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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.
Upon the respondent’s suggestion of mootness the judgment of the United States Court of Appeals is vacated insofar as it reversed the stay provision of the judgment of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, and the case is remanded to the District Court with directions to dismiss as moot that portion of the complaint seeking such a stay.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
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 Souter
delivered the opinion of the Court.
A New York statute requires hospitals to collect surcharges from patients covered by a commercial insurer but not from patients insured by a Blue Cross/Blue Shield plan, and it subjects certain health maintenance organizations (HMO’s) to surcharges that vary with the number of Medicaid recipients each enrolls. N. Y. Pub. Health Law § 2807-c (McKinney 1993). These cases call for us to decide whether the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA), 88 Stat. 829, as amended, 29 U. S. C. § 1001 et seq. (1988 ed. and Supp. V), pre-empts the state provisions for surcharges on bills of patients whose commercial insurance coverage is purchased by employee health-care plans governed by ERISA, and for surcharges on HMO’s insofar as their membership fees are paid by an ERISA plan. We hold that the provisions for surcharges do not “relate to” employee benefit plans within the meaning of ERISA’s preemption provision, § 514(a), 29 U. S. C. § 1144(a), and accordingly suffer no pre-emption.
I
A
New York’s Prospective Hospital Reimbursement Methodology (NYPHRM) regulates hospital rates for all in-patient care, except for services provided to Medicare beneficiaries. N. Y. Pub. Health Law §2807-c (McKinney 1993). The scheme calls for patients to be charged not for the cost of their individual treatment, but for the average cost of treating the patient’s medical problem, as classified under one or another of 794 Diagnostic Related Groups (DRG’s). The charges allowable in accordance with DRG classifications are adjusted for a specific hospital to reflect its particular operating costs, capital investments, bad debts, costs of charity care, and the like.
Patients with Blue Cross/Blue Shield coverage, Medicaid patients, and HMO participants are billed at a hospital’s DRG rate. N. Y. Pub. Health Law § 2807 — c(l)(a); see also Brief for Petitioners Pataki et al. 4. Others, however, are not. Patients served by commercial insurers providing inpatient hospital coverage on an expense-incurred basis, by self-insured funds directly reimbursing hospitals, and by certain workers’ compensation, volunteer firefighters’ benefit, ambulance workers’ benefit, and no-fault motor vehicle insurance funds, must be billed at the DRG rate plus a 13% surcharge to be retained by the hospital. N. Y. Pub. Health Law §2807-c(l)(b). For the year ending March 31, 1993, moreover, hospitals were required to bill commercially insured patients for a further 11% surcharge to be turned over to the State, with the result that these patients were charged 24% more than the DRG rate. § 2807 — c(ll)(i).
New York law also imposes a surcharge on HMO’s, which varies depending on the number of eligible Medicaid recipients an HMO has enrolled, but which may run as high as 9% of the aggregate monthly charges paid by an HMO for its members’ in-patient hospital care. §§2807-c(2-a)(a) to (2-a)(e). This assessment is not an increase in the rates to be paid by an HMO to hospitals, but a direct payment by the HMO to the State’s general fund.
B
ERISA’s comprehensive regulation of employee welfare and pension benefit plans extends to those that provide “medical, surgical, or hospital care or benefits” for plan participants or their beneficiaries “through the purchase of insurance or otherwise.” §3(1), 29 U. S. C. §1002(1). The federal statute does not go about protecting plan participants and their beneficiaries by requiring employers to provide any given set of minimum benefits, but instead controls the administration of benefit plans, see §2, 29 U. S. C. § 1001(b), as by imposing reporting and disclosure mandates, §§ 101-111, 29 U. S. C. §§ 1021-1031, participation and vesting requirements, §§201-211, 29 U. S. C. §§1051-1061, funding standards, §§301-308, 29 U. S. C. §§1081-1086, and fiduciary responsibilities for plan administrators, §§401-414, 29 U. S. C. §§1101-1114. It envisions administrative oversight, imposes criminal sanctions, and establishes a comprehensive civil enforcement scheme. §§501-515, 29 U. S. C. §§ 1131— 1145. It also pre-empts some state law. §514, 29 U. S. C. §1144.
Section 514(a) provides that ERISA “shall supersede any and all State laws insofar as they... relate to any employee benefit plan” covered by the statute, 29 U. S. C. § 1144(a), although pre-emption stops short of “any law of any State which regulates insurance.” § 514(b)(2)(A), 29 U. S. C. § 1144(b)(2)(A). (This exception for insurance regulation is itself limited, however, by the provision that an employee welfare benefit plan may not “be deemed to be an insurance company or other insurer... or to be engaged in the business of insurance....” § 514(b)(2)(B), 29 U. S. C. § 1144(b)(2)(B).) Finally, ERISA saves from pre-emption “any generally applicable criminal law of a State.” § 514(b)(4), 29 U. S. C. § 1144(b)(4).
C
On the claimed authority of ERISA’s general pre-emption provision, several commercial insurers, acting as fiduciaries of ERISA plans they administer, joined with their trade associations to bring actions against state officials in United States District Court seeking to invalidate the 13%, 11%, and 9% surcharge statutes. The New York State Conference of Blue Cross and Blue Shield plans, Empire Blue Cross and Blue Shield (collectively the Blues), and the Hospital Association of New York State intervened as defendants, and the New York State Health Maintenance Organization Conference and several HMO’s intervened as plaintiffs. The District Court consolidated the actions and granted summary judgment to the plaintiffs. Travelers Ins. Co. v. Cuomo, 813 F. Supp. 996 (SDNY 1993). The court found that although the surcharges “do not directly increase a plan’s costs or [a]ffect the level of benefits to be offered” there could be “little doubt that the [surcharges at issue will have a significant effect on the commercial insurers and HMOs which do or could provide coverage for ERISA plans and thus lead, at least indirectly, to an increase in plan costs.” Id., at 1003 (footnote omitted). It found that the “entire justification for the [sjurcharges is premised on that exact result — that the [surcharges will increase the cost of obtaining medical insurance through any source other than the Blues to a sufficient extent that customers will switch their coverage to and ensure the economic viability of the Blues.” Ibid, (footnote omitted). The District Court concluded that this effect on choices by ERISA plans was enough to trigger pre-emption under § 514(a) and that the surcharges were not saved by § 514(b) as regulating insurance. Id., at 1003-1008. The District Court accordingly enjoined enforcement of “those surcharges against any commercial insurers or HMOs in connection with their coverage of... ERISA plans.” Id., at 1012.
The Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit affirmed, relying on our decisions in Shaw v. Delta Air Lines, Inc., 463 U. S. 85 (1983), and District of Columbia v. Greater Washington Bd. of Trade, 506 U. S. 125 (1992), holding that ERISA’s pre-emption clause must be read broadly to reach any state law having a connection with, or reference to, covered employee benefit plans. Travelers Ins. Co. v. Cuomo, 14 F. 3d 708, 718 (1994). In the light of our decision in Ingersoll-Rand Co. v. McClendon, 498 U. S. 133, 141 (1990), the Court of Appeals abandoned its own prior decision in Rebaldo v. Cuomo, 749 F. 2d 133, 137 (1984), cert. denied, 472 U. S. 1008 (1985), which had drawn upon the definition of the term “State” in ERISA § 514(c)(2), 29 U. S. C. § 1144(c)(2), to conclude that “a state law must ‘purpor[t] to regulate... the terms and conditions of employee benefit plans’ to fall within the preemption provision” of ERISA. 14 F. 3d, at 719 (internal quotation marks omitted). Rejecting that narrower approach to ERISA pre-emption, it relied on our statement in Ingersoll-Rand that under the applicable “ ‘broad common-sense meaning,’ a state law may ‘relate to’ a benefit plan, and thereby be pre-empted, even if the law is not specifically designed to affect such plans, or the effect is only indirect.” 498 U. S., at 139; see 14 F. 3d, at 718.
The Court of Appeals agreed with the trial court that the surcharges were meant to increase the costs of certain insurance and health care by HMO’s, and held that this “purpose[ful] interference] with the choices that ERISA plans make for health care coverage... is sufficient to constitute [a] ‘connection with’ ERISA plans” triggering pre-emption. Id., at 719. The court’s conclusion, in sum, was that “the three surcharges ‘relate to’ ERISA because they impose a significant economic burden on commercial insurers and HMOs” and therefore “have an impermissible impact on ERISA plan structure and administration.” Id., at 721. In the light of its conclusion that the surcharge statutes were not otherwise saved by any applicable exception, the court held them pre-empted. Id., at 723. It recognized the apparent conflict between its conclusion and the decision of the Third Circuit in United Wire, Metal and Machine Health and Welfare Fund v. Morristown Memorial Hosp., 995 F. 2d 1179, 1191, cert. denied, 510 U. S. 944 (1993), which held that New Jersey’s similar ratesetting statute “does not relate to the plans in a way that triggers ERISA’s preemption clause.” See 14 F. 3d, at 721, n. 3. We granted certiorari to resolve this conflict, 513 U. S. 920 (1994), and now reverse and remand.
II
Our past cases have recognized that the Supremacy Clause, U. S. Const., Art. VI, may entail pre-emption of state law either by express provision, by implication, or by a conflict between federal and state law. See Pacific Gas & Elec. Co. v. State Energy Resources Conservation and Development Comm'n, 461 U. S. 190, 203-204 (1983); Rice v. Santa Fe Elevator Corp., 331 U. S. 218, 230 (1947). And yet, despite the variety of these opportunities for federal preeminence, we have never assumed lightly that Congress has derogated state regulation, but instead have addressed claims of pre-emption with the starting presumption that Congress does not intend to supplant state law. See Maryland v. Louisiana, 451 U. S. 725, 746 (1981). Indeed, in cases like this one, where federal law is said to bar state action in fields of traditional state regulation, see Hillsborough County v. Automated Medical Laboratories, Inc., 471 U. S. 707, 719 (1985), we have worked on the “assumption that the historic police powers of the States were not to be superseded by the Federal Act unless that was the clear and manifest purpose of Congress.” Rice, supra, at 230. See, e. g., Cipollone v. Liggett Group, Inc., 505 U. S. 504, 516 (1992); id., at 532-533 (Blackmun, J., concurring in part, concurring in judgment in part, and dissenting in part); Metropolitan Life Ins. Co. v. Massachusetts, 471 U. S. 724, 740 (1985); Jones v. Rath Packing Co., 430 U. S. 519 (1977); Napier v. Atlantic Coast Line R. Co., 272 U. S. 605, 611 (1926).
Since pre-emption claims turn on Congress’s intent, Cipollone, supra, at 516; Shaw, supra, at 95, we begin as we do in any exercise of statutory construction with the text of the provision in question, and move on, as need be, to the structure and purpose of the Act in which it occurs. See, e. g., Ingersoll-Rand, supra, at 138. The governing text of ERISA is clearly expansive. Section 514(a) marks for preemption “all state laws insofar as they... relate to any employee benefit plan” covered by ERISA, and one might be excused for wondering, at first blush, whether the words of limitation (“insofar as they... relate”) do much limiting. If “relate to” were taken to extend to the furthest, stretch of its indeterminacy, then for all practical purposes pre-emption would never run its course, for “[rjeally, universally, relations stop nowhere,” H. James, Roderick Hudson xli (New York ed., World’s Classics 1980). But that, of course, would be to read Congress’s words of limitation as mere sham, and to read the presumption against pre-emption out of the law whenever Congress speaks to the matter with generality. That said, we have to recognize that our prior attempt to construe the phrase “relate to” does not give us much help drawing the line here.
In Shaw, we explained that “[a] law ‘relates to’ an employee benefit plan, in the normal sense of the phrase, if it has a connection with or reference to such a plan.” 463 U. S., at 96-97. The latter alternative, at least, can be ruled out. The surcharges are imposed upon patients and HMO’s, regardless of whether the commercial coverage or membership, respectively, is ultimately secured by an ERISA plan, private purchase, or otherwise, with the consequence that the surcharge statutes cannot be said to make “reference to” ERISA plans in any manner. Cf. Greater Washington Bd. of Trade, 506 U. S., at 130 (striking down District of Columbia law that “specifically refers to welfare benefit plans regulated by ERISA and on that basis alone is pre-empted”). But this still leaves us to question whether the surcharge laws have a “connection with” the ERISA plans, and here an uncritical literalism is no more help than in trying to construe “relate to.” For the same reasons that infinite relations cannot be the measure of pre-emption, neither can infinite connections. We simply must go beyond the unhelpful text and the frustrating difficulty of defining its key term, and look instead to the objectives of the ERISA statute as a guide to the scope of the state law that Congress understood would survive.
A
As we have said before, § 514 indicates Congress’s intent to establish the regulation of employee welfare benefit plans “as exclusively a federal concern.” Alessi v. Raybestos-Manhattan, Inc., 451 U. S. 504, 523 (1981). We have found that in passing § 514(a), Congress intended
“to ensure that plans and plan sponsors would be subject to a uniform body of benefits law; the goal was to minimize the administrative and financial burden of complying with conflicting directives among States or between States and the Federal Government..., [and to prevent] the potential for conflict in substantive law... requiring the tailoring of plans and employer conduct to the peculiarities of the law of each jurisdiction.” Ingersoll-Rand, 498 U. S., at 142.
This objective was described in the House of Representatives by a sponsor of the Act, Representative Dent, as being to “eliminate] the threat of conflicting and inconsistent State and local regulation.” 120 Cong. Rec. 29197 (1974). Senator Williams made the same point, that “with the narrow exceptions specified in the bill, the substantive and enforcement provisions... are intended to preempt the field for Federal regulations, thus eliminating the threat of conflicting or inconsistent State and local regulation of employee benefit plans.” Id., at 29933. The basic thrust of the pre-emption clause, then, was to avoid a multiplicity of regulation in order to permit the nationally uniform administration of employee benefit plans.
