuit Court of Appeals, however, reversed the judgment. Relying on the canon of strict construction of criminal statutes, it equated the statutory word “held” to “serving,” and concluded that a sentence for escape or attempt to escape must begin at the expiration of the particular sentence which the prisoner is serving at the time the escape or attempt occurs. Accordingly the court remanded the cause to the District Court with directions to correct the five-year sentence so that it would begin upon expiration of or legal release from the one-year sentence. 160 F. 2d 310. We granted certiorari because of the importance of the question in the administration of the Federal Escape Act.
Although prison breach or other escape by prisoners from custody was a crime under the common law, there was no federal statute proscribing such conduct prior to the enactment of the original Federal Escape Act in 1930, 46 Stat. 327. That Act dealt only with escape or attempted escape while under sentence. It was enacted as part of a program sponsored by the Attorney General for the reorganization and improved administration of the federal penal system. H. R. Rep. No. 106, 71st Cong., 2d Sess. The Act took its present form in 1936, when it was broadened at the Attorney General’s request to cover escape while in custody on a federal charge prior to conviction.
The legislation reflects an unmistakable intention to provide punishment for escape or attempted escape to be superimposed upon the punishment meted out for previous offenses. This appears from the face of the statute itself. It first provides that persons escaping or attempting to escape while in custody, whether before or after conviction, shall be guilty of an offense. Then follow provisions for determining whether the offense shall be a felony or a misdemeanor, with corresponding prescriptions of penalties.
At this point the statute had no need to go further if the intention had been merely to leave to the court’s discretion whether the penalties, within the limits prescribed, should run concurrently or consecutively in accordance with the generally prevailing practice. On that assumption the statute was complete, without addition of the last two sentences. But in that form the Act would have left the court with discretion to make the sentence run concurrently or consecutively with the other sentences previously in effect or put into effect in the case or cases pending when the escape occurred.
Precisely to avoid this more was added, in the explicit provisions that “the sentence imposed hereunder shall be in addition to and independent of any sentence imposed in the case in connection with which such person is held in custody at the time of such escape or attempt to escape. If such person be under sentence at the time of such offense, the sentence imposed hereunder shall begin upon the expiration of, or upon legal release from, any sentence under which such person is held at the time of such escape or attempt to escape.” (Emphasis added.)
These sentences foreclosed, and were intended to foreclose, what the earlier portions of the Act had left open, namely, the court’s power to make the escape sentence run concurrently with the other sentences. Whether the escape was before or after conviction, additional punishment was made mandatory, in the one case by the explicit requirement, “in addition to and independent of” any sentence imposed; in the other by the command that the escape sentence “shall begin upon the expiration of, or upon legal release from, any sentence,” etc. The differing verbal formulations were necessary to meet the different “before” and “after” conviction situations. But the two provisions had one and the same purpose, to require additional punishment for the escape offense. The idea of allowing the escape sentences to run concurrently with the other sentences was completely inconsistent with this common and primary object, as well as with the wording of the two concluding clauses. In many cases such concurrent sentences would nullify the statutory purpose altogether; in others, they would do so partially.
Moreover, imposition of such additional punishment had been the prime object, indeed the only one, of the original Escape Act, which was applicable only to escapes after conviction. It made such escapes or attempts “offenses,” punishable by imprisonment for not more than five' years, “such sentence to begin upon the expiration of or upon legal release from the sentence for which said person was originally confined.” This provision, though differing from the wording of the last sentence of the present Act, had the same prime object. Concurrent sentences were as inconsistent with its terms as with those of the present Act, for in many cases like this one they would have added no further punishment in fact.
Congress, it is true, did not cast the original Act in terms specifically relating to a situation comprehending consecutive sentences existing at the time of the escape or attempt, as more careful drafting of the Act would have required to insure achieving the object of adding independent punishment in all cases. Its concentration upon that main aspect of the legislation apparently led it to reduced emphasis upon and care in the definition of the situations to which the Act would apply.
Nevertheless in view of the Act’s broad purpose, it would be diffcult to conclude that the original phrasing, “the sentence for which said person was originally confined,” was intended to apply only to the sentence, one of several consecutive ones, which the prisoner happened to be serving when the escape or the attempt occurred, or that the Act would be effective only where the prisoner was serving time under a single sentence, which was perhaps the more common of the situations which Congress had in mind. The same basic reasons which require rejection of either of those views of the present Act would apply to the original one.
But, in any event, Congress changed the wording of the “after expiration or release” clause in the original statute when enacting the amended one. “The sentence for which said person was originally confined” became “any sentence under which such person is held at the time of such escape or attempt to escape.” This change is not without significance. For use of the words “any sentence under which such person is held” means something more than the narrowest possible construction of “the sentence for which said person was originally confined,” unless the change is to be taken as meaningless. We think it was intended, as were the other amendments made at the same time, to broaden the Act's coverage , or to assure its broad coverage, and therefore to include situations where the prisoner was being “held" under more than one sentence. Otherwise there would be no reason for or meaning in the change.
We think therefore that the Act contemplates “additional" and “independent" punishment in both the concluding clauses in a practical sense, not merely in the technical sense of concurrent sentences having no effect to confine the prisoner for any additional time. In a very practical sense, a person in custody under several consecutive sentences is being “held” under the combined sentences. And the legislative language is a natural, though not nicely precise, way of stating the purpose that the sentence for escape shall begin upon the expiration of the aggregate of the terms of imprisonment imposed by earlier sentences. Granted that the present problem could have been obviated by even more astute draftsmanship, the statute on its face and taken in its entirety sufficiently expresses the congressional mandate that the sentence for escape is to be superimposed upon all prior sentences.
We are mindful of the maxim that penal statutes are to be strictly construed. And we would not hesitate, present any compelling reason, to apply it and accept the restricted interpretation. But no such reason is to be found here. The canon in favor of strict construction is not an inexorable command to override common sense and evident statutory purpose. It does not require magnified emphasis upon a single ambiguous word in order to give it a meaning contradictory to the fair import of the whole remaining language. As was said in United States v. Gaskin, 320 U. S. 527, 530, the canon “does not require distortion or nullification of the evident meaning and purpose of the legislation.” Nor does it demand that a statute be given the “narrowest meaning”; it is satisfied if the words are given their fair meaning in accord with the manifest intent of the lawmakers. United States v. Raynor, 302 U. S. 540, 552; United States v. Giles, 300 U. S. 41, 48; Gooch v. United States, 297 U. S. 124, 128; United States v. Corbett, 215 U. S. 233, 242.
To accept the decision of the Circuit Court of Appeals would lead to bizarre results. The congressional purpose would be frustrated, in part at least, in every situation where an escape is effected or attempted during the prisoner’s service of any but the last of two or more consecutive sentences, possibly even in that instance. Barring intervention of executive clemency, it would be completely nullified in all cases where the consecutive sentences which the prisoner has not yet begun to serve aggregate five years or more. In the latter situation the prisoner could attempt any number of jail breaks with impunity. A court would be powerless to impose added confinement for violation of the Escape Act.
The holding of the Circuit Court of Appeals thus places it beyond the power of the judge to superimpose additional imprisonment for escape in those instances where such punishment is most glaringly needed as a deterrent. There is also this further striking incongruity. The judge is completely interdicted from imposing an additional sentence for escape or attempt to escape, the one type of offense which Congress unmistakably intended to be subject to separate and added punishment, although he may direct that a sentence for any other federal offense shall begin at the expiration of consecutive sentences theretofore imposed.
No rule of construction necessitates our acceptance of an interpretation resulting in patently absurd consequences. And the absence of any significant legislative history, other than has been related, may be indicative that Congress considered that there was no such problem as is now sought to be injected in the statutory wording or that by the 1935 amendment it had cured the previously existing one. The liberty of the individual must be scrupulously protected. But the safeguards of cherished rights are not to be found in the doctrinaire application of the tenet of strict construction. Neither an ordered system of liberty nor the proper administration of justice would be served by blind nullification of the congressional intent clearly reflected in the Federal Escape Act.
The judgment of the Circuit Court of Appeals is
Reversed.
Mu. Justice Black and Mr. Justice Douglas dissent.
The Act is as follows: “Any person committed to.the custody of the Attorney General or his authorized representative, or who is confined in any penal or correctional institution pursuant to the direction of the Attorney General, or who is in custody by virtue of any process issued under the laws of the United States by any court, judge, or commissioner, or who is in custody of an officer of the United States pursuant to lawful arrest, who escapes or attempts to escape from such custody or institution, shall be guilty of an offense. If the custody or confinement is by virtue of an arrest on a charge of felony, or conviction of any offense whatsoever, the offense of escaping or attempting to escape therefrom shall constitute a felony and any person convicted thereof shall be punished by imprisonment for not more than five years or by a fine of not more than $5,000, or both; and if the custody or confinement is by virtue of an arrest or charge of or for a misdemeanor, and prior to conviction, the offense of escaping or attempting to escape therefrom shall constitute a misdemeanor and any person convicted thereof shall be punished by imprisonment for not more than one year or by a fine of not more than $1,000, or both. The sentence imposed hereunder shall be in addition to and independent of any sentence imposed in the case in connection with which such person is held in custody at the time of such escape or attempt to escape. If such person be under sentence at the time of such offense, the sentence imposed hereunder shall begin upon the expiration of, or upon legal release from, any sentence under which such person is held at the time of such escape or attempt to escape.” 49 Stat. 513, 18 U. S. C. § 753h.
The sentence began to run as of the time respondent was committed to jail to await transportation to the Leavenworth Penitentiary. 47 Stat. 381, 18 U. S. C. § 709a.
Miller, Criminal Law 463-465.
H. R. Rep. No. 803, 74th Cong., 1st Sess.; S. Rep. No. 1021, 74th Cong., 1st Sess.
The Government’s brief aptly summarizes some of the more serious considerations leading to adoption of the original and amended acts, as follows: “Escapes and attempted escapes from penal institutions or from official custody present a most serious problem of penal discipline. They are often violent, menacing, as in the instant case, the lives of guards and custodians, and carry in their wake other crimes attendant upon procuring money, weapons and transportation and upon resisting recapture.”
But see Rutledge v. United States, 146 F. 2d 199.
Depending on whether the term of the sentence for escape, as of the time of its imposition, is shorter or longer than the periods of the other sentences remaining unserved.
The Act was as follows: “Any person properly committed to the custody of the Attorney General or his authorized representative or who is confined in any penal or correctional institution, pursuant to the direction of the Attorney General, who escapes or attempts to escape therefrom shall be guilty of an offense and upon apprehension and conviction of any such offense in any United States court shall be punished by imprisonment for not more than five years, such sentence to begin upon the expiration of or upon legal release from the sentence for which said person was originally confined." 46 Stat. 327.
Either by eliminating the original wording’s ambiguity by rejecting the narrow construction or, if that construction were thought valid, by changing the Act’s terms to insure a different result.
The $5,000 fine that could be imposed for each escape attempt, see note 1 supra, would be no deterrent to an impecunious offender, and little more than an empty threat to the long-incarcerated one whose all-consuming interest is freedom.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
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.
Petitioners contend that an affirmative-action plan adopted by the California Department of Corrections in 1974 is unconstitutional under the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The trial court agreed and entered judgment in petitioners’ favor. The California Court of Appeal reversed, 95 Cal. App. 3d 506, 157 Cal. Rptr. 260, holding that the trial court’s rationale was no longer tenable in light of this Court’s intervening decision in University of California Regents v. Bakke, 438 U. S. 265. The Court of Appeal’s opinion, however, also identified certain problems that “require examination if the case is to be retried.” Thus although we granted certiorari to review the merits of the Court of Appeal’s deci^iqn, 448 U. S. 910, we first must confront the question whether'.the writ should be dismissed because the judgment did not finally determine the legal status of the challenged plan.
I
The 1974 “Affirmative Action Program,” as revised in 1975, is a lengthy and somewhat ambiguous document. Much of the plan relates to the Department’s commitment to the eradication of discrimination on the basis of race and sex. The plan’s first section, which describes the program in general terms, states:
“It is the policy of the Department of Corrections to provide equal employment opportunities for all persons on the basis of merit and fitness and to prohibit discrimination based on race, sex, color, religion, national origin, or ancestry in every aspect of personnel policy and practices in the employment, career development, advancement and treatment of employees.”
This section of the plan then identifies specific means of implementing this general nondiscriminatory policy. The second section of the plan, which establishes guidelines for the implementation of the program within the existing organizational structure and defines the affirmative-action roles of Department employees, also contains a number of provisions suggesting that the plan was intended to remove any barriers to equal employment opportunities. Finally, the third section, which identifies specific objectives of the plan, also refers to departmental efforts to eliminate discrimination in hiring and in employment practices.
The plan does, however, contain some indication that the Department intended to go beyond the eradication of discriminatory practices. The second section states that deputy directors, assistant directors, and division chiefs were to be responsible for developing a plan to "correct identifiable... deficiencies through specific, measurable, attainable hiring and promotional goals with target dates in each area of underutilization.” The plan also refers to “guidelines” issued by the Law Enforcement Assistance Administration of the United States Department of Justice (LEAA) indicating “that an Agency’s percentage of minority personnel should be at least 70% of that minority in its service (inmate population).” Moreover, the plan notes that in “the total labor force in California, 38.1% are female; Department of Corrections’ personnel reflect a total of only 17.3%.” The section of the plan containing objectives indicates a commitment by the Department to “[ijncrease departmental efforts to employ minorities and women to achieve the percentages... per LEAA guidelines within five (5) years,” and to achieve a work force containing 36% minorities and 38% women. The plan does not identify what means, in addition to eradicating discriminatory practices, the Department would employ to achieve these percentages. Thus, the plan may be interpreted as predicting that a nondiscriminatory policy would result in a work force including 36% minority and 38% female employees by 1979; alternatively, it may be read as mandating affirmative action to achieve these percentages by the target date.
•II
In December 1975 the three petitioners commenced this litigation in a California Superior Court. Minnick and Dar-den, the individual petitioners, are white male correctional officers. The third petitioner, the California Correction Officers Association (CCOA), is an employee organization that represents correctional officers and some other employees of the Department. In their complaint petitioners alleged that the affirmative-action plan unlawfully discriminated against white males and that the individual petitioners had been denied promotions because they were white.
The California Department of Corrections and various state officers named as defendants, respondents here, denied in the trial court that they had discriminated in hiring and promotion and claimed that the Department’s central policy was to hire and promote only the most qualified persons. Alternatively, however, the respondents contended that the State’s interest in the efficient and safe operation of the corrections system justifies an attempt to obtain a work force containing a proportion of minority employees amounting to at least 70% of any minority’s proportional representation in the inmate population, and also containing as large a percentage of female employees as are found in the total California work force. During pretrial discovery, respondents also indicated that the impact of their past practices had resulted in a disproportionate hiring and promotion of white males, but stated “for the purposes of this litigation” that they did not allege that the Department had engaged in any past intentional discrimination against minority or female workers.
After a trial at which over 30 witnesses testified, the case was argued at length and submitted to the trial judge for decision on November 23, 1976. At that time the Supreme Court of California had only recently held in Bakke v. University of California Regents, 18 Cal. 3d 34, 553 P. 2d 1152 (1976), that the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution prohibited a state university from giving any consideration to an applicant’s race in making admissions decisions.
On January 5, 1977, the trial judge issued a “notice of intended decision” which tersely summarized the parties’ respective positions:
“The testimony and documentary evidence herein show, and defendants admit, that defendants have carried on a campaign to, and they do now, select applicants for employment and for promotion based on their sex and on their racial background or ancestry.
“Defendants seek to justify their actions on the basis that while the sex of an applicant is one of the factors considered, the applicant must be otherwise qualified for the duties to be performed. Sex or racial background is not the sole factor considered. Plaintiffs on the other hand assert that the hiring or promotion of a person based in whole or in part on sex or racial background or ancestry is unconstitutional and void.
“The Court agrees with plaintiffs.” App. to Pet. for Cert. D-l — D-2.
The notice then directed that an injunction issue enjoining the respondents “from considering as a factor for employment or for the promotion of a candidate his sex, race or national origin.” Id., at D-2. The court directed counsel to prepare an appropriate order and to submit proposed findings of fact and conclusions of law.
Before any further order was entered, respondents filed a motion to reopen the record and to receive detailed evidence of past discriminatory practices. Presumably the proffered evidence would provide support for a defense based on the theory that the plan was justified as a remedy for past discrimination. The evidence was, however, quite plainly irrelevant to the theory of the trial judge’s intended decision which was, of course, wholly consistent with the rationale of the California Supreme Court’s opinion in Bakke, supra. The trial judge summarily denied the motion to reopen.
On October 11, 1977, the trial court entered findings of fact and conclusions of law, a declaratory judgment, and a permanent injunction. Id., at F-l, G-l. The court did not find that either of the individual petitioners had been denied a promotion on the basis of his race or sex. Nor did the court find that the CCOA had standing to bring the action. Two of the findings that the court did enter (No. 8 relating to hiring and promotions and No. 19 relating to job assignments) are especially relevant to the procedural issue before us.
Finding No. 8 provides, in part:
“Defendants Department of Corrections and Jeri J. Enomoto have discriminated and are continuing to discriminate by reason of sex and by reason of ethnic background in hiring and promotion of employees in the Department.
“In so doing, preferences result in favor of certain ethnic groups, or in favor of one sex to the detriment of the other, and not solely on the qualifications of the individuals involved, or their merits.” Id., at F-4.
Finding No. 19 provides:
"The unique and sensitive nature of the functions of the Department of Corrections and the peculiar difficulties inherent in the administration of California’s prison system require the Department to exercise broad discretion in making job assignments and in determining the employment responsibilities of its employees. Because of the conditions and circumstances within California prisons and throughout the Department of Corrections, in making job assignments and in determining employment responsibilities it is necessary for the Department to consider, among other factors, the composition of the existing work force and of the inmate population, and the race and sex of employees, in order to serve the compelling state interest in promoting the safety of correctional officers and inmates, encouraging inmate rehabilitation, minimizing racial tensions, and furthering orderly and efficient prison management.” Id., at F-6 — F-7.
In the conclusions of law and in the permanent injunction, the trial court distinguished hiring and promotion decisions, on the one hand, from job assignments and determination of employment responsibilities, on the other. Finding No. 19 relates only to the latter and provides the basis for the trial court’s conclusion that respondents could lawfully consider race and sex as factors in determining job assignments and job responsibilities. That finding also explains the proviso in the permanent injunction allowing the use of race or sex as a factor in making job assignments. Finding No. 8, however, provides the central support for the permanent injunction against giving any preference, advantage, or benefit on the basis of race or sex in hiring or promoting any employee.
Ill
Respondents appealed to the California Court of Appeal. While their appeal was pending, this Court issued its decision in University of California Regents v. Bakke, 438 U. S. 265. Although we affirmed the judgment of the California Supreme Court to the extent that it had ordered the University to admit Bakke to its medical school, the opinions supporting that decision indicated that at least five Members of the Court rejected the legal theory on which the California Supreme Court had relied. Specifically, both the opinion of Justice Brennan, Justice White, Justice Marshall, and Justice Blackmun and the opinion of Justice Powell unequivocally stated that race may be used as a factor in the admissions process in some circumstances. To the extent that those opinions demonstrated that the California Supreme Court’s Interpretation of the Fourteenth Amendment was erroneous, they also demonstrated that the trial judge’s faithful application of that court’s Bakke rationale in this case was an insufficient basis for supporting the injunction.
With the guidance of this Court’s decision in Bakke, the California Court of Appeal reversed the judgment and the injunction entered by the trial court in this case. Relying largely on Justice Powell’s opinion in Bakke, the Court of Appeal concluded that race or sex could be used as a “plus” factor in personnel decisions that promoted a compelling state interest. The court seemed to indicate that the trial court’s finding No. 19 supported a conclusion that the State’s interest in a safe arid efficient prison system constituted such an interest.
With respect to the challenge to hiring procedures, the Court of Appeal concluded that the evidence was insufficient to support finding No. 8 insofar as that finding related to preferences in favor of males over females or insofar as it related to the hiring of any employees. References to the possibility of a retrial in other portions of the opinion, imply that petitioners will have an opportunity to remedy any deficiencies in their proof of sex discrimination or racial discrimination in hiring.
With respect to the challenge to promotion practices, the Court of Appeal apparently believed that the trial court’s finding of discrimination in finding No. 8 was inconsistent with the trial court’s finding No. 19. Although finding No. 19 clearly applies only to transfers, the court seems to have read that finding to identify a compelling state interest and then to have determined that the evidence adequately justified the use of race as a plus factor for promotions as well as transfers. The court, however, may have merely intended to identify a permissible analysis of the record that will be open to the trial court on remand. If a final and definitive determination of the federal issue was actually intended, it is difficult to understand why the court left open the possibility of retrial and did not unequivocally direct that judgment be entered in favor of respondents.
Recognizing that the evidence of past discrimination that had been proffered by respondents might be relevant in support of a defense that the affirmative-action program was justified as a remedy for past discrimination within the Department of Corrections, the Court of Appeal also left open for the retrial the question whether that evidence should be received. Finally, the Court of Appeal rejected each of petitioners’ contentions that a violation of state law or federal statutory law had been proved, and then concluded by noting that jurisdictional problems concerning petitioners’ standing “require examination if the case is to be retried.”
“Vacancies in specific positions were occasionally left open, and promotions or transfers to them were sometimes delayed, until qualified female or minority employees could be found to fill them. Some of these positions were labelled ‘female only,’ or with words similarly referring to sex (including ‘male only’) or to race or ethnic background. There was no evidence that any specific number or percentage of positions were reserved for members of either sex or of any racial or ethnic group.” Id., at 514 — 515, 157 Cal. Rptr., at 264.
IV
In this Court respondents, as well as the Solicitor General on behalf of the United States as amicus curiae, urge us to dismiss the writ because the judgment of the Court of Appeal is not final. See Gospel Army v. Los Angeles, 331 U. S. 543. The judgment is clearly not final in the sense that no further proceedings can possibly take place in the state judicial system. Petitioners argue, however, that there is finality under our cases because the ultimate judgment on the federal issue is for all practical purposes preordained. This argument is supported by a representation made by petitioners’ counsel at oral argument in this Court that the record already contains all of the evidence that they are prepared to offer. Nevertheless, we are not persuaded that the outcome of further proceedings in the trial court can be characterized as “certain” or that these proceedings will not have a significant effect on the federal constitutional issues presented by the certiorari petition.
In Cox Broadcasting Corp. v. Cohn, 420 U. S. 469, this Court' identified four categories of cases in which a state court’s decision of a federal issue had been treated as a final judgment even though additional proceedings in the state trial court were anticipated. Petitioners contend that this case falls within the first of those categories — that it is a case in which “for one reason or another the federal issue is conclusive or the outcome of further proceedings is preordained.” That category is, however, delimited by a preliminary comment in the Cox opinion:
“In the cases in the first two categories considered below, the federal issue would not be mooted or otherwise affected by the proceedings yet to be had because those proceedings have little substance, their outcome is certain, or they are wholly unrelated to the federal question.” Id., at 478.
The answer to the question whether the further proceedings in the state trial court “have little substance” or are “wholly unrelated to the federal question” is affected not only by the specifics of the particular litigation but also by the extent to which the “policy of strict necessity in disposing of constitutional issues,” Rescue Army v. Municipal Court, 331 U. S. 549, 568, is implicated. In that case, notwithstanding a conclusion that the Court had jurisdiction to entertain the appeal, id., at 565-568, the Court’s analysis of the policy of strict necessity provided “compelling reasons for not exercising” its mandatory appellate jurisdiction. Id., at 568. Those reasons were the “highly abstract form” in which the constitutional issues were presented, id., at 575-580, the “ambiguous” character of the California court’s construction of the Los Angeles Municipal Code, id., at 581-584, and a belief that further proceedings in the state court would ultimately tender “the underlying constitutional issues in clean-cut and concrete form.” Id., at 584.
In this case our analysis of the question whether the federal constitutional issues may be affected by additional proceedings in the state courts — and therefore take the case out of the first category of final judgments described in Cox — is similarly affected by ambiguities in the record, both as to the character of the petitioners’ prima facie case and as to the character of the respondents’ justification for their program.
Petitioners contend that the program was designed to give minority employees specific proportions of the available jobs in the Corrections Department. The trial court found that respondents “have discriminated and are continuing to discriminate by reason of sex and by reason of ethnic background in hiring and promotion of employees in the Department.” Although that finding also recited that the discrimination was “motivated at least in part” by the affirmative-action plan, it did not indicate the extent to which such discrimination had occurred. Because the trial court interpreted the relevant constitutional law absolutely to prohibit any such discrimination in hiring or promotion, the court did not need to make any more specific finding. Several assumptions would therefore be consistent with the general finding of discrimination. One could assume either that all hiring and promotion decisions have been affected by the goal of achieving certain percentage quotas as to race and sex, or that race or sex has been a factor in only certain specific decisions. Included in the latter assumption are the two possibilities that race or sex was a factor in a fairly large number of random decisions, or that race or sex was a motivating factor only in connection with certain types of jobs with respect to which the Superior Court expressly permitted transfers or job assignments motivated by either the race or sex of the employee. In sum, the Superior Court’s findings do not go beyond a determination that there was some discrimination in hiring and promotion.
If we accept the Court of Appeal’s interpretation of the record, we must assume that the respondents have used race as a factor in making promotion decisions but not in making hiring decisions. Like the findings of the Superior Court, however, the opinion of the Court of Appeal does not indicate whether race was considered relevant for all promotions or just in connection with promotions to particular positions. The fact that the Court of Appeal relied on the finding that race was a relevant factor in making certain job assignments to justify the use of race or sex in connection with promotions implies that the court thought race or sex had been a factor only in making promotions to a limited number of positions. But the court did not so state expressly and it did not identify any specific position to which promotions or transfers motivated by race or sex had been made.
Thus on the one hand, if the first interpretation of the opinion is correct, and race was relevant only in making certain specific decisions, then adequate review of a narrow holding of that kind would require a more detailed identification of the particular positions involved than is now contained in findings that were prepared by the trial judge to support a quite different disposition of the case. On the other hand, if the Court of Appeal concluded that respondents had followed a general policy of using race as a factor in making promotions, and that such a policy was justified by the State’s interest in a safe and efficient prison system, adequate review of a broad holding of that kind would require an understanding of how such a sweeping policy was implemented and why such a policy should be applied in the promotion context and not in the hiring context. The trial court’s findings contain no such explanation because the trial court did not find that respondents had engaged in any such bifurcated policy.
An additional uncertainty concerning the precise issue to be decided is that the Court of Appeal expressed doubt concerning the trial court’s jurisdiction over any claims asserted by CCOA and noted that petitioners Minnick and Darden were not entitled to damages or injunctive relief as individuals. 95 Cal. App. 3d, at 526, 157 Cal. Rptr., at 272. Because the trial court’s denial of petitioners’ motion to certify the case as a class action was predicated on a stipulation that the court had jurisdiction to grant declaratory relief without any such certification, and because the Court of Appeal held that jurisdiction could not be conferred by stipulation, it is at least possible that claims on behalf of additional employees or job applicants may be asserted on remand. They, as well as the present petitioners, will have the right — even though petitioners’ counsel have no such present intent — to adduce additional evidence in support of the complaint, or to amend their pleadings in the light of the developments in the law that have occurred since the original complaint was filed. Moreover, whether or not additional evidence is taken, the trial judge is unquestionably free to recast his findings in response to those legal developments.
Accordingly, because of significant developments in the law — and perhaps in the facts as well — and because of significant ambiguities in the record concerning both the extent to which race or sex has been used as a factor in making promotions and the justification for such use, we conclude that we should not address the constitutional issues until the proceedings in the trial court are finally concluded and the state appellate courts have completed their review of the trial court record.
Accordingly, the writ of certiorari is dismissed.
So ordered.
App. 3.
“Specific actions required by [the] plan” include, inter alia, increasing the number of female and minority employees through “programs for recruiting, selecting, hiring, and promoting minorities and women,” monitoring employment practices related to employment of women and minorities, establishing goals for measuring success in complying with nondiscrimination laws, training staff to “develop a sensitivity... to recognize and positively deal with discriminatory practices,” and training women and minority employees to assure their full participation at all employment levels. Id., at 3-4.
The plan, for example, provides for the creation of various new posi- • tions, including a supervisor for the human relations section:
“The Supervisor, Human Relations Section, under the direct supervision of the Assistant Director, Personnel Management, and Training Division, shall have authority and responsibility for the following duties:
“7. Provide assistance to the Departmental Training Officer and local Training Officers in developing training relative to human relations and affirmative action.
■ “8. Review the department’s programs and procedures related to personnel activities and make recommendations for any changes necessary to remove barriers to attainment of equal employment opportunity.
"9. Develop procedures with the Assistant Director, Womens Affairs for the receipt and the investigation of allegations and complaints by individuals, organizations, employees, or other third parties of discrimination on grounds of race, color, sex or national origin.” Id., at 8-10.
Each division, institution, and parole region was to appoint an Affirmative Action Representative, whose duties include acting as liaison between “management and program staff, various organization units, special interest groups and organizations, [and] community leaders,” analyzing discrimination complaints to identify problem areas and assist in their resolution, and assisting in the development of a written recruitment plan. Id., at 11.
The plan has as some of its objectives recruitment programs designed to reach minority communities and schools with significant minority enrollments, id., at 20-21, continuous review of job requirements to insure that qualification standards “are based upon the minimum required to perform necessary duties,” id., at 23, on-the-job training to prepare employees to meet the requirements of their jobs, id., at 25, and the communication to managers, supervisors, and employees of the commitment of the Department to equal employment opportunity. Id., at 27.
Id., at 6.
Id., at 28. The plan then continues:
“On this basis, Black personnel should represent at least 22.5% of the departmental work force, whereas they apparently comprise 8.8%. Similarly, Spanish surname personnel should represent 12.1%, but actually comprise 7.4%. Native American personnel should comprise.7%, while they actually make up.2%. Only the Asian and other extraction are represented in accord with the guidelines.” Id., at 28-29.
Id., at 31.
Id., at 16-17. The plan contains detailed statistics relating to the number of employees of different groups referred to as “Black,” “Asian,” “Spanish surnamed,” “native American,” and “other extraction,” as well as breakdowns by sex, in different positions and in the various facilities operated by the Department of Corrections. Id., at 28-65.
For example, one of the stated objectives of the plan is "to increase significantly the utilization of minorities and women across organizational units of the CDC and at all levels possible as vacancies occur.” The first “specific action” listed to accomplish this objective relates to the elimination of discrimination by committing the department to "[djjevelop recruitment plans and public relations activities with specific focus on minority communities, organizations, and women organizations, to inform them of career opportunities within CDC and the desire to employ minorities and women.”
The second “specific action” is to “increase departmental efforts to employ minorities and women” to achieve the LEAA percentages and the 36% minority and 38% female percentages. Id., at 16. No specific means of achieving this goal are indicated. The plan’s use of the LEAA guidelines does not clarify the intended implementation of the plan. In discussing the LEAA guidelines, the plan states:
“To provide agencies goals, equal employment opportunity guidelines have been issued by the U. S. Department of Justice. They specify that the percentage of minority staff in the employment of the agency be at least 70% of the percentage of the minorities in the service (inmate) population.” Id., at 38 (footnote omitted).
The LEAA guidelines’ explanation of their purpose states, in part, that the experience of the LEAA “has demonstrated that the full and equal participation of women and minority individuals in employment opportunities in the criminal justice system is a necessary component to the Safe Streets Act’s program to reduce crime and delinquency in the United States.” Id., at 71. See 28 CFR §42.301 (1980).
See Tr. 194, 203-206, 383, 452-453, 487-488, 548, 563-564, 591, 666, 668, 672, 773, 792, 882. George C. Jackson, then the Deputy Director of the Department, testified that the program’s goal was “to make the Department of Corrections a fair place to work.” Id., at 665.
The Deputy Attorney General defending the case on behalf of the respondents stated at trial:
“Our defense is on two levels, your honor.
“First of all, we’re contending in this case that the Department only hires the most qualified people, and that’s their policy. There may be exceptions down below, but that’s their policy.
“On the other hand, if the Court so should find that they’re using race as a factor in the hiring process as a qualification process, then we have the burden of showing that they must demonstrate a real reason for doing this. And that’s what we’ve been trying to do with these witnesses, showing they have a real problem.
“I have a compelling state interest if the Court should find that race is being used as a factor. To do that, I have to show that they have a real problem that they’re trying to solve, the violence in the prisons, the operation of the prisons.
“And the next step is to show that they’re trying to solve it by hiring minorities in the ratios they’re trying to hire.” Id., at 660-661.
Clerk’s Transcript on Appeal 121-122.
Tr. 670-671.
Conclusion of Law No. 4 reads as follows:
“It is not contrary to law for the Department, in determining job assignments and job responsibilities of its employees, to consider, among other relevant factors, the composition by race and sex of the existing work force and of the inmate population, and the race and sex of the employees in question.” App. to Pet. for Cert. F-8.
The permanent injunction contains the following proviso:
“(a) Provided, however, that nothing in this Order shall prevent any person, in determining the assignments and job responsibilities of employees of the Department of Corrections, from considering, among other relevant factors, the race and sex of the employees in question.” Id., at G-2.
The permanent injunction enjoins respondents “ [¶] rom hiring or promoting any employee in the Department of Corrections in which preference, advantage, or benefit is given to race, color, sex, or national origin.” Ibid.
Justice BreNNAN, Justice White, Justice Marshall, and Justice BlackmuN joined Part V-C of Justice Powell’s opinion, which stated:
“In enjoining petitioner from ever considering the race of any applicant, however, the courts below failed to recognize that the State has a substantial interest that legitimately may be served by a properly devised admissions program involving the competitive consideration of race and ethnic origin. For this reason, so much of the California court’s judgment as enjoins petitioner from any consideration of the race of any applicant must be reversed.” 438 U. S., at 320.
See also id., at 325 (opinion of BeeNNAN, White, Marshall, and BlackmuN, JJ.).
The court interpreted Justice Powell’s opinion to permit consideration of race in the school admissions process to serve the compelling state interest of promoting ethnic diversity among the students if
“(1) ‘... race or ethnic background may be deemed a “plus” in a particular applicant’s file, yet... does not insulate the individual from comparison with all other candidates for the available seats’; and (2) a candidate not credited • with that ‘plus’ will be ‘fairly and competitively’ evaluated for all the seats without being ‘totally excluded from a specific percentage’ of them which has been restricted to a particular racial or ethnic group. [438 IT. S., at] 316-319.” 95 Cal. App. 3d, at 520, 157 Cal. Rptr., at 268.
Although finding No. 19 related only to transfer and assignment policies, the court seemed to rely on that finding to support the threshold proposition that the State has a compelling state interest in the safe operation of its prison system:
“In its finding no. 19, the trial court effectively determined that the practices apply the prison-related realities of race and sex to the point of promoting a ‘compelling state interest’ in a safe and efficient correctional system.” Id,., at 520-521, 157 Cal. Rptr., at 268.
“The terminal question is whether this record supports the declaration, in paragraph 1 of the judgment, that the department and Enomoto violated the Equal Protection Clause by ‘discriminating’ on the bases of race and sex in the ‘hiring and promotion of employees.’ The declaration rests on the trial court’s finding (No. 8) that they had ‘discriminated’ in those respects by applying personnel practices from which ‘preferences result in favor of certain ethnic groups or... of one sex.’ (See fn. 5, ante.) According to our review of the evidence, it does not support a finding that ‘preferences result’ from the practices in favor of males or in the ‘hiring’ of employees. Finding No. 8 therefore fails to support the declaration in either respect.” Id., at 521, 157 Cal. Rptr., at 269.
“If the case is to be retried, Justice Powell’s decision in U. S. Bakke will be pertinent to the determination of either question. (See U. S. Bakke, supra, 438 U. S. 265 at pp. 307-310....)
“These problems require examination if the case is to be retried.” Id., at 526, 157 Cal. Rptr., at 272.
After the court cited finding No. 19 and identified the compelling state interest in the safe and efficient operation of the prison system, the court stated:
“The department is pursuing those objectives by assigning a female or minority employee a ‘plus’ in competition for promotion or transfer. The qualifications of other employees in the competition are still ‘weighed fairly and competitively.’ ” Id., at 521, 157 Cal. Rptr., at 268.
After concluding that the proof of discrimination was insufficient as to the hiring challenge, the court stated:
“The practices otherwise identified in [finding No. 8] have just been examined in light of U. S. Bakke and under the ‘strict scrutiny’ it commands. We conclude that they are permitted by the Equal Protection Clause within the limited extent that noncontrolling 'preferences result in favor of certain ethnic groups’ for purposes of promotion or transfer of personnel within the department, because they are necessary to promote the compelling interest of this state in the proper management of its correctional system. For the same reasons, they are permitted insofar as the same limited ‘preferences result’ in favor of women. Finding No. 8 accordingly fails to support the declaration that the Department and Enomoto violated the Equal Protection Clause in any respect.” Id,., at 521-522, 157 Cal. Rptr., at 269.
In its discussion of finding No. 19, which applied only to transfers and work assignments, the court indicated that the record established that the Department was assigning minority employees a “ 'plus’ in competition for promotion or transfer.” In its discussion of finding No. 8, which did relate to promotions, the court stated only that the Department’s promotion practices are justified “within the limited extent that noncontrolling preferences result in favor of certain ethnic groups” and “insofar as the same limited ‘preferences result’ in favor of women.” In its discussion of finding No. 8, the court did not state that such preferences in fact existed.
Even in its discussion of what the evidence at trial indicated, the Court of Appeal was somewhat equivocal:
“There was evidence that various male Caucasian employees had been denied promotion or transfer in instances where preference had been given to female or minority members.
“Various supervisory employees of the department testified that preference for promotion or transfer was not given to female or minority employees -in specified segments of the department after 1974. There was thus a conflict in the evidence as to how widely the preferential policies expressed in the AAP had been pursued within the department. According to all the evidence of instances where they had been applied, ‘preference’ was given to female sex or minority status only to the extent that each was considered a ‘plus’ factor in the assessment of a particular employee for promotion or transfer. Some evidence supported the inference that this 'plus’ had occasionally contributed to the promotion or transfer of the preferred employee ahead of nonpreferred candidates who were otherwise more qualified for the new position. There was no evidence that such ‘preference’ had ever resulted in the promotion or transfer of an employee who was not qualified to hold the position.
The trial court had found that the plan could not be justified as a remedy for past societal discrimination but had not addressed the question whether it would be justified by past departmental discrimination. See finding No. 13, App. to Pet. for Cert. F-5.
95 Cal. App. 3d, at 526, 157 Cal. Rptr., at 272. The Court of Appeal noted that the petitioners had not been permitted to maintain a class action, that the individuals had not proved that they were entitled to relief, and that CCOA did not represent all employees of the Department. Although the respondents had stipulated that the petitioners had standing, the Court of Appeal stated that the trial court’s jurisdiction could not be created by stipulation. Ibid.
Petitioners have invoked this Court’s jurisdiction under 28 U. S. C. § 1257 (3), which provides:
“Final judgments or decrees rendered by the highest court of a State in which a decision could be had, may be reviewed by the Supreme Court as follows:
“(3) By writ of certiorari, where the validity of a treaty or statute of the United States is drawn in question or where the validity of a State statute is drawn in question on the ground of its being repugnant to the Constitution, treaties or laws of the United States, or where any title, right, privilege or immunity is specially set up or claimed under the Constitution, treaties or statutes of, or commission held or authority exercised under, the United
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
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.
We granted the writ of certiorari on claims under the Fifth and Sixth Amendments arising out of the use of one of a number of confessions, all of which were received in evidence over objection. The confession challenged here was obtained by a police officer posing as an accused .person confined in the cell with petitioner.
Petitioner Milton is presently serving a life sentence imposed in 1958 upon his conviction of first-degree murder following a jury trial in Dade County, Florida. During that trial, the State called as a witness a police officer who, at a. time when petitioner had already been indicted and was represented by counsel, posed as a fellow prisoner and spent almost two full days sharing a cell with petitioner. The officer testified to incriminating statements made to him by petitioner during, this period. Contending that the statements he made to the officer were involuntary under Fifth Amendment standards and were obtained in violation of his' Sixth Amendment rights as subsequently interpreted in Massiah v. United States, 377 U. S. 201 (1964), petitioner initiated the present habeas corpus proceeding in the United States District. Court for the Southern District of Florida. The District Court, finding that petitioner had exhausted his state remedies in the course of several post-conviction proceedings in the Florida courts, ruled against petitioner on the merits of his claim, holding that his statements to the police ■officer were not inadmissible on Fifth Amendment grounds and that his Sixth Amendment claim could not prevail since “[n]o Court has declared Massiah retroactive, and .this Court will not be the first to do so.” 306 F. Supp. 929, 933. The Court of Appeals affirmed the denial of relief to petitioner, 428 F. 2d 463.
On the basis of the argument in the case and our examination of the extensive record of petitioner’s 1958 trial, we have concluded that the'judgment under review must be affirmed without reaching the merits of petitioner’s present claim. Assuming, arguendo, that the challenged' testimony should have been excluded, the record clearly reveals'that any error in its admission was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt. Harrington v. California, 395 U. S. 250 (1969); Chapman v. California, 386 U. S. 18 (1967). The jury, in addition to hearing the challenged testimony, was presented with overwhelming evidence of petitioner’s guilt, including no less than three full confessions that were made by petitioner prior to his indictment. Those confessions have been found admissible in the course of previous post-conviction proceedings brought by petitioner in his attempts to have this conviction set aside, and they are not challenged here.
The crime for which petitioner was convicted occurred in the early morning hours of June 1, 1958. The woman with whom petitioner had been living was asleep while riding as a passenger in the rear seat of an automobile driven by petitioner; she died by drowning when the car ran into the Miami River with its rear windows closed and its rear doors securely locked from the outside with safety devices designed to ensure against accidental'opening of the doors. Petitioner, who jumped from the-car shortly before it reached the water, was nevertheless propelled into the river by the car’s momentum; he was recovered from the water when a seaman nearby heard his cries for help and found him clinging to a boat moored in the river near the point of the automobile’s entry. A few hours later the car, with the victim’s'body still inside, was retrieved from the bottom of the river a short distance downstream from its point of entry.
The following day the Miami police arrested petitioner on manslaughter charges and placed him in the city jail. Ten days after the woman’s death; petitioner, having been. advised of his right to remain silent, confessed that he had deliberately killed the woman and. that the accident was simulated.' He first made an oral confession to a police officer during- a question-and-answer exchange that was preserved on a wire-recording device. He then repeated his confession during another exchange and these statements were taken down by a stenographer; after this stenographic recording was converted to a transcript, petitioner read it over in full and signed it at 11 p. m. on June ll.
The following day, petitioner told a police officer that he would like to make some clarifying additions to the statements in the writing he had signed the previous night. The officer suggested that they first go with a photographer to the scene of the incident “and reconstruct how this thing . . . occurred.” Petitioner agreed. Hé, the police officer, and a photographer then went to the scene of the crime where petitioner pointed out the route he had taken in driving the car to the river, the.approximate point at which he had jumped out of the car, and the point of the car’s entry into the river. Petitioner was then taken back to the police station where he went over his statement of the night before and indicated to the officer the' parts of that statement he wanted to clarify. Once again, a stenographer was summoned and a question-and-answer exchange was taken down and transcribed to-a writing that petitioner read over and signed. Approximately one week after he had made these confessions, petitioner secured the services of an attorney who advised him not to engage in any further discussions of his case with anyone else.
Following this, and while petitioner was under indictment and confined in the Dade County jail awaiting trial, the State, for reasons that are not altogether clear, assigned a police officer named Langford the special detail of posing as a prisoner and sharing petitioner’s cell in order, to “seek information” from him.
■ Langford entered the cell with petitioner late one Friday afternoon and presented himself as a fellow prisoner under investigation for murder; he assumed a friendly pose toward his cellmate, offering petitioner some of his prison food at their first breakfast together the next morning and telling petitioner something of his own fictitious “crime,” which he described as a robbery committed with an accomplice who had used Langford’s gun to kill the robbery victim. Finally, petitioner began to boast that he had not made Langford’s mistake of having an accomplice who might later serve as a witness; instead, he said, he had committed the “perfect” crime with no surviving witnesses. By the time Langford left, the cell on Sunday afternoon, petitioner had described his own crime in some detail and had predicted with much assurance that he would soon be released, that he would collect a lot of insurance money, and that he would then flee the State with the insurance money without ever being brought to trial for his “perfect” crime. The incriminating statements made to Langford were essentially the same as those given in the prior confessions not challenged here.
At petitioner’s trial-in state court, the wire recording of his first, confession was played back, first to-the judge for a ruling on its admissibility,, and then to the jury. Petitioner’s two written confessions were also- received in evidence, as were the photographs that were taken and the statements that, were made by petitioner when he reconstructed the crime at the scene of its occurrence. In addition, Langford was permitted to testify to the statements made to him by petitioner while the two men were sharing the cell in the county jail. Other evidence, highly damaging to petitioner in its totality, was also presented to the jury. For example, there was testimony that petitioner had told an acquaintance a few months before the murder that he disliked Minnie Claybon (the murder victim) and was interested only , in getting some money out of her. The terms of certain insurance policies- purchased by petitioner about two months before the crime were described in testimony given by the selling insur-aneé agents; the policies provided for the payment of $8,500 to -petitioner upon the accidental death of Miss Claybon, • and the agents testified that petitioner had faithfully maintained his weekly premium payments on the policies. Other testimony, however, indicated that petitioner was hard pressed for money shortly before'the murder, having fallen behind in his rent payments and having sold some of his personal clothing to raise small sums. There was testimony that petitioner had purchased the car in which Miss Claybon drowned on the very afternoon before the crime, making a cash down payment of $8; that the safety devices on the rear doors» of the car had been left in the unlocked position by the car’s former owner; that these devices could be put in the locked position only by loosening'a screw, _ sliding the locking device into position, and then retightening the screw; and that these devices were found securely screwed in the locked position when the car, with the victim’s' body still inside, was recovered from the river. After hearing all the evidence, the jury found petitioner guilty of murder in the first degree, but recommended mercy; on that recommendation, the trial judge imposed the sentence of life imprisonment.
The petitioned has made a number of collateral attacks on his conviction, primarily in the courts of Florida. In response to one of his applications for post-conviction relief, the Florida Supreme Court issued a writ of habeas corpus, heard oral argument on the voluntariness of petitioner’s wire-recorded and written confessions, but thereafter. discharged the writ in a reported decision upholding the voluntariness of those confessions and their admissibility at trial. Milton v. Cochran, 147 So. 2d 137 (1962), cert. denied, 375 U. S. 869 (1963). The issues raised in that proceeding are not now before us and must, for the purposes of the instant case, be treated as having been properly resolved by the Florida Supreme Court. Cf. Sup. Ct. Rule 23 (1)(c).
In initiating the present habeas corpus proceeding in the District Court, petitioner sought to have his conviction set aside on the ground that the statements he made to police officer Langford should not have been admitted against him. Our reviéw of the record, however, leaves us with no reasonable doubt that the jury at petitioner’s ■ 1958 trial would have reached the same verdict without hearing Langford’s testimony. The writ of habeas corpus has limited scope; the federal courts do not sit to re-try state cases de novo but, rather, to review for violation of federal constitutional standards. In that process we do not close our eyes to the reality of overwhelming evidence of guilt fairly established in the state court 14 years ago by use of evidence not challenged here; the use of the additional evidence challenged in this proceeding and arguably open to challenge was, beyond reasonable doubt, harmless.
Affirmed.
In this first written confession, petitioner made the following statements:
“Minnie Lee Claybon [the murder victim] and myself had an insurance policy together. So I started thinking about the insurance and the money that I could get if something happened to her. I knew that I could use the money if something happened. So I decided to do something about it one way or the other, so one night we had been riding around in the car. So I decided to get the whole thing over with. So I drived the car into the river and she was killed. ■
“. . . I drove the car straight toward the river, and just as I got almost to. the river, ... I jumped from the car and the car went on into< the river and I skidded and kept rolling over and over-until I was in the river also. I hurt my shoulder. I couldn’t move • that arm. It was hurting real bad.”
In this second writing, petitioner confirmed in major part the statements he had made the night before, but said in addition that he had “decided to kill” the woman “about a month before this incident happened.” He further stated, however, that he was not thinking of the insurance money when he made that decision, but was thinking instead of the woman’s habits of associating with other men, drinking too much, and staying out late at night. He reaffirmed in express terms that he, had deliberately driven the car into the river with the intention of killing the woman.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
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 petitioners, 187 in number, were convicted in a magistrate’s court in Columbia, South Carolina, of the common-law crime of breach of the peace. Their convictions were ultimately affirmed by the South Carolina Supreme Court, 239 S. C. 339, 123 S. E. 2d 247. We granted certiorari, 369 U. S. 870, to consider the claim that these convictions cannot be squared with the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution.
There was no substantial conflict in the trial evidence. Late in the morning of March 2, 1961, the petitioners, high school and college students of the Negro race, met at the Zion Baptist Church in Columbia. From there, at about noon, they walked in separate groups of about 15 to the South Carolina State House grounds, an area of two city blocks open to the general public. Their purpose was “to submit a protest to the citizens of South Carolina, along with the Legislative Bodies of South Carolina, our feelings and our dissatisfaction with the present condition of discriminatory actions against Negroes, in general, and to let them know that we were dissatisfied and that we would like for the laws which prohibited Negro privileges in this State to be removed.”
Already on the State House grounds when the petitioners arrived were 30 or more law enforcement officers, who had advance knowledge that the petitioners were coming. Each group of petitioners entered the grounds through a driveway and parking area known in the record as the “horseshoe.” As they entered, they were told by the law enforcement officials that “they had a right, as a citizen, to go through the State House grounds, as any other citizen has, as long as they were peaceful.” During the next half hour or 45 minutes, the petitioners, in the same small groups, walked single file or two abreast in an orderly way through the grounds, each group carrying placards bearing such messages as “I am proud to be a Negro” and “Down with segregation.”
During this time a crowd of some 200 to 300 onlookers had collected in the horseshoe area and on the adjacent sidewalks. There was no evidence to suggest that these onlookers were anything but curious, and no evidence at all of any threatening remarks, hostile gestures, or offensive language on the part of any member of the crowd. The City Manager testified that he recognized some of the onlookers, whom he did not identify, as “possible trouble makers,” but his subsequent testimony made clear that nobody among the crowd actually caused or threatened any trouble. There was no obstruction of pedestrian or vehicular traffic within the State House grounds. No vehicle was prevented from entering or leaving the horseshoe area. Although vehicular traffic at a nearby street intersection was slowed down somewhat, an officer was dispatched to keep traffic moving. There were a number of bystanders on the public sidewalks adjacent to the State House grounds, but they all moved on when asked to do so, and there was no impediment of pedestrian traffic. Police protection at the scene was at all times sufficient to meet any foreseeable possibility of disorder.
In the situation and under the circumstances thus described, the police authorities advised the petitioners that they would be arrested if they did not disperse within 15 minutes. Instead of dispersing, the petitioners engaged in what the City Manager described as “boisterous,” “loud,” and “flamboyant” conduct, which, as his later testimony made clear, consisted of listening to a “religious harangue” by one of their leaders, and loudly singing “The Star Spangled Banner” and other patriotic and religious songs, while stamping their feet and clapping their hands. After 15 minutes had passed, the police arrested the petitioners and marched them off to jail.
Upon this evidence the state trial court convicted the petitioners of breach of the peace, and imposed sentences ranging from a $10 fine or five days in jail, to a $100 fine or 30 days in jail. In affirming the judgments, the Supreme Court of South Carolina said that under the law of that State the offense of breach of the peace “is .not susceptible of exact definition,” but that the “general definition of the offense” is as follows:
“In general terms, a breach of the peace is a violation of public order, a disturbance of the public tranquility, by any act or conduct inciting to violence ... , it includes any violation of any law enacted to preserve peace and good order. It may consist of an act of violence or an act likely to produce violence. It is not necessary that the peace be actually broken to lay the foundation for a prosecution for this offense. If what is done is unjustifiable and unlawful, tending with sufficient directness to break the peace, no more is required. Nor is actual personal violence an essential element in the offense. . . .
“By ‘peace/ as used in the law in this connection, is meant the tranquility enjoyed by citizens of a municipality or community where good order reigns among its members, which is the natural right of all persons in political society.” 239 S. C., at 343-344, 123 S. E. 2d, at 249.
The petitioners contend that there was a complete absence of any evidence of the commission of this offense, and that they were thus denied one of the most basic elements of due process of law. Thompson v. Louisville, 362 U. S. 199; see Garner v. Louisiana, 368 U. S. 157; Taylor v. Louisiana, 370 U. S. 154. Whatever the merits of this contention, we need not pass upon it in the present case. The state courts have held that the petitioners’ conduct constituted breach of the peace under state law, and we may accept their decision as binding upon us to that extent. But it nevertheless remains our duty in a case such as this to make an independent examination of the whole record. Blackburn v. Alabama, 361 U. S. 199, 205, n. 5; Pennekamp v. Florida, 328 U. S. 331, 335; Fiske v. Kansas, 274 U. S. 380, 385-386. And it is clear to us that in arresting, convicting, and punishing the petitioners under the circumstances disclosed by this record, South Carolina infringed the petitioners’ constitutionally protected rights of free speech, free assembly, and freedom to petition for redress of their grievances.
It has long been established that these First Amendment freedoms are protected by the Fourteenth Amendment from invasion by the States. Gitlow v. New York, 268 U. S. 652; Whitney v. California, 274 U. S. 357; Stromberg v. California, 283 U. S. 359; De Jonge v. Oregon, 299 U. S. 353; Cantwell v. Connecticut, 310 U. S. 296. The circumstances in this case reflect an exercise of these basic constitutional rights in their most pristine and classic form. The petitioners felt aggrieved by laws of South Carolina which allegedly “prohibited Negro privileges in this State.” They peaceably assembled at the site of the State Government and there peaceably expressed their grievances “to the citizens of South Carolina, along with the Legislative Bodies of South Carolina.” Not until they were told by police officials that they must disperse on pain of arrest did they do more. Even then, they but sang patriotic and religious songs after one of their leaders had delivered a “religious harangue.” There was no violence or threat of violence on their part, or on the part of any member of the crowd watching them. Police protection was “ample.”
This, therefore, was a far cry from the situation in Feiner v. New York, 340 U. S. 316, where two policemen were faced with a crowd which was “pushing, shoving and milling around,” id., at 317, where at least one member of the crowd “threatened violence if the police did not act,” id., at 317, where “the crowd was pressing, closer around petitioner and the officer,” id., at 318, and where “the speaker passes the bounds of argument or persuasion and undertakes incitement to riot.” Id., at 321. And the record is barren of any evidence of “fighting words.” See Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire, 315 U. S. 568.
We do not review in this case criminal convictions resulting from the evenhanded application of a precise and narrowly drawn regulatory statute evincing a legislative judgment that certain specific conduct be limited or proscribed. If, for example, the petitioners had been convicted upon evidence that they had violated a law regulating traffic, or had disobeyed a law reasonably limiting the periods during which the State House grounds were open to the públic, this would be a different case. See Cantwell v. Connecticut, 310- U. S. 296, 307-308; Garner v. Louisiana, 368 U. S. 157, 202 (concurring opinion). These petitioners were convicted of an offense so generalized as to be, in the words of the South Carolina Supreme Court, “not susceptible of exact definition.” And they were convicted upon evidence which showed no more than that the opinions which they were peaceably expressing were sufficiently opposed to the views of the majority of the community to attract a crowd and necessitate police protection.
The Fourteenth Amendment does not permit a State to make criminal the peaceful expression of unpopular views. “[A] function of free speech under our system of government is to invite dispute. It may indeed best serve its high purpose when it induces a condition of unrest, creates dissatisfaction with conditions as they are, or even stirs people to anger. Speech is often provocative and challenging. It may strike at prejudices and preconceptions and have profound unsettling effects as it presses for acceptance of an idea. That is why freedom of speech . . . is . . . protected against censorship or punishment, unless shown likely to produce a clear and present danger of a serious substantive evil that rises far above public inconvenience, annoyance, or unrest. . . . There is no room under our Constitution for a more restrictive view. For the alternative would lead to standardization of ideas either by legislatures, courts, or dominant political or community groups.” Terminiello v. Chicago, 337 U. S. 1, 4-5. As in the Terminiello ease, the courts of South Carolina have defined a criminal offense so as to permit conviction of the petitioners if their speech “stirred people to anger, invited public dispute, or brought about a condition of unrest. A conviction resting on any of those grounds may not stand.” Id,., at 5.
As Chief Justice Hughes wrote in Stromberg v. California, “The maintenance of the opportunity for free political discussion to the end that government may be responsive to the will of the people and that changes may be obtained by lawful means, an opportunity essential to the security of the Republic, is a fundamental principle of our constitutional system. A statute which upon its face, and as authoritatively construed, is so vague and indefinite as to permit the punishment of the fair use of this opportunity is repugnant to the guaranty of liberty contained in the Fourteenth Amendment. .- . .” 283 U. S. 359, 369.
For these reasons we conclude that these criminal convictions cannot stand.
Reversed.
The petitioners were tried in groups, at four separate trials. It was stipulated that the appeals be treated as one case.
The Police Chief of Columbia testified that about 15 of his men were present, and that there were, in addition, “some State Highway-Patrolmen; there were some South Carolina Law Enforcement officers present and I believe, I’m not positive, I believe there were about three Deputy Sheriffs.”
The Police Chief of Columbia testified as follows:
“Q. Did you, Chief, walk around the State House Building with any of these persons?
“A. I did not. I stayed at the horseshoe. I placed men over the grounds.
“Q. Did any of your men make a report that any of these persons were disorderly in walking around the State House Grounds?
“A. They did not.
“Q. Under normal circumstances-your men would report to you when you are at the scene?
“A. They should.
“Q. Is it reasonable to assume then that there was no disorderly conduct on the part of these persons, since you received no report from your officers?
“A. I would take that for granted, yes.”
The City Manager testified:
“Q. Were the Negro college students or other students well demeaned? Were they well dressed and were they orderly?
“A. Yes, they were.”
“Q. Who were those persons?
“A. I can’t tell you who they were. I can tell you they were present in the group. They were recognized as possible trouble makers.
“Q. Did you and your police chief do anything about placing those people under arrest?
“A. No, we had no occasion to place them under arrest.
“Q. Now, sir, you have stated that there were possible trouble makers and your whole testimony has been that, as City Manager, as supervisor of the City Police, your object is to preserve the peace and law and order?
“A. That’s right.
"Q. Yet you took no official action against people who were present and possibly might have done some harm to these people?
“A. We took no official action because there was none to be taken. They were not creating a disturbance, those particular people were not at that time doing anything to make trouble but they could have been.”
The Police Chief of Columbia testified:
“Q. Each group of students walked along in column of twos?
“A. Sometimes two and I did see some in single-file.
“Q. There was ample room for other persons going in the same direction or the opposite direction to pass on the same sidewalk?
“A. I wouldn’t say they were blocking the sidewalk; now, that was through the State House grounds.”
The Police Chief of Columbia testified:
“A. At times they blocked the sidewalk and we asked them to move over and they did.
“Q. They obeyed your commands on that?
“A. Yes.
“Q. So that nobody complained that he wanted to use the sidewalk and he could not do it?
“A. I didn’t have any complaints on that.”
The City Manager testified:
“Q. You had ample time, didn’t you, to get ample police protection, if you thought such was needed on the State House grounds, didn’t you?
“A. Yes, we did.
“Q. So, if there were not ample police protection there, it was the fault of those persons in charge of the Police Department, wasn’t it?
“A. There was. ample police protection there.”
The City Manager testified:
“Q. Mr. McNayr, what action did you take?
“A. I instructed Dave Carter to tell each of these groups, to call them up and tell each of the groups and the group leaders that they must disperse, they must disperse in the manner which I have already described, that I would give them fifteen minutes from the time , of my conversation with him to have them dispersed and, if they were not dispersed, I would direct my Chief of Police to place them under arrest.”
The City Manager testified:
“Q. You have already testified, Mr. McNayr, I believe, that you did order these students dispersed within fifteen minutes?
“A. Yes.
“Q. Did they disperse in accordance with your order?
“A. They did not.
“Q. What then occurred?
“A. I then asked Chief of Police Campbell to direct his men to line up the students and march them or place them under arrest and march them to the City Jail and the County Jail.
“Q. They were placed under arrest?
“A. They were placed under arrest.”
It was stipulated at trial “that the State House grounds are occupied by the Executive Branch of the South Carolina government, the Legislative Branch and the Judicial Branch, and that, during the period covered in the warrant in this matter, to wit: March the 2nd, the Legislature of South Carolina was in session.”
Section 1-417 of the 1952 Code of Laws of South Carolina (Cum. Supp. 1960) provides as follows:
“It shall be unlawful for any person:
“(1) Except State officers and employees and persons having lawful business in the buildings, to use any of the driveways, alleys or parking spaces upon any of the property of the State, bounded by Assembly, Gervais, Bull and Pendleton Streets in Columbia upon any regular weekday, Saturdays and holidays excepted, between the hours of 8:30 a. m. and 5:30 p. m., whenever the buildings are open for business; or
“(2) To park, any vehicle except in the spaces and manner marked and designated by the State Budget and Control Board, in cooperation with the Highway Department, or to block or impede traffic through the alleys and driveways.”
The petitioners were not charged with violating this statute, and the record contains no evidence whatever that any police official had this statute in mind when ordering the petitioners to disperse on pain of arrest, or indeed that a charge under this statute could have been sustained by what occurred.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
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 O’Connor
delivered the opinion of the Court.
Petitioner David Riggins challenges his murder and robbery convictions on the ground that the State of Nevada unconstitutionally forced an antipsychotic drug upon him during trial. Because the Nevada courts failed to make findings sufficient to support forced administration of the drug, we reverse.
I
During the early hours of November 20, 1987, Paul Wade was found dead in his Las Vegas apartment. An autopsy revealed that Wade died from multiple stab wounds, including wounds to the head, chest, and back. David Riggins was arrested for the killing 45 hours later.
A few days after being taken into custody, Riggins told Dr. R. Edward Quass, a private psychiatrist who treated patients at the Clark County Jail, about hearing voices in his head and having trouble sleeping. Riggins informed Dr. Quass that he had been successfully treated with Mellaril in the past. Mellaril is the trade name for thioridazine, an antipsychotic drug. After this consultation, Dr. Quass prescribed Mellaril at a level of 100 milligrams per day. Because Riggins continued to complain of voices and sleep problems in the following months, Dr. Quass gradually increased the Mellaril prescription to 800 milligrams per day. Riggins also received a prescription for Dilantin, an antiepileptic drug.
In January 1988, Riggins successfully moved for a determination of his competence to stand trial. App. 6. Three court-appointed psychiatrists performed examinations during February and March, while Riggins was taking 450 milligrams of Mellaril daily. Dr. William O’Gorman, a psychiatrist who had treated Riggins for anxiety in 1982, and Dr. Franklin Master concluded that Riggins was competent to stand trial. The third psychiatrist, Dr. Jack Jurasky, found that Riggins was incompetent. The Clark County District Court determined that Riggins was legally sane and competent to stand trial, id., at 13, so preparations for trial went forward.
In early June, the defense moved the District Court for an order suspending administration of Mellaril and Dilantin until the end of Riggins’ trial. Id., at 20. Relying on both the Fourteenth Amendment and the Nevada Constitution, Riggins argued that continued administration of these drugs infringed upon his freedom and that the drugs’ effect on his demeanor and mental state during trial would deny him due process. Riggins also asserted that, because he would offer an insanity defense at trial, he had a right to show jurors his “true mental state.” Id., at 22. In response, the State noted that Nevada law prohibits the trial of incompetent persons, see Nev. Rev. Stat. §178.400 (1989), and argued that the court therefore had authority to compel Riggins to take medication necessary to ensure his competence. App. 31-32.
On July 14, 1988, the District Court held an evidentiary hearing on Riggins’ motion. At the hearing, Dr. Master “guess[ed]” that taking Riggins off medication would not noticeably alter his behavior or render him incompetent to stand trial. Record 412. Dr. Quass testified that, in his opinion, Riggins would be competent to stand trial even without the administration of Mellaril, but that the effects of Mellaril would not be noticeable to jurors if medication continued. Id., at 443-445. Finally, Dr. O’Gorman told the court that Mellaril made the defendant calmer and more relaxed but that an excessive dose would cause drowsiness. Id., at 464-466. Dr. O’Gorman was unable to predict how Riggins might behave if taken off antipsychotic medication, yet he questioned the need to give Riggins the high dose he was receiving. Id., at 474-476. The court also had before it a written report in which Dr. Jurasky held to his earlier view that Riggins was incompetent to stand trial and predicted that if taken off Mellaril the defendant “would most likely regress to a manifest psychosis and become extremely difficult to manage.” App. 19.
The District Court denied Riggins’ motion to terminate medication with a one-page order that gave no indication of the court’s rationale. Id., at 49. Riggins continued to receive 800 milligrams of Mellaril each day through the completion of his trial the following November.
At trial, Riggins presented an insanity defense and testified on his own behalf. He indicated that on the night of Wade’s death he used cocaine before going to Wade’s apartment. Riggins admitted fighting with Wade, but claimed that Wade was trying to kill him and that voices in his head said that killing Wade would be justifiable homicide. A jury found Riggins guilty of murder with use of a deadly weapon and robbery with use of a deadly weapon. After a penalty hearing, the same jury set the murder sentence at death.