Accordingly in Shaw, for example, we had no trouble finding that New York’s “Human Rights Law, which prohibited] employers from structuring their employee benefit plans in a manner that discriminate^] on the basis of pregnancy, and [New York’s] Disability Benefits Law, which require[d] employers to pay employees specific benefits, clearly ‘relate[d] to’ benefit plans.” 463 U. S., at 97. These mandates affecting coverage could have been honored only by varying the subjects of a plan’s benefits whenever New York law might have applied, or by requiring every plan to provide all beneficiaries with a benefit demanded by New York law if New York law could have been said to require it for any one beneficiary. Similarly, Pennsylvania’s law that prohibited “plans from... requiring reimbursement [from the beneficiary] in the event of recovery from a third party” related to employee benefit plans within the meaning of § 514(a). FMC Corp. v. Holliday, 498 U. S. 52, 60 (1990). The law “prohibited] plans from being structured in a manner requiring reimbursement in the event of recovery from a third party” and “require[d] plan providers to calculate benefit levels in Pennsylvania based on expected liability conditions that differ from those in States that have not enacted similar antisubrogation legislation,” thereby “frustrat[ing] plan administrators’ continuing obligation to calculate uniform benefit levels nationwide.” Ibid. Pennsylvania employees who recovered in negligence actions against tortfeasors would, by virtue of the state law, in effect have been entitled to benefits in excess of what plan administrators intended to provide, and in excess of what the plan provided to employees in other States. Along the same lines, New Jersey could not prohibit plans from setting workers’ compensation payments off against employees’ retirement benefits or pensions, because doing so would prevent plans from using a method of calculating benefits permitted by federal law. Alessi, supra, at 524. In each of these cases, ERISA pre-empted state laws that mandated employee benefit structures or their administration. Elsewhere, we have held that state laws providing alternative enforcement mechanisms also relate to ERISA plans, triggering pre-emption. See Ingersoll-Rand, supra.
B
Both the purpose and the effects of the New York surcharge statute distinguish it from the examples just given. The charge differentials have been justified on the ground that the Blues pay the hospitals promptly and efficiently and, more importantly, provide coverage for many subscribers whom the commercial insurers would reject as unacceptable risks. The Blues’ practice, called open enrollment, has consistently been cited as the principal reason for charge differentials, whether the differentials resulted from voluntary negotiation between hospitals and payers as was the case prior to the NYPHRM system, or were created by the surcharges as is the case now. See, e. g., Charge Differential Analysis Committee, New York State Hospital Review and Planning Council, Report (1989), reprinted in Joint Appendix in No. 93-7132 (CA2), pp. 702, 705, 706 (J. A. CA2); J. Corcoran, Superintendent of Insurance, Update of 1984 Position Paper of The New York State Insurance Department on Inpatient Reimbursement Rate Differential Provided Non-Profit Insurers 6-7 (1988) (J. A. CA2, at 699-700); R. Trussell, Prepayment for Hospital Care In New York State 170 (1958) (J. A. CA2, at 664) (Trussell); Thorpe, Does All-Payer Rate Setting Work? The Case of the New York Prospective Hospital Reimbursement Methodology, 12 J. Health Politics, Policy, & Law 391, 402 (1987). Since the surcharges are presumably passed on at least in part to those who purchase commercial insurance or HMO membership, their effects follow from their purpose. Although there is no evidence that the surcharges will drive every health insurance consumer to the Blues, they do make the Blues more attractive (or less unattractive) as insurance alternatives and thus have an indirect economic effect on choices made by insurance buyers, including ERISA plans.
An indirect economic influence, however, does not bind plan administrators to any particular choice and thus function as a regulation of an ERISA plan itself; commercial insurers and HMO’s may still offer more attractive packages than the Blues. Nor does the indirect influence of the surcharges preclude uniform administrative practice or the provision of a uniform interstate benefit package if a plan wishes to provide one. It simply bears on the costs of benefits and the relative costs of competing insurance to provide them. It is an influence that can affect a plan’s shopping decisions, but it does not affect the fact that any plan will shop for the best deal it can get, surcharges or no surcharges.
There is, indeed, nothing remarkable about surcharges on hospital bills, or their effects on overall cost to the plans and the relative attractiveness of certain insurers. Rate variations among hospital providers are accepted examples of cost variation, since hospitals have traditionally “attempted to compensate for their financial shortfalls by adjusting their price... schedules for patients with commercial health insurance.” Thorpe, 12 J. Health Politics, Policy, & Law, at 394. Charge differentials for commercial insurers, even prior to state regulation, “varied dramatically across regions, ranging from 13 to 36 percent,” presumably reflecting the geographically disparate burdens of providing for the uninsured. Id., at 400; see id., at 398-399; see also, e. g., Trussell 170 (J. A. CA2, at 664); Bobinski, Unhealthy Federalism: Barriers to Increasing Health Care Access for the Uninsured, 24 U. C. D. L. Rev. 255, 267, and n. 44 (1990).
If the common character of rate differentials even in the absence of state action renders it unlikely that ERISA preemption was meant to bar such indirect economic influences under state law, the existence of other common state action with indirect economic effects on a plan’s costs leaves the intent to pre-empt even less likely. Quality standards, for example, set by the State in one subject area of hospital services but not another would affect the relative cost of providing those services over others and, so, of providing different packages of health insurance benefits. Even basic regulation of employment conditions will invariably affect the cost and price of services.
Quality control and workplace regulation, to be sure, are presumably less likely to affect premium differentials among competing insurers, but that does not change the fact that such state regulation will indirectly affect what an ERISA or other plan can afford or get for its money. Thus, in the absence of a more exact guide to intended pre-emption than § 514, it is fair to conclude that mandates for rate differentials would not be pre-empted unless other regulation with indirect effects on plan costs would be superseded as well. The bigger the package of regulation with indirect effects that would fall on the respondents’ reading of § 514, the less likely it is that federal regulation of benefit plans was intended to eliminate state regulation of health care costs.
Indeed, to read the pre-emption provision as displacing all state laws affecting costs and charges on the theory that they indirectly relate to ERISA plans that purchase insurance policies or HMO memberships that would cover such services would effectively read the limiting language in § 514(a) out of the statute, a conclusion that would violate basic principles of statutory interpretation and could not be squared with our prior pronouncement that “[p]re-emption does not occur... if the state law has only a tenuous, remote, or peripheral connection with covered plans, as is the case with many laws of general applicability.” District of Columbia v. Greater Washington Bd. of Trade, 506 U. S., at 130, n. 1 (internal quotation marks and citations omitted). While Congress’s extension of pre-emption to all “state laws relating to benefit plans” was meant to sweep more broadly than “state laws dealing with the subject matters covered by ERISA[,] reporting, disclosure, fiduciary responsibility, and the like,” Shaw, 463 U. S., at 98, and n. 19, nothing in the language of the Act or the context of its passage indicates that Congress chose to displace general health care regulation, which historically has been a matter of local concern, see Hillsborough County v. Automated Medical Laboratories, Inc., 471 U. S., at 719; 1 B. Furrow, T. Greaney, S. Johnson, T. Jost, & R. Schwartz, Health Law §§ 1-6, 1-23 (1995).
In sum, cost uniformity was almost certainly not an object of pre-emption, just as laws with only an indirect economic effect on the relative costs of various health insurance packages in a given State are a far cry from those “conflicting directives” from which Congress meant to insulate ERISA plans. See 498 U. S., at 142. Such state laws leave plan administrators right where they would be in any case, with the responsibility to choose the best overall coverage for the money. We therefore conclude that such state laws do not bear the requisite “connection with” ERISA plans to trigger pre-emption.
C
This conclusion is confirmed by our decision in Mackey v. Lanier Collection Agency & Service, Inc., 486 U. S. 825 (1988), which held that ERISA pre-emption falls short of barring application of a general state garnishment statute to participants’ benefits in the hands of an ERISA welfare benefit plan. We took no issue with the argument of the Mackey plan’s trustees that garnishment would impose administrative costs and burdens upon benefit plans, id., at 831, but concluded from the text and structure of ERISA’s preemption and enforcement provisions that “Congress did not intend to forbid the use of state-law mechanisms of executing judgments against ERISA welfare benefit plans, even when those mechanisms prevent plan participants from receiving their benefits.” Id., at 831-832. If a law authorizing an indirect source of administrative cost is not pre-empted, it should follow that a law operating as an indirect source of merely economic influence on administrative decisions, as here, should not suffice to trigger pre-emption either.
The commercial challengers counter by invoking the earlier case of Metropolitan Life Ins. Co. v. Massachusetts, 471 U. S. 724 (1985), which considered whether a State could mandate coverage of specified minimum mental-health-care benefits by policies insuring against hospital and surgical expenses. Because the regulated policies included those bought by employee welfare benefit plans, we recognized that the law “directly affected” such plans. Id., at 732. Although we went on to hold that the law was ultimately saved from pre-emption by the insurance saving clause, § 514(b)(2)(A), 29 U. S. C. § 1144(b)(2)(A), respondents proffer the first steps in our decision as support for their argument that all laws affecting ERISA plans through their impact on insurance policies “relate to” such plans and are pre-empted unless expressly saved by the statute. The challengers take Metropolitan Life too far, however.
The Massachusetts statute applied not only to “ ‘[a]ny blanket or general policy of insurance... or any policy of accident and sickness insurance’ ” but also to “ ‘any employees’ health and welfare fund which provide[d] hospital expense and surgical expense benefits.’” 471 U. S., at 730, n. 11. In fact, the State did not even try to defend its law as unrelated to employee benefit plans for the purpose of § 514(a). Id., at 739. As a result, there was no reason to distinguish with any precision between the effects on insurers that are sufficiently connected with employee benefit plans to “relate to” the plans and those effects that are not. It was enough to address the distinction bluntly, saying on the one hand that laws like the one in Metropolitan Life relate to plans since they “bea[r] indirectly but substantially on all insured benefit plans,... requiring] them to purchase the mental-health benefits specified in the statute when they purchase a certain kind of common insurance policy,” ibid., but saying on the other that “laws that regulate only the insurer, or the way in which it may sell insurance, do not ‘relate to’ benefit plans,” id., at 741. Even this basic distinction recognizes that not all regulations that would influence the cost of insurance would relate to employee benefit plans within the meaning of § 514(a). If, for example, a State were to regulate sales of insurance by commercial insurers more stringently than sales by insurers not for profit, the relative cost of commercial insurance would rise; we would nonetheless say, following Metropolitan Life, that such laws “do not ‘relate to’ benefit plans in the first instance.” Ibid. And on the same authority we would say the same about the basic tax exemption enjoyed by nonprofit insurers like the Blues since the days long before ERISA, see Marmor, New York’s Blue Cross and Blue Shield, 1934-1990: The Complicated Politics of Nonprofit Regulation, 16 J. Health Politics, Policy, & Law 761, 769 (1991) (tracing New York Blue Cross’s special tax treatment as a prepayment organization back to 1934); 1934 N. Y. Laws, ch. 595; and yet on respondents’ theory the exemption would necessarily be pre-empted as affecting insurance prices and plan costs.
In any event, Metropolitan Life cannot carry the weight the commercial insurers would place on it. The New York surcharges do not impose the kind of substantive coverage requirement binding plan administrators that was at issue in Metropolitan Life. Although even in the absence of mandated coverage there might be a point at which an exorbitant tax leaving consumers with a Hobson’s choice would be treated as imposing a substantive mandate, no showing has been made here that the surcharges are so prohibitive as to force all health insurance consumers to contract with the Blues. As they currently stand, the surcharges do riot require plans to deal with only one insurer, or to insure against an entire category of illnesses they might otherwise choose to leave without coverage.
D
It remains only to speak further on a point already raised, that any conclusion other than the one we draw would bar any state regulation of hospital costs. The basic DRG system (even without any surcharge), like any other interference with the hospital services market, would fall on a theory that all laws with indirect economic effects on ERISA plans are pre-empted under § 514(a). This would be an unsettling result and all the more startling because several States, including New York, regulated hospital charges to one degree or another at the time ERISA was passed, see, e. g., Cal. Ins. Code Ann. § 11505 (West 1972) (nonprofit hospitals); Colo. Rev. Stat. §§ 10-16-130, 10-17-108(2) to 108(3), 10-17-119(b) (1973); Conn. Gen. Stat. §§33-166, 33-172 (medical service corporations), §33-179k (health care centers) (1975); Md. Ann. Code, Art. 43, §§568H, 568U, 568W (Michie Supp. 1976); Mass. Gen. Laws Ann., ch. 176A, §§ 5, 6 (West 1958), as amended by 1968 Mass. Acts, ch. 432, § 2, and 1969 Mass. Acts, ch. 874, § 1 (hospital service corporations), Mass. Gen. Laws Ann., ch. 176B, §4 (West 1958 and Supp. 1987) (medical service corporations); Health Maintenance Organization Act, 1973 N. J. Laws, ch. 337, §8, N. J. Stat. Ann. § 26:2J-8(b) (West Supp. 1986); N. Y. Pub. Health Law §2807 (McKinney 1971); 1973 Wash. Laws, ch. 5, §15, Rev. Code Wash. Ann. §70.39.140 (West 1975). And yet there is not so much as a hint in ERISA’s legislative history or anywhere else that Congress intended to squelch these state efforts.