Riggins presented several claims to the Nevada Supreme Court, among them that forced administration of Mellaril denied him the ability to assist in his own defense and prejudi-cially affected his attitude, appearance, and demeanor at trial. This prejudice was not justified, Riggins said in his opening brief, because the State neither demonstrated a need to administer Mellaril nor explored alternatives to giving him 800 milligrams of the drug each day. Record 1020. Riggins amplified this claim in his reply brief, objecting that the State intruded upon his constitutionally protected liberty interest in freedom from antipsychotic drugs without considering less intrusive options. Riggins argued:
“In United States v. Bryant, 670 F. Supp. 840, 843 (Minn. 1987)[,] the court, in reference to medicating prisoners against their will, stated that ‘courts have recognized a protectable liberty interest ... in the freedom to avoid unwanted medication with such drugs.’ The court in so stating cited Bee v. Greaves, 744 F. 2d 1387 (10th Cir. 1984)[,] which addressed the issue of medicating pre-trial detainees and stated that ‘less restrictive alternatives, such as segregation or the use of less controversial drugs like tranquilizers or sedatives, should be ruled out before resorting to antipsychotic drugs.’ In the case at bar, no less restrictive alternatives were utilized, considered or even proposed.” Record 1070-1071 (emphasis in original).
The Nevada Supreme Court affirmed Riggins’ convictions and death sentence. 107 Nev. 178, 808 R 2d 535 (1991). With respect to administration of Mellaril, the court held that expert testimony presented at trial “was sufficient to inform the jury of the effect of the Mellaril on Riggins’ demeanor and testimony.” Id., at 181, 808 P. 2d, at 538. Thus, although Riggins’ demeanor was relevant to his insanity defense, the court held that denial of the defense’s motion to terminate medication was neither an abuse of discretion nor a violation of Riggins’ trial rights. In a concurring opinion, Justice Rose suggested that the District Court should have determined whether administration of Mellaril during trial was “absolutely necessary” by ordering a pretrial suspension of medication. Id., at 185, 808 P. 2d, at 540 (concurring opinion). Justice Springer dissented, arguing that antipsychotic drugs may never be forced on a criminal defendant solely to allow prosecution. Id., at 186, 808 P. 2d, at 541.
We granted certiorari, 502 U. S. 807 (1991), to decide whether forced administration of antipsychotic medication during trial violated rights guaranteed by the Sixth and Fourteenth Amendments.
II
The record in this ease narrowly defines the issues before us. The parties have indicated that once the District Court denied Riggins’ motion to terminate use of Mellaril, subsequent administration of the drug was involuntary. See, e. g., Brief for Petitioner 6 (medication was “forced”); Brief for Respondent 14, 22, 28 (describing medication as “unwanted,” “over objection,” and “compelled”). This understanding accords with the determination of the Nevada Supreme Court. See 107 Nev., at 181; 808 P. 2d, at 537 (describing medication as “involuntary” and “forced”). Given the parties’ positions on this point and the absence of any record evidence to the contrary, we adhere to the understanding of the State Supreme Court.
We also presume that administration of Mellaril was medically appropriate. Although defense counsel stressed that Riggins received a very high dose of the drug, at no point did he suggest to the Nevada courts that administration of Mellaril was medically improper treatment for his client.
Finally, the record is dispositive with respect to Riggins’ Eighth Amendment claim that administration of Mellaril denied him an opportunity to show jurors his true mental condition at the sentencing hearing. Because this argument was presented neither to the Nevada Supreme Court nor in Riggins’ petition for certiorari, we do not address it here.
With these considerations in mind, we turn to Riggins’ core contention that involuntary administration of Mellaril denied him “a full and fair trial.” Pet. for Cert. i. Our discussion in Washington v. Harper, 494 U. S. 210 (1990), provides useful background for evaluating this claim. In Harper, a prison inmate alleged that the State of Washington and various individuals violated his right to due process by giving him Mellaril and other antipsychotic drugs against his will. Although the inmate did not prevail, we agreed that his interest in avoiding involuntary administration of anti-psychotic drugs was protected under the Fourteenth Amendment’s Due Process Clause. “The forcible injection of medication into a nonconsenting person’s body,” we said, “represents a substantial interference with that person’s liberty.” Id., at 229. In the case of antipsychotic drugs like Mellaril, that interference is particularly severe:
“The purpose of the drugs is to alter the chemical balance in a patient’s brain, leading to changes, intended to be beneficial, in his or her cognitive processes. While the therapeutic benefits of antipsychotic drugs are well documented, it is also true that the drugs can have serious, even fatal, side effects. One such side effect identified by the trial court is acute dystonia, a severe involuntary spasm of the upper body, tongue, throat, or eyes. The trial court found that it may be treated and reversed within a few minutes through use of the medication. Cogentin. Other side effects include akathesia (motor restlessness, often characterized by an inability to sit still); neuroleptic malignant syndrome (a relatively rare condition which can lead to death from cardiac dysfunction); and tardive dyskinesia, perhaps the most discussed side effect of antipsychotic drugs. Tardive dys-kinesia is a neurological disorder, irreversible in some cases, that is characterized by involuntary, uncontrollable movements of various muscles, especially around the face. . . . [T]he proportion of patients treated with anti-psychotic drugs who exhibit the symptoms of tardive dyskinesia ranges from 10% to 25%. According to the American Psychiatric Association, studies of the condition indicate that 60% of tardive dyskinesia is mild or minimal in effect, and about 10% may be characterized as severe.” Id., at 229-230 (citations omitted).
Taking account of the unique circumstances of penal confinement, however, we determined that due process allows a mentally ill inmate to be treated involuntarily with antipsy-chotic drugs where there is a determination that “the inmate is dangerous to himself or others and the treatment is in the inmate’s medical interest.” Id., at 227.
Under Harper, forcing antipsychotic drugs on a convicted prisoner is impermissible absent a finding of overriding justification and a determination of medical appropriateness. The Fourteenth Amendment affords at least as much protection to persons the State detains for trial. See Bell v. Wolfish, 441 U. S. 520, 545 (1979) (“[P]retrial detainees, who have not been convicted of any crimes, retain at least those constitutional rights that we have held are enjoyed by convicted prisoners”); O’Lone v. Estate of Shabazz, 482 U. S. 342, 349 (1987) (“[P]rison regulations . . . are judged under a ‘reasonableness’ test less restrictive than that ordinarily applied to alleged infringements of fundamental constitutional rights”). Thus, once Riggins moved to terminate administration of antipsychotic medication, the State became obligated to establish the need for Mellaril and the medical appropriateness of the drug.
Although we have not had occasion to develop substantive standards for judging forced administration of such drugs in the trial or pretrial settings, Nevada certainly would have satisfied due process if the prosecution had demonstrated, and the District Court had found, that treatment with anti-psychotic medication was medically appropriate and, considering less intrusive alternatives, essential for the sake of Riggins’ own safety or the safety of others. See Harper, supra, at 225-226; cf. Addington v. Texas, 441 U. S. 418 (1979) (Due Process Clause allows civil commitment of individuals shown by clear and convincing evidence to be mentally ill and dangerous). Similarly, the State might have been able to justify medically appropriate, involuntary treatment with the drug by establishing that it could not obtain an adjudication of Riggins’ guilt or innocence by using less intrusive means. See Illinois v. Allen, 397 U. S. 337, 347 (1970) (Brennan, J., concurring) (“Constitutional power to bring an accused to trial is fundamental to a scheme of ‘ordered liberty’ and prerequisite to social justice and peace”). We note that during the July 14 hearing Riggins did not contend that he had the right to be tried without Mellaril if its discontinuation rendered him incompetent. See Record 424-425, 496,500. The question whether a competent criminal defendant may refuse antipsychotic medication if cessation of medication would render him incompetent at trial is not before us.
Contrary to the dissent’s understanding, we do not “adopt a standard of strict scrutiny.” Post, at 156. We have no occasion to finally prescribe such substantive standards as mentioned above, since the District Court allowed administration of Mellaril to continue without making any determination of the need for this course or any findings about reasonable alternatives. The court’s laconic order denying Riggins’ motion did not adopt the State’s view, which was that continued administration of Mellaril was required to ensure that the defendant could be tried; in fact, the hearing testimony casts considerable doubt on that argument. See supra, at 130-131. Nor did the order indicate a finding that safety considerations or other compelling concerns outweighed Riggins’ interest in freedom from unwanted anti-psychotic drugs.
Were we to divine the District Court’s logic from the hearing transcript, we would have to conclude that the court simply weighed the risk that the defense would be prejudiced by changes in Riggins’ outward appearance against the chance that Riggins would become incompetent if taken off Mellaril, and struck the balance in favor of involuntary medication. See Record 502 (“[T]hat he was nervous and so forth . . . can all be brought out [through expert testimony]. And when you start weighing the consequences of taking him off his medication and possibly have him revert into an incompetent situation, I don’t think that that is a good experiment”). The court did not acknowledge the defendant’s liberty interest in freedom from unwanted antipsychotic drugs.
This error may well have impaired the constitutionally protected trial rights Riggins invokes. At the hearing to consider terminating medication, Dr. O’Gorman suggested that the dosage administered to Riggins was within the toxic range, id., at 483, and could make him “uptight,” id., at 484. Dr. Master testified that a patient taking 800 milligrams of Mellaril each day might suffer from drowsiness or confusion. Id., at 416. Cf. Brief for American Psychiatric Association as Amicus Curiae 10-11 (“[I]n extreme cases, the sedation-like effect [of antipsychotic medication] may be severe enough (akinesia) to affect thought processes”). It is clearly possible that such side effects had an impact upon not just Riggins’ outward appearance, but also the content of his testimony on direct or cross examination, his ability to follow the proceedings, or the substance of his communication with counsel.
Efforts to prove or disprove actual prejudice from the record before us would be futile, and guesses whether the outcome of the trial might have been different if Riggins’ motion had been granted would be purely speculative. We accordingly reject the dissent’s suggestion that Riggins should be required to demonstrate how the trial would have proceeded differently if he had not been given Mellaril. See post, at 149-150. Like the consequences of compelling a defendant to wear prison clothing, see Estelle v. Williams, 425 U. S. 501, 504-505 (1976), or of binding and gagging an accused during trial, see Allen, supra, at 344, the precise consequences of forcing antipsychotic medication upon Riggins cannot be shown from a trial transcript. What the testimony of doctors who examined Riggins establishes, and what we will not ignore, is a strong possibility that Riggins’ defense was impaired due to the administration of Mellaril.
We also are persuaded that allowing Riggins to present expert testimony about the effect of Mellaril on his demeanor did nothing to cure the possibility that the substance of his own testimony, his interaction with counsel, or his comprehension at trial were compromised by forced administration of Mellaril. Even if (as the dissent argues, post, at 147-149) the Nevada Supreme Court was right that expert testimony allowed jurors to assess Riggins’ demeanor fairly, an unacceptable risk of prejudice remained. See 107 Nev., at 181, 808 P. 2d, at 537-538.
To be sure, trial prejudice can sometimes be justified by an essential state interest. See Holbrook v. Flynn, 475 U. S. 560, 568-569 (1986); Allen, supra, at 344 (binding and gagging the accused permissible only in extreme situations where it is the “fairest and most reasonable way” to control a disruptive defendant); see also Williams, supra, at 505 (compelling defendants to wear prison clothing at trial furthers no essential state policy). Because the record contains no finding that might support a conclusion that administration of antipsychotic medication was necessary to accomplish an essential state policy, however, we have no basis for saying that the substantial probability of trial prejudice in this case was justified.
The judgment of the Nevada Supreme Court is reversed, and the case is remanded for further proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer:
|
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 Powell
delivered the opinion of the Court.
This case requires us to reexamine that portion of Swain v. Alabama, 380 U. S. 202 (1965), concerning the evidentiary burden placed on a criminal defendant who claims that he has been denied equal protection through the State’s use of peremptory challenges to exclude members of his race from the petit jury.
I
Petitioner, a black man, was indicted in Kentucky on charges of second-degree burglary and receipt of stolen goods. On the first day of trial in Jefferson Circuit Court, the judge conducted voir dire examination of the venire, excused certain jurors for cause, and permitted the parties to exercise peremptory challenges. The prosecutor used his peremptory challenges to strike all four black persons on the venire, and a jury composed only of white persons was selected. Defense counsel moved to discharge the jury before it was sworn on the ground that the prosecutor’s removal of the black veniremen violated petitioner’s rights under the Sixth and Fourteenth Amendments to a jury drawn from a cross section of the community, and under the Fourteenth Amendment to equal protection of the laws. Counsel requested a hearing on his motion. Without expressly ruling on the request for a hearing, the trial judge observed that the parties were entitled to use their peremptory challenges to “strike anybody they want to.” The judge then denied petitioner’s motion, reasoning that the cross-section requirement applies only to selection of the venire and not to selection of the petit jury itself.
The jury convicted petitioner on both counts. On appeal to the Supreme Court of Kentucky, petitioner pressed, among other claims, the argument concerning the prosecutor’s use of peremptory challenges. Conceding that Swain v. Alabama, supra, apparently foreclosed an equal protection claim based solely on the prosecutor’s conduct in this case, petitioner urged the court to follow decisions of other States, People v. Wheeler, 22 Cal. 3d 258, 583 P. 2d 748 (1978); Commonwealth v. Soares, 377 Mass. 461, 387 N. E. 2d 499, cert. denied, 444 U. S. 881 (1979), and to hold that such conduct violated his rights under the Sixth Amendment and § 11 of the Kentucky Constitution to a jury drawn from a cross section of the community. Petitioner also contended that the facts showed that the prosecutor had engaged in a “pattern” of discriminatory challenges in this case and established an equal protection violation under Swain.
The Supreme Court of Kentucky affirmed. In a single paragraph, the court declined petitioner’s invitation to adopt the reasoning of People v. Wheeler, supra, and Commonwealth v. Soares, supra. The court observed that it recently had reaffirmed its reliance on Swain, and had held that a defendant alleging lack of a fair cross section must demonstrate systematic exclusion of a group of jurors from the venire. See Commonwealth v. McFerron, 680 S. W. 2d 924 (1984). We granted certiorari, 471 U. S. 1052 (1985), and now reverse.
II
In Swain v. Alabama, this Court recognized that a “State’s purposeful or deliberate denial to Negroes on account of race of participation as jurors in the administration of justice violates the Equal Protection Clause.” 380 U. S., at 203-204. This principle has been “consistently and repeatedly” reaffirmed, id., at 204, in numerous decisions of this Court both preceding and following Swain. We reaffirm the principle today.
A
More than a century ago, the Court decided that the State denies a black defendant equal protection of the laws when it puts him on trial before a jury from which members of his race have been purposefully excluded. Strauder v. West Virginia, 100 U. S. 303 (1880). That decision laid the foundation for the Court’s unceasing efforts to eradicate racial discrimination in the procedures used to select the venire from which individual jurors are drawn. In Strauder, the Court explained that the central concern of the recently ratified Fourteenth Amendment was to put an end to governmental discrimination on account of race. Id., at 306-307. Exclusion of black citizens from service as jurors constitutes a primary example of the evil the Fourteenth Amendment was designed to cure.
In holding that racial discrimination in jury selection offends the Equal Protection Clause, the Court in Strauder recognized, however, that a defendant has no right to a “petit jury composed in whole or in part of persons of his own race.” Id., at 305. “The number of our races and nationalities stands in the way of evolution of such a conception” of the demand of equal protection. Akins v. Texas, 325 U. S. 398, 403 (1945). But the defendant does have the right to be tried by a jury whose members are selected pursuant to nondiscriminatory criteria. Martin v. Texas, 200 U. S. 316, 321 (1906); Ex parte Virginia, 100 U. S. 339, 345 (1880). The Equal Protection Clause guarantees the defendant that the State will not exclude members of his race from the jury venire on account of race, Strauder, supra, at 305, or on the false assumption that members of his race as a group are not qualified to serve as jurors, see Norris v. Alabama, 294 U. S. 587, 599 (1935); Neal v. Delaware, 103 U. S. 370, 397 (1881).
Purposeful racial discrimination in selection of the venire violates a defendant’s right to equal protection because it denies him the protection that a trial by jury is intended to secure. “The very idea of a jury is a body... composed of the peers or equals of the person whose rights it is selected or summoned to determine; that is,, of his neighbors, fellows, associates, persons having the same legal status in society as that which he holds.” Strauder, supra, at 308; see Carter v. Jury Comm’n of Greene County, 396 U. S. 320, 330 (1970). The petit jury has occupied a central position in our system of justice by safeguarding a person accused of crime against the arbitrary exercise of power by prosecutor or judge. Duncan v. Louisiana, 391 U. S. 145, 156 (1968). Those on the venire must be “indifferently chosen,” to secure the defendant’s right under the Fourteenth Amendment to “protection of life and liberty against race or color prejudice. ” Strauder, supra, at 309.
Racial discrimination in selection of jurors harms not only the accused whose life or liberty they are summoned to try. Competence to serve as a juror ultimately depends on an assessment of individual qualifications and ability impartially to consider evidence presented at a trial. See Thiel v. Southern Pacific Co., 328 U. S. 217, 223-224 (1946). A person’s race simply “is unrelated to his fitness as a juror.” Id., at 227 (Frankfurter, J., dissenting). As long ago as Strauder, therefore, the Court recognized that by denying a person participation in jury service on account of his race, the State unconstitutionally discriminated against the excluded juror. 100 U. S., at 308; see Carter v. Jury Comm’n of Greene County, supra, at 329-330; Neal v. Delaware, supra, at 386.
The harm from discriminatory jury selection extends beyond that inflicted on the defendant and the excluded juror to touch the entire community. Selection procedures that purposefully exclude black persons from juries undermine public confidence in the fairness of our system of justice. See Ballard v. United States, 329 U. S. 187, 195 (1946); McCray v. New York, 461 U. S. 961, 968 (1983) (Marshall, J., dissenting from denial of certiorari). Discrimination within the judicial system is most pernicious because it is “a stimulant to that race prejudice which is an impediment to securing to [black citizens] that equal justice which the law aims to secure to all others.” Strauder, 100 U. S., at 308.
B
In Strauder, the Court invalidated a state statute that provided that only white men could serve as jurors. Id., at 305. We can be confident that no State now has such a law. The Constitution requires, however, that we look beyond the face of the statute defining juror qualifications and also consider challenged selection practices to afford “protection against action of the State through its administrative officers in effecting the prohibited discrimination.” Norris v. Alabama, supra, at 589; see Hernandez v. Texas, 347 U. S. 475, 478-479 (1954); Ex parte Virginia, supra, at 346-347. Thus, the Court has found a denial of equal protection where the procedures implementing a neutral statute operated to exclude persons from the venire on racial grounds, and has made clear that the Constitution prohibits all forms of purposeful racial discrimination in selection of jurors. While decisions of this Court have been concerned largely with discrimination during selection of the venire, the principles announced there also forbid discrimination on account of race in selection of the petit jury. Since the Fourteenth Amendment protects an accused throughout the proceedings bringing him to justice, Hill v. Texas, 316 U. S. 400, 406 (1942), the State may not draw up its jury lists pursuant to neutral procedures but then resort to discrimination at “other stages in the selection process,” Avery v. Georgia, 345 U. S. 559, 562 (1953); see McCray v. New York, supra, at 965, 968 (Marshall, J., dissenting from denial of certiorari); see also Alexander v. Louisiana, 405 U. S. 625, 632 (1972).
Accordingly, the component of the jury selection process at issue here, the State’s privilege to strike individual jurors through peremptory challenges, is subject to the commands of the Equal Protection Clause. Although a prosecutor ordinarily is entitled to exercise permitted peremptory challenges “for any reason at all, as long as that reason is related to his view concerning the outcome” of the case to be tried, United States v. Robinson, 421 F. Supp. 467, 473 (Conn. 1976), mandamus granted sub nom. United States v. Newman, 549 F. 2d 240 (CA2 1977), the Equal Protection Clause forbids the prosecutor to challenge potential jurors solely on account of their race or on the assumption that black jurors as a group will be unable impartially to consider the State’s case against a black defendant.
Ill
The principles announced in Strauder never have been questioned in any subsequent decision of this Court. Rather, the Court has been called upon repeatedly to review the application of those principles to particular facts. A recurring question in these cases, as in any case alleging a violation of the Equal Protection Clause, was whether the defendant had met his burden of proving purposeful discrimination on the part of the State. Whitus v. Georgia, 385 U. S. 545, 550 (1967); Hernandez v. Texas, supra, at 478-481; Akins v. Texas, 325 U. S., at 403-404; Martin v. Texas, 200 U. S. 316 (1906). That question also was at the heart of the portion of Swain v. Alabama we reexamine today.
A
Swain required the Court to decide, among other issues, whether a black defendant was denied equal protection by the State’s exercise of peremptory challenges to exclude members of his race from the petit jury. 380 U. S., at 209-210. The record in Swain showed that the prosecutor had used the State’s peremptory challenges to strike the six black persons included on the petit jury venire.. Id., at 210. While rejecting the defendant’s claim for failure to prove purposeful discrimination, the Court nonetheless indicated that the Equal Protection Clause placed some limits on the State’s exercise of peremptory challenges. Id., at 222-224.
The Court sought to accommodate the prosecutor’s historical privilege of peremptory challenge free of judicial control, id., at 214-220, and the constitutional prohibition on exclusion of persons from jury service on account of race, id., at 222-224. While the Constitution does not confer a right to peremptory challenges, id., at 219 (citing Stilson v. United States, 250 U. S. 583, 586 (1919)), those challenges traditionally have been viewed as one means of assuring the selection of a qualified and unbiased jury, 380 U. S., at 219. To preserve the peremptory nature of the prosecutor’s challenge, the Court in Swain declined to scrutinize his actions in a particular case by relying on a presumption that he properly exercised the State’s challenges. Id., at 221-222.
The Court went on to observe, however, that a State may not exercise its challenges in contravention of the Equal Protection Clause. It was impermissible for a prosecutor to use his challenges to exclude blacks from the jury “for reasons wholly unrelated to the outcome of the particular casé on trial” or to deny to blacks “the same right and opportunity to participate in the administration of justice enjoyed by the white population.” Id., at 224. Accordingly, a black defendant could make out a prima facie case of purposeful discrimination on proof that the peremptory challenge system was “being perverted” in that manner. Ibid. For example, an inference of purposeful discrimination would be raised on evidence that a prosecutor, “in case after case, whatever the circumstances, whatever the crime and whoever the defendant or the victim may be, is responsible for the removal of Negroes who have been selected as qualified jurors by the jury commissioners and who have survived challenges for cause, with the result that no Negroes ever serve on petit juries.” Id., at 223. Evidence offered by the defendant in Swain did not meet that standard. While the defendant showed that prosecutors in the jurisdiction had exercised their strikes to exclude blacks from the jury, he offered no proof of the circumstances under which prosecutors were responsible for striking black jurors beyond the facts of his own case. Id., at 224-228.
A number of lower courts following the teaching of Swain reasoned that proof of repeated striking of blacks over a number of cases was necessary to establish a violation of the Equal Protection Clause. Since this interpretation of Swain has placed on defendants a crippling burden of proof, prosecutors’ peremptory challenges are now largely immune from constitutional scrutiny. For reasons that follow, we reject this evidentiary formulation as inconsistent with standards that have been developed since Swain for assessing a prima facie case under the Equal Protection Clause.
B
Since the decision in Swain, we have explained that our cases concerning selection of the venire reflect the general equal protection principle that the “invidious quality” of governmental action claimed to be racially discriminatory “must ultimately be traced to a racially discriminatory purpose.” Washington v. Davis, 426 U. S. 229, 240 (1976). As in any equal protection case, the “burden is, of course,” on the defendant who alleges discriminatory selection of the venire “to prove the existence of purposeful discrimination.” Whitus v. Georgia, 385 U. S., at 550 (citing Tarrance v. Florida, 188 U. S. 519 (1903)). In deciding if the defendant has carried his burden of persuasion, a court must undertake “a sensitive inquiry into such circumstantial and direct evidence of intent as may be available.” Arlington Heights v. Metropolitan Housing Development Corp., 429 U. S. 252, 266 (1977). Circumstantial evidence of'invidious intent may include proof of disproportionate impact. Washington v. Davis, 426 U. S., at 242. We have observed that under some circumstances proof of discriminatory impact “may for all practical purposes demonstrate unconstitutionality because in various circumstances the discrimination is very difficult to explain on nonracial grounds.” Ibid. For example, “total or seriously disproportionate exclusion of Negroes from jury venires,” ibid., “is itself such an ‘unequal application of the law... as to show intentional discrimination,’”id., at 241 (quoting Akins v. Texas, 325 U. S., at 404).
Moreover, since Swain, we have recognized that a black defendant alleging that members of his race have been impermissibly excluded from the venire may make out a prima facie case of purposeful discrimination by showing that the totality of the relevant facts gives rise to an inference of discriminatory purpose. Washington v. Davis, supra, at 239-242. Once the defendant makes the requisite showing, the burden shifts to the State to explain adequately the racial exclusion. Alexander v. Louisiana, 405 U. S., at 632. The State cannot meet this burden on mere general assertions that its officials did not discriminate or that they properly performed their official duties. See Alexander v. Louisiana, supra, at 632; Jones v. Georgia, 389 U. S. 24, 25 (1967). Rather, the State must demonstrate that “permissible racially neutral selection criteria and procedures have produced the monochromatic result.” Alexander v. Louisiana, supra, at 632; see Washington v. Davis, supra, at 241.
The showing necessary to establish a prima facie case of purposeful discrimination in selection of the venire may be discerned in this Court’s decisions. E. g., Castaneda v. Partida, 430 U. S. 482, 494-495 (1977); Alexander v. Louisiana, supra, at 631-632. The defendant initially must show that he is a member of a racial group capable of being singled out for differential treatment. Castaneda v. Partida, supra, at 494. In combination with that evidence, a defendant may then make a prima facie case by proving that in the particular jurisdiction members of his race have not been summoned for jury service over an extended period of time. Id., at 494. Proof of systematic exclusion from the venire raises an inference of purposeful discrimination because the “result bespeaks discrimination.” Hernandez v. Texas, 347 U. S., at 482; see Arlington Heights v. Metropolitan Housing Development Corp., supra, at 266.
Since the ultimate issue is whether the State has discriminated in selecting the defendant’s venire, however, the defendant may establish a prima facie case “in other ways than by evidence of long-continued unexplained absence” of members of his race “from many panels.” Cassell v. Texas, 339 U. S. 282, 290 (1950) (plurality opinion). In cases involving the venire, this Court has found a prima facie case on proof that members of the defendant’s race were substantially underrepresented on the venire from which his jury was drawn, and that the venire was selected under a practice providing “the opportunity for discrimination.” Whitus v. Georgia, supra, at 552; see Castaneda v. Partida, supra, at 494; Washington v. Davis, supra, at 241; Alexander v. Louisiana, supra, at 629-631. This combination of factors raises the necessary inference of purposeful discrimination because the Court has declined to attribute to chance the absence of black citizens on a particular jury array where the selection mechanism is subject to abuse. When circumstances suggest the need, the trial court must undertake a “factual inquiry” that “takes into account all possible explanatory factors” in the particular case. Alexander v. Louisiana, supra, at 630.
Thus, since the decision in Swain, this Court has recognized that a defendant may make a prima facie showing of purposeful racial discrimination in selection of the venire by relying solely on the facts concerning its selection in his case. These decisions are in accordance with the proposition, articulated in Arlington Heights v. Metropolitan Housing Development Corp., that “a consistent pattern of official racial discrimination” is not “a necessary predicate to a violation of the Equal Protection Clause. A single invidiously discriminatory governmental act” is not “immunized by the absence of such discrimination in the making of other comparable decisions.” 429 U. S., at 266, n. 14. For evidentiary require- meats to dictate that “several must suffer discrimination” before one could object, McCray v. New York, 461 U. S., at 965 (Marshall, J., dissenting from denial of certiorari), would be inconsistent with the promise of equal protection to all.
C
The standards for assessing a prima facie case in the context of discriminatory selection of the venire have been fully articulated since Swain. See Castaneda v. Partida, supra, at 494-495; Washington v. Davis, 426 U. S., at 241-242; Alexander v. Louisiana, supra, at 629-631. These principles support our conclusion that a defendant may establish a prima facie case of purposeful discrimination in selection of the petit jury solely on evidence concerning the prosecutor’s exercise of peremptory challenges at the defendant’s trial. To establish such a case, the defendant first must show that he is a member of a cognizable racial group, Castaneda v. Partida, supra, at 494, and that the prosecutor has exercised peremptory challenges to remove from the venire members of the defendant’s race. Second, the defendant is entitled to rely on the fact, as to which there can be no dispute, that peremptory challenges constitute a jury selection practice that permits “those to discriminate who are of a mind to discriminate.” Avery v. Georgia, 345 U. S., at 562. Finally, the defendant must show that these facts and any other relevant circumstances raise an inference that the prosecutor used that practice to exclude the veniremen from the petit jury on account of their race. This combination of factors in the empaneling of the petit jury, as in the selection of the venire, raises the necessary inference of purposeful discrimination.
In deciding whether the defendant has made the requisite showing, the trial court should consider all relevant circumstances. For example, a “pattern” of strikes against black jurors included in the particular venire might give rise to an inference of discrimination. Similarly, the prosecutor’s questions and statements during voir dire examination and in exercising his challenges may support or refute an inference of discriminatory purpose. These examples are merely illustrative. We have confidence that trial judges, experienced in supervising voir dire, will be able to decide if the circumstances concerning the prosecutor’s use of peremptory challenges creates a prima facie case of discrimination against black jurors.
Once the defendant makes a prima facie showing, the burden shifts to the State to come forward with a neutral explanation for challenging black jurors. Though this requirement imposes a limitation in some cases on the full peremptory character of the historic challenge, we emphasize that the prosecutor’s explanation need not rise to the level justifying exercise of a challenge for cause. See McCray v. Abrams, 750 F. 2d, at 1132; Booker v. Jabe, 775 F. 2d 762, 773 (CA6 1985), cert. pending, No. 85-1028. But the prosecutor may not rebut the defendant’s prima facie case of discrimination by stating merely that he challenged jurors of the defendant’s race on the assumption — or his intuitive judgment — that they would be partial to the defendant because of their shared race. Cf. Norris v. Alabama, 294 U. S., at 598-599; see Thompson v. United States, 469 U. S. 1024, 1026 (1984) (Brennan, J., dissenting from denial of certiorari). Just as the Equal Protection Clause forbids the States to exclude black persons from the venire on the assumption that blacks as a group are unqualified to serve as jurors, supra, at 86, so it forbids the States to strike black veniremen on the assumption that they will be biased in a particular case simply because the defendant is black. The core guarantee of equal protection, ensuring citizens that their State will not discriminate on account of race, would be meaningless were we to approve the exclusion of jurors on the basis of such assumptions, which arise solely from the jurors’ race. Nor may the prosecutor rebut the defendant’s case merely by denying that he had a discriminatory motive or “affirming] [his] good faith in making individual selections.” Alexander v. Louisiana, 405 U. S., at 632. If these general assertions were accepted as rebutting a defendant’s prima facie case, the Equal Protection Clause “would be but a vain and illusory requirement.” Norris v. Alabama, supra, at 598. The prosecutor therefore must articulate a neutral explanation related to the particular case to be tried. The trial court then will have the duty to determine if the defendant has established purposeful discrimination.
IV
The State contends that our holding will eviscerate the fair trial values served by the peremptory challenge. Conceding that the Constitution does not guarantee a right to peremptory challenges and that Swain did state that their use ultimately is subject to the strictures of equal protection, the State argues that the privilege of unfettered exercise of the challenge is of vital importance to the criminal justice system.
While we recognize, of course, that the peremptory challenge occupies an important position in our trial procedures, we do not agree that our decision today will undermine the contribution the challenge generally makes to the administration of justice. The reality of practice, amply reflected in many state- and federal-court opinions, shows that the challenge may be, and unfortunately at times has been, used to discriminate against black jurors. By requiring trial courts to be sensitive to the racially discriminatory use of peremptory challenges, our decision enforces the mandate of equal protection and furthers the ends of justice. In view of the heterogeneous population of our Nation, public respect for our criminal justice system and the rule of law will be strengthened if we ensure that no citizen is disqualified from jury service because of his race.
Nor are we persuaded by the State’s suggestion that our holding will create serious administrative difficulties. In those States applying a version of the evidentiary standard we recognize today, courts have not experienced serious administrative burdens, and the peremptory challenge system has survived. We decline, however, to formulate particular procedures to be followed upon a defendant’s timely objection to a prosecutor’s challenges.
V
In this case, petitioner made a timely objection to the prosecutor’s removal of all black persons on the venire. Because the trial court flatly rejected the objection without requiring the prosecutor to give an explanation for his action, we remand this case for further proceedings. If the trial court decides that the facts establish, prima facie, purposeful discrimination and the prosecutor does not come forward with a neutral explanation for his action, our precedents require that petitioner’s conviction be reversed. E. g., Whitus v. Georgia, 385 U. S., at 549-550; Hernandez v. Texas, 347 U. S., at 482; Patton v. Mississippi, 332 U. S., at 469.
It is so ordered.
Following the lead of a number of state courts construing their State’s Constitution, two Federal Courts of Appeals recently have accepted the view that peremptory challenges used to strike black jurors in a particular case may violate the Sixth Amendment. Booker v. Jabe, 775 F. 2d 762 (CA6 1985), cert. pending, No. 85-1028; McCray v. Abrams, 750 F. 2d 1113 (CA2 1984), cert. pending, No. 84-1426. See People v. Wheeler, 22 Cal. 3d 258, 583 P. 2d 748 (1978); Riley v. State, 496 A. 2d 997, 1009-1013 (Del. 1985); State v. Neil, 457 So. 2d 481 (Fla. 1984); Commonwealth v. Soares, 377 Mass. 461, 387 N. E. 2d 499, cert. denied, 444 U. S. 881 (1979). See also State v. Crespin, 94 N. M. 486, 612 P. 2d 716 (App. 1980). Other Courts of Appeals have rejected that position, adhering to the requirement that a defendant must prove systematic exclusion of blacks from the petit jury to establish a constitutional violation. United States v. Childress, 715 F. 2d 1313 (CA8 1983) (en banc), cert. denied, 464 U. S. 1063 (1984); United States v. Whitfield, 715 F. 2d 145, 147 (CA4 1983). See Beed v. State, 271 Ark. 526, 530-531, 609 S. W. 2d 898, 903 (1980); Blackwell v. State, 248 Ga. 138, 281 S. E. 2d 599, 599-600 (1981); Gilliard v. State, 428 So. 2d 576, 579 (Miss.), cert. denied, 464 U. S. 867 (1983); People v. McCray, 57 N. Y. 2d 542, 546-549, 443 N. E. 2d 915, 916-919 (1982), cert. denied, 461 U. S. 961 (1983); State v. Lynch, 300 N. C. 534, 546-547, 268 S. E. 2d 161, 168-169 (1980). Federal Courts of Appeals also have disagreed over the circumstances under which supervisory power may be used to scrutinize the prosecutor’s exercise of peremptory challenges to strike blacks from the venire. Compare United States v. Leslie, 783 F. 2d 541 (CA5 1986) (en banc), with United States v. Jackson, 696 F. 2d 578, 592-593 (CA8 1982), cert. denied, 460 U. S. 1073 (1983). See also United States v. McDaniels, 379 F. Supp. 1243 (ED La. 1974).
The Kentucky Rules of Criminal Procedure authorize the trial court to permit counsel to conduct voir dire examination or to conduct the examination itself. Ky. Rule Crina. Proc. 9.38. After jurors have been excused for cause, the parties exercise their peremptory challenges simultaneously by striking names from a list of qualified jurors equal to the number to be seated plus the number of allowable peremptory challenges. Rule 9.36. Since the offense charged in this case was a felony, and an alternate juror was called, the prosecutor was entitled to six peremptory challenges, and defense counsel to nine. Rule 9.40.
See, e. g., Strauder v. West Virginia, 100 U. S. 303 (1880); Neal v. Delaware, 103 U. S. 370 (1881); Norris v. Alabama, 294 U. S. 587 (1935); Hollins v. Oklahoma, 295 U. S. 394 (1935) (per curiam); Pierre v. Louisiana, 306 U. S. 354 (1939); Patton v. Mississippi, 332 U. S. 463 (1947); Avery v. Georgia, 345 U. S. 559 (1953); Hernandez v. Texas, 347 U. S. 475 (1954); Whitus v. Georgia, 385 U. S. 545 (1967); Jones v. Georgia, 389 U. S. 24 (1967) (per curiam); Carter v. Jury Comm’n of Greene County, 396 U. S. 320 (1970); Castaneda v. Partida, 430 U. S. 482 (1977); Rose v. Mitchell, 443 U. S. 545 (1979); Vasquez v. Hillery, 474 U. S. 254 (1986).
The basic principles prohibiting exclusion of persons from participation in jury service on account of their race “are essentially the same for grand juries and for petit juries.” Alexander v. Louisiana, 405 U. S. 625, 626, n. 3 (1972); see Norris v. Alabama, supra, at 589. These principles are reinforced by the criminal laws of the United States. 18 U. S. C. § 243.
In this Court, petitioner has argued that the prosecutor’s conduct violated his rights under the Sixth and Fourteenth Amendments to an impartial jury and to a jury drawn from a cross section of the community. Petitioner has framed his argument in these terms in an apparent effort to avoid inviting the Court directly to reconsider one of its own precedents. On the other hand, the State has insisted that petitioner is claiming a denial of equal protection and that we must reconsider Swain to find a constitutional violation on this record. We agree with the State that resolution of petitioner’s claim properly turns on application of equal protection principles and express no view on the merits of any of petitioner’s Sixth Amendment arguments.
See Hernandez v. Texas, supra, at 482; Cassell v. Texas, 339 U. S. 282, 286-287 (1950) (plurality opinion); Akins v. Texas, 325 U. S. 398, 403 (1945); Martin v. Texas, 200 U. S. 316, 321 (1906); Neal v. Delaware, supra, at 394.
Similarly, though the Sixth Amendment guarantees that the petit jury will be selected from a pool of names representing a cross section of the community, Taylor v. Louisiana, 419 U. S. 522 (1975), we have never held that the Sixth Amendment requires that “petit juries actually chosen must mirror the community and reflect the various distinctive groups in the population,” id., at 538. Indeed, it would be impossible to apply a concept of proportional representation to the petit jury in view of the heterogeneous nature of our society. Such impossibility is illustrated by the Court’s holding that a jury of six persons is not unconstitutional. Williams v. Florida, 399 U. S. 78, 102-103 (1970).
See Hernandez v. Texas, supra, at 482; Cassell v. Texas, supra, at 287; Akins v. Texas, supra, at 403; Neal v. Delaware, supra, at 394.
See Taylor v. Louisiana, supra, at 530; Williams v. Florida, supra, at 100. See also Powell, Jury Trial of Crimes, 23 Wash. & Lee L. Rev. 1 (1966).
In Duncan v. Louisiana, decided after Swain, the Court concluded that the right to trial by jury in criminal eases was such a fundamental feature of the American system of justice that it was protected against state action by the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. 391 U. S., at 147-158. The Court emphasized that a defendant’s right to be tried by a jury of his peers is designed “to prevent oppression by the Government.” Id., at 155, 156-157. For a jury to perform its intended function as a check on official power, it must be a body drawn from the community. Id., at 156; Glasser v. United States, 315 U. S. 60,
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
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.
These cases concern a set of regulations adopted by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA or agency) under § 316(b) of the Clean Water Act, 33 U.S.C. § 1326(b). 69 Fed. Reg. 41576 (2004). Respondents — environmental groups and various States — challenged those regulations, and the Second Circuit set them aside. Riverkeeper, Inc. v. EPA, 475 F. 3d 83, 99-100 (2007). The issue for our decision is whether, as the Second Circuit held, the EPA is not permitted to use cost-benefit analysis in determining the content of regulations promulgated under § 1326(b).
I
Petitioners operate — or represent those who operate— large powerplants. In the course of generating power, those plants also generate large amounts of heat. To cool their facilities, petitioners employ “cooling water intake structures” that extract water from nearby water sources. These structures pose various threats to the environment, chief among them the squashing against intake screens (elegantly called “impingement”) or suction into the cooling system (“entrainment”) of aquatic organisms that live in the affected water sources. See 69 Fed. Reg. 41586. Accordingly, the facilities are subject to regulation under the Clean Water Act, 33 U. S. C. § 1251 et seq., which mandates:
“Any standard established pursuant to section 1311 of this title or section 1316 of this title and applicable to a point source shall require that the location, design, construction, and capacity of cooling water intake structures reflect the best technology available for minimizing adverse environmental impact.” § 1326(b).
Sections 1311 and 1316, in turn, employ a variety of “best technology” standards to regulate the discharge of effluents into the Nation’s waters.
The § 1326(b) regulations at issue here were promulgated by the EPA after nearly three decades in which the determination of the “best technology available for minimizing [cooling water intake structures’] adverse environmental impact” was made by permit-issuing authorities on a case-by-case basis, without benefit of a governing regulation. The EPA’s initial attempt at such a regulation came to nought when the Fourth Circuit determined that the agency had failed to adhere to the procedural requirements of the Administrative Procedure Act. Appalachian Power Co. v. Train, 566 F. 2d 451, 457 (1977). The EPA withdrew the regulation, 44 Fed. Reg. 32956 (1979), and instead published “draft guidance” for use in implementing § 1326(b)’s requirements via site-specific permit decisions under §1342. See EPA, Office of Water Enforcement Permits Div., {Draft} Guidance for Evaluating the Adverse Impact of Cooling Water Intake Structures on the Aquatic Environment: Section 316(b) P. L. 92-500 (May 1, 1977), online at http:// www.epa.gov/waterscience/316b/files/1977AEIguid.pdf (all Internet materials as visited Mar. 30, 2009, and available in Clerk of Court’s case file); 69 Fed. Reg. 41584 (describing system of case-by-case permits under the draft guidance).
In 1995, the EPA entered into a consent decree which, as subsequently amended, set a multiphase timetable for the EPA to promulgate regulations under § 1326(b). See Riverkeeper, Inc. v. Whitman, No. 93 Civ. 0314 (AGS), 2001 WL 1505497, *1 (SDNY, Nov. 27, 2001). In the first phase the EPA adopted regulations governing certain new, large cooling water intake structures. 66 Fed. Reg. 65256 (2001) (Phase I rules); see 40 CFR §§ 125.80(a), 125.81(a) (2008). Those rules require new facilities with water-intake flow greater than 10 million gallons per day to, among other things, restrict their inflow “to a level commensurate with that which can be attained by a closed-cycle recirculating cooling water system.” § 125.84(b)(1). New facilities with water-intake flow between 2 million and 10 million gallons per day may alternatively comply by, among other things, reducing the volume and velocity of water removal to certain levels. § 125.84(c). And all facilities may alternatively comply by demonstrating, among other things, “that the technologies employed will reduce the level of adverse environmental impact... to a comparable level” to what would be achieved by using a closed-cycle cooling system. § 125.84(d). These regulations were upheld in large part by the Second Circuit in Riverkeeper, Inc. v. EPA, 358 F. 3d 174 (2004).
The EPA then adopted the so-called “Phase II” rules at issue here. 69 Fed. Reg. 41576. They apply to existing facilities that are point sources, whose primary activity is the generation and transmission (or sale for transmission) of electricity, and whose water-intake flow is more than 50 million gallons of water per day, at least 25 percent of which is used for cooling purposes. Ibid. Over 500 facilities, accounting for approximately 53 percent of the Nation’s electric-power generating capacity, fall within Phase II’s ambit. See EPA, Economic and Benefits Analysis for the Final Section 316(b) Phase II Existing Facilities Rule, p. A3-13 (Table A3-4, Feb. 2004), online at http://www. epa.gov/waterscience/316b/phase2/econbenefits/final/a3. pdf. Those facilities remove on average more than 214 billion gallons of water per day, causing impingement and entrainment of over 3.4 billion aquatic organisms per year. 69 Fed. Reg. 41586.
To address those environmental impacts, the EPA set “national performance standards,” requiring Phase II facilities (with some exceptions) to reduce “impingement mortality for all life stages of fish and shellfish by 80 to 95 percent from the calculation baseline”; a subset of facilities must also reduce entrainment of such aquatic organisms by “60 to 90 percent from the calculation baseline.” 40 CFR § 125.94(b)(1), (2); see § 125.93 (defining “calculation baseline”). Those targets are based on the environmental improvements achievable through deployment of a mix of remedial technologies, 69 Fed. Reg. 41599, which the EPA determined were “commercially available and economically practicable,” id., at 41602.
In its Phase II rules, however, the EPA expressly declined to mandate adoption of closed-cycle cooling systems or equivalent reductions in impingement and entrainment, as it had done for new facilities subject to the Phase I rules. Id., at 41601. It refused to take that step in part because of the “generally high costs” of converting existing facilities to closed-cycle operation, and because “other technologies approach the performance of this option.” Id., at 41605. Thus, while closed-cycle cooling systems could reduce impingement and entrainment mortality by up to 98 percent, id., at 41601 (compared to the Phase II targets of 80 to 95 percent impingement reduction), the cost of rendering all Phase II facilities closed-cycle-compliant would be approximately $3.5 billion per year, id., at 41605, nine times the estimated cost of compliance with the Phase II performance standards, id., at 41666. Moreover, Phase II facilities compelled to convert to closed-cycle cooling systems “would produce 2.4 percent to 4.0 percent less electricity even while burning the same amount of coal,” possibly requiring the construction of “20 additional 400-MW plants ... to replace the generating capacity lost.” Id., at 41605. The EPA thus concluded that “[although not identical, the ranges of impingement and entrainment reduction are similar under both options .... [Benefits of compliance with the Phase II rules] can approach those of closed-cycle recirculating systems at less cost with fewer implementation problems.” Id., at 41606.
The regulations permit the issuance of site-specific variances from the national performance standards if a facility can demonstrate either that the costs of compliance are “significantly greater than” the costs considered by the agency in setting the standards, 40 CFR § 125.94(a)(5)(i), or that the costs of compliance “would be significantly greater than the benefits of complying with the applicable performance standards,” § 125.94(a)(5)(h). Where a variance is warranted, the permit-issuing authority must impose remedial measures that yield results “as close as practicable to the applicable performance standards.” § 125.94(a)(5)(i), (ii).
Respondents challenged the EPA’s Phase II regulations, and the Second Circuit granted their petition for review and remanded the regulations to the EPA. The Second Circuit identified two ways in which the EPA could permissibly consider costs under 33 U. S. C. § 1326(b): (1) in determining whether the costs of remediation “can be ‘reasonably borne’ by the industry,” and (2) in determining which remedial technologies are the most cost effective, that is, the technologies that reach a specified level of benefit at the lowest cost. 475 F. 3d, at 99-100. See also id., at 98, and n. 10. It concluded, however, that cost-benefit analysis, which “compares the costs and benefits of various ends, and chooses the end with the best net benefits,” id., at 98, is impermissible under § 1326(b), id., at 100.
The Court of Appeals held the site-specific cost-benefit variance provision to be unlawful. Id., at 114. Finding it unclear whether the EPA had relied on cost-benefit analysis in setting the national performance standards, or had only used cost-effectiveness analysis, it remanded to the agency for clarification of that point. Id., at 104-105. (The remand was also based on other grounds which are not at issue here.) The EPA suspended operation of the Phase II rules pending further rulemaking. 72 Fed. Reg. 37107 (2007). We then granted certiorari limited to the following question: “Whether [§ 1326(b)] . . . authorizes the [EPA] to compare costs with benefits in determining ‘the best technology available for minimizing adverse environmental impact’ at cooling water intake structures.” 552 U. S. 1309 (2008).
II
In setting the Phase II national performance standards and providing for site-specific cost-benefit variances, the EPA relied on its view that §1326(b)’s “best technology available” standard permits consideration of the technology’s costs, 69 Fed. Reg. 41626, and of the relationship between those costs and the environmental benefits produced, id., at 41603. That view governs if it is a reasonable interpretation of the statute — not necessarily the only possible interpretation, nor even the interpretation deemed most reasonable by the courts. Chevron U. S. A. Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc., 467 U. S. 837, 843-844 (1984).
As we have described, § 1326(b) instructs the EPA to set standards for cooling water intake structures that reflect “the best technology available for minimizing adverse environmental impact.” The Second Circuit took that language to mean the technology that achieves the greatest reduction in adverse environmental impacts at a cost that can reasonably be borne by the industry. 475 F. 3d, at 99-100. That is certainly a plausible interpretation of the statute. The “best” technology — that which is “most advantageous,” Webster’s New International Dictionary 258 (2d ed. 1953) — may well be the one that produces the most of some good, here a reduction in adverse environmental impact. But “best technology” may also describe the technology that most efficiently produces some good. In common parlance one could certainly use the phrase “best technology” to refer to that which produces a good at the lowest per-unit cost, even if it produces a lesser quantity of that good than other available technologies.
Respondents contend that this latter reading is precluded by the statute’s use of the phrase “for minimizing adverse environmental impact.” Minimizing, they argue, means reducing to the smallest amount possible, and the “best technology available for minimizing adverse environmental impacts” must be the economically feasible technology that achieves the greatest possible reduction in environmental harm. Brief for Respondent Riverkeeper, Inc., et al. 25-26. But “minimize” is a term that admits of degree and is not necessarily used to refer exclusively to the “greatest possible reduction.” For example, elsewhere in the Clean Water Act, Congress declared that the procedures implementing the Act “shall encourage the drastic minimization of paperwork and interagency decision procedures.” 33 U. S. C. § 1251(f). If respondents’ definition of the term “minimize” is correct, the statute’s use of the modifier “drastic” is superfluous.
Other provisions in the Clean Water Act also suggest the agency’s interpretation. When Congress wished to mandate the greatest feasible reduction in water pollution, it did so in plain language: The provision governing the discharge of toxic pollutants into the Nation’s waters requires the EPA to set “effluent limitations [which] shall require the elimination of discharges of all pollutants if the Administrator finds ... that such elimination is technologically and economically achievable,” § 1311(b)(2)(A) (emphasis added). See also § 1316(a)(1) (mandating “where practicable, a standard [for new point sources] permitting no discharge of pollutants” (emphasis added)). Section 1326(b)’s use of the less ambitious goal of “minimizing adverse environmental impact” suggests, we think, that the agency retains some discretion to determine the extent of reduction that is warranted under the circumstances. That determination could plausibly involve a consideration of the benefits derived from reductions and the costs of achieving them. Cf. 40 CFR § 125.83 (defining “minimize” for purposes of the Phase I regulations as “reducing] to the smallest amount, extent, or degree reasonably possible”). It seems to us, therefore, that the phrase “best technology available,” even with the added specification “for minimizing adverse environmental impact,” does not unambiguously preclude cost-benefit analysis.
Respondents’ alternative (and, alas, also more complex) argument rests upon the structure of the Clean Water Act. The Act provided that during its initial implementation period existing “point sources” — discrete conveyances from which pollutants are or may be discharged, 33 U. S. C. § 1362(14) — were subject to “effluent limitations . . . which shall require the application of the best practicable control technology currently available.” § 1311(b)(1)(A) (emphasis added). (We shall call this the “BPT” test.) Following that transition period, the Act initially mandated adoption, by July 1, 1983 (later extended to March 31, 1989), of stricter effluent limitations requiring “application of the best available technology economically achievable for such category or class, which will result in reasonable further progress toward the national goal of eliminating the discharge of all pollutants.” § 1311(b)(2)(A) (emphasis added); see EPA v. National Crushed Stone Assn., 449 U. S. 64, 69-70 (1980). (We shall call this the “BATEA” test.) Subsequent amendment limited application of this standard to toxic and noneonventional pollutants, and for the remainder established a (presumably laxer) test of “best conventional-pollutant control technology.” § 1311(b)(2)(E). (We shall call this “BCT.”) Finally, §1316 subjected certain categories of new point sources to “the greatest degree of effluent reduction which the Administrator determines to be achievable through application of the best available demonstrated control technology. ” § 1316(a)(1) (emphasis added); § 1316(b)(1)(B). (We shall call this the “BADT” test.) The provision at issue here, applicable not to effluents but to cooling water intake structures, requires, as we have described, “the best technology available for minimizing adverse environmental impact,” § 1326(b) (emphasis added). (We shall call this the “BTA” test.)
The first four of these tests are elucidated by statutory factor lists that guide their implementation. To take the standards in (presumed) order of increasing stringency, see Crushed Stone, supra, at 69-70: In applying the BPT test the EPA is instructed to consider, among other factors, “the total cost of application of technology in relation to the effluent reduction benefits to be achieved.” § 1314(b)(1)(B). In applying the BCT test it is instructed to consider “the reasonableness of the relationship between the costs of attaining a reduction in effluents and the effluent reduction benefits derived.” § 1314(b)(4)(B) (emphasis added). And in applying the BATEA and BADT tests the EPA is instructed to consider the “cost of achieving such effluent reduction.” §§ 1314(b)(2)(B), 1316(b)(1)(B). There is no such elucidating language applicable to the BTA test at issue here. To facilitate comparison, the texts of these five tests, the clarifying factors applicable to them, and the entities to which they apply are set forth in the Appendix, infra.
The Second Circuit, in rejecting the EPA’s use of cost-benefit analysis, relied in part on the propositions that (1) cost-benefit analysis is precluded under the BATEA and BADT tests; and (2) that, insofar as the permissibility of cost-benefit analysis is concerned, the BTA test (the one at issue here) is to be treated the same as those two. See 475 F. 3d, at 98. It is not obvious to us that the first of these propositions is correct, but we need not pursue that point, since we assuredly do not agree with the second. It is certainly reasonable for the agency to conclude that the BTA test need not be interpreted to permit only what those other two tests permit. Its text is not identical to theirs. It has the relatively modest goal of “minimizing adverse environmental impact” as compared with the BATE A's goal of “eliminating the discharge of all pollutants.” And it is unencumbered by specified statutory factors of the sort provided for those other two tests, which omission can reasonably be interpreted to suggest that the EPA is accorded greater discretion in determining its precise content.
Respondents and the dissent argue that the mere fact that § 1326(b) does not expressly authorize cost-benefit analysis for the BTA test, though it does so for two of the other tests, displays an intent to forbid its use. This surely proves too much. For while it is true that two of the other tests authorize cost-benefit analysis, it is also true that all four of the other tests expressly authorize some consideration of costs. Thus, if respondents’ and the dissent’s conclusion regarding the import of § 1326(b)’s silence is correct, it is a fortiori true that the BTA test permits no consideration of cost whatsoever, not even the “cost-effectiveness” and “feasibility” analysis that the Second Circuit approved, see supra, at 217, that the dissent would approve, post, at 237, and that respondents acknowledge. The inference that respondents and the dissent would draw from the silence is, in any event, implausible, as § 1326(b) is silent not only with respect to cost-benefit analysis but with respect to all potentially relevant factors. If silence here implies prohibition, then the EPA could not consider any factors in implementing § 1326(b) — an obvious logical impossibility. It is eminently reasonable to conclude that §1326(b)’s silence is meant to convey nothing more than a refusal to tie the agency’s hands as to whether cost-benefit analysis should be used, and if so to what degree.
Contrary to the dissent’s suggestion, see post, at 238-240, our decisions in Whitman v. American Trucking Assns., Inc., 531 U. S. 457 (2001), and American Textile Mfrs. Institute, Inc. v. Donovan, 452 U. S. 490 (1981), do not undermine this conclusion. In American Trucking, we held that the text of § 109 of the Clean Air Act, “interpreted in its statutory and historical context . . . , unambiguously bars cost considerations” in setting air quality standards under that provision. 531 U. S., at 471. The relevant “statutory context” included other provisions in the Clean Air Act that expressly authorized consideration of costs, whereas §109 did not. Id., at 467-468. American Trucking thus stands for the rather unremarkable proposition that sometimes statutory silence, when viewed in context, is best interpreted as limiting agency discretion. For the reasons discussed earlier, § 1326(b)’s silence cannot bear that interpretation.
In American Textile, the Court relied in part on a statute’s failure to mention cost-benefit analysis in holding that the relevant agency was not required to engage in cost-benefit analysis in setting certain health and safety standards. 452 U. S., at 510-512. But under Chevron, that an agency is not required to do so does not mean that an agency is not permitted to do so.
This extended consideration of the text of § 1326(b), and comparison of that with the text and statutory factors applicable to four parallel provisions of the Clean Water Act, lead us to the conclusion that it was well within the bounds of reasonable interpretation for the EPA to conclude that cost-benefit analysis is not categorically forbidden. Other arguments may be available to preclude such a rigorous form of cost-benefit analysis as that which was prescribed under the statute’s former BPT standard, which required weighing “the total cost of application of technology” against “the ... benefits to be achieved.” See supra, at 221. But that question is not before us.
In the Phase II requirements challenged here the EPA sought only to avoid extreme disparities between costs and benefits. The agency limited variances from the Phase II “national performance standards” to circumstances where the costs are “significantly greater than the benefits” of compliance. 40 CFR § 125.94(a)(5)(h). In defining the “national performance standards” themselves the EPA assumed the application of technologies whose benefits “approach those estimated” for closed-cycle cooling systems at a fraction of the cost: $889 million per year, 69 Fed. Reg. 41666, as compared with (1) at least $3.5 billion per year to operate compliant closed-cycle cooling systems, id., at 41605 (or $1 billion per year to impose similar requirements on a subset of Phase II facilities, id., at 41606), and (2) significant reduction in the energy output of the altered facilities, id., at 41605. And finally, the EPA’s assessment of the relatively meager financial benefits of the Phase II regulations that it adopted— reduced impingement and entrainment of 1.4 billion aquatic organisms, id., at 41661, Exh. XII-6, with annualized use benefits of $83 million, id., at 41662, and nonuse benefits of indeterminate value, id., at 41660-41661 — when compared to annual costs of $389 million, demonstrates quite clearly that the agency did not select the Phase II regulatory requirements because their benefits equaled their costs.
While not conclusive, it surely tends to show that the EPA’s current practice is a reasonable and hence legitimate exercise of its discretion to weigh benefits against costs that the agency has been proceeding in essentially this fashion for over 30 years. See Alaska Dept. of Environmental Conservation v. EPA, 540 U. S. 461, 487 (2004); Barnhart v. Walton, 535 U. S. 212, 219-220 (2002). As early as 1977, the agency determined that, while § 1326(b) does not require cost-benefit analysis, it is also not reasonable to “interpret Section [1326(b)] as requiring use of technology whose cost is wholly disproportionate to the environmental benefit to be gained.” In re Public Service Co. of New Hampshire, 1 E. A. D. 332, 340 (1977). See also In re Central Hudson Gas and Electric Corp., EPA General Counsel Opinions, NPDES Permits, No. 63, pp. 371, 381 (July 29, 1977) (“EPA ultimately must demonstrate that the present value of the cumulative annual cost of modifications to cooling water intake structures is not wholly out of proportion to the magnitude of the estimated environmental gains”); Seacoast Anti-Pollution League v. Costle, 597 F. 2d 306, 311 (CA1 1979) (rejecting challenge to an EPA permit decision that was based in part on the agency’s determination that further restrictions would be “‘wholly disproportionate to any environmental benefit’ ”). While the EPA’s prior “wholly disproportionate” standard may be somewhat different from its current “significantly greater than” standard, there is nothing in the statute that would indicate that the former is a permissible interpretation while the latter is not.
Indeed, in its review of the EPA’s Phase I regulations, the Second Circuit seemed to recognize that § 1326(b) permits some form of cost-benefit analysis. In considering a challenge to the EPA’s rejection of dry cooling systems as the “best technology available” for Phase I facilities, the Second Circuit noted that “while it certainly sounds substantial that dry cooling is 95 percent more effective than closed-cycle cooling, it is undeniably relevant that that difference represents a relatively small improvement over closed-cycle cooling at a very significant cost.” Riverkeeper, 358 F. 3d, at 194, n. 22. And in the decision below rejecting the use of cost-benefit analysis in the Phase II regulations, the Second Circuit nonetheless interpreted “best technology available” as mandating only those technologies that can “be reasonably borne by the industry.” 475 F. 3d, at 99. But whether it is “reasonable” to bear a particular cost may well depend on the resulting benefits; if the only relevant factor was the feasibility of the costs, their reasonableness would be irrelevant.
In the last analysis, even respondents ultimately recognize that some form of cost-benefit analysis is permissible. They acknowledge that the statute’s language is “plainly not so constricted as to require EPA to require industry petitioners to spend billions to save one more fish or plankton.” Brief for Respondent Riverkeeper, Inc., et al. 29. This concedes the principle — the permissibility of at least some cost-benefit analysis — and we see no statutory basis for limiting its use to situations where the benefits are de minimis rather than significantly disproportionate.
* * *
We conclude that the EPA permissibly relied on cost-benefit analysis in setting the national performance standards and in providing for cost-benefit variances from those standards as part of the Phase II regulations. The Court of Appeals’ reliance in part on the agency’s use of cost-benefit analysis in invalidating the site-specific cost-benefit variance provision, 475 F. 3d, at 114, was therefore in error, as was its remand of the national performance standards for clarification of whether cost-benefit analysis was impermissibly used, id., at 104-105. We of course express no view on the remaining bases for the Second Circuit’s remand which did not depend on the permissibility of cost-benefit analysis. See id., at 108, 110, 113, 115, 117, 120. The judgment of the Court of Appeals is reversed, and the cases are remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
APPENDIX
The EPA and its Administrator appeared as respondents in support of petitioners. See Brief for Federal Parties as Respondents Supporting Petitioners. References to “respondents” throughout the opinion refer only to those parties challenging the EPA rules at issue in these cases.
Closed-cycle cooling systems recirculate the water used to cool the facility, and consequently extract less water from the adjacent waterway, proportionately reducing impingement and entrainment. Riverkeeper, Inc. v. EPA, 358 F. Bd 174, 182, n. 5 (CA2 2004); 69 Fed. Reg. 41601, and n. 44 (2004).
The EPA has also adopted Phase III rules for facilities not subject to the Phase I and Phase II regulations. 71 Fed. Reg. 35006 (2006). A challenge to those regulations is currently before the Fifth Circuit, where proceedings have been stayed pending disposition of these cases. See ConocoPhillips Co. v. EPA, No. 06-60662.
The dissent finds it “puzzling” that we invoke this proposition (that a reasonable agency interpretation prevails) at the “outset,” omitting the supposedly prior inquiry of‘“whether Congress has directly spoken to the precise question at issue.’” Post, at 241, n. 5 (opinion of Stevens, J.) (quoting Chevron, 467 U. S., at 842). But surely if Congress has directly spoken to an issue then any agency interpretation contradicting what Congress has said would be unreasonable.
What is truly “puzzling” is the dissent’s accompanying charge that the Court’s failure to conduct the Chevron step-one inquiry at the outset “reflects [its] reluctance to consider the possibility ... that Congress’ silence may have meant to foreclose cost-benefit analysis.” Post, at 241, n. 5. Our discussion of that issue, infra, at 222-223, speaks for itself
Respondents concede that the term “available” is ambiguous, as it could mean either technologically feasible or economically feasible. But any ambiguity in the term “available” is largely irrelevant. Regardless of the criteria that render a technology “available,” the EPA would still have to determine which available technology is the “best” one. And as discussed above, that determination may well involve consideration of the technology’s relative costs and benefits.
The statute does not contain a hyphen between the words “conventional” and “pollutant.” “Conventional pollutant” is a statutory term, however, see 33 U. S. C. § 1314(a)(4), and it is clear that in § 1311(b)(2)(E) the adjective modifies “pollutant” rather than “control technology.” The hyphen makes that clear.
Dry cooling systems use air drafts to remove heat, and accordingly remove little or no water from surrounding water sources. See 66 Fed. Reg. 65282 (2001).
Justice Breyer would remand for the additional reason of what he regards as the agency’s inadequate explanation of the change in its criterion for variances — from a relationship of costs to benefits that is “ ‘wholly disproportionate’” to one that is “‘significantly greater.’” Post, at 236 (opinion concurring in part and dissenting in part). That question can have no bearing upon whether the EPA can use cost-benefit analysis, which is the only question presented here. It seems to us, in any case, that the EPA’s explanation was ample. It explained that the “wholly out of proportion” standard was inappropriate for the existing facilities subject to the Phase II rules because those facilities lack “the greater flexibility available to new facilities for selecting the location of their intakes and installing technologies at lower costs relative to the costs associated with retrofitting existing facilities,” and because “economically impracticable impacts on energy prices, production costs, and energy production . . . could occur if large numbers of Phase II existing facilities incurred costs that were more than ‘significantly greater’ than but not ‘wholly out of proportion’ to the costs in the EPA’s record.” 68 Fed. Reg. 13541 (2003).
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer:
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H
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sc_issuearea
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What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Mr. Justice Harlan
delivered the opinion of the Court.
Petitioner was tried and convicted of knowingly transporting a woman in interstate commerce for the purpose of prostitution, in violation of the White Slave Traffic Act, 18 U. S. C. § 2421. At the trial, the woman, who had since the date of the offense married the petitioner, was ordered, over her objection and that of the petitioner, to testify on behalf of the prosecution. The Court of Appeals, on appeal from a judgment of conviction, affirmed the ruling of the District Court. 263 F. 2d 304. As the case presented significant issues concerning the scope and nature of the privilege against adverse spousal testimony, treated last Term in Hawkins v. United States, 358 U. S. 74, we granted certiorari. 360 U. S. 908. We affirm the judgment.
First. Our decision in Hawkins established, for the federal courts, the continued validity of the common-law rule of evidence ordinarily permitting a party to exclude the adverse testimony of his or her spouse. However, as that case expressly acknowledged, the common law has long recognized an exception in the case of certain kinds of offenses committed by the party against his, spouse. Id., at 75, citing Stein v. Bowman, 13 Pet. 209, 221. Exploration of the precise breadth of this exception, a matter of some uncertainty, see 8 Wigmore, Evidence (3d ed.), § 2239, can await a case, where it is necessary. For present purposes it is enough to note that every Court of Appeals which has considered the specific question now holds that the exception, and not the rule, applies to a Mann Act prosecution, where the defendant’s wife was the victim of the offense. Such unanimity with respect to a rule of evidence lends weighty credentials to that view.
While this Court has never before decided the question, we now unhesitatingly approve the rule followed in five different Circuits. We need not embark upon an extended consideration of the asserted bases for the spousal privilege (see Hawkins, supra, at 77-78; Wigmore, op. cit., supra, § 2228 (3)) and an appraisal of the applicability of each here, id., § 2239, for it cannot be seriously argued that one who has committed this “shameless offense against wifehood,” id., at p. 257, should be permitted to prevent his wife from testifying to the crime by invoking an interest founded on the marital relation or the desire of the law to protect it. Petitioner’s attempt to prevent his wife from testifying, by invoking an asserted privilege of his own, was properly rejected.
Second. The witness-wife, however, did not testify willingly, but objected to being questioned by the prosecution, and gave evidence only upon the ruling of the District Court denying her- claimed privilege not to testify. We therefore consider the correctness of that ruling.
The United States argues that, once having held, as we do, that in such a case as this the petitioner’s wife could not be prevented from testifying voluntarily, Hawkins establishes that she may be compelled to testify. For, it is said, that case specifically rejected any distinction between voluntary and compelled testimony. 358 U. S., at 77. This argument fails to take account of the setting of our decision in Hawkins. To say that a witness-spouse may be prevented from testifying voluntarily simply means that the party has a privilege to exclude the testimony ; when, on the other hand, the spouse may not be compelled to testify against her will, it is the witness who is accorded a privilege. In Hawkins, the Government took the position that the spousal privilege should be that of the witness, and not that of the party, so that while the wife could decline to testify, she could not be prevented from giving evidence if she elected not to claim a privilege which, it was said, belonged to her alone. Brief for the United States, No. 20, O. T. 1958, pp. 22-43. In declining to hold that the party had no privilege, we manifestly did not thereby repudiate the privilege of the witness.
While the question has not often arisen, it has apparently been generally assumed that the privilege resided in the witness as well as in the party. Hawkins referred to “a rule which bars the testimony of one spouse against the other unless both consent,” supra, at 78. (Emphasis supplied.) See Stein v. Bowman, supra, at 223 (wife cannot “by force of authority be compelled to state facts in evidence”); United States v. Mitchell, supra, at 1008 (“the better view is that the privilege is that of either spouse who chooses to claim it”); Wigmore, op. cit., supra, § 2241; McCormick, Evidence, § 66, n. 3. In its Hawkins brief, the Government, while calling for the abolition of the party’s privilege, urged that the common-law development could be explained, and its policies fully vindicated, by recognition of the privilege of the witness. Brief, pp. 22-25, 33, 42-43; see Hawkins, supra, at 77, and concurring opinion, at 82. At least some of the bases of the party’s privilege are in reason applicable to that of the witness. As Wigmore puts it, op. cit., supra, at p. 264: “[W]hile the defendant-husband is entitled to be protected against condemnation through the wife’s testimony, the witness-wife is also entitled to be protected against becoming the instrument of that condemnation, — the sentiment in each case being equal in degree and yet different in quality.” In light of these considerations, we decline to accept the view that the privilege is that of the party alone.
Third. Neither can we hold that, whenever the privilege is unavailable to the party, it is ipso facto lost to the witness as well. It is a question in each case, or in each category of cases, whether, in light of the reason which has led to a refusal to recognize the party’s privilege, the witness should be held compellable. Certainly, we would not be justified in laying down a general rule that both privileges stand or fall together. We turn instead to the particular situation at bar.
Where a man has prostituted his own wife, he has committed an offense against both her and the marital relation, and we have today affirmed the exception disabling him from excluding her testimony against him. It is suggested, however, that this exception has no application to the witness-wife when she chooses to remain silent. The exception to the party’s privilege, it is said, rests on the necessity of preventing the defendant from sealing his wife’s lips by his own unlawful act, see United States v. Mitchell, supra, at 1008-1009; Wigmore, op. cit., supra, § 2239, and it is argued that where the wife has chosen not to "become the instrument” of her husband’s downfall, it is her own privilege which is in question, and the reasons for according it to her in the first place are fully applicable.
We must view this position in light of the congressional' judgment and policy embodied in the Mann Act. "A primary purpose of the Mann Act was to protect women who were weak from men who were bad.” Denning v. United States, 247 F. 463, 465. It was in response to shocking revelations of subjugation of women too weak to resist that Congress acted. See H. R. Rep. No. 47, 61st Cong., 2d Sess., pp. 10-11. As the legislative history discloses, the Act reflects the supposition that the women with whom it sought to deal often had no independent will of their own, and embodies, in effect, the view that they must be protected against themselves. Compare 18 U. S. C. § 2422 (consent of woman immaterial in prosecution under that section). It is not for us to re-examine the basis of that supposition.
Applying the legislative judgment underlying the Act, we are led to hold it not an allowable choice for a prostituted witness-wife "voluntarily” to decide to protect her husband by declining to testify against him. For if a defendant can induce a woman, against her "will,” to enter a life of prostitution for his benefit — and the Act rests on the view that he can — by the same token it should be considered that he can, at least as easily, persuade one who has already fallen victim to his influence that she must also protect him. To make matters turn upon ad hoc inquiries into the actual state of mind of particular women, thereby encumbering Mann Act trials with a collateral issue of the greatest subtlety, is hardly an acceptable solution.
Fourth. What we have already said likewise governs the disposition of the petitioner’s reliance on the fact that his marriage took place after the commission of the offense. Again, we deal here only with a Mann Act prosecution, and intimate no view on the applicability of the privilege of either a party or a witness similarly circumstanced in other situations. The legislative assumption of lack of independent will applies as fully here. As the petitioner by his power over the witness could, as we have considered should be assumed, have secured her promise not to testify, so, it should be assumed, could he have induced her to go through a marriage ceremony with him, perhaps “in contemplation of evading justice by reason of the very rule which is now sought to be invoked.” United States v. Williams, 55 F. Supp. 375, 380.
The ruling of the District Court was correctly upheld by the Court of Appeals. .
Affirmed.
Although the record is ambiguous as to the fact and time of petitioner’s marriage, we shall consider established, as the Court of Appeals did, the sequence of events stated in the text. Further, the Court of Appeals noted that, while the record did not clearly establish that the petitioner, as well as his wife, claimed a privilege with respect to her testimony, it would assume that he had. 263 F. 2d 304, 308. We accept that assumption.
United States v. Mitchell, 137 F. 2d 1006 (C. A. 2d Cir.); Levine v. United States, 163 F. 2d 992 (C. A. 5th Cir.); Shores v. United States, 174 F. 2d 838 (C. A. 8th Cir.), overruling Johnson v. United States, 221 F. 250; Pappas v. United States, 241 F. 665 (C. A. 9th Cir.); Hayes v. United States, 168 F. 2d 996 (C. A. 10th Cir.).
The United States does not question the standing of petitioner to seek reversal because of the allegedly erroneous refusal to respect the privilege of his wife. Since such testimony, even if wrongly compelled, is per se admissible, Funk v. United States, 290 U. S. 371, and relevant, it has been argued that the party has suffered no injury of which he may complain. Wigmore, op. cit., supra, § 2196 (2) (a); McCormick, Evidence, §73; Uniform Rules of Evidence, Rule 40; Am. L. Inst. Model Code of Evidence, Rule 234; Note, 30 Col. L. Rev. 686, 693-694. See, e. g., Turner v. State, 60 Miss. 351,353. However, as the point has not been briefed or argued, we have thought it appropriate, in view of our disposition of the case on the merits, not to consider the issue of standing, and of course intimate no view on it.
Funk v. United States, supra, abolished, for the federal courts, the disqualification or incompetence of the spouse as a witness, thus establishing the admissibility of his or her testimony, and leaving the question one of privilege only.
The petitioner’s further assertion, that apart from the testimony of the wife there was insufficient corroboration of his admission of transportation, thus fails by its own assumption.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer:
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A
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sc_issuearea
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What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Justice Scalia
delivered the opinion of the Court.
Under the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 (AEDPA), a federal court may not grant habeas relief to a state prisoner with respect to any claim that has been “adjudicated on the merits in State court proceedings” unless the state-court adjudication “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.” 28 U. S. C. § 2254(d)(1). We consider whether “clearly established Federal law” includes decisions of this Court that are announced after the last adjudication of the merits in state court but before the defendant’s conviction becomes final.
I
In December 1993, petitioner Eric Greene and four co-conspirators robbed a grocery store in North Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. During the robbery, one of the men shot and killed the store’s owner. The five were apprehended, and two of them confessed to taking part in the robbery. Greene did not confess, but he was implicated by the others’ statements.
When the Commonwealth sought to try all of the co-conspirators jointly, Greene sought severance, arguing, inter alia, that the confessions of his nontestifying codefendants should not be introduced at his trial. The trial court denied the motion to sever, but agreed to require redaction of the confessions to eliminate proper names. As redacted, the confessions replaced names with words like “this guy,” “someone,” and “other guys,” or with the word “blank,” or simply omitted the names without substitution.
A jury convicted Greene of second-degree murder, robbery, and conspiracy. He appealed to the Pennsylvania Superior Court, arguing that severance of his trial was demanded by the rule announced in Bruton v. United States, 391 U. S. 123 (1968), that the Confrontation Clause forbids the prosecution to introduce a nontestifying codefendant’s confession implicating the defendant in the crime. The Pennsylvania Superior Court affirmed the conviction, holding that the redaction had cured any problem under Bruton.
Greene filed a petition for allowance of appeal to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, raising the same Bruton claim. While that petition was pending, we held in Gray v. Maryland, 523 U. S. 185, 195 (1998), that “considered as a class, redactions that replace a proper name with an obvious blank, the word ‘delete,’ a symbol, or similarly notify the jury that a name has been deleted are similar enough to Bruton’s un-redacted confessions as to warrant the same legal results.” The Pennsylvania Supreme Court granted the petition for allowance of appeal, limited to the question whether admission of the redacted confessions violated Greene’s Sixth Amendment rights. After the parties filed merits briefs, however, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court dismissed the appeal as improvidently granted.
Greene then filed a federal habeas corpus petition in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, alleging, inter alia, that the introduction of his nontestifying codefendants’ statements violated the Confrontation Clause. Adopting the report and recommendation of a Magistrate Judge, the District Court denied the petition. It concluded that since our decision in Gray was not “clearly established Federal law” when the Pennsylvania Superior Court adjudicated Greene’s Confrontation Clause claim, that court’s decision was not “contrary to,” or “an unreasonable application of, clearly established Federal law.” 28 U. S. C. § 2254(d)(1).
A divided panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit affirmed. Greene v. Palakovich, 606 F. 3d 85 (2010). The majority held that the “clearly established Federal law” referred to in § 2254(d)(1) is the law at the time of the state-court adjudication on the merits. Id., at 99. The dissenting judge contended that it is the law at the time the conviction becomes final. Id., at 108. We granted cer-tiorari. 563 U. S. 917 (2011).
II
Section 2254(d) of Title 28 U. S. C., as amended by AEDPA, provides:
“An application for a writ of habeas corpus on behalf of a person in custody pursuant to the judgment of a State court shall not be granted with respect to any claim that was adjudicated on the merits in State court proceedings unless the adjudication of the claim—
“(1) resulted in a decision that was contrary to, or involved an unreasonable application of, clearly established Federal law, as determined by the Supreme Court of the United States; or
“(2) resulted in a decision that was based on an unreasonable determination of the facts in light of the evidence presented in the State court proceeding.”
The issue here pertains to the first exception. We have said that its standard of “contrary to, or involv[ing] an unreasonable application of, clearly established Federal law” is “difficult to meet,” because the purpose of AEDPA is to ensure that federal habeas relief functions as a “ ‘guard against extreme malfunctions in the state criminal justice systems,’ ” and not as a means of error correction. Harrington v. Richter, 562 U. S. 86,102-103 (2011) (quoting Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U. S. 307, 332, n. 5 (1979) (Stevens, J., concurring in judgment)).
In light of that objective, and relying upon the text of the provision, we held last Term, in Cullen v. Pinholster, 563 U. S. 170 (2011), that review under § 2254(d)(1) is limited to the record that was before the state court that adjudicated the prisoner’s claim on the merits. We said that the provision’s “backward-looking language requires an examination of the state-court decision at the time it was made.” Id., at 182. The reasoning of Cullen determines the result here. As we explained, § 2254(d)(1) requires federal courts to “focu[s] on what a state court knew and did,” and to measure state-court decisions “against this Court’s precedents as of ‘the time the state court renders its decision.’ ” Ibid, (quoting Lockyer v. Andrade, 538 U. S. 63, 71-72 (2003); emphasis added).
Greene resists that conclusion by appealing to our decision in Teague v. Lane, 489 U. S. 288 (1989). Teague held that a prisoner seeking federal habeas relief may rely on new constitutional rules of criminal procedure announced before the prisoner’s conviction became final. Id., at 310 (plurality opinion); see also Penry v. Lynaugh, 492 U. S. 302, 313 (1989) (affirming and applying Teague rule). Finality occurs when direct state appeals have been exhausted and a petition for writ of certiorari from this Court has become time barred or has been disposed of. Griffith v. Kentucky, 479 U. S. 314, 321, n. 6 (1987). Greene contends that, because finality marks the temporal cutoff for Teague purposes, it must mark the temporal cutoff for “clearly established Federal law” under AEDPA.
The analogy has been rejected by our cases. We have explained that AEDPA did not codify Teague, and that “the AEDPA and Teague inquiries are distinct.” Horn v. Banks, 536 U. S. 266, 272 (2002) (per curiam). The retroactivity rules that govern federal habeas review on the merits— which include Teague — are quite separate from the relitigation bar imposed by AEDPA; neither abrogates or qualifies the other. If § 2254(d)(1) was, indeed, pegged to Teague, it would authorize relief when a state-court merits adjudication “resulted in a decision that became contrary to, or an unreasonable application of, clearly established Federal law, before the conviction became final.” The statute says no such thing, and we see no reason why Teague should alter AEDPA’s plain meaning.
Greene alternatively contends that the relevant “decision” to which the “clearly established Federal law” criterion must be applied is the decision of the state supreme court that disposes of a direct appeal from a defendant’s conviction or sentence, even when (as here) that decision does not adjudicate the relevant claim on the merits. This is an implausible reading of § 2254(d)(1). The text, we repeat, provides that habeas relief
“shall not be granted with respect to any claim that was adjudicated on the merits in State court proceedings unless the adjudication of the claim . . . resulted in a decision that was contrary to, or involved an unreasonable application of, clearly established Federal law . .. (Emphasis added.)
The words “the adjudication” in the “unless” clause obviously refer back to the “adjudication] on the merits,” and the phrase “resulted in a decision” in the “unless” clause obviously refers to the decision produced by that same adjudication on the merits. A later affirmance of that decision on alternative procedural grounds, for example, would not be a decision resulting from the merits adjudication. And much less would be (what is at issue here) a decision by the state supreme court not to hear the appeal — that is, not to decide at all.
Ill
The Third Circuit held, and the parties do not dispute, that the last state-court adjudication on the merits of Greene’s Confrontation Clause claim occurred on direct appeal to the Pennsylvania Superior Court. 606 F. 3d, at 92, and n. 1. The Pennsylvania Superior Court’s decision predated our decision in Gray by nearly three months. The Third Circuit thus correctly held that Gray was not “clearly established Federal law” against which it could measure the Pennsylvania Superior Court’s decision. 606 F. 3d, at 99. The panel then concluded (and the parties do not dispute) that the Pennsylvania Superior Court’s decision neither was “contrary to,” nor “involved an unreasonable application of,” any “clearly established Federal law” that existed at the time. Id., at 106. Consequently, § 2254(d)(1) bars the federal courts from granting Greene’s application for a writ of ha-beas corpus.
We must observe that Greene’s predicament is an unusual one of his own creation. Before applying for federal habeas, he missed two opportunities to obtain relief under Gray: After the Pennsylvania Supreme Court dismissed his appeal, he did not file a petition for writ of certiorari from this Court, which would almost certainly have produced a remand in light of the intervening Gray decision. “Where intervening developments . . . reveal a reasonable probability that the decision below rests upon a premise that the lower court would reject if given the opportunity for further consideration, and where it appears that such a redetermination may determine the ultimate outcome of the litigation, [an order granting the petition, vacating the judgment below, and remanding the case (GVR)] is, we believe, potentially appropriate.” Lawrence v. Chater, 516 U. S. 163, 167 (1996) (per curiam). See, e. g., Stanbridge v. New York, 395 U. S. 709 (1969) (per curiam) (GVR in light of Bruton). Nor did Greene assert his Gray claim in a petition for state postcon-viction relief. Having forgone two obvious means of asserting his claim, Greene asks us to provide him relief by interpreting AEDPA in a manner contrary to both its text and our precedents. We decline to do so, and affirm the judgment of the Court of Appeals.
It is so ordered.
Whether § 2254(d)(1) would bar a federal habeas petitioner from relying on a decision that came after the last state-court adjudication on the merits, but fell within one of the exceptions recognized in Teague, 489 U. S., at 311 (plurality opinion), is a question we need not address to resolve 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:
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A
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sc_issuearea
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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.
Opinion of the Court by
Mr. Justice Murphy,
announced by Mr. Justice Rutledge.
We are faced here with the problem of whether, in a state probate proceeding, a claim asserted by the Farm Credit Administration through certain of its officials for and on behalf of the United States is entitled to priority under § 3466 of the Revised Statutes, 31 U. S. C. § 191.
The Governor of the Farm Credit Administration, pursuant to the Acts of February 23, 1934, and June 19, 1934, extended emergency feed and crop loans totalling $370.00 to Wilhelm Buttke, a South Dakota farmer. Most of these loans remained unpaid. On December 26, 1941, Buttke died intestate, leaving an estate insufficient to pay all of his debts. Respondent was appointed administrator of the estate. On March 2, 1942, an authorized agent of the Governor of the Farm Credit Administration filed in the County Court of Roberts County, South Dakota, a claim against the estate for $523.80, the amount of the unpaid indebtedness plus interest. This claim was made “for and on behalf of the United States of America” and a priority therefor on behalf of the United States was asserted under § 3466 of the Revised Statutes.
The County Court denied preference to this claim. But it did allow the claim in the amount of $79.53, which represented the pro rata share of a common creditor’s claim. This decision was affirmed by the Circuit Court of the Fifth Judicial Circuit of South Dakota and by the Supreme Court of South Dakota. 70 S. D. —, 23 N. W. 2d 281. The latter court felt that the Acts of February 23, 1934, and June 19, 1934, created an exception to § 3466 and that the claimed priority should accordingly be refused on the authority of United States v. Guaranty Trust Co., 280 U. S. 478. We granted certiorari because of the important problems thereby raised.
The relevant portion of § 3466 of the Revised Statutes provides that “. . . whenever the estate of any deceased debtor, in the hands of the executors or administrators, is insufficient to pay all the debts due from the deceased, the debts due to the United States shall be first satisfied . . . .”
Initially, it is suggested that § 3466 is inapplicable since the claim in issue is not a debt due to the United States. The claim grows out of the seven notes executed by the deceased to “the Governor of the Farm Credit Administration, or order, at Washington, D. C.” These notes stated that they were “given as evidence of a loan made by the Governor of the Farm Credit Administration.” On the premise that the Farm Credit Administration is an entity separate and distinct from the United States Government, the argument is made that obligations due the Farm Credit Administration fall outside the priority established by § 3466. We cannot agree.
The Farm Credit Administration is plainly one of the many administrative units of the United States Government, established to carry out the functions delegated to it by Congress. It bears none of the features of a government corporation with a legal entity separate from that of the United States, whatever difference that might make as to the application of § 3466. Cf. Sloan Shipyards Corp. v. United States Fleet Corp., 258 U. S. 549. It had its inception in 1933 as an independent agency, assuming the functions of the Federal Farm Board and the Federal Farm Loan Board. Executive Order No. 6084. In 1939, it was transferred to the Department of Agriculture and placed under the general supervision and direction of the Secretary of Agriculture. Reorganization Plan No. 1, § 401 (a), 53 Stat. 1429, 4 Fed. Reg. 2730. Its functions, personnel and property were then consolidated in 1942 with those of certain other agencies to form the Food Production Administration of the Department of Agriculture. Executive Order No. 9280, 7 Fed. Reg. 10179. At no time has the Farm Credit Administration been other than an unincorporated agency of the United States Government, administering and lending funds appropriated by Congress out of the United States Treasury and returning the money to the Treasury upon repayment. In short, it is an integral part of the governmental mechanism. And the use of a name other than that of the United States cannot change that fact. United States v. Fontenot, 33 F. Supp. 629; In re Wilson, 23 F. Supp. 236; Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas v. Smylie, (Tex. Civ. App.) 134 S. W. 2d 838; Helms v. Emergency Crop & Seed Loan Office, 216 N. C. 581, 5 S. E. 2d 822. See also North Dakota-Montana Wheat Growers’ Assn. v. United States, 66 F. 2d 573. Hence any debt owed the Farm Credit Administration is a debt owed the United States within the meaning of § 3466.
Moreover, the priority given by § 3466 to a debt due to the United States is unaffected by the fact that a claim based upon that debt is filed in the name of an agency of the United States or an authorized officer of such an agency. It is enough that there is an obligation owed the United States. Whether the claim is filed in the name of the United States or in the name of an officer or agency is immaterial; in the latter instance, the claim is necessarily filed on behalf of the United States and the legal effect is the same as if it had been filed in that name. Nothing in the language or policy of § 3466 justifies any other conclusion. It follows that the method of filing in this case cannot be questioned. The claim was filed in the name of the Governor of the Farm Credit Administration “for and on behalf of the United States of America”— an explicit recognition of the legal realities involved.
The main contention, however, is that the purpose of the statutes under which the loans were made is inconsistent with § 3466, thereby rendering it inapplicable. The Acts of February 23, 1934, and June 19, 1934, authorized feed and crop loans to farmers in drought and storm-stricken areas of the nation. It is said that the prime purpose of these Acts was to restore the credit of the farmers and that to give effect to § 3466 would impair that credit. Reliance is placed upon United States v. Guaranty Trust Co., supra. This Court there held that § 3466 was inapplicable to the collection of loans made by the Government to railroad carriers to rehabilitate and maintain their credit status; it was felt that to give priority under such circumstances would defeat the purpose of the legislation by impairing the credit of the railroads. See also Cook County National Bank v. United States, 107 U. S. 445.
But it is manifest that the purpose of the Acts of February 23, 1934, and June 19, 1934, was to give emergency relief to distressed farmers rather than to restore their credit status. These were but two of a series of emergency feed and crop loan statutes enacted at various times from 1921 to 1938, a period when farmers were the victims of repeated crop failures and adverse economic conditions. Their credit was often impaired, but their most urgent need was for money to purchase feed and to plant crops; without such money, distress and unemployment might have been their lot. It was to meet that urgent need that Congress passed these statutes.
More specifically, the two Acts under consideration were designed to make loans available to those farmers who were unable to secure credit from the Production Credit Associations, organized pursuant to the Farm Credit Act of 1933. It was recognized that many farmers could not qualify for loans from those Associations. Some method of lending aid and assistance to those who had no credit and no money with which to buy feed for their livestock and seeds for their crops was essential in the absence of a more direct form of Government relief. S. Rep. 148, 73d Cong., 2d Sess.; H. Rep. 521, 73d Cong., 2d Sess. As was said by Representative Kerr, “Let it be remembered that the Government is not seeking to make an investment; this is simply an endeavor to finance the farmers of this country who are utterly unable to finance themselves.” 78 Cong. Rec. 1959. See United States v. Thomas, 107 F. 2d 765, 766; Person v. United States, 112 F. 2d 1, 2.
We conclude that there is no irreconcilable conflict between giving emergency loans to distressed farmers and giving priority to the collection of these loans pursuant to § 3466. Such priority could in no way impair the aid which the farmers sought through these loans; nor could it embarrass the farmers in their daily operations. Moreover, these loans called for a first lien on crops growing or to be grown, or on livestock. The conditions prevailing in 1934 made this type of security uncertain and there is no indication that Congress meant such a lien to be the sole security to which the Government could look for repayment.
We reiterate what was said in United States v. Emory, 314 U. S. 423, 433: “Only the plainest inconsistency would warrant our finding an implied exception to the operation of so clear a command as that of § 3466.” In this case, as in that, we think such inconsistency is wholly wanting. United States v. Guaranty Trust Co., supra, is therefore inapposite.
Reversed.
Mr. Justice Douglas would affirm the judgment on the authority of United States v. Guaranty Trust Co., 280 U. S. 478.
48 Stat. 354.
48 Stat. 1021, 1056.
41 Stat. 1347; 42 Stat. 467 ; 43 Stat. 110; 44 Stat. 1245, 1251; 45 Stat. 1306, as amended by 46 Stat. 3; 46 Stat. 78, as amended by 46 Stat. 254; 46 Stat. 1032, as amended by 46 Stat. 1160; 46 Stat. 1276; 47 Stat. 5; 47 Stat. 795; 48 Stat. 354; 48 Stat. 1056; 49 Stat. 28; 50 Stat. 5; 52 Stat. 27.
48 Stat. 257.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer:
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L
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sc_issuearea
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What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Justice Breyer
delivered the opinion of the Court.
The question before us is whether § 5 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, 79 Stat. 439, as amended, 42 U. S. C. § 1973c (§ 5), requires preclearance of certain changes that Mississippi made in its voter registration procedures — changes that Mississippi made in order to comply with the National Voter Registration Act of 1993. We hold that §5 does require preclearance.
I
A
The National Voter Registration Act
Congress enacted the National Voter Registration Act of 1993 (NVRA), 107 Stat. 77, 42 U. S. C. § 1973gg et seq., to take effect for States like Mississippi on January 1, 1995. The NVRA requires States to provide simplified systems for registering to vote in federal elections, i. e., elections for federal officials, such as the President, congressional Representatives, and United States Senators. The States must provide a system for voter registration by mail, § 1973gg-4, a system for voter registration at various state offices (including those that provide “public assistance” and those that provide services to people with disabilities), § 1973gg-5, and, particularly important, a system for voter registration on a driver’s license application, §1973gg-3. The NVRA specifies various details about how these systems must work, including, for example, the type of information that States can require on a voter registration form. §§ 1973gg-3(c)(2), 1973gg-7(b). It also imposes requirements about just when, and how, States may remove people from the federal voter rolls. §§ 1973gg-6(a)(3), (4). The NVRA adds that it does not “supersede, restrict or limit the application of the Voting Rights Act of 1965,” and that it does not “authoriz[e] or require] conduct that is prohibited by the Voting Rights Act of 1965.” § 1973gg-9(d).
The Voting Rights Act
Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 (VRA), among other things, prohibits a State with a specified history of voting discrimination, such as Mississippi, from “enact[ing] or seeking] to administer any . . . practice], or procedure with respect to voting different from that in force or effect on November 1, 1964,” unless and until the State obtains preclearance from the United States Attorney General (Attorney General) or the United States District Court for the District of Columbia. § 1973c. Preclearance is, in effect, a determination that the change “does not have the purpose and will not have the effect of denying or abridging the right to vote on account of race or color.” Ibid. In the language of § 5 jurisprudence, this determination involves a determination that the change is not retrogressive. Beer v. United States, 425 U. S. 130, 141 (1976); 28 CFR § 51.54(a) (1996).
B
The case before us concerns three different Mississippi voting registration systems: The first system, which we shall call the “Old System,” is that used by Mississippi before it tried to comply with the NVRA. The second system, the “Provisional Plan,” is a system aimed at NVRA compliance, which Mississippi tried to implement for about six weeks between January 1, 1995, and February 10, 1995. The third system, the “New System,” is the system that Mississippi put into place after February 10, 1995, in a further effort to comply with the NVRA. We shall briefly explain the relevant features of each system.
The Old System. Before 1995, Mississippi administered a voting registration system, which, like the systems of most States, provided for a single registration that allowed the registrant to vote in both federal elections and state elections (i. e., elections for state and local offices). Under Mississippi law, a citizen could register to vote either by appearing personally at a county or municipal clerk’s office or at other locations (such as polling places) that the clerk or his deputy visited to register people to vote. Miss. Code Ann. §§23-15-35, 23-15-37, 23-15-39(6) (1990). Mississippi citizens could also register by obtaining a mail-in registration form available at driver’s license agencies, public schools, and public libraries, among other places, and mailing it back to the clerk. Miss. Code Ann. § 23 — 15—47(2)(a) (Supp. 1996). The law set forth various details, requiring, for example, that a mail-in application contain the name and address of the voter and that it be attested to by a witness, ibid, (although there is some dispute between the parties about whether an application could be rejected for failing to have the witness’ signature). State law also allowed county registration officials to purge voters from the rolls if they had not voted in four years. Miss. Code Ann. §23-15-159 (1990).
The Provisional Plan. In late 1994, the Mississippi secretary of state, with the help of an NVRA implementation committee, prepared a series of voter registration changes designed to ensure compliance with the NVRA. The new voter registration application that was incorporated into the driver’s license form, for example, did not require that the registrant repeat his or her address, nor did it require an attesting witness. The secretary of state provided information and instructions about those changes to voter registration officials and state. agency personnel throughout the State. The secretary of state and the implementing committee assumed — and recommended — that the Mississippi Legislature would change state law insofar as that law might prevent a valid registration under the NVRA’s provisions from counting as a valid registration for a state or local election. And, on that assumption, at least one official in the secretary of state’s office told state election officials to place the name of any new valid applicant under the NVRA on a list that would permit him or her to vote in state, as well as in federal, elections.
Using this Provisional Plan, at least some Mississippi officials registered as many as 4,000 voters between January 1, 1995, and February 10, 1995. On January 25, however, the state legislature tabled a bill that would have made NVRA registrations valid for all elections in Mississippi (by, for example, allowing applicants at driver’s license and other agencies to register on the spot, without having to mail in the application themselves, App. 86, by eliminating the attesting witness signature on the mail-in application, compare, id., at 96,101, with Miss. Code Ann. §23-15-47(3) (Supp. 1996), and by eliminating the optional 4-year purge of nonvoting registrants, replacing it with other methods for maintaining up-to-date voter rolls, App. 87-92,103). Because of the legislature’s failure to change the Old System’s requirements for state election registration, the state attorney general concluded that Provisional Plan registrations that did not meet Old System requirements would not work, under state law, as registration for state elections. State officials notified voter registration officials throughout the State; and they, in turn, were asked to help notify the 4,000 registrants that they were not registered to vote in state or local elections.
The New System. On February 10, 1995, Mississippi began to use what we shall call the New System. That system consists of the changes that its Provisional Plan set forth — but as applied only to registration for federal elections. Mississippi maintains the Old System as the only method for registration for state elections, and as one set of methods to register for federal elections. See App. to Juris. Statement 21a. All other States, we are told, have modified their voter registration rules so that NVRA registration registers voters for both federal and state elections. Brief for United States as Amicus Curiae 4.
C
This case arises out of efforts by Mississippi to preclear, under §5 of the VRA, changes that it made to comply with the NVRA. In December 1994, Mississippi submitted to the United States Attorney General a list of NVRA-implementing changes that it then intended to make. That submission essentially described what we have called the Provisional Plan. The submission contained numerous administrative changes described in two booklets called The National Voter Registration Act, App. 26-43, and the Mississippi Agency Voter Registration Procedures Manual, id., at 51-60. It also included the proposed state legislation necessary to make the Provisional Plan work for state elections as well. Id., at 86-104. Mississippi requested preclearance. Id., at 109-110. On February 1, 1995, the Department of Justice wrote to Mississippi that the Attorney General did “not interpose any objection to the specified changes”— thereby preclearing Mississippi’s submitted changes. App. to Juris. Statement 17a.
As we pointed out above, however, on January 25, about one week before the Attorney General precleared the proposed changes, the state legislature had tabled the proposed legislation needed to make those changes effective for state elections. On February 10, 10 days after the Department precleared the proposed changes, Mississippi officials wrote to voter registration officials around the State, telling them that it “appears unlikely that the Legislature will” revive the tabled bill; that the Provisional Plan’s registration would therefore not work for state elections; that they should write — or help the secretary of state write — to tell those who had registered under that system that they were not registered to vote in state elections; that they should make certain future registrants understand that they would need to register separately to be eligible to vote in state, as well as federal, elections; and that they should develop a system for distinguishing between NVRA and other voters. Id,., at 20a-23a.
On February 16, about two weeks after the Department of Justice sent its preclearance letter, the Department wrote another letter to Mississippi, which made clear that the Department did not believe its earlier preclearance had pre-cleared what it now saw as a new plan. The Department asked the State to submit what it called this new “dual registration and voter purge system” for preclearance. Id., at 24a. The Department added:
“In this regard, we note that while, on February 1,1995, the Attorney General granted Section 5 preclearance to procedures instituted by the state to implement the NVRA, that submission did not seek preclearance for a dual registration and purge system and, indeed, we understand that the decision to institute such a system was not made until after February 1.” Id., at 24a-25a.
Mississippi, perhaps believing that the February 1 preclearance sufficed, made no further preclearance submissions.
D
On April 20, 1995, four private citizens (appellants) brought this lawsuit before a three-judge. District Court. They claimed that Mississippi and its officials had implemented changes in its registration system without preclearance in violation of § 5. The United States, which is an ami-cus curiae here, brought a similar lawsuit, and the two actions were consolidated.
The three-judge District Court granted Mississippi’s motion for summary judgment. It considered the plaintiffs’ basic claim, namely, that the differences between the Provisional Plan and the New System amounted to a change in the administration of Mississippi’s voting registration practice, which change had not been precleared. The court rejected this argument on the ground that the Provisional Plan was a misapplication of state law, never ratified by the State. Since the differences between the New System and the Provisional Plan were attributable to the State’s attempt to correct this misapplication of state law, the court held, those differences were not changes subject to preclearance.
The court also considered a different question, namely, whether the New System differed from the Old System; and whether Mississippi had precleared all the changes that the New System made in the Old. The court held that the Department had (on February 1) precleared the administrative changes needed to implement the NVRA. The court also held that Mississippi did not need to preclear its failure to pass a law that would have permitted NVRA registration to count for state, as well as for federal, elections, as the distinction between state and federal elections was due to the NVRA’s own provisions, not to the State’s changes in voting practices.
The private plaintiffs appealed, and we noted probable jurisdiction. 518 U. S. 1055 (1996). We now reverse.
II
Section 5 of the VRA requires Mississippi to preclear any . . . practice] or procedure with respect to voting different from that in force or effect on November 1, 1964.” 42 U. S. C. § 1973c. The statute’s date of November 1, 1964, often, as here, is not directly relevant, for differences once precleared normally need not be cleared again. They become part of the baseline standard for purposes of determining whether a State has “enact[ed]” or is “seeking] to administer” a “practice or procedure” that is “different” enough itself to require preclearance. Presley v. Etowah County Comm’n, 502 U. S. 491, 495 (1992) (“To determine whether there have been changes with respect to voting, we must compare the challenged practices with those in existence before they were adopted. Absent relevant intervening changes, the Act requires us to use practices in existence on November 1, 1964, as our standard of comparison”). Regardless, none of the parties asks us to look further back in time than 1994, when the Old System was last in effect. The appellants ask us to consider whether Mississippi’s New System amounts to a forbidden effort to implement unprecleared changes either (a) because the New System is “different from” the post-1994 Provisional Plan or (b) because it is “different from” the 1994 Old System. We shall consider each of these claims in turn.
A'
First, the appellants and the Government argue that the Provisional Plan, because it was precleared by the Attorney General, became part of the baseline against which to judge whether a future change must be precleared. They add that the New System differs significantly from the Provisional Plan, particularly in its effect on registration for state elections. They conclude that Mississippi had to preclear the New System insofar as it differed from the Provisional Plan.
The District Court rejected this argument on the ground that the Provisional Plan practices and procedures never became part of Mississippi’s voting-related practices or procedures, but instead simply amounted to a temporary misapplication of state law. We, too, believe that the Provisional Plan, in the statute’s words, was never “in force or effect.” 42 U.S. C. § 1973c.
The District Court rested its conclusion upon the fact that Mississippi did not change its state law so as to make the Provisional Plan’s “unitary” registration system lawful and that neither the Governor nor the legislature nor the state attorney general ratified the Provisional Plan. The appellants argue that the simple fact that a voting practice is unlawful under state law does not show, entirely by itself, that the practice was never “in force or effect.” We agree. A State, after all, might maintain in effect for many years a plan that technically, or in one respect or another, violated some provision of state law. Cf. Perkins v. Matthews, 400 U. S. 379, 394-395 (1971) (deeming ward system “in fact ‘in force or effect’ ” and requiring change from wards to at-large elections to be precleared even though ward system was illegal and at-large elections were required under state law (emphasis in original)); City of Lockhart v. United States, 460 U. S. 125, 132-133 (1983) (numbered-post election system was “in effect” although it may have been unauthorized by state law). But that is not the situation here.
In this case, those seeking to administer the Provisional Plan did not intend to administer an unlawful plan. They expected it to become lawful. They abandoned the Provisional Plan as soon as its unlawfulness became apparent, i. e., as soon as it became clear that the legislature would not pass the laws needed to make it lawful. Moreover, all these events took place within the space of a few weeks. The plan was used to register voters for only 41 days, and only about a third of the State’s voter registration officials had begun to use it. Further, the State held no elections prior to its abandonment of the Provisional Plan, nor were any elections imminent. These circumstances taken together lead us to conclude that the Provisional Plan was not “in force or effect”; hence it did not become part of the baseline against which we are to judge whether future change occurred.
B
We nonetheless agree with the appellants and the Government that the New System included changes that must be, but have not been, precleared. That is because the New System contains “practices and procedures” that are significantly “different from” the Old System — the system that was in effect in 1994. And the State has not precleared those differences.
This Court has made clear that minor, as well as major, changes require preclearance. Allen v. State Bd. of Elections, 393 U. S. 544, 566-569 (1969) (discussing minor changes, including a change from paper ballots to voting machines); NAACP v. Hampton County Election Comm’n, 470 U. S. 166, 175-177 (1985) (election date relative to filing deadline); Perkins, supra, at 387 (location of polling places). See also 28 CFR §51.12 (1996) (requiring preclearance of “[a]ny change affecting voting, even though it appears to be minor or indirect . . .”). This is true even where, as here, the changes are made in an effort to comply with federal law, so long as those changes reflect policy choices made by state or local officials. Allen, supra, at 565, n. 29 (requiring State to preclear changes made in an effort to comply with § 2 of the VRA, 42 U. S. C. § 1973); McDaniel v. Sanchez, 452 U. S. 130, 153 (1981) (requiring preclearance of voting changes submitted to a federal court because the VRA “requires that whenever a covered jurisdiction submits a proposal reflecting the policy choices of the elected representatives of the people— no matter what constraints have limited the choices available to them — the preclearance requirement of the Voting Rights Act is applicable”); Lopez v. Monterey County, 519 U. S. 9, 22 (1996) (quoting McDaniel and emphasizing the need to preclear changes reflecting policy choices); Hampton County Election Comm’n, supra, at 179-180 (requiring preclearance of change in election date although change was made in an effort to comply with §5). Moreover, the NVRA does not forbid application of the VRA’s requirements. To the contrary, it says “[njothing in this subchapter authorizes or requires conduct that is prohibited by the” VRA. 42 U. S. C. § 1973gg-9(d)(2). And it adds that “neither the rights and remedies established by this section nor any other provision of this subchapter shall supersede, restrict, or limit the application of the” VRA. § 1973gg-9(d)(l).
Nor does it matter for the preclearance requirement whether the change works in favor of, works against,' or is neutral in its impact upon the ability of minorities to vote. See generally City of Lockhart v. United States, supra (requiring preclearance of a change but finding the change non-retrogressive). It is change that invokes the preclearance process; evaluation of that change concerns the merits of whether the change should in fact be precleared. See Lopez, supra, at 22-25; Allen, supra, at 555, n. 19, 558-559. That is so because preclearance is a process aimed at preserving the status quo until the Attorney General or the courts have an opportunity to evaluate a proposed change. See McCain v. Lybrand, 465 U. S. 236, 243-244 (1984) (Without §5, even successful antidiscrimination lawsuits might “merely resul[t] in a change in methods of discrimination”); South Carolina v. Katzenbach, 383 U. S. 301, 335 (1966) (same); id., at 328 (explaining how the VRA could attack the problems of States going from one discriminatory system to another, by shifting “the advantage of time and inertia” to the potential victims of that discrimination).
In this case, the New System contains numerous examples of new, significantly different administrative practices — practices that are not purely ministerial, but reflect the exercise of policy choice and discretion by Mississippi officials. The system, for example, involves newly revised written materials containing significant, and significantly different, registration instructions; new reporting requirements for local elections officials; new and detailed instructions about what kind of assistance state agency personnel should offer potential NVRA registrants, which state agencies will be NVRA registration agencies, and how and in what form registration material is to be forwarded to those who maintain the voting rolls; and other similar matters. Insofar as they embody discretionary decisions that have a potential for discriminatory impact, they are appropriate matters for review under § 5’s preclearance process.
In saying this, we recognize that the NVRA imposes certain mandates on States, describing those mandates in detail. The NVRA says, for example, that the state driver’s license applications must also serve as voter registration applications and that a decision not to register will remain confidential. 42 U. S. C. §§ 1973gg-3(a)(l), (c)(2)(D)(ii). It says that States cannot force driver’s license applications to submit the same information twice (on license applications and again on registration forms). § 1973gg-3(c)(2)(A). Nonetheless, implementation of the NVRA is not purely ministerial. The NVRA still leaves room for policy choice. The NVRA does not list, for example, all the other information the State may — or may not — provide or request. And a decision about that other information — say, whether or not to tell the applicant that registration counts only for federal elections — makes Mississippi’s changes to the New System the kind of discretionary, nonministerial changes that call for federal VRA review. Hence, Mississippi must preclear those changes.
C
We shall consider Mississippi’s two important arguments to the contrary.
1
The first set of arguments concerns the effect of the Attorney General’s preclearance letter. Mississippi points out that the Department of Justice wrote to the State on February 1,1995, that the Attorney General did "not interpose any objection” to its NVRA changes. App. to Juris. Statement 17a. Hence, says Mississippi, the Attorney General has already precleared its efforts to comply.
The submission that the Attorney General approved, however, assumed that Mississippi’s administrative changes would permit NVRA registrants to vote in both state and federal elections. The submission included a pamphlet entitled The National Voter Registration Act, App. 26-43, which set forth what Mississippi’s submission letter called the State’s “plan to administratively implement NVRA on January 1,1995,” id., at 110. The submission included legislative changes; indeed, Mississippi enclosed in the packet the proposed legislation that would have made a single NVRA registration valid for both federal and state elections. Id., at 86-104. The submission also included forms to be provided NVRA registrants, forms that, by their lack of specificity, probably would have led those voters — and the Attorney General — to believe that NVRA registration permitted them to vote in all elections. Id., at 44-50. These forms — perfectly understandable on the “single registration” assumption — might well mislead if they cannot in fact be used to register for state elections. Cf. City of Lockhart v. United States, 460 U. S., at 131-132 (requiring city to submit “entire system” because “[t]he possible discriminatory purpose or effect of the [changes], admittedly subject to §5, cannot be determined in isolation from the ‘pre-existing’ elements”). Furthermore, the submission included no instructions to voter registration officials about treating NVRA registrants differently from other voters and provided for no notice to NVRA registrants that they could not vote in state elections.
Mississippi replies that, as a matter of logic, one could read its submission, with its explicit indication that the state legislation was proposed, but not yet enacted, as a request for approval of the administrative changes whether or not the state legislature passed the bill. It tries to derive further support for its claim by pointing to Department of Justice regulations that say that the Attorney General will not pre-clear unenacted legislation. 28 CFR §§51.22, 51.35 (1996). As a matter of pure logic, Mississippi is correct. One could logically understand the preclearance in the way the State suggests. But still, that is not the only way to understand it. At a minimum, its submission was ambiguous as to whether (1) it sought approval on the assumption that the state legislature would enact the bill, or (2) it sought approval whether or not the state legislature would enact the bill. Although there is one reference to the possibility of a “dual registration system” in the absence of legislation, App. 72, the submission simply did not specify what would happen if the legislature did not pass the bill, and it thereby created ambiguity about whether the practices and procedures described in the submission would be implemented regardless of what the legislature did. The VRA permits the Attorney General to resolve such ambiguities against the submitting State. McCain, 465 U. S., at 249, 255-257 (burden is on the State to submit a complete and unambiguous description of proposed changes); Clark v. Roemer, 500 U. S. 646, 658-659 (1991) (relying on “presumption that any ambiguity in the scope of the preclearance request must be construed against the [State]” (internal quotation marks and citations omitted)). See also 28 CFR §§ 51.26(d), 51.27(c) (1996) (requiring preclearance submissions to explain changes clearly and in detail). Hence, the Attorney General could read her approval of the submitted plan as an approval of a plan that rested on the assumption that the proposed changes would be valid for all elections, not a plan in which NVRA registration does not qualify the registrant to vote in state elections. We find nothing in the Attorney General’s regulations that forces a contrary conclusion.
Mississippi adds that the Attorney General — if faced with an ambiguity — could have sought more information to clarify the situation, to determine what would happen if the legislature failed to pass the bill, for example. And the Attorney General could then have withheld her approval once she found out what would likely occur. Again, Mississippi is right as to what the Attorney General might have done. See § 51.37(a) (Attorney General may request more information about submissions). Indeed, the United States “acknowledge[s]” that with “the benefit of hindsight,... such a request might have been preferable” to preclearing the submission. Brief for United States as Amicus Curiae 27, n. 14. Still, the law does not require the Attorney General, in these circumstances, to obtain more information. Clark, supra, at 658-659 (The Attorney General is under no duty to investigate voting changes). See also McCain, supra, at 247 (Congress “ ‘acknowledged and anticipated [the] inability of the Justice Department — given limited resources — to investigate independently all changes . . (quoting Perkins, 400 U. S., at 392, n. 10)). And the issue, of course, is not whether she should or should not have issued a preclearance letter on February 1, 1995, but rather ivhat it was that she precleared. Her failure to seek added information makes it more likely, not less likely, that she intended to preclear what she took to be the natural import of the earlier submission, namely, a proposal for a single state/federal registration system.
Finally, Mississippi argues that the Attorney General in fact knew, on February 1,1995, when she issued the preclearance letter that the state legislature would not enact the proposed bill. And it adds that the Attorney General nonetheless approved the submission in order to have in place a precleared unitary system that would serve as a benchmark for measuring whether subsequent changes are retrogressive, thereby permitting the Attorney General to argue that §5 prohibited as retrogressive the dual system which she knew would likely emerge because the legislation failed. In fact, the record is not clear about just what the Department of Justice did or did not know (e. g., whether tabling the bill meant killing it; whether state election law definitely had to be changed). But in any event, the short answer to the argument is that Mississippi’s description of the Department’s motive, if true, would refute its claim that the Attorney General intended to preclear a dual system. Indeed, only two weeks after the February 1 preclearance, the Attorney General wrote to Mississippi stating explicitly her view that its submission had not sought “preclearance for a dual registration and purge system.” App. to Juris. Statement 25a. See McCain, supra, at 255-256 (relying on “such after-the-fact Justice Department statements ... in determining whether a particular change was actually precleared”).
Regardless, the law ordinarily permits the Attorney General to rest a decision to preclear or not to preclear upon the submission itself. Clark, supra, at 658-659; United States v. Sheffield Bd. of Comm’rs, 435 U. S. 110, 136-138 (1978). Tying preclearance to a particular set of written documents themselves helps to avoid the kinds of arguments about meaning and intent that Mississippi raises here — arguments that, were they frequently to arise, could delay expeditious decisionmaking as to the many thousands of requests for clearance that the Department of Justice receives each year. See Clark, supra, at 658-659. In sum, we conclude that the Department of Justice, on February 1, did not preclear the New System.
2
Finally, Mississippi argues that the NVRA, because it specifically applies only to registration for federal elections, 42 U. S. C. § 1973gg-2(a), automatically authorizes it to maintain separate voting procedures; hence § 5 cannot be used to force it to implement the NVRA for all elections. If Mississippi means that the NVRA does not forbid two systems and that § 5 of the VRA does not categorically — without more — forbid a State to maintain a dual system, we agree. The decision to adopt the NVRA federal registration system is not, by itself, a change for the purposes of § 5, for the State has no choice but to do so. And of course, a State’s retention of a prior system for state elections, by itself, is not a change. It is the discretionary elements of the new federal system that the State must preclear. The problem for Mississippi is that preclearance typically requires examination of discretionary changes in context — a context that includes history, purpose, and practical effect. See City of Lockhart v. United States, 460 U. S., at 131 (“The possible discriminatory purpose or effect of the [changes], admittedly subject to §5, cannot be determined in isolation from the ‘pre-existing’ elements of the council”). The appellants and the Government argue that in context and in light of their practical effects, the particular changes and the way in which Mississippi administers them could have the “purpose [or] effect of denying or abridging the right to vote on account of race or color . . . .” 42 U. S. C. § 1973c. We cannot say whether or not that is so, for that is an argument about the merits. The question here is “preclearance,” and preclearance is necessary so that the appellants and the Government will have the opportunity to find out if it is true.
III
We hold that Mississippi has not precleared, and must pre-clear, the “practices and procedures” that it sought to administer on and after Febrüary 10, 1995. The decision of the District Court is reversed, and the case is remanded with instructions for the District Court to enter an order enjoining further use of Mississippi’s unprecleared changes as appropriate. Any further questions about the remedy for Mississippi’s use of an unprecleared plan are for the District Court to address in the first instance. Clark, 500 U. S., at 659-660.
It is so ordered.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer:
|
B
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sc_issuearea
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What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Per Curiam.
The motion for leave to proceed in forma pauperis and the petition for writ of certiorari are granted. The judgment of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit is reversed and the case is remanded to the District Court for appropriate relief in the light of Harmon v. Brucker and Abramowitz v. Brucker, 355 U. S. 579, decided March 3, 1958.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
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
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sc_issuearea
|
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 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 appellants seek review of a temporary restraining order entered by a single district judge in a case certified for presentation to a statutory three-judge court. The order, inter alia, stayed a pending prosecution of the appellees under certain state obscenity laws and temporarily restrained further enforcement of the laws against the appellees. It was entered by the District Judge shortly after he had certified a request for designation of a three-judge court to hear the appellees’ suit for permanent declaratory and injunctive relief. Under 28 U. S. C. § 2284 (3), a single district judge has power to enter such an order in a case to be heard by a three-judge court, but the order can be entered only “to prevent irreparable damage” and can “remain in force only until the hearing and determination by the full court.”
The appellants argue that the order in this case contravenes principles set forth last Term in Younger v. Harris, 401 U. S. 37 (1971). They invoke this Court’s jurisdiction on direct appeal from “an interlocutory or permanent injunction” in any action “required ... to be heard and determined by a district court of three judges,” under 28 U. S. C. § 1253. Since, however, § 1253 does not authorize a direct appeal to this Court from a § 2284 (3) order by a single district judge, we dismiss this appeal for want of jurisdiction.
Long ago, this Court made clear that no direct appeal lies under § 1253 to the Supreme Court from a temporary restraining order issued by a single judge, even though the order may amount to an “interlocutory injunction” and may have been issued in an action required to be heard by a three-judge court. Stratton v. St. Louis S. R. Co., 282 U. S. 10. See Ex parte Metropolitan Water Co., 220 U. S. 539. This is so because § 1253 “plainly contemplates such a direct appeal only in the case of an order or decree entered by a court composed of three judges in accordance with the statutory requirement.” Stratton v. St. Louis S. R. Co., supra, at 16. See Mengelkoch v. Industrial Welfare Comm’n, 393 U. S. 83; Wilson v. City of Port Lavaca, 391 U. S. 352; Schackman v. Arnebergh, 387 U. S. 427; Buchanan v. Rhodes, 385 U. S. 3.
More recently, this Court has held that an appeal may lie to a court of appeals from certain actions of a single district judge in a case required to be heard by three judges. Mengelkoch v. Industrial Welfare Comm’n, supra; Wilson v. City of Port Lavaca, supra; Schackman v. Arnebergh, supra; Idlewild Bon Voyage Liquor Corp. v. Epstein, 370 U. S. 713. A court of appeals is not “powerless ... to give any guidance when a single judge has erroneously invaded the province of a three-judge court.” Idlewild Bon Voyage Liquor Corp. v. Epstein, supra, at 716. Thus, if a single judge oversteps his limited authority under §2284 (3), a court of appeals may correct his error. In addition, a temporary restraining order issued pursuant to § 2284 (3) is reviewable in a court of appeals to the extent that any such order is reviewable under 28 U. S. C. §§ 1291 and 1292 (a). However, if no such appeal is taken before the three-judge court is convened, application must be made to that court for vacation or modification of the temporary restraining order pending a final determination on the merits.
The appeal is dismissed for want of jurisdiction.
In the instant case, the single judge himself determined that the action was one required to be heard by a three-judge court and then entered his temporary restraining order; in Stratton, supra, on the other hand, the single judge erroneously determined that a three-judge court was not required and then entered a similar order. This distinction between the cases, however, makes no difference in principle.
The papers before the Court in this case do not make clear whether or not the three-judge court has now been convened.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
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
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sc_issuearea
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What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Justice Brennan
delivered the opinion of the Court.
The issue in this case is whether an employee may bring an action in federal district court, alleging a violation of the minimum wage provisions of the Fair Labor Standards Act, 52 Stat. 1060, as amended, 29 U. S. C. § 201 et seq., after having unsuccessfully submitted a wage claim based on the same underlying facts to a joint grievance committee pursuant to the provisions of his union’s collective-bargaining agreement.
I
Petitioner truckdrivers are employed at the Little Rock terminal of respondent Arkansas-Best Freight Systems, Inc., an interstate motor carrier of freight. In accordance with federal regulations and Arkansas-Best’s employment practices, petitioners are required to conduct a safety inspection of their trucks before commencing any trip, and to transport any truck failing such inspection to Arkansas-Best’s on-premises repair facility. See 49 CFR §§ 392.7, 392.8 (1980). Petitioners are not compensated by their employer for the time spent complying with these requirements.
Pursuant to the collective-bargaining agreement between Arkansas-Best and petitioners’ union, respondent Local 878 of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, Chauffeurs, Warehousemen and Helpers, petitioner Barrentine and another driver filed a series of grievances against Arkansas-Best. They alleged that Art. 50 of the collective-bargaining agreement, which requires Arkansas-Best to compensate its drivers “for all time spent in [its] service/’ entitled them to compensation for the pretrip inspection and transportation time. Petitioners’ union presented these grievances to a joint grievance committee for final and binding decision pursuant to Art. 44 of the collective-bargaining agreement. The joint committee, composed of three representatives of the union and three representatives of the employer, rejected the grievances without explanation. App. 22.
In March 1977, petitioners filed this action in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Arkansas. In the first count of their complaint, petitioners alleged that the pretrip safety inspection and transportation time was compensable under the Fair Labor Standards Act, 29 U. S. C. § 201 et seq., and that they were accordingly entitled to the statutory remedy of actual and liquidated damages, costs, and reasonable attorney’s fees. In the second count, petitioners alleged that the union and its president had breached the union’s duty of fair representation, apparently by entering into a “side deal” with Arkansas-Best regarding compensation of the pretrip inspection and transportation time. With respect to this claim, petitioners sought to have the decision of the joint grievance committee set aside and to have proper compensation awarded under the collective-bargaining agreement.
The District Court addressed only the fair representation claim. While it conceded that “the evidence seems... rather to predominate in favor of the finding that there was a side agreement” as petitioners alleged, it found that the existence of such an agreement did not in itself give rise to a breach of the union’s duty of fair representation, because the labor laws permit “parties by their own actions... [to] fill in the gaps that always arise with a written instrument when you apply that instrument to a multiplicity of situations and practices.” App. to Pet. for Cert. 8a, 9a. This ruling was affirmed by a unanimous panel of the Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit, 615 F. 2d 1194, 1202 (1980), and is not challenged here.
With one judge dissenting, the Court of Appeals also held that the District Court was correct in not addressing the merits of petitioners’ FLSA claim. Emphasizing that national labor policy encourages arbitration of labor disputes, the court stated that “wage disputes arising under the FLSA... may be the subject of binding arbitration where the collective bargaining agreement so provides... at least in situations in which employees knowingly and voluntarily submit their grievances to arbitration under the terms of the agreement.” Id., at 1199. Finding that petitioners had voluntarily submitted their grievances to arbitration, the court concluded that they were barred from asserting their statutory wage claim in the subsequently filed federal-court action. Id., at 1199-1200. We granted certiorari, 449 U. S. 819 (1980), and reverse.
II
Two aspects of national labor policy are in tension in this case. The first, reflected in statutes governing relationships between employers and unions, encourages the negotiation of terms and conditions of employment through the collective-bargaining process. The second, reflected in statutes governing relationships between employers and their individual employees, guarantees covered employees specific substantive rights. A tension arises between these policies when the parties to a collective-bargaining agreement make an employee’s entitlement to substantive statutory rights subject to contractual dispute-resolution procedures.
The national policy favoring collective bargaining and industrial self-government was first expressed in the National Labor Relations Act of 1935, 29 U. S. C. § 151 et seq. (the Wagner Act). It received further expression and definition in the Labor Management Relations Act, 1947, 29 U. S. C. § 141 et seq. (the Taft-Hartley Act). Predicated on the assumption that individual workers have little, if any, bargaining power, and that “by pooling their economic strength and acting through a labor organization freely chosen by the majority, the employees of an appropriate unit have the most effective means of bargaining for improvements in wages, hours, and working conditions,” NLRB v. Allis-Chalmers Mfg. Co., 388 U. S. 175, 180 (1967), these statutes reflect Congress’ determination that to improve the economic well-being of workers, and thus to promote industrial peace, the interests of some employees in a bargaining unit may have to be subordinated to the collective interests of a majority of their co-workers. See Vaca v. Sipes, 386 U. S. 171, 182 (1967); 29 U. S. C. § 159 (a). The rights established through this system of majority rule are thus
“protected not for their own sake but as an instrument of the national labor policy of minimizing industrial strife ‘by encouraging the practice and procedure of collective bargaining.’ 29 U. S. C. § 151.” Emporium Capwell Co. v. Western Addition Community Org., 420 U. S. 50, 62 (1975).
To further this policy, Congress has declared that
“[fjinal adjustment by a method agreed upon by the parties is declared to be the desirable method for settlement of grievance disputes arising over the application or interpretation of an existing collective-bargaining agreement.” 29 U. S. C. § 173 (d).
Thus, courts ordinarily defer to collectively bargained dispute-resolution procedures when the parties' dispute arises out of the collective-bargaining process. See, e. g., Hines v. Anchor Motor Freight, Inc., 424 U. S. 554, 562-563 (1976); Gateway Coal Co. v. Mine Workers, 414 U. S. 368, 377-380 (1974); Republic Steel Corp. v. Maddox, 379 U. S. 650, 652-653 (1965); Steelworkers v. Enterprise Wheel & Car Corp., 363 U. S. 593, 596 (1960); Steelworkers v. Warrior & Gulf Navigation Co., 363 U. S. 574, 577-578, 582-583 (1960); Steelworkers v. American Manufacturing Co., 363 U. S. 564, 566, 568 (1960); Textile Workers v. Lincoln Mills, 353 U. S. 448, 458-459 (1957).
Respondents contend that the aspect of national labor policy encouraging collective bargaining and industrial self-government requires affirmance of the Court of Appeals. They note that the collective-bargaining agreement between Arkansas-Best and petitioners' union requires that “any controversy'' between the parties to the agreement be resolved through the binding contractual grievance procedures. See n. 5, supra. They further note that Local 878 processed petitioners’ grievances in accordance with those procedures, and that the District Court made an unchallenged finding that the union did not breach its duty of fair representation in doing so. Accordingly, they conclude that petitioners should be barred from bringing the statutory component of their wage claim in federal court.
We reject this argument. Not all disputes between an employee and his employer are suited for binding resolution in accordance with the procedures established by collective bargaining. While courts should defer to an arbitral decision where the employee’s claim is based on rights arising out of the collective-bargaining agreement, different considerations apply where the employee’s claim is based on rights arising out of a statute designed to provide minimum substantive guarantees to individual workers.
These considerations were the basis for our decision in Alexander v. Gardner-Denver Co., 415 U. S. 36 (1974). In that case, petitioner, a black employee, had been discharged by respondent employer, allegedly for producing too many defective parts. Claiming that his discharge was racially motivated, petitioner asked his union to pursue the grievance and arbitration procedure set forth in the collective-bargaining agreement. The union did so, relying on the nondiscrimination clause in the collective-bargaining agreement, but the arbitrator found that petitioner had been discharged for just cause. Petitioner then brought an action under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 in Federal District Court based on the same facts that were before the arbitrator. The District Court granted summary judgment for the employer, holding that petitioner was bound by the prior adverse arbi-tral decision. The Court of Appeals affirmed.
This Court reversed, concluding that an employee’s statutory right to a trial de novo under Title VII is not foreclosed by the prior submission of his discrimination claim to final arbitration under a collective-bargaining agreement. The Court found that in enacting Title VII, Congress had granted individual employees a nonwaivable, public law right to equal employment opportunities that was separate and distinct from the rights created through the “majoritarian processes” of collective bargaining. Id., at 51. Moreover, because Congress had granted aggrieved employees access to the courts, and because contractual grievance and arbitration procedures provided an inadequate forum for enforcement of Title VII rights, the Court concluded that Title VII claims should be resolved by the courts de novo.
Respondents would distinguish Gardner-Denver on the ground that because petitioners’ FLSA claim is based on a dispute over wages and hours, subjects at the heart of the collective-bargaining process, their claim is particularly well suited to resolution through collectively bargained grievance and arbitration procedures. But this contention misper-ceives the nature of petitioners’ FLSA claim.
The principal congressional purpose in enacting the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 was to protect all covered workers from substandard wages and oppressive working hours, “labor conditions [that are] detrimental to the maintenance of the minimum standard of living necessary for health, efficiency, and general well-being of workers.” 29 U. S. C. § 202 (a). In contrast to the Labor Management Relations Act, which was designed to minimize industrial strife and to improve working conditions by encouraging employees to promote their interests collectively, the FLSA was designed to give specific minimum protections to individual workers and to ensure that each employee covered by the Act would receive “ '[a] fair day’s pay for a fair day’s work’ ” and would be protected from “the evil of 'overwork’ as well as 'underpay.’ ” Overnight Motor Transportation Co. v. Missel, 316 U. S. 572, 578 (1942), quoting 81 Cong. Rec. 4983 (1937) (message of President Roosevelt).
The statutory enforcement scheme grants individual employees broad access to the courts. Section 16 (b) of the Act, 29 U. S. C. § 216 (b), which contains the principal enforcement provisions, permits an aggrieved employee to bring his statutory wage and hour claim “in any Federal or State court of competent jurisdiction.” No exhaustion requirement or other procedural barriers are set up, and no other forum for enforcement of statutory rights is referred to or created by the statute.
This Court’s decisions interpreting the FLSA have frequently emphasized the nonwaivable nature of an individual employee’s right to a minimum wage and to overtime pay under the Act. Thus, we have held that FLSA rights cannot be abridged by contract or otherwise waived because this would “nullify the purposes” of the statute and thwart the legislative policies it was designed to effectuate. Brooklyn Savings Bank v. O’Neil, 324 U. S. 697, 707 (1945); see D. A. Schulte, Inc. v. Gangi, 328 U. S. 108, 114-116 (1946); Walling v. Helmerich & Payne, Inc., 323 U. S. 37, 42 (1944); Overnight Motor Transportation Co. v. Missel, supra, at 577; see 29 CFR § 785.8 (1974). Moreover, we have held that congressionally granted FLSA rights take precedence over conflicting provisions in a collectively bargained compensation arrangement. See, e. g., Martino v. Michigan Window Cleaning Co., 327 U. S. 173, 177-178 (1946); Walling v. Harnischfeger Corp., 325 U. S. 427, 430-432 (1945); Jewell Ridge Coal Corp. v. Mine Workers, 325 U. S. 161, 166-167, 170 (1945). As we stated in Tennessee Coal, Iron & R. Co. v. Muscoda Local No. 123, 321 U. S. 590, 602-603 (1944) (footnote omitted):
“The Fair Labor Standards Act was not designed to codify or perpetuate [industry] customs and contracts.... Congress intended, instead, to achieve a uniform national policy of guaranteeing compensation for all work or employment engaged in by employees covered by the Act. Any custom or contract falling short of that basic policy, like an agreement to pay less than the minimum wage requirements, cannot be utilized to deprive employees of their statutory rights.”