Even more revealing is the National Health Planning and Resources Development Act of 1974 (NHPRDA), Pub. L. 93-641, 88 Stat. 2225, §§ 1-3, repealed by Pub. L. 99-660, title VII, § 701(a), 100 Stat. 3799, which was adopted by the same Congress that passed ERISA, and only months later. The NHPRDA sought to encourage and help fund state responses to growing health care costs and the widely diverging availability of health services. § 2,88 Stat. 2226-2227; see generally National Gerimedical Hospital and Gerontology Center v. Blue Cross of Kansas City, 452 U. S. 378, 383-388 (1981). It provided for the organization and partial funding of regional “health systems agencies” responsible for gathering data as well as for planning and developing health resources in designated health service areas. 88 Stat. 2229-2242. The scheme called for designating state health planning and development agencies in qualifying States to coordinate development of health services policy. Id., at 2242-2244. These state agencies, too, would be eligible for federal funding, id., at 2249, including grants “[f]or the purpose of demonstrating the effectiveness of State Agencies regulating rates for the provision of health care... within the State.” Ibid. Exemption from ERISA pre-emption is nowhere mentioned as a prerequisite to the receipt of such funding; indeed, the only legal prerequisite to be eligible for rate regulation grants was “satisfactory evidence that the State Agency has under State law the authority to carry out rate regulation functions in accordance with this section....” Ibid.
The Secretary was required to provide technical assistance to the designated agencies by promulgating “[a] uniform system for calculating rates to be charged to health insurers and other health institutions payors by health service institutions.” Id., at 2254. Although the NHPRDA placed substantive restrictions on the system the Secretary could establish, the subject matter (and therefore the scope of envisioned state regulation) covers the same ground that New York’s surcharges tread. The Secretary’s system was supposed to:
“(A) [b]e based on an all-inclusive
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer:
|
J
|
sc_issuearea
|
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Mr. Justice Harlan
delivered the opinion of the Court.
We review a judgment of the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit which directed the Federal Power Commission to reject certain rate schedules for natural gas filed with it by petitioner United Gas Pipe Line Company (United) under § 4 (d) of the Natural Gas Act of 1938, 52 Stat. 821, as amended, 15 U. S. C. § 717 et seq.
United, a regulated natural gas pipeline company, supplies gas to Texas Gas Transmission Corporation (Texas Gas), Southern Natural Gas Company (Southern Gas), and Mississippi Valley Gas Company (Mississippi), under a number of long-term service agreements made and filed with the Commission prior to September 30, 1955, each of which contains the following pricing provision:
“All gas delivered hereunder shall be paid for by Buyer under Seller’s Rate Schedule [the appropriate rate schedule designation is inserted here], or any effective superseding rate schedules, on file with the Federal Power Commission. This agreement in all respects shall be subject to the applicable provisions of such rate schedules and to the General Terms and Conditions attached thereto and filed with the Federal Power Commission which are by reference made a part hereof.” (Italics supplied.)
On September 30, 1955, United, proceeding under § 4 (d) of the Natural Gas Act, filed with the Commission new rate schedules, together with supporting data, increasing its prices for gas as of November 1, 1955, by amounts estimated to yield total additional annual revenues of $9,978,000 from sales under the agreements here involved and from other sales also subject to the Commission’s jurisdiction. Exercising its powers under § 4 (e) of the Act, the Commission ordered a hearing as to the propriety of the new rates, and, except as to those relating to sales of gas for resale for industrial use only, suspended their effectiveness from November 1, 1955, to April 1, 1956, the maximum period of suspension authorized by the statute. Thereafter Texas Gas, Southern Gas, Mississippi, Memphis, and others claiming an interest in the proceedings were permitted to intervene; and on February 6, 1956, the Commission commenced the taking of evidence as to the lawfulness of United’s new rates under the “just and reasonable” standard of § 4 (e).
On February 27, 1956, this Court announced its decision in United Gas Pipe Line Co. v. Mobile Gas Service Corp., 350 U. S. 332, in which it was held that United could not escape a contract obligation to furnish Mobile with natural gas at a single specified price for a term of years by unilaterally filing an increased rate schedule under § 4 (d) of the Natural Gas Act. Following that decision the respondents in the present case for the first time moved the Commission to reject United's new rate schedules, claiming that their filing constituted an attempt on the part of United to change unilaterally the terms of its service agreements with Texas Gas, Southern, and Mississippi, and that such an attempt ran afoul of our decision in Mobile. Construing these agreements as in effect constituting undertakings by the purchasers to pay United’s “going” rates, as established from time to time in accordance with the procedures prescribed by the Natural Gas Act, the Commission refused to reject United’s filings. It distinguished Mobile on the ground that the contract there involved specified a single fixed rate for the gas. to be supplied under it which United was contractually foreclosed from changing without the agreement of the purchaser. 16 F. P. C. 19, 15 P. U. R. 3d 279.
The Court of Appeals reversed. Accepting for the purposes of its decision the Commission’s interpretation of United’s service agreements, the Court of Appeals held that nonetheless the Commission lacked “jurisdiction” to consider under § 4 (e) the lawfulness of United’s new rate schedules. The court regarded Mobile as establishing that § 4 (e) applies only to rate changes whose specific amount has been mutually agreed upon between a seller and purchaser, and that where a purchaser has not so agreed, a rate change can be effected only by action of the Commission under § 5 (a) of the Act. Since the rates set forth in United’s new schedules had not been agreed to by its customers, the Court of Appeals therefore held that the Commission had no jurisdiction to proceed under § 4 (e) to examine them, and that accordingly United’s filings under § 4 (d) should have been rejected. 102 U. S. App. D. C. 77, 250 F. 2d 402. We granted certiorari because of the claim that the Court of Appeals misinterpreted our decision in Mobile, and on the suggestion that its judgment seriously frustrates the proper administration of the Natural Gas Act. 355 U. S. 938.
It is apparent that the Court of Appeals misconceived the import of our decision in Mobile. The contract before the Court in that case required United to furnish natural gas to Mobile at a single fixed price of 10.7 cents per MCF (thousand cubic feet) for a period of 10 years. The contract contained no provision for any different rate, or for changing the agreed rate during the term of the agreement. It was argued by United that the Natural Gas Act gave it the right to abrogate this unqualified contract obligation and increase at will its price of gas to Mobile by filing new rate schedules under § 4 (d), subject only to the Commission’s approval of such schedules under §4(e). In rejecting that contention this Court held that the Natural Gas Act, unlike the Interstate Commerce Act, “evinces no purpose to abrogate private rate contracts as such,” that the Act did not "empower natural gas companies to change their contracts unilaterally,” and that in this respect regulated natural gas companies stood in no different position under the Act than they would have in the absence of the Act. 350 U. S., at 338, 340, 343. Since United had contractually bound itself to furnish gas to Mobile throughout the contract term at a particular price, we held that its obligation could be abrogated only by the Commission, in the exercise of its paramount regulatory authority under § 5 (a). Ibid., at 344-345.
The United contract now before us, as construed by the Federal Power Commission and as viewed by the Court of Appeals for the purposes of decision, is vitally different from that in Mobile. On this view of the contract United bound itself to furnish gas to these customers during the life of the agreements not at a single fixed rate, as in Mobile, but at what in effect amounted to its current “going” rate. Contractually this left United free to change its rates from time to time, subject, of course, to the procedures and limitations of the Natural Gas Act. In such circumstances there is nothing in Mobile which suggests that United was not entitled to file its new schedules under § 4 (d), or' that the Commission had no jurisdiction to consider them under §4(e). On the contrary we said in Mobile (350 U. S., at 343):
“. . . except as specifically limited by the Act, the rate-making powers of natural gas companies were to be no different from those they would possess in the absence of the Act: to establish ex parte, and change at will, the rates offered to prospective customers; or to fix by contract, and change only by mutual agreement, the rate agreed upon with a particular customer. No more is necessary to give full meaning to all the provisions of the Act: consistent with this, § 4 (d) means simply that no change— neither a unilateral change to an ex parte rate nor an agreed-upon change to a contract — can be made by a natural gas company without the proper notice to the Commission. . . .”
The Court of Appeals therefore erred in reading Mobile as limiting the procedures prescribed by § 4 (d) and (e) to instances where the parties by mutual agreement had “reformed” a rate contract. The reason these procedures were unavailable to United in Mobile was because the company had bargained away by contract the right to change its rates unilaterally, and not because § 4 does not apply to such rate changes whether made pursuant to or in the absence of a contract.
Moreover, we find nothing in the scheme of the Natural Gas Act which would justify the restrictive application which the Court of Appeals’ decision gives to § 4 (d) and (e). Section 4 (c) requires every natural gas company initially to file with the Commission its rates for any “sale subject to the jurisdiction of the Commission, . . . together with all contracts which in any manner affect or relate to such, rates . . . .” Section 4 (d) provides for the giving of notice of any change “in any such rate ... or contract relating thereto . . .” by filing new rate schedules with the Commission and keeping them open for public inspection. And § 4 (e) authorizes Commission review of the lawfulness' of any such changed rate. The record before us affirmatively shows that United in the filings here at issue has complied with all the duties which these sections in terms impose upon it, and there is nothing in these sections which even remotely implies that § 4 (d) and (e) procedures are applicable to the filing and review of only those rate changes whose amount has been agreed upon by the seller and buyer.
The important and indeed decisive difference between this case and Mobile is that in Mobile one party to a contract was asserting that the Natural Gas Act somehow gave it the right unilaterally to abrogate its contractual undertaking, whereas here petitioner seeks simply to assert, in accordance with the procedures specified by the Act, rights expressly reserved to it by contract. Mobile makes it plain that “§ 4 (d) on its face indicates no more than that otherwise valid changes cannot be put into effect without giving the required notice to the Commission.” 350 U. S., at 339-340. (Italics supplied.) The necessary corollary of this proposition is that changes which in fact are “otherwise valid” in the light of the relationship between the parties can be put into effect under § 4 (d) by a seller through giving the required notice to the Commission. Mobile expressly notes that in the absence of any contractual relationship rates determined ex parte by the seller may be filed under § 4 (d). 350 U. S., at 343. We perceive no tenable basis of distinction between the filing of such a rate in the absence of contract and a similar filing under an agreement which explicitly permits it.
Thus Mobile, properly understood, affirmatively establishes United’s right to proceed under § 4 in the circumstances of this case. As we there said, “The initial rate-making and rate-changing powers of natural gas companies remain undefined and unaffected by the Act.” 350 U. S., at 343. United, like the seller of an unregulated commodity, has the right in the first instance to change its rates as it will, unless it has undertaken by contract not to do so. The Act comes into play as to rate changes only in (1) imposing upon the seller the procedural requirement of filing timely notice of change, (2) giving the Commission authority to review such changes, and (3) authorizing the Commission, in the case of rates for sales of gas for other than exclusively industrial use, to suspend the new rates for a five-month period and thereafter to require the posting of a refund bond pending a determination of the lawfulness of the rates as changed. (See § 4 (d), (e), at note 3, supra.)
It seems plain that Congress, in so drafting the statute, was not only expressing its conviction that the public interest requires the protection of consumers from excessive prices for natural gas, but was also manifesting its concern for the legitimate interests of natural gas companies in whose financial stability the gas-consuming public has a vital stake. Business reality demands that natural gas companies should not be precluded by law from increasing the prices of their product whenever that is the economically necessary means of keeping the intake and outgo of their revenues in proper balance; otherwise procurement of the vast sums necessary for the maintenance and expansion of their systems through equity and debt financing would become most difficult, if not impossible. This concern was surely a proper one for Congress to take into account in framing its regulatory scheme for the natural gas industry, cf. Federal Power Commission v. Hope Natural Gas Co., 320 U. S. 591, 603, and we think that it did so not only by preserving the “integrity” of private contractual arrangements for the supply of natural gas, 350 U. S., at 344 (subject of course to any overriding authority of the Commission), but also by providing in § 4 for the earliest effectuation of contractually authorized or otherwise permissible rate changes consistent with appropriate Commission review.
What has been said disposes of the question whether anything in the Natural Gas Act forbids a seller to change its rates pursuant to § 4 procedures simply because its customers have not agreed to the amount of the rate as changed. There remains the question whether United’s service agreements reserved to it the power to make rate changes in this manner. The Commission found that the agreements so intended, but on its view of the case the Court of Appeals found it unnecessary to decide the question. We think it would be both unnecessary and dilatory for us to remand the case to the Court of Appeals for consideration of that issue, which involves matters peculiarly within the area of the Commission’s special competence and as to which we could hardly be aided by a further examination of the record by the Court of Appeals. Indeed neither side suggests such a course, even alternatively, both asking us to decide the case in its present posture.
After scrutinizing the record we are satisfied that the Commission’s determination as to the meaning of the service agreements here involved was amply supported both factually and legally. There is no necessity for us to embark upon a detailed discussion of the various contentions made by the parties, none of which appears to have been overlooked or misapprehended by the Commission. It seems sufficient to say that the record shows that these agreements are typical of the “tariff-and-service” arrangements contemplated by Commission Order. No. 144, 18 CFR § 154.1 et seq.; that until this case no one connected with the industry seems to have thought that agreements of this sort precluded natural gas companies from changing their rates in accordance with and subject to § 4 (d) and (e) procedures; and that the respondents’ present contrary contentions had their sole genesis in a mistaken view of our decision in the Mobile case. Beyond this, we find nothing in these agreements, as interpreted by the Federal Power Commission, which is hostile to any of the provisions or purposes of the Natural Gas Act.
For the reasons given we hold that the Court of Appeals was in error in concluding that in the circumstances of this case United could not proceed to change its rates by-filing under § 4 (d) of the statute.
Reversed.
Mr. Justice Clark took no part in the consideration or decision of these cases.
Mississippi, a natural gas distributing company, also purchases gas from Texas Gas and Southern Gas. Respondent Memphis Light, Gas and Water Division, an agency of the City of Memphis engaged in the distribution of natural gas, purchases gas from Texas Gas, and has no direct contract relations with United. However, it is obligated to reimburse Texas Gas for any increase in the latter’s cost of gas acquired from United.
Originally there were seven such agreements, of which five contained the provision quoted in the text. However, the other two were found by the Commission, and assumed by the Court of Appeals, to contain the equivalent of that provision, and one of the two was replaced by a superseding agreement explicitly containing the provision very shortly after the filing here at issue.
Sections 4 (d) and 4 (e) of the National Gas Act read as follows:
§ 4 (d): “Unless the Commission otherwise orders, no change shall be made by any natural-gas company in any such [filed] rate, charge, classification, or service, or in any rule, regulation, or contract' relating thereto, except after thirty days’ notice to the Commission and to the public. Such notice shall be given by filing with the Commission and keeping open for public inspection new schedules stating plainly the change or changes to be made in the schedule or schedules then in force and the time when the change or changes will go into effect. The Commission, for good cause shown, may allow changes to take effect without requiring the thirty days’ notice herein provided for by an order specifying the changes so to be made and the time when they shall take effect and the manner in which they shall be filed and published.”
§ 4 (e): “Whenever any such new schedule is filed the Commission shall have authority, either upon complaint of any State, municipality, or State commission, or upon its own initiative without complaint, at once, and if it so orders, without answer or formal pleading by the natural-gas company, but upon reasonable notice, to enter upon a hearing concerning the lawfulness of such rate, charge, classification, or service; and, pending such hearing and the decision thereon, the Commission, upon filing with such schedules and delivering to the natural-gas company affected thereby a statement in writing of its reasons for such suspension, may suspend the operation of such schedule and defer the use of such rate, charge, classification, or service, but not for a longer period than five months beyond the time when it would otherwise go into effect: Provided, That the Commission shall not have authority to suspend the rate, charge, classification, or service for the sale of natural gas for resale for industrial use only; and after full hearings, either completed before or after the rate, charge, classification, or service goes into effect, the Commission may make such orders with reference thereto as would be proper in a proceeding initiated after it had become effective. If the proceeding has not been concluded cand an order made at the expiration of the suspension period, on motion of the natural-gas company making the filing, the proposed change of rate, charge, classification, or service shall go into effect. Where increased rates or charges are thus made effective, the Commission may, by order, require the natural-gas company to furnish a bond, to be approved by the Commission, to refund any amounts ordered by the Commission, to'keep accurate accounts in detail óf all amounts received by reason of such increase, specifying by whom and in whose behalf such amounts were paid, and, upon completion of the hearing and decision, to order such natural-gas company to refund, with interest, the portion of such increased rates or charges by its decision found not justified. At any hearing involving a rate or charge sought to be increased, the burden of proof to show that the increased rate or charge is just and reasonable shall be upon the natural-gas company, and the Commission shall give to the hearing and decision of such questions preference over other questions pending before it and decide the same as speedily as possible.”
The Commission did not suspend the rates applicable to sales for resale for industrial use only, as it has always taken the view that under the statute it is without power to suspend the effectiveness of these rates.
§ 5 (a): “Whenever the Commission, after a hearing had upon its own motion or upon complaint of any State, municipality, State commission, or gas distributing company, shall find that any rate, charge, or classification demanded, observed, charged, or collected by any natural-gas company in connection with any transportation or sale of natural gas, subject to the jurisdiction of the Commission, or that any rule, regulation, practice, or contract affecting such rate, charge, or classification is unjust, unreasonable, unduly discriminatory, or preferential, the Commission shall determine the just and reasonable rate, charge, classification, rule, régulation, practice, or contract to be thereafter observed and in force, and shall fix the same by order: Provided, however, That the Commission shall have no power to order any increase in any rate contained in the currently effective schedule of such natural gas company on file with the Commission, unless such increase is in accordance with a new schedule filed' by such natural gas company; but the Commission may order a decrease where existing rates are unjust, unduly discriminatory, preferential, otherwise unlawful, or are not the lowest reasonable rates.”
See note 3, supra.
See note 3, supra.
A majority of the court below thought that such a limitation should be imported into the Act to fend against “debilitating Section 5 (a)” by making it possible for a seller to reserve by contract the right to avoid “the delay and the more stringent proof requirements of Section 5 (a) ” through utilizing § 4 procedures. 102 U. S. App. D. C., at 82, note 3, 250 F. 2d, at 407, note 3. Apart from the fact that this approach seems to assume a negative answer to the very question at issue — whether Congress intended that natural gas companies should be permitted, so far as the statute is concerned, to file rate changes under § 4 (d) without securing prior customer agreement to the changed rate — it may be pointed out that the Commission appears consistently to have viewed the proof requirements under §§ 4 (e) and 5 (a) as equally “stringent.” See FPC, Thirty-fifth Annual Report (1955), at 106; Thirty-fourth Annual Report (1954), at 106; Thirty-third Annual Report (1953), at 99.
When the Natural Gas Act became law in 1938, natural gas companies were permitted to file their existing sales contracts as rate schedules under § 4 (c). Schedules in this form were extremely lengthy, unwieldy, and otherwise unsatisfactory in that it was most difficult for customers, competitors, and the Commission itself to ascertain whether rates to various customers were unduly discriminatory or otherwise unreasonable. The Commission therefore proposed regulations requiring the conversion of rate contracts into a “tariff- and-service-agreement” system, and these regulations were promulgated in October 1948 as Order No. 144. Under the tariff-and-service-agreement system, the agreement between buyer and seller does not itself contain a price term, but rather refers to rate schedules of general applicability on file with the Commission. It is noteworthy that Order No. 144 expressly contemplates that a seller may reserve the “privilege” of filing rate changes under § 4 of the Act. 18 CFR § 154.38 (d) (3).
Between the date of the Mobile decision and that of the court below it appears that only three purchasers of natural gas under service agreements similar to those here involved (one of them Mississippi, a respondent here) moved to dismiss changed rate schedules on the ground that the agreements did not permit their filing, although some 600 such purchasers were affected by rate changes filed during that period.
Respondents argue that the “effective superseding rate” clause of the agreements must be read as referring only to superseding rates established after a § 5 (a) proceeding, because it would be unreasonable to find that the buyer-signatories to the agreements had intended to authorize United to change its “industrial” rates by a §4(d) filing in light of the fact that such rates are not subject to suspension and refund under the statute. Apart from the circumstances that (1) United’s “industrial” sales under these agreements appear to have been a relatively minor factor; (2) the clause would be entirely superfluous if construed as respondents would have it, since as a matter of law rate changes ordered by the Commission after a § 5 (a) proceeding would have been incorporated into the agreements, Northern Pacific R. Co. v. St. Paul & Tacoma Lumber Co., 4 F. 2d 359 (C. A. 9th Cir. 1925), appeal dismissed, 269 U. S. 535; Market Street R. Co. v. Pacific Gas & Electric Co., 6 F. 2d 633 (D. C. N. D. Cal. 1925), appeal dismissed, 271 U. S. 691; and (3) the “industrial” rates of United have consistently been below its other rates, the force of respondents’ contention is wholly destroyed by the fact that it appears that the buyer-signatories to the agreements are entitled by contract with their customers to pass on any rate increases effected by United. Under these circumstances it can hardly be said to be inconceivable, or even unlikely, that the buyers would have been willing to authorize United to change its “going” rates to them under § 4 (d).
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer:
|
H
|
sc_issuearea
|
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Justice O’Connor
delivered the opinion of the Court.
The citizen suit provision of the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act of 1976 (RCRA), 90 Stat. 2825, as amended, 42 U. S. C. § 6972 (1982 ed. and Supp. V), permits individuals to commence an action in district court to enforce waste disposal regulations promulgated under the Act. At least 60 days before commencing suit, plaintiffs must notify the alleged violator, the State, and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) of their intent to sue. 42 U. S. C. § 6972(b)(1). This 60-day notice provision was modeled upon § 304 of the Clean Air Amendments of 1970, 84 Stat. 1706, as amended, 42 U. S. C. § 7604 (1982 ed.). Since 1970, a number of other federal statutes have incorporated notice provisions patterned after §304. In this case, we must decide whether compliance with the 60-day notice provision is a mandatory precondition to suit or can be disregarded by the district court at its discretion.
I
Petitioners own a commercial dairy farm located next to respondent’s sanitary landfill. In April 1981, believing that the landfill operation violated standards established under RCRA, petitioners sent respondent written notice of their intention to file suit. A year later, petitioners commenced this action. On March 1, 1983, respondent moved for summary judgment on the ground that petitioners had failed to notify Oregon’s Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) and the EPA of their intent to sue, as required by § 6972(b)(1). Respondent claimed that this failure to comply with the notice requirement deprived the District Court of jurisdiction. On March 2, 1983, petitioners notified the agencies of the suit.
The District Court denied respondent’s motion. It reasoned that petitioners had cured any defect in notice by formally notifying the state and federal agencies on March 2, 1983. The agencies would then have 60 days to take appropriate steps to cure any violation at respondent’s landfill. The court noted that the purpose of the notice requirement was to give administrative agencies an opportunity to enforce environmental regulations. In this case, neither the state nor the federal agency expressed any interest in taking action against respondent. Therefore, the court concluded that dismissing the action at this stage would waste judicial resources. Civ. No. 82-481 (Ore., Apr. 22, 1983).
After the action proceeded to trial, the District Court held that respondent had violated RCRA. The court ordered respondent to remedy the violation but refused to grant petitioners’ motion for injunctive relief. Civ. No. 82-481JU (Sept. 30, 1986). In a later order, the District Court denied petitioners’ request for attorney’s fees. Petitioners appealed both rulings; respondent cross-appealed from the denial of its summary judgment motion.
The Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit concluded that petitioners’ failure to comply with the 60-day notice requirement deprived the District Court of subject matter jurisdiction. Relying on the plain language of § 6972(b)(1), the Court of Appeals determined that permitting the plaintiff to proceed without giving notice would constitute “‘judicial amendment’ ” of a clear statutory command. 844 F. 2d 598, 600 (1987), quoting Garcia v. Cecos Int'l, Inc., 761 F. 2d 76, 78 (CA1 1986) (citation omitted). The Court of Appeals also determined that strict construction of the notice requirement would best further the goal of giving environmental agencies, rather than courts, the primary responsibility for enforcing RCRA. 844 F. 2d, at 601. Therefore, the Court of Appeals remanded the action to the District Court with instructions to dismiss. We granted certiorari to resolve the conflict among the Courts of Appeals regarding the correct interpretation of the notice provision. 489 U. S. 1077 (1989).
II
As we have repeatedly noted, “the starting point for interpreting a statute is the language of the statute itself.” Consumer Product Safety Comm’n v. GTE Sylvania, Inc., 447 U. S. 102, 108 (1980). Section 6972(a)(1) permits any person to commence a civil action against an alleged violator of regulations established under RCRA “[except] as provided in subsection (b).” Subsection (b)(1) states:
“(b) Actions prohibited.
“No action may be commenced under paragraph (a)(1) of this section—
“(1) prior to sixty days after the plaintiff has given notice of the violation (A) to the Administrator [of the EPA]; (B) to the State in which the alleged violation occurs; and (C) to any alleged violator of such permit, standard, regulation, condition, requirement, or order . . . 42 U. S. C. § 6972(b)(1) (1982 ed.).
The language of this provision could not be clearer. A citizen may not commence an action under RCRA until 60 days after the citizen has notified the EPA, the State in which the alleged violation occurred, and the alleged violator. Actions commenced prior to 60 days after notice are “prohibited.” Because this language is expressly incorporated by reference into § 6972(a), it acts as a specific limitation on a citizen’s right to bring suit. Under a literal reading of the statute, compliance with the 60-day notice provision is a mandatory, not optional, condition precedent for suit.
Petitioners do not contend that the language of this provision is ambiguous; rather, they assert that it should be given a flexible or pragmatic construction. Thus, petitioners argue that if a suit commenced without proper notice is stayed until 60 days after notice had been given, the District Court should deem the notice requirement to be satisfied. See Pymatuning Water Shed Citizens for Hygienic Environment v. Eaton, 644 P. 2d 995, 996-997 (CA3 1981). According to petitioners, a 60-day stay would serve the same function as delaying commencement of the suit: it would give the Government an opportunity to take action against the alleged violator and it would give the violator the opportunity to bring itself into compliance.
Whether or not a stay is in fact the functional equivalent of a precommencement delay, such an interpretation of §6972(b) flatly contradicts the language of the statute. Under Rule 3 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, “[a] civil action is commenced by filing a complaint with the court.” Reading § 6972(b)(1) in light of this Rule, a plaintiff may not file suit before fulfilling the 60-day notice requirement. Staying judicial action once' the suit has been filed does not honor this prohibition. Congress could have excepted parties from complying with the notice or delay requirement; indeed, it carved out such an exception in its 1984 amendments to RCRA. See, e. g., 42 U. S. C. §6972(b)(1)(A) (1982 ed., Supp. V) (abrogating the 60-day delay requirement when there is a danger that hazardous waste will be discharged). RCRA, however, contains no exception applicable to petitioners’ situation; we are not at liberty to create an exception where Congress has declined to do so.
Petitioners further argue that under our decision in Zipes v. Trans World Airlines, Inc., 455 U. S. 385, 393 (1982), RCRA’s 60-day notice provision should be subject to equitable modification and cure. In Zipes, we held that the timely filing of a charge of discrimination with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, as required under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 78 Stat. 253, as amended, 42 U. S. C. §2000e-5(e) (1982 ed.) (“[a] charge under this section shall be filed within one hundred and eighty days after the alleged unlawful employment practice occurred . . . ”), was not a jurisdictional prerequisite to suit but was subject to waiver, estoppel, and equitable tolling. 455 U. S., at 393. This decision does not help petitioners. First, as we noted in Zipes, both the language and legislative history of §2000e-5(e) indicate that the filing period operated as a statute of limitations. 455 U. S., at 393-394. The running of such statutes is traditionally subject to equitable tolling. See, e. g., Honda v. Clark, 386 U. S. 484, 501 (1967) (holding that where consistent with the overall congressional purpose, a “traditional equitable tolling principle” should be applied to a statutory limitations period). Unlike a statute of limitations, RCRA’s 60-day notice provision is not triggered by the violation giving rise to the action. Rather, petitioners have full control over the timing of their suit: they need only give notice to the appropriate parties and refrain from commencing their action for at least 60 days. The equities do not weigh in favor of modifying statutory requirements when the procedural default is caused by petitioners’ “failure to take the minimal steps necessary” to preserve their claims. Johnson v. Railway Express Agency, Inc., 421 U. S. 454, 466 (1975).