There are two reasons why an employee’s right to a minimum wage and overtime pay under the FLSA might be lost if submission of his wage claim to arbitration precluded him from later bringing an FLSA suit in 'federal court. First, even if the employee’s claim were meritorious, his union might, without breaching its duty of fair representation, reasonably and in good faith decide not to support the claim vigorously in arbitration. Wage and hour disputes that are subject to arbitration under a collective-bargaining agreement are invariably processed by unions rather than by individual employees. Since a union’s objective is to maximize overall compensation of its members, not to ensure that each employee receives the best compensation deal available, cf. Gardner-Denver, 415 U. S., at 58, n. 19, a union balancing individual and collective interests might validly permit some employees’ statutorily granted wage and hour benefits to be sacrificed if an alternative expenditure of resources would result in increased benefits for workers in the bargaining unit as a whole.
Second, even when the union has fairly and fully presented the employee’s wage claim, the employee’s statutory rights might still not be adequately protected. Because the “specialized competence of arbitrators pertains primarily to the law of the shop, not the law of the land,” id., at 57; see Steelworkers v. Warrior & Gulf Navigation Co., 363 U. S., at 581-582, many arbitrators may not be conversant with the public law considerations underlying the FLSA. FLSA claims typically involve complex mixed questions of fact and law — e. g., what constitutes the “regular rate,” the “workweek,” or “principal” rather than “preliminary or postlimi-nary” activities. These statutory questions must be resolved in light of volumes of legislative history and over four decades of legal interpretation and administrative rulings. Although an arbitrator may be competent to resolve many preliminary factual questions, such as whether the employee “punched in” when he said he did, he may lack the competence to decide the ultimate legal issue whether an employee’s right to a minimum wage or to overtime pay under the statute has been violated.
Moreover, even though a particular arbitrator may be competent to interpret and apply statutory law, he may not have the contractual authority to do so. An arbitrator’s power is both derived from, and limited by, the collective-bargaining agreement. Gardner-Denver, 415 U. S., at 53. He “has no general authority to invoke public laws that conflict with the bargain between the parties.” Ibid. His task is limited to construing the meaning of the collective-bargaining agreement so as to effectuate the collective intent of the parties. Accordingly,
“[i]f an arbitral decision is based'solely upon the arbitrator’s view of the requirements of enacted legislation,’ rather than on an interpretation of the collective-bargaining agreement, the arbitrator has 'exceeded the scope of the submission,’ and the award will not be enforced.” Ibid., quoting Steelworkers v. Enterprise Wheel & Car Corp., 363 U. S., at 597.
Because the arbitrator is required to effectuate the intent of the parties, rather than to enforce the statute, he may issue a ruling that is inimical to the public policies underlying the FLSA, thus depriving an employee of protected statutory rights.
Finally, not only are arbitral procedures less protective of individual statutory rights than are judicial procedures, see Gardner-Denver, supra, at 57-58, but arbitrators very often are powerless to grant the aggrieved employees as broad a range of relief. Under the FLSA, courts can award actual and liquidated damages, reasonable attorney’s fees, and costs. 29 U. S. C. § 216 (b). An arbitrator, by contrast, can award only that compensation authorized by the wage provision of the collective-bargaining agreement. He “is confined to interpretation and application of the collective bargaining agreement” and his “award is legitimate only so long as it draws its essence from the collective bargaining agreement.” Steelworkers v. Enterprise Wheel & Car Corp., supra, at 597. It is most unlikely that he will be authorized to award liquidated damages, costs, or attorney’s fees.
Ill
In sum, the FLSA rights petitioners seek to assert in this action are independent of the collective-bargaining process. They devolve on petitioners as individual workers, not as members of a collective organization. They are not waivable. Because Congress intended to give individual employees the right to bring their minimum-wage claims under the FLSA in court, and because these eongressionally granted FLSA rights are best protected in a judicial rather than in an arbitral forum, we hold that petitioners’ claim is not barred by the prior submission of their grievances to the contractual dispute-resolution procedures. As we stated in Gardner-Denver:
“In submitting his grievance to arbitration, an employee seeks to vindicate his contractual right under a collective-bargaining agreement. By contrast, in filing a lawsuit under [the statute], an employee asserts independent statutory rights accorded by Congress. The distinctly separate nature of these contractual and statutory rights is not vitiated merely because both were violated as a result of the same factual occurrence. And certainly no inconsistency results from permitting both rights to be enforced in their respectively appropriate forums.” 415 U. S., at 49-50.
Reversed.
Upon arriving at the terminal to begin a trip, an Arkansas-Best driver must “punch in” on a timeclock and perform certain preliminary office work. He is compensated for this time at an hourly rate. After completing this work, the driver must “punch out,” locate his vehicle, and conduct the required pretrip safety inspection. If the vehicle passes inspection, the driver proceeds on his trip and is paid at the driving time rate. No claim is made for the pretrip inspection time in these circumstances. If the vehicle does not pass inspection, the driver must take the truck to Arkansas-Best’s repair facility and “punch in” on a second timeclock. The approximately 15-30 minutes that elapse between the first “punch out” and the second “punch in” are not compensated and are the subject of petitioners’ claim.
The second driver, J. N. Scates, is no longer a party to this litigation.
Article 50 states in part:
“All employees covered by this Agreement shall be paid for all time spent in the' service of the Employer. Rates of pay provided for by this Agreement shall be mínimums. Time shall be computed from the time that the employee is ordered to report for work and registers in and until the time he is effectively released from duty. Such payment for employee’s time when not driving shall be the hourly rate.” App. 27.
Respondents contend that the grievances presented a claim under the FLSA in addition to the claim under the collective-bargaining agreement. See id., at 21. Although neither the District Court nor the Court of Appeals addressed this contention, Judge Heaney, dissenting from the opinion of the Court of Appeals, concluded that petitioners had “no intent to submit the FLSA claim to arbitration and it was not submitted to arbitration.” 615 F. 2d 1194, 1203 (CA8 1980). Because we hold that petitioners would not be precluded from bringing their action in federal court in either case, we need not resolve this factual dispute.
Article 44 states in part:
“The Unions and the employers agree that there shall be no strikes, lockouts, tieups, or legal proceedings without first using all possible means of settlement as provided for in this Agreement and in the National Agreement, if applicable, of any controversy which might arise. Disputes shall first be taken up between the Employer and the Local Union involved. Failing adjustment by these parties, the following procedure shall then apply:
“(a) Where a State or Multiple State Committee, by a majority vote, settles a dispute no appeal may be taken to the Southern Conference Area Grievance Committee. Such decision will be final and binding on both parties.” App. 24-25.
Plaintiffs included Barrentine, Scates, three drivers whose claims were later dismissed for failure to answer interrogatories, and four other drivers. Although these last four drivers never formally submitted grievances to the joint committee, the District Court refused to dismiss their complaints for failure to exhaust internal grievance and arbitration procedures, concluding that resort to those procedures would have been futile in light of the joint committee’s denial of Barrentine’s grievance. The District Court thus “treat [ed] the case as though each of the named plaintiffs had actually filed grievances which were considered and denied.” App. to Pet. for Cert. 6a. The District Court’s treatment of those claims was not challenged on appeal. 615 F. 2d, at 1197, n. 3. Because our holding does not depend on whether petitioners formally filed grievances, we need not address the correctness of the District Court’s approach to the exhaustion issue.
Petitioners principally relied upon § 6 (a) of the FLSA, 52 Stat. 1062, as amended, 29 U. S. C. §206 (a), which provides:
“Every employer shall pay to each of his employees who in any workweek is engaged in commerce or in the production of goods for commerce,... wages at the following rates:...”
Alternatively, they relied upon § 4 of the Portal-to-Portal Act of 1947 amendments to the FLSA, 61 Stat. 86, 29 U. S. C. §254, which provides:
“(a) Except as provided in subsection (b) of this section, no employer shall be subject to any liability or punishment under the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938, as amended,... on account of the failure of such employer to pay an employee minimum wages,... for or on account of any of the following activities....
“(1) walking, riding, or traveling to and from the actual place of performance of the principal activity or activities which such employee is employed to perform, and
“ (2)' activities which are preliminary to or postliminary to said principal activity or activities, which occur... prior to the time on any particular workday at. which such employee commences... such principal activity or activities.
“(b) Notwithstanding the provisions of subsection (a) of this section which relieve an employer from liability and punishment with respect to an activity, the employer shall not be so relieved if such activity is com-pensable by either—
“(1) an express provision of a written or nonwritten contract in effect, at the time of such activity, between such employee, his agent, or collective-bargaining representative and his employer; or
“(2) a custom or practice in effect, at the time of such activity, at the establishment or other place where such employee is employed, covering such activity, not inconsistent with a written or nonwritten contract, in effect at the time of such activity, between such employee, his agent, or collective-bargaining representative and his employer.”
See App. 3-7.
Section 16 (b) of the Act, 52 Stat. 1069, as amended, 29 U. S. C. §216 (b), provides:
“Any employer who violates the [minimum wage] provisions... of this title shall be liable to the employee or employees affected in the amount of their unpaid minimum wages,... and in an additional equal amount as liquidated damages.... The court in such action shall, in addition to any judgment awarded to the plaintiff or plaintiffs, allow a reasonable attorney’s fee to be paid by the defendant, and costs of the action.”
The District Court also noted that petitioners’ collective-bargaining agreement, if read literally, would require compensation for the time in question, since “[t]here is no question that the driver when [inspecting the vehicle) is on the employer’s business.” App. to Pet. for Cert. 4a. Nonetheless, because it found no breach of the duty of fair representation, the court was obliged to let the decision of the joint committee stand with respect to the contractual claim. The Court of Appeals agreed with this conclusion, and also noted that the literal terms of the collective-bargaining agreement appeared to cover the disputed time. 615 F. 2d, at 1198.
As we stated in Vaca v. Sipes, 386 U. S. 171, 184 (1967), when an employee’s claim “is based upon breach of the collective bargaining agreement, he is bound by terms of that agreement which govern the manner in which contractual rights may be enforced.” Only if the arbitration process has been tainted, e. g., by the union’s breach of its duty of fair representation, may the employee pursue his grievance in the courts. Hines v. Anchor Motor Freight, Inc., 424 U. S., at 567; Vaca v. Sipes, supra, at 186.
As an alternative ground in support of affirmance, respondents assert that petitioners’ claims should be barred because petitioners failed to comply with 29 U. S. C. §216 (b), which provides:
“No employee shall be a party plaintiff to any [FLSA enforcement action] unless he gives his consent in writing to become such a party and such consent is filed in the court in which such action is brought.”
Even if this requirement were to apply to petitioners’ suit, a nonclass action, it was satisfied when petitioners individually signed at least two sets of interrogatories.
Cf. U. S. Bulk Carriers, Inc. v. Arguelles, 400 U. S. 351, 357 (1971) (seaman may assert wage claim in federal court under the Seaman’s Wage Act, 46 U. S. C. § 596, even though he had not previously pursued arbitral remedies provided by contractual grievance procedures); McKinney v. Missouri-Kansas-Texas R. Co., 357 U. S. 265, 268-270 (1958) (employee returning from military service need, not pursue grievance and arbitration procedure prior to asserting seniority rights in federal court under Universal Military Training and Service Act).
There are three components to petitioners’ FLSA claim. First, they contend that the pretrip inspection and transportation time is compensa-ble under § 6 of the FLSA, 29 U. S. C. § 206, because it constitutes “principal” rather than “preliminary” activity under § 4 of the Portal-to-Portal Act amendments, 29 U. S. C. § 254. See Steiner v. Mitchell, 350 U. S. 247 (1956). Second, they contend that even if it is preliminary activity, it is compensable under § 4 (tí) (1) of the Portal-to-Portal Act amendments, 29 U. S. C. §254 (b)(1), because it constitutes “time spent in the service of the Employer” under Art. 50 of the collective-bargaining agreement. Third, they contend that even if it is preliminary activity, and even if it is not compensable under “an express provision of a written [collective bargaining agreement],” 29 U. S. C. §254 (b)(1), it is compensable under § 4 (b) (2) of the Portal-to-Portal Act amendments, 29 U. S. C. § 254 (b) (2), because there is “a custom or practice in effect” between Arkansas-Best and drivers in other terminals whereby those drivers are compensated for their pretrip inspection and transportation time.
The threshold question in this action, then, is whether petitioners were engaged in "activities which are preliminary to [their] principal activity,” 29 U. S. C. §254 (a)(2), when they conducted the pretrip safety inspections of their vehicles. Resolution of that question requires inquiry into whether the inspection and transportation procedures “are an integral and indispensable part of the principal activities for which [petitioners] are employed.” Steiner v. Mitchell, supra, at 256 (changing clothes and showering are “principal” activities of employees working with dangerously caustic and toxic materials); see Mitchell v. King Packing Co., 350 U. S. 260, 263 (1956) (knife sharpening is “principal” activity of butchers in meatpacking plant); 29 CFR §§ 790.7, 790.8 (1980). For the reasons that follow, we conclude that this is a question of statutory construction that must be resolved by the courts.
Congress enacted the FLSA under its commerce power, having found that the existence of such "detrimental” labor conditions would endanger national health and efficiency and consequently would interfere with the free movement of goods in interstate commerce. See United States v. Darby, 312 U. S. 100, 109-110 (1941); 29 U. S. C. §202 (a).
In mandatory language, Congress provided in § 6 (a) of the Act, 29 U. S. C. §206 (a), that “[e]very employer shall pay to each of his employees... wages at the following rates It provided in § 7 (a)(2) of the Act, 29 U. S. C. §207 (a)(2), that “no employer shall employ any of his employees... for a workweek longer than forty hours... unless such employee receives compensation for his employment in excess of the hours above specified at a rate not less than one and one-half times the regular rate at which he is employed.”
To encourage employees to enforce their FLSA rights in court, and thus to further the public policies underlying the FLSA, see Brooklyn Savings Bank v. O’Neil, 324 U. S. 697, 709 (1945), Congress has permitted individual employees to sue for back wages and liquidated damages and to receive reasonable attorney’s fees and costs. 29 U. S. C. § 216 (b). In addition, Congress has empowered the Secretary of Labor to bring judicial enforcement actions under the Act. 29 U. S. C. §§216 (c), 217.
But see 29 U. S. C. §216 (c).
“[N]othing to our knowledge in any act authorizes us to give decisive weight to contract declarations as to the regular rate because they are the result of collective bargaining.” Bay Ridge Operating Co. v. Aaron, 334 U. S. 446, 463 (1948). “[E]mployees are not to be deprived of the benefits of the Act simply because they are well paid or because they are represented by strong bargaining agents.” Jewell Ridge Coal Corp., 325 U. S., at 167.
It is true that the FLSA, as amended, includes a number of references to collective-bargaining agreements. See Tennessee Coal, Iron & R. Co. v. Muscoda Local No. 123, 321 U. S., at 602, n. 18. Sections 7 (b) (1) and (2) of the FLSA, 29 U. S. C. §§207 (b) (1) and (2), state that an employer need not pay overtime under the Act for an employee’s performance of work in excess of the statutory maximum, if the employee is employed “in pursuance of an agreement [containing alternative maximum hours provisions] made as a result of collective bargaining by representatives of employees certified as bona fide by the National Labor Relations Board.” Section 3 (o) of the Portal-to-Portal Act amendments, 29 U. S. C. §203 (o), excludes from the definition of “hours worked” under §§ 6 and 7 of the FLSA, “any time spent in changing clothes or washing at the beginning or end of each workday” if that time was noncompensa-ble “under a bona fide collective-bargaining agreement.” And § 4 (a) (2) of that Act, 29 U. S. C. §254 (a)(2), which excludes from compensable time "preliminary” or “postliminarv” working activities, requires compensation under the minimum wage provisions if a collective-bargaining agreement in effect between the employer and the employee's union makes that time compensable. See also 29 U. S. C. §§207 (e)(7), (f). Where plaintiff's claim depends upon application of one of these exceptions, we assume without deciding that a court should defer to a prior arbitral decision construing the relevant provisions of the collective-bargaining agreement. In this case, however, petitioners’ threshold claim does not depend upon application of any of those exceptions. The contention that petitioners were engaged in compensable “principal” activity when conducting the pretrip safety inspections is a claim that arises wholly independently of the collective-bargaining agreement. Accordingly, deference to the prior arbitral decision in this case would be inappropriate. See n. 13, supra.
Cf. Humphrey v. Moore, 375 U. S. 335, 349 (1964) (“we are not ready to find a breach of the collective bargaining agent’s duty of fair representation in taking a good faith position contrary to that of some individuals whom it represents nor in supporting the position of one group of employees against that of another”); Ford Motor Co. v. Huffman, 345 U. S. 330, 337-339 (1953).
We have noted that “a substantial proportion of labor arbitrators are not lawyers,” Gardner-Denver, 415 U. S., at 57, n
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer:
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G
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sc_issuearea
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What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Per Curiam.
The motion for leave to proceed in forma pauperis and the petition for writ of certiorari are granted. The judgment is vacated and the case is remanded to the Supreme Court of Colorado for consideration in light of Douglas v. California, 372 U. S. 353.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer:
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B
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sc_issuearea
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What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Mr. Justice Rehnquist
delivered the opinion of the Court.
In 1968, several students in the public schools of Pasadena, Cal., joined by their parents, instituted an action in the United States District Court for the Central District of California seeking injunctive relief from allegedly unconstitutional segregation of the high schools of the Pasadena Unified School District (PUSD). This action named as defendants the Pasadena City Board of Education, which operates the PUSD, and several of its officials. Before the defendants had filed an answer, the United States moved to intervene in the case pursuant to Title IX, § 902, of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 78 Stat. 266, 42 U. S. C. § 2000h-2. The District Court granted this motion. Later, however, the court granted defendant Board’s motion to strike those portions of the United States’ complaint in intervention which sought to include in the case other areas of the Pasadena public school system: the elementary schools, the junior high schools, and the special schools. This ruling was the subject of an interlocutory appeal, see 28 U. S. C. § 1292 (a)(1), to the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. That court reversed the District Court and ordered the United States’ demand for systemwide relief reinstated. 415 F. 2d 1242 (1969). No further review of this decision was sought.
Following remand from this decision, the District Court held a trial on the allegations that the Pasadena school system was unconstitutionally segregated. On January 23, 1970, the court entered a judgment in which it concluded that the defendants’ educational policies and procedures were violative of the Fourteenth Amendment. The court ordered the defendants “enjoined from failing to prepare and adopt a plan to correct racial imbalance at all levels in the Pasadena Unified School District.” The defendants were further ordered to submit to the District Court a plan for desegregating the Pasadena schools. In addition to requiring provisions for the assignment of staff and the construction and location of facilities, the District Court ordered that
“[t]he plan shall provide for student assignments in such a manner that, by or before the beginning of the school year that commences in September of 1970 there shall be no school in the District, elementary or junior high or senior high school, with a majority of any minority students.” 311 F. Supp. 501, 505 (1970).
The court went on to retain
“jurisdiction of this cause in order to continue to observe and evaluate the plans and the execution of the plans of the Pasadena Unified School District in regard to the hiring, promotion, and assignment of teachers and professional staff members, the construction and location of facilities, and the assignment of students.” Ibid.
The defendant school officials voted to comply with the District Court’s decree and not to appeal. They thereupon set out to devise and submit the plan demanded by the District Court. In February the defendants submitted their proposed plan, the “Pasadena Plan,” and on March 10, 1970, the District Court approved the plan, finding it “to be in conformance with the Judgment entered herein January 23, 1970.” App. 96. The “Pasadena Plan” was implemented the following September, and the Pasadena schools have been under its terms ever since.
In January 1974, petitioners, successors to the original defendants in this action, filed a motion with the District Court seeking relief from the court’s 1970 order. Petitioners sought four changes: to have the judgment modified so as to eliminate the requirement that there be “no school in the District, elementary or junior high or senior high school, with a majority of any minority students”; to have the District Court’s injunction dissolved; to have the District Court terminate its “retained jurisdiction” over the actions of the Board; or, as an alternative, to obtain approval of petitioners’ proposed modifications of the “Pasadena Plan.”
The District Court held hearings on these motions and, on March 1, 1974, denied them in their entirety. In an opinion filed May 3, the court discussed its reasons for refusing the relief requested by petitioners. 375 F. Supp. 1304 (1974). Petitioners appealed to the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. A divided panel of that court affirmed the District Court, 519 F. 2d 430 (1975), but all three members of the panel expressed substantial reservations about some of the District Court’s actions and the implications of some portions of its orders as they bore on the future operations of the Pasadena schools. Judges Ely and Chambers were apparently satisfied that the District Judge would heed the reservations expressed in their separate opinions, however, and they were content to affirm the District Court’s order and remand the case. Judge Wallace dissented from the affirmance. Because the case seemed to present issues of importance regarding the extent of a district court’s authority in imposing a plan designed to achieve a unitary school system, we granted certiorari. 423 U. S. 945 (1975). We vacate the judgment of the Court of Appeals and remand the case to that court for further proceedings.
I
We must first deal with petitioners’ contention that there no longer exists any case or controversy sufficient to support our jurisdiction. Petitioners assert that all the original student plaintiffs have graduated from the Pasadena school system, and that since the District Court never certified this suit as a class action pursuant to Fed. Rule Civ. Proc. 23, the case is moot. Respondents advance several theories why it is not moot.
Counsel for the individual named respondents, the original student plaintiffs and their parents, argue that this litigation was filed as a class action, that all the parties have until now treated it as a class action, and that the failure to obtain the class certification required under Rule 23 is merely the absence of a meaningless “verbal recital” which counsel insists should have no effect on the facts of this case. But these arguments overlook the fact that the named parties whom counsel originally undertook to represent in this litigation no longer have any stake in its outcome. As to them the case is clearly moot. And while counsel may wish to represent a class of unnamed individuals still attending the Pasadena public schools who do have some substantial interest in the outcome of this litigation, there has been no certification of any such class which is or was represented by a named party to this litigation. Except for the intervention of the United States, we think this case would clearly be moot. Sosna v. Iowa, 419 U. S. 393 (1975); Indianapolis School Comm’rs v. Jacobs, 420 U. S. 128 (1975).
The case did not remain an individual private action seeking to desegregate the Pasadena schools, however. The United States intervened in this case pursuant to 42 U. S. C. § 2000h-2. That section provides that “the United States shall be entitled to the same relief as if it had instituted -the action.” The meaning of this provision is somewhat ambiguous, and there is little legislative history to shed any light upon the intention of Congress. But we think the statute is properly read to authorize the United States to continue as a party plaintiff in this action, despite the disappearance of the original plaintiffs and the absence of any class certification, so long as such participation serves the statutory purpose, and that the presence of the United States as a party ensures that this case is not moot.
II
Petitioners requested the District Court to dissolve its injunctive order requiring that there be no school in the PUSD with a majority of any minority students enrolled. The District Court refused this request, and ordered the injunction continued. The court apparently based this decision in large part upon its view that petitioners had failed properly to comply with its original order. This conclusion was in turn premised upon the fact that although the School Board had reorganized PUSD attendance patterns in conformity with the court-approved Pasadena Plan, literal compliance with the terms of the court’s order had been obtained in only the initial year of the plan’s operation. Following the 1970-1971 school year, black student enrollment at one Pasadena school exceeded 50% of that school’s total enrollment. The next year, four Pasadena schools exceeded this 50% black enrollment figure; and at the time of the hearing on petitioners’ motion some five schools, in a system of 32 regular schools, were ostensibly in violation of the District Court’s “no majority of any minority” requirement. It was apparently the view of the majority of the Court of Appeals’ panel that this failure to maintain literal compliance with the 1970 injunction indicated that the District Court had not abused its discretion in refusing to grant so much of petitioner’s motion for modification as pertained to this aspect of the order. We think this view was wrong.
We do not have before us any issue as to the validity of the District Court's original judgment, since petitioners’ predecessors did not appeal from it. The District Court’s conclusion that unconstitutional segregation existed in the PTJSD; its decision to order a systemwide school reorganization plan based upon the guidelines which it submitted to the defendants; and the inclusion in those guidelines of the requirement that the plan contain provisions insuring that there be no majority of any minority in any Pasadena school, all became embodied in the 1970 decree. All that is now before us are the questions of whether the District Court was correct in denying relief when petitioners in 1974 sought to modify the “no majority” requirement as then interpreted by the District Court.
The meaning of this requirement, as originally established by the District Court, was apparently unclear even to the parties. In opposing the petitioners’ request for relief in 1974, counsel for the original individual plaintiffs and counsel for the Government jointly stipulated that they were aware “of no violations of the Pasadena Plan up to and including the present.” These parties were, of course, aware that some of the Pasadena schools had “slipped out of compliance” with the literal terms of the order. The stipulation was based upon the fact that the plaintiffs never understood the District Court’s order to require annual reassignment of pupils in order to accommodate changing demographic residential patterns in Pasadena from year to year, as the Government candidly admits in its brief here. Brief for United States 16 n. 22.
Petitioners have argued that they never understood the injunction, or the provisions of the plan which they drafted to implement that order, to contain such a requirement either. But at the hearing on petitioners’ motion for relief the District Court made it clear that its understanding of the decree was quite different from that of the parties. In response to the arguments of petitioners’ counsel, the judge stated that his 1970 order “meant to me that at least during my lifetime there would be no majority of any minority in any school in Pasadena.” App. 270.
When the District Court’s order in this case, as interpreted and applied by that court, is measured against what this Court said in its intervening decision in Swann v. Board of Education, 402 U. S. 1 (1971), regarding the scope of the judicially created relief which might be available to remedy violations of the Fourteenth Amendment, we think the inconsistency between the two is clear. The District Court’s interpretation of the order appears to contemplate the “substantive constitutional right [to a] particular degree of racial balance or mixing” which the Court in Swann expressly disapproved. Id., at 24. It became apparent, at least by the time of the 1974 hearing, that the District Court viewed this portion of its order not merely as a “starting point in the process of shaping a remedy,” which Swann indicated would be appropriate, id., at 25, but instead as an “inflexible requirement,” ibid., to be applied anew each year to the school population within the attendance zone of each school.
The District Court apparently believed it had authority to impose this requirement even though subsequent changes in the racial mix in the Pasadena schools might be caused by factors for which the defendants could not be considered responsible. Whatever may have been the basis for such a belief in 1970, in Swann the Court cautioned that “it must be recognized that there are limits” beyond which a court may not go in seeking to dismantle a dual school system. Id., at 28. These limits are in part tied to the necessity of establishing that school authorities have in some manner caused unconstitutional segregation, for “[ajbsent a constitutional violation there would be no basis for judicially ordering assignment of students on a racial basis.” Ibid. While the District Court found such a violation in 1970, and while this unappealed finding afforded a basis for its initial requirement that the defendants prepare a plan to remedy such racial segregation, its adoption of the Pasadena Plan in 1970 established a racially neutral system of student assignment in the PUSD. Having done that, we think that in enforcing its order so as to require annual readjustment of attendance zones so that there would not be a majority of any minority in any Pasadena public school, the District Court exceeded its authority.
In so concluding, we think it important to note what this case does not involve. The “no majority of any minority” requirement with respect to attendance zones did not call for defendants to submit “step at a time” plans by definition incomplete at inception. See, e. g., United States v. Montgomery Board of Education, 395 U. S. 225 (1969). Nor did it call for a plan embodying specific revisions of the attendance zones for particular schools, as well as provisions for later appraisal of whether such discrete individual modifications had achieved the “unitary system” required by Brown v. Board of Education, 349 U. S. 294, 300 (1955). The plan approved in this case applied in general terms to all Pasadena schools, and no one contests that its implementation did “achieve a system of determining admission to the public schools on a nonracial basis,” id., at 300-301.
There was also no showing in this case that those post-1971 changes in the racial mix of some Pasadena schools which were focused upon by the lower courts were in any manner caused by segregative actions chargeable to the defendants. The District Court rejected petitioners’ assertion that the movement was caused by so-called “white flight” traceable to the decree itself. It stated that the “trends evidenced in Pasadena closely approximate the state-wide trends in California schools, both segregated and desegregated.” 375 F. Supp., at 1306. The fact that black student enrollment at 5 out of 32 of the regular Pasadena schools came to exceed 50% during the 4-year period from 1970 to 1974 apparently resulted from people randomly moving into, out of, and around the PUSD area. This quite normal pattern of human migration resulted in some changes in the demographics of Pasadena’s residential patterns, with resultant shifts in the racial makeup of some of the schools. But as these shifts were not attributed to any segrega-tive actions on the part of the petitioners, we think this case comes squarely within the sort of situation foreseen in Swann:
“It does not follow that the communities served by [unitary] systems will remain demographically stable, for in a growing, mobile society, few will do so. Neither school authorities nor district courts are constitutionally required to make year-by-year adjustments of the racial composition of student bodies once the affirmative duty to desegregate has been accomplished and racial discrimination through official action is eliminated from the system.” 402 U. S., at 31-32.
It may well be that petitioners have not yet totally achieved the unitary system contemplated by this quotation from Swann. There has been, for example, dispute as to the petitioners’ compliance with those portions of the plan specifying procedures for hiring and promoting teachers and administrators. See 384 F. Supp. 846 (1974), vacated, 537 F. 2d 1031 (1976). But that does not undercut the force of the principle underlying the quoted language from Swann. In this case the District Court approved a plan designed to obtain racial neutrality in the attendance of students at Pasadena’s public schools. No one disputes that the initial implementation of this plan accomplished that objective. That being the case, the District Court was not entitled to require the PUSD to rearrange its attendance zones each year so as to ensure that the racial mix desired by the court was maintained in perpetuity. For having once implemented a racially neutral attendance pattern in order to remedy the perceived constitutional violations on the part of the defendants, the District Court had fully performed its function of providing the appropriate remedy for previous racially discriminatory attendance patterns.
At least one of the judges of the Court of Appeals expressed the view that while all of the petitioners’ contentions which we have discussed might be sound, they were barred from asserting them by their predecessors’ failure to appeal from the 1970 decree of the District Court. But this observation overlooks well-established rules governing modification of even a final decree entered by a court of equity. See Pennsylvania v. Wheeling & Belmont Bridge Co., 18 How. 421 (1856); United States v. Swift & Co., 286 U. S. 106 (1932); System Federation v. Wright, 364 U. S. 642 (1961). In the latter case this Court said:
“There is also no dispute but that a sound judicial discretion may call for the modification of the terms of an injunctive decree if the circumstances, whether of law or fact, obtaining at the time of its issuance have changed, or new ones have since arisen. Thé source of the power to modify is of course the fact that an injunction often requires continuing supervision by the issuing court and always a continuing willingness to apply its powers and processes on behalf of the party who obtained that equitable relief.” Id., at 647.
Even had the District Court’s decree been unambiguous and clearly understood by the parties to mean what that court declared it to mean in 1974, the “no majority of any minority” provision would, as we have indicated previously, be contrary to the intervening decision of this Court in Swarm, supra. The ambiguity of the provision itself, and the fact that the parties to the decree interpreted it in a manner contrary to the interpretation ultimately placed upon it by the District Court, is an added factor in support of modification. The two factors taken together make a sufficiently compelling case so that such modification should have been ordered by the District Court. System Federation v. Wright, supra.
There is little real dispute among the parties with our observations thus far. Indeed, as the Government points out, each of the judges of the Court of Appeals disapproved both the District Court’s statement regarding its lifetime commitment to the “no majority of any minority” rule and the substance of that rule itself, to the extent that either indicated a continuing, rigid insistence upon some particular degree of racial balance. Brief for United States 37. The Government adds that these disapprovals were, in its view, quite proper, and it concludes they were sufficient to remove the “no majority of any minority” requirement from this case.
It is here that we disagree with the Government. Violation of an injunctive decree such as that issued by the District Court in this case can result in punishment for contempt in the form of either a fine or imprisonment. Federal Rule Civ. Proc. 65 (d) concomitantly provides that “ [e] very order granting an injunction and every restraining order shall ... be specific in terms; shall describe in reasonable detail, and not by reference to the complaint or other document, the act or acts sought to be restrained . . . .” Because of the rightly serious view courts have traditionally taken of violations of injunc-tive orders, and because of the severity of punishment which may be imposed for such violation, such orders must in compliance with Rule 65 be specific and reasonably detailed.
Because of related concern that outstanding injunctive orders of courts be obeyed until modified or reversed by a court having the authority to do so, this Court has held that even though the constitutionality of the Act under which the injunction issued is challenged, disobedience of such an outstanding order of a federal court subjects the violator to contempt even though his constitutional claim might be later upheld. United States v. Mine Workers, 330 U. S. 258 (1947). The Court has likewise held that a State is constitutionally free to adopt a similar rule respecting punishment as contempt of violation of injunctive orders issued by its courts. Walker v. City of Birmingham, 388 U. S. 307 (1967). In both of these cases this Court quoted its own statement in the earlier decision of Howat v. Kansas, 258 U.S. 181 (1922):
“It is for the court of first instance to determine the question of the validity of the law, and until its decision is reversed for error by orderly review, either by itself or by a higher court, its orders based on its decision are to be respected, and disobedience of them is contempt of its lawful authority, to be punished.” Id., at 190.
There is necessarily a counterpart to this well-established insistence that those who are subject to the commands of an injunctive order must obey those commands, notwithstanding eminently reasonable and proper objections to the order, until it is modified or reversed. That counterpart is that when such persons heed this well-established rule and prosecute their remedy first by a motion to modify in the issuing court and then, failing there, by appeal of that court’s denial of their motion, they are entitled in a proper case to obtain a definitive disposition of their objections. Here a majority of the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in separate opinions strongly intimated that the District Court erred in refusing to amend the “no majority of any minority” provision of its order, but the Court nonetheless affirmed the order of the District Court denying in toto the motion to modify that order.
Petitioners have plainly established that they were entitled to relief from the District Court’s injunction insofar as it required them to alter school attendance zones in response to shifts in demographics within the PUSD. The order of the District Court which was affirmed by the Court of Appeals equally plainly envisioned the continuation of such a requirement. We do not think petitioners must be satisfied with what may have been the implicit assumption of the Court of Appeals that the District Court would heed the “disapproval” expressed by each member of the panel of that court in his opinion. Instead, we think petitioners were entitled on this phase of the case to a judgment of the Court of Appeals reversing the District Court with respect to its treatment of that portion of the order.
Ill
Because the case is to be returned to the Court of Appeals, that court will have an opportunity to reconsider its decision in light of our observations regarding the appropriate scope of equitable relief in this case. We thus think it unnecessary for us to consider petitioners’ other contentions: that the District Court’s 1970 injunction should in all respects be dissolved; that the District Court’s jurisdiction over the PUSD should be terminated; or that petitioners’ suggested modifications of the Pasadena Plan should be accepted as an alternative to the present plan. The record in this case reflects the situation in Pasadena as it was in 1974. At oral argument the Solicitor General discussed the Government’s belief that if, as petitioners have represented, they have complied with the District Court’s order during the intervening two years, they will probably be entitled to a lifting of the District Court’s order in its entirety. Tr. of Oral Arg. 28-31. And while any determination of compliance or noncompliance must, of course, comport with our holding today, it must also depend on factual determinations which the Court of Appeals and the District Court are in a far better position than we are to make in the first instance. Accordingly the judgment of the Court of Appeals is vacated, and the case is remanded to that court for further proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion.
So ordered.
Mr. Justice Stevens took no part in the consideration or decision of this case.
In addition to several other factors, Judge Ely cited the fact that the defendants had been found in violation of the District Court’s 1970 order as supplying evidence that the court “could rightly determine that the ‘dangers’ which induced the original determination of constitutional infringements in Pasadena have not diminished sufficiently to require modification or dissolution of the original Order.” 519 F. 2d 430, 434 (1975). Judge Chambers, concurring in the result, relied only upon the fact that petitioners had apparently not yet complied with what he viewed as the “continuing duty to homogenize” imposed upon them by the District Court’s 1970 order. Judge Chambers thought that as soon as the PUSD was brought in compliance with that order, the mandatory injunction should be terminated. Id., at 440.
Id., at 433 n. 3.
There is some disagreement whether petitioners, or their predecessors at least, understood the District Court’s order in the same manner as it was interpreted in 1974. There are some suggestions in the record that petitioners may have made some attempts to stay in compliance with the “no majority of any minority” guideline as demographic patterns in Pasadena changed. But there are no factual assessments in the record as to the understanding of the petitioners, and they have argued before us that their reading of the 1970 order was the same as that of the plaintiffs. However this factual issue might be resolved, we think petitioners were not foreclosed from challenging the District Court’s decree as interpreted and applied in 1974. See infra, at 437-438.
See 519 F. 2d, at 440 (opinion of Chambers, J.); cf. n. 1, supra.
Counsel for the original plaintiffs has urged, in the courts below and before us, that the District Court’s perpetual “no majority of any minority” requirement was valid and consistent wtih Swann, at least until the school system achieved “unitary” status in all other respects such as the hiring and promoting of teachers and administrators. Since we have concluded that the case is moot with regard to these plaintiffs, these arguments are not properly before us. It should be clear from what we have said that they have little substance.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer:
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I
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sc_issuearea
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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.
Appellant applied to the Interstate Commerce Commission under the grandfather clause of the Transportation Act of 1958, § 7 (c), 72 Stat. 573, 49 U. S. C. § 303 (b)(6), to transport as a common carrier over irregular routes frozen fruits, berries, and vegetables, and frozen seafoods and poultry when transported with such frozen fruits, berries, and vegetables. The Commission granted a certificate which substantially curtailed appellant’s prior operations. 89 M. C. C. 377. The District Court affirmed without opinion.
We think United States v. Carolina Freight Carriers Corp., 315 U. S. 475, requires reversal of the judgment and a remand to the Commission for reconsideration in light of appellant’s status and performance as a common carrier, the transportation characteristics and marketing pattern of these seasonal agricultural products, and the demonstrated ability of appellant to perform the services. Id., at 482-489.
Reversed and remanded.
Mr. Justice Harlan, Mr. Justice Stewart and Mr. Justice White dissent, agreeing with the three-judge District Court that the Commission correctly employed the statutory standards prescribed by Congress. “The precise delineation of the area or the specification of localities which may be serviced has been entrusted by the Congress to the Commission.” United States v. Carolina Freight Carriers Corp., 315 U. S. 475, 480. See also Alton R. Co. v. United States, 315 U. S. 15, 22-23.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer:
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H
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sc_issuearea
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What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Mr. Justice Douglas
delivered the opinion of the Court.
The complaint in this litigation alleged antitrust violations and damages suffered by Trans World Airlines (TWA) while under control of Hughes Tool Co. (Toolco). A default judgment was entered for over $145 million with interest at the rate of 7The District Court’s opinions confirming the damages award are reported at 308 F. Supp. 679, 312 F. Supp. 478. The Court of Appeals affirmed, 449 F. 2d 51. The cases are here on a petition for certiorari and on a cross petition. 405 U. S. 915.
The crux of TWA’s complaint was the use by Toolco of its control over TWA to control and dictate the manner and method by which TWA acquired aircraft and the necessary financing thereof.
Whether or not that complaint states a cause of action under the antitrust laws is a question we do not reach. Another defense of Toolco was that those transactions were under the control and surveillance of the Civil Aeronautics Board and by virtue of the Federal Aviation Act of 1958 those transactions have immunity from the antitrust laws.
It is our view that the Court of Appeals erroneously rejected that defense. This result, we think, is required by §§ 408 and 414 of the Federal Aviation Act and by our prior decision in Pan American World Airways v. United States, 371 U. S. 296 (1963).
Section 408 of the Act makes illegal certain mergers, consolidations, and other transactions without the approval of the Civil Aeronautics Board. Specifically, § 408 (a)(5) requires the approval of the Board when “any person engaged in any other phase of aeronautics” seeks to acquire control of any air carrier in any manner whatsoever. Section 408 (b) authorizes and directs the Board to approve such transactions, including acquisitions of control, that are in the “public interest” and prohibits approval of any transaction “which would result in creating a monopoly or monopolies and thereby restrain competition or jeopardize another air carrier” not a party to the transaction. Section 102 of the Act requires that in assessing the public interest and the public convenience and necessity, the Board should consider, among other things, “[cjompetition to the extent necessary to assure the sound development of an air-transportation system properly adapted to the needs of the foreign and domestic commerce of the United States. Section 408 (e) empowers the Board, upon complaint or its own initiative, to investigate and determine whether any person is violating any provision of subsection (a) and, if such violation is found, to “require such person to take such action, consistent with the provisions of this chapter, as may be necessary, in the opinion of the Board, to prevent further violation of such provision.” Under § 408 (d), the Board has broad control over the accounts, records, and reports of anyone controlling an air carrier, and their inspection. The Board is further granted power to control the designation of any officer or director of an air carrier who is an officer, director, member, or the controlling stockholder of any person who is engaged “in any phase of aeronautics.” § 409 (a), 49 U. S. C. § 1379 (a). Section 414 relieves from the operation of the antitrust laws any person affected by any order under § 408 “insofar as may be necessary to enable such person to do anything authorized, approved, or required by such order.”
It was against this statutory backdrop that the Civil Aeronautics Board issued a series of decisions and orders with respect to the control of TWA by Toolco, the major decisions being issued in 1944, 1948, 1950, and 1960. The first decision, 6 C. A. B. 153 (1944), authorized control of approximately 45.6% of the outstanding stock of TWA. From the Board’s opinion issued at that time, it appears that Howard Hughes first became interested in TWA at the invitation of his friend, Jack Frye, the president of TWA. Hughes began acquiring TWA stock through Toolco, which he solely owned. By 1942, Toolco had acquired 42.1% of TWA’s outstanding stock and for all practical purposes was in position to control the day-to-day affairs of the carrier. Meanwhile, Hughes and Frye had jointly designed a four-engine transport, later known as the Constellation, which Lockheed agreed to manufacture under contract with Toolco. The contract was assigned by Toolco to TWA in 1942, Toolco reserving the right to purchase a sizable number of such aircraft through TWA. It was this arrangement by which Toolco might actually acquire for resale a number of commercial aircraft that, together with its experimental work in aviation and its manufacture of aircraft parts for the military, characterized Toolco as an organization engaged in any phase of aeronautics and therefore forbidden to acquire control of an air carrier such as TWA without the consent of the Board. Toolco’s control of TWA, by virtue of its stock ownership which had by 1944 increased to 45.6%, was approved by the Board as being in the public interest and consistent with the provisions of § 408, including the prohibition against monopoly. In order to insure that Toolco would not abuse its power over TWA, “to its own profit and to the detriment of the public interest,” 6 C. A. B., at 156, the approval was to continue only so long as intercompany purchases did not exceed $200 per item and did not amount to more than $10,000 in any one calendar year. Annual reports were required in this respect. 6 C. A. B., at 158.
The 1948 and 1950 decisions of the Board originated in a letter agreement presented by Toolco to TWA on January 8, 1947, and accepted by TWA the following day. By this agreement, Toolco agreed to loan $10 million to TWA in return for the latter’s interest-bearing notes which were convertible into common stock of the company. On its own initiative, the Board opened an investigation into the matter. At the threshold was the question of Board jurisdiction, which was hotly contested. The Board’s June 1948 opinion sustained its jurisdiction, 9 C. A. B. 381. The opinion took a dual approach to the jurisdictional question. It first inquired whether “any change in the activities of Toolco in the field of aeronautics since October 17, 1944, has affected or altered the character of the control approved in Docket No. 1182. It is clear that a substantial change in the activities of Toolco in the field of aeronautics would result in a transaction subject to the Board’s jurisdiction under section 408 by reason of the fact that the character and propriety of control originally approved might be altered or changed as a result thereof.” 9 C. A. B., at 382.
After reviewing the aeronautical activities of Toolco, it was concluded that the aircraft division of the company was chiefly a large-scale experimental plant for the military and had not substantially changed its status with respect to its participation in any phase of aeronautics.
The Board’s second approach to the jurisdictional question was to inquire whether the letter agreement, which would permit Toolco to increase its shareholdings up to 80% of the outstanding shares of TWA, represented such a change in extent or effectiveness of control as to give the Board jurisdiction and require its consent. Its conclusion was that, although Toolco’s 45.6% was obviously enough to dominate the Board and control the day-today affairs of the company, the 1947 letter agreement would permit Toolco to translate its de facto control into full legal control of the company, which would “obviously impl[y] power to dictate the complete corporate activities of the corporation.” 9 C. A. B., at 387. This was sufficient to require an order of the Board in addition to the 1944 order.
With its jurisdiction established, the Board proceeded with hearings and inquiry into whether the additional control was consistent with the public interest. This matter was also contested. Toolco thought that only a narrowly focused inquiry was appropriate, but the Board’s public counsel not only insisted that the hearings be far-ranging but urged, as a possible solution, that the additional control be disapproved and that the original 1944 proceedings, Docket No. 1182, be reopened to determine whether all control of TWA by Toolco should be terminated. The Board opted for an investigation sufficiently broad to inquire “into the actions and policies of the controlling company with respect to TWA for the period during which the prior-approved control existed... [f] or inevitably the controlling company, by virtue of its investment in the acquired carrier, will endeavor to make itself accountable — as indeed the acquirer here under scrutiny had — for the managerial efficiency, the operating economy, and the financial integrity of the controlled carrier.” 12 C. A. B. 192, 196 (1950). Before approving the additional acquisition, which would make certain “[cjomplete actual and legal control,” id., at 197, the Board determined not only to examine the future plans of Toolco but also its past conduct with respect to TWA.
Accordingly, the Toolco-Hughes-TWA relationship from 1939 to the date of the decision was examined in detail, including the events occurring since the letter agreement of January 1947. The major focus of the inquiry was the differences between TWA management and Toolco with respect to the acquisition of new flight equipment — the quantity, the type, the timing, and the financing thereof. Unquestionably, TWA had been and was in need of additional financing to make possible the purchase of new equipment, particularly that needed to operate its expanded routes. TWA proposed and preferred equity financing in large measure, but Toolco most often insisted on financing new equipment through credit arrangements. Disagreement caused delay, and this, in combination with other factors, brought TWA to the verge of bankruptcy or reorganization in late 1946. It was at this juncture that the January 1947 letter agreement eventuated. Financial failure was averted; but urgent needs for new equipment continued, and substantial additions were made in the years from 1947 to 1950, most of it with the aid of Toolco and some of it by purchase from Toolco itself. By the time the hearings concluded and the case was under submission, TWA’s financial condition had considerably improved, measurably aided by better operating results, better expense control, and a stock offering to stockholders with the unsubscribed amount being underwritten by investment bankers. 12 C. A. B., at 208-209.
In considering whether the additional control by Toolco would be in the public interest, the Board observed that there was no conflict of interest between Toolco’s present or contemplated aeronautical activities and its control of an air carrier and that enhanced control presented no problems under the antimonopoly provisions of § 408 (b). Id., at 216. The Board then noted that Toolco’s contributions to the science of aeronautics by way of aircraft design and instrumental aids to aviation for both the armed services and civil aviation have been substantial and found that “of specific importance to TWA, have been the contributions of Toolco and Mr. Hughes in the way of financial support to the carrier, in the selection and purchase of its equipment, and their advice and guidance to the engineering and operations departments of the carrier.” Ibid. Most important, however, in the Board’s opinion, were the efforts of Toolco to improve the financial position of TWA during the last few years. Although criticizing Toolco, along with others in the aircraft transportation industry, for relying too heavily on debt financing which, in the case of TWA had resulted in a very difficult, lopsided capital structure, the Board concluded that the record would not support a finding that the additional control would be inconsistent with the public interest. Indeed, the Board concluded that “[t]he continued interest of Toolco in TWA appears essential to the best interests of the carrier and the public.” Id., at 224.
The Board’s approval in 1950 of the complete control of TWA by Toolco was made “subject to the terms and conditions” imposed by the 1944 order with respect to intercompany purchases and annual reporting. See supra, at 370. As a result, from 1944 through 1960, every acquisition or lease of aircraft by TWA from Toolco and each financing of TWA by Toolco required Board approval. Applications by Toolco were made to the Board in each instance, with the terms and conditions of the transactions being described. Each was approved by the Board and each was regarded as a modification or interpretation of its antecedent control orders under § 408. Each of these transactional orders recited a finding of the Board that the transaction was “just and reasonable and in the public interest.” Then, in December 1960, the Board issued an order approving a major proposal by TWA for the acquisition of jet equipment, which among other things involved fundamental changes in relationship between TWA and Toolco in that the stock of the former, at the insistence of the financial institutions involved in the program, was to be placed in a voting trust and the company’s Board of Directors reconstituted. 32 C. A. B. 1363. The dominant position of Toolco thus ended for the period of the trusteeship. In the course of its opinion accompanying the order, the Board stated that although it had not been officially informed of the reasons for the banks’ insistence on the voting trust, it was not “unaware of TWA’s problems.” Id., at 1364. The Board knew, because it was a matter of public record, that TWA had been delayed in financing its jet fleet and the Board’s opinion was that TWA had probably suffered because more attractive financing terms were no longer available and because the unavailability of equipment may have contributed to the company’s failure to maintain its normal share of the transportation market. “Under these circumstances” the Board said, “we think it clear that Board action to facilitate TWA’s acquisition of jet equipment is in the public interest. At the same time, however, it is evident that Toolco’s control of TWA, as exercised through Hughes, has presented substantial problems requiring the Board’s attention.” Id., at 1365. The Board went on to make clear that its approval would be required before Toolco would be permitted to reassume control over TWA and that any such approval would be forthcoming only after a most “searching inquiry” into the public interest factors involved. Ibid.
It was six months later that TWA, now no longer under control of Toolco, filed suit against the latter alleging violations of the antitrust laws to the injury of TWA’s business. As analyzed by the Court of Appeals in its opinions filed in this case, the complaint rested principally on Toolco’s conduct as controlling stockholder during the years 1955-1960. The assertions were that in 1955 the commercial air industry was converting to jet aircraft, and that TWA’s competitors began in that year “to aid in the development of and to purchase jet planes.” 332 F. 2d 602, 605. Toolco and General Dynamics Corp. (Convair) had entered into an arrangement for the joint development of a suitable aircraft but the plan proved abortive, whereupon Toolco considered but ultimately abandoned a plan for itself to enter aircraft production. Meanwhile, Toolco had arranged for the purchase of jet aircraft from Convair and Boeing, the arrangements providing that Toolco could assign its rights to such aircraft to TWA.
As respects its defense that CAB control and surveillance gave it immunity from the antitrust suit, Toolco relies on Pan American World Airways v. United States, 371 U. S. 296. The Court of Appeals distinguished that case, saying that there the unlawful division of territories and allocation of routes were directly “within the ambit of powers explicitly granted the Board by the Congress,” 332 F. 2d, at 608. The Court of Appeals said that the present ease was different because, in its view, the continuing supervision of the Board over the Toolco-TWA relationship was general and not related to specific conduct that gave rise to violations of the antitrust laws.
The transactions on the basis of which damages were awarded were based primarily on profits lost as a result of five transactions relating to orders placed by Toolco for a fleet of 63 jet aircraft destined for use by TWA. 449 F. 2d, at 65-66:
(1) The diversion of six Convairs by Toolco to Northeast Airlines;
(2) The temporary retention by Toolco of four other Convairs and their ultimate lease to Northeast Airlines;
(3) The diversion of six Boeing jets out of 33 ordered to Pan American Airways;
(4) The lease, instead of outright sales, of jets in 1959-1960; and
(5) The late delivery of 47 of the 63 jets.
One difficulty with the conclusion of the Court of Appeals that these transactions, unlike those involved in the Pan American case, were transactions on which the Board might take action but did not do so, is that it misconstrues the record. As noted, from 1944 through 1960 every acquisition or lease of aircraft by TWA from Toolco and each financing of TWA by Toolco required Board approval. Each transaction was approved by the Board and each approval was an order under § 408, for the Board regarded its transactional orders as modifications or interpretations of its antecedent control order. Each of the modification orders recited a finding of the Board that the transactions were “just and reasonable and in the public interest.”
It is said, however, that while the Board modified its original “control” order under § 408 so as to permit sale or lease of the aircraft out of which the alleged antitrust violations occurred, the approval of the Board did not sanction the precise way in which Toolco allegedly used the power to the disadvantage of TWA. But that is not an answer to the problem of exemption.
The Federal Aviation Act as construed and applied by this Court and the Civil Aeronautics Board dictates a contrary result.
In Pan American World Airways v. United States, supra, the United States brought a civil antitrust action under §§ 1, 2, and 3 of the Sherman Act challenging the joint control of Panagra, an air carrier, by Pan American Airways and W. R. Grace & Co. The allegations were that Pan American, Grace, and Panagra had divided territories, that Pan American and Grace had conspired to monopolize air transportation on the west coast of South America, and that Pan American had used its power to prevent Panagra from extending its routes from the Canal Zone to the United States. The District Court found no division of territories and no conspiracy between Grace and Pan American but concluded that Pan American had violated the Sherman Act in interfering with Panagra’s possible route extension. On cross appeals by Pan American and the United States, this Court held that the complaint should have been dismissed because § 411 of the Act gave the CAB broad power to investigate and bring to a halt unfair practices and unfair methods of competition, including those alleged in the complaint, and because if the courts were to intrude independently with their own construction of the antitrust laws the two regimes might collide. Hence, relief against the alleged division of territories, allocation of routes, and conspiracy to monopolize was a matter exclusively for the Board. The Court also pointed out that under § 414 of the Act, Board orders carried antitrust immunity for any conduct authorized, approved, or required by the order and that it would be odd to hold that an affiliation between an air carrier and others that would pass muster under § 408 could nevertheless run afoul of the antitrust laws: “Whether or not transactions of that character meet the standards of competition and monopoly provided by the Act is peculiarly a question for the Board, subject of course to judicial review as provided in 49 U. S. C. § 1486.” 371 U. S., at 309.
As previously indicated, the Court of Appeals did not consider Pan American to be relevant or controlling because, different from the situation there, the conduct challenged in TWA's complaint against Toolco was “unrelated to any specific function of the CAB” and hence was not within the exclusive competence of that body. 332 F. 2d, at 608. This view is difficult to square with the statute and the several opinions and orders issued by the Board with respect to the relationship between Toolco and TWA.
The Act expressly forbade Toolco to acquire control of TWA without approval of the Board. Section 408, however, directed the Board to approve the acquisition if consistent with the public interest and empowered it to remedy any acquisition of control by Toolco obtained otherwise than in accordance with the Act. It is also perfectly clear that in 1944 the Board approved the acquisition of control of TWA by Toolco by virtue of a 45.6% stock ownership and that in 1948 and 1950 the Board approved a transaction that could have increased Toolco’s holdings to 80% and transformed its de facto control into full legal, as well as practical, control.
In reaching this conclusion, the Board inquired broadly into all phases of the exercise of Toolco’s control over TWA during the years 1944H947. It was not only proper but necessary in determining whether further acquisition of control was consistent with the public interest to examine “into the actions and policies of the controlling company... [f]or inevitably the controlling company, by virtue of its investment in the acquired carrier, will endeavor to make itself accountable... for the managerial efficiency, the operating economy, and the financial integrity of the controlled carrier.” 12 C. A. B., at 196. Hence, of major interest to the Board were the decisions of Toolco with respect to the type, quantity, timing, and financing of new equipment acquisitions by TWA. It examined and dealt with in great detail the assertions that Toolco had improperly delayed the arrival of new equipment, had insisted on debt rather than equity financing, and itself had sold or leased aircraft to TWA. All of these matters, the Board concluded, were central to proper determination of the issue of the additional control and, indeed, to the additional question before the Board as to whether the existing relationship should have been completely terminated.
The point is that the conduct of Toolco with which the Board so extensively dealt in 1950 is the same kind of conduct charged to Toolco in the 1950’s and alleged by TWA in its complaint to violate the antitrust laws. It is, therefore, difficult to understand how the Court of Appeals could conclude that the acts of Toolco in controlling, allegedly to the injury of TWA, the timing, the financing, and the flow of new equipment to TWA were unrelated to any function of the Board under the Act. Clearly, such considerations were in the mainstream of the Board's § 408 responsibilities to insure that only those acquisitions of control that are in the public interest are approved.
Nor is it tenable to argue that, however relevant Tool-co’s new equipment decisions might have been to the public-interest standard mandated for Board approval of the additional control obtained in 1947, the Board’s authority nevertheless terminated with that approval and that the Board, having issued its approval, was powerless to control or oversee its exercise in the years to come. Section 408 permits only those acquisitions of control that are not inconsistent with the public interest and that will not result in a monopoly. It also authorizes the Board to approve acquisitions subject to such conditions as it may deem desirable. Section 408 (e) empowers the Board to investigate and remedy violations of §408 (a). If a carrier has acquired control “in any manner whatsoever” other than that approved by the Board, the Board is authorized either on complaint or its own initiative to investigate and if a violation is discovered it is ordered to remedy that situation. Section 204 (a), 49 U. S. C. § 1324 (a), authorizes the Board to issue and amend such orders as it shall deem necessary to carry out the provisions of and to exercise and perform its powers and duties under the statute.
It seems sufficiently apparent, therefore, that the Board did not exhaust its powers with respect to Toolco’s control of TWA when it issued its order of approval in Docket No. 1182 in 1944. Obviously, the Board remained competent to enforce or to waive the conditions attached to that order. It did so many times. See n. 10, supra. It also is clear from the 1948 and 1950 proceedings, where the Board’s jurisdiction was challenged, that its jurisdiction was triggered not only by substantial additional acquisitions of stock but by any change in the extent or effectiveness of Toolco’s control or in Toolco’s position in the aeronautics industry. The Board also implied that had Toolco’s exercise of control over TWA from 1942 to 1947 been sufficiently unacceptable to foreclose the additional acquisition of control, reopening of Docket No. 1182 and re-examination of the initial approval would have been justified.
We have little doubt that the authority of the Board, either on complaint or its own initiative, extended to forbidding any exercise of control by Toolco which was not authorized or contemplated by the initial or subsequent approval. This seems the clear import of the Act and of the Board’s 1948-1950 proceedings.
Also instructive is the Board’s response when asked in 1956 to modify its original order so as to permit TWA’s purchase of up to 25 jet-powered aircraft from Toolco. Reciting that its prior approvals of Toolco’s control of TWA had been premised upon the assumption that Toolco was not engaged in the manufacture or sale of aircraft for commercial use, the Board forthwith opened an investigation to determine whether Toolco’s position in the aeronautics industry had so changed as to result in a transaction subject to the Board’s jurisdiction under § 408. The motion for waiver of the 1944 condition was consolidated with this new proceeding. The proceeding was later canceled when the motion to waive the 1944 condition was withdrawn, but clearly the Board thought, and rightly so, that it had continuing power to audit the ongoing relationship between TWA and Toolco.
It is also difficult to read in any other manner the recital by the CAB, in the course of approval of the 1960 voting trust arrangement, of Toolco’s alleged conduct in delaying the delivery of new equipment and dictating the financing of same, all to TWA’s alleged injury, followed by its assertion that such conduct “presented substantial problems requiring the Board’s attention.” 32 C. A. B., at 1365.
It is therefore no answer to say that our Pan American decision does not cover the alleged antitrust violations involved in the Toolco-TWA transactions for which treble damages were sought. As noted, § 408 (b) states that the Board shall not approve any “acquisition of control” which would result “in creating a monopoly or monopolies and thereby restrain competition or jeopardize another air carrier.” Moreover, the Board in granting permission to “control” an air carrier must consider the standards of the public interest as defined in § 102 of the Act. Among such standards is that set forth in § 102 (c), which, as indicated, ante, at 368 n. 4, provides:
“The promotion of adequate, economical, and efficient service by air carriers at reasonable charges, without unjust discriminations, undue preferences or advantages, or unfair or destructive competitive practices.”
Competition and monopoly — two ingredients of the antitrust laws — are thus standards governing the CAB’s exercise of authority in granting, allowing, or expanding or contracting the control which Toolco had over TWA by reason of the various orders issued by the CAB under § 408. In this context, the authority of the Board to grant the power to “control” and to investigate and alter the manner in which that “control” is exercised leads us to conclude that this phase of CAB jurisdiction, like the one in the Pan American case, pre-empts the antitrust field. It should be noted in that connection that in the Pan American case, Pan American, which owned 50% of the stock of the air carrier Panagra, was charged with using its control to prevent Panagra from receiving the authority of the CAB to extend its route from the Canal Zone to the United States. That restraint was held beyond the reach of the antitrust laws even though the CAB had taken no action to investigate, let alone act on, the alleged misfeasance as the Board has done here for over 16 years.
We think the Court of Appeals erred also in construing § 414, which immunizes from antitrust liability any conduct approved, authorized, or required by any Board order issued under § 408. As we read this record, the Board not only approved Toolco’s ownership of TWA stock but it also contemplated actual and legal control of TWA by Toolco. The Board made it as plain as possible that Toolco’s stock ownership would inevitably result in Toolco’s exercising authority over the day-to-day affairs of TWA, including the acquisition and financing of equipment. It was precisely this kind of control the Board approved. Toolco’s power of decision with respect to these matters was central to the public-interest issue. What is more, the Board not only concluded that Toolco’s stewardship, although faulty in some respects, had been a great benefit to TWA and to the public in years gone by, but also determined that the additional control sought by Toolco and continuation of TWA-Toolco relationships were essential to the public interest.
It is too clear for argument that in entering the 1950 order the Board fully realized that Toolco had determined and would determine when and how much new equipment would be purchased, from whom it would be acquired, and how it would be financed. It was precisely this type of association that it contemplated when it approved the additional control obtained by Toolco in 1947. And it was precisely this same conclusion that the Board was implementing each time during the 1950’s that it approved a sale or a lease of an airplane from Toolco to TWA which, without its approval, would have violated the Board’s ongoing limitation on the size of intercompany transactions.
We repeat, however, what we said in the Pan American case that the Federal Aviation Act does not completely displace the antitrust laws.
“While the Board is empowered to deal with numerous aspects of what are normally thought of as antitrust problems, those expressly entrusted to it encompass only a fraction of the total.” 371 U. S., at 305.
One of the most conspicuous exceptions would be the combination or agreement between two air carriers involving trade restraints. See Timken Co. v. United States, 341 U. S. 593, 598.
There may be other exceptions. But where, as here, the CAB authorizes control of an air carrier to be acquired by another person or corporation, and where it specifically authorizes as in the public interest specific transactions between the parent and the subsidiary, the way in which that control is exercised in those precise situations is under the surveillance of the CAB, not in the hands of those who can invoke the sanctions of the antitrust laws. As noted, the parent company which controls an air carrier is subject to pervasive control by the CAB. The control which the CAB is authorized to grant or to deny under § 408 involves an appraisal of the impact of that control in terms of monopoly and competition; and the ongoing supervision entrusted to the CAB by § 415 is broad enough to put all transactions between parent and subsidiary — -as originally conceived or subsequently exercised — under CAB supervision.
We cannot believe that if the day after the Board's order of 1950, a minority stockholder had instituted a derivative antitrust suit against Toolco, alleging that Toolco had monopolized the TWA market from 1944 to 1950, delayed deliveries of aircraft, and insisted on improvident financing arrangements, such a suit could have survived a motion to dismiss based on § 414. Such an action would have sought to negate what the Board, after full investigation, had found consistent with § 408’s anti-monopoly provision, consistent with § 102’s competition standard, and consistent with the public interest.
TWA’s suit in 1961 carries no better credentials, for it sought to terminate a relationship the continuation of which the Board had found essential to both TWA and the public interest and to penalize the type of conduct which the Board expressly contemplated and preferred would continue unless and until a different order from the Board was forthcoming.
It adds nothing to the analysis to characterize Toolco’s exercise of power over TWA as monopolization of the TWA market, for it was precisely such control that the Board opted for in 1944 and 1950. Moreover, a condition of the order was that Toolco’s sales to TWA could not assume more than negligible proportions without in every instance the Board’s approving the transaction as being consistent with the public interest. Nor does it add to the argument to describe Toolco’s conduct as furthering a tying or exclusive-dealing arrangement or as a conspiracy to restrain trade in that market represented by TWA.
The short of it is that in our view §§ 408 and 414 of the Act, as construed in Pan American, require reversal of the Court of Appeals and dismissal of this action. What TWA charged in its complaint was no more than the kind of conduct the CAB in 1950 had approved and authorized for the future; and, in any event, such conduct was within the power of the Board to control and was central to the mandate of § 408 to permit control of TWA by Toolco only if consistent with the public interest.
We by no means hold that the Federal Aviation Act completely displaces the antitrust laws. Pan American, 371 U. S., at 305. But where, as here, the CAB authorizes control of an air carrier to be acquired by another person or corporation, and where the CAB specifically authorizes as in the public interest specific transactions between the parent and the subsidiary, the way in which that control is exercised in those precise situations is under the surveillance of the CAB, not in the hands of those who can invoke the sanctions of the antitrust laws. The control which the CAB is authorized to grant or to deny under § 408 involves an appraisal of the impact of that control in terms of monopoly and competition; and the ongoing supervision entrusted to the CAB by § 415 is broad enough to put all transactions between parent and subsidiary — as originally conceived or subsequently exercised — under CAB supervision.
This conclusion necessitates a dismissal of the cross-petition, a reversal of the judgment below, and a remand with directions to dismiss the complaint, as the numerous other points briefed and argued become irrelevant in that posture of the litigation.
Reversed.
Mr. Justice Marshall took no part in the consideration or decision of these cases.
The District Court's judgment on entry of a default and certifying a controlling question of law is reported at 32 F. R. D. 604. The Court of Appeals affirmed, 332 F. 2d 602. We granted certiorari, 379 U. S. 912, but after argument dismissed the writ as improvidently granted. 380 U. S. 248. Moreover, our dismissal as improvidently granted was in 1965 and involved the 1964 judgment of the Court of Appeals. In 1971 a diiferent panel of the Court of Appeals ruled that its 1964 decision was not binding. It noted that prior to its 1971 decision there had been no “final judgment” with respect to the merits of TWA’s cause of action against Toolco and therefore res judicata did not apply. 449 F. 2d 51, 58. It went on to say that collateral estoppel likewise did not apply, since the only relevant issue that was actually litigated and determined in the 1964 appeal was that the District Court “properly entered the default on Toolco’s counterclaims.” Ibid. That issue, it said, was “a sharply distinguishable issue from the propriety of a different default
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer:
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H
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sc_issuearea
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What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Mr. Justice Powell
delivered the opinion of the Court.
This case presents a challenge to the facial validity of a Jacksonville, Fla., ordinance that prohibits showing films containing nudity by a drive-in movie theater when its screen is visible from a public street or place.
I
Appellant, Richard Erznoznik, is the manager of the University Drive-In Theatre in Jacksonville. On March 13, 1972, he was charged with violating § 330.313 of the municipal code for exhibiting a motion picture, visible from public streets, in which “female buttocks and bare breasts were shown.” The ordinance, adopted January 14, 1972, provides:
“330.313 Drive-In Theaters, Films Visible From Public Streets or Public Places. It shall be unlawful and it is hereby declared a public nuisance for any ticket seller, ticket taker, usher, motion picture projection machine operator, manager, owner, or any other person connected with or employed by any drive-in theater in the City to exhibit, or aid or assist in exhibiting, any motion picture, slide, or other exhibit in which the human male or female bare buttocks, human female bare breasts, or human bare pubic areas are shown, if such motion picture, slide, or other exhibit is visible from any public street or public place. Violation of this section shall be punishable as a Class C offense.”
Appellant, with the consent of the city prosecutor, successfully moved to stay his prosecution so that the validity of the ordinance could be tested in a separate declaratory action. In that action appellee, the city of Jacksonville, introduced evidence showing that the screen of appellant’s theater is visible from two adjacent public streets and a nearby church parking lot. There was also testimony indicating that people had been observed watching films while sitting outside the theater in parked cars and in the grass.
The trial court upheld the ordinance as a legitimate exercise of the municipality’s police power, and ruled that it did not infringe upon appellant’s First Amendment rights. The District Court of Appeal, First District of Florida, affirmed, 288 So. 2d 260 (1974), relying exclusively on Chemline, Inc. v. City of Grand Prairie, 364 F. 2d 721 (CA5 1966), which had sustained a similar ordinance. The Florida Supreme Court denied certiorari, three judges dissenting. 294 So. 2d 93 (1974). We noted probable jurisdiction, 419 U. S. 822 (1974), and now reverse.
II
Appellee concedes that its ordinance sweeps far beyond the permissible restraints on obscenity, see Miller v. California, 413 U. S. 15 (1973), and thus applies to films that are protected by the First Amendment. See Joseph Burstyn, Inc. v. Wilson, 343 U. S. 495 (1952); Jenkins v. Georgia, 418 U. S. 153 (1974). Nevertheless, it maintains that any movie containing nudity which is visible from a public place may be suppressed as a nuisance. Several theories are advanced to justify this contention.
A
Appellee’s primary argument is that it may protect its citizens against unwilling exposure to materials that may be offensive. Jacksonville’s ordinance, however, does not protect citizens from all movies that might offend; rather it singles out films containing nudity, presumably because the lawmakers considered them especially offensive to passersby.
This Court has considered analogous issues — pitting the First Amendment rights of speakers against the privacy rights of those who may be unwilling viewers or auditors — in a variety of contexts. See, e. g., Kovacs v. Cooper, 336 U. S. 77 (1949); Breard v. Alexandria, 341 U. S. 622, 641-645 (1951); Cohen v. California, 403 U. S. 15 (1971); Lehman v. City of Shaker Heights, 418 U. S. 298 (1974). See generally Haiman, Speech v. Privacy: Is There A Right Not To Be Spoken To?, 67 Nw. U. L. Rev. 153 (1972). Such cases demand delicate balancing because:
“In th[e] sphere of collision between claims of privacy and those of [free speech or] free press, the interests on both sides are plainly rooted in the traditions and significant concerns of our society.” Cox Broadcasting Corp. v. Cohn, 420 U. S. 469, 491 (1975).
Although each case ultimately must depend on its own specific facts, some general principles have emerged. A State or municipality may protect individual privacy by enacting reasonable time, place, and manner regulations applicable to all speech irrespective of content. See Kovacs v. Cooper, supra; Cox v. Louisiana, 379 U. S. 536, 554 (1965); Adderley v. Florida, 385 U. S. 39 (1966). But when the government, acting as censor, undertakes selectively to shield the public from some kinds of speech on the ground that they are more offensive than others, the First Amendment strictly limits its power. See, e. g., Police Dept. of Chicago v. Mosley, 408 U. S. 92 (1972); Fowler v. Rhode Island, 345 U. S. 67 (1953); Kovacs v. Cooper, supra, at 97 (Jackson, J., concurring). Such selective restrictions have been upheld only when the speaker intrudes on the privacy of the home, see Rowan v. Post Office Dept., 397 U. S. 728 (1970), or the degree of captivity makes it impractical for the unwilling viewer or auditor to avoid exposure. See Lehman v. City of Shaker Heights, supra. As Mr. Justice Harlan cautioned:
“The ability of government, consonant with the Constitution, to shut off discourse solely to protect others from hearing it is . . . dependent upon a showing that substantial privacy interests are being invaded in an essentially intolerable manner. Any broader view of this authority would effectively empower a majority to silence dissidents simply as a matter of personal predilections.” Cohen v. California, 403 U. S., at 21.
The plain, if at times disquieting, truth is that in our pluralistic society, constantly proliferating new and ingenious forms of expression, “we are inescapably captive audiences for many purposes.” Rowan v. Post Office Dept., supra, at 736. Much that we encounter offends our esthetic, if not our political and moral, sensibilities. Nevertheless, the Constitution does not permit government to decide which types of otherwise protected speech are sufficiently offensive to require protection for the unwilling listener or viewer. Rather, absent the narrow circumstances described above, the burden normally falls upon the viewer to “avoid further bombardment of [his] sensibilities simply by averting [his] eyes.” Cohen v. California, supra, at 21. See also Spence v. Washington, 418 U. S. 405, 412 (1974).
The Jacksonville ordinance discriminates among movies solely on the basis of content. Its effect is to deter drive-in theaters from showing movies containing any nudity, however innocent or even educational. This discrimination cannot be justified as a means of preventing significant intrusions on privacy. The ordinance seeks only to keep these films from being seen from public streets and places where the offended viewer readily can avert his eyes. In short, the screen of a drive-in theater is not “so obtrusive as to make it impossible for an unwilling individual to avoid exposure to it.” Redrup v. New York, 386 U. S. 767, 769 (1967). Thus, we conclude that the limited privacy interest of persons on the public streets cannot justify this censorship of otherwise protected speech on the basis of its content.
B
Appellee also attempts to support the ordinance as an exercise of the city’s undoubted police power to protect children. Appellee maintains that even though it cannot prohibit the display of films containing nudity to adults, the present ordinance is a reasonable means of protecting minors from this type of visual influence.
It is well settled that a State or municipality can adopt more stringent controls on communicative materials available to youths than on those available to adults. See, e. g., Ginsberg v. New York, 390 U. S. 629 (1968). Nevertheless, minors are entitled to a significant measure of First Amendment protection, see Tinker v. Des Moines School Dist., 393 U. S. 503 (1969), and only in relatively narrow and well-defined circumstances may government bar public dissemination of protected materials to them. See, e. g., Interstate Circuit, Inc. v. City of Dallas, 390 U. S. 676, 1968); Rabeck v. New York, 391 U. S. 462 (1968).
In this case, assuming the ordinance is aimed at prohibiting youths from viewing the films, the restriction is broader than permissible. The ordinance is not directed against sexually explicit nudity, nor is it otherwise limited. Rather, it sweepingly forbids display of all films containing any uncovered buttocks or breasts, irrespective of context or pervasiveness. Thus it would bar a film containing a picture of a baby’s buttocks, the nude body of a war victim, or scenes from a culture in which nudity is indigenous. The ordinance also might prohibit newsreel scenes of the opening of an art exhibit as well as shots of bathers on a beach. Clearly all nudity cannot be deemed obscene even as to minors. See Ginsberg v. New York, supra. Nor can such a broad restriction be justified by any other governmental interest pertaining to minors. Speech that is neither obscene as to youths nor subject to some other legitimate proscription cannot be suppressed solely to protect the young from ideas or images that a legislative body thinks unsuitable for them. In most circumstances, the values protected by the First Amendment are no less applicable when government seeks to control the flow of information to minors. See Tinker v. Des Moines School Dist., supra. Cf. West Virginia Bd. of Ed. v. Barnette, 319 U. S. 624 (1943). Thus, if Jacksonville's ordinance is intended to regulate expression accessible to minors it is overbroad in its proscription.
C
At oral argument appellee, for the first time, sought to justify its ordinance as a traffic regulation. It claimed that nudity on a drive-in movie screen distracts passing motorists, thus slowing the flow of traffic and increasing the likelihood of accidents.
Nothing in the record or in the text of the ordinance suggests that it is aimed at traffic regulation. Indeed, the ordinance applies to movie screens visible from public places as well as public streets, thus indicating that it is not a traffic regulation. But even if this were the purpose of the ordinance, it nonetheless would be invalid. By singling out movies containing even the most fleeting and innocent glimpses of nudity the legislative classification is strikingly underinclusive. There is no reason to think that a wide variety of other scenes in the customary screen diet, ranging from soap opera to violence, would be any less distracting to the passing motorist.
This Court frequently has upheld underinclusive classifications on the sound theory that a legislature may deal with one part of a problem without addressing all of it. See, e. g., Williamson v. Lee Optical Co., 348 U. S. 483, 488-489 (1955). This presumption of statutory validity, however, has less force when a classification turns on the subject matter of expression. “[Ajbove all else, the First Amendment means that government has no power to restrict expression because of its message, its ideas, its subject matter, or its content.” Police Dept. of Chicago v. Mosley, 408 U. S., at 95. Thus, “under the Equal Protection Clause, not to mention the First Amendment itself,” id., at 96, even a traffic regulation cannot discriminate on the basis of content unless there are clear reasons for the distinctions. See also Cox v. Louisiana, 379 U. S. 559, 581 (1965) (opinion of Black, J.). Cf. Williams v. Rhodes, 393 U. S. 23 (1968); Shapiro v. Thompson, 394 U. S. 618 (1969).
Appellee offers no justification, nor are we aware of any, for distinguishing movies containing nudity from all other movies in a regulation designed to protect traffic. Absent such a justification, the ordinance cannot be salvaged by this rationale.
Ill
Even though none of the reasons advanced by appellee will sustain the Jacksonville ordinance, it remains for us to decide whether the ordinance should be invalidated on its face. This Court has long recognized that a demonstrably overbroad statute or ordinance may deter the legitimate exercise of First Amendment rights. Nonetheless, when considering a facial challenge it is necessary to proceed with caution and restraint, as invalidation may result in unnecessary interference with a state regulatory program. In accommodating these competing interests the Court has held that a state statute should not be deemed facially invalid unless it is not readily subject to a narrowing construction by the state courts, see Dombrowski v. Pfister, 380 U. S. 479, 497 (1965), and its deterrent effect on legitimate expression is both real and substantial. See Broadrick v. Oklahoma, 413 U. S. 601, 612-615 (1973). See generally Note, The First Amendment Overbreadth Doctrine, 83 Harv. L. Rev. 844 (1970).
In the present case the possibility of a limiting construction appears remote. Appellee explicitly joined in this test of the facial validity of its ordinance by agreeing to stay appellant’s prosecution. Moreover, the ordinance by its plain terms is not easily susceptible of a narrowing construction. Indeed, when the state courts were presented with this overbreadth challenge they made no effort to restrict its application. Compare Coates v. City of Cincinnati, 402 U. S. 611, 612-613 (1971), and Brandenburg v. Ohio, 395 U. S. 444, 448-449 (1969), with Cox v. New Hampshire, 312 U. S. 569, 575-576 (1941), and Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire, 315 U. S. 568, 572-573 (1942). In these circumstances, particularly where as here appellee offers several distinct justifications for the ordinance in its broadest terms, there is no reason to assume that the ordinance can or will be decisively narrowed. See Gooding v. Wilson, 405 U. S. 518, 520-527 (1972). Cf. Grayned v. City of Rockford, 408 U. S. 104, 111-112 (1972); Time, Inc. v. Hill, 385 U. S. 374, 397 (1967).
Moreover, the deterrent effect of this ordinance is both real and substantial. Since it applies specifically to all persons employed by or connected with drive-in theaters, the owners and operators of these theaters are faced with an unwelcome choice: to avoid prosecution of themselves and their employees they must either restrict their movie offerings or construct adequate protective fencing which may be extremely expensive or even physically impracticable. Cf. Lake Carriers’ Assn. v. MacMullan, 406 U. S. 498, 513 (1972) (Powell, J., dissenting).
IV
In concluding that this ordinance is invalid we do not deprecate the legitimate interests asserted by the city of Jacksonville. We hold only that the present ordinance does not satisfy the rigorous constitutional standards that apply when government attempts to regulate expression. Where First Amendment freedoms are at stake we have repeatedly emphasized that precision of drafting and clarity of purpose are essential. These prerequisites are absent here. Accordingly the judgment below is
Reversed.
The movie, “Class of ’74,” had been rated “R” by the Motion Picture Association of America. An “R” rating indicates that youths may be admitted only when accompanied by a parent or guardian. See generally Friedman, The Motion Picture Rating System of 1968: A Constitutional Analysis of Self-Regulation by the Film Industry, 73 Col. L. Rev. 185 (1973). Although there is nothing in the record regarding the content of the movie, the parties agree that it includes pictures of uncovered female breasts and buttocks.
The only other United States Court of Appeals to consider this question reached a contrary result. See Cinecom Theaters Midwest States, Inc. v. City of Fort Wayne, 473 F. 2d 1297 (CA7 1973).
A local ordinance is deemed a state statute for purposes of invoking this Court’s jurisdiction under 28 U. S. C. § 1257 (2). See King Mfg. Co. v. City Council of Augusta, 277 U. S. 100 (1928).
Rowan involved a federal statute that permits a person receiving a “pandering advertisement” which he believes to be “erotically arousing or sexually provocative" to instruct the Postmaster General to inform the sender that such mail is not to be sent in the future. The Court upheld the statute, emphasizing that individual privacy is entitled to greater protection in the home than on the streets and noting that "the right of every person ‘to be let alone’ must be placed in the scales with the right of others to communicate." See 397 U. S., at 736-738.
In Lehman the Court sustained a municipality’s policy of barring political advertisements while permitting nonpolitical advertisements on city buses. The issue was whether the city had created a “public forum” and thereby obligated itself to accept all advertising. While concluding that no public forum had been established, both the plurality and concurring opinions recognized that the degree of captivity and the resultant intrusion on privacy is significantly greater for a passenger on a bus than for a person on the street. See 418 U. S. 298, 302-304 (opinion of Blackmun, J.), and id.., at 306-308 (Douglas, J., concurring). See also Public Utilities Comm’n v. Pollak, 343 U. S. 451, 467 (1952) (Douglas, J., dissenting).
It has also been suggested that government may proscribe, by a properly framed law, “the willful use of scurrilous language calculated to offend the sensibilities of an unwilling audience.” Rosenfeld v. New Jersey, 408 U. S. 901, 905 (1972) (Powell, J., dissenting). Cf. Ginzburg v. United States, 383 U. S. 463 (1966). In such cases the speaker may seek to “force public confrontation with the potentially offensive aspects' of the work.” Id., at 470. It may not be the content of the speech, as much as the deliberate “verbal [or visual] assault,” Rosenfeld, supra, at 906, that justifies proscription. See Redrup v. New York, 386 U. S. 767, 769 (1967). In the present ease, however, appellant is not trying to reach, much less shock, unwilling viewers. Appellant manages a commercial enterprise which depends for its success on paying customers, not on freeloading passersby. Presumably, where economically feasible, the screen of a drive-in theater will be shielded from those who do not pay.
Scenes of nudity in a movie, like pictures of nude persons in a book, must be considered as a part of the whole work. See Miller v. California, 413 U. S. 15, 24 (1973); Kois v. Wisconsin, 408 U. S. 229 (1972). In this respect such nudity is distinguishable from the kind of public nudity traditionally subject to indecent-exposure laws. See Roth v. United States, 354 U. S. 476, 512 (1957) (Douglas, J., dissenting) (“No one would suggest that the First Amendment permits nudity in public places”). Cf. United States v. O’Brien, 391 U. S. 367 (1968).
The Chief Justice’s dissent, in response to this point, states that “[ujnlike persons reading books, passersby cannot consider fragments of drive-in movies as a part of the ‘whole work’ for the simple reason that they see but do not hear the performance . . . .” Post, at 222 (emphasis in original). At issue here, however, is not the viewing rights of unwilling viewers but rather the rights of those who operate drive-in theaters and the public that attends these establishments. The effect of the Jacksonville ordinance is to increase the cost of showing films containing nudity. See n. 8, infra. In certain circumstances theaters will avoid showing these movies rather than incur the additional costs. As a result persons who want to see such films at drive-ins will be unable to do so. It is in this regard that a motion picture must be considered as a whole, and not as isolated fragments or scenes of nudity.
Such a deterrent, although it might not result in total suppression of these movies, is a restraint on free expression. See Speiser v. Randall, 357 U. S. 513, 518-519 (1958). The record does not indicate how much it would cost to block public view of appellant's theater. Such costs generally will vary with circumstances. In one case the expense was estimated at approximately a quarter million dollars. See Olympic Drive-In Theatre, Inc. v. City of Pagedale, 441 S. W. 2d 5, 8 (Mo. 1969).
We are not concerned in this case with a properly drawn zoning ordinance restricting the location of drive-in theaters or with a nondiscriminatory nuisance ordinance designed to protect the privacy of persons in their homes from the visual and audible intrusions of such theaters.
In Ginsberg the Court adopted a variation of the adult obscenity standards enunciated in Roth v. United States, 354 U. S. 476 (1957), and Memoirs v. Massachusetts, 383 U. S. 413 (1966) (plurality opinion) . In Miller v. California, supra, we abandoned the Roth-Memoirs test for judging obscenity with respect to adults. We have not had occasion to decide what effect Miller will have on the Ginsberg formulation. It is clear, however, that under any test of obscenity as to minors not all nudity would be proscribed. Rather, to be obscene “such expression must be, in some significant way, erotic.” Cohen v. California, 403 U. S. 15, 20 (1971). See Paris Adult Theatre I v. Slaton, 413 U. S. 49, 106-107 (1973) (Brennan, J., dissenting).
The First Amendment rights of minors are not “co-extensive with those of adults.” Tinker v. Des Moines School Dist., 393 U. S. 503, 515 (1969) (Stewart, J., concurring). “[A] State may permissibly determine that, at least in some precisely delineated areas, a child — like someone in a captive audience — is not possessed of that full capacity for individual choice which is the presupposition of First Amendment guarantees.” Ginsberg v. New York, 390 U. S. 629, 649-650 (1968) (Stewart, J., concurring). In assessing whether a minor has the requisite capacity for individual choice the age of the minor is a significant factor. See Rowan v. Post Office Dept., 397 U. S., at 741 (Brennan, J., concurring).
See Part III, infra.
This is not to say that a narrowly drawn nondiseriminatory traffic regulation requiring screening of drive-in movie theaters from the view of motorists would not be a reasonable exercise of police power. See Police Dept. of Chicago v. Mosley, 408 U. S. 92, 98 (1972), and cases cited.
In this respect the present case arises in a posture that differs from most challenges to a statute or ordinance considered by this Court. Typically in such cases the issue arises in a context where the statute or ordinance has been applied to allegedly unprotected activity. Thus, we are able to consider the constitutionality of the statute “as applied” as well as “on its face.”
The only narrowing construction which occurs to us would be to limit the ordinance to movies that are obscene as to minors. Neither appellee nor the Florida courts have suggested such a limitation, perhaps because a rewriting of the ordinance would be necessary to reach that result.
In this case appellant himself is a theater manager. Hence the statute’s deterrent effect acts upon him personally; he is not seeking to raise the hypothetical rights of others. See Breard v. Alexandria, 341 U. S. 622, 641 (1951).
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
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 O’Connor
delivered the opinion of the Court, except as to Part II-C.
In this case we clarify the scope of the hearsay exception for statements against penal interest. Fed. Rule Evid. 804(b)(3).
I
A deputy sheriff stopped the rental car driven by Reginald Harris for weaving on the highway. Harris consented to a search of the car, which revealed 19 kilograms of cocaine in two suitcases in the trunk. Harris was promptly arrested.
Shortly after Harris’ arrest, Special Agent Donald Walton of the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) interviewed him by telephone. During that conversation, Harris said that he got the cocaine from an unidentified Cuban in Fort Lauderdale; that the cocaine belonged to petitioner Williamson; and that it "(vas to be delivered that night to a particular dumpster. Williamson was also connected to Harris by physical evidence: The luggage bore the initials of Williamson’s sister, Williamson was listed as an additional driver on the car rental agreement, and an envelope addressed to Williamson and a receipt with Williamson’s girlfriend’s address were found in the glove compartment.
Several hours later, Agent Walton spoke to Harris in person. During that interview, Harris said he had rented the car a few days earlier and had driven it to Fort Lauderdale to meet Williamson. According to Harris, he had gotten the cocaine from a Cuban who was Williamson’s acquaintance, and the Cuban had put the cocaine in the car with a note telling Harris how to deliver the drugs. Harris repeated that he had been instructed to leave the drugs in a certain dumpster, to return to his car, and to leave without waiting for anyone to pick up the drugs.
Agent Walton then took steps to arrange a controlled delivery of the cocaine. But as Walton was preparing to leave the interview room, Harris “got out of [his] chair ... and ... took a half step toward [Walton]... and ... said,... T can’t let you do that,’ threw his hands up and said ‘that’s not true, I can’t let you go up there for no reason.’ ” App. 40. Harris told Walton he had lied about the Cuban, the note, and the dumpster. The real story, Harris said, was that he was transporting the cocaine to Atlanta for Williamson, and that Williamson was traveling in front of him in another rental car. Harris added that after his car was stopped, Williamson turned around and drove past the location of the stop, where he could see Harris’ car with its trunk open. Ibid. Because Williamson had apparently seen the police searching the car, Harris explained that it would be impossible to make a controlled delivery. Id., at 41.
Harris told Walton that he had lied about the source of the drugs because he was afraid of Williamson. Id., at 61, 68; see also id., at 30-31. Though Harris freely implicated himself, he did not want his story to be recorded, and he refused to sign a written version of the statement. Id., at 24-25. Walton testified that he had promised to report any cooperation by Harris to the Assistant United States Attorney. Walton said Harris was not promised any reward or other benefit for cooperating. Id., at 25-26.
Williamson was eventually convicted of possessing cocaine with intent to distribute, conspiring to possess cocaine with intent to distribute, and traveling interstate to promote the distribution of cocaine, 21 U. S. C. §§ 841(a)(1), 846; 18 U. S. C. § 1952. When called to testify at Williamson’s trial, Harris refused, even though the prosecution gave him use immunity and the court ordered him to testify and eventually held him in contempt. The District Court then ruled that, under Rule 804(b)(3), Agent Walton could relate what Harris had said to him:
“The ruling of the Court is that the statements . . . are admissible under [Rule 804(b)(3)], which deals with statements against interest.
“First, defendant Harris’ statements clearly implicated himself, and therefore, are against his penal interest.
“Second, defendant Harris, the declarant, is unavailable.
“And third, as I found yesterday, there are sufficient corroborating circumstances in this case to ensure the trustworthiness of his testimony. Therefore, under [United States v. Harrell, 788 F. 2d 1524 (CA11 1986)], these statements by defendant Harris implicating [Williamson] are admissible.” App. 51-52.
Williamson appealed his conviction, claiming that the admission of Harris’ statements violated Rule 804(b)(3) and the Confrontation Clause of the Sixth Amendment. The Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit affirmed without opinion, judgt. order reported at 981 F. 2d 1262 (1992), and we granted certiorari. 510 U. S. 1039 (1994).
II
A
The hearsay rule, Fed. Rule Evid. 802, is premised on the theory that out-of-court statements are subject to particular hazards. The declarant might be lying; he might have misperceived the events which he relates; he might have faulty memory; his words might be misunderstood or taken out of context by the listener. And the ways in which these dangers are minimized for in-court statements — the oath, the witness’ awareness of the gravity of the proceedings, the jury’s ability to observe the witness’ demeanor, and, most importantly, the right of the opponent to cross-examine — are generally absent for things said out of court.
Nonetheless, the Federal Rules of Evidence also recognize that some kinds of out-of-court statements are less subject to these hearsay dangers, and therefore except them from the general rule that hearsay is inadmissible. One such category covers statements that are against the declarant’s interest:
“statement^] which ... at the time of [their] making ... so far tended to subject the declarant to . . . criminal liability . . . that a reasonable person in the declarant’s position would not have made the statement^] unless believing [them] to be true.” Fed. Rule Evid. 804(b)(3).
To decide whether Harris’ confession is made admissible by Rule 804(b)(3), we must first determine what the Rule means by “statement,” which Federal Rule of Evidence 801(a)(1) defines as “an oral or written assertion.” One possible meaning, “a report or narrative,” Webster’s Third New International Dictionary 2229, defh. 2(a) (1961), connotes an extended declaration. Under this reading, Harris’ entire confession — even if it contains both self-inculpatory and non-self-incúlpatory parts — would be admissible so long as in the aggregate the confession sufficiently inculpates him. Another meaning of “statement,” “a single declaration or remark,” ibid., defh. 2(b), would make Rule 804(b)(3) cover only those declarations or remarks within the confession that are individually self-inculpatory. See also id., at 131 (defining “assertion” as a “declaration”); id., at 586 (defining “declaration” as a “statement”).
Although the text of the Rule does not directly resolve the matter, the principle behind the Rule, so far as it is discernible from the text, points clearly to the narrower reading. Rule 804(b)(3) is founded on the commonsense notion that reasonable people, even reasonable people who are not especially honest, tend not to make self-inculpatory statements unless they believe them to be true. This notion simply does not extend to the broader definition of “statement.” The fact that a person is making a broadly self-inculpatory confession does not make more credible the confession’s non-self-inculpatory parts. One of the most effective ways to lie is to mix falsehood with truth, especially truth that seems particularly persuasive because of its self-inculpatory nature.
In this respect, it is telling that the non-self-inculpatory things Harris said in his first statement actually proved to be false, as Harris himself admitted during the second interrogation. And when part of the confession is actually self-exculpatory, the generalization on which Rule 804(b)(3) is founded becomes even less applicable. Self-exculpatory statements are exactly the ones which people are most likely to make even when they are false; and mere proximity to other, self-inculpatory, statements does not increase the plausibility of the self-exculpatory statements.
We therefore cannot agree with Justice Kennedy’s suggestion that the Rule can be read as expressing a policy that collateral statements — even ones that are not in any way against the declarant’s interest — are admissible, post, at 614. Nothing in the text of Rule 804(b)(3) or the general theory of the hearsay Rules suggests that admissibility should turn on whether a statement is collateral to a self-inculpatory statement. The fact that a statement is self-inculpatory does make it more reliable; but the fact that a statement is collateral to a self-inculpatory statement says nothing at all about the collateral statement’s reliability. We see no reason why collateral statements, even ones that are neutral as to interest, post, at 617-619 (Kennedy, J., concurring in judgment), should be treated any differently from other hearsay statements that are generally excluded.
Congress certainly could, subject to the constraints of the Confrontation Clause, make statements admissible based on their proximity to self-inculpatory statements. But we will not lightly assume that the ambiguous language means anything so inconsistent with the Rule’s underlying theory. See Cooter & Gell v. Hartmarx Corp., 496 U. S. 384, 394-395, 408-409 (1990). In our view, the most faithful reading of Rule 804(b)(3) is that it does not allow admission of non-selfinculpatory statements, even if they are made within a broader narrative that is generally self-inculpatory. The district court may not just assume for purposes of Rule 804(b)(3) that a statement is self-inculpatory because it is part of a fuller confession, and this is especially true when the statement implicates someone else. “[T]he arrest statements of a codefendant have traditionally been viewed with special suspicion. Due to his strong motivation to implicate the defendant and to exonerate himself, a codefendant’s statements about what the defendant said or did are less credible than ordinary hearsay evidence.” Lee v. Illinois, 476 U. S. 530, 541 (1986) (internal quotation marks omitted); see also Bruton v. United States, 391 U. S. 123, 136 (1968); Dutton v. Evans, 400 U. S. 74, 98 (1970) (Harlan, J., concurring in result).
Justice Kennedy suggests that the Advisory Committee’s Notes to Rule 804(b)(3) should be read as endorsing the position we reject — that an entire narrative, including non-self-inculpatory parts (but excluding the clearly self-serving parts, post, at 620), may be admissible if it is in the aggregate self-inculpatory. See post, at 614-615. The Notes read, in relevant part:
“[T]he third-party confession . . . may include statements implicating [the accused], and under the general theory of declarations against interest they would be admissible as related statements----[Douglas v. Alabama, 380 U. S. 415 (1965), and Bruton v. United States, 391 U. S. 123 (1968),]... by no means require that all statements implicating another person be excluded from the category of declarations against interest. Whether a statement is in fact against interest must be determined from the circumstances of each case. Thus a statement admitting guilt and implicating another person, made while in custody, may well be motivated by a desire to curry favor with the authorities and hence fail to qualify as against interest. ... On the other hand, the same words spoken under different circumstances, e. g., to an acquaintance, would have no difficulty in qualifying....
“The balancing of self-serving against dissenting [sic] aspects of a declaration is discussed in McCormick § 256.” 28 U. S. C. App., p. 790.
This language, however, is not particularly clear, and some of it — especially the Advisory Committee’s endorsement of the position taken by Dean McCormick’s treatise — points the other way:
“A certain latitude as to contextual statements, neutral as to interest, giving meaning to the declaration against interest seems defensible, but bringing in self-serving statements contextually seems questionable.
“.. . [A]dmit[ting] the disserving parts of the declaration, and excluding] the self-serving parts . . . seems the most realistic method of adjusting admissibility to trustworthiness, where the serving and disserving parts can be severed.” See C. McCormick, Law of Evidence § 256, pp. 552-553 (1954) (footnotes omitted).
Without deciding exactly how much weight to give the Notes in this particular situation, compare Schiavone v. Fortune, 477 U. S. 21, 31 (1986) (Notes are to be given some weight), with Green v. Bock Laundry Machine Co., 490 U. S. 504, 528 (1989) (Scalia, J., concurring in judgment) (Notes ought to be given no weight), we conclude that the policy expressed in the Rule’s text points clearly enough in one direction that it outweighs whatever force the Notes may have. And though Justice Kennedy believes that the text can fairly be read as expressing a policy of admitting collateral statements, post, at 614, for the reasons given above we disagree.
B
We also do not share Justice Kennedy’s fears that our reading of the Rule “eviscerate[s] the against penal interest exception,” post, at 616 (internal quotation marks omitted), or makes it lack “meaningful effect,” ibid. There are many circumstances in which Rule 804(b)(3) does allow the admission of statements that inculpate a criminal defendant. Even the confessions of arrested accomplices may be admissible if they are truly self-inculpatory, rather than merely attempts to shift blame or curry favor.
For instance, a declarant’s squarely self-inculpatory confession — “yes, I killed X” — will likely be admissible under Rule 804(b)(3) against accomplices of his who are being tried under a co-conspirator liability theory. See Pinkerton v. United States, 328 U. S. 640, 647 (1946). Likewise, by showing that the declarant knew something, a self-inculpatory statement can in some situations help the jury infer that his confederates knew it as well. And when seen with other evidence, an accomplice’s self-inculpatory statement can inculpate the defendant directly: “I was robbing the bank on Friday morning,” coupled with someone’s testimony that the declarant and the defendant drove off together Friday morning, is evidence that the defendant also participated in the robbery.
Moreover, whether a statement is self-inculpatory or not can only be determined by viewing it in context. Even statements that are on their face neutral may actually be against the declarant’s interest. “I hid the gun in Joe’s apartment” may not be a confession of a crime; but if it is likely to help the police find the murder weapon, then it is certainly self-inculpatory. “Sam and I went to Joe’s house” might be against the declarant’s interest if a reasonable person in the declarant’s shoes would realize that being linked to Joe and Sam would implicate the declarant in Joe and Sam’s conspiracy. And other statements that give the police significant details about the crime may also, depending on the situation, be against the declarant’s interest. The question under Rule 804(b)(3) is always whether the statement was sufficiently against the declarant’s penal interest “that a reasonable person in the declarant’s position would not have made the statement unless believing it to be true,” and this question can only be answered in light of all the surrounding circumstances.
C
In this case, however, we cannot conclude that all that Harris said was properly admitted. Some of Harris’ confession would clearly have been admissible under Rule 804(b)(3); for instance, when he said he knew there was cocaine in the suitcase, he essentially forfeited his only possible defense to a charge of cocaine possession, lack of knowledge. But other parts of his confession, especially the parts that implicated Williamson, did little to subject Harris himself to criminal liability. A reasonable person in Harris’ position might even think that implicating someone else would decrease his practical exposure to criminal liability, at least so far as sentencing goes. Small fish in a big conspiracy often get shorter sentences than people who are running the whole show, see, e. g., United States Sentencing Commission, Guidelines Manual §3B1.2 (Nov. 1993), especially if the small fish are willing to help the authorities catch the big ones, see, e. g., id., § 5K1.1.
Nothing in the record shows that the District Court or the Court of Appeals inquired whether each of the statements in Harris’ confession was truly self-inculpatory. As we explained above, this can be a fact-intensive inquiry, which would require careful examination of all the circumstances surrounding the criminal activity involved; we therefore remand to the Court of Appeals to conduct this inquiry in the first instance.
In light of this disposition, we need not address Williamson’s claim that the statements were also made inadmissible by the Confrontation Clause, see generally White v. Illinois, 502 U. S. 346 (1992), and in particular we need not decide whether the hearsay exception for declarations against interest is “firmly rooted” for Confrontation Clause purposes. Compare, e. g., United States v. Seeley, 892 F. 2d 1, 2 (CA1 1989) (holding that the exception is firmly rooted), with United States v. Flores, 985 F. 2d 770 (CA5 1993) (holding the contrary). We note, however, that the very fact that a statement is genuinely self-inculpatory — which our reading of Rule 804(b)(3) requires — is itself one of the “particularized guarantees of trustworthiness” that makes a statement admissible under the Confrontation Clause. See Lee v. Illinois, 476 U. S. 530, 543-545 (1986). We also need not decide whether, as some Courts of Appeals have held, the second sentence of Rule 804(b)(3) — “A statement tending to expose the declarant to criminal liability and offered to exculpate the accused is not admissible unless corroborating circumstances clearly indicate the trustworthiness of the statement” (emphasis added) — also requires that statements inculpating the accused be supported by corroborating circumstances. See, e. g., United States v. Alvarez, 584 F. 2d 694, 701 (CA5 1978); United States v. Taggart, 944 F. 2d 837, 840 (CA11 1991). The judgment of the Court of Appeals is vacated, and the case is remanded for further proceedings.
So ordered.
Of course, an accomplice’s statements may also be admissible under other provisions of Rules 801-804. For instance, statements made in furtherance of the conspiracy may be admissible under Rule 801(d)(2)(E), and other statements that bear circumstantial guarantees of trustworthiness may be admissible under Rule 804(b)(5), the catchall hearsay exception.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
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.
Petitioner, who was engaged in litigation in the Illinois courts with one Shamberg, was ordered on a motion for discovery to produce certain documents. He produced them by filing them with the clerk of the Illinois courts. Shamberg thereupon moved that petitioner be punished for contempt because the documents reflected on the integrity of the court. After a hearing petitioner was adjudged guilty of contempt. The court held that the order required only that petitioner produce the documents, not that he file them in court so as to make them public records; and that the filing of the documents containing statements deemed to be scurrilous constituted an obstruction of justice and an abuse of the processes of the court, tending to lessen the court’s dignity and authority. Petitioner was sentenced to jail for 90 days. That was on January 15, 1945. Petitioner thereupon sought a writ of error in the Illinois Supreme Court for review of the order of January 15. The writ of error was refused on January 23, 1945. Later in the same day the trial court, over petitioner’s objection and in his presence, issued an amended order adjudging him guilty of contempt and sentencing him to jail for 90 days. This amendment was made, it is said, to cure certain defects in the order of January 15 and to bring it into conformity with the requirements of Illinois law.
The amended order of January 23 is the one before us. Petitioner did not seek to take it directly to the Illinois Supreme Court. Rather, he took it first to the Appellate Court of Illinois where he sought to attack it on the grounds, inter alia, that it violated the First and Fourteenth Amendments of the Federal Constitution. But the Illinois Appellate Court did not consider those constitutional questions. It sustained the amended order of January 23 on state grounds. 328 Ill. App. 46, 65 N. E. 2d 457. On writ of error the Illinois Supreme Court affirmed the judgment of the Appellate Court. 396 Ill. 583, 72 N. E. 2d 848. It likewise did not consider the constitutional questions which petitioner presented. For it is well-settled law in Illinois that if an appellant takes his case to the Appellate Court where errors are assigned of which that court has jurisdiction, he is deemed to have waived any constitutional questions. People v. Rosenthal, 370 Ill. 244, 247, 18 N. E. 2d 450, 452; People v. McDonnell, 377 Ill. 568, 569, 37 N. E. 2d 159, 160. That was the reason neither of the courts below passed on the federal constitutional questions tendered by petitioner. See 328 Ill. App. 46, 55, 65 N. E. 2d 457, 461; 396 Ill. 583, 587, 72 N. E. 2d 848, 850-851. The circumstance that the petitioner had taken the order of January 15 directly to the Illinois Supreme Court did not cause that Court to except this case from that well-settled rule of Illinois practice.
This Court held in Central Union Co. v. Edwardsville, 269 U. S. 190, that federal constitutional questions which Illinois held had been waived for failure to follow its procedure would not be entertained here. The nature of the questions presented in the present case seemed to us to warrant a grant of the petition for writ of certiorari to determine whether the rule of the Edwardsville case was applicable to the peculiar circumstances presented here.
When federal rights are involved, it is, of course, for this Court finally to determine whether the failure to follow the procedure designed by a State for their protection constitutes a waiver of them. Davis v. O’Hara, 266 U. S. 314; Central Union Co. v. Edwardsville, supra. The Court said in the Edwardsville case that when the waiver is founded on a failure to comply with the appellate practice of a State, the question turns on whether that practice gives litigants “a reasonable opportunity to have the issue as to the claimed right heard and determined” by the state court. 269 U. S., pp. 194-195. It was there held that the Illinois practice of requiring constitutional questions to be taken directly to the Illinois Supreme Court and of refusing to review them if review was first sought in the Appellate Court satisfied the requirement. We adhere to that decision. The channel through which the constitutional questions, raised by petitioner in his attack on the amended order, could have been taken all the way to this Court was not only clearly marked, it was also open and unobstructed.
Petitioner appears here pro se. But at the critical stages of this litigation he was represented by counsel of record. For the lawyer the choice was plain. Under these circumstances petitioner plainly had a reasonable opportunity to have his federal questions passed upon by the state court. When petitioner acting through counsel decided to seek review in the Appellate Court he made a choice which involved abandonment of the constitutional issues which he had raised in the proceedings. There is a suggestion that petitioner deemed it useless to try to take the amended order of January 23 to the Illinois Supreme Court since access to that court had been denied him when review of the order of January 15 was sought. But even though the attempt may have seemed futile, it was only by first seeking review in the Illinois Supreme Court that he could bring to this Court the constitutional questions raised under the amended order of January 23. It is not an answer to say that he went to the Illinois Supreme Court for review of the order of January 15. That is not the order under which he stands committed; it is not the order reviewed by the Illinois Supreme Court in this case. Nor could denial by the Illinois Supreme Court of his petition for a review of that earlier order have been the foundation for this petition for cer-tiorari. Review of that order was denied by the Illinois Supreme Court on January 23, 1945. Petition for cer-tiorari was filed here August 15, 1947. His petition for certiorari is not timely if it challenges the earlier order. It presents federal questions which have been waived if it involves, as it plainly does, the amended order.
The result is no different if the orders are treated as being the same in substance though separate in point of time and form. For if the January 15 order be regarded as merely an interlocutory version of the amended order of January 23, the fact remains that the latter order was not taken directly to the Illinois Supreme Court but to the Illinois Appellate Court, with the consequences we have indicated. We find it no more unreasonable for Illinois to require a second appeal than for this Court to do so, as it does when it refuses to review the judgment of a lower state court absent a second appeal to the highest court of the State, though that be a mere formality because governed by the law of the case established in an earlier appeal. McComb v. Commissioners of Knox County, 91 U. S. 1; Great Western Telegraph Co. v. Burnham, 162 U. S. 339.
It is suggested that in this case there could be no final judgment within the meaning of § 237 of the Judicial Code, 28 U. S. C. § 344, which could be brought here by certiorari until all questions of state law had been resolved by the Illinois courts. But there would be nothing other than ministerial acts left to be done by the trial court once the Illinois Supreme Court denied direct review of the order. Cf. Richfield Oil Corp. v. State Board, 329 U. S. 69, 72-73. Any further proceedings in the Illinois courts would be solely at the option of petitioner. In these circumstances, a judgment is no less final for purposes of our jurisdictional statute because it has been sustained solely on federal constitutional grounds. That consequence is inherent in the rule formulated in Central Union Co. v. Edwardsville, supra.
Affirmed.
The contents of the documents are reviewed in 328 Ill. App. 46, 50-54, 65 N. E. 2d 457, 459-461.
Constitutional questions are to be reviewed directly by the Illinois Supreme Court. Ill. Rev. Stat. c. 110, § 199 (1947). As held in this case those include questions arising under the Federal Constitution. And see Central Union Co. v. Edwardsville, 269 U. S. 190, 194. The procedure is applicable in criminal as well as civil cases. People v. Terrill, 362 Ill. 61, 199 N. E. 97; People v. Rosenthal, supra; People v. McDonnell, supra.
Cf. Great Western Telegraph Co. v. Burnham, 162 U. S. 339.
The writ of error by which petitioner challenged the order of January 15 does not appear in the present record. We assume most favorably to petitioner that the same constitutional questions were presented there as petitioner seeks to have adjudicated here.
Sec. 8 (a) of the Judiciary Act of February 13, 1925, 43 Stat. 936, 940,28 U. S. C. § 350.
If direct review of the amended order were obtained in the Illinois Supreme Court, rather than denied for lack of a substantial constitutional question, that court would pass not only upon the constitutional questions but upon all other questions as well. Groome v. Freyn Engineering Co., 374 Ill. 113, 28 N. E. 2d 274; People v. Kelly, 367 Ill. 616, 618, 12 N. E. 2d 612, 613; Geiger v. Merle, 360 Ill. 497, 505, 507, 196 N. E. 497, 500-501.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer:
|
D
|
sc_issuearea
|
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Justice Souter
delivered the opinion of the Court.
The scheme of redress for employment discrimination under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, as amended, requires a complainant to file a “charge” with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission within a certain time after the conduct alleged, 78 Stat. 259, 42 U. S. C. § 2000e-5(e)(1) (1994 ed.), and to affirm or swear that the allegations are true, §2000e-5(b). The issue here is the validity of an EEOC regulation permitting an otherwise timely filer to verify a charge after the time for filing has expired. We sustain the regulation.
I
On June 6,1997, respondent Lynchburg College denied academic tenure to petitioner Leonard Edelman, who faxed a letter to an EEOC field office on November 14, 1997, claiming “gender-based employment discrimination, exacerbated by discrimination on the basis of... national origin and religion.” App. 52. Edelman made no oath or affirmation.
On November 26,1997, Edelman’s lawyer wrote to the field office requesting an interview with an EEOC investigator and stating his “understanding that delay occasioned by the interview will not compromise the filing date, which will remain as November 14, 1997.” Id., at 54. An EEOC employee replied to Edelman and advised him to arrange an interview with a member of the field office. Without referring to the lawyer’s letter, the employee reminded Edelman that “a charge of discrimination must be filed within the time limits imposed by law.” Id., at 57. In Edelman’s case, the filing period was 300 days after the alleged discriminatory practice.
After the interview, the EEOC sent Edelman a Form 5 Charge of Discrimination for him to review and verify by oath or affirmation. On April 15, 1998, 313 days after the June 6, 1997, denial of tenure, the EEOC received the verified Form 5, which it forwarded to the College for response. After completing an investigation, the EEOC issued Edel-man a notice of right to sue.
Edelman first sued in a Virginia state court on various state-law claims, but later added a cause of action under Title VII, 42 U. S. C. §2000e~2(a)(l). The College then removed the case to Federal District Court and moved to dismiss, claiming that Edelman’s failure to file the verified Form 5 with the EEOC within the applicable filing period was a bar to subject-matter jurisdiction. Edelman replied that his November 1997 letter was a timely filed charge and that under an EEOC regulation, 29 CFR § 1601.12(b) (1997), the verification on the Form 5 related back to the letter.
The District Court found, however, that the November letter was not a “charge” within the meaning of Title VII because neither Edelman nor the EEOC treated it as one, App. to Pet. for Cert. 22-24, with the consequence that there was no timely filing to which the verification on Form 5 could relate back. After finding no ground for equitable tolling of the filing requirements, the District Court dismissed the Title VII complaint and remanded the state-law claims. Id., at 24-25.
A divided panel of the Court of Appeals affirmed. 228 F. 3d 503, 512 (CA4 2000). The majority held that the plain language of the statute foreclosed the EEOC regulation allowing a later oath to relate back to an earlier charge. The majority reasoned that the verification and filing provisions in §706 of Title VII were interdependent in defining “charge”: “Because a charge requires verification . . . , and because a charge must be filed within the limitations period, ... it follows that a charge must be verified within the limitations period.” Id., at 508..
Judge Luttig concurred only in the judgment. Id., at 512-513. He said that although the majority probably had “the better interpretation” of the statute, id., at 513, its reading of the filing and verification requirements as one was not compelled by the language, and the court was “bound to give deference” to the EEOC’s construction, ibid. He nonetheless joined in the judgment for the District Court’s reasons.
Because of a conflict among the Courts of Appeals, we granted certiorari, 533 U. S. 928 (2001), and now reverse.
II
A
Section 706 of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, as amended, 42 U. S. C. § 2000e-5, governs the filing of charges of discrimination with the EEOC. Section 706(b) requires “[c]harges” to “be in writing under oath or affirmation . . . containing] such information and ... in such form as the Commission requires.” § 2000e-5(b). Section 706(e)(1) provides that “[a] charge .. . shall be filed within one hundred and eighty [or in some cases, three hundred] days after the alleged unlawful employment practice occurred.” §2000e-5(e)(l).
Neither provision defines “charge,” which is likewise undefined elsewhere in the statute. Section 706(b) merely requires the verification of a charge, without saying when it must be verified; § 706(e)(1) provides that a charge must be filed within a given period, without indicating whether the charge must be verified when filed. Neither provision incorporates the other so as to give a definition by necessary implication.
The assumption of the Court of Appeals that the two provisions must be read as one, with “charge” defined as “under oath or affirmation,” was thus a structural and logical leap. Nor is the gap bridged by the rule of common sense that statutes are to be read as a whole, see United States v. Morton, 467 U. S. 822, 828 (1984). Although reading the two provisions together would not be facially inconsistent, doing that would ignore the two quite different objectives of the timing and verification requirements, which stand in the way of reading “charge” to subsume them both by definition. The point of the time limitation is to encourage a potential charging party to raise a discrimination claim before it gets stale, for the sake of a reliable result and a speedy end to any illegal practice that proves out. The verification requirement has the different object of protecting employers from the disruption and expense of responding to a claim unless a complainant is serious enough and sure enough to support it by oath subject to liability for perjury. This object, however, demands an oath only by the time the employer is obliged to respond to the charge, not at the time an employee files it with the EEOC. There is accordingly nothing plain in reading “charge” to require an oath by definition. Questionable would be the better word.
B
The statute is thus open to interpretation and the regulation addresses a legitimate question. Before we touch on the merits of the EEOC’s position, however, two threshold matters about the status of the regulation can be given short shrift. The first is whether the agency’s rulemaking exceeded its authority to adopt “suitable procedural regulations,” 42 U. S. C. § 2000e-12(a), and instead addressed a substantive issue over which the EEOC has no rulemaking power, see EEOC v. Arabian American Oil Co., 499 U. S. 244, 257 (1991); General Elec. Co. v. Gilbert, 429 U. S. 125, 141 (1976). Although the College argues that the EEOC’s regulation “alterfs] a substantive requirement included by Congress in the statute,” Brief for Respondent 32-33, this is really nothing more than a recast of the plain language argument; the College is merely restating the position we just rejected, that Congress defined “charge” as a verified accusation.
The other issue insignificant in this case, however prominent it is in much of the litigation that goes on over agency rulemaking, is the degree of deference owed to the regulation by reviewing courts. We agree with the Government as amicus that deference under Chevron U. S. A. Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc., 467 U. S. 837, 843-844 (1984), does not necessarily require an agency’s exercise of express notice-and-comment rulemaking power, see Brief for United States et al. as Amici Curiae 19, n. 11; we so observed in United States v. Mead Corp., 533 U. S. 218, 230-231 (2001) (“[W]e have sometimes found reasons for Chevron deference even when no such administrative formality was required and none was afforded”). But there is no need to resolve any question of deference here. We find the EEOC rule not only a reasonable one, but the position we would adopt even if there were no formal rule and we were interpreting the statute from scratch. Because we so clearly agree with the EEOC, there is no occasion to defer and no point in asking what kind of deference, or how much.
c
A complaint to the EEOC starts the agency down the road to investigation, conciliation, and enforcement, and it is no small thing to be called upon to respond. As we said before, the verification provision is meant to provide some degree of insurance against catchpenny claims of disgruntled, but not necessarily aggrieved, employees. In requiring the oath or affirmation, however, Congress presumably did not mean to affect the nature of Title VII as “a remedial scheme in which laypersons, rather than lawyers, are expected to initiate the process.” EEOC v. Commercial Office Products Co., 486 U. S. 107,124 (1988); Love v. Pullman Co., 404 U. S. 522, 527 (1972). Construing § 706 to permit the relation back of an oath omitted from an original filing ensures that the lay complainant, who may not know enough to verify on filing, will not risk forfeiting his rights inadvertently. At the same time, the EEOC looks out for the employer’s interest by refusing to call for any response to an otherwise sufficient complaint until the verification has been supplied.
We would be hard pressed to take issue with the EEOC’s position after deciding Becker v. Montgomery, 532 U. S. 757 (2001), last Term. In that case, we considered whether the Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 11 signature requirement entailed the dismissal of a notice of appeal that was timely filed in the district court but was not signed within the filing period. We held that while the timing and content requirements for the notice of appeal were “jurisdictional in nature,” nothing prevented later cure of the signature defect, 532 U. S., at 765. There is no reason to think that relation back of the oath here is any less reasonable than relation back of the signature in Becker. Both are aimed at stemming the urge to litigate irresponsibly, and if relation back is a good rule for courts of law, it would be passing strange to call it bad for an administrative agency. In fact, it would be passing strange to disagree with the EEOC even without Becker, for a long history of practice with oath requirements supports the relation-back cure.
Where a statute or supplemental rule requires an oath, courts have shown a high degree of consistency in accepting later verification as reaching back to an earlier, unverified filing. This background law not only persuades by its regularity over time but points to tacit congressional approval of the EEOC’s position, Congress being presumed to have known of this settled judicial treatment of oath requirements when it enacted and later amended Title VIL
This presumption is complemented by the fact that Congress amended Title VII several times without once casting doubt on the EEOC’s construction. During the debates over the Equal Employment Opportunity Act of 1972, amending the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the text of the EEOC procedural regulations, including the predecessor of § 1601.12(b), was placed in the Congressional Record. 118 Cong. Rec. 718 (1972). By then the regulation was six years old, and had been upheld and applied by the federal courts. By amending the law without repudiating the regulation, Congress “suggests its consent to the Commission’s practice.” EEOC v. Associated Dry Goods Corp., 449 U. S. 590, 600, n. 17 (1981); see also EEOC v. Shell Oil Co., 466 U. S. 54, 69 (1984).
Ill
We accordingly hold the EEOC’s relation-back regulation to be an unassailable interpretation of §706 and therefore reverse. Our judgment does not, however, reach the conclusion drawn by the District Court, and the single judge ■ on the Court of Appeals, that Edelman’s letter was not a charge under the statute because neither he nor the EEOC treated it as one. It is enough to say here that at the factual level their view has some support. Although § 706(e)(1) of Title VII provides that the “notice of the charge . . . shall be served upon the person against whom such charge is made within ten days” of filing with the EEOC, 42 U. S. C. §§2000e-5(b) and (e)(1), the Government’s lawyer acknowledged at oral argument that the EEOC failed to “comply with its obligation to provide the employer with notice” within 10 days after receiving Edelman’s letter of November 14, 1997. Tr. of Oral Arg. 16. Edelman’s counsel agreed with the Government that the significance of the delayed notice to the College would be open on remand. Id., at 9-10, 17.
Accordingly, we reverse the judgment of the Court of Appeals and remand the case for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
A Title VII complainant generally has 180 days from the time of the alleged unlawful employment practice to file with the EEOC, 42 U. S. C. § 2000e-5(e)(l) (1994 ed.), but a 300-day filing period applies if the charging party “institute^] proceedings with a State or local agency with authority to grant or seek relief” from unlawful employment practices. Ibid.; see also EEOC v. Commercial Office Products Co., 486 U. S. 107, 110 (1988). Virginia has such an agency, operating under a work-sharing agreement with the EEOC. See Tinsley v. First Union Nat. Bank, 155 F. 3d 435, 439-442 (CA4 1998).
The regulation provides in relevant part that “a charge is sufficient when the Commission receives from the person making the charge a written statement sufficiently precise to identify the parties, and to describe generally the action or practices complained of. A charge may be amended to cure technical defects or omissions, including failure to verify the charge, or to clarify and amplify allegations made therein. Such amendments and amendments alleging additional acts which constitute unlawful employment practices related to or growing out of the subject matter of the original charge will relate back to the date the charge was first received.”
Section 706(b) reads in relevant part that “[wjhenever a charge is filed by or on behalf of a person claiming to be aggrieved, or by a member of the Commission, alleging that an employer . . . has engaged in an unlawful employment practice, the Commission shall serve a notice of the charge ... on such employer . . . within ten days, and shall make an investigation thereof. Charges shall be in writing under oath or affirmation and shall contain such information and be in such form as the Commission requires.” 42 U. S. C. § 2000e-5(b). As to filing, § 706(e)(1) provides that “[a] charge under this section shall be filed within one hundred and eighty days after the alleged unlawful employment practice occurred and notice of the charge . . . shall be served upon the person against whom such charge is made within ten days thereafter, except that in a case of an unlawful employment practice with respect to which the person aggrieved has initially instituted proceedings with a State or local agency with authority to grant or seek relief from such practice ..., such charge shall be filed . . . within three hundred days after the alleged unlawful employment practice occurred.” § 2000e-5(e)(l).
Compare, e. g., 228 F. 3d 503, 509 (CA4 2000) (case below); Shempert v. Harwick Chemical Corp., 151 F. 3d 793, 796-797 (CA8 1998), with Philbin v. General Electric Capital Auto Lease, Inc., 929 F. 2d 321, 323-324 (CA7 1991) (per curiam); Peterson v. Wichita, 888 F. 2d 1307, 1308 (CA10 1989), cert. denied, 495 U. S. 932 (1990); Casavantes v. California State Univ., 732 F. 2d 1441,1443 (CA9 1984); Price v. Southwestern Bell Tel. Co., 687 F. 2d 74, 77, and n. 3 (CA5 1982).
See Delaware State College v. Ricks, 449 U. S. 250, 256-257 (1980) (“Limitations periods, while guaranteeing the protection of the civil rights laws to those who promptly assert their rights, also protect employers from the burden of defending claims arising from employment decisions that are long past”).
See EEOC v. Shell Oil Co., 466 U. S. 54, 76, n. 32 (1984) (“The function of an oath is to impress upon its taker an awareness of his duty to tell the truth”).
Title VII does not require the EEOC to utilize notice-and-comment procedures. Section 713(a) of Title VII requires the procedural regulations to “be in conformity with the standards and limitations” of the Administrative Procedure Act, 5 U. S. C. §§551-559. 42 U. S. C. §2000e-12(a) (1994 ed.). And the Administrative Procedure Act, 5 U. S. C. § 553(b), excepts “rules of agency organization, procedure, or practice” from notice-and-comment procedures unless required by statute.
We, of course, do not mean to say that the EEOC’s position is the “only one permissible.” See Commercial Office Products, 486 U. S., at 125 (O’Connor, J., concurring in part and concurring in judgment). The agency might, for example, have decided that the time to test the complainant’s seriousness is before the agency expends any effort on the case, and so have required a verified complaint prior to interview. JUSTICE O’Connor suggests, see post, at 122 (opinion concurring in judgment), that recognizing this implies that a sphere of deference is appropriate, and so resolves the Chevron question. But not all deference is deference under Chevron, see United States v. Mead Corp., 533 U. S. 218, 234 (2001), and there is no need to resolve deference issues when there is no need for deference.
The general practice of EEOC staff members is to prepare a formal charge of discrimination for the complainant to review and to verify, once the allegations have been clarified. See Brief for United States et al. as Amici Curiae 24. The complainant must submit a verified charge before the agency will require a response from the employer. See Brief for United States et al. as Amici Curiae on Pet. for Cert. 16.
Respondent argues that the employer will be prejudiced by these procedures because “there would be no deadline for verifying a charge.” Brief for Respondent 34, n. 26. But this is not our case, which simply challenges relation back per se, and our understanding is that the EEOC’s standard practice is to caution complainants that if they fail to follow up on their initial unverified charge, the EEOC will not proceed further with the complaint. See App. 57; Brief for United States et al. as Amici Curiae on Pet. for Cert. 17.
We also note that Rule 15(c) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure permits the relation back of amendments to pleadings under specified circumstances.
See, e. g., Rule C(6) of the Supplemental Rules for Certain Admiralty and Maritime Claims (“[A] person who asserts an interest in or right against the property that is the subject of the [civil forfeiture] action must file a verified statement identifying the interest or right”).
See, e.g., United States v. United States Currency in Amount of $103,387.27, 863 F. 2d 555,561-563 (CA7 1988); Johnston Broadcasting Co. v. FCC, 175 F. 2d 351, 355-356 (CADC 1949); see also 5A C. Wright & A. Miller, Federal Practice and Procedure §1339, p. 150 (2d ed. 1990) (“Even if a federal rule or statute requires verification, a failure to comply does not render the document fatally defective”). In Armstrong v. Fernandez, 208 U. S. 324, 330 (1908), we approved a bankruptcy court’s allowance of nunc pro tunc verification of a petition filed under the Bankruptcy Act of 1898.
State-court practice before and after Congress enacted the Civil Rights Act of 1964 has been, for the greater part, the same as federal. See, e. g., United Farm Workers of Am. v. Agricultural Labor Relations Bd., 37 Cal. 3d 912, 915, 694 P. 2d 138, 140 (1985) (en banc); Easter Seal Soc. for Disabled Children v. Berry, 627 A. 2d 482, 489 (D. C. 1993); Maliszewski v. Human Rights Comm’n, 269 Ill. App. 3d 472,474-477, 646 N. E. 2d 625, 626-628 (1995); Workman v. Workman, 46 N. E. 2d 718, 724 (Ind. App. 1943) (en banc); Pulliam v. Pulliam, 163 Kan. 497, 499-500, 183 P. 2d 220, 222-223 (1947); Southside Civic Assn. v. Warrington, 93-0890, pp. 3-4 (La. App. 4/1/94), 635 So. 2d 721, 723-724, pet. for writ denied, 94-1219 (La. 7/1/94), 639 So. 2d 1168; Drury Displays, Inc. v. Board of Adjustment, 760 S. W. 2d 112, 114 (Mo. 1998); Chisholm v. Vocational School for Girls, 103 Mont. 503, 506-509, 64 P. 2d 838, 841-842 (1936); In re Estate of Sessions, 217 Ore. 340, 347-349, 341 P. 2d 512, 516-517 (1959); State ex rel. Williams v. Jones, 164 S. W. 2d 823, 826 (Tenn. 1942); Greene v. Union Pac. Stages, Inc., 182 Wash. 143, 145, 45 P. 2d 611, 612 (1935). But see, e. g., Dinwiddie v. Board of County Comm’rs, 103 N. M. 442, 445, 708 P. 2d 1043, 1046 (1985), cert. denied, 476 U. S. 1117 (1986) (denying leave to amend and dismissing unverified complaint contesting election).
See North Star Steel Co. v. Thomas, 515 U.S. 29, 34 (1995) (‘“[I]t is not only appropriate but also realistic to presume that Congress was thoroughly familiar with [our] precedents ... and that it expect[s] its enactment[s] to be interpreted in conformity with them’” (citation omitted)).
See, e. g., Pub. L. 102-166,105 Stat. 1075; Pub. L. 92-261,86 Stat. 104.
Respondent argues that the regulation became inconsistent with Title VII when Congress passed the 1972 amendments to the legislation. Brief for Respondent 20-25, 37. In 1972, during the floor debate over the Senate version (S. 2515) of the Equal Employment Opportunity Act of 1972, Senator Allen noted that the committee amendments omitted the requirement that a charge be made under oath, and proposed an amendment to define a charge to “‘mean an accusation of discrimination supported by oath or affirmation.’ ” 118 Cong. Rec. 4815 (1972). The Senator expressed his view that the amendment preserved what he believed to be an existing requirement under the 1964 Act that “charges are to be filed and made under oath in writing.” Ibid. This understanding was neither confirmed nor denied, but Senator Williams, the bill’s floor manager, suggested that rather than the “one coverall, blanket” definition proposed by Senator Allen, the oath requirement could be included at the beginning of § 706(b). Ibid. So modified, the amendment was adopted by voice vote and enacted into law.
Besides refining the language of §706 of Title VII, the 1972 amendments extended the basic time period for filing a charge with the EEOC from 90 to 180 days, and from 210 to 300 days in deferral States. Pub. L. 92-261, 86 Stat. 104. Congress also added a requirement that the EEOC notify employers within 10 days of receiving a filed charge. Ibid. In view of the above-described exchange over the phrasing of the verification requirement, and because Congress enacted this requirement while at the same time amending the charge-filing deadline in § 706(e), respondent advocates our reading the 1972 amendments as a “congressional compromise.” Brief for Respondent 24. We are asked, in other words, to conclude that Congress lengthened the time for filing charges only because Congress, at the same time, required that a charge necessarily be verified when first filed. The evidence for such a quid pro quo is, however, equivocal.
See, e. g., Blue Bell Boots, Inc. v. EEOC, 418 F. 2d 355, 357 (CA6 1969); Georgia Power Co. v. EEOC, 412 F. 2d 462, 466-467 (CA5 1969); Weeks v. Southern Bell Tel. & Tel. Co., 408 F. 2d 228, 230-231 (CA5 1969); Choate v. Caterpillar Tractor Co., 402 F. 2d 357, 359-360 (CA7 1968).
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer:
|
B
|
sc_issuearea
|
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Justice Ginsburg
delivered the opinion of the Court.
We address in this opinion the question whether the plaintiffs (several States, the city of New York, and three private land trusts) can maintain federal common-law public nuisance claims against carbon-dioxide emitters (four private power companies and the federal Tennessee Valley Authority). As relief, the plaintiffs ask for a decree setting carbon-dioxide emissions for each defendant at an initial cap, to be further reduced annually. The Clean Air Act and the Environmental Protection Agency action the Act authorizes, we hold, displace the claims the plaintiffs seek to pursue.
H
In Massachusetts v. EPA, 549 U. S. 497 (2007), this Court held that the Clean Air Act, 69 Stat. 322, as amended, 42 U. S. C. § 7401 et seq., authorizes federal regulation of emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. “[Naturally present in the atmosphere and . . . also emitted by human activities,” greenhouse gases are so named because they “trap . . . heat that would otherwise escape from the [Earth’s] atmosphere, and thus form the greenhouse effect that helps keep the Earth warm enough for life.” 74 Fed. Reg. 66499 (2009). Massachusetts held that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA or Agency) had misread the Clean Air Act when it denied a rulemaking petition seeking controls on greenhouse gas emissions from new motor vehicles. 549 U. S., at 510-511. Greenhouse gases, we determined, qualify as “air pollutant[s]” within the meaning of the governing Clean Air Act provision, id., at 528-529 (quoting § 7602(g)); they are therefore within EPA’s regulatory ken. Because EPA had authority to set greenhouse gas emission standards and had offered no “reasoned explanation” for failing to do so, we concluded that the Agency had not acted “in accordance with law” when it denied the requested rule-making. Id., at 534-535 (quoting § 7607(d)(9)(A)).