Nor can we excuse petitioners’ failure on the ground that “a technical reading [of §6972] would be ‘particularly inappropriate in a statutory scheme in which laymen, unassisted by trained lawyers, initiate the process.’” Zipes v. TransWorld Airlines, Inc., supra, at 397, quoting Love v. Pullman Co., 404 U. S. 522, 527 (1972). While the initial charge in a Title VII proceeding is normally filed by an aggrieved individual, see §2000e-5(b), citizen suits under RCRA are like any other lawsuit, generally filed by trained lawyers who are presumed to be aware of statutory requirements. (Indeed, counsel for petitioners in this case admitted at oral argument that he knew of the notice provisions but inadvertently neglected to notify the state and federal agencies. Tr. of Oral Arg. 3-4.) Under these circumstances, it is not unfair to require strict compliance with statutory conditions precedent to suit.
Petitioners next contend that a literal interpretation of the notice provision would defeat Congress’ intent in enacting RCRA; to support this argument, they cite passages from the legislative history of the first citizen suit statute, §304 of the Clean Air Amendments of 1970, indicating that citizen suits should be encouraged. See S. Rep. No. 91-1196, pp. 36-37 (1970), 1 Senate Committee on Public Works, 93d Cong., 2d Sess., A Legislative History of the Clean Air Amendments of 1970, pp. 436-437 (Comm. Print 1974). This reliance on legislative history is misplaced. We have held that “[a]bsent a clearly expressed legislative intention to the contrary,” the words of the statute are conclusive. Consumer Product Safety Comm’n v. GTE Sylvania, Inc., 447 U. S., at 108. Nothing in the legislative history of the citizen suit provision militates against honoring the plain language of the notice requirement. Nor is this one of the “ ‘rare cases [in which] the literal application of a statute will produce a result demonstrably at odds with the intentions of its drafters.’ ” United States v. Ron Pair Enterprises, Inc., 489 U. S. 235, 242 (1989), quoting Griffin v. Oceanic Contractors, Inc., 458 U. S. 564, 571 (1982). Rather, the legislative history indicates an intent to strike a balance between encouraging citizen enforcement of environmental regulations and avoiding burdening the federal courts with excessive numbers of citizen suits. See, e. g., 116 Cong. Rec. 32927 (1970) (comments of Sen. Muskie); see also Note, Notice by Citizen Plaintiffs in Environmental Litigation, 79 Mich. L. Rev. 299, 301-307 (1980) (reviewing the legislative history of the Clean Air Amendments of 1970). Requiring citizens to comply with the notice and delay requirements serves this congressional goal in two ways. First, notice allows Government agencies to take responsibility for enforcing environmental regulations, thus obviating the need for citizen suits. See Gwaltney of Smithfield, Inc. v. Chesapeake Bay Foundation, Inc., 484 U. S. 49, 60 (1987) (“The bar on citizen suits when governmental enforcement action is under way suggests that the citizen suit is meant to supplement rather than to supplant governmental action”). In many cases, an agency may be able to compel compliance through administrative action, thus eliminating the need for any access-to the courts. See 116 Cong. Rec. 33104 (1970) (comments of Sen. Hart). Second, notice gives the alleged violator “an opportunity to bring itself into complete compliance with the Act and thus likewise render unnecessary a citizen suit.” Gwaltney, supra, at 60. This policy would be frustrated if citizens could immediately bring suit without involving federal or state enforcement agencies. Giving full effect to the words of the statute preserves the compromise struck by Congress.
Petitioners next assert that giving effect to the literal meaning of the notice provisions would compel “absurd or futile results.” United States v. American Trucking Assns., Inc., 310 U. S. 534, 543 (1940). In essence, petitioners make two arguments. First, petitioners, with amici, contend that strictly enforcing the 60-day delay provision would give violators an opportunity to cause further damage or . actually accomplish the objective that the citizen was attempting to stop. See, e. g., Save Our Sound Fisheries Assn. v. Callaway, 429 F. Supp. 1136, 1142-1145 (RI 1977) (Army Corps of Engineers violated three environmental statutes in order to award dredging contract before citizen suit to enjoin dredging could commence). Similarly, they assert that courts would be precluded from giving essential temporary injunctive relief until 60 days had elapsed. Although we do not underestimate the potential damage to the environment that could ensue during the 60-day waiting period, this problem arises as a result of the balance struck by Congress in developing the citizen suit provisions. Congress has addressed the dangers of delay in certain circumstances and made exceptions to the required notice periods accordingly. See, e. g., the Clean Water Act, as added, 86 Stat. 888, 33 U. S. C. §§ 1365(b) and 1317(a) (1982 ed.) (citizen suits may be brought immediately in cases involving violations of toxic pollutant effluent limitations); the Clean Air Amendments of 1970, 84 Stat. 1706, 42 U. S. C. § 7604(b) (1982 ed.) (citizen suits may be brought immediately in cases involving stationary-source emissions standards and other specified compliance orders). Moreover, it is likely that compliance with the notice requirement will trigger appropriate federal or state enforcement actions to prevent serious damage.
Second, petitioners argue that a strict construction of the notice provision would cause procedural anomalies. For example, petitioners contend that if a citizen notified Government agencies of a violation, and the agencies explicitly declined to act, it would be pointless to require the citizen to wait 60 days to commence suit. While such a result may be frustrating to the plaintiff, it is not irrational: as the Court of Appeals for the First Circuit noted, “[pjermitting immediate suit ignores the possibility that a violator or agency may change its mind as the threat of suit becomes more imminent.” Garcia v. Cecos Int’l, Inc., 761 F. 2d, at 82.
In sum, we conclude that none of petitioners’ arguments requires us to disregard the plain language of § 6972(b). “[I]n the long run, experience teaches that strict adherence to the procedural requirements specified by the legislature is the best guarantee of evenhanded administration of the law.” Mohasco Corp. v. Silver, 447 U. S. 807, 826 (1980). Therefore, we hold that the notice and 60-day delay requirements are mandatory conditions precedent to commencing suit under the RCRA citizen suit provision; a district court may not disregard these requirements at its discretion. The parties have framed the question presented in this case as whether the notice provision is jurisdictional or procedural. In light of our literal interpretation of the statutory requirement, we need not determine whether § 6972(b) is jurisdictional in the strict sense of the term. See Fair Assessment in Real Estate Assn., Inc. v. McNary, 454 U. S. 100, 137 (1981) (Brennan, J., concurring in judgment) (“In 1937 the requirement of exhaustion of state administrative remedies was certainly a mandatory precondition to suit, and in that sense a ‘jurisdictional prerequisite’”).
As a general rule, if an action is barred by the terms of a statute, it must be dismissed. Thus in Baldwin County Welcome Center v. Brown, 466 U. S. 147 (1984), we approved the District Court’s determination that a claimant who failed to file a complaint within the 90-day statutory time period mandated by Title VII, 42 U. S. C. § 2000e-5(f )(1) (1982 ed.), had forfeited her right to pursue her claim. Accordingly, we rejected the Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit’s conclusion that under the “ ‘generous’ ” interpretation required by the remedial nature of Title VII, claimant’s filing of a right-to-sue letter had tolled the 90-day period. 466 U. S., at 149. But cf. Oscar Mayer & Co. v. Evans, 441 U. S. 750, 764-765, and n. 13 (1979) (where requiring dismissal and refiling “would serve no purpose other than the creation of an additional procedural technicality,” a district court may comply with § 14(b) of the Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967, 81 Stat. 607, 29 U. S. C. § 633(b) (1982 ed.), by holding an action in abeyance during the pendency of a mandatory waiting period) (citation omitted). As we have noted, dismissal of an RCRA suit serves important federal goals, see supra, at 29. Indeed, the EPA, the federal agency charged with enforcement of RCRA, interprets the notice provision as requiring dismissal for noncompliance. Tr. of Oral Arg. 35-39. Such a remedy for actions filed in violation of § 6972(b)(1) will further judicial efficiency; courts will have no need to make case-by-case determinations of when or whether failure to fulfill the notice requirement is fatal to a party’s suit.
Petitioners urge us not to require dismissal of this action after years of litigation and a determination on the merits. They contend that such a dismissal would unnecessarily waste judicial resources. We are sympathetic to this argument. The complex environmental and legal issues involved in this litigation have consumed the time and energy of a District Court and the parties for nearly four years. Nevertheless, the factors which have led us to apply decisions non-retroactively are not present in this case. See Chevron Oil Co. v. Huson, 404 U. S. 97, 106-107 (1971). Our decision here does not establish a new rule of law; nor does it overrule clear past precedent on which litigants may have relied. Moreover, the statute itself put petitioners on notice of the requirements for bringing suit. Retroactive operation of our decision will further the congressional purpose of giving agencies and alleged violators a 60-day nonadversarial period to achieve compliance with RCRA regulations. Nor will the dismissal of this action have the inequitable result of depriving petitioners of their “right to a day in court.” Id., at 108. Petitioners remain free to give notice and file their suit in compliance with the statute to enforce pertinent environmental standards.
Accordingly, we hold that where a party suing under the citizen suit provisions of RCRA fails to meet the notice and 60-day delay requirements of § 6972(b), the district court must dismiss the action as barred by the terms of the statute.
The judgment of the Court of Appeals is affirmed.
It is so ordered.
See, e. g., § 505(b) of the Federal Water Pollution Control Act (Clean Water Act), 33 U. S. C. § 1365(b) (1982 ed.); § 310(d)(1) of the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act of 1980, 42 U. S. C. § 9659(d)(1) (1982 ed., Supp. V); § 105(g)(2) of the Marine Protection, Research, and Sanctuaries Act of 1972, 33 U. S. C. § 1415(g)(2) (1982 ed.); § 12(b) of the Noise Control Act of 1972, 42 U. S. C. § 4911(b) (1982 ed.); § 16(b) of the Deepwater Port Act of 1974, 33 U. S. C. § 1515(b) (1982 ed.); § 1449(b) of the Safe Drinking Water Act, 42 U. S. C. § 300j-8(b) (1982 ed.); § 520(b) of the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act of 1977, 30 U. S. C. § 1270(b) (1982 ed.); § 20(b) of the Toxic Substances Control Act, 15 U. S. C. § 2619(b); § 11(g)(2) of the Endangered Species Act of 1973, 16 U. S. C. § 1540(g)(2); § 23(a)(2) of the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act Amendments of 1978, 43 U. S. C. § 1349(a)(2) (1982 ed.); § 11(b)(1) of the Act to Prevent Pollution from Ships, 33 U. S. C. § 1910(b)(1) (1982 ed.); § 117(b) of the Deep Seabed Hard Mineral Resources Act, 30 U. S. C. § 1427(b) (1982 ed.); § 326(d) of the Emergency Planning and Community Right-To-Know Act of 1986, 42 U. S. C. § 11046(d) (1982 ed., Supp. V); § 335(b) of the Energy Policy and Conservation Act, 42 U. S. C. § 6305(b) (1982 ed.); § 19(b) of the Natural Gas Pipeline Safety Act Amendments of 1976, 49 U. S. C. App. § 1686(b) (1982 ed.); and § 114(b) of the Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion Act of 1980, 42 U. S. C. § 9124(b) (1982 ed.).
The Courts of Appeals for the First and Seventh Circuits, as well as the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in this case, have construed the notice provision as a mandatory prerequisite for suit. See, e. g., Garcia v. Cecos Int’l, Inc., 761 F. 2d 76 (CA1 1985) (construing the notice provision in RCRA); Highland Park v. Train, 519 F. 2d 681, 690-691 (CA7 1975), cert. denied, 424 U. S. 927 (1976) (construing the notice provision in the Clean Air Amendments of 1970). The Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit reached a different conclusion, holding that the notice requirement is satisfied if the proper parties had notice in fact of the alleged violations more than 60 days before the suit was filed, see, e. g., Proffitt v. Bristol Commissioners, 754 F. 2d 504, 506 (1985) (construing the notice provisions in the Clean Water Act and RCRA), or if the District Court stayed the proceedings for 60 days, see Pymatuning Water Shed Citizens for Hygienic Environment v. Eaton, 644 F. 2d 995, 996-997 (1981) (construing the notice provision in the Clean Water Act).
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer:
|
H
|
sc_issuearea
|
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Mr. Justice Stewart
delivered the opinion of the Court.
The National Labor Relations Act makes it an unfair labor practice for an employer to refuse to .bargain in good faith _with the representative of' his employees. The question presented by this case is the extent to which the Labor Board may, in formulating a complaint and in finding a violation of this section of the Act, take cognizance of events occurring subsequent to the filing of the charge upon which the complaint is based.
Pursuant to an election a union was certified in June 1953 as the exclusive bargaining representative for an appropriate unit of the respondent’s employees at its .plant in Sherman, Texas.' During the ensuing months agents of the union and of the respondent met on several occasions for the supposed purpose of working out a collective bargaining contract. By May 20, 1954, several such meetings had taken place, but no agreement had been reached.
On that date the union .filed a charge with the Regional Director ofSthe Board, alleging that the respondent had violated § 8 (a) (5) of the Act by refusing to bargain collectively with the union. Two months later the Regional Director advised the union that he was refusing' to issue a complaint on the ground that “it does not appear that there is sufficient evidence of violations to warrant further proceedings at this time.” The union requested the General Counsel of the Board to review this refusal.
. In the meantime and until October 1954 more than a dozen further meetings were held between representatives of the union and of the responden^. No real progress towards reaching an agreement was made.. In October, while negotiations were still going on, the respondent unilaterally put into effect a general wage increase without prior notice to the union. A few weeks later the respondent advised the union that it was withdrawing recognition and that it would refuse any further bargaining conferences.