Responding to our decision in Massachusetts, EPA undertook greenhouse gas regulation. In December 2009, the Agency concluded that greenhouse gas emissions from motor vehicles “cause, or contribute to, air pollution which may reasonably be anticipated to endanger public health or welfare,” the Act’s regulatory trigger. § 7521(a)(1); 74 Fed. Reg. 66496. The Agency observed that “atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations are now at elevated and essentially unprecedented levels,” almost entirely “due to anthropogenic emissions,” id., at 66517; mean global temperatures, the Agency continued, demonstrate an “unambiguous warming trend over the last 100 years,” and particularly “over the past 30 years,” ibid. Acknowledging that not all scientists agreed on the causes and consequences of the rise in global temperatures, id., at 66506, 66518, 66523-66524, EPA concluded that “compelling” evidence supported the “attribution of observed climate change to anthropogenic” emissions of greenhouse gases, id., at 66518. Consequent dangers of greenhouse gas emissions, EPA determined, included increases in heat-related deaths; coastal inundation and erosion caused by melting icecaps and rising sea levels; more frequent and intense hurricanes, floods, and other “extreme weather events” that cause death and destroy infrastructure; drought due to reductions in mountain snowpaek and shifting precipitation patterns; destruction of ecosystems supporting animals and plants; and potentially “significant disruptions” of food production. Id., at 66524-66535.
EPA and the Department of Transportation subsequently issued a joint final rule regulating emissions from light-duty vehicles, see 75 Fed. Reg. 25324 (2010), and initiated a joint rulemaking covering medium- and heavy-duty vehicles, see id., at 74152. EPA also began phasing in requirements that new or modified “[mjajor [greenhouse gas] emitting facilities” use the “best available control technology.” § 7475(a)(4); 75 Fed. Reg. 31520-31521. Finally, EPA commenced a rule-making under § 111 of the Act, 42 U. S. C. § 7411, to set limits on greenhouse gas emissions from new, modified, and existing fossil-fuel fired powerplants. Pursuant to a settlement finalized in March 2011, EPA has committed to issuing a proposed rule by July 2011, and a final rule by May 2012. See 75 Fed. Reg. 82392; Reply Brief for Tennessee Valley Authority 18.
II
The lawsuits we consider here began well before EPA initiated the efforts to regulate greenhouse gases just described. In July 2004, two groups of plaintiffs filed separate complaints in the Southern District of New York against the same five major electric power companies. The first group of plaintiffs included eight States and New York City, the second joined three nonprofit land trusts; both groups are respondents here. The defendants, now petitioners, are four private companies and the Tennessee Valley Authority, 'a federally owned corporation that operates fossil-fuel fired powerplants in several States. According to the complaints, the defendants “are the five largest emitters of carbon dioxide in the United States.” App. 57, 118. Their collective annual emissions of 650 million tons constitute 25 percent of emissions from the domestic electric power sector, 10 percent of emissions from all domestic human activities, ibid., and 2.5 percent of all anthropogenic emissions worldwide, App. to Pet. for Cert. 72a.
By contributing to global warming, the plaintiffs asserted, the defendants’ carbon-dioxide emissions created a “substantial and unreasonable interference with public rights,” in violation of the federal common law of interstate nuisance, or, in the alternative, of state tort law. App. 103-105,145-147. The States and New York City alleged that public lands, infrastructure, and health were at risk from climate change. Id., at 88-93. The trusts urged that climate change would destroy habitats for animals and rare species of trees and plants on land the trusts owned and conserved. Id., at 139-145. All plaintiffs sought injunctive relief requiring each defendant “to cap its carbon dioxide emissions and then reduce them by a specified percentage each year for at least a decade.” Id., at 110, 153.
The District Court dismissed both suits as presenting non-justiciable political questions, citing Baker v. Carr, 369 U. S. 186 (1962), but the Second Circuit reversed, 582 F. 3d 309 (2009). On the threshold questions, the Court of Appeals held that the suits were not barred by the political question doctrine, id., at 332, and that the plaintiffs had adequately alleged Article III standing, id., at 349.
Turning to the merits, the Second Circuit held that all plaintiffs had stated a claim under the “federal common law of nuisance.” Id., at 358, 371. For this determination, the court relied dominantly on a series of this Court’s decisions holding that States may maintain suits to abate air and water pollution produced by other States or by out-of-state industry. Id., at 350-351; see, e. g., Illinois v. Milwaukee, 406 U. S. 91, 93, (1972) (Milwaukee I) (recognizing right of Illinois to sue in federal district court to abate discharge of sewage into Lake Michigan).
The Court of Appeals further determined that the Clean Air Act did not “displace" federal common law. In Milwaukee v. Illinois, 451 U. S. 304, 316-319 (1981) (Milwaukee II), this Court held that Congress had displaced the federal common-law right of action recognized in Milwaukee I by adopting amendments to the Clean Water Act, 33 U. S. C. § 1251 et seq. That legislation installed an all-encompassing regulatory program, supervised by an expert administrative agency, to deal comprehensively with interstate water pollution. The legislation itself prohibited the discharge of pollutants into the waters of the United States without a permit from a proper permitting authority. Milwaukee II, 451 U. S., at 310-311 (citing § 1311). At the time of the Second Circuit’s decision, by contrast, EPA had not yet promulgated any rule regulating greenhouse gases, a fact the court thought dispositive. 582 F. 3d, at 379-381. “Until EPA completes the rulemaking process,” the court reasoned, “we cannot speculate as to whether the hypothetical regulation of greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act would in fact ‘spea[k] directly’ to the ‘particular issue’ raised here by Plaintiffs.” Id., at 380.
We granted certiorari. 562 U. S. 1091 (2010).
III
The petitioners contend that the federal courts lack authority to adjudicate this case. Four Members of the Court would hold that at least some plaintiffs have Article III standing under Massachusetts, which permitted a State to challenge EPA’s refusal to regulate greenhouse gas emissions, 549 U. S., at 520-526; and, further, that no other threshold obstacle bars review. Four Members of the Court, adhering to a dissenting opinion in Massachusetts, id,., at 535 (opinion of Roberts, C. J.), or regarding that decision as distinguishable, would hold that none of the plaintiffs have Article III standing. We therefore affirm, by an equally divided Court, the Second Circuit’s exercise of jurisdiction and proceed to the merits. See Nye v. United States, 313 U. S. 33, 44 (1941).
IV
A
“There is no federal general common law,” Erie R. Co. v. Tompkins, 304 U. S. 64, 78 (1938), famously recognized. In the wake of Erie, however, a keener understanding developed. See generally Friendly, In Praise of Erie — And of the New Federal Common Law, 89 N. Y. U. L. Rev. 383 (1964). Erie “le[ft] to the states what ought be left to them,” 39 N. Y. U. L. Rev., at 405, and thus required “federal courts [to] follow state decisions on matters of substantive law appropriately cognizable by the states,” id,., at 422. Erie also sparked “the emergence of a federal decisional law in areas of national concern.” 39 N. Y. U. L. Rev., at 405. The “new” federal common law addresses “subjects within national legislative power where Congress has so directed” or where the basic scheme of the Constitution so demands. Id., at 408, n. 119, 421-422. Environmental protection is undoubtedly an area “within national legislative power,” one in which federal courts may fill in “statutory interstices,” and, if necessary, even “fashion federal law.” Id., at 421-422. As the Court stated in Milwaukee I: “When we deal with air and water in their ambient or interstate aspects, there is a federal common law.” 406 U. S., at 103.
Decisions of this Court predating Erie, but compatible with the distinction emerging from that decision between “general common law” and “specialized federal common law,” Friendly, supra, at 405, have approved federal common-law suits brought by one State to abate pollution emanating from another State. See, e. g., Missouri v. Illinois, 180 U. S. 208, 241-243 (1901) (permitting suit by Missouri to enjoin Chicago from discharging untreated sewage into interstate waters); New Jersey v. City of New York, 283 U. S. 473, 477, 481-483 (1931) (ordering New York City to stop dumping garbage off New Jersey coast); Georgia v. Tennessee Copper Co., 240 U. S. 650 (1916) (ordering private copper companies to curtail sulfur-dioxide discharges in Tennessee that caused harm in Georgia). See also Milwaukee I, 406 U. S., at 107 (post-Erie decision upholding suit by Illinois to abate sewage discharges into Lake Michigan). The plaintiffs contend that their right to maintain this suit follows inexorably from that line of decisions.
Recognition that a subject is meet for federal law governance, however, does not necessarily mean that federal courts should create the controlling law. Absent a demonstrated need for a federal rule of decision, the Court has taken “the prudent course” of “adopting] the readymade body of state law as the federal rule of decision until Congress strikes a different accommodation.” United States v. Kimbell Foods, Inc., 440 U. S. 715, 740 (1979); see Bank of America Nat. Trust & Sav. Assn. v. Parnell, 352 U. S. 29, 32-34 (1956). And where, as here, borrowing the law of a particular State would be inappropriate, the Court remains mindful that it does not have creative power akin to that vested in Congress. See Missouri v. Illinois, 200 U. S. 496, 519 (1906) (“fact that this court must decide does not mean, of course, that it takes the place of a legislature”); cf. United States v. Standard Oil Co. of Cal., 332 U. S. 301, 308, 314 (1947) (holding that federal law determines whether Government could secure indemnity from a company whose truck injured a United States soldier, but declining to impose such an indemnity absent action by Congress, “the primary and most often the exclusive arbiter of federal fiscal affairs”).
In the cases on which the plaintiffs heavily rely, States were permitted to sue to challenge activity harmful to their citizens’ health and welfare. We have not yet decided whether private citizens (here, the land trusts) or political subdivisions (New York City) of a State may invoke the federal common law of nuisance to abate out-of-state pollution. Nor have we ever held that a State may sue to abate any and all maimer of pollution originating outside its borders.
The defendants argue that considerations of scale and complexity distinguish global warming from the more bounded pollution giving rise to past federal nuisance suits. Greenhouse gases once emitted “become well mixed in the atmosphere,” 74 Fed. Reg. 66514; emissions in New Jersey may contribute no more to flooding in New York than emissions in China. Cf. Brief for Petitioners 18-19. The plaintiffs, on the other hand, contend that an equitable remedy against the largest emitters of carbon dioxide in the United States is in order and not beyond judicial competence. See Brief for Respondent Open Space Institute et al. 32-85. And we have recognized that public nuisance law, like common law generally, adapts to changing scientific and factual circumstances. Missouri, 200 U. S., at 522 (adjudicating claim though it did not concern “nuisance of the simple kind that was known to the older common law”); see also D’Oench, Duhme & Co. v. FDIC, 315 U. S. 447, 472 (1942) (Jackson, J., concurring) (“federal courts are free to apply the traditional common-law technique of decision” when fashioning federal common law).
We need not address the parties’ dispute in this regard. For it is an academic question whether, in the absence of the Clean Air Act and the EPA actions the Act authorizes, the plaintiffs could state a federal common-law claim for curtailment of greenhouse gas emissions because of their contribution to global warming. Any such claim would be displaced by the federal legislation authorizing EPA to regulate carbon-dioxide emissions.
B
“[Wjhen Congress addresses a question previously governed by a decision rested on federal common law,” the Court has explained, “the need for such an unusual exercise of law-making by federal courts disappears.” Milwaukee II, 451 U. S., at 314 (holding that amendments to the Clean Water Act displaced the nuisance claim recognized in Milwaukee I). Legislative displacement of federal common law does not require the “same sort of evidence of a clear and manifest [congressional] purpose” demanded for preemption of state law. 451 U. S., at 317. “'[D]ue regard for the presuppositions of our embracing federal system ... as a promoter of democracy,’” id., at 316 (quoting San Diego Building Trades Council v. Garmon, 359 U. S. 236, 243 (1959)), does not enter the calculus, for it is primarily the office of Congress, not the federal courts, to prescribe national policy in areas of special federal interest, TVA v. Hill, 437 U. S. 153, 194 (1978). The test for whether congressional legislation excludes the declaration of federal common law is simply whether the statute “speakfs] directly to [the] question” at issue. Mobil Oil Corp. v. Higginbotham, 436 U. S. 618, 625 (1978); see Milwaukee II, 451 U. S., at 315; County of Oneida v. Oneida Indian Nation of N. Y., 470 U. S. 226, 236-237 (1985).
We hold that the Clean Air Act and the EPA actions it authorizes displace any federal common-law right to seek abatement of carbon-dioxide emissions from fossil-fuel fired powerplants. Massachusetts made plain that emissions of carbon dioxide qualify as air pollution subject to regulation under the Act. 549 U. S., at 528-529. And we think it equally plain that the Act “speaks directly” to emissions of carbon dioxide from the defendants’ plants.
Section 111 of the Act directs the EPA Administrator to list “categories of stationary sources” that “in [her] judgment.. . caus[e], or contribute] significantly to, air pollution which may reasonably be anticipated to endanger public health or welfare.” § 7411(b)(1)(A). Once EPA lists a category, the Agency must establish standards of performance for emission of pollutants from new or modified sources within that category. § 7411(b)(1)(B); see also § 7411(a)(2). And, most relevant here, § 7411(d) then requires regulation of existing sources within the same category. For existing sources, EPA issues emissions guidelines, see 40 CFR §§ 60.22, 60.23 (2009); in compliance with those guidelines and subject to federal oversight, the States then issue performance standards for stationary sources within their jurisdiction, § 7411(d)(1).
The Act provides multiple avenues for enforcement. See County of Oneida, 470 U. S., at 237-239 (reach of remedial provisions is important to determination whether statute displaces federal common law). EPA may delegate implementation and enforcement authority to the States, §§ 7411(c)(1), (d)(1), but the Agency retains the power to inspect and monitor regulated sources, to impose administrative penalties for noncompliance, and to commence civil actions against polluters in federal court. §§ 7411(c)(2), (d)(2), 7413, 7414. In specified circumstances, the Act imposes criminal penalties on any person who knowingly violates emissions standards issued under §7411. See § 7413(c). And the Act provides for private enforcement. If States (or EPA) fail to enforce emissions limits against regulated sources, the Act permits “any person” to bring a civil enforcement action in federal court. § 7604(a).
If EPA does not set emissions limits for a particular pollutant or source of pollution, States and private parties may petition for a rulemaking on the matter, and EPA’s response will be reviewable in federal court. See § 7607(b)(1); Massachusetts, 649 U. S., at 516-517, 529. As earlier noted, see supra, at 417-418, EPA is currently engaged in a § 7411 rule-making to set standards for greenhouse gas emissions from fossil-fuel fired powerplants. To settle litigation brought under § 7607(b) by a group that included the majority of the plaintiffs in this very case, the Agency agreed to complete that rulemaking by May 2012. 75 Fed. Reg. 82392. The Act itself thus provides a means to seek limits on emissions of carbon dioxide from domestic powerplants — the same relief the plaintiffs seek by invoking federal common law. We see no room for a parallel track.
C
The plaintiffs argue, as the Second Circuit held, that federal common law is not displaced until EPA actually exercises its regulatory authority, i. e., until it sets standards governing emissions from the defendants’ plants. We disagree.
The sewage discharges at issue in Milwaukee II, we do not overlook, were subject to effluent limits set by EPA; under the displacing statute, “[e]very point source discharge” of water pollution was “prohibited unless covered by a permit.” 451 U. S., at 318-320 (emphasis deleted). As Milwaukee II made clear, however, the relevant question for purposes of displacement is “whether the field has been occupied, not whether it has been occupied in a particular manner.” Id., at 324. Of necessity, Congress selects different regulatory regimes to address different problems. Congress could hardly preemptively prohibit every discharge of carbon dioxide unless covered by a permit. After all, we each emit carbon dioxide merely by breathing.
The Clean Air Act is no less an exercise of the Legislature’s “considered judgment” concerning the regulation of air pollution because it permits emissions until EPA acts. See Middlesex County Sewerage Authority v. National Sea Clammers Assn., 453 U. S. 1, 22, n. 32 (1981) (finding displacement although Congress “allowed some continued dumping of sludge” prior to a certain date). The critical point is that Congress delegated to EPA the decision whether and how to regulate carbon-dioxide emissions from powerplants; the delegation is what displaces federal common law. Indeed, were EPA to decline to regulate carbon-dioxide emissions altogether at the conclusion of its ongoing § 7411 rule-making, the federal courts would have no warrant to employ the federal common law of nuisance to upset the Agency’s expert determination.
EPA’s judgment, we hasten to add, would not escape judicial review. Federal courts, we earlier observed, see supra, at 425, can review agency action (or a final rule declining to take action) to ensure compliance with the statute Congress enacted. As we have noted, see supra, at 424, the Clean Air Act directs EPA to establish emissions standards for categories of stationary sources that, “in [the Administrator’s] judgment,” “caus[e], or contribute] significantly to, air pollution which may reasonably be anticipated to endanger public health or welfare.” §7411(b)(1)(A). “[T]he use of the word ‘judgment,’ ” we explained in Massachusetts, “is not a roving license to ignore the statutory text.” 549 U. S., at 533. “It is but a direction to exercise discretion within defined statutory limits.” Ibid. EPA may not decline to regulate carbon-dioxide emissions from powerplants if refusal to act would be “arbitrary, capricious, an abuse of discretion, or otherwise not in accordance with law.” § 7607(d)(9)(A). If the plaintiffs in this case are dissatisfied with the outcome of EPA’s forthcoming rulemaking, their recourse under federal law is to seek Court of Appeals review, and, ultimately, to petition for certiorari in this Court.
Indeed, this prescribed order of decisionmaking — the first decider under the Act is the expert administrative agency, the second, federal judges — is yet another reason to resist setting emissions standards by judicial decree under federal tort law. 'The appropriate amount of regulation in any particular greenhouse gas-producing sector cannot be prescribed in a vacuum: As with other questions of national or international policy, informed assessment of competing interests is required. Along with the environmental benefit potentially achievable, our Nation’s energy needs and the possibility of economic disruption must weigh in the balance.
The Clean Air Act entrusts such complex balancing to EPA in the first instance, in combination with state regulators. Each “standard of performance” EPA sets must “tak[e] into account the cost of achieving [emissions] reduction and any nonair quality health and environmental impact and energy requirements.” §§7411(a)(1), (b)(1)(B), (d)(1); see also 40 CFR § 60.24(f) (EPA may permit state plans to. deviate from generally applicable emissions standards upon demonstration that costs are “[Unreasonable”). EPA may “distinguish among classes, types, and sizes” of stationary sources in apportioning responsibility for emissions reductions. §§ 7411(b)(2), (d); see also 40 CFR § 60.22(b)(5). And the Agency may waive compliance with emission limits to permit a facility to test drive an “innovative technological system” that has “not [yet] been adequately demonstrated.” § 7411( j)(l)(A). The Act envisions extensive cooperation between federal and state authorities, see §§ 7401(a), (b), generally permitting each State to take the first cut at determining how best to achieve EPA emissions standards within its domain, see §§ 7411(c)(1), (d)(l)-(2).
It is altogether fitting that Congress designated an expert agency, here, EPA, as best suited to serve as primary regulator of greenhouse gas emissions. The expert agency is surely better equipped to do the job than individual district judges issuing ad hoc, case-by-case injunctions. Federal judges lack the scientific, economic, and technological resources an agency can utilize in coping with issues of this order. See generally Chevron U. S. A. Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc., 467 U. S. 837, 865-866 (1984). Judges may not commission scientific studies or convene groups of experts for advice, or issue rules under notice- and-comment procedures inviting input by any interested person, or seek the counsel of regulators in the States where the defendants are located. Rather, judges are confined by a record comprising the evidence the parties present. Moreover, federal district judges, sitting as sole adjudicators, lack authority to render precedential decisions binding other judges, even members of the same court.
Notwithstanding these disabilities, the plaintiffs propose that individual federal judges determine, in the first instance, what amount of carbon-dioxide emissions is “unreasonable,” App. 103,145, and then decide what level of reduction is “practical, feasible and economically viable,” id., at 58, 119. These determinations would be made for the defendants named in the two lawsuits launched by the plaintiffs. Similar suits could be mounted, counsel for the States and New York City estimated, against “thousands or hundreds or tens” of other defendants fitting the description “large contributors” to carbon-dioxide emissions. Tr. of Oral Arg. 57.
The judgments the plaintiffs would commit to federal judges, in suits that could be filed in any federal district, cannot be reconciled with the decisionmaking scheme Congress enacted. The Second Circuit erred, we hold, in ruling that federal judges may set limits on greenhouse gas emissions in face of a law empowering EPA to set the same limits, subject to judicial review only to ensure against action “arbitrary, capricious, ... or otherwise not in accordance with law.” § 7607(d)(9).
V
The plaintiffs also sought relief under state law, in particular, the law of each State where the defendants operate powerplants. See App. 105, 147. The Second Circuit did not reach the state-law claims because it held that federal common law governed. 582 F. 3d, at 392; see International Paper Co. v. Ouellette, 479 U. S. 481, 488 (1987) (if a case “should be resolved by reference to federal common law[,]... state common law [is] pre-empted”). In light of our holding that the Clean Air Act displaces federal common law, the availability vel non of a state lawsuit depends, inter alia, on the preemptive effect of the federal Act. Id., at 489, 491, 497 (holding that the Clean Water Act does not preclude aggrieved individuals from bringing a “nuisance claim pursuant to the law of the source State”). None of the parties have briefed preemption or otherwise addressed the availability of a claim under state nuisance law. We therefore leave the matter open for consideration on remand.
^ ‡ ^
For the reasons stated, we reverse the judgment of the Second Circuit and remand the case for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
Justice Sotomayor took no part in the consideration or decision of this case.
In addition to carbon dioxide, the primary greenhouse gases emitted by human activities include methane, nitrous oxide, hydrofluorocarbons, perfluorocarbons, and sulfur hexafluoride. 74 Fed. Reg. 66499.
For views opposing EPA's, see, e. g., Dawidoff, The Civil Heretic, N. Y. Times Magazine, Mar. 29, 2009, p. 32. The Court, we caution, endorses no particular view of the complicated issues related to carbon-dioxide emissions and climate change.
California, Connecticut, Iowa, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Wisconsin, although New Jersey and Wisconsin are no longer participating. Brief for Respondent Connecticut et al. 3, n. 1.
Open Space Institute, Inc., Open Space Conservancy, Inc., and Audubon Society of New Hampshire.
American Electric Power Company, Inc. (and a wholly owned subsidiary), Southern Company, Xcel Energy Inc., and Cinergy Corporation.
In addition to renewing the political question argument made below, the pctitionoro now aooort on additional thrcohold obotaclc: They occlc dio-missal because of a “prudential” bar to the adjudication of generalized grievances, purportedly distinct from Article Ill’s bar. See Brief for Ten-ncoocc Valley Authority 14-24; Brief for Pctitionoro 30-31.
There is an exception: EPA may not employ § 7411(d) if existing stationary sources of the pollutant in question are regulated under the national ambient air quality standard program, §§7408-7410, or the “hazardous air pollutants” program, § 7412. See § 7411(d)(1).
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer:
|
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.
An 1834 compact (hereinafter Compact) between the States of New York and New Jersey provided that Ellis Island, then a modest three acres, was part of New York despite its location on New Jersey’s side of the States’ common boundary. After 1891, when the United States decided to use the Island to receive immigrants, the National Government began placing fill around its shoreline and over the next 42 years added some 24.5 acres to the area of the original Island. The issue in this case is whether New York or New Jersey has sovereign authority over this filled land. We find that New Jersey does.
I
In April 1993, New Jersey invoked this Court's original jurisdiction to try a dispute over its territorial jurisdiction, see U. S. Const., Art. III, § 2, cl. 2, by seeking leave to file a bill of complaint against New York. We granted New Jersey's petition, 511 U. S. 1080 (1994), and appointed Paul Verkuil as Special Master, 513 U. S. 924 (1994). After denying the parties’ cross-motions for summary judgment, he conducted a trial from July 10 to August 15,1996, and submitted final and supplemental reports to us on June 16, 1997, 520 U. S. 1273, which were then subjected to the exceptions resolved here.
A
Ellis Island lies in New York Harbor 1,300 feet from Jersey City, New Jersey, and one mile from the tip of Manhattan. At the time of the first European settlement it was mostly mud, sand, and oyster shells, which nearly disappeared at high tide. The Mohegan Indians called it “Kioshk,” or Gull Island, while the Dutch of New Amsterdam, after its thrifty acquisition, renamed it (along with two other nearby specks) for the oyster, in recognition of the rich surrounding beds. England seized it from the Dutch in 1664, the same year that Charles II included the Island in a grant to his brother, the Duke of York, of the land and water of the present States of New York and New Jersey. The Duke in turn granted part of this territory to Lord Berkeley and Sir George Carteret, the proprietors of New Jersey, whose domain was described as “bounded on the east part by the main sea, and part by Hudson’s river.”
Having wasted no words, the noble grantor all but guaranteed the succession of legal fees and expenses arising from interstate boundary disputes, now extending into the fourth century since the conveyance of New Jersey received its seal. After the Revolutionary War, New York and New Jersey began their long disagreement about the eommon boundary on the lower Hudson and New York Harbor, with New York arguing that the grant to the New Jersey proprietors set the line at New Jersey’s shore and so preserved New York’s sovereignty over the entire river, and New Jersey contending that as a coequal State emerging after the Revolution it was entitled to a sovereign boundary in the middle of the river. Between the two competing lines, of course, lay the Oyster Islands, one of which, in 1785, came into the private ownership of the eponymous Samuel Ellis, whose heirs would be its last private owners. In 1800, the State of New York ceded “jurisdiction” over the Island to the United States, reserving only the right to serve judicial process there. Act of Feb. 15, 1800, ch. 6 (1797-1800 N. Y. Laws, p. 454). In 1808, after obtaining property title to the Island as well, the State of New York granted all of its “right, title and interest” in it to the United States, “for the purpose of providing for the defense and safety of the city and port of New-York.” Act of Mar. 18, 1808, ch. 51 (1808 N. Y. Laws, p. 273); Act of Mar. 20, 1807, ch. 51 (1807 N. Y. Laws, p. 67); Deed to Ellis Island, by State of New York to the United States, June 30, 1808. Before the War of 1812 began, the United States Army had taken over the Island, which it improved with the construction of barracks and a magazine, and fortified with a battery of 20 guns.
In the meantime, the two neighboring States tried to settle their controversy. In 1807, each appointed commissioners to prepare a compromise agreement, and when none was forthcoming the States allowed the controversy to simmer for another 20 years, when new commissioners were appointed. After they, too, had failed to agree, in 1829 New Jersey decided to seek a judicial resolution and filed suit against New York to establish its “rights of property, jurisdiction and sovereignty” west of the midpoint of the waters of the Hudson River and New York Bay. N. J. Exh. 293 (Complaint filed in New Jersey v. New York, p. 22 (1829)). New Jersey made it clear in its papers, however, that the dispute did not concern the islands in the waters between the two States, by conceding in its Bill in Equity that during the colonial period New York had taken possession of the islands “in the dividing waters between the two States,” and “that the possession thus acquired by New York, ha[d] been since that time... acquiesced in” by New Jersey. Id., at 22-23.
Although we took jurisdiction over the suit, New Jersey v. New York, 5 Pet. 284 (1831), it was never tried to judgment. Instead, the States once again negotiated and in 1833 actually reached agreement. Each enacted the terms into law, 1834 N. Y. Laws, ch. 8; 1833-1834 N. J. Laws, pp. 118-121, and jointly they sought the approval of Congress under the Compact Clause of the United States Constitution, Art. I, § 10, cl. 3. Congressional consent came with the Act of June 28, 1834, ch. 126, 4 Stat. 708.
The Compact comprises eight articles, the first three of which directly concern us here. Article First sets the relevant stretch of the “boundary line” between New York and New Jersey as the middle of the Hudson River “except as hereinafter otherwise particularly mentioned.” Article Second provides that “New York shall retain its present jurisdiction of and over Bedlow’s and Ellis’s islands; and shall also retain exclusive jurisdiction of and over the other islands lying in the waters above mentioned and now under the jurisdiction of that state.” Under Article Third, “New York shall have and enjoy exclusive jurisdiction of and over all the waters” between the two States as well as “of and over the lands covered by the said waters to the low watermark on the westerly or New Jersey side thereof.” • This jurisdiction is, however, “subject to [certain] rights of property and of jurisdiction of the state of New Jersey.” That State, for example, “shall have the exclusive right of property in and to the land under water” on its side of the boundary line, as well as “the exclusive jurisdiction of and over the wharves, docks, and improvements, made and to be made on the shore of the said state.” The terms of the congressional consent to the Compact close with the provision that “nothing therein contained shall be construed to impair or in any manner affect, any right of jurisdiction of the United States in and over the islands or waters which form the subject of the said agreement.”
We have already addressed the meaning of some of these terms in Central R. Co. of N.J. v. Jersey City, 209 U. S. 473 (1908), where we held that Jersey City, New Jersey, was authorized to tax the submerged lands lying between the middle of New York Harbor and the low-water mark on the New Jersey shore. As expressed in an opinion by Justice Holmes, we determined that the “boundary line” set by Article First is the line of sovereignty between the two States, and that the islands in the waters between them fell on New Jersey’s side of the boundary. Id., at 478. We held that even though Article Third grants New York “exclusive jurisdiction” over all the land and water between the States, New Jersey retained “ultimate sovereign rights” over the lands submerged beneath the waters. Id., at 478-479. We noted that the term “jurisdiction” was used in a broader sense in Article Second (relating to the islands) than in Article Third (relating to water and submerged land west of the center line), the purpose of the latter being “to promote the interests of commerce and navigation, not to take back the sovereignty that otherwise was the consequence of Article I.” Id., at 479. We said that “[wjhether... some power of police regulation also was conferred upon New York [by the third article]... need not be decided now.” Ibid. Finally, we explained that the provision for Ellis and Bedlow’s Islands, “that New York shall retain its ‘present’ jurisdiction over them,... would seem on its face simply to be intended to preserve the status quo ante, whatever that may be.” Ibid. In the current litigation, New York and New Jersey agree that the effect of Article Second was to recognize that New York had obtained sovereign authority over all of the islands in the waters between the two States, including Ellis Island, and that reference to New York’s retention of “present” jurisdiction over Ellis Island was a recognition of New York’s cession of jurisdiction over the Island to the United States in 1800, save for its right to serve process there.
In the years after the Compact, the National Government continued to use the Island as a fortress until 1861, when it dismantled the fortifications but proceeded to use the Island for a munitions magazine and a berth for ships defending the harbor. In the 1880’s, however, came a radical change. Although the National Government had left the control of immigration largely to the States up to that time, the swelling number of immigrants were overwhelming the state systems, to the point of leading Washington to impose national regulation. While immigrants to New York and New Jersey had traditionally come ashore at Castle Garden, located in Manhattan and owned and operated by New York, Congress decided that an island would be an ideal place for a new immigration station “in view of the frauds, robbery, and general crookedness which seemed to be inseparable from the landing of immigrants.” N. J. Exh. 488, p. 5 (V. Stafford, Immigration Problems: Personal Experiences of an Official 22 (1925)). Ellis Island turned out to be the one chosen.
The Island also turned out to be too small, and by the time the new Ellis Island immigration station opened in January 1892, the United States had already added enough fill to the surrounding submerged lands to double the original three acres. By 1897, the Island was up to 14 acres and would go on growing for almost 40 years more.
After the original wood and stucco depot burned in 1897, the United States expanded the land for even larger quarters. Although the new depot, which opened in 1900, sat on approximately the same spot on the original Island as the prior main immigration building, it was joined by a hospital placed on a separate island created by landfill in 1899. The National Government often referred to the latter as Island No. 2, which covered about three acres on the southwestern side of a ferry slip. A covered gangway built on piles connected the two islands, which were soon to be joined by one more, though not before the occurrence of another step in the boundary dispute.
Because the hospital of 1900 could not provide sufficiently isolated wards for patients with contagious diseases, these patients were sent to New York City for care and treatment. When, in 1902, the City Health Department announced it would no longer receive such immigrants, the United States had to provide its own contagious disease hospital, which it planned to build on a third island to be joined to Island No. 2 by another gangway. Construction stopped, however, when New Jersey challenged the National Government’s appropriation of the submerged lands surrounding the Island. The dispute was not resolved until December 1904, when New Jersey’s Riparian Commissioners conveyed to the United States “all the right, title, claim and interest of every kind, of the State of New Jersey” to 48 acres of territory that included and surrounded Ellis Island, in exchange for $1,000. Deed from the State of New Jersey to the United States of America, Recorded, County of Hudson, State of New Jersey, Dec. 23,1904. The United States then pressed on with construction and in 1906 completed the new island of 4.75 acres, often called Island No. 3. Here the new contagious disease hospital was constructed in 1909 and occupied by 1911.
Two acres more were added in the 1920’s when the United States filled the dock basin between Island Nos. 2 and 3, and in 1934 more fill was placed on the northern side of the original Island. In the end, the United States enlarged Ellis Island by roughly 24.5 acres, for a total area some nine times the original.
Ironically, however, as the land rose immigration fell. Although more than 12 million people disembarked at Ellis Island from 1892 to 1954, arrivals dropped from a high point of roughly 5,000 daily in 1907 to only 200 a day in 1954, and in November of that year the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) closed the Island station.
Soon after immigration was thus diverted from the Island, the United States General Services Administration (GSA) classified the property as surplus and entertained various proposals for using the Island as a home for educational institutions, as a clinic for alcoholics, as a historical site for public recreation, and as a facility for the mentally retarded. Prospects for the Island’s future were clouded, however, by the fact that New York and New Jersey each carried the Island on its tax rolls and announced its intention to collect taxes if a private owner took over the Island. Although the GSA noted sanguinely that “[t]he question of whether the property will be subject to taxes by the State of New Jersey when it becomes eligible for taxation is one to be resolved between the State of New Jersey and the grantee after the disposal of the property has been consummated by the United States,” N. J. Exh. 117 (letter from Administrator, GSA, to Sen. Clifford P. Case, dated Jan. 28, 1958), there was clear reason to fear that the tax dispute would kill any disposition the United States might like to make. In 1960, the Council of State Governments tried to mediate the jurisdictional dispute, but negotiations simply came to impasse. N. J. Exh. 134 (letter from Regional Director, Council of State Governments, to Associate General Counsel, GSA, dated July 28,1960).
After the GSA had offered the Island for sale on the commercial market several times, the Secretary of the Interior decided in 1964 that the Government should stop trying to sell the property and instead develop it as a national historic site, one advantage of such a course being the supposition that “any opening of hostilities between New York and New Jersey” would be obviated. N. J. Exh. 161 (N. Y. Times, Oct. 22, 1964, p. 37, col. 4). But again the optimism was premature, for although the National Park Service was given legal title to the Island and to this day alone exercises jurisdiction over it, and although restoration of the Island began in 1976, New York and New Jersey have continued to assert rival claims of sovereign authority over the filled land of the Island for the purposes of taxation, zoning, environmental protection, elections, education, residency, insurance, building codes, historic preservation, labor and public welfare laws, and civil and criminal law generally. In 1986, efforts of the two States to resolve the tax issue came to naught when New York failed to enact a proposed interstate agreement to deposit tax revenues from the Island into a fund for the homeless. Seven years later, New Jersey was prompted to bring the instant action after the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit held in Collins v. Promark Prods., Inc., 956 P. 2d 383 (1992), that New York tort law governed the filled portions of the Island. We are now called upon to determine which State has sovereign authority over the filled portion of the Island.
B
In its complaint, the State of New Jersey seeks a declaration that the boundary between the two States on the Island follows the high-water mark of the original Island, that the original Island is within the territory and jurisdiction of New York, and that the balance of the Island, as well as the waters surrounding it, is within the territory and general jurisdiction of New Jersey. New Jersey also asks for a permanent injunction prohibiting New York from enforcing its laws on the filled land or asserting jurisdiction over it.
The Special Master first concluded that Article First of the Compact, which establishes “[t]he boundary line between the two states of New York and New Jersey” at the midpoint of the Hudson River and New York Harbor, marks the line of sovereignty between the two States. Next, he concluded that although Article Second accords New York some sovereign jurisdiction over the Island as it existed in 1834, the Compact does not address the issue of sovereign authority over the filled portions of the Island. The Special Master concluded that the filled portions of the Island are subject to the sovereign authority of New Jersey under the common-law doctrine of avulsion, and he rejected New York’s affirmatively defensive claim to have obtained sovereign authority over the filled portions of the Island by. prescription and acquiescence. He also rejected New York’s defense that laches barred New Jersey’s complaint, finding the doctrine inapposite to interstate boundary actions.
After concluding that New York’s sovereign authority was limited to the original area of the Island, the Special Master went on to determine its exact dimensions, which he pegged to the mean low-water mark of the original Island, although he recommended that the area covered by a pier extending from the shore at the time of the Compact be treated as part of the original Island. Finally, the Special Master recommended, “[i]n the interest of practicality, convenience, and fairness,” that we adjust the Island boundary line between the two States so as to place all of the main immigration building and the land immediately surrounding it within New York. Final Report of Special Master 3.
New York and New Jersey each excepted to the recommendations. New York’s exceptions amount to the following claims: (1) under Article Second of the Compact, New York has jurisdiction over the filled portion of the Island; (2) New York has obtained sovereignty over the filled land through its exercise of prescriptive acts and New Jersey’s acquiescence in that exercise; and (3) New Jersey is chargeable with laches through its delay in bringing this action. New Jersey’s exceptions in effect state the following claims: (1) New Jersey is sovereign over the filled portions of the Island to the mean high-water line, not the mean low-water line, as it was when the Compact was adopted; (2) the record contains no credible evidence to support the Special Master’s conclusion that the pier on Ellis Island in 1834 was partially built on landfill, so as to place its area within New York’s jurisdiction; and (3) the present boundary across the Island must follow the 1834 line, the Court having no authority to modify that line to address considerations of practicality and convenience.
II
First we address New York’s exceptions. Although that State would be entitled to a declaration of its ultimate sovereignty over the filled land if successful on any of the points raised, we find each to be meritless.
A
New York's first exception rests on Article Second of the Compact, the provision that “[t]he state of New York shall retain its present jurisdiction of and over Bedlow’s and Ellis’s islands; and shall also retain exclusive jurisdiction of and over the other islands lying in the waters above mentioned and now under the jurisdiction of that state.”
Neither party takes issue with our holding in Central R. Co. that the “boundary line” between the States established in Article First is the line of sovereignty and that Ellis Island is on New Jersey’s side of this line. The States also agree that Article Second carves out an exception to the boundary provision as to all of the islands existing at the time of the Compact, including Ellis Island. They agree that the recognition in this Article of “present jurisdiction” over Ellis Island suffices to bar any rival claim by New Jersey over the original portion of the Island. New York’s contention is that Article Second also provides for its authority over filled land; New Jersey says it does not.
New York concedes that at the time of the Compact the submerged land around the Island was under the sovereign authority of New Jersey. But New York argues that because the Compact recognized its own sovereign authority over “Ellis Island,” without describing that land mass in metes and bounds, the recognition of sovereignty extended to whatever area the Island so called might be enlarged to cover; that is, once any submerged territory was filled and became fast land contiguous to the original Island, it became subject to the New York sovereignty recognized in Article Second. New York rests its position on an allegation that in 1834 adding landfill to subaqueous land adjacent to fast land in New York Harbor was such a common practice as to render it unnecessary to mention it in Article Second of the Compact or otherwise make provision for its legal consequences. New York also argues that the parties who agreed to the Compact in 1834 would hardly have wanted to divide the Island between New York and New Jersey, since any such division would frustrate one of the driving purposes of the Compact, of giving New York control over navigation and commerce in the harbor.
The arguments are unavailing. To begin with, the absence of any description of the Island in metes and bounds is highly dubious support for any inference beyond the obvious one, that in 1884 everybody knew what Ellis Island was. The drafters’ silence, then, can hardly be taken to convert the Island’s name into a definitional Proteus for validating sovereignty claims.
Nor can we draw any conclusion in New York’s favor from the failure of the Compact to address the consequences of landfilling, however common the practice may have been. There would have been no reason to do so, simply for the reason that the legal consequences were sufficiently clear under the common law as it was understood in 1834. In this ease, as in Georgia v. South Carolina, 497 U. S. 376, 404 (1990), the expansion of the Island “was not caused by either of the adjoining States, but by the United States Army Corps of Engineers.” Under the common law, a littoral owner, like the United States in the instant ease, “cannot extend [its] own property into the water by landfilling or purposefully causing accretion.” Ibid, (citing Seacoast Real Estate Co. v. American Timber Co., 92 N. J. Eq. 219, 221, 113 A. 489, 490 (1920)); see also United States v. California, 381 U. S. 139, 177 (1965) (referring to “the rule of property law that artificial fill belongs to the owner of the submerged land onto which it is deposited” (citing Marine Railway & Goal Co. v. United States, 257 U. S. 47, 65 (1921))). The littoral owner’s act of placing artificial fill is thus treated under the traditional common-law rule governing avulsive littoral changes, “recognized where the boundaries between States or nations are, by prescription or treaty, found in running water.” Nebraska v. Iowa, 143 U. S. 359, 361 (1892). We have long recognized that a sudden shoreline change known as avulsion (as distinct from accretion, or gradual change in configuration) “has no effect on boundary,” ibid, and that this “ is the received rule of law of nations on this point, as laid down by all the writers of authority,’ ” id., at 362 (quoting 8 Op. Atty. Gen. 175, 178 (1856)), including Sir William Blackstone, 143 U. S., at 364 (citing 2 Commentaries on the Laws of England 262 (1766)). See also Mayor of New Orleans v. United States, 10 Pet. 662, 717 (1836) (common-law rule of accretion “is no less just when applied to public, than to private rights”); W. Hall, A Treatise on International Law 122 (J. Atlay 6th ed. 1909) (explaining the application of common-law rules of accretion and avulsion in boundary disputes between States). This common-law rule speaks in the silence of the Compact, and we follow it to conclude that the lands surrounding the original Island remained the sovereign property of New Jersey when the United States added landfill to them.
Finally, there is no merit in New York’s position that depriving it of sovereign authority over the filled land would frustrate the primary purpose of the Compact. The State argues that the Compact’s framers must have thought it necessary to recognize New York’s sovereign authority over the islands on New Jersey’s side of the boundary line in order to assure that New York would be able to regulate commerce and navigation in the New York Harbor. But neither intuition nor history supports its argument. Although it is taken for granted that one object of the Compact was to preserve New York’s authority to regulate water-borne commerce in the harbor, a subject addressed in Article Third, the more evident reason that the Compact declared New York’s sovereignty over the islands was simply that by 1834 New York had eoncededly obtained sovereign rights over the islands through prescriptive acts. New Jersey conceded as much when it filed its bill of complaint in New Jersey v. New York. While Article Third does speak to commerce and navigation, New York’s “exclusive jurisdiction” over the water and submerged lands lying between the two States is unaffected in any literal sense by the presence of the fill, and there is no reason to think that recognizing New Jersey as sovereign over the filled portions of the Island would affect New York’s ability to regulate navigation and commerce in the harbor.
B
On the assumption that Article Second or some other Compact provision fails to carry the day for New York, the State falls back to its affirmative defense that it gained sovereign authority over the made land by subjecting it to prescriptive acts for a considerable period. Again, the State’s position is unsound.
As between two sovereigns, jurisdiction may be obtained by one through prescriptive action at the other’s expense, over the course of a substantial period, during which the latter has acquiesced in the impositions upon it. See Illinois v. Kentucky, 500 U. S. 380, 384-385 (1991); Georgia v. South Carolina, 497 U. S,, at 389; Arkansas v. Tennessee, 310 U. S. 563, 570 (1940); Vermont v. New Hampshire, 289 U. S. 593, 613 (1933); Louisiana v. Mississippi, 202 U. S. 1, 53 (1906); Virginia v. Tennessee, 148 U. S. 503, 522-524 (1893). “For the security of rights, whether of states or individuals, long possession under a claim of title is protected. And there is no controversy in which this great principle may be involved with greater justice and propriety than in a case of disputed boundary.” Rhode Island v. Massachusetts, 4 How. 591, 639 (1846). The doctrine of prescription and acquiescence “is founded upon the supposition, confirmed by constant experience, that every person will naturally seek to enjoy that which belongs to him; and the inference fairly to be drawn from his silence and neglect, of the original defect of his title, or his intention to relinquish it.” C. Phillipson, Wheaton’s Elements of International Law 269 (5th ed. 1916). From such expectations, in part, have we derived “moral considerations which should prevent any disturbance of long recognized boundary lines; considerations springing from regard to the natural sentiments and affections which grow up for places on which persons have long resided; the attachments to country, to home and to family, on which is based all that is dearest and most valuable in life.” Virginia v. Tennessee, supra, at 524.
As the proponent of the defense, New York is in the position it would occupy if it had itself brought an original action claiming title under the doctrine; thus it has the burden to “show by a preponderance of the evidence... a long and continuous possession of, and assertion of sovereignty over,” the filled portions of the Island, as well as New Jersey’s acquiescence in those acts of possession and jurisdiction. Illinois v. Kentucky, supra, at 384. Because acquiescence presupposes knowledge, New York is bound to present either direct evidence that New Jersey had knowledge that New York acted upon a claim to the added land, or evidence of such open, notorious, visible, and uninterrupted adverse acts that New Jersey’s knowledge and acquiescence may be presumed. See Georgia v. South Carolina, supra, at 393 (stating that it is well established “ ‘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’ ”) (quoting Landes v. Brant, 10 How. 348, 375 (1851)); Arkansas v. Tennessee, supra, at 570 (noting that sovereign rights to land can be won and lost by “open, long-continued and uninterrupted possession of territory”); Michigan v. Wisconsin, 270 U. S. 295, 307-308 (1926) (rejecting Michigan’s claim of “excusable ignorance” on the ground that “[t]he material facts... have been so obvious that knowledge of them on the part of the Michigan authorities, if it were not shown, as it is shown, by the evidence, must necessarily be assumed”); Louisiana v. Mississippi, supra, at 53 (noting that “Louisiana has always asserted [ownership of the disputed area]; and that Mississippi has repeatedly recognized it, and not until recently has disputed it”); MacGibon, The Scope of Acquiescence in International Law, in 31 Brit. Y. B. Int’l L. 143, 173 (H. Lauterpacht ed. 1954) (“The proposition that the possession on which title by prescription rests must fulfil [sic] the requirement of notoriety is scarcely in doubt”).
It is essential to appreciate the extent of this burden that a claimant by prescription must shoulder., Even as to terra nullius, like a volcanic island or territory abandoned by its former sovereign, a claimant by right as against all others has more to do than planting a flag or rearing a monument. Since the 19th century the most generous settled view has been that discovery accompanied by symbolic acts gives no more than “an inchoate title, an option, as against other states, to consolidate the first steps by proceeding to effective occupation within a reasonable time.” I. Brownlie, Principles of Public International Law 146 (4th ed. 1990); see also 1 C. Hyde, International Law 329 (rev. 2d ed. 1945); 1 L. Oppenheim, International Law §§222-228, pp. 439-441 (H. Lauterpacht 5th ed. 1937); Hall, A Treatise on International Law, at 102-103; 1 J. Moore, International Law 258 (1906); R. Phillimore, International Law 273 (2d ed. 1871); E. Vattel, Law of Nations § 208, p. 99 (J. Chitty 6th Am. ed. 1844). Thus, even on the remote Pacific atoll mentioned in Justice Stevens’s dissent, post, at 824, something well beyond “[a] solitary fingerprint,” post, at 815, will always be necessary to carry the day. This rule underscores the burden on a sovereign claimant to an atoll already subject to clear title, as under the law of avulsion. Hence the law’s emphasis on the necessary length and continuity of adverse activity, and the requirement to prove a knowing acquiescence in the claimant’s demonstrated design. Conversely, the original titleholder’s only obligation is that of refusing to acquiesce in the hostile behavior of a rival sovereign claimant that was or should have been known to be disputing the earlier title. Since the parties do not start out as equals in sovereign pretension, a single fingerprint that can never suffice for title even when there is only one claimant will fail all the more abjectly when a claim is made against a holder of title independently established.
Before turning to the evidence, a word must be said on one threshold issue, on which the parties agree. As the Special Master thought, the time period during which New York’s prescriptive acts ripened into sovereignty, if they did at all, is 1890 to 1954. The United States added no fill to the original Island until 1890, and after 1954 it is undisputed that New Jersey vigorously asserted its own sovereignty over the ■filled portions of the Island. At most, then, New York may rely upon exercises of dominion over the made land with New Jersey’s consent for 64 years, a period that is not insufficient as a matter of general law. To be sure, we have never established a minimum period of prescription necessary to perfect a jurisdictional claim over another State’s territory, and it is clear that “no general rule can be laid down as regards the length of time and other circumstances which are necessary to create a title by prescription. Everything depends upon the merits of the individual ease.... There are indeed immeasurable and imponderable circumstances and influences besides the mere lapse of time at work to create the conviction that in the interest of stability of order the present possessor should be considered the rightful owner of a territory.” 1 Oppenheim, supra, § 242, at 456-457. We have, however, found 60 years adequate in one case, see Michigan v. Wisconsin, supra, and that holding is enough to open the door to litigation of the relevant period here.
The evidence that has come through the door, however, is too slight to support any finding of prescription. At the outset, we note that two facts exact a discount from the probative force of much of the evidence New York presents. First, as between New York and New Jersey, New York is coneededly vested with whatever state sovereignty may be exercised over the original portion of the Island. Second, throughout the entire period of arguable prescription, the Island was entirely occupied by the United States.
We have already seen that Article Second of the Compact recognizes New York’s then-existing jurisdiction over Ellis Island and Bedlow’s Island as well as its exclusive jurisdiction over the other islands then on New Jersey’s side of the boundary. So long as the original Island was all that went by the name of Ellis, there was no question about the referent of any indication of jurisdiction over Ellis Island. But after the Island grew, acts expressly pertaining to the Island but falling short of physical occupation became to a degree vague in the absence of further indication that their subject was the new land as well as the original territory. Thus, every reference to “Ellis Island” on a New York tax roll or a statute outlining the confines of a voting district was necessarily sound in part (so far as New Jersey might be concerned) in the absence of a physical description making a claim to the new land as well'as the old. So, registrations
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer:
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K
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sc_issuearea
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What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Justice White
delivered the opinion of the Court.
The question for decision is whether the Double Jeopardy Clause bars the prosecution of respondent for first-degree murder following his breach of a plea agreement under which he had pleaded guilty to a lesser offense, had been sentenced, and had begun serving a term of imprisonment. The Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit held that the prosecution of respondent violated double jeopardy principles and directed the issuance of a writ of habeas corpus. We reverse.
In 1976, Donald Bolles, a reporter for the Arizona Republic, was fatally injured when a dynamite bomb exploded underneath his car. Respondent was arrested and charged with first-degree murder in connection with Bolles’ death. Shortly after his trial had commenced, while jury selection was underway, respondent and the state prosecutor reached an agreement whereby respondent agreed to plead guilty to a charge of second-degree murder and to testify against two other individuals — Max Dunlap and James Robison — who were allegedly involved in Bolles’ murder. Specifically, respondent agreed to “testify fully and completely in any Court, State or Federal, when requested by proper authorities against any and all parties involved in the murder of Don Bolles . . . 789 F. 2d 722, 731 (1986). The agreement provided that “[sjhould the defendant refuse to testify or should he at any time testify untruthfully . . . then this entire agreement is null and void and the original charge will be automatically reinstated.” Ibid. The parties agreed that respondent would receive a prison sentence of 48-49 years, with a total incarceration time of 20 years and 2 months. In January 1977, the state trial court accepted the plea agreement and the proposed sentence, but withheld imposition of the sentence. Thereafter, respondent testified as obligated under the agreement, and both Dunlap and Robison were convicted of the first-degree murder of Bolles. While their convictions and sentences were on appeal, the trial court, upon motion of the State, sentenced respondent. In February 1980, the Arizona Supreme Court reversed the convictions of Dunlap and Robison and remanded their cases for retrial. State v. Dunlap, 125 Ariz. 104, 608 P. 2d 41. This event sparked the dispute now before us.
The State sought respondent’s cooperation and testimony in preparation for the retrial of Dunlap and Robison. On April 3, 1980, however, respondent’s counsel informed the prosecutor that respondent believed his obligation to provide testimony under the agreement had terminated when he \yas sentenced. Respondent would again testify against Dunlap and Robison only if certain conditions were met, including, among others, that the State release him from custody following the retrial. 789 F. 2d, at 733. The State then informed respondent’s attorney on April 9, 1980, that it deemed respondent to be in breach of the plea agreement. On April 18, 1980, the State called respondent to testify in pretrial proceedings. In response to questions, and upon advice of counsel, respondent invoked his Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination. The trial judge, after respondent’s counsel apprised him of the State’s letter of April 9 indicating that the State considered respondent to be in breach of the plea agreement, refused to compel respondent to answer questions. The Arizona Supreme Court declined to accept jurisdiction of the State’s petition for special action to review the trial judge’s decision.
On May 8, 1980, the State filed a new information charging respondent with first-degree murder. Respondent’s motion to quash the information on double jeopardy grounds was denied. Respondent challenged this decision by a special action in the Arizona Supreme Court. That court, after reviewing the plea agreement, the transcripts of the plea hearing and the sentencing hearing, respondent’s April 3 letter to the state prosecutor, and the prosecutor’s April'9 response to that letter, held with “no hesitation” that “the plea agreement contemplates availability of [respondent’s] testimony whether at trial or retrial after reversal,” Adamson v. Superior Court of Arizona, 125 Ariz. 579, 583, 611 P. 2d 932, 936 (1980), and that respondent “violated the terms of the plea agreement.” Ibid. The court also rejected respondent’s double jeopardy claim, holding that the plea agreement “by its very terms waives the defense of double jeopardy if the agreement is violated.” Id., at 584, 611 P. 2d, at 937. Finally, the court held that under state law and the terms of the plea agreement, the State should not have filed a new information, but should have merely reinstated the initial charge. Accordingly, the court vacated respondent’s second-degree murder conviction, reinstated the original charge, and dismissed the new information.
After these rulings, respondent offered to testify at the retrials, but the State declined his offer. Respondent sought federal habeas relief, arguing that the Arizona Supreme Court had misconstrued the terms of the plea agreement. The District Court dismissed his petition, the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit affirmed, Adamson v. Hill, 667 F. 2d 1030 (1981), and we denied respondent’s petition for a writ of certiorari. 455 U. S. 992 (1982).
Respondent was then convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to death. The judgment was affirmed on direct appeal, State v. Adamson, 136 Ariz. 250, 665 P. 2d 972, and we denied certiorari. 464 U. S. 865 (1983). Respondent sought federal habeas corpus for the second time, asserting a number of claims relating to his trial and sentence. The District Court dismissed the petition; a Court of Appeals panel affirmed. 758 F. 2d 441 (1985). The Court of Appeals went en banc, held that the State had violated respondent’s rights under the Double Jeopardy Clause, and directed the issuance of a writ of habeas corpus. The en banc opinion reasoned that respondent had not waived his double jeopardy rights by entering into the plea agreement, asserting that “[i]t may well be argued that the only manner in which [respondent] could have made an intentional relinquishment of a known double jeopardy right would be by waiver ‘spread on the record’ of the court after an adequate explanation.” 789 F. 2d, at 728 (citing Boykin v. Alabama, 395 U. S. 238, 242 (1969)). Even if double jeopardy rights could be waived by implication, no such waiver occurred here since “[a]greeing that charges may be reinstituted under certain circumstances is not equivalent to agreeing that if they are reinstituted a double jeopardy defense is waived.” 789 F. 2d, at 728. Finally, the court stated that even were the agreement read to waive double jeopardy rights impliedly, no waiver was effected here because a “defendant’s action constituting the breach must be taken with the knowledge that in so doing he waives his double jeopardy rights.” Id., at 729. Because there was a “reasonable dispute as to [respondent’s] obligation to testify,” the court continued, “there could be no knowing or intentional waiver until his obligation to testify was announced by the court.” Ibid. The dissenting judges emphasized that respondent’s refusal to testify triggered the second prosecution and the Double Jeopardy Clause “‘does not relieve a defendant from the consequences of his voluntary choice.’” Id., at 740 (Brunetti, J., dissenting) (quoting United States v. Scott, 437 U. S. 82, 99 (1978)). We granted the State’s petition for a writ of certiorari to review the Court of Appeals’ decision that the Double Jeopardy Clause barred prosecution of respondent for first-degree murder. 479 U. S. 812 (1986).
We may assume that jeopardy attached at least when respondent was sentenced in December 1978, on his plea of guilty to second-degree murder. Assuming also that under Arizona law second-degree murder is a lesser included offense of first-degree murder, the Double Jeopardy Clause, absent special circumstances, would have precluded prosecution of respondent for the greater charge on which he now stands convicted. Brown v. Ohio, 432 U. S. 161, 168 (1977). The State submits, however, that respondent’s breach of the plea arrangement to which the parties had agreed removed the double jeopardy bar to prosecution of respondent on the first-degree murder charge. We agree with the State.
Under the terms of the plea agreement, both parties bargained for and received substantial benefits. The State obtained respondent’s guilty plea and his promise to testify against “any and all parties involved in the murder of Don Bolles” and in certain specified other crimes. 789 F. 2d, at 731. Respondent, a direct participant in a premeditated and brutal murder, received a specified prison sentence accompanied with a guarantee that he would serve actual incarceration time of 20 years and 2 months. He further obtained the State’s promise that he would not be prosecuted for his involvement in certain other crimes.
The agreement specifies in two separate paragraphs the consequences that would flow from respondent’s breach of his promises. Paragraph 5 provides that if respondent refused to testify, “this entire agreement is null and void and the original charge will be automatically reinstated.” Ibid, (emphasis added). Similarly, Paragraph 15 of the agreement states that “[i]n the event this agreement becomes null and void, then the parties shall be returned to the positions they were in before this agreement.” Id., at 732. Respondent unquestionably understood the meaning of these provisions. At the plea hearing, the trial judge read the plea agreement to respondent, line by line, and pointedly asked respondent whether he understood the provisions in Paragraphs 5 and 15. Respondent replied “Yes, sir,” to each question. App. 23-24, 28-29. On this score, we do not find it significant, as did the Court of Appeals, that “double jeopardy” was not specifically waived by name in the plea agreement. Nor are we persuaded by the court’s assertion that “[ajgreeing that charges may be reinstituted ... is not equivalent to agreeing that if they are reinstituted a double jeopardy defense is waived.” 789 F. 2d, at 728. The terms of the agreement could not be clearer: in the event of respondent’s breach occasioned by a refusal to testify, the parties would be returned to the status quo ante, in which case respondent would have no double jeopardy defense to waive. And, an agreement specifying that charges may be reinstated given certain circumstances is, at least under the provisions of this plea agreement, precisely equivalent to an agreement waiving a double jeopardy defense. The approach taken by the Court of Appeals would render the agreement meaningless: first-degree murder charges could not be reinstated against respondent if he categorically refused to testify after sentencing even if the agreement specifically provided that he would so testify, because, under the Court of Appeals’ view, he never waived his double jeopardy protection. Even respondent, however, conceded at oral argument that “a waiver could be found under those circumstances . . . .” Tr. of Oral Arg. 42-43.
We are also unimpressed by the Court of Appeals’ holding that there was a good-faith dispute about whether respondent was bound to testify a second time and that until the extent of his obligation was decided, there could be no knowing and intelligent waiver of his double jeopardy defense. But respondent knew that if he breached the agreement he could be retried, and it is incredible to believe that he did not anticipate that the extent of his obligation would be decided by a court. Here he sought a construction of the agreement in the Arizona Supreme Court, and that court found that he had failed to live up to his promise. The result was that respondent was returned to the position he occupied prior to execution of the plea bargain: he stood charged with first-degree murder. Trial on that charge did not violate the Double Jeopardy Clause. United States v. Scott, 437 U. S. 82 (1978), supports this conclusion.
At the close of all the evidence in Scott, the trial judge granted defendant’s motion to dismiss two counts of the indictment against him on the basis of preindictment delay. This Court held that the Double Jeopardy Clause did not bar the Government from appealing the trial judge’s decision, because “in a case such as this the defendant, by deliberately choosing to seek termination of the proceedings against him on a basis unrelated to factual guilt or innocence of the offense of which he was accused, suffers no injury cognizable under the Double Jeopardy Clause . . . .” Id., at 98-99. The Court reasoned further that “the Double Jeopardy Clause . . . does not relieve a defendant from the consequences of his voluntary choice.” The “voluntary choice” to which the Scott Court referred was the defendant’s decision to move for dismissal of two counts of the indictment, seeking termination of that portion of the proceedings before the empaneled jury, rather than facing the risk that he might be convicted if his case were submitted to the jury. The respondent in this case had a similar choice. He could submit to the State’s request that he testify at the retrial, and in so doing risk that he would be providing testimony that pursuant to the agreement he had no obligation to provide, or he could stand on his interpretation of the agreement, knowing that if he were wrong, his breach of the agreement would restore the parties to their original positions and he could be prosecuted for first-degree murder. Respondent chose the latter course, and the Double Jeopardy Clause does not relieve him from the consequences of that choice.
Respondent cannot escape the Arizona Supreme Court’s interpretation of his obligations under the agreement. The State did not force the breach; respondent chose, perhaps for strategic reasons or as a gamble, to advance an interpretation of the agreement that proved erroneous. And, there is no indication that respondent did not fully understand the potential seriousness of the position he adopted. In the April 3 letter, respondent’s counsel advised the prosecutor that respondent “is fully aware of the fact that your office may feel that he has not completed his obligations under the plea agreement . . . and, further, that your office may attempt to withdraw the plea agreement from him, [and] that he may be prosecuted for the killing of Donald Bolles on a first degree murder charge.” 789 F. 2d, at 733. This statement of respondent’s awareness of the operative terms of the plea agreement only underscores that which respondent’s plea hearing made evident: respondent clearly appreciated and understood the consequences were he found to be in breach of the agreement.
Finally, it is of no moment that following the Arizona Supreme Court’s decision respondent offered to comply with the terms of the agreement. At this point, respondent’s second-degree murder conviction had already been ordered vacated and the original charge reinstated. The parties did not agree that respondent would be relieved from the consequences of his refusal to testify if he were able to advance a colorable argument that a testimonial obligation was not owing. The parties could have struck a different bargain, but permitting the State to enforce the agreement the parties actually made does not violate the Double Jeopardy Clause.
The judgment of the Court of Appeals is reversed.
It is so ordered.
The agreement further provided that, in the event respondent refused to testify, he “will be subject to the charge of Open Murder, and if found guilty of First Degree Murder, to the penalty of death or life imprisonment requiring mandatory twenty-five years actual incarceration, and the State shall be free to file any charges, not yet filed as of the date of this agreement.” 789 F. 2d, at 731.
Respondent’s other conditions — which he characterized as “demands”— included that he be held in a nonjail facility with protection during the retrials, that he be provided with new clothing, that protection be afforded his ex-wife and son, that a fund be provided for his son’s education, that he be given adequate resources to establish a new identity outside Arizona following his release from custody, and that he be granted “full and complete immunity for any and all crimes in which he may have been involved.” Id., at 733-734.
The Arizona Supreme Court noted that at oral argument respondent explained for the first time the basis for his refusal to testify. Respondent relied on Paragraph 8 of the plea agreement, which provides: “All parties to this agreement hereby waive the time for sentencing and agree that the defendant will be sentenced at the conclusion of his testimony in all of the eases referred to in this agreement. . . .” In rejecting respondent’s contention that this provision relieved him from his obligation to testify after he had already been sentenced, the court referred to the colloquy that occurred at the sentencing hearing. At that hearing, the prosecuting attorney stated that he had discussed with respondent’s counsel the fact “that it may be necessary in the future to bring [respondent] back after sentencing for further testimony.” 125 Ariz., at 583, 611 P. 2d, at 936. Respondent’s counsel indicated that they understood that future testimony may be necessary. The court concluded that whatever doubt was created by Paragraph 8 regarding respondent’s obligation to testify after sentencing, the colloquy at the sentencing hearing evinced a “clear understanding” that respondent would be so obligated. Ibid. Respondent argued in the Court of Appeals — and renews the argument here — that the “further testimony” mentioned by the prosecutor at the sentencing hearing referred to testimony in a wholly separate prosecution that had yet to be tried. We will not second-guess the Arizona Supreme Court’s construction of the language of the plea agreement. While we assess independently the plea agreement’s effect on respondent’s double jeopardy rights, the construction of the plea agreement and the concomitant obligations flowing therefrom are, within broad bounds of reasonableness, matters of state law, and we will not disturb the Arizona Supreme Court’s reasonable disposition of those issues. The dissent’s discourse on the law of contracts is thus illuminating but irrelevant. The questions whether the plea agreement obligated the respondent to testify at the retrial of Dunlap and Robison and, if so, whether the respondent breached this duty are matters appropriately left to the state courts. The dissent acknowledges that “deference to the Arizona Supreme Court’s construction is appropriate,” post, at 13, n. 1, but proceeds to engage in plenary review of that court’s holding that the respondent breached the agreement. The dissent does not explain the nature of the deference it purports to afford the state courts, and one is unable to detect any such deference in the approach the dissent advocates. And, the dissent misconceives the interrelationship between the construction of the terms of the plea agreement and the respondent’s assertion of a double jeopardy defense. As noted previously, once a state court has, within broad bounds of reasonableness, determined that a breach of a plea agreement results in certain consequences, a federal habeas court must independently assess the effect of those consequences on federal constitutional rights. This independent assessment, however, proceeds without second-guessing the finding of a breach and is not a license to substitute a federal interpretation of the terms of a plea agreement for a reasonable state interpretation.
See, e. g., Ohio v. Johnson, 467 U. S. 493 (1984); Jeffers v. United States, 432 U. S. 137, 152 (1977) (plurality).
We have observed that plea agreements are neither constitutionally compelled nor prohibited; they “are consistent with the requirements of voluntariness and intelligence — because each side may obtain advantages when a guilty plea is exchanged for sentencing concessions, the agreement is no less voluntary than any other bargained-for exchange.” Mabry v. Johnson, 467 U. S. 504, 508 (1984).
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer:
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A
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What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Mr. Justice Blackmun
delivered the opinion of the Court.
This case presents the issue whether § 5 (i) of the Clayton Act, as amended, 88 Stat. 1706, 90 Stat. 1396, 15 U. S. C. § 16 (i) (1976 ed.), operates to toll the running of the Act’s statute of limitations from the date on which the United States filed a petition for leave to intervene in an Interstate Commerce Commission proceeding previously instituted by the plaintiff.
I
Petitioner Greyhound and respondent Mt. Hood Stages, Inc. (doing business as Pacific Trailways), are motor common carriers of passengers and package express and are subject to regulation by the Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC). Greyhound is the largest common carrier by bus in the United States. Mt. Hood is one of Greyhound’s comparatively small competitors; it operates over routes in Oregon, Idaho, and Utah. Its principal routes are between Portland, Eugene, and Albany, Ore., in the west, and Salt Lake City, in the east, and between Klamath Falls, Ore., in the south, and Biggs and The Dalles, Ore., in the north. Greyhound’s route authority surrounds that of Mt. Hood.
During the period from 1947 to 1956, Greyhound acquired control of eight bus companies operating in the Western United States. See Mt. Hood Stages, Inc., 104 M. C. C. 449, 450, and n. 1 (1968). In the proceedings before the ICC, Mt. Hood opposed four of those acquisitions, alleging that, if the acquisitions were approved, Greyhound could route traffic around Mt. Hood’s operations and thereby deprive the public of the most convenient service and jeopardize Mt. Hood’s continued existence.
Greyhound successfully contended, however, that the acquisitions were not intended to, and would not, have such consequences. Greyhound represented to the ICC that the acquisitions
“would not adversely affect connecting carriers; that arrangements with such carriers, including interchange of traffic and open gateways, would be maintained; that it was not the policy of Greyhound to route passengers over circuitous routes; that its agents were instructed to quote the direct route as well as the Greyhound route and give passengers their choice; and that Greyhound had always carried MH’s schedules in its folders and cooperated in every way to acquaint the public with its service and thus promote additional traffic and business for their lines.”
Greyhound also represented to the Commission that it would continue the joint through-bus arrangement with Mt. Hood. As Greyhound had anticipated, the ICC relied on these representations in determining that the proposed acquisitions were in the public interest. Id., at 454-457, 461.
In July 1964, Greyhound terminated the through-bus arrangement with Mt. Hood. On October 7 of that year, Mt. Hood filed a petition with the Commission, pursuant to § 5 (10) (formerly § 5 (9)) of the Interstate Commerce Act, alleging that Greyhound had not lived up to various representations it had made to the ICC and asking the Commission to reopen the acquisition proceedings “for further hearing to consider the necessity of attaching certain terms, conditions and limitations to the privileges therein granted” or, in the alternative, to order Greyhound to divest itself of operations acquired in those proceedings. App. 4. The allegations in Mt. Hood’s petition to the Commission were essentially the same as those Mt. Hood made later in this antitrust suit, that is, that Greyhound had canceled the through-bus connection, had scheduled connecting service so as to preclude reasonable connections with Mt. Hood, had directed Greyhound’s agents and independent joint ticket agents to send traffic around Mt. Hood’s routes through use of longer all-Greyhound routes, and had interfered in various ways with the distribution of Mt. Hood’s schedules and the quotation of Mt. Hood’s rates and services, all with the intent of injuring Mt. Hood. Id., at 10-11.
Slightly more than two months later, on December 14, 1964, the United States petitioned for leave to intervene in the ICC proceeding. Id., at 36. In its petition, the United States stated it had an interest in the proceeding and it urged that the Commission hold a hearing on Mt. Hood’s allegations. The Government’s petition observed that Mt. Hood’s allegations “make a serious charge,” id., at 37, but added.: “We have no way of knowing whether those of Mt. Hood’s allegations which Greyhound denies are true or false; resolution of such controversies is a typical function of a hearing.” Id., at 37-38.
On May 27,1965, the United States and others were granted permission to intervene in the ICC proceeding. Id., at 43. Such permission, however, was on condition that it “shall not be construed to allow intervenors to introduce evidence which will unduly broaden the issues raised in this proceeding.” Ibid.
After an extensive evidentiary hearing, the examiner resolved all factual issues against Greyhound and recommended entry of an order requiring Greyhound to abide by the representations it had made in the acquisition proceedings. Mt. Hood Stages, Inc., 104 M. C. C., at 464-496. On April 5, 1968, Division 3 of the ICC sustained the examiner’s findings but deferred entry of a supplemental order to allow voluntary negotiations between the parties. Id., at 462-463.
On July 5, 1968, Mt. Hood filed this action in the United States District Court for the District of Oregon for damages and injunctive relief, alleging violations of the antitrust laws and common-law and statutory unfair competition. App. 46. Mt. Hood’s complaint alleged, as to the antitrust violations, that, beginning before 1947 and continuing to the date of the complaint, Greyhound had restrained and monopolized commerce in the carriage by motorcoach of passengers and their luggage between points in the Western United States, including Oregon, Idaho, and Utah, by means essentially the same as those that were the subject of the ICC proceeding. Id., at 49-52.
In the Commission proceeding, meanwhile, the efforts of the parties to agree upon an order failed. The entire Commission therefore entered an order requiring Greyhound to restore the practices and traffic patterns existing when the acquisitions at issue were authorized and, specifically, to eliminate the anti-competitive practices of which Mt. Hood had complained. See Greyhound Lines, Inc. v. United States, 308 F. Supp. 1033, 1037 (ND Ill. 1970), A three-judge United States District Court denied Greyhound’s motion to set aside the Commission’s order and granted the counterclaim of the United States and the ICC by the issuance of its own order in similar terms, thus granting injunctive relief. Id., at 1040-1041. Following entry of the District Court’s order enforcing the ICC decision, Mt. Hood amended its complaint in this antitrust suit to eliminate its prayer for injunctive relief. App. 57.
In the present action, interrogatories were submitted to the jury. By its special verdict returned in May 1973, the jury found that, as alleged by Mt. Hood, Greyhound had violated both §§ 1 and 2 of the Sherman Act; that Greyhound had fraudulently concealed these antitrust violations during the period from January 1, 1953, to July 4, 1964; but that Mt. Hood knew or should have known of the violation on December 14, 1960. App. 82. The trial court held that the Government’s petition to intervene in the ICC modification proceeding on December 14, 1964, served to toll the statute of limitations under § 5 (i) of the Clayton Act. App. 80. The result was that the Act’s four-year period of limitations extended back to December 14, 1960, where it was combined with the fraudulent concealment to create a 20-year damages period. Damages of $13,146,090 (after trebling) were awarded Mt. Hood, plus attorneys’ fees of $1,250,000 and costs. Id., at 83, 104, 106.
On appeal, the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit affirmed. 555 F. 2d 687 (1977). We granted certio-rari limited to the issue of the correctness of the interpretation of § 5 (i) by the District Court and the Court of Appeals. 434 U.S. 1008 (1978).
II
In holding that the United States’ intervention in the ICC proceeding served to toll, by reason of § 5 (i), the Clayton Act’s period of limitations, the Court of Appeals stated that “[t]he literal wording of section [5 (i)] is not controlling.” 555 F. 2d, at 699. The court, therefore, sought to identify the congressional purpose behind § 5 (i) and to effectuate that purpose. 555 F. 2d, at 699. In the court’s view, the purpose of § 5 (i) “is to further effective enforcement of the antitrust laws by permitting private litigants to have the benefits that may flow from governmental antitrust enforcement efforts.” 555 F. 2d, at 699. The Court of Appeals, quoting the District Court (App. 80), declared that this purpose would be advanced by “ ‘treating intervention by Antitrust Division lawyers as the functional equivalent of a direct action by them.’ ” 555 F. 2d, at 700.
We find this reasoning unpersuasive. In particular, we are unable to agree that the language of § 5 (i) is so unhelpful. Neither do we agree that the congressional purpose behind § 5 (i) is advanced by the holdings of the District Court and the Court of Appeals.
A
Logic and precedent dictate that “ ‘[t]he starting point in every case involving construction of a statute is the language itself.’ ” Santa Fe Industries, Inc. v. Green, 430 U. S. 462, 472 (1977), and Ernst & Ernst v. Hochfelder, 425 U. S. 185, 197 (1976), each quoting Blue Chip Stamps v. Manor Drug Stores, 421 U. S. 723, 756 (1975) (Powell, J., concurring). Examination of the language of § 5 (i) prevents acceptance of respondent’s position.
Section 5 (i) begins: “Whenever any civil or criminal proceeding is instituted by the United States . . . .” (Emphasis added.) The ICC proceeding at issue here plainly was not one instituted by the United States. As the foregoing statement of facts demonstrates, and as the Court of Appeals acknowledged, “Mt. Hood rather than the United States instituted the proceedings.” 555 F. 2d, at 699. It strains accepted usage to argue that a party who intervenes in a proceeding instituted by someone else has also “instituted” that proceeding. This Court has observed:
“When the term [to intervene] is used in reference to legal proceedings, it covers the right of one to interpose in, or become a party to, a proceeding already instituted..." Rocca v. Thompson, 223 U. S. 317, 330 (1912) (emphasis added).
In truth, the United States not only did not institute the proceeding, but also was not in a position to do so. As its petition to intervene stated, the Government had “no way of knowing” whether Mt. Hood’s allegations, which Greyhound denied, were “true or false,” and thus it could not in good faith have made the charging allegations necessary to institute the proceeding. At least in this case, therefore, the question is not primarily one of form, that is, who reached the ICC first; it is one of substance, that is, who investigated the facts enabling it to make charging allegations and seek relief and thereby to “institute” the proceeding.
Just as the United States cannot be said to have “instituted” the ICC proceeding, neither had it “complained of,” within the meaning of § 5 (i), anything on which the present action is based. The cases in which the applicability of § 5 (i) has been considered establish that the determination of whether a private action is based on matters “complained of” in a prior Government action “[i]n general . . . must be limited to a comparison of the two complaints on their face.” Leh v. General Petroleum Corp., 382 U. S. 54, 65 (1965); accord, Luria Steel & Trading Corp. v. Ogden Corp., 484 F. 2d 1016, 1022 (CA3 1973), cert. denied, 414 U. S. 1158 (1974); Rader v. Balfour, 440 F. 2d 469, 473 (CA7), cert. denied sub nom. Alpha Chi Omega v. Rader, 404 U. S. 983 (1971). In the ICC proceeding here in question, the United States’ petition for leave to intervene charged Greyhound "with no wrongdoing, took no position on the merits, sought no relief, and, indeed, disclaimed any knowledge of the relevant facts. It sought only an opportunity for Mt. Hood to establish its allegations. This case, therefore, simply cannot be viewed as one based on any matter “complained of” by the United States.
B
Moreover, the language of § 5 (i) that we rely upon accurately manifests Congress’ intent in enacting the section. As the Court previously has noted, the original § 5 of the Clayton Act, 38 Stat. 731, was adopted in response to the request of President Wilson and consisted of material that now constitutes §§.5 (a) and 5 (i). In a speech to Congress on January 20,1914, the President urged that a statute be enacted that would permit victims of antitrust violations to have “redress upon the facts and judgments proved and entered in suits by the Government” and that “the statute of limitations shall be suffered to run against such litigants only from the date of the conclusion of the Government’s action. It is not fair that the private litigant should be obliged to set up and establish again the facts which the Government has proved.” 51 Cong. Rec. 1964 (1914). This very language of the President was quoted in part in Minnesota Mining & Mfg. Co. v. New Jersey Wood Finishing Co., 381 U. S. 311, 318 (1965). Congress acceded to the President’s request. What is now § 5 (i) was enacted to ensure that private litigants would have the benefit of prior Government antitrust enforcement efforts. 381 U. S., at 317. Here, however, as already has been pointed out, Mt. Hood is seeking to benefit not from a Government antitrust action but from an ICC proceeding that Mt. Hood itself initiated.
Accordingly, construing § 5 (i) as applicable to the facts of this case would not serve Congress’ most obvious purpose. It would also fail to give any weight to another related and important congressional purpose. A Ninth Circuit panel very recently emphasized: “Although the plaintiff is correct in asserting that [ § 5 (i) ] serves the broad and beneficent purpose of aiding private antitrust litigants ... it is also true that it is a statute of repose.” Dungan v. Morgan Drive-Away, Inc., 570 F. 2d 867, 869 (1978). This is clear upon examination of the 1955 amendments to the Clayton Act. 69 Stat. 282. Before the§e amendments, the period of limitations under the Clayton Act was determined by state law. This bred confusion in the computation of the period within which a private suit was required to be brought, especially when the Act’s tolling provision (what is now § 5 (i)) came into play. In order to eliminate this confusion, the amendments established a uniform period of limitations of four years and declared that the suspension of the statute would extend “during the pendency” of the federal proceeding and “for one year thereafter.” Finally, the amendments mandated, in what is now the proviso to § 5 (i), that, in the event the statute of limitations is tolled, any private right of action based on the matter complained of in the action by the Government “shall be forever barred unless commenced . . . within four years after the cause of action accrued.”
The Senate Report accompanying the 1955 amendments reflects congressional policy against “undue prolongation of [antitrust] proceedings” by extending the limitations period. It noted:
“While the committee believes it important to safeguard the rights of plaintiffs by tolling the statute during the pendency of Government antitrust actions, it recognizes that in many instances the long duration of such proceedings taken in conjunction with a lengthy statute of limitations may tend to prolong stale claims, unduly impair efficient business operations, and overburden the calendars of courts. The committee believes the provision of this bill will tend to shorten the period over which private treble-damage actions will extend by requiring that the plaintiff bring his suit within 4 years after it accrued or within 1 year after the Government's case has been concluded.
“While the committee considers it highly desirable to toll the statute of limitations during a Government antitrust action and to grant plaintiff a reasonable time thereafter in which to bring suit, it does not believe that the undue prolongation of proceedings is conducive to effective and efficient enforcement of the antitrust laws.” S. Rep. No. 619, 84th Cong., 1st Sess., 6 (1955).
In view of the congressional emphasis on certainty and predictability in the application of § 5 (i), the Court of Appeals’ conclusion that the United States’ petition to intervene should be treated as the “functional equivalent of a direct action” by the United States, 555 F. 2d, at 700, is unacceptable. A functional-equivalence standard, applied this loosely, resurrects the very confusion and uncertainty concerning the application of the statute of limitations that Congress sought to eliminate in the 1955 amendments. In a case such as this, in which the Government took no position in its initial petition, a functional-equivalence test would require a detailed review of the record in each proceeding to see what position the Government ultimately took and whether its participation was or was not the “functional equivalent of a direct action.” The Government, of course, may well change its position. For example, in Denver & R. G. W. R. Co. v. United States, 387 U. S. 485 (1967), the Government intervened in an ICC proceeding with one position, adopted another in the District Court, and then “completely reversed” itself in this Court. Id., at 490-492. Thus, endorsement of the suggested functional-equivalence test would mean that it might be impossible to determine whether Government proceedings would toll the statute until those proceedings were finally resolved. As the Court of Appeals seems to have acknowledged, such an approach would lead to serious problems. 555 F. 2d, at 699 n. 31. See also Dungan v. Morgan Drive-Away, Inc., 570 F. 2d, at 870-871; cf. Leh v. General Petroleum Corp., 382 U. S., at 65. To be sure, one way around these problems would be to say that the statute is tolled anytime the United States participates in any regulatory proceeding, regardless of what it contends or does in that proceeding. Even respondent, however, appears to recognize the undesirability of this result, and that such an interpretation has no support in the language or history of the statute.
Ill
We conclude, in sum, that the Clayton Act’s statute of limitations was not tolled, under § 5 (i), by the filing of the Government’s petition to intervene in the ICC proceeding. The judgment of the Court of Appeals is therefore vacated, and the case is remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
Section 5 (i), as set forth in 15 U. S. C. § 16 (i) (1976 ed.), provides:
“Whenever any civil or criminal proceeding is instituted by the United States to prevent, restrain, or punish violations of any of the antitrust laws, but not including an action under section 15a of this title, the running of the statute of limitations in respect to every private or State right of action arising under said laws and based in whole or in part on any matter complained of in said proceeding shall be suspended during the pendency thereof and for one year thereafter: Provided, however, That whenever the running of the statute of limitations in respect of a cause of action arising under section 15 or 15c of this title is suspended hereunder, any action to enforce such cause of action shall be forever barred unless commenced either within the period of suspension or within four years after the cause of action accrued.”
Section 4B, 69 Stat. 283, as amended, 15 U. S. C. § 15b (1976 ed.). It provides:
“Any action to enforce any cause of action under sections 15, 15a, or 15c of this title shall be forever barred unless commenced within four years after the cause of action accrued. No cause of action barred under existing law on the effective date of this Act shall be revived by this Act.”
Petitioner The Greyhound Corporation is a Delaware corporation that now is a diversified holding company owning, among other assets, all the issued and outstanding capital stock of petitioner Greyhound Lines, Inc., a California corporation. On December 31, 1963, The Greyhound Corporation discontinued its operation of scheduled common carrier bus service and transferred its motor carrier operating rights and properties to Greyhound Lines, Inc., App. 68; cf. Mt. Hood Stages, Inc., 104 M. C. C. 449, 465 (1968). For convenience, we refer to the two corporations collectively as “Greyhound.” The formal transfer of rights and properties at the end of 1963 has no significance for purposes of this litigation.
Mt. Hood, however, withdrew its opposition to one of these. See id., at 452.
See 555 F. 2d 687, 689 (CA9 1977).
This quoted material is from the opinion in the subsequent ICC proceeding instituted by Mt. Hood to reopen the eight acquisition proceedings. Mt. Hood Stages, Inc., 104 M. C. C., at 452. Greyhound's representations in those eight proceedings were so summarized.
This arrangement, initiated in 1949, provided for a through bus from San Francisco to Spokane, using Mt. Hood's bridge route between Klamath Falls and Biggs. The route was shorter by 110 miles and several hours than the all-Greyhound route via Portland. It provided better service to travelers and was profitable for both companies. 555 F. 2d, at 689 n. 3.
Section 5 (10) of the Interstate Commerce Act, as amended, 90 Stat. 63, 66, 49 U. S. C. § 5 (10) (1976 ed.), provides:
“The Commission may from time to time, for good cause shown, make such orders, supplemental to any order made under paragraph (1), (2), or (8), of this section, as it may deem necessary or appropriate.''
Reiterating this point, the United States’ petition, stated:
“Mt. Hood’s grave allegations, whether true or false, as well' as Greyhound’s answer raise issues too serious and important to be disposed of summarily without a full adversary hearing in which allegation and denial can be put to the test of proof and cross-examination.” App. 38.
Greyhound thereafter disobeyed the three-judge District Court’s order and was adjudged in criminal contempt. Certain of its officers were adjudged in civil contempt. Eines aggregating $600,000 were imposed. United States v. Greyhound Corp., 363 E. Supp. 525 (ND Ill. 1973), and 370 F. Supp. 881 (ND Ill. 1974), aff’d, 508 F. 2d 529 (CA7 1974).
The four-year period of limitations, as already noted, n. 2, swpra, is contained in § 4B of the Clayton Act, 15 U. S. C. § 15b (1976 ed.). Tolling of the statute was essential to the award of all damages beyond the normal four-year period, that is, back beyond July 5, 1964, the date four years prior to the date of filing of the antitrust complaint. The sum of $5,194,617, after trebling, is involved in the tolling issue.
Other issues advanced by Greyhound in its petition for certiorari, review of which was not granted, were (a) whether § 5 (12) of the Interstate Commerce Act, 49 U. S. C. § 5 (12), and applicable antitrust principles permitted the treble-damages award by the jury’s application of antitrust standards to acquisitions approved by the ICC and to the manner of operation of the acquired companies which is subject to the Commission’s “exclusive and plenary” regulatory authority; (b) whether § 5 (a) of the Clayton Act, as amended, 15 U. S. C. § 16 (a) (1976 ed.), permitted the jury to base a finding of violation of the Sherman Act on consent decrees that expressly denied any antitrust violation and were entered before any testimony was taken; and (c) whether §4B of the Clayton Act was tolled by fraudulent concealment.
The Government's petition to intervene is clearly distinguishable from the Federal Trade Commission’s complaint that this Court, in Minnesota Mining & Mfg. Co. v. New Jersey Wood Finishing Co., 381 U. S. 311 (1965), held to have tolled the Clayton Act’s period of limitations under the predecessor of § 5 (i), 15 U. S. C. § 16 (b) (1964 ed.). There the FTC had filed a proceeding against the subsequent antitrust defendant under § 7 of the Clayton Act, 15 U. S. C. § 18 (1964 ed.). It was clear that the Government had actually charged the defendant with violations of the antitrust laws. The subsequent private antitrust action was directly based on the Government’s allegations (which had resulted in a consent order). 381 U. S., at 313, 322-323.
The petition to intervene in question here is also distinguishable from eases (the correctness of which we do not address) holding the Clayton Act’s period of limitations to have been tolled by § 5 of the Federal Trade Commission Act, 15 U. S. C. §45 (1976 ed.). See, e. g., Luria Steel & Trading Corp. v. Ogden Corp., 484 F. 2d 1016 (CA3 1973), cert denied, 414 U. S. 1158 (1974); Rader v. Balfour, 440 F. 2d 469 (CA7), cert. denied sub nom. Alpha Chi Omega v. Bader, 404 U. S. 983 (1971); Lippa’s, Inc. v. Lenox, Inc., 305 F. Supp. 182 (Vt. 1969). In each of these cases the Government actually had charged the defendant with, and sought the prevention or punishment of, specific anticompetitive conduct or antitrust violations, and a comparison of the Government’s charges with the private litigant’s complaint showed that the private action was based on the matter complained of by the Government.
15 U. S. C. § 16 (a) (1976 ecL). This section, provides:
“A final judgment or decree heretofore or hereafter rendered in any civil or c[r]iminal proceeding brought by or on behalf of the United States under the antitrust laws to the effect that a defendant has violated said laws shall be prima facie evidence against such defendant in any action or proceeding brought by any other party against such defendant under said laws or by the United States under section 15a of this title, as to all matters respecting which said judgment or decree would be an estoppel as between the parties thereto: Provided, That this section shall not apply to consent judgments or decrees entered before any testimony has been taken or to judgments or decrees entered in actions under section 15a of this title.”
The original version of what is now § 5 (i) provided:
“Whenever any suit or proceeding in equity or criminal prosecution is instituted by the United States to prevent, restrain or punish violations of any of the antitrust laws, the running of the statute of limitations in respect of each and every private right of action arising under said laws and based in whole or in part on any matter complained of in said suit or proceeding shall be suspended during the pendency thereof.” 38 Stat. 731.
President Wilson’s message was quoted frequently during the course of the congressional debates to explain the purpose of the amendments. See, e. g., 51 Cong. Rec. 9090, 9488 (1914).
69 Stat. 283, now § 4B of the Clayton Act, as amended, 15 U. S. C. § 15b (1976 ed.).
69 Stat. 283.
See also H. R. Rep. No. 422, 84th Cong., 1st Sess., 8-9 (1955).
We do not mean to suggest that no rational distinctions concerning the Government’s participation in regulatory proceedings can be drawn. It may be appropriate, in a given case, to apply § 5 (i) where the Government’s petition to intervene in fact charged a violation of the antitrust laws and demanded relief to prevent, restrain, or enjoin that violation. That, however, is not this case, and we expressly decline to offer any view as to the applicability vel non of § 6 (i) in such a context.
As already stated, supra, at 329, we limited our grant of certiorari to the issue of the applicability of § 5 (i). Respondent nevertheless argues that even if § 5 (i) is not applicable, the Clayton Act’s statute of limitations was tolled under equitable principles. Pursuant to the terms of our grant of certiorari, we see no compulsion — indeed, no justification — for our reaching this distinct issue. It will be for the Court of Appeals, on remand, to determine whether respondent may argue this point and, if so, its merits. Similarly, we express no view on what other issues may be raised 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:
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H
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sc_issuearea
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What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Mr. Justice Blackmun
delivered the opinion of the Court.
This case is a supplement to our decision in Donaldson v. United States, 400 U. S. 517 (1971). It presents the issue whether the District Court correctly refused to enforce Internal Revenue Service summonses when it specifically found that the special agent who issued them “was conducting his investigation solely for the purpose of unearthing evidence of criminal conduct.” 76-1 USTC ¶ 9407, p. 84,073, 37 AFTR 2d ¶ 76-582, p. 76-1240 (ND Ill. 1976).
I
In May 1975, John F. Olivero, a special agent with the Intelligence Division of the Chicago District of the Internal Revenue Service (hereinafter IRS or Service), received an assignment to investigate the tax liability of John Gat tuso for his taxable years 1970-1972. App. 26-27, 33. Olivero testified that he had requested the assignment because of information he had received from a confidential informant and from an unrelated investigation. Id., at 35. The case was not referred to the IRS from another law enforcement agency, but the nature of the assignment, Olivero testified, was “[t]o investigate the possibility of any criminal violations of the Internal Revenue Code.” Id., at 33. Olivero pursued the case on his own, without the assistance of a revenue agent. He received information about Gattuso from the Federal Bureau of Investigation as a result of the previous investigation. Id., at 36. He solicited and received additional data from the United States Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois, the Secret Service, the Department of Housing and Urban Development, the IRS Collection Division, and the Cosmopolitan National Bank of Chicago. Id., at 37-40.
Mr. Gattuso’s tax returns for the years in question disclosed rental income from real estate. That property was held in Illinois land trusts by respondent LaSalle National Bank, as trustee, a fact revealed by land trust files collected by the IRS from banks. Id., at 27, 45. In order to determine the accuracy of Gattuso’s income reports, Olivero proceeded to issue two summonses, under the authority of § 7602 of the Internal Revenue Code of 1954, 26 U. S. C. § 7602, to respondent bank. Each summons related to a separate trust and requested, among other things, that the bank as trustee appear before Olivero at a designated time and place and produce its “files relating to Trust No. 31544 [or No. 35396] including the Trust Agreement” for the period 1970 through 1972 and also “all deeds, options, correspondence, closing statements and sellers statements, escrows, and tax bills pertaining to all property held in the trust at any time during” that period. App. 9-16. Respondent Joseph W. Lang, a vice president of the bank, appeared in response to the summonses but, on advice of counsel, refused to produce any of the materials requested. Brief for Respondents 2.
The United States and Olivero, pursuant to §§ 7402 (b) and 7604 (a) of the Code, 26 U. S. C. §§ 7402 (b) and 7604 (a), then petitioned the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois for enforcement of the summonses. App. 5. This was on November 11, 1975. Olivero testified that when the petition was filed he had not determined whether criminal charges were justified and had not made any report or recommendation about the case to his superiors. Id., at 30. It was alleged in the petition and in an incorporated exhibit that the requested materials were necessary for the determination of the tax liability of Gattuso for the years in question and that the information contained in the documents was not in the possession of the petitioners. Id., at 7, 17-18. The District Court entered an order to show cause, id., at 19, and respondents answered through counsel, who also represented Gattuso. Id., at 20-22.
At the ensuing hearing and in a post-hearing brief, respondents argued that Olivero’s investigation was “purely criminal” in nature. Id., at 82. Gregory J. Perry, a lawyer specializing in federal taxation and employed by the same law firm that filed the answer, testified that in June 1975 Olivero told him that the Gattuso investigation “was strictly related to criminal violations of the Internal Revenue Code.” Id., at 52. Respondents conceded that they bore the burden of proving that enforcement of the summonses would abuse the court’s process, but they contended that they did not have to show “that there is no civil purpose to the Summons.” Id., at 87. Instead, they urged that their burden was to show that the summonses were not issued in good faith because “the investigation is solely for the purpose of gathering evidence for use in a criminal prosecution.” Id., at 77.
The District Court agreed with respondents’ contentions. Although at the hearing the court seemed to recognize “that in any criminal investigation there’s always a probability of civil tax liability,” id., at 61, it focused its attention on the purpose of Special Agent Olivero:
“I’ll say now that I heard nothing in Agent Olivero’s testimony to suggest that the thought of a civil investigation ever crossed his mind.
“Now, unless I find something in the in camera inspection [of the IRS case file] that gives more support to the Government position than the Agent’s testimony did, it would be my conclusion that he was at all times involved in a criminal investigation, at least in his own mind.” Id., at 62.
In its written memorandum, the District Court noted that Donaldson permitted the use of an IRS summons issued in good faith and prior to a recommendation for criminal prosecution. Relying on dictum in Reisman v. Caplin, 375 U. S. 440, 449 (1964), however, the court said that it was an improper use of the summons “to serve it solely for the purpose of obtaining evidence for use in a criminal prosecution.” 76-1 USTC, at 84,072, 37 AFTR 2d, at 76-1240. If, at the time of its issuance, the summons served this proscribed purpose, the court concluded, the absence of a formal criminal recommendation was irrelevant, the summons was not issued in good faith, and enforcement was precluded. The court then held:
“It is apparent from the evidence that Special Agent John F. Olivero in his investigative activities had focused upon the possible criminal activities of John Gattuso, and was conducting his investigation solely for the purpose of unearthing evidence of criminal conduct by Mr. Gattuso.” Id., at 84,073, 37 AFTR 2d, at 76-1240.
The United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit affirmed. 554 F. 2d 302 (1977). It concluded that the District Court correctly had included the issue of criminal purpose within the good-faith inquiry:
“[T]he use of an administrative summons solely for criminal purposes is a quintessential example of bad faith....
“We note that the district court formulated its factual finding by use of the expression'sole criminal purpose’ rather than by a label such as 'bad faith.’ We find no basis for reversible error in that verbal formulation. The district court grasped the vital core of Donaldson and rendered its factual finding consistently therewith.” Id., at 309.
The Court of Appeals further decided that the District Court had reached a factual, rather than a legal, conclusion when it found the summonses to have been issued solely for a criminal prosecution. Id., at 305. Appellate review, accordingly, was limited to application of the clearly-erroneous standard. Id., at 306. Although the Court of Appeals noted that Olivero had testified about the existence of a civil purpose for the investigation, the court said that “the record establishes that the district court did not believe him.” Id., at 309. The appellate court could not reverse the trial court’s judgment, it said, because it was “not left with a firm and definite conviction that a mistake [had] been made.” Id., at 306.
Because of the importance of the issue in the enforcement of the internal revenue laws, and because of conflict among the Courts of Appeals concerning the scope of IRS summons authority under § 7602, we granted certiorari. 434 U. S. 996 (1977).
II
In Donaldson v. United States, 400 U. S. 517 (1971), an IRS special agent issued summonses to a taxpayer’s putative former employer and its accountant for the production of the employer’s records of the taxpayer’s employment and compensation. When the records were not forthcoming, the IRS petitioned for the enforcement of the summonses. The taxpayer intervened and eventually appealed the enforcement order. This Court addressed the taxpayer’s contention that the summonses were unenforceable because they were issued in aid of an investigation that could have resulted in a criminal charge against the taxpayer. His argument there, see id., at 532, was based on the following dictum in Reisman v. Caplin, 375 U. S., at 449:
“[T]he witness may challenge the summons on any appropriate ground. This would include, as the circuits have held, the defenses that the material is sought for the improper purpose of obtaining evidence for use in a criminal prosecution, Boren v. Tucker, 239 F. 2d 767, 772-773....”
In the light of the citation to Boren, the Court in Donaldson concluded that the dictum referred and was applicable to “the situation of a pending criminal charge or, at most, of an investigation solely for criminal purposes.” 400 U. S., at 533.
Discerning the meaning of the brief Reisman dictum, however, did not resolve for the Court the question posed by Donaldson. The validity of the summonses depended ultimately on whether they were among those authorized by Congress. Having reviewed the statutory scheme, 400 IT. S., at 523-525, the Court concluded that Congress had authorized the use of summonses in investigating potentially criminal conduct. The statutory history, particularly the use of summonses under the Internal Revenue Code of 1939, supported this conclusion, as did consistent IRS practice and decisions concerning effective enforcement of other comparable federal statutes. The Court saw no reason to force the Service to choose either to forgo the use of congressionally authorized summonses or to abandon the option of recommending criminal prosecutions to the Department of Justice. As long as the summonses were issued in good-faith pursuit of the congres-sionally authorized purposes, and prior to any recommendation to the Department for prosecution, they were enforceable. Id., at 536.
HI
The present case requires us to examine the limits of the good-faith use of an Internal Revenue summons issued under § 7602. As the preceding discussion demonstrates, Donaldson does not control the facts now before us. There, the taxpayer had argued that the mere potentiality of criminal prosecution should have precluded enforcement of the summons. 400 U. S., at 532. Here, on the other hand, the District Court found that Special Agent Olivero was investigating Gattuso “solely for the purpose of unearthing evidence of criminal conduct.” 76-1 USTC, at 84,073, 37 AFTR 2d, at 76-1240. The question then becomes whether this finding necessarily leads to the conclusion that the summonses were not issued in good-faith pursuit of the congressionally authorized purposes of § 7602.
A
The Secretary of the Treasury and the Commissioner of Internal Revenue are charged with the responsibility of administering and enforcing the Internal Revenue Code. 26 U. S. C. §§ 7801 and 7802. Congress, by § 7601 (a), has required the Secretary to canvass revenue districts to “inquire after and concerning all persons therein who may be liable to pay any internal revenue tax.” With regard to suspected fraud, these duties encompass enforcement of both civil and criminal statutes. The willful submission of a false or fraudulent tax return may subject a taxpayer not only to criminal penalties under §§ 7206 and 7207 of the Code, but, as well, to a civil penalty, under § 6653 (b), of 50% of the underpayment. And § 6659 (a) provides that the civil penalty shall be considered as part of the tax liability of the taxpayer. Hence, when § 7602 permits the use of a summons “[f]or the purpose of ascertaining the correctness of any return,... determining the liability of any person for any internal revenue tax..., or collecting any such liability,” it necessarily permits the use of the summons for examination of suspected tax fraud and for the calculation of the 50% civil penalty. In Donaldson, 400 U. S., at 535, we clearly noted that § 7602 drew no distinction between the civil and the criminal aspects; that it “contains no restriction”; that the corresponding regulations were “positive”; and that there was no significance, “for civil as compared with criminal purposes, at the point of a special agent's appearance.” The Court then upheld the use of the summonses even though fraudulent conduct carried the potential of criminal liability. The Court repeated this emphasis in Couch v. United States, 409 U. S. 322, 326 (1973):
“It is now undisputed that a special agent is authorized, pursuant to 26 U. S. C. § 7602, to issue an Internal Revenue summons in aid of a tax investigation with civil and possible criminal consequences.”
This result is inevitable because Congress has created a law enforcement system in which criminal and civil elements are inherently intertwined. When an investigation examines the possibility of criminal misconduct, it also necessarily inquires about the appropriateness of assessing the 50% civil tax penalty.
The legislative history of the Code supports the conclusion that Congress intended to design a system with interrelated criminal and civil elements. Section 7602 derives, assertedly without change in meaning, from corresponding and similar provisions in §§ 3614, 3615, and 3654 of the 1939 Code. By § 3614 (a) the Commissioner received the summons authority “for the purpose of ascertaining the correctness of any return or for the purpose of making a return where none has been made.” Section 3615 (b) (3) authorized the issuance of a summons “[w]henever any person who is required to deliver a monthly or other return of objects subject to tax delivers any return which, in the opinion of the collector, is erroneous, false, or fraudulent, or contains any undervaluation or understatement.” Section 3654 (a) stated the powers and duties of the collector:
“Every collector within his collection district shall see that all laws and regulations relating to the collection of internal revenue taxes are faithfully executed and complied with, and shall aid in the prevention, detection, and punishment of any frauds in relation thereto. For such purposes, he shall have power to examine all persons, books, papers, accounts, and premises... and to summon any person to produce books and papers... and to compel compliance with such summons in the same manner as provided in section 3615.”
Under § 3616 punishment for any fraud included both fine and imprisonment. The 1939 Code, therefore, contemplated the use of the summons in an investigation involving suspected criminal conduct as well as behavior that could have been disciplined with a civil penalty.
In short, Congress has not categorized tax fraud investigations into civil and criminal components. Any limitation on the good-faith use of an Internal Revenue summons must reflect this statutory premise.
B
The preceding discussion suggests why the primary limitation on the use of a summons occurs upon the recommendation of criminal prosecution to the Department of Justice. Only at that point do the criminal and civil aspects of a tax fraud case begin to diverge. See United States v. Hodge & Zweig, 548 F. 2d 1347, 1351 (CA9 1977); United States v. Billingsley, 469 F. 2d 1208, 1210 (CA10 1972). We recognize, of course, that even upon recommendation to the Justice Department, the civil and criminal elements do not separate completely. The Government does not sacrifice its interest in unpaid taxes just because a criminal prosecution begins. Logically, then, the IRS could use its summons authority under § 7602 to uncover information about the tax liability created by a fraud regardless of the status of the criminal case. But the rule forbidding such is a prophylactic intended to safeguard the following policy interests.
A referral to the Justice Department permits criminal litigation to proceed. The IRS cannot try its own prosecutions. Such authority is reserved to the Department of Justice and, more particularly, to the United States Attorneys. 28 U. S. C. § 647 (1). Nothing in § 7602 or its legislative history suggests that Congress intended the summons authority to broaden the Justice Department’s right of criminal litigation discovery or to infringe on the role of the grand jury as a principal tool of criminal accusation. Accord, United States v. Morgan Guaranty Trust Co., 572 F. 2d 36 (CA2 1978); United States v. Weingarden, 473 F. 2d 454, 458-459 (CA6 1973); United States v. O’Connor, 118 F. Supp. 248, 250-251 (Mass. 1953); see Donaldson v. United States, 400 U. S., at 536; cf. Abel v. United States, 362 U. S. 217, 226 (1960). The likelihood that discovery would be broadened or the role of the grand jury infringed is substantial if post-referral use of the summons authority were permitted. For example, the IRS, upon referral, loses its ability to compromise both the criminal and the civil aspects of a fraud case. 26 U. S. C. § 7122 (a). After the referral, the authority to settle rests with the Department of Justice. Interagency cooperation on the calculation of the civil liability is then to be expected and probably encourages efficient settlement of the dispute. But such cooperation, when combined with the inherently intertwined nature of the criminal and civil elements of the case, suggests that it is unrealistic to attempt to build a partial information barrier between the two branches of the executive. Effective use of information to determine civil liability would inevitably result in criminal discovery. The prophylactic restraint on the use of the summons effectively safeguards the two policy interests while encouraging maximum interagency cooperation.
C
Prior to a recommendation for prosecution to the Department of Justice, the IRS must use its summons authority in good faith. Donaldson v. United States, 400 U. S., at 536; United States v. Powell, 379 U. S. 48, 57-58 (1964). In Powell, the Court announced several elements of a good-faith exercise:
“ [The Service] must show that the investigation will be conducted pursuant to a legitimate purpose, that the inquiry may be relevant to the 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.” Ibid, (footnote omitted).
A number of the Courts of Appeals, including the Seventh Circuit in this case, 554 F. 2d, at 309, have said that another improper purpose, which the Service may not pursue in good faith with a summons, is to gather evidence solely for a criminal investigation. The courts have based their conclusions in part on Donaldson’s explanation of the Reisman dictum. The language of Donaldson, however, must be read in the light of the recognition of the interrelated criminal/civil nature of a tax fraud inquiry. For a fraud investigation to be solely criminal in nature would require an extraordinary departure from the normally inseparable goals of examining whether the basis exists for criminal charges and for the assessment of civil penalties.
In this case, respondents submit that such a departure did indeed occur because Special Agent Olivero was interested only in gathering evidence for a criminal prosecution. We disagree. The institutional responsibility of the Service to calculate and to collect civil fraud penalties and fraudulently reported or unreported taxes is not necessarily overturned by a single agent who attempts to build a criminal case. The review process over and above his conclusions is multilayered and thorough. Apart from the control of his immediate supervisor, the agent's final recommendation is reviewed by the district chief of the Intelligence Division, 26 CFR §§ 601.107 (b) and (c) (1977); Internal Revenue Manual, ch. 9600, §§ 9621.1, 9622.1, 9623 (CCH 1977); see Donaldson v. United States, 400 U. S., at 534. The Office of Regional Counsel also reviews the case before it is forwarded to the National Office of the Service or to the Justice Department. 26 CFR § 601.107 (c) (1977); Internal Revenue Service Organization and Functions §1116(3), 39 Fed. Reg. 11602 (1974); Internal Revenue Manual, ch. 9600, §§ 9624, 9631.2, 9631.4 (C.CH 1977). If the Regional Counsel and the Assistant Regional Commissioner for Intelligence disagree about the disposition of a case, another complete review occurs at the national level centered in the Criminal Tax Division of the Office of General Counsel. Internal Revenue Service Organization and Functions § 1113.-(11) 22, 39 Fed. Reg. 11599 (1974); Internal Revenue Manual, ch. 9600, § 9651 (1) (CCH 1977). Only after the officials of at least two layers of review have concurred in the conclusion of the special agent does the referral to the Department of Justice take place. At any of the various stages, the Service can abandon the criminal prosecution, can decide instead to assert a civil penalty, or can pursue both goals. While the special agent is an important actor in the process, his motivation is hardly dispositive.
-It should also be noted that the layers of review provide the taxpayer with substantial protection against the hasty or over zealous judgment of the special agent. The taxpayer may obtain a conference with the district Intelligence Division officials upon request or whenever the chief of the Division determines that a conference would be in the best interests of the Government. 26 CFR § 601.107 (b)(2) (1977); Internal Revenue Manual, ch. 9300, § 9356.1 (CCH 1977). If prosecution has been recommended, the chief notifies the taxpayer of the referral to the Regional Counsel. 26 CFR § 601.107 (c) (1977); Internal Revenue Manual, ch. 9300, § 9356 (CCH 1977).
As in Donaldson, then, where we refused to draw the line between permissible civil and impermissible criminal purposes at the entrance of the special agent into the investigation, 400 U. S., at 536, we cannot draw it on the basis of the agent’s personal intent. To do so would unnecessarily frustrate the enforcement of the tax laws by restricting the use of the summons according to the motivation of a single agent without regard to the enforcement policy of the Service as an institution. Furthermore, the inquiry into the criminal enforcement objectives of the agent would delay summons enforcement proceedings while parties clash over, and judges grapple with, the thought processes of each investigator. See United States v. Morgan Guaranty Trust Co., 572 F. 2d 36 (CA2 1978). This obviously is undesirable and unrewarding. As a result, the question whether an investigation has solely criminal purposes must be answered only by an examination of the institutional posture of the IRS. Contrary to the assertion of respondents, this means that those opposing enforcement of a summons do bear the burden to disprove the actual existence of a valid civil tax determination or collection purpose by the Service. After all, the purpose of the good-faith inquiry is to determine whether the agency is honestly pursuing the goals of § 7602 by issuing the summons.
Without doubt, this burden is a heavy one. Because criminal and civil fraud liabilities are coterminous, the Service rarely will be found to have acted in bad faith by pursuing the former. On the other hand, we cannot abandon this aspect of the good-faith inquiry altogether. We shall not countenance delay in submitting a recommendation to the Justice Department when there is an institutional commitment to make the referral and the Service merely would like to gather additional evidence for the prosecution. Such a delay would be tantamount to the use of the summons authority after the recommendation and would permit the Government to expand its criminal discovery rights. Similarly, the good-faith standard will not permit the IRS to become an information-gathering agency for other departments, including the Department of Justice, regardless of the status of criminal cases.
D
In summary, then, several requirements emerge for the enforcement of an IRS summons. First, the summons must be issued before the Service recommends to the Department of Justice that a criminal prosecution, which reasonably would relate to the subject matter of the summons, be undertaken. Second, the Service at all times must use the summons authority in good-faith pursuit of the congressionally authorized purposes of § 7602. This second prerequisite requires the Service to meet the Powell standards of good faith. It also requires that the Service not abandon in an institutional sense, as explained in Parts III-A and III-C above, the pursuit of civil tax determination or collection.
IV
On the record before us, respondents have not demonstrated sufficient justification to preclude enforcement of the IRS summonses. No recommendation to the Justice Department for criminal prosecution has been made. Of the Powell criteria, respondents challenge only one aspect of the Service's showing: They suggest that Olivero' already may possess the evidence requested in the summonses. Brief for Respondents 16-19. Although the record shows that Olivero had uncovered the names and identities of the LaSalle National Bank land trusts, it does not show that the Service knows the value of the trusts or their income or the allocation of interests therein. Because production of the bank's complete records on the trusts reasonably could be expected to reveal part or all of this information, which would be material to the computation of Gattuso’s tax liability, the Powell criteria do not preclude enforcement. Finally, the District Court refused enforcement because it found that Olivero’s personal motivation was to gather evidence solely for a criminal prosecution. The court, however, failed to consider whether the Service in an institutional sense had abandoned its pursuit of Gattuso’s civil tax liability. The Court of Appeals did not require that inquiry. On the record presently developed, we cannot conclude that such an abandonment has occurred.
The judgment of the Court of Appeals is therefore reversed with instructions to that court to remand the case to the District Court for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
Frequently, a revenue agent of the IRS Audit Division will refer a case on which he is working to the Intelligence Division for investigation of possible fraud. After such a referral, and at other times, the special agent and the revenue agent work together. Because of the importance and sensitivity of the criminal aspects of the joint investigation, the special agent assumes control of the inquiry. See, e. g., Internal Revenue Manual, ch. 4500, §§4563.431-4565.44 (CCH 1976 and 1978).
As part of a planned reorganization, the IRS has announced its intention to redesignate the Audit Division and the Intelligence Division as the Examinations Division and the Criminal Enforcement Division, respectively. IRS News Release, Feb. 6, 1978.
Respondents describe an Illinois land trust as follows:
“An Illinois land trust is a contract by which a trustee is vested with both legal and equitable title to real property and the interest of the beneficiary is considered personal property. Under this trust the beneficiary or any person designated in writing by the beneficiary has the exclusive power to direct or control the trustee in dealing with the title and the exclusive control of the management, operation, renting and selling of the trust property together with the exclusive right to the earnings, avails and proceeds of said property. Ill. Rev. Stat. ch. 29, § 8.31 (1971).” Brief for Respondents 1-2, n. 1.
Section 7602 reads:
“For the purpose of ascertaining the correctness of any return, making a return where none has been made, determining the liability of any person for any internal revenue tax or the liability at law or in equity of any transferee or fiduciary of any person in respect of any internal revenue tax, or collecting any such liability, the Secretary or his delegate is authorized—
“(1) To examine any books, papers, records, or other data which may be relevant or material to such inquiry;
“(2) To summon the person liable for tax or required to perform the act, or any officer or employee of such person, or any person having possession, custody, or care of books of account containing entries relating to the business of the person liable for tax or required to perform the act, or any other person the Secretary or his delegate may deem proper, to appear before the Secretary or his delegate at a time and place named in the summons and to produce such books, papers, records, or other data, and to give such testimony, under oath, as may be relevant or material to such inquiry; and
“(3) To take such testimony of the person concerned, under oath, as may be relevant or material to such inquiry.”
Section 7402 (b) states:
“If any person is summoned under the internal revenue laws to appear, to testify, or to produce books, papers, or other data, the district court of the United States for the district in which such person resides or may be found shall have jurisdiction by appropriate process to compel such attendance, testimony, or production of books, papers, or other data.” Section 7604 (a) reads:
“If any person is summoned under the internal revenue laws to appear, to testify, or to produce books, papers, records, or other data, the United States district court for the district in which such person resides or is found shall have jurisdiction by appropriate process to compel such attendance, testimony, or production of books, papers, records, or other data.”
The District Court was aware of and recognized the Government’s contention that the individual agent’s motive in the investigation was not dispositive:
“The COURT:... [U]nder your theory any criminal investigation would not really be one until they closed it because there was always a possibility of a civil liability.
“If that’s the law, you’re in trouble, Mr. Cushner [counsel for respondents].
“I think it boils down to an issue of law so it’s the cases really that I’m interested in plus any further clues I may find in the in camera inspection of the investigative file.” App. 61-62.
The court agreed to inspect the IRS investigative file in camera after it refused to permit respondents to inspect the file. Id., at 50-51, 61-62.
Compare United States v. Hodge & Zweig, 548 F. 2d 1347, 1350-1351 (CA9 1977); United States v. Zack, 521 F. 2d 1366, 1368 (CA9 1975); United States v. McCarthy, 514 F. 2d 368, 374-375 (CA3 1975); United States v. Weingarden, 473 F. 2d 454, 460 (CA6 1973); United States v. Wall Corp., 154 U. S. App. D. C. 309, 311, 475 F. 2d 893, 895 (1972); and United States v. Billingsley, 469 F. 2d 1208, 1210 (CA10 1972), with United States v. Morgan Guaranty Trust Co., 572 F. 2d 36, 41-42 (CA2 1978); and United States v. Troupe, 438 F. 2d 117, 119 (CA8 1971), regarding the conflict about whether the recommendation for criminal prosecution is dispositive of the so-called criminal purpose issue.
Compare United States v. Hodge & Zweig, 548 F. 2d, at 1351; and United States v. Billingsley, 469 F. 2d, at 1210, with United States v. Lafko, 520 F. 2d 622, 625 (CA3 1975), regarding the conflict about whether the criminal recommendation from the IRS to the Department of Justice or the recommendation from the special agent to his superiors is important in the enforcement inquiry.
In Boren v. Tucker, 239 F. 2d 767, 772-773 (1956), the Ninth Circuit distinguished United States v. O’Connor, 118 F. Supp. 248 (Mass. 1953), which involved an investigation of a taxpayer already under indictment.
The Court had concluded earlier that the summoning of the employer’s and the accountant’s records for an investigation of the taxpayer did not violate the constitutional rights of any of them. 400 U. S., at 522.
See §§ 3614, 3615, 3616, and 3654 of the 1939 Code, 53 Stat. 438-440, 446.
See United States v. Kordel, 397 U. S. 1, 11 (1970) (Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act enforcement), citing Standard Sanitary Mfg. Co. v. United States, 226 U. S. 20, 51-52 (1912) (Sherman Act enforcement).
See Part III-B and n. 15, infra.
The interrelated nature of the civil and criminal investigative functions is further demonstrated by the organization and functioning of the IRS. Pursuant to 26 CFR §601.107 (1977), each revenue district has an Intelligence Division, “whose mission is to encourage and achieve the highest possible degree of voluntary compliance with the internal revenue laws.” This purpose is implemented by “the investigation of possible criminal violations of such laws and the recommendation (when warranted) of prosecution and/or assertion of the 50 percent ad valorem addition to the tax.” Ibid. See generally Internal Revenue Service Organization and Functions §§ 1113.563, 1114.8, and 1118.6, 39 Fed. Reg. 11572, 11581, 11601, and 11607 (1974).
In its Manual for employees, the IRS instructs that the jurisdiction of the Intelligence Division includes all civil penalties except those related to the estimated income tax. Internal Revenue Manual, ch. 4500, § 4561 (CCH 1976). The Manual adds:
“Intelligence features are those activities of developing and presenting admissible evidence required to prove criminal violations and the ad valorem penalties for civil fraud, negligence and delinquency (except those concerning tax estimations) for all years involved in cases jointly investigated to completion.” Id., § 4565.31 (4).
The Manual also contains detailed instructions for coordination between special agents and revenue agents during investigations of tax fraud. E. g., id., §4563.431 (197
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
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 Lorenzo Johnson was convicted as an accomplice and co-conspirator in the murder óf Taraja Williams, who was killed by a shotgun blast to the chest in the early morning hours of December 15, 1995, in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. After his conviction was affirmed in state court, Johnson exhausted his state remedies and sought a writ of habeas corpus in Federal District Court pursuant to the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 (AEDPA), 28 U. S. C. §2254. The District Court denied habeas relief but the U. S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit reversed, holding that the evidence at trial was insufficient to support Johnson’s conviction under the standard set forth in Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U. S. 307 (1979).
We have made clear that Jackson claims face a high bar in federal habeas proceedings because they are subject to two layers of judicial deference. First, on direct appeal, “it is the responsibility of the jury — not the court — to decide what conclusions should be drawn from evidence admitted at trial. A reviewing court may set aside the jury’s verdict on the ground of insufficient evidence only if no rational trier of fact could have agreed with the jury.” Cavazos v. Smith, 565 U. S. 1, 2 (2011) (per curiam). And second, on habeas review, “a federal court may not overturn a state court decision rejecting a sufficiency of the evidence challenge simply because the federal court disagrees with the state court. The federal court instead may do so only if the state court decision was ‘objectively unreasonable.’ ” Ibid, (quoting Renico v. Lett, 559 U. S. 766, 773 (2010)).
Because the Court of Appeals failed to afford due respect to the role of the jury and the state courts of Pennsylvania, we now grant certiorari and reverse the judgment below.
* * *
The parties agree that Williams was shot and killed by-Corey Walker,- who was subsequently convicted of first-degree murder. Johnson was with Walker on the night of the crime, and the two were tried jointly. Johnson was charged as an accomplice and co-conspirator. See 18 Pa. Cons. Stat. §2502 (2008) (defining first-degree murder as “willful, deliberate and premeditated” killing); § 306(c) (imposing accomplice liability for anyone who, “with the intent of promoting or facilitating the commission of the offense ... aids or agrees or attempts to aid such other person in planning or committing it”); Commonwealth v. Montalvo, 598 Pa. 263, 274, 956 A. 2d 926, 932 (2008) (criminal conspiracy liability for anyone who takes an overt act in furtherance of a crime he has agreed to abet or commit).
At trial, the Commonwealth called Victoria Doubs, who testified that she, Johnson, and Walker were “close friends” who “ran the streets together.” Tr. 213. On the morning of December 14, the three of them awoke at the same residence, bought marijuana, and then went to a Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant, where they encountered Williams. Walker announced that he was going to “holler at” Williams about a debt Williams owed. Id., at 217. According to Doubs, Walker and Williams “were talking about the money that [Williams] had owed us,” with Walker “asking [Williams], confronting him, about his money and what’s up with the money and why is it taking you so long to give us the money.” Id., at 217-218. Williams was “cussing [Walker] out, telling him he’d give it to him when he felt like it and he ain’t scared of [Walker].” Id., at 218. A fight ensued, which ended when Williams beat Walker with a broomstick in front of the crowd of people that had gathered.
After the fight, Doubs testified, Walker “was mad, because he got beat by a crackhead. ... He was saying, yo, that crackhead beat me. I’m going to kill that crackhead. I’m going to kill that kid.... He was hot. He was heated.” Id., at 220-221. Johnson was present when Walker made these statements. Later that afternoon, Doubs recounted the beating to others, who laughed at Walker. Walker “repeated it for a while that Pm going to kill that kid. That kid must think Pm some type of joke. Pm going to kill that kid. Who he think he is[?3” Id., at 222. Once again, Johnson was present for these statements.
Another witness was Carla Brown, a friend of the victim, who testified that she was at the Midnight Special Bar on the night of December 14-15, where she saw Walker, Johnson, and Williams engaged in a heated argument. Although she could not hear what they were saying, she could tell they were arguing, because they were making “a lot’ of arm movements.” Id., at 104. The bouncer soon told them to leave, and Brown followed' them into the street because she “wanted to know what was going on.” Ibid. Brown observed the three men walking in a single-file line, with Walker in front, Williams in the middle, and Johnson in the back. Walker was wearing a long leather coat, walking as if he had something concealed underneath it. Brown followed the three men to an alleyway, at which point Williams recognized Brown and told her to “go ahead” and pass. Id., at 107. Walker then entered the alleyway, followed by Williams, while Johnson remained standing at the entrance. As Brown walked past the alley, she heard a loud “boom,” causing her to run away. Id., at 143. On cross-examination, Brown stated: “[T]hey walked [Williams] in that alley. He stood inside the alley. He walked him in the alley. I heard a boom.” Ibid.
The Commonwealth also called Aaron Dews, who testified that he was in a building bordering the alleyway at 12:45 a.m. on the morning of December 15. He heard a ,loud boom that caused him to look out into the alley from his second-story window, where he saw two silhouettes fleeing.
After Dews the Commonwealth called Brian Ramsey, who had been selling cocaine on a nearby street corner at the time of the murder. He testified that he saw Williams walking toward an alleyway with two males and a female, and he heard a loud boom shortly after Williams entered the alley. When pressed on cross-examination, he stated: “I would say that [Williams] was forced in that alley.” Id., at 189.
The jury also heard testimony from police who searched the alley shortly after the murder and found a shotgun with the barrel missing. A medical examiner who examined Williams’ body testified that the cause of death was a shotgun wound to the chest.
After the jury convicted Johnson, he filed a post-trial motion arguing that the evidence was insufficient to support his conviction. The court denied his motion, and the Pennsylvania Superior Court affirmed the conviction on direct appeal. See Commonwealth v. Johnson, 726 A. 2d 1079 (1998). After the Pennsylvania Supreme Court denied his petition for review, Johnson unsuccessfully sought state postconviction relief. He then filed a habeas petition in Federal District Court, which denied his claims. See Johnson v. Mechling, 541 F. Supp. 2d 651 (MD Pa. 2008). Finally, Johnson appealed to the Third Circuit, which reversed the District Court and ordered his conviction overturned.
Under Jackson, evidence is sufficient to support a conviction if, “after viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the prosecution, any rational trier of fact could have found the essential elements of the crime beyond a reasonable doubt.” 443 U. S., at 319.
In light of the testimony at Johnson’s trial, the Court of Appeals acknowledged that “[a] trier of fact could reasonably infer . . . that Johnson and Walker shared a common intent to confront, threaten or harass Williams.” Johnson v. Mechling, 446 Fed. Appx. 531, 540 (CA3 2011). As for the notion that “Johnson shared Walker’s intent to kill Williams,” however, the court concluded that was “mere speculation” that no rational factfinder could accept as true. Ibid. The court stated that “a reasonable inference is one where the fact inferred is ‘more likely than not to flow from the proved fact on which it is made to depend.”’ Id., at 539-540 (quoting Commonwealth v. McFarland, 452 Pa. 435, 439, 308 A. 2d 592, 594 (1973)). In order for a jury’s inferences to be permissible, the court reasoned, they must “ ‘flow from facts and circumstances proven in the record’ ” that are “ ‘of such volume and quality as to overcome the presumption of innocence.’ ” 446 Fed. Appx., at 539 (quoting Commonwealth v. Bostick, 958 A. 2d 543, 560 (Pa. Super. 2008)).
At the outset, we note that it was error for the Court of Appeals to look to Pennsylvania law in determining what distinguishes a reasoned inference from “mere speculation.” Under Jackson, federal courts must look to state law for “the substantive elements of the criminal offense,” 443 U. S., at 324, n. 16, but the minimum amount of evidence that the Due Process Clause requires to prove the offense is purely a matter of federal law.
Under the deferential federal standard, the approach taken by the Court of Appeals was flawed because it unduly impinged on the jury’s role as factfinder. Jackson leaves juries broad discretion in deciding what inferences to draw from the evidence presented at trial, requiring only that jurors “draw reasonable inferences from basic facts to ultimate facts.” Id., at 319. This deferential standard does not permit the type of fine-grained factual parsing in which the Court of Appeals engaged. For'example, in addressing. Brown and Ramsey’s testimony that Williams was “walked” and “forced” into the alleyway, the court objected that the witnesses did not describe any “physical action” supporting the conclusion that force was used. 446 Fed. Appx., at 541. Absent some specific testimony that “Johnson actively pushed, shoved, ordered or otherwise forced the victim into the alley, or prevented him from leaving it,” ibid., the court could see no reasonable basis for the jury’s conclusion that Johnson had a specific intent to help kill Williams.
That analysis is flawed for two reasons. First, the coercive nature of Johnson and Walker’s behavior could be inferred from other circumstances not involving the direct use of force: Walker was noticeably concealing a weapon, and he had been heatedly threatening to kill Williams after a violent confrontation earlier in the day. Johnson and Walker kept Williams between them in a single-file line on the way to the alley, where Johnson stood at the entrance while the other two entered, suggesting that Johnson may have been prepared to prevent Williams from fleeing. And second, even if Williams was not coerced into the alley, the jury still could have concluded that Johnson helped lead or lure him there to facilitate the murder.
Taken in the light most favorable to the prosecution, the trial testimony revealed that Johnson and Walker “ran the streets together,” and had attempted to collect a debt from Williams earlier on the day of the murder. Williams resisted the collection, managing to humiliate Walker in the process by giving him a public thrashing with a broomstick. This enraged Walker to the point that he repeatedly declared over the course of the day in Johnson’s presence that he intended to kill Williams. Then, while Walker was noticeably concealing a bulky object under his trencheoat, Johnson helped escort Williams into an alley, where Johnson stood at the entryway while Walker pulled out a shotgun and shot Williams in the chest.
On the basis of these facts, a rational jury could infer that Johnson knew that Walker was armed with a shotgun; knew that he intended to kill Williams; and helped usher Williams into the alleyway to meet his fate. The jury in this case was convinced, and the only question under Jackson is whether that finding was so insupportable as to fall below the threshold of bare rationality. The state court of last review did not think so, and that determination in turn is entitled to considerable deference under AEDPA, 28 U. S. C. § 2254(d).
Affording due respect to the role of the jury and the state courts, we conclude that the evidence at Johnson’s trial was not nearly sparse enough to sustain a due process challenge under Jackson. The evidence was sufficient to convict Johnson as an accomplice and a co-conspirator in the murder of Taraja Williams. The Commonwealth’s petition for certio-rari and the motion to proceed in forma pauperis are granted, the judgment of the Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit is reversed, and the case is remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer:
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A
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sc_issuearea
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What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Mr. Justice Minton
delivered the opinion of the Court.
The petitioner was convicted by a jury on several counts charging willful evasion of the payment of federal income taxes. A matter admitted by the Government to have been handled by the trial court in a manner that may have been prejudicial to the petitioner, and therefore confessed as error, is presented at the threshold and must be disposed of first.
After the jury had returned its verdict, the petitioner learned for the first time that during the trial a person unnamed had communicated with a certain juror, who afterwards became the jury foreman, and remarked to him that he could profit by bringing in a verdict favorable to the petitioner. The juror reported the incident to the judge, who informed the prosecuting attorneys and advised with them. As a result, the Federal Bureau of Investigation was requested to make an investigation and report, which was accordingly done. The F. B. I. report was considered by the judge and prosecutors alone, and they apparently concluded that the statement to the juror was made in jest, and nothing further was done or said about the matter. Neither the judge nor the prosecutors informed the petitioner of the incident, and he and his counsel first learned of the matter by reading of it in the newspapers after the verdict.
The above-stated facts were alleged in a motion for a new trial, together with an allegation that the petitioner was substantially prejudiced, thereby depriving him of a fair trial, and a request for a hearing to determine the circumstances surrounding the incident and its effect on the jury. A supporting affidavit of the petitioner’s attorneys recited the alleged occurrences and stated that if they had known of the incident they would have moved for a mistrial and requested that the juror in question be replaced by an alternate juror. Two newspaper articles reporting the incident were attached to the affidavit. The Government did not file answering affidavits. The District Court, without holding the requested hearing, denied the motion for a new trial. The Court of Appeals held that the District Court had not abused its discretion, since the petitioner had shown no prejudice to him. 205 F. 2d 277, 291. The case is here on writ of certiorari. 346 U. S. 884.
In a criminal case, any private communication, contact, or tampering, directly or indirectly, with a juror during a trial about the matter pending before the jury is, for obvious reasons, deemed presumptively prejudicial, if not made in pursuance of known rules of the court and the instructions and directions of the court made during the trial, with full knowledge of the parties. The presumption is not conclusive, but the burden rests heavily upon the Government to establish, after notice to and hearing of the defendant, that such contact with the juror was harmless to the defendant. Mattox v. United States, 146 U. S. 140, 148-150; Wheaton v. United States, 133 F. 2d 522, 527.
We do not know from this record, nor does the petitioner know, what actually transpired, or whether the incidents that may have occurred were harmful or harmless. The sending of an F. B. I. agent in the midst of a trial to investigate a juror as to his conduct is bound to impress the juror and is very apt to do so unduly. A juror must feel free to exercise his functions without the F. B. I. or anyone else looking over his shoulder. The integrity of jury proceedings must not be jeopardized by unauthorized invasions. The trial court should not decide and take final action ex parte on information such as was received in this case, but should determine the circumstances, the impact thereof upon the juror, and whether or not it was prejudicial, in a hearing with all interested parties permitted to participate.
We therefore vacate the judgment of the Court of Appeals and remand the case to the District Court with directions to hold a hearing to determine whether the incident complained of was harmful to the petitioner, and if after hearing it is found to have been harmful, to grant a new trial.
Judgment vacated.
The Chief Justice took no part in the consideration . or decision of this case.
The motion for a new trial was also grounded on many other contentions, several of which have also been presented to this Court. Because of our disposition of the case on the issue treated herein, we do not pass upon these additional 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:
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A
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sc_issuearea
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What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Mr. Justice Black
delivered the opinion of the Court.