Thereafter, in January 1955, the Regional Director informed the union that “upon reconsideration of the facts .and circumstances, and additional evidence furnished us in connection with our investigation in the above matter, we have decided to and are hereby withdrawing our refusal to issue Complaint with respect to the 8 (a) (5) allegation of refusal to bargain .... We shall proceed ■faith our investigation in due course.” Later the Board’s General Counsel advised the union as follows: “With respect to the 8 (a)(5) allegation of refusal to bargain; the Regional Director advised the parties by letter dated January 24, 1955, that he was withdrawing his dismissal of the 8 (a) (5) portion of the charge and was continuing with the investigation thereof. All further inquiries with respect to the 8 (a)(5) allegation should be addressed to the Regional Director.” Five days afterwards the Regional Director issued a complaint, alleging that “on or about November 21, 1953, and at all times thereafter, Respondent did refuse and continues to refuse to bargain collectively . . . ; that “On or about October 7, 1954, Respondent, without notice to the Union, put into effect á general wage increase ... and that by those acts “Respondent did engage in and is hereby engaging in an unfair labor practice within the meaning of Section 8 (a), subsection (5) of the'Act.”
The Board, agreeing with its Trial Examiner, held that the respondent had refused to bargain collectively with the union within the meaning of the Act, finding that-“after November 21, 1953, . . ..the Respondent was merely going through the motions of collective bargaining without a genuine intention of trying to negotiate an agreement with the Union as required by the provisions of the Act.” An appropriate order was accordingly issued. 117 N. L. R. B. 1277. The Board expressly held that the respondent’s unilateral grant of a general wage increase in October of 1954, although occurring subsequent to the original charge and not the subject of ah amended charge, was. properly included as a subject of the complaint. Moreover,, its finding of a refusal to bargain was largely influenced by this specific conduct on the part of the respondent. One member of the Board dissented upon the ground that the October wage increase could not lawfully be made the basis of a finding that the respondent had violated the Act.
The Court of Appeals denied the Board’s petition for enforcement. 258 F. 2d 851. Substantially agreeing with the reasoning of the dissenting Board member, the court held that § 10 (b) of the Act requires “that a charge must set up facts showing an unfair labor practice . . . , and the facts must be predicated on actions which have already been taken.” (Emphasis in original.) It further held that “the complaint must faithfully reflect the facts constituting the unfair labor practices as presented in the charge.”
To attribute so tightly restricted a function to a Board Complaint is, as this Court pointed out in National Licorice Co. v. Labor Board, 309 U. S. 350, not consonant with the basic scheme of the Act. One-of the issues in that case was substantially identical to the issue presented here— “whether the jurisdiction of the Board is limited to such unfair labor practices as are set up in the charge presented to the Board so as to preclude its determination that [certain actions on the part of the employer] involved unfair labor practices, since both occurred after the charge was lodged, with the Board. . . .” 309 U. S., at 357. The Court’s resolution of the issue was unambiguous:
“It is unnecessary for us to consider now how far the statutory requirement of a charge as a condition precedent to a complaint excludes from the subsequent proceedings matters existing when the charge was filed, but not included in it. Whatever restrictions the requirements of a charge may be thought to place upon subsequent proceedings by the Board, we can find no warrant in the language or purposes of the Act for saying that it precludes the Board from dealing adequately with unfair labor .practices which are related to those alleged in the charge and which grow out of them while the proceeding is pending before the Board. The violations alleged in the complaint and found by the Board were but a prolongation of the attempt to form the company union and to secure.the contracts alleged-in the charge. All are of the same class of violations as those set up in the charge and were continuations of them in pursuance of the sgme objects. The Board’s jurisdiction having been invoked to deal with the first steps, it had authority.to deal with those which followed as a consequence of those already taken. We think the court below correctly held that ‘the Board was within its power in treating the whole sequence as one.’ ” 309 U. S. 350, at 369.
In the present case, as in National Licorice, the unilateral wage increase was “of the same class of violations as those set up in the charge . . . .” The wage increase was “related to” the conduct alleged in thé charge and developed as one aspect of that conduct “while the proceeding [was] pending before the Board.”
A charge filed with the Labor Board is not to be measured by the standards applicable to a pleading in a private lawsuit. Its purpose is merely to set in motion the machinery of an inquiry. Labor Board v. I. & M. Electric Co., 318 U. S. 9, 18. The responsibility of making that inquiry, and of framing the issues in the case is one that Congress has imposed upon the Board, not the charging party. To confine the Board in its inquiry and in framing the complaint to the specific matters alleged in thé charge would reduce the statutory machinery to a vehicle for the vindication of private rights. This would be alien to the basic purpose of the Act. The Board was created not to adjudicate private controversies but to advance the public interest in eliminating obstructions to interstate commerce, as this Court has recognized from the beginning. Labor Board v. Jones & Laughlin, 301 U. S. 1.
Once its jurisdiction is invoked the Board must be left free to make full inquiry under its broad investigatory power in order properly to discharge the duty of protecting public rights which Congress has imposed upon it. There can be, no justification for confining such an inquiry to the precise particularizations of.a charge. For these reasons we adhere to the views expressed in National Licorice Co. v. Labor Board.
What has been said is not to imply that the Board is, in the words of the Court of Appeals, to be left “carte blanche to expand the charge as they might please, or to ignore it altogether.” 258 F. 2d., at 856. Here we hold only that the Board is not precluded from “dealing adequately with unfair labor practices which are related to those alleged in the charge and which grow out of them while the proceeding is pending before the Board.” National Licorice Co. v. Labor Board, 309 U. S. 350, at 369. It follows in the present case that the October wage increase was a proper subject of the Board’s complaint and was properly considered by the Board in reaching its decision.
Reversed,
“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 thp negotiation of an agreement, or any question arising thereunder, and’the execution of a written contract incorporating any agreement reached if requested by either party, but such obligation does not compel either party to agree to a proposal or require the making of a concession . . ." 29 U. S. C. §158 (a).
The respondent continues here to press the claim that this request was not timely under § 102.19 of the Board's Rules and Regulations, although the uncontroverted evidence shows that the request was filed within an extension of- time that had.been granted.
The chronology of these events refutes the respondent’s claim that the Regional Director acted while the matter was under review by the General Counsel. The General Counsel had exercised his reviewing authority prior to the time the complaint issued.
The Board ordered the respondent to cease and desist from refusing to bargain; to refrain from interfering with the union’s, efforts to bargain; upon request, to bargain collectively with the union; and to post appropriate notices.
The language of the Board’s decision makes- clear how strongly it relied upon the October 1954. wage increase in reaching its conclusion, e. g.: “We have no difficulty in determining the Respondent’s bad faith throughout these protracted negotiations, particularly in view of the Respondent’s unilateral effectuation of a general wage increase early in October 1954, while the negotiations were still in progress but without consultation with or even notice to the Union. . . .
“We find, rather, that the giving of this general increase while negotiations were still continuing, and in complete disregard of the Union’s representative status, provides .the final insight into the Respondent’s conduct of negotiations with the Union.”'
Section 10 (b) of the Act provides: “Whenever it is charged that any person has engaged in or is engaging in. any such unfair labor practice, the Board, or any agent or agency designated by the Board for such purposes, shall have power to issue and cause to be served upon such person a complaint stating the charges in that respect, and containing a notice of hearing before the Board or a member thereof, or before a' designated agent or agency, at a place therein fixed, not less than five days after the serving of said complaint: Provided, That no complaint shall issue based upon any unfair labor practice occurring more than six months prior to the filing of the charge with the Board and the service of a copy thereof upon the person against whom such charge is made, unless the person aggrieved thereby was prevented from filing such charge by reason of service in the armed forces, in which event the six-month period shall be computed from the day of his discharge. Any such complaint may be amended by the member, agent, or agency conducting the hearing or the Board in its discretion at any time prior to the issuance of an order based thereon.” 29 U. S. C. § 160 (b).
Judge Cameron wrote the prevailing opinion for the court. Chief Judge Hutcheson wrote a separate concurring opinion in which he agreed with Judge Cameron’s view: “In short, what has happened here is that by the device of injecting "into the case entirely new. matter completely unrelated to the charge, the regional director, in violation of the provisions of the Act, that no complaint can be filed except one' based upon a charge, has filed a complaint, and the Board has heard and condemned the respondent in respect of matters which, because of the lack of a charge, were not before it.” Judge Rives dissented, expressing the view that “the . . . construction ... by the majority Seems to me excessively technical and restrictive^ and, if sustained, I believe that it will seriously cripple the Board in any effective enforcement of the Act.”
Section 11 of the Act provides: “Investigatory powers of Board. For the purpose of all hearings and investigations, which, in the opinion of the Board, are necessary and proper for the exercise of the powers vested in it by section 9 and section 10 — (1) 'Documentary evidence; summoning witnesses and taking testimony.
“The Board, or its duly authorized agents or agencies, shall at all reasonable times have access to, for the purpose of examination, and the right to copy any evidence of any person being investigated or proceeded against that relates to any matter under investigation or in question. The' Board, or any member thereof, shall upon application of any party to such proceedings, forthwith issue to such party subpenas requiring the attendance and testimony of witnesses or the production of any evidence in such proceeding or investigation requested in such application. Within five days after the service of a subpena on any person requiring the production of any evidence in his possession or under his control, such person may petition the Board to revoke, and the Board shall revoke, such subpena if in its opinion the evidence whose production is required does not relate to any matter under investigation, or any matter in question in such proceedings, or if in its opinion such subpena does not describe with sufficient particularity the evidence whose production is required. Any member of the Board, or any agent or agency designated by the Board for such purposes, may administer oaths and affirmations, examine witnesses, and receive evidence. Such attendance of witnesses and the „ production of such evidence may be required from any place in the United States or any Territory or possession thereof, at any designated place of hearing.” 29 U. S. C. § 161.
The 1947 amendments to the National'Labor Relations Act made no change with respect to the respective functions of a charge and a complaint. The only change in § 10 (b) was the addition of the provisions that “No. complaint shall issue based upon any unfair labor practice occurring more than six months prior to. the filing of the charge, etc.”. See note 6, supra. This limitation extinguishes liability for unfair labor practices committed more than six months prior to the filing of the charge. It' does not relate to conduct subsequent to the filing of the charge.
The Board urges that we instruct the Court of Appeals to enforce the Board’s order. We decline to do so. Cf. Labor Board v. Pittsburgh S. S. Co., 340 U. S. 498. However, we think it appropriate to state that if the factual summary contained in Judge Rives’ dissenting opinion finds support in the record as a whole, the Board’s order should be enforced “even though the court would justifiably have made a different choice had the matter been before it de novo." Universal Camera Corp. v. Labor Board, 340 U. S. 474, 488.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
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.
Justice Kennedy
delivered the opinion of the Court.
DeKalb County, Georgia, is a major suburban area of Atlanta. This case involves a court-ordered desegregation decree for the DeKalb County School System (DCSS). DCSS now serves some 73,000 students in kindergarten through high school and is the 32d largest elementary and secondary school system in the Nation.
DCSS has been subject to the supervision and jurisdiction of the United States District Court for the Northern District of Georgia since 1969, when it was ordered to dismantle its dual school system. In 1986, petitioners filed a motion for final dismissal. The District Court ruled that DCSS had not achieved unitary status in all respects but had done so in student attendance and three other categories. In its order the District Court relinquished remedial control as to those aspects of the system in which unitary status had been achieved, and retained supervisory authority only for those aspects of the school system in which the district was not in full compliance. The Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit reversed, 887 F. 2d 1438 (1989), holding that a district court should retain full remedial authority over a school system until it achieves unitary status in six categories at the same time for several years. We now reverse the judgment of the Court of Appeals and remand, holding that a district court is permitted to withdraw judicial supervision with respect to discrete categories in which the school district has achieved compliance with a court-ordered desegregation plan. A district court need not retain active control over every aspect of school administration until a school district has demonstrated unitary status in all facets of its system.
HH
<C
For decades before our decision in Brown v. Board of Education. 347 U. S. 483 (1954) (Brown I), and our mandate in Brown v. Board of Education, 349 U. S. 294, 301 (1955) (Brown II), which ordered school districts to desegregate with “all deliberate speed,” DCSS was segregated by law. DCSS’ initial response to the mandate of Brown II was an all too familiar one. Interpreting “all deliberate speed” as giving latitude to delay steps to desegregate, DCSS took no positive action toward desegregation until the 1966-1967 school year, when it did nothing more than adopt a freedom of choice transfer plan. Some black students chose to attend former de jure white schools, but the plan had no significant effect on the former de jure black schools.
In 1968, we decided Green v. School Bd. of New Kent County, 391 U. S. 430. We held that adoption of a freedom of choice plan does not, by itself, satisfy a school district’s mandatory responsibility to eliminate all vestiges of a dual system. Green was a turning point in our law in a further respect. Concerned by more than a decade of inaction, we stated that “ ‘[t]he time for mere “deliberate speed” has run out.’ ” Id., at 438, quoting Griffin v. Prince Edward County School Bd., 377 U. S. 218, 234 (1964). We said that the obligation of school districts once segregated by law was to come forward with a plan that “promises realistically to work, and promises realistically to work now.” 391 U. S., at 439 (emphasis in original). The case before us requires an understanding and assessment of how DCSS responded to the directives set forth in Green.
Within two months of our ruling in Green, respondents, who are black schoolchildren and their parents, instituted this class action in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Georgia. After the suit was filed, DCSS voluntarily began working with the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare to devise a comprehensive and final plan of desegregation. The District Court, in June 1969, entered a consent order approving the proposed plan, which was to be implemented in the 1969-1970 school year. The order abolished the freedom of choice plan and adopted a neighborhood school attendance plan that had been proposed by DCSS and accepted by the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare subject to a minor modification. Under the plan all of the former de jure black schools were closed, and their students were reassigned among the remaining neighborhood schools. The District Court retained jurisdiction.
Between 1969 and 1986, respondents sought only infrequent and limited judicial intervention into the affairs of DCSS. They did not request significant changes in student attendance zones or student assignment policies. In 1976, DCSS was ordered to expand its Majority-to-Minority (M-to-M) student transfer program, allowing students in a school where they are in the majority race to transfer to a school where they are in the minority; to establish a biracial committee to oversee the transfer program and future boundary line changes; and to reassign teachers so that the ratio of black to white teachers in each school would be, in substance, similar to the racial balance in the school population systemwide. From 1977 to 1979, the District Court approved a boundary line change for one elementary school attendance zone and rejected DCSS proposals to restrict the M-to-M transfer program. In 1983, DCSS was ordered to make further adjustments to the M-to-M transfer program.
In 1986, petitioners filed a motion for final dismissal of the litigation. They sought a declaration that DCSS had satisfied its duty to eliminate the dual education system, that is to say a declaration that the school system had achieved unitary status. Green, supra, at 441. The District Court approached the question whether DCSS had achieved unitary status by asking whether DCSS was unitary with respect to each of the factors identified in Green. The court considered an additional factor that is not named in Green: the quality of education being offered to the white and black student populations.
The District Court found DCSS to be “an innovative school system that has travelled the often long road to unitary status almost to its end,” noting that “the court has continually been impressed by the successes of the DCSS and its dedication to providing a quality education for all students within that system.” App. to Pet. for Cert. 71a. It found that DCSS is a unitary system with regard to student assignments, transportation, physical facilities, and extracurricular activities, and ruled that it would order no further relief in those areas. The District Court stopped short of dismissing the case, however, because it found that DCSS was not unitary in every respect. The court said that vestiges of the dual system remain in the areas of teacher and principal assignments, resource allocation, and quality of education. DCSS was ordered to take measures to address the remaining problems.
B
Proper resolution of any desegregation case turns on a careful assessment of its facts. Green, supra, at 439. Here, as in most cases where the issue is the degree of compliance with a school desegregation decree, a critical beginning point is the degree of racial imbalance in the school district, that is to say a comparison of the proportion of majority to minority students in individual schools with the proportions of the races in the district as a whole. This inquiry is fundamental, for under the former de jure regimes racial exclusion was both the means and the end of a policy motivated by disparagement of, or hostility towards, the disfavored race. In accord with this principle, the District Court began its analysis with an assessment of the current racial mix in the schools throughout DCSS and the explanation for the racial imbalance it found. Respondents did not contend on appeal that the findings of fact were clearly erroneous, and the Court of Appeals did not find them to be erroneous. The Court of Appeals did disagree with the conclusion reached by the District Court respecting the need for further supervision of racial balance in student assignments.
In the extensive record that comprises this case, one fact predominates: Remarkable changes in the racial composition of the county presented DCSS and the District Court with a student population in 1986 far different from the one they set out to integrate in 1969. Between 1950 and 1985, DeKalb County grew from 70,000 to 450,000 in total population, but most of the gross increase in student enrollment had occurred by 1969, the relevant starting date for our purposes. Although the public school population experienced only modest changes between 1969 and 1986 (remaining in the low 70,000’s), a striking change occurred in the racial proportions of the student population. The school system that the District Court ordered desegregated in 1969 had 5.6% black students; by 1986 the percentage of black students was 47%.
To compound the difficulty of working with these radical demographic changes, the northern and southern parts of the county experienced much different growth patterns. The District Court found that “[a]s the result of these demographic shifts, the population of the northern half of DeKalb County is now predominantly white and the southern half of DeKalb County is predominantly black.” App. to Pet. for Cert. 38a. In 1970, there were 7,615 nonwhites living in the northern part of DeKalb County and 11,508 nonwhites in the southern part of the county. By 1980, there were 15,365 nonwhites living in the northern part of the county, and 87,583 nonwhites in the southern part. Most of the growth in the nonwhite population in the southern portion of the county was due to the migration of black persons from the city of Atlanta. Between 1975 and 1980 alone, approximately 64,000 black citizens moved into southern DeKalb County, most of them coming from Atlanta. During the same period, approximately 37,000 white citizens moved out of southern DeKalb County to the surrounding counties.
The District Court made findings with respect to the number of nonwhite citizens in the northern and southern parts of the county for the years 1970 and 1980 without making parallel findings with respect to white citizens. Yet a clear picture does emerge. During the relevant period, the black population in the southern portion of the county experienced tremendous growth while the white population did not, and the white population in the northern part of the county experienced tremendous growth while the black population did not.
The demographic changes that occurred during the course of the desegregation order are an essential foundation for the District Court’s analysis of the current racial mix of DCSS. As the District Court observed, the demographic shifts have had “an immense effect on the racial compositions of the DeKalb County schools.” Ibid. From 1976 to 1986, enrollment in elementary schools declined overall by 15%, while black enrollment in elementary schools increased by 86%. During the same period, overall high school enrollment declined by 16%, while black enrollment in high schools increased by 119%. These effects were even more pronounced in the southern portion of DeKalb County.
Concerned with racial imbalance in the various schools of the district, respondents presented evidence that during the 1986-1987 school year DCSS had the following features: (1) 47% of the students attending DCSS were black; (2) 50% of the black students attended schools that were over 90% black; (3) 62% of all black students attended schools that had more than 20% more blacks than the system-wide average; (4) 27% of white students attended schools that were more than 90% white; (5) 59% of the white students attended schools that had more than 20% more whites than the system-wide average; (6) of the 22 DCSS high schools, five had student populations that were more than 90% black, while five other schools had student populations that were more than 80% white; and (7) of the 74 elementary schools in DCSS, 18 are over 90% black, while 10 are over 90% white. Id., at 31a. (Respondents’ evidence on these points treated all nonblack students as white. The District Court noted that there was no evidence that nonblack minority students constituted even 1% of DCSS student population.)
Respondents argued in the District Court that this racial imbalance in student assignment was a vestige of the dual system, rather than a product of independent demographic forces. In addition to the statistical evidence that the ratio of black students to white students in individual schools varied to a significant degree from the system-wide average, respondents contended that DCSS had not used all available desegregative tools in order to achieve racial balancing. Respondents pointed to the following alleged shortcomings in DCSS’ desegregative efforts: (1) DCSS did not break the county into subdistricts and racially balance each subdistrict; (2) DCSS failed to expend sufficient funds for minority learning opportunities; (3) DCSS did not establish community advisory organizations; (4) DCSS did not make full use of the freedom of choice plan; (5) DCSS did not cluster schools, that is, it did not create schools for separate grade levels which could be used to establish a feeder pattern; (6) DCSS did not institute its magnet school program as early as it might have; and (7) DCSS did not use busing to facilitate urban to suburban exchanges.
According to the District Court, respondents conceded that the 1969 order assigning all students to their neighborhood schools “effectively desegregated the DCSS for a period of time” with respect to student assignment. Id., at 36a. The District Court noted, however, that despite this concession respondents contended there was an improper imbalance in two schools even in 1969. Respondents made much of the fact that despite the small percentage of blacks in the county in 1969, there were then two schools that contained a majority of black students: Terry Mill Elementary School was 76% black, and Stoneview Elementary School was 51% black.
The District Court found the racial imbalance in these schools was not a vestige of the prior de jure system. It observed that both the Terry Mill and Stoneview schools were de jure white schools before the freedom of choice plan was put in place. It cited expert witness testimony that Terry Mill had become a majority black school as a result of demographic shifts unrelated to the actions of petitioners or their predecessors. In 1966, the overwhelming majority of students at Terry Mill were white. By 1967, due to migration of black citizens from Atlanta into DeKalb County — and into the neighborhood surrounding the Terry Mill school in particular — 23% of the students at Terry Mill were black. By 1968, black students constituted 50% of the school population at Terry Mill. By 1969, when the plan was put into effect, the percentage of black students had grown to 76. In accordance with the evidence of demographic shifts, and in the absence of any evidence to suggest that the former dual system contributed in any way to the rapid racial transformation of the Terry Mill student population, the District Court found that the pre-1969 unconstitutional acts of petitioners were not responsible for the high percentage of black students at the Terry Mill school in 1969. Its findings in this respect are illustrative of the problems DCSS and the District Court faced in integrating the whole district.
Although the District Court found that DCSS was desegregated for at least a short period under the court-ordered plan of 1969, it did not base its finding that DCSS had achieved unitary status with respect to student assignment on that circumstance alone. Recognizing that “[t]he achievement of unitary status in the area of student assignment cannot be hedged on the attainment of such status for a brief moment,” id., at 37a, the District Court examined the interaction between DCSS policy and demographic shifts in DeKalb County.
The District Court noted that DCSS had taken specific steps to combat the effects of demographics on the racial mix of the schools. Under the 1969 order, a biracial committee had reviewed all proposed changes in the boundary lines of school attendance zones. Since the original desegregation order, there had been about 170 such changes. It was found that only three had a partial segregative effect. An expert testified, and the District Court found, that even those changes had no significant effect on the racial mix of the school population, given the tremendous demographic shifts that were taking place at the same time.
The District Court also noted that DCSS, on its own initiative, started an M-to-M program in the 1972 school year. The program was a marked success. Participation increased with each passing year, so that in the 1986-1987 school year, 4,500 of the 72,000 students enrolled in DCSS participated. An expert testified that the impact of an M-to-M program goes beyond the number of students transferred because students at the receiving school also obtain integrated learning experiences. The District Court found that about 19% of the students attending DCSS had an integrated learning experience as a result of the M-to-M program. Id., at 40a.
In addition, in the 1980's, DCSS instituted a magnet school program in schools located in the middle of the county. The magnet school programs included a performing arts program, two science programs, and a foreign language program. There was testimony in the District Court that DCSS also had plans to operate additional magnet programs in occupational education and gifted and talented education, as well as a preschool program and an open campus. By locating these programs in the middle of the county, DCSS sought to attract black students from the southern part of the county and white students from the northern part.
Further, the District Court found that DCSS operates a number of experience programs integrated by race, including a writing center for fifth and seventh graders, a driving range, summer school programs, and a dialectical speech program. DCSS employs measures to control the racial mix in each of these special areas.
In determining whether DCSS has achieved unitary status with respect to student assignment, the District Court saw its task as one of deciding if petitioners “have accomplished maximum practical desegregation of the DCSS or if the DCSS must still do more to fulfill their affirmative constitutional duty.” Id., at 41a. Petitioners and respondents presented conflicting expert testimony about the potential effects that desegregative techniques not deployed might have had upon the racial mix of the schools. The District Court found that petitioners’ experts were more reliable, citing their greater familiarity with DCSS, their experience, and their standing within the expert community. The District Court made these findings:
“[The actions of DCSS] achieved maximum practical desegregation from 1969 to 1986. The rapid population shifts in DeKalb County were not caused by any action on the part of the DCSS. These demographic shifts were inevitable as the result of suburbanization, that is, work opportunities arising in DeKalb County as well as the City of Atlanta, which attracted blacks to DeKalb; the decline in the number of children born to white families during this period while the number of children born to black families did not decrease; blockbusting of formerly white neighborhoods leading to selling and buying of real estate in the DeKalb area on a highly dynamic basis; and the completion of Interstate 20, which made access from DeKalb County into the City of Atlanta much easier.... There is no evidence that the school system’s previous unconstitutional conduct may have contributed to this segregation. This court is convinced that any further actions taken by defendants, while the actions might have made marginal adjustments in the population trends, would not have offset the factors that were described above and the same racial segregation would have occurred at approximately the same speed.” Id., at 44a-45a.
The District Court added:
“[A]bsent massive bussing, which is not considered as a viable option by either the parties or this court, the magnet school program and the M-to-M program, which the defendants voluntarily implemented and to which the defendants obviously are dedicated, are the most effective ways to deal with the effects on student attendance of the residential segregation existing in DeKalb County at this time.” Id., at 46a.
Having found no constitutional violation with respect to student assignment, the District Court next considered the other Green factors, beginning with faculty and staff assignments. The District Court first found that DCSS had fulfilled its constitutional obligation with respect to hiring and retaining minority teachers and administrators. DCSS has taken active steps to recruit qualified black applicants and has hired them in significant numbers, employing a greater percentage of black teachers than the statewide average. The District Court also noted that DCSS has an “equally exemplary record” in retention of black teachers and administrators. App. to Pet. for Cert. 49a. Nevertheless, the District Court found that DCSS had not achieved or maintained a ratio of black to white teachers and administrators in each school to approximate the ratio of black to white teachers and administrators throughout the system. See Singleton v. Jackson Municipal Separate School Disk, 419 P. 2d 1211 (CA5 1969), cert. denied, 396 U. S. 1032 (1970). In other words, a racial imbalance existed in the assignment of minority teachers and administrators. The District Court found that in the 1984-1985 school year, seven schools deviated by more than 10% from the system-wide average of 26.4% minority teachers in elementary schools and 24.9% minority teachers in high schools. The District Court also found that black principals and administrators were overrepresented in schools with high percentages of black students and underrepresented in schools with low percentages of black students.
The District Court found the crux of the problem to be that DCSS has relied on the replacement process to attain a racial balance in teachers and other staff and has avoided using mandatory reassignment. DCSS gave as its reason for not using mandatory reassignment that the competition among local school districts is stiff, and that it is difficult to attract and keep qualified teachers if they are required to work far from their homes. In fact, because teachers prefer to work close to their homes, DCSS has a voluntary transfer program in which teachers who have taught at the same school for a period of three years may ask for a transfer. Because most teachers request to be transferred to schools near their homes, this program makes compliance with the objective of racial balance in faculty and staff more difficult.
The District Court stated that it was not “unsympathetic to the difficulties that DCSS faces in this regard,” but held that the law of the Circuit requires DCSS to comply with Singleton. App. to Pet. for Cert. 53a. The court ordered DCSS to devise a plan to achieve compliance with Singleton, noting that “[i]t would appear that such compliance will necessitate reassignment of both teachers and principals.” App. to Pet. for Cert. 58a. With respect to faculty, the District Court noted that meeting Singleton would not be difficult, citing petitioners’ own estimate that most schools’ faculty could conform by moving, at most, two or three teachers.
Addressing the more ineffable category of quality of education, the District Court rejected most of respondents’ contentions that there was racial disparity in the provision of certain educational resources (e. g., teachers with advanced degrees, teachers with more experience, library books), contentions made to show that black students were not being given equal educational opportunity. The District Court went further, however, and examined the evidence concerning achievement of black students in DCSS. It cited expert testimony praising the overall educational program in the district, as well as objective evidence of black achievement: Black students at DCSS made greater gains on the Iowa Tests of Basic Skills than white students, and black students at DCSS are more successful than black students nationwide on the Scholastic Aptitude Test. It made the following finding:
“While there will always be something more that the DCSS can do to improve the chances for black students to achieve academic success, the court cannot find, as plaintiffs urge, that the DCSS has been negligent in its duties to implement programs to assist black students. The DCSS is a very innovative school system. It has implemented a number of programs to enrich the lives and enhance the academic potential of all students, both blacks and whites. Many remedial programs are targeted in the majority black schools. Programs have been implemented to involve the parents and offset negative socio-economic factors. If the DCSS has failed in any way in this regard, it is not because the school system has been negligent in its duties.” App. to Pet. for Cert. 69a-70a (footnote omitted).
Despite its finding that there was no intentional violation, the District Court found that DCSS had not achieved unitary status with respect to quality of education because teachers in schools with disproportionately high percentages of white students tended to be better educated and have more experience than their counterparts in schools with disproportionately high percentages of black students, and because per-pupil expenditures in majority white schools exceeded per-pupil expenditures in majority black schools. From these findings, the District Court ordered DCSS to equalize spending and remedy the other problems.
The final Green factors considered by the District Court were: (1) physical facilities, (2) transportation, and (3) extracurricular activities. The District Court noted that although respondents expressed some concerns about the use of portable classrooms in schools in the southern portion of the county, they in effect conceded that DCSS has achieved unitary status with respect to physical facilities.
In accordance with its factfinding, the District Court held that it would order no further relief in the areas of student assignment, transportation, physical facilities, and extracurricular activities. The District Court, however, did order DCSS to establish a system to balance teacher and principal assignments and to equalize per-pupil expenditures throughout DCSS. Having found that blacks were represented on the school board and throughout DCSS administration, the District Court abolished the biracial committee as no longer necessary.
Both parties appealed to the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit. The Court of Appeals affirmed the District Court’s ultimate conclusion that DCSS has not yet achieved unitary status, but reversed the District Court’s ruling that DCSS has no further duties in the area of student assignment. 887 F. 2d 1438 (1989). The Court of Appeals held that the District Court erred by considering the six Green factors as separate categories. The Court of Appeals rejected the District Court’s incremental approach, an approach that has also been adopted by the Court of Appeals for the First Circuit, Morgan v. Nucci, 831 F. 2d 313, 318-319 (1987), and held that a school system achieves unitary status only after it has satisfied all six factors at the same time for several years. 887 F. 2d, at 1446. Because, under this test, DCSS had not achieved unitary status at any time, the Court of Appeals held that DCSS could “not shirk its constitutional duties by pointing to demographic shifts occurring prior to unitary status.” Id., at 1448. The Court of Appeals held that petitioners bore the responsibility for the racial imbalance, and in order to correct that imbalance would have to take actions that “may be administratively awkward, inconvenient, and even bizarre in some situations,” Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Bd. of Education, 402 U. S. 1, 28 (1971), such as pairing and clustering of schools, drastic gerrymandering of school zones, grade reorganization, and busing. We granted certiorari, 498 U. S. 1081 (1991).
II
Two principal questions are presented. The first is whether a district court may relinquish its supervision and control over those aspects of a school system in which there has been compliance with a desegregation decree if other aspects of the system remain in noncompliance. As we answer this question in the affirmative, the second question is whether the Court of Appeals erred in reversing the District Court’s order providing for incremental withdrawal of supervision in all the circumstances of this case.
A
The duty and responsibility of a school district once segregated by law is to take all steps necessary to eliminate the vestiges of the unconstitutional de jure system. This is required in order to ensure that the principal wrong of the de jure system, the injuries and stigma inflicted upon the race disfavored by the violation, is no longer present. This was the rationale and the objective of Brown I and Brown II. In Brown I we said: “To separate [black students] from others of similar age and qualifications solely because of their race generates a feeling of inferiority as to their status in the community that may affect their hearts and minds in a way unlikely ever to be undone.” 347 U. S., at 494. We quoted a finding of the three-judge District Court in the underlying Kansas case that bears repeating here:
“ ‘Segregation of white and colored children in public schools has a detrimental effect upon the colored children. The impact is greater when it has the sanction of the law; for the policy of separating the races is usually interpreted as denoting the inferiority of the negro group. A sense of inferiority affects the motivation of a child to learn. Segregation with the sanction of law, therefore, has a tendency to [retard] the educational and mental development of negro children and to deprive them of some of the benefits they would receive in a racial[ly] integrated school system.’” Ibid.
The objective of Brown I was made more specific by our holding in Green that the duty of a former de jure district is to “take whatever steps might be necessary to convert to a unitary system in which racial discrimination would be eliminated root and branch.” 391 U. S., at 437-438. We also identified various parts of the school system which, in addition to student attendance patterns, must be free from racial discrimination before the mandate of Brown is met: faculty, staff, transportation, extracurricular activities, and facilities. 391 U. S., at 435. The Green factors are a measure of the racial identifiability of schools in a system that is not in compliance with Brown, and we instructed the District Courts to fashion remedies that address all these components of elementary and secondary school systems.
The concept of unitariness has been a helpful one in defining the scope of the district courts’ authority, for it conveys the central idea that a school district that was once a dual system must be examined in all of its facets, both when a remedy is ordered and in the later phases of desegregation when the question is whether the district courts’ remedial control ought to be modified, lessened, or withdrawn. But, as we explained last Term in Board of Ed. of Oklahoma City Public Schools v. Dowell, 498 U. S. 237, 245-246 (1991), the term “unitary” is not a precise concept:
“[I]t is a mistake to treat words such as ‘dual’ and ‘unitary’ as if they were actually found in the Constitution.... Courts have used the terms ‘dual’ to denote a school system which has engaged in intentional segregation of students by race, and ‘unitary’ to describe a school system which has been brought into compliance with the command of the Constitution. We are not sure how useful it is to define these terms more precisely, or to create subclasses within them.”
It follows that we must be cautious not to attribute to the term a utility it does not have. The term “unitary” does not confine the discretion and authority of the District Court in a way that departs from traditional equitable principles.
That the term “unitary” does not have fixed meaning or content is not inconsistent with the principles that control the exercise of equitable power. The essence of a court’s equity power lies in its inherent capacity to adjust remedies in a feasible and practical way to eliminate the conditions or redress the injuries caused by unlawful action. Equitable remedies must be flexible if these underlying principles are to be enforced with fairness and precision. In this respect, as we observed in Swann, “a school desegregation case does not differ fundamentally from other cases involving the framing of equitable remedies to repair the denial of a constitutional right. The task is to correct, by a balancing of the individual and collective interests, the condition that offends the Constitution.” Swann, 402 U. S., at 15-16. The requirement of a unitary school system must be implemented according to this prescription.
Our application of these guiding principles in Pasadena Bd. of Education v. Spangler, 427 U. S. 424 (1976), is instructive. There we held that a District Court exceeded its remedial authority in requiring annual readjustment of school attendance zones in the Pasadena school district when changes in the racial makeup of the schools were caused by demographic shifts “not attributed to any segregative acts on the part of the [school district].” Id., at 436. In so holding we said:
“It may well be that petitioners have not yet totally achieved the unitary system contemplated by. -.. 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 [Pasadena Unified School District] 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.” Ibid.
See also id., at 438, n. 5 (“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 with 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”).
Today, we make explicit the rationale that was central in Spangler. A federal court in a school desegregation case has the discretion to order an incremental or partial withdrawal of its supervision and control. This discretion derives both from the constitutional authority which justified its intervention in the first instance and its ultimate objectives in formulating the decree. The authority of the court is invoked at the outset to remedy particular constitutional violations. In construing the remedial authority of the district courts, we have been guided by the principles that “judicial powers may be exercised only on the basis of a constitutional violation,” and that “the nature of the violation determines the scope of the remedy.” Swann, supra, at 16. A remedy is justifiable only insofar as it advances the ultimate objective of alleviating the initial constitutional violation.
We have said that the court’s end purpose must be to remedy the violation and, in addition, to restore state and local authorities to the control of a school system that is operating in compliance with the Constitution. Milliken v. Bradley, 433 U. S. 267, 280-281 (1977) (“[Tjhe federal courts in devising a remedy must take into account the interests of state and local authorities in managing their own affairs, consistent with the Constitution”). Partial relinquishment of judicial control, where justified by the facts of the case, can be an important and significant step in fulfilling the district court’s duty to return the operations and control of schools to local authorities. In Dowell, we emphasized that federal judicial supervision of local school systems was intended as a “temporary measure.” 498 U. S., at 247. Although this
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
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.
A three-judge federal court, convened pursuant to 28 U. S. C. § 2281, determined that plaintiff’s claim was not “one which must be heard by a three-judge court.” 285 F. Supp. 85, 87. It also ruled that the relief sought by plaintiff was not warranted. The district judge in whose court the case was originally filed adopted the action of the court as his own. The resulting situation is similar, we think, to that which results when a single judge declines to convene a three-judge court and denies relief: an appeal lies to the appropriate United States Court of Appeals, and not to this Court. Schackman v. Arnebergh, 387 U. S. 427. It does not appear from the record that a protective appeal was lodged in the Court of Appeals, and the time to do so may have expired. Therefore, we vacate the judgment below and remand the case to the District Court so that it may enter a fresh decree from which a timely appeal may be taken to the Court of Appeals. Utility Comm’n v. Pennsylvania R. Co., 382 U. S. 281, 282.
It is so ordered.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer:
|
I
|
sc_issuearea
|
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Per Curiam.
The petition for rehearing is granted.
In Kopald v. Carr, 343 F. Supp. 51 (MD Tenn. 1972), the District Court applied this Court’s earlier holding in Baker v. Carr, 369 U. S. 186 (1962), to invalidate two senatorial dis-tricting plans. That decision resulted in the formulation of a so-called court ordered “Kopald Plan.” That plan was superseded by a 1973 legislative plan.
In this litigation the District Court invalidated the 1973 legislative plan. It enjoined the defendants from conducting any elections pursuant to that plan and retained jurisdiction to review whatever substitute the Tennessee General Assembly might enact prior to June 1, 1979, or, if necessary, to reinstate the 1972 “Kopald Plan.” The court further ordered a hearing to award fees to plaintiffs’ counsel.
In response to the State’s appeal to this Court, appellees pointed out that the legislature had enacted a new plan effective on June 6, 1979, argued that the controversy over the validity of the 1973 legislative plan had therefore become moot; and requested that the appeal therefore be dismissed. This Court, following a practice that is appropriate when an entire case has become moot but which is inappropriate when only the issues raised on appeal have been resolved, entered an order directing that the judgment of the District Court be vacated and that the entire action be dismissed as moot. Post, p. 806.
The recent legislation did not moot the entire case, but only the issues raised on appeal. Appellees may still wish to attack the newly enacted legislation or apply for attorney’s fees. We therefore vacate our prior order. In lieu thereof, we direct that the judgment of the District Court be vacated without prejudice to such further proceedings in the District Court as may be appropriate. See Diffenderfer v. Central Baptist Church, 404 U. S. 412 (1972).
It is so ordered.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer:
|
I
|
sc_issuearea
|
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Justice Stevens
delivered the opinion of the Court.
The Arkansas River rises in the mountains of Colorado just east of the Continental Divide, descends for about 280 miles to the Kansas border, then flows through that State, Oklahoma, and Arkansas and empties into the Mississippi River. On May 20, 1901, Kansas first invoked this Court’s original jurisdiction to seek a remedy for Colorado’s diversion of water from the Arkansas River. See Kansas v. Colorado, 185 U. S. 125, 126 (1902) (statement of case). In opinions written during the past century, most recently in Kansas v. Colorado, 514 U. S. 673, 675-678 (1995), we have described the history and the importance of the river. For present purposes it suffices to note that two of those cases, Kansas v. Colorado, 206 U. S. 46 (1907), and Colorado v. Kansas, 320 U. S. 383 (1943), led to the negotiation of the Arkansas River Compact (Compact), an agreement between Kansas and Colorado that in turn was approved by Congress in 1949. See 63 Stat. 145. The case before us today involves a claim by Kansas for damages based on Colorado’s violations of that Compact.
The Compact was designed to “[s]ettle existing disputes and remove causes of future controversy” between the two States and their citizens concerning waters of the Arkansas River and to “[ejquitably divide and apportion” those waters and the benefits arising from construction and operation of the federal project known as the “John Martin Reservoir.” Arkansas River Compact, Art. I, reprinted in App. to Brief for Kansas A-l, A-2. Article IV-D of the Compact provides:
“This Compact is not intended to impede or prevent future beneficial development of the Arkansas River basin in Colorado and Kansas by Federal or State agencies, by private enterprise, or by combinations thereof, which may involve construction of dams, reservoir, and other works for the purpose of water utilization and control, as well as the improved or prolonged functioning of existing works: Provided, that the waters of the Arkansas River, as defined in Article III, shall not be materially depleted in usable quantity or availability for use to the water users in Colorado and Kansas under this Compact by such future development or construction.” Id., at A-5.
It is the proviso to that paragraph that is of special relevance to this case.
In 1986, we granted Kansas