The petitioner, a Negro, was indicted in the Circuit Court of Lauderdale County, Mississippi, by an all-white grand jury, charged with the murder of a white man. He was convicted by an all-white petit jury and sentenced to death by electrocution. He had filed a timely motion to quash the indictment alleging that, although there were Negroes in the county qualified for jury service, the venires for the term from which the grand and petit juries were selected did not contain the name of a single Negro. Failure to have any Negroes on the venires, he alleged, was due to the fact that for a great number of years previously and during the then term of court there had been in the county a “systematic, intentional, deliberate and invariable practice on the part of administrative officers to exclude negroes from the jury lists, jury boxes and jury service, and that such practice has resulted and does now result in the denial of the equal protection of the laws to this defendant as guaranteed by the 14th amendment to the U. S. Constitution.” In support of his motion petitioner introduced evidence which showed without contradiction that no Negro had served on the grand or petit criminal court juries for thirty years or more. There was evidence that a single Negro had once been summoned during that period but for some undisclosed reason he had not served, nor had he even appeared. And there was also evidence from one jury supervisor that he had, at some indefinite time, placed on the jury lists the names of “two or three” unidentified Negroes. In 1940 the adult colored population of Lauderdale County, according to the United States Census, was 12,511 out of a total adult population of 34,821.
In the face of the foregoing the trial court overruled the motion to quash. The Supreme Court of Mississippi affirmed over petitioner's renewed insistence that he had been denied the equal protection of the laws by the deliberate exclusion of Negroes from the grand jury that indicted and the petit jury that convicted him. 201 Miss. 410, 29 So. 2d 96. We granted certiorari to review this serious contention. 331 U. S. 804.
Sixty-seven years ago this Court held that state exclusion of Negroes from grand and petit juries solely because of their race denied Negro defendants in criminal cases the equal protection of the laws required by the Fourteenth Amendment. Strauder v. West Virginia, 100 U. S. 303 (1880). A long and unbroken line of our decisions since then has reiterated that principle, regardless of whether the discrimination was embodied in statute or was apparent from the administrative practices of state jury selection officials, and regardless of whether the system for depriving defendants of their rights was “ingenious or ingenuous.”
Whether there has been systematic racial discrimination by administrative officials in the selection of jurors is a question to be determined from the facts in each particular case. In this case the Mississippi Supreme Court concluded that petitioner had failed to prove systematic racial discrimination in the selection of jurors, but in so concluding it erroneously considered only the fact that no Negroes were on the particular venire lists from which the juries were drawn that indicted and convicted petitioner. It regarded as irrelevant the key fact that for thirty years or more no Negro had served on the grand or petit juries. This omission seriously detracts from the weight and respect that we would otherwise give to its conclusion in reviewing the facts, as we must in a constitutional question like this.
It is to be noted at once that the indisputable fact that no Negro had served on a criminal court grand or petit jury for a period of thirty years created a very strong showing that during that period Negroes were systematically excluded from jury service because of race. When such a showing was made, it became a duty of the State to try to justify such an exclusion as having been brought about for some reason other than racial discrimination. The Mississippi Supreme Court did not conclude, the State did not offer any evidence, and in fact did not make any claim, that its officials had abandoned their old jury selection practices. The State Supreme Court’s conclusion of justification rested upon the following reasoning. Section 1762 of the Mississippi Code enumerates the qualifications for jury service, the most important of which apparently are that one must be a male citizen and “a qualified elector.” Sections 241, 242, 243 and 244 of the State Constitution set forth the prerequisites for qualified electors. Among other things, these provisions require that each elector shall pay an annual poll tax, produce satisfactory proof of such payment, and be able to read any section of the State Constitution, or to understand the same when read to him, or to give a reasonable interpretation thereof. The evidence showed that a very small number of Negro male citizens (the court estimated about 25), as compared with white male citizens, had met the requirements for qualified electors, and thereby become eligible to be considered under additional tests for jury service. On this subject the State Supreme Court said:
“Of the 25 qualified negro male electors there would be left, therefore, as those not exempt, 12 or 13 available male negro electors as compared with 5,500 to 6,000 male white electors as to whom, after deducting 500 to 1,000 exempt, would leave a proportion of 5,000 nonexempt white jurors to 12 or 13 nonexempt negro jurors, or about one-fourth of one per cent negro jurors, — 400 to 1. ... For the reasons already heretofore stated there was only a chance of 1 in 400 that a negro would appear on such a venire and as this venire was of one hundred jurors, the sheriff, had he brought in a negro, would have had to discriminate against white jurors, not against negroes, — he could not be expected to bring in one-fourth of one negro.”
The above statement of the Mississippi Supreme Court illustrates the unwisdom of attempting to disprove systematic racial discrimination in the selection of jurors by percentage calculations applied to the composition of a single venire.
The petitioner here points out certain legislative record evidence of which it is claimed we can take judicial notice, and which it is asserted establishes that the reason why there are so few qualified Negro electors in Mississippi is because of discrimination against them in making up the registration lists. But we need not consider that question in this case. For it is clear from the evidence in the record that there were some Negroes in Lauderdale County on the registration list. In fact, in 1945, the circuit clerk of the county, who is himself charged with duties in administering the jury system, sent the names of eight Negroes to the jury commissioner of the Federal District Court as citizens of Lauderdale County qualified for federal jury service. Moreover, there was evidence that the names of from thirty to several hundred qualified Negro electors were on the registration lists. But whatever the precise number of qualified colored electors in the county, there were some; and if it can possibly be conceived that all of them were disqualified for jury service by reason of the commission of crime, habitual drunkenness, gambling, inability to read and write, or to meet any other or all of the statutory tests, we do not doubt that the State could have proved it.
We hold that the State wholly failed to meet the very strong evidence of purposeful racial discrimination made out by the petitioner upon the uncontradicted showing that for thirty years or more no Negro had served as a juror in the criminal courts of Lauderdale County. When a jury selection plan, whatever it is, operates in such way as always to result in the complete and long-continued exclusion of any representative at all from a large group of Negroes, or any other racial group, indictments and verdicts returned against them by juries thus selected cannot stand. As we pointed out in Hill v. Texas, 316 U. S. 400, 406, our holding does not mean that a guilty defendant must go free. For indictments can be returned and convictions can be obtained by juries selected as the Constitution commands.
The judgment of the Mississippi Supreme Court is reversed and the case is remanded for proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion.
Reversed.
Petitioner also argued that his conviction was based solely on an extorted confession; that use of this extorted confession denied him due process of law; and that the case should be reversed for that reason. The view we take as to the systematic exclusion of Negro jurors makes it unnecessary to pass on the alleged extorted confession.
Bush v. Kentucky, 107 U. S. 110, 122.
Ex parte Virginia, 100 U. S. 339; Neal v. Delaware, 103 U. S. 370; Carter v. Texas, 177 U. S. 442; Rogers v. Alabama, 192 U. S. 226; Norris v. Alabama, 294 U. S. 587; Hollins v. Oklahoma, 295 U. S. 394; Hale v. Kentucky, 303 U. S. 613; Pierre v. Louisiana, 306 U. S. 354; Smith v. Texas, 311 U. S. 128; Hill v. Texas, 316 U. S. 400.
Smith v. Texas, 311 U. S. 128, 132.
Akins v. Texas, 325 U. S. 398, 403.
Norris v. Alabama, 294 U. S. 587, 590; Pierre v. Louisiana, 306 U. S. 354, 358; Akins v. Texas, 325 U. S. 398, 402; Fay v. New York, 332 U. S. 261, 272.
Neal v. Delaware, 103 U. S. 370, 397; Norris v. Alabama, 294 U. S. 587, 591; Pierre v. Louisiana, 306 U. S. 354, 361.
Although this latter statement was made with particular reference to the special venire from which the petit jury was drawn, the reasoning of the court applied also to its grounds for holding that there was no discrimination in excluding Negroes from the grand jury.
Akins v. Texas, 325 U. S. 398, 403.
Hearings before Special Committee to Investigate Senatorial Campaign Expenditures, 1946, 79th Cong., 2d Sess. (1947).
Hill v. Texas, 316 U. S. 400, 404-405.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer:
|
B
|
sc_issuearea
|
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Mr. Justice Blackmun
delivered the opinion of the Court.
This case presents the issue whether knowledge that the intended victim is a federal officer is a requisite for the crime of conspiracy, under 18 U. S. C. § 371, to commit an offense violative of 18 U. S. C. § 111, that is, an assault upon a federal officer while engaged in the performance of his official duties.
Respondent Feola and three others (Alsondo, Rosa, and Farr) were indicted for violations of §§ 371 and 111. A jury found all four defendants guilty of both charges. Feola received a sentence of four years for the conspiracy and one of three years, plus a $3,000 fine, for the assault. The three-year sentence, however, was suspended and he was given three years’ probation “to commence at the expiration of confinement” for the conspiracy. The respective appeals of Feola, Alsondo, and Rosa were considered by the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in a single opinion. After an initial ruling partially to the contrary, that court affirmed the judgment of conviction on the substantive charges, but reversed the conspiracy convictions. United States v. Alsondo, 486 F. 2d 1339, 1346 (1973). Because of a conflict among the federal Circuits on the scienter issue with respect to a conspiracy charge, we granted the Government’s petition for a writ of certiorari in Feola’s case. 416 U. S. 935 (1974).
I
The facts reveal a classic narcotics “rip-off.” The details are not particularly important for our present purposes. We need note only that the evidence shows that Feola and his confederates arranged for a sale of heroin to buyers who turned out to be undercover agents for the Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs. The group planned to palm off on the purchasers, for a substantial sum, a form of sugar in place of heroin and, should that ruse fail, simply to surprise their unwitting buyers and relieve them of the cash they had brought along for payment. The plan failed when one agent, his suspicions being aroused, drew his revolver in time to counter an assault upon another agent from the rear. Instead of enjoying the rich benefits of a successful swindle, Feola and his associates found themselves charged, to their undoubted surprise, with conspiring to assault, and with assaulting, federal officers.
At the trial, the District Court, without objection from the defense, charged the jurors that, in order to find any of the defendants guilty on either the conspiracy count or the substantive one, they were not required to conclude that the defendants were aware that their quarry were federal officers.
The Court of Appeals reversed the conspiracy convictions on a ground not advanced by any of the defendants. Although it approved the trial court’s instructions to the jury on the substantive charge of assaulting a federal officer, it nonetheless concluded that the failure to charge that knowledge of the victim’s official identity must be proved in order to convict on the conspiracy charge amounted to plain error. 486 F. 2d, at 1344. The court perceived itself bound by a line of cases, commencing with Judge Learned Hand’s opinion in United States v. Crimmins, 123 F. 2d 271 (CA2 1941), all holding that scienter of a factual element that confers federal jurisdiction, while unnecessary for conviction of the substantive offense, is required in order to sustain a conviction for conspiracy to commit the substantive offense. Although the court noted that the Crimmins rationale “has been criticized,” 486 F. 2d, at 1343, and, indeed, offered no argument in support of it, it accepted “the controlling precedents somewhat reluctantly.” Id., at
The Government’s plea is for symmetry. It urges that since criminal liability for the offense described in 18 U. S. C. § 111 does not depend on whether the assailant harbored the specific intent to assault a federal officer, no greater scienter requirement can be engrafted upon the conspiracy offense, which is merely an agreement to commit the act proscribed by § 111. Consideration of the Government’s contention requires us preliminarily to pass upon its premise, the proposition that responsibility for assault upon a federal officer does not depend upon whether the assailant was aware of the official identity of his victim at the time he acted.
That the “federal officer” requirement is anything other than jurisdictional is not seriously urged upon us; indeed, both Feola and the Court of Appeals, 486 F. 2d, at 1342, concede that scienter is not a necessary element of the substantive offense under § 111. Although some early cases were to the contrary, the concession recognizes what is now the practical unanimity of the Courts of Appeals. Nevertheless, we are not always guided by concessions of the parties, and the very considerations of symmetry urged by the Government suggest that we first turn our attention to the substantive offense.
The Court has considered § 111 before. In Ladner v. United States, 358 U. S. 169 (1958), the issue was whether a single shotgun blast which wounded two federal agents effected multiple assaults, within the meaning of 18 U. S. C. § 254 (1940 ed.), one of the statutory predecessors to the present § 111. The Government urged that § 254 had been intended not only to deter interference with federal law enforcement activities but, as well, to forestall injury to individual officers, as “wards” of the United States. Given the latter formulation of legislative intent, argued the Government, a single blast wounding two officers would constitute two offenses. The Court disagreed because it found an equally plausible reading of the legislative intent to be that “the congressional aim was to prevent hindrance to the execution of official duty... and was not to protect federal officers except as incident to that aim,” 358 U. S., at 175-176. Under that view of legislative purpose, to have punishment depend upon the number of officers impeded would be incongruous. With no clear choice between these alternative formulations of congressional intent, in light of the statutory language and sparse legislative history, the Court applied a policy of lenity and, for purposes of the case, adopted the less harsh reading. Id., at 177-178. It therefore held that the single discharge of a shotgun constituted only a single violation of § 254.
In the present case, we see again the possible consequences of an interpretation of § 111 that focuses on only one of the statute’s apparent aims. If the primary purpose is to protect federal law enforcement personnel, that purpose could well be frustrated by the imposition of a strict scienter requirement. On the other hand, if § 111 is seen primarily as an anti-obstruction statute, it is likely that Congress intended criminal liability to be imposed only when a person acted with the specific intent to impede enforcement activities. Otherwise, it has been said: “Were knowledge not required in obstruction of justice offenses described by these terms, wholly innocent (or even socially desirable) behavior could be transformed into a felony by the wholly fortuitous circumstance of the concealed identity of the person resisted.” Although we adhere to the conclusion in Ladner that either view of legislative intent is “plausible,” we think it plain that Congress intended to protect both federal officers and federal functions, and that, indeed, furtherance of the one policy advances the other. The rejection of a strict scienter requirement is consistent with both purposes.
Section 111 has its origin in § 2 of the Act of May 18, 1934, c. 299, 48 Stat. 781. Section 1 of that Act, in which the present 18 U. S. C. § 1114 has its roots, made it a federal crime to kill certain federal law enforcement personnel while engaged in, or on account of, the performance of official duties, and § 2 forbade forcible resistance or interference with, or assault upon, any officer designated in § 1 while so engaged. The history of the 1934 Act, though scanty, offers insight into its multiple purposes. The pertinent committee reports consist, almost in their entirety, of a letter dated January 3, 1934, from Attorney General Cummings urging the passage of the legislation. In that letter the Attorney General states that this was needed “for the protection of Federal officers and employees.” Compelled reliance upon state courts, “however respectable and well disposed, for the protection of [federal] investigative and law-enforcement personnel” was inadequate, and there was need for resort to a federal forum.
Although the letter refers only to the need to protect federal personnel, Congress clearly was concerned with the safety of federal officers insofar as it was tied to the efficacy of law enforcement activities. This concern is implicit in the decision to list those officers protected rather than merely to forbid assault on any federal employee. Indeed, the statute as originally formulated would have prohibited attack on “any civil official, inspector, agent, or other officer or employee of the United States.” See H. R. Rep. No. 1455, 73d Cong., 2d Sess., 1 (1934). The House rejected this and insisted on the version that was ultimately enacted. Although the reason for the insistence is unexplained, it is fair to assume that the House was of the view that the bill as originally drafted strayed too far from the purpose of insuring the integrity of law enforcement pursuits.
In resolving the question whether Congress intended to condition responsibility for violation of § 111 on the actor’s awareness of the identity of his victim, we give weight to both purposes of the statute, but here again, as in Ladner, we need not make a choice between them. Rather, regardless of which purpose we would emphasize, we must take note of the means Congress chose for its achievement.
Attorney General Cummings, in his letter, emphasized the importance of providing a federal forum in which attacks upon named federal officers could be prosecuted. This, standing alone, would not indicate a congressional conclusion to dispense with a requirement of specific intent to assault a federal officer, for the locus of the forum does not of itself define the reach of the substantive offense. But the view that § 111 requires knowledge of the victim’s office rests on the proposition that the reference to the federal forum was merely a shorthand expression of the need for a statute to fill a gap in the substantive law of the States. See United States v. Fernandez, 497 F. 2d 730, 745 (CA9 1974) (concurring opinion), cert. pending, No. 73-6868. In that view, § 111 is seen merely as a federal aggravated assault statute, necessary solely because some state laws mandate increased punishment only for assaults on state peace officers; assaults on federal personnel would be punishable, under state law, only for simple assault. As a federal aggravated assault statute, § 111 would be read as requiring the same degree of knowledge as its state-law counterparts. See Morissette v. United States, 342 U. S. 246, 263 (1952). The argument fails, however, because it is fairly certain that Congress was not enacting § 111 as a federal counterpart to state proscriptions of aggravated assault.
The Attorney General’s call for a federal forum in which to prosecute an attacker of a federal officer was directed at both sections of the proposed bill that became the 1934 Act. The letter concerned not only the section prohibiting assaults but also the section prohibiting killings. The latter, § 1, was not needed to fill a gap in existing substantive state law. The States proscribed murder, and, until recently, with the enactment of certain statutes in response to the successful attack on capital punishment, murder of a peace officer has not been deemed an aggravated form of murder, for all States usually have punished murderers with the most severe sanction the law allows. Clearly, then, Congress understood that it was not only filling one gap in state substantive law but in large part was duplicating state proscriptions in order to insure a federal forum for the trial of offenses involving federal officers. Fulfillment of the congressional goal to protect federal officers required then, as it does now, the highest possible degree of certainty that those who killed or assaulted federal officers were brought to justice. In the congressional mind, with the reliance upon the Attorney General’s letter, certainty required that these cases be tried in the federal courts, for no matter how “respectable and well disposed,” it would not be unreasonable to suppose that state officials would not always or necessarily share congressional feelings of urgency as to the necessity of prompt and vigorous prosecutions of those who violate the safety of the federal officer. From the days of prohibition to the days of the modern civil rights movement, the statutes federal agents have sworn to uphold and enforce have not always been popular in every corner of the Nation. Congress may well have concluded that § 111 was necessary in order to insure uniformly vigorous protection off federal personnel, including those engaged in locally unpopular activity.
We conclude, from all this, that in order to effectuate the congressional purpose of according maximum protection to federal officers by making prosecution for assaults upon them cognizable in the federal courts, § 111 cannot be construed as embodying an unexpressed requirement that an assailant be aware that his victim is a federal officer. All the statute requires is an intent to assault, not an intent to assault a federal officer. A contrary conclusion would give insufficient protection to the agent enforcing an unpopular law, and none to the agent acting under cover.
This interpretation poses no risk of unfairness to defendants. It is no snare for the unsuspecting. Although the perpetrator of a narcotics “rip-off/ such as the one involved here, may be surprised to find that his intended victim is a federal officer in civilian apparel, he nonetheless knows from the very outset that his planned course of conduct is wrongful. The situation is not one where legitimate conduct becomes unlawful solely because of the identity of the individual or agency affected. In a case of this kind the offender takes his victim as he finds him. The concept of criminal intent does not extend so far as to require that the actor understand not only the nature of his act but also its consequence for the choice of a judicial forum.
We are not to be understood as implying that the defendant’s state of knowledge is never a relevant consideration under § 111. The statute does require a criminal intent, and there may well be circumstances in which ignorance of the official status of the person assaulted or resisted negates the very existence of mens rea. For example, where an officer fails to identify himself or his purpose, his conduct in certain circumstances might reasonably be interpreted as the unlawful use of force directed either at the defendant or his property. In a situation of that kind, one might be justified in exerting an element of resistance, and an honest mistake of fact would not be consistent with criminal intent.
We hold, therefore, that in order to incur criminal liability under § 111 an actor must entertain merely the criminal intent to do the acts therein specified. We now consider whether the rule should be different where persons conspire to commit those acts.
Ill
Our decisions establish that in order to sustain a judgment of conviction on a charge of conspiracy to violate a federal statute, the Government must prove at least the degree of criminal intent necessary for the substantive offense itself. Ingram v. United States, 360 U. S. 672, 678 (1969). See Pettibone v. United States, 148 U. S. 197 (1893). Respondent Feola urges upon us the proposition that the Government must show a degree of criminal intent in the conspiracy count greater than is necessary to convict for the substantive offense; he urges that even though it is not necessary to show that he was aware of the official identity of his assaulted victims in order to find him guilty of assaulting federal officers, in violation of 18 U. S. C. § 111, the Government nonetheless must show that he was aware that his intended victims were undercover agents, if it is successfully to prosecute him for conspiring to assault federal agents. And the Court of Appeals held that the trial court’s failure to charge the jury to this effect constituted plain error.
The general conspiracy statute, 18 U. S. C. § 371, offers no textual support for the proposition that to be guilty of conspiracy a defendant in effect must have known that his conduct violated federal law. The statute makes it unlawful simply to “conspire... to commit any offense against the United States.” A. natural reading of these words would be that since one can violate a criminal statute simply by engaging in the forbidden conduct, a conspiracy to commit that offense is nothing more than an agreement to engage in the prohibited conduct. Then where, as here, the substantive statute does not require that an assailant know the official status of his victim, there is nothing on the face of the conspiracy statute that would seem to require that those agreeing to the assault have a greater degree of knowledge.
We have been unable to find any decision of this Court that lends support to the respondent. On the contrary, at least two of our cases implicitly repudiate his position. The appellants in In re Coy, 127 U. S. 731 (1888), were convicted of conspiring to induce state election officials to neglect their duty to safeguard ballots and election results. The offense occurred with respect to an election at which Indiana voters, in accordance with state law, voted for both local officials and members of Congress. Much like Feola here, those appellants asserted that they could not be punished for conspiring to violate federal law because they had intended only to affect the outcome of state races. In short, it was urged that the conspiracy statute embodied a requirement of specific intent to violate federal law. Id., at 753. The Court rejected this contention and held that the statute required only that the conspirators agree to participate in the prohibited conduct. See Anderson v. United States, 417 U. S. 211, 226 (1974).
Similarly, in United States v. Freed, 401 U. S. 601 (1971), we reversed the dismissal of an indictment charging defendants with possession of, and with conspiracy to possess, hand grenades that had not been registered, as required by 26 U. S. C. § 5861 (d). The trial court dismissed the indictment for failure to allege that the defendants knew that the hand grenades in fact were unregistered. We held that actual knowledge that the grenades were unregistered was not an element of the substantive offense created by Congress and therefore upheld the indictment both as to the substantive offense and as to the charge of conspiracy. Again, we declined to require a greater degree of intent for conspiratorial responsibility than for responsibility for the underlying substantive offense.
With no support on the face of the general conspiracy statute or in this Court’s decisions, respondent relies solely on the line of cases commencing with United States v. Crimmins, 123 F. 2d 271 (CA2 1941), for the principle that the Government must prove “antifederal” intent in order to establish liability under § 371. In Crimmins, the defendant had been found guilty of conspiring to receive stolen bonds that had been transported in interstate commerce. Upon review, the Court of Appeals pointed out that the evidence failed to establish that Crimmins actually knew the stolen bonds had moved into the State. Accepting for the sake of argument the assumption that such knowledge was not necessary to sustain a conviction on the substantive offense, Judge Learned Hand nevertheless concluded that to permit conspiratorial liability where the conspirators were ignorant of the federal implications of their acts would be to enlarge their agreement beyond its terms as they understood them. He capsulized the distinction in what has become well known as his “traffic light” analogy:
“While one may, for instance, be guilty of running past a traffic light of whose existence one is ignorant, one cannot be guilty of conspiring to run past such a light, for one cannot agree to run past a light unless one supposes that there is a light to run past.” Id., at 273.
Judge Hand’s attractive, but perhaps seductive, analogy has received a mixed reception in the Courts of Appeals. The Second Circuit, of course, has followed it; others have rejected it. It appears that most have avoided it by the simple expedient of inferring the requisite knowledge from the scope of the conspiratorial venture. We conclude that the analogy, though effective prose, is, as applied to the facts before us, bad law.
The question posed by the traffic light analogy is not before us, just as it was not before the Second Circuit in Crimmins. Criminal liability, of course, may be imposed on one who runs a traffic light regardless of whether he harbored the “evil intent” of disobeying the light’s command; whether he drove so recklessly as to be unable to perceive the light; whether, thinking he was observing all traffic rules, he simply failed to notice the light; or whether, having been reared elsewhere, he thought that the light was only an ornament. Traffic violations generally fall into that category of offenses that dispense with a mem rea requirement. See United States v. Dotterweich, 320 U. S. 277 (1943). These laws embody the social judgment that it is fair to punish one who intentionally engages in conduct that creates a risk to others, even though no risk is intended or the actor, through no fault of his own, is completely unaware of the existence of any risk. The traffic light analogy poses the question whether it is fair to punish parties to an agreement to engage intentionally in apparently innocent conduct where the unintended result of engaging in that conduct is the violation of a criminal statute.
But this case does not call upon us to answer this question, and we decline to do so, just as we have once before. United States v. Freed, 401 U. S., at 609 n. 14. We note in passing, however, that the analogy comes close to stating what has been known as the “Powell doctrine,” originating in People v. Powell, 63 N. Y. 88 (1875),'to the effect that a conspiracy, to be criminal, must be animated by a corrupt motive or a motive to do wrong. Under this principle, such a motive could be easily demonstrated if the underlying offense involved an act clearly wrongful in itself; but it had to be independently demonstrated if the acts agreed to were wrongful solely because of statutory proscription. See Note, Developments in the Law — Criminal Conspiracy, 72 Harv. L. Rev. 920, 936-937 (1959). Interestingly, Judge Hand himself was one of the more severe critics of the Powell doctrine.
That Judge Hand should reject the Powell doctrine and then create the Crimmins doctrine seems curious enough. Fatal to the latter, however, is the fact that it was announced in a case to which it could not have been meant to apply. In Crimmins, the substantive offense, namely, the receipt of stolen securities that had been in interstate commerce, proscribed clearly wrongful conduct. Such conduct could not be engaged in without an intent to accomplish the forbidden result. So, too, it is with assault, the conduct forbidden by the substantive statute, § 111, presently before us. One may run a traffic light “of whose existence one is ignorant,” but assaulting another “of whose existence one is ignorant,” probably would require unearthly intervention. Thus, the traffic light analogy, even if it were a correct statement of the law, is inapt, for the conduct proscribed by the substantive offense, here assault, is not of the type outlawed without regard to the intent of the actor to accomplish the result that is made criminal. If the analogy has any vitality at all, it is to conduct of the latter variety; that, however, is a question we save for another day. We hold here only that where a substantive offense embodies only a requirement of mens rea, as to each of its elements, the general federal conspiracy statute requires no more.
The Crimmins rule rests upon another foundation: that it is improper to find conspiratorial liability where the parties to the illicit agreement were not aware of the fact giving rise to federal jurisdiction, because the essence of conspiracy is agreement and persons cannot be punished for acts beyond the scope of their agreement. 123 F. 2d, at 273. This “reason” states little more than a conclusion, for it is clear that one may be guilty as a conspirator for acts the precise details of which one does not know at the time of the agreement. See Blumenthal v. United States, 332 U. S. 539, 557 (1947). The question is not merely whether the official status of an assaulted victim was known to the parties at the time of their agreement, but whether the acts contemplated by the conspirators are to be deemed legally different from those actually performed solely because of the official identity of the victim. Put another way, does the identity of the proposed victim alter the legal character of the acts agreed to, or is it no more germane to the nature of those acts than the color of the victim’s hair?
Our analysis of the substantive offense in Part II, supra, is sufficient to convince us that for the purpose of individual-guilt or innocence, awareness of the official identity of the assault victim is irrelevant. We would expect the same to obtain with respect to the conspiracy offense unless one of the policies behind the imposition of conspiratorial liability is not served where the parties to the agreement are unaware that the intended target is a federal law enforcement official.
It is well settled that the law of conspiracy serves ends different from, and complementary to, those served by criminal prohibitions of the substantive offense. Because of this, consecutive sentences may be imposed for the conspiracy and for the underlying crime. Callanan v. United States, 364 U. S. 587 (1961); Pinkerton v. United States, 328 U. S. 640 (1946). Our decisions have identified two independent values served by the law of conspiracy. The first is protection of society from the dangers of concerted criminal activity, Callanan v. United States, 364 U. S., at 593; Dennis v. United States, 341 U. S. 494, 573-574 (1951) (Jackson, J., concurring). That individuals know that their planned joint venture violates federal as well as state law seems totally irrelevant to that purpose of conspiracy law which seeks to protect society from the dangers of concerted criminal activity. Given the level of criminal intent necessary to sustain conviction for the substantive offense, the act of agreement to commit the crime is no less opprobrious and no less dangerous because of the absence of knowledge of a fact unnecessary to the formation of criminal intent. Indeed, unless imposition of an “antifederal” knowledge requirement serves social purposes external to the law of conspiracy of which we are unaware, its imposition here would serve only to make it more difficult to obtain convictions on charges of conspiracy, a policy with no apparent purpose.
The second aspect is that conspiracy is an inchoate crime. This is to say, that, although the law generally makes criminal only antisocial conduct, at some point in the continuum between preparation and consummation, the likelihood of a commission of an act is sufficiently great and the criminal intent sufficiently well formed to justify the intervention of the criminal law. See Note, Developments in the Law — Criminal Conspiracy, 72 Harv. L. Rev., at 923-925. The law of conspiracy identifies the agreement to engage in a criminal venture as an event of sufficient threat to social order to permit the imposition of criminal sanctions for the agreement alone, plus an overt act in pursuit of it, regardless of whether the crime agreed upon actually is committed. United States v. Bayer, 331 U. S. 532, 542 (1947). Criminal intent has crystallized, and the likelihood of actual, fulfilled commission warrants preventive action.
Again, we do not see how imposition of a strict “anti-federal” scienter requirement would relate to this purpose of conspiracy law. Given the level of intent needed to carry out the substantive offense, we fail to see how the agreement is any less blameworthy or constitutes less of a danger to society solely because the participants are unaware which body of law they intend to violate. Therefore, we again conclude that imposition of a requirement of knowledge of those facts that serve only to establish federal jurisdiction would render it more difficult to serve the policy behind the law of conspiracy without serving any other apparent social policy.
We hold, then, that assault of a federal officer pursuant to an agreement to assault is not, even in the words of Judge Hand, “beyond the reasonable intendment of the common understanding,” United States v. Crimmins, 123 F. 2d, at 273. The agreement is not thereby enlarged, for knowledge of the official identity of the victim is irrelevant to the essential nature of the agreement, entrance into which is made criminal by the law of conspiracy.
Again we point out, however, that the state of knowledge of the parties to an agreement is not always irrelevant in a proceeding charging a violation of conspiracy law. First, the knowledge of the parties is relevant to the same issues and to the same extent as it may be for conviction of the substantive offense. Second, whether conspirators knew the official identity of their quarry may be important, in some cases, in establishing the existence of federal jurisdiction. The jurisdictional requirement is satisfied by the existence of facts tying the proscribed conduct to the area of federal concern delineated by the statute. Federal jurisdiction always exists where the substantive offense is committed in the manner therein described, that is, when a federal officer is attacked. Where, however, there is an unfulfilled agreement to assault, it must be established whether the agreement, standing alone, constituted a sufficient threat to the safety of a federal officer so as to give rise to federal jurisdiction. If the agreement calls for an attack on an individual specifically identified, either by name or by some unique characteristic, as the putative buyers in the present case, and that specifically identified individual is in fact a federal officer, the agreement may be fairly characterized as one calling for an assault upon a federal officer, even though the parties were unaware of the victim's actual identity and even though they would not have agreed to the assault had they known that identity. Where the object of the intended attack is not identified with sufficient specificity so as to give rise to the con-elusion that had the attack been carried out the victim would have been a federal officer, it is impossible to assert that the mere act of agreement to assault poses a sufficient threat to federal personnel and functions so as to give rise to federal jurisdiction.
To summarize, with the exception of the infrequent situation in which reference to the knowledge of the parties to an illegal agreement is necessary to establish the existence of federal jurisdiction, we hold that where knowledge of the facts giving rise to federal jurisdiction is not necessary for conviction of a substantive offense embodying a mens rea requirement, such knowledge is equally irrelevant to questions of responsibility for conspiracy to commit that offense.
The judgment of the Court of Appeals with respect to the respondent’s conspiracy conviction is reversed.
It is so ordered.
"§ 111. Assaulting, resisting, or impeding certain officers or employees.
“Whoever forcibly assaults, resists, opposes, impedes, intimidates, or interferes with any person designated in section 1114 of this title while engaged in or on account of the performance of his official duties, shall be fined not more than $5,000 or imprisoned not more than three years, or both.
“Whoever, in the commission of any such acts uses a deadly or dangerous weapon, shall be fined not more than $10,000 or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both.”
Among the persons “designated in section 1114” of 18 U. S. C. is “any officer or employee... of the Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs.”
Codefendant Alsondo was also convicted of carrying a firearm unlawfully during the commission of the other felonies, in violation of 18 U. S. C. §924 (c)(2).
The appeal of the fourth defendant, Farr, was processed separately by the Court of Appeals. A different panel, upon the authority of Alsondo, similarly affirmed the judgment of conviction on the substantive charge but reversed the conspiracy conviction. United States v. Farr, 487 F. 2d 1023 (CA2 1973), cert. pending, No. 73-953. The District Court imposed concurrent sentences in Farr’s case, and the United States has not sought review here.
See, e. g., United States v. Iannelli, 477 F. 2d 999, 1002 (CA3 1973), cert. granted on another issue, 417 U. S. 907 (1974); United States v. Thompson, 476 F. 2d 1196, 1198-1200 (CA7), cert. denied, 414 U. S. 918 (1973); United States v. Polesti, 489 F. 2d 822, 824 (CA7 1973), cert. pending, No. 73-5489; United States v. Roselli, 432 F. 2d 879, 891-892 (CA9 1970), cert. denied, 401 U. S. 924 (1971); United States v. Fernandez, 497 F. 2d 730, 738-739 (CA9 1974), cert. pending, No. 73-6868.
The sentence imposed on codefendants Alsondo and Rosa possessed elements of concurrency and the United States did not petition for a writ of certiorari in their cases.
The agent opened a closet door in the Manhattan apartment where the sale was to have taken place and observed a man on the floor, bound and gagged. App. 11-12.
The court charged:
“In this connection, it is not necessary for the government to prove that the defendants or any of them knew that the persons they were going to assault or impede or resist were federal agents. It’s enough, as far as this particular element of the case is concerned, for the government to prove that the defendants agreed and conspired to commit an assault.” Tr. 513.
“I believe I have previously mentioned to you that the statute does not require that the defendant know either the identity of the person assaulted or imped[ed] or intimidated or that the person assaulted is a federal officer.” Id., at 525.
The Second Circuit consistently has so held. See, e. g., United States v. Lombardozzi, 335 F. 2d 414, 416, cert. denied, 379 U. S. 914 (1964); United States v. Montanaro, 362 F. 2d 527, 528, cert. denied, 385 U. S. 920 (1966); United States v. Ulan, 421 F. 2d 787, 788 (1970).
We are content to state the issue this way despite its potential to mislead. Labeling a requirement “jurisdictional” does not necessarily mean, of course, that the requirement is not an element of the offense Congress intended to describe and to punish. Indeed, a requirement is sufficient to confer jurisdiction on the federal courts for what otherwise are state crimes precisely because it implicates factors that are an appropriate subject for federal concern. With respect to the present case, for example, a mere general policy of deterring assaults would probably prove to be an undesirable or insufficient basis for federal jurisdiction; but where Congress seeks to protect the integrity of federal functions and the safety of federal officers, the interest is sufficient to warrant federal involvement. The significance of labeling a statutory requirement as “jurisdictional” is not that the requirement is viewed as outside the scope of the evil Congress intended to forestall, but merely that the existence of the fact that confers federal jurisdiction need not be one in the mind of the actor at the time he perpetrates the act made criminal by the federal statute. The question, then, is not whether the requirement is jurisdictional, but whether it is jurisdictional only.
Brief for Respondent 6; Tr. of Oral Arg. 19.
E. g., Sparks v. United States, 90 F. 2d 61, 63 (CA6 1937); Hall v. United States, 235 F. 2d 248, 249 (CA5 1956).
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer:
|
A
|
sc_issuearea
|
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
MR. Justice Blackmun
delivered the opinion of the Court.
Our decision in this case turns on the resolution of the narrow question whether the Klamath River Indian Reservation in northern California was terminated by Act of Congress or whether it remains “Indian country,” within the meaning of 18 U. S. C. § 1151. When established, the reservation was described as “a strip of territory commencing at the Pacific Ocean and extending 1 mile in width on each side of the Klamath River” for a distance of approximately 20 miles, encompassing an area not exceeding 25,000 acres. This description is taken from President Franklin Pierce’s Executive Order issued November 16, 1855, pursuant to the authority granted by the Act of March 3, 1853, 10 Stat. 226, 238, and the Act of March 3, 1855, 10 Stat. 686, 699.
Petitioner Raymond Mattz is a Yurok, or Klamath River, Indian who, since the age of nine, regularly fished, as his grandfather did before him, with dip, gill, and trigger nets, at a location called Brooks Riffle on the Klamath River. On September 24, 1969, a California game warden confiscated five gill nets owned by Mattz. The nets were stored near Brooks Riffle, approximately 200 feet from the river, and within 20 miles of the river’s mouth.
The respondent Director of the Department of Fish and Game instituted a forfeiture proceeding in state court. Mattz intervened and asked for the return of his nets. He alleged, among other things, that he was an enrolled member of the Yurok Tribe, that the nets were seized within Indian country, and that the state statutes prohibiting the use of gill nets, Cal. Fish & Game Code §§8664, 8686, and 8630, therefore were inapplicable to him. The state trial court, relying on Elser v. Gill Net Number One, 246 Cal. App. 2d 30, 54 Cal. Rptr. 568 (1966), found that the Klamath River Reservation in 1892 “for all practical purposes almost immediately lost its identity,” and concluded that the area where the nets were seized was not Indian country. The court thereby disposed of petitioner's primary defense to the forfeiture. It did not reach other issues bearing upon the application of the California statutes to Indian country and the existence of Indian fishing rights there.
On appeal, the State Court of Appeal affirmed, holding that, inasmuch as the area in question had been opened for unrestricted homestead entry in 1892, the earlier reservation status of the land had terminated. 20 Cal. App. 3d 729, 97 Cal. Rptr. 894 (1971). The Supreme Court of California, one judge dissenting, denied a petition for hearing. See 20 Cal. App. 3d, at 735, 97 Cal. Rptr., at 898. We granted certiorari, 409 U. S. 1124 (1973), because the judgments of the state courts appeared to be in conflict with applicable decisions of this Court.
We now reverse. The reversal, of course, does not dispose of the underlying forfeiture issue. On remand, the questions relating to the existence of Matiz’ fishing rights and to the applicability of California law notwithstanding reservation status will be addressed. We intimate no opinion on those issues.
I
While the current reservation status of the Klamath River Reservation turns primarily upon the effect of an 1892 Act of Congress which opened the reservation land for settlement, the meaning and effect of that Act cannot be determined without some reference to the Yurok Tribe and the history of the reservation between 1855 and 1892.
The Yurok Indians apparently resided in the area of the lower Klamath River for a substantial period before 1855 when the Klamath River Reservation was established. Little is known of their prior history. There are sources, however, that provide us with relatively detailed information about the tribe, its culture, living conditions, and customs for the period following 1855. That the tribe had inhabited the lower Klamath River well before 1855 is suggested by the name. Yurok means “down the river.” The names of the neighboring tribes, the Karok and the Modok, mean, respectively, “up the river” and “head of the river,” and these appellations, as would be expected, coincide with the respective homelands. Powers 19; Kroeber 15.
By the Act of March 3, 1853, 10 Stat. 238, the President was “authorized to make five military reservations from the public domain in the State of California or the Territories of Utah and New Mexico bordering on said State, for Indian purposes.” The Act of March 3, 1855, 10 Stat. 699, appropriated funds for “collecting, removing, and subsisting the Indians of California... on two additional military reservations, to be selected as heretofore... Provided, That the President may enlarge the quantity of reservations heretofore selected, equal to those hereby provided for.” President Pierce then issued his order of November 16, 1855, specifying the Klamath River Reservation and stating, “Let the reservation be made, as proposed.” Kappler 817.
The site was ideally selected for the Yuroks. They had lived in the area; the arable land, although limited, was “peculiarly adapted to the growth of vegetables,” 1856 Report 238; and the river, which ran through a canyon its entire length, abounded in salmon and other fish. Ibid.; 1858 Report 286.
In 1861 nearly all the arable lands on the Klamath River Reservation were destroyed by a freshet, and, upon recommendation of the local Indian agent, some of the Indians were removed to the Smith River Reservation, established for that purpose in 1862. Only a small number of Yuroks moved to the new reservation, however, and nearly all those who did move returned within a few years to the Klamath River. Crichton v. Shelton, 33 I. D. 205, 208 (1904); Kappler 830; 1864 Report 122. The Smith River Reservation was then discontinued. Act of July 27, 1868, 15 Stat. 198, 221.
The total Yurok population on the Klamath River Reservation in the 1860’s cannot be stated with precision. In 1852, based in part on a rough census made by a trader, it was estimated at 2,500. Kroeber 16-17. The effect of the 1861 flood cannot be firmly established; but it is clear that the tribe remained on the Klamath thereafter. For later years, Kroeber estimated that the population in 1895 was 900, and, in 1910, 668. Kroeber 19. From this it would appear that the flood at least did not cause a dissolution of the tribe; on the contrary, the Yuroks continued to reside in the area through the turn of the century and beyond.
The Act of April 8, 1864, 13 Stat. 39, designated California as one Indian superintendency. It also recited that “there shall be set apart by the President, and at his discretion, not exceeding four tracts of land, within the limits of said state, to be retained by the United States for the purposes of Indian reservations.” It further provided that “the several Indian reservations in California which shall not be retained... under... this act, shall... be surveyed into lots or parcels... and... be offered for sale at public outcry, and thence afterward shall be held subject to sale at private entry.” Id., at 40.
At the time of the passage of the 1864 Act there were, apparently, three reservations in California: the Klam-ath River, the Mendocino, and the Smith River. It appears, also, that the President did not take immediate action, upon the passage of the Act, to recognize reservations in California. It was not until 1868 that any formal recognition occurred, and then it was the Congress, rather than the President, that acted. In that year Congress discontinued the Smith River Reservation, 15 Stat. 221, and restored the Mendocino to the public lands. Id., at 223. No similar action was taken with respect to the Klamath River Reservation. Crichton v. Shelton, 33 I. D., at 209. Congress made appropriations for the Round Valley Reservation, 15 Stat. 221, and for it and the Hoopa Valley Reservation in 1869, 16 Stat. 37, although neither of these, apparently, had been established theretofore by formal Executive Order.
The Klamath River Reservation, although not reestablished by Executive Order or specific congressional action, continued, certainly, in de facto existence. Yuroks remained on reservation land, and the Department of Indian Affairs regarded the Klamath River Reservation as “in a state of reservation” throughout the period from 1864 to 1891. No steps were taken to sell the reservation, or parts thereof, under the 1864 Act. Indeed, in 1879, all trespassers there were removed by the military. In 1883 the Secretary of the Interior directed that allotments of land be made to the Indians on the reservation. In February 1889, the Senate, by resolution, directed the Secretary of the Interior “to inform the Senate what proceedings, if any, have been had in his Department relative to the survey and sale of the Klamath Indian reservation... in pursuance of the provisions of the act approved April 8, 1864.” 20 Cong. Rec. 1818. In response, the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, by letter dated February 18, 1889, to the Secretary disclosed that no proceedings to this effect had been undertaken. An Assistant Attorney General for the Department of the Interior expressed a similar view in an opinion dated January 20, 1891.
In 1888, in a forfeiture suit, the United States District Court for the Northern District of California concluded that the area within the Klamath River Reservation was not Indian country, within the meaning of Rev. Stat. § 2133, prescribing the penalty for unlicensed trading in Indian country. The court concluded that the land composing the reservation was not retained or recognized as reservation land pursuant to the 1864 Act and that, therefore, it no longer constituted an Indian reservation. United States v. Forty-eight Pounds of Rising Star Tea, 35 F. 403 (ND Cal. 1888). This holding was expressly affirmed on appeal to a circuit judge. 38 F. 400 (CCND Cal. 1889). The Assistant Attorney General, in the opinion referred to above, conceded the probable correctness of the judgment but was not convinced that his own views were erroneous, and he could not assent to the reasoning of the court. He felt that the court’s comments as to the abandoned status of the reservation “were dicta and not essential to the decision of the case before the court.” Crichton v. Shelton, 33 I. D., at 215.
Thus, as of 1891, it may be fair to say that the exact legal status of the Klamath River Reservation was obscure and uncertain. The petitioner in his brief here, p. 14, states that the reservation “ceased to exist in 1876, at the latest.”
Any question concerning the reservation’s continuing legal existence, however, appears to have been effectively laid to rest by an Executive Order dated October 16, 1891, issued by President Benjamin Harrison. By the specific terms of that order, the Hoopa Valley Reservation, which, as we already have noted, was located in 1864 and formally set apart in 1876, and which was situated about 50 miles upstream from the Klamath River’s mouth, was extended so as to include all land, one mile in width on each side of the river, from “the present limits” of the Hoopa Valley Reservation to the Pacific Ocean. The Klamath River Reservation, or what had been the reservation, thus was made part of the Hoopa Valley Reservation, as extended.
The reason for incorporating the Klamath River Reservation in the Hoopa Valley Reservation is apparent. The 1864 Act had authorized the President to “set apart” no more than four tracts for Indian reservations in California. By 1876, and certainly by 1891, four reservations already had been so set apart. These were the Round Valley, referred to above, the Mission, the Hoopa Valley, and the Tule River. Kappler 830-831. Thus, recognition of a fifth reservation along the Klamath River was not permissible under the 1864 Act. Accordingly, the President turned to his authority under the Act to expand an existing, recognized reservation. He enlarged the Hoopa Valley Reservation to include what had been the Klamath River Reservation as well as an intervening riparian strip connecting the two tracts. The President’s continuing authority so to enlarge reservations and, specifically, the legality of the 1891 Executive Order, was affirmed by this Court in Donnelly v. United States, 228 TJ. S. 243, 255-259 (1913), reh. denied, 228 U. S. 708, and is not challenged here.
II
This general background as to the origin and development of the Klamath River Reservation is not contested by either party. The reservation’s existence, pursuant to the Executive Order of 1891, is conceded. The present controversy relates to its termination subsequent to 1891, and turns primarily upon the effect of the Act of June 17, 1892, 27 Stat. 52, entitled “An act to provide for the disposition and sale of lands known as the Klamath River Indian Reservation.” This Act provided:
“That all of the lands embraced in what was Klamath River Reservation in the State of California, as set apart and reserved under authority of law by an Executive order dated November sixteenth, eighteen hundred and fifty-five, are hereby declared to be subject to settlement, entry, and purchase under the laws of the United States granting homestead rights and authorizing the sale of mineral, stone, and timber lands: Provided, That any Indian now located upon said reservation may, at any time within one year from the passage of this act, apply to the Secretary of the Interior for an allotment.... And the Secretary of the Interior may reserve from settlement, entry, or purchase any tract or tracts of land upon which any village or settlement of Indians is now located, and may set apart the same for the permanent use and occupation of said village or settlement of Indians.... Provided further, That the proceeds arising from the sale of said lands shall constitute a fund to be used under the direction of the Secretary of the Interior for the maintenance and education of the Indians now residing on said lands and their children.”
The respondent Director argues that this statute effected the termination of the Klamath River Reservation. The petitioner urges the contrary. It is our task, in light of the language and purpose of the Act, as well as of the historical background, outlined above, to determine the proper meaning of the Act and, consequently, the current status of the reservation.
The respondent relies upon what he feels is significant language in the Act and upon references in the legislative history. He contends, “The fact that the lands were to be opened up for settlement and sale by homesteaders strongly militates against a continuation of such reservation status.” Brief for Respondent 3.
We conclude, however, that this is a misreading of the effect of the allotment provisions in the 1892 Act. The meaning of those terms is to be ascertained from the overview of the earlier General Allotment Act of 1887, 24 Stat. 388. That Act permitted the President to make allotments of reservation lands to resident Indians and, with tribal consent, to sell surplus lands. Its policy was to continue the reservation system and the trust status of Indian lands, but to allot tracts to individual Indians for agriculture and grazing. When all the lands had been allotted and the trust expired, the reservation could be abolished. Unallotted lands were made available to non-Indians with the purpose, in part, of promoting interaction between the races and of encouraging Indians to adopt white ways. See § 6 of the General Allotment Act, 24 Stat. 390; United States Department of the Interior, Federal Indian Law 115-117, 127-129, 776-777 (1958). Under the 1887 Act, however, the President was not required to open reservation land for allotment; he merely had the discretion to do so.
In view of the discretionary nature of this presidential power, Congress occasionally enacted special legislation in order to assure that a particular reservation was in fact opened to allotment. The 1892 Act was but one example of this. Its allotment provisions, which do not differ materially from those of the General Allotment Act of 1887, and which in fact refer to the earlier Act, do not, alone, recite or even suggest that Congress intended thereby to terminate the Klamath River Reservation. See Seymour v. Superintendent, 368 U. S. 351, 357-358 (1962). Rather, allotment under the 1892 Act is completely consistent with continued reservation status. This Court unanimously observed, in an analogous setting in Seymour, id., at 356, “The Act did no more [in this respect] than open the way for non-Indian settlers to own land on the reservation in a manner which the Federal Government, acting as guardian and trustee for the Indians, regarded as beneficial to the development of its wards.” See United States v. Celestine, 215 U. S. 278 (1909); United States v. Nice, 241 U. S. 591 (1916). See also Wilbur v. United States, 281 U. S. 206 (1930); Donnelly v. United States, 228 U. S. 243 (1913).
Ill
The respondent further urges, however, that his view of the effect of the 1892 Act is supported by the Act's reference to “what was [the] Klamath River Reservation.” According to the respondent, this reference, and other references in the legislative history, compel the conclusion that Congress intended to terminate the reservation in 1892.
The 1892 Act, to be sure, does refer to the Klamath River Reservation in the past tense. But this is not to be read as a clear indication of congressional purpose to terminate. Just a few weeks before the bill (H. R. 38, 52d Cong., 1st Sess.), which eventually became the Act, was reported out of committee on February 5, 1892, H. R. Rep. No. 161, 52d Cong., 1st Sess., the President had formally extended the Hoopa Valley Reservation to include the Klamath River Reservation. And only that portion of the extension which had been the Klamath River Reservation was the subject of the 1892 Act. The reference to the Klamath River Reservation in the past tense seems, then, merely to have been a natural, convenient, and shorthand way of identifying the land subject to allotment under the 1892 Act. We do not believe the reference can be read as indicating any clear purpose to terminate the reservation directly or by innuendo.
The respondent also points to numerous statements in the legislative history that, in his view, indicate that the reservation was to be terminated. We need not refer in detail to the cited passages in H. R. Rep. No. 161, supra, or to the debates on the bill, 23 Cong. Rec. 1598-1599, 3918-3919 (1892), for there is no challenge here to the view that the House was generally hostile to continued reservation status of the land in question. In our estimation, however, this very fact, in proper perspective, supports the petitioner and undermines the respondent's position.
As early as 1879, there were efforts in Congress to abolish the Klamath River Reservation. From that date to 1892 strong sentiment existed to this effect. But it does not appear that termination ever commanded majority support. The advocates of termination argued that the reservation, as of 1879, long had been abandoned; that the land was useless as a reservation; and that many white settlers had moved on to the land and their property should be protected. See H. R. Rep. No. 1354, 46th Cong., 2d Sess., 5 (1880). That whites had settled there is clear, but the view that no Indians remained after the flood of 1861 appears to have been a gross misconception on the part of those who sought termination.
The first bill providing for public entry and sale of the Klamath River Reservation was introduced in the Senate on May 28, 1879. S. Res. 34, 46th Cong., 1st Sess.; 9 Cong. Rec. 1651. The resolution referred to the reservation’s having been “abandoned” in 1855 “ and the tribe removed to another reservation established for its use.” No action was taken on the bill, and another, of the same purport, was introduced on January 12, 1880, in the House. H. R. 3454, 46th Cong., 2d Sess.; 10 Cong. Rec. 286. This bill provided that the reservation “be, and the same is hereby, abolished,” and authorized and directed the Secretary of the Interior to survey the lands and have them made subject to homestead and preemption entry and sale “the same as other public lands.” It is clear from the report on this second bill, H. R. Rep. No. 1354, supra, at 1-5, that the establishment of the reservation in 1855 was viewed as a mistake and an injustice. According to the Report, the reservation had been abandoned after the 1861 freshet, and the Indians had moved to the Smith River and, later, the Hoopa Valley Reservations. White settlers had moved in and wished to exploit the lumber and soil of the area which, some said, “has no equal in California as a fruit and wine growing country.” Id., at 5. Inasmuch as the reservation blocked access to the river, the resources of the area could not be developed. Although unmentioned in that Report, the Office of Indian Affairs opposed the bill. See H. R. Rep. No. 1148, 47th Cong., 1st Sess., 1 (1882). The bill as reported was recommitted and no further action was taken. 10 Cong. Rec. 3126 (1880).
An identical bill was introduced in the following Congress. H. R. 60, 47th Cong., 1st Sess.; 13 Cong. Rec. 90 (1881). The Commissioner of Indian Affairs opposed the bill as introduced, but stated that he would not oppose it if provision for prior allotments to the Indians was made. H. R. Rep. No. 1148, supra, at 2. The Commissioner's proposed amendment was approved by the Committee, 13 Cong. Rec. 3414 (1882), but no action on the bill was taken by the full House.
In 1883 and 1884 three more bills were introduced. It is of interest to note that each acceded to the request of the Commissioner that provision be made for prior allotments to resident Indians. H. R. 112, 48th Cong., 1st Sess.; 15 Cong. Rec. 62 (1883); S. 813, 48th Cong., 1st Sess.; 15 Cong. Rec. 166 (1883); H. R. 7505, 48th Cong., 1st Sess.; 15 Cong. Rec. 5923 (1884). Each bill would have “abolished” the reservation and would have made the land subject to homestead and pre-emption entry. None of the bills was enacted, although passage must have been generally regarded as likely, for the Indian Bureau in 1883 began the work of allotment and survey, perhaps in anticipation of passage.
In 1885 two bills were introduced in the House. Each was substantially identical to those introduced in 1883 and 1884. H. R. 158 and H. R. 165, 49th Cong., 1st Sess. ; 17 Cong. Rec. 370 (1885). No action was taken on either bill.
No further bills, apparently, were introduced until 1889. During the intervening period, however, the General Allotment Act of 1887, 24 Stat. 388, was passed and thereafter amended, 26 Stat. 794. The Rising Star Tea case, 35 F. 403, was also decided.
In 1889 a bill providing for the allotment of the Klamath River Reservation was introduced. The allotments, however, were to be made in a manner inconsistent with the General Allotment Act. H. R. 12104, 50th Cong., 2d Sess.; 20 Cong. Rec. 756 (1889). And after affirmance of the Rising Star Tea case by the circuit court, 38 F. 400 (1889), identical bills were introduced in the House and the Senate providing, without mention of allotment, that “all of the lands embraced in what was Klamath River Reservation... are hereby de-dared to be subject to settlement, entry, and purchase” under the land laws. H. It. 113, 51st Cong., 1st Sess.; 21 Cong. Rec. 229 (1889); S. 2297, 51st Cong., 1st Sess.; 21 Cong. Rec. 855 (1890). The Indian Office opposed the bills, recommending that they be amended to provide for allotments to the Indians under the General Allotment Act, that surplus lands be restored to the public domain, and that the proceeds be held in trust for the Klamath River Indians. See Short v. United States, No. 102-63, pp. 44-45 (Report of Commissioner, Court of Claims, 1972). H. R. 113 was reported out of committee with certain amendments, including one to the effect that proceeds arising from the sale of lands were to be used for the “removal, maintenance, and education” of the resident Indians, the Hoopa Valley Reservation being considered the place of removal. Allotments to the Indians on the Klamath Reservation, however, were emphatically rejected. H. R. Rep. No. 1176, 51st Cong., 1st Sess., 2 (1890). The bill was so amended and passed the House. 21 Cong. Rec. 10701-10702 (1890). It died in the Senate.
In light of the passage of this last bill in the House and the presence of the Rising Star Tea opinions, the Indian Department moved to have the Klamath River Reservation land protected for the Indians residing there. The details of this effort, including the opinion of the Assistant Attorney General, referred to above, are outlined in the Commissioner’s report in Short v. United States, supra, at 45-50. These efforts culminated in President Harrison’s Executive Order of October 1891 expanding the Hoopa Valley Reservation to include the Klamath River Reservation.
It is against this background of repeated legislative efforts to terminate the reservation, and to avoid allotting reservation lands to the Indians, that the 1892 Act was introduced. H. R. 38, 52d Cong., 1st Sess.; 23 Cong. E.ec. 125 (1892). The bill provided for the settlement, entry, and purchase of the reservation land and specified that the proceeds should be used for the “removal, maintenance, and education” of the resident Indians. No allotments were provided for, as the Indians were “semicivilized, disinclined to labor, and have no conception of land values or desire to cultivate the soil.” H. R. Rep. No. 161, 52d Cong., 1st Sess., 1 (1892). The House Committee on Indian Affairs amended the bill by changing the word “and” to “or” in the proviso relating to the use of proceeds. Id., at 2.
The bill passed the House without change. 23 Cong. Rec. 1598-1599 (1892). It was struck out in the Senate, however, and another version was substituted deleting reference to the removal of the Indians and providing that before public sale the land should be allotted to the Indians under the General Allotment Act of 1887, as amended. Id., at 3918-3919. This substitute measure had the support of the Interior Department. Id., at 3918. The Senate called for a conference with the House, id., at 3919, and the conference adopted the Senate version with amendments. Sen. Mise. Doc. No. 153, 52d Cong., 1st Sess. (1892). The bill was then passed and became the 1892 Act.
IV
Several conclusions may be drawn from this account. First, the respondent’s reliance on the House Report and on comments made on the floor of the House is not well placed. Although the primary impetus for termination of the Klamath River Reservation had been with the House since 1871, this effort consistently had failed to accomplish the very objectives the respondent now seeks to achieve. Likewise, the House in 1892 failed to accomplish these objectives, for the Senate version, supported by the Interior Department, was substituted for that of the House. The Senate version, ultimately enacted, provided for allotments to the Indians and for the proceeds of sales to be held in trust for the “maintenance and education,” not the removal, of the Indians. The legislative history relied upon by the respondent does not support the view that the reservation was terminated; rather, by contrast with the bill as finally enacted, it compels the conclusion that efforts to terminate the reservation by denying allotments to the Indians failed completely.
A second conclusion is also inescapable. The presence of allotment provisions in the 1892 Act cannot be interpreted to mean that the reservation was to be terminated. This is apparent from the very language of 18 U. S. C. § 1151, defining Indian country “notwithstanding the issuance of any patent”, therein. More significantly, throughout the period from 1871-1892 numerous bills were introduced which expressly provided for the termination of the reservation and did so in unequivocal terms. Congress was fully aware of the means by which termination could be effected. But clear termination language was not employed in the 1892 Act. This being so, we are not inclined to infer an intent to terminate the reservation. The Court stated in United States v. Celestine, 215 U. S., at 285, that “when Congress has once established a reservation all tracts included within it remain a part of the reservation until separated therefrom by Congress.” A congressional determination to terminate must be expressed on the face of the Act or be clear from the surrounding circumstances and legislative history. See Seymour v. Superintendent, 368 TJ. S. 351 (1962); United States v. Nice, 241 U. S. 591 (1916).
Finally, our conclusion that the 1892 Act did not terminate the Klamath River Reservation is reinforced by repeated recognition of the reservation status of the land after 1892 by the Department of the Interior and by Congress. In 1904 the Department, in Crichton v. Shelton, 33 I. D. 205, ruled that the 1892 Act reconfirmed the continued existence of the reservation. In 1932 the Department continued to recognize the Klamath River Reservation, albeit as part of the Hoopa Valley Reservation, and it continues to do so today. And Congress has recognized the reservation's continued existence by extending the period of trust allotments for this very reservation by the 1942 Act, described above, 25 U. S. C. § 348a, and by restoring to tribal ownership certain vacant and undisposed-of ceded lands in the reservation by the 1958 Act, supra.
We conclude that the Klamath River Reservation was not terminated by the Act of June 17, 1892, and that the land within the boundaries of the reservation is still Indian country, within the meaning of 18 U. S. C. § 1151.
The judgment of the Court of Appeal is reversed, and the case is remanded for further proceedings.
It is so ordered.
Title 18 U. S. C. § 1151 defines the term “Indian country” to include, inter alia, “all lands within the limits of any Indian reservation under the jurisdiction of the United States Government, notwithstanding the issuance of any patent....”
Title 18 U. S. C. § 1162 (a) provides that, with respect to Indian country within California, that State “shall have jurisdiction over offenses committed by or against Indians in the areas of Indian country... to the same extent that such State... has jurisdiction over offenses committed elsewhere within the State..., and the criminal laws of such State... shall have the same force and effect within such Indian country as they have elsewhere within the State....” Section 1162 (b) provides, however, “Nothing in this section... shall deprive any Indian or any Indian tribe, band, or community of any right, privilege, or immunity afforded under Federal treaty, agreement, or statute with respect to hunting, trapping, or fishing or the control, licensing, or regulation thereof.”
Finally, the California Fish & Game Code § 12300 (Supp. 1973), reads:
“Irrespective of any other provision of law, the provisions of this code are not applicable to California Indians whose names are inscribed upon the tribal rolls, while on the reservation of such tribe and under those circumstances in this State where the code was not applicable to them immediately prior to the effective date of Public Law 280, Chapter 505, First Session, 1953, 83d Congress of the United States [18 U. S. C. § 1162].”
The Executive Order is reproduced in 1 C. Kappler, Indian Affairs — Laws and Treaties 817 (1904) (hereinafter Kappler).
At the end of this opinion, as the Appendix, is a map of the Klam-ath River Reservation. The area described in the text is indicated as the “Old Klamath River Reservation.”
See Pet. for Cert., App. B 4-5.
A. Kroeber, Handbook of the Indians of California, ec. 1-4, published as Bulletin 78, Bureau of American Ethnology 1-97 (1925) (hereinafter Kroeber); S. Powers, Tribes of California, cc. 4 and 5, published as 3 Contributions to North American Ethnology 44^64 (1877) (hereinafter Powers). Various Annual Reports of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs provide further information; see, for example, the 1856 Report of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs 249-250 (hereinafter Report).
Kroeber, in the preface to his work, suggests that the factual material contained in Powers' manuscript is subject to some criticism. Kroeber’s reference to Powers deserves reproduction in full here:
“I should
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer:
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B
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sc_issuearea
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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.
On June 21, 1958, the District Court for the Eastern District of Arkansas entered an order authorizing the members of the School Board of Little Rock, Arkansas, and the Superintendent of Schools, to suspend until January 1961 a plan of integration theretofore approved by that court in August 1956, Aaron v. Cooper, 143 F. Supp. 855, and affirmed by the Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit in April 1957. 243 F. 2d 361. On June 23, 1958, the District Court denied an application for a stay of execution of its order. An appeal was docketed in the Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit on June 24, 1958, and there is pending in that court an application for a stay of the District Court’s order.
By the present petition this Court is asked to bring the case here before the Court of Appeals has had an opportunity to act upon the petition for a stay or to hear the appeal. The power of the Court to do so has been exercised but rarely, and the issues and circumstances relevant to the present petition do not warrant its exercise now. The order that the District Court suspended has, in different postures, been before the Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit three times already. Aaron v. Cooper, 243 F. 2d 361; Thomason v. Cooper, 254 F. 2d 808 (April 28, 1958); Faubus v. United States, 254 F. 2d 797 (April 28, 1958). That court is the regular court for reviewing orders of the District Court here concerned, and the appeal and the petition for a stay are matters properly to be adjudicated by it in the first instance.
We have no doubt that the Court of Appeals will recognize the vital importance of the time element in this litigation, and that it will act upon the application for a stay or the appeal in ample time to permit arrangements to be made for the next school year..
Accordingly, the petition for certiorari is
Denied.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer:
|
B
|
sc_issuearea
|
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Per Curiam.
After petitioner appealed the dismissal of his employment discrimination claim, respondent moved for dismissal of the appeal and for sanctions. Respondent argued that the appeal was frivolous in light of controlling decisions of the Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit holding that § 101 of the Civil Rights Act of 1991, 105 Stat. 1071, 42 U. S. C. § 1981 (1988 ed., Supp. IV), does not apply to cases arising before its enactment. See Luddington v. Indiana Bell Tel. Co., 966 F. 2d 225 (1992); Mozee v. American Commercial Marine Serv. Co., 963 F. 2d 929 (1992). In an order dated September 30, 1992, the Court of Appeals granted respondent’s motion, dismissed the appeal, and imposed a $500 sanction on petitioner’s attorney.
The Court of Appeals correctly rejected petitioner’s argument that § 101 applies retroactively. See Landgraf v. USI Film Products, ante, p. 244; Rivers v. Roadway Express; Inc., ante, p. 298. However, if the only basis for the order imposing sanctions on petitioner’s attorney was that his retroactivity argument was foreclosed by Circuit precedent, the order was not proper. As petitioner noted in his memorandum opposing dismissal and sanctions, this Court had not yet ruled on the application of § 101 to pending cases. Filing an appeal was the only way petitioner could preserve the issue pending a possible favorable decision by this Court. Although, as of September 30,1992, there was no circuit conflict on the retroactivity question, that question had divided the District Courts and its answer was not so clear as to make petitioner’s position frivolous. See Mozee, supra, at 940-941 (Cudahy, J., dissenting).
Accordingly, the petition for a writ of certiorari is granted, the order imposing sanctions 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:
|
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 judgment is affirmed.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer:
|
G
|
sc_issuearea
|
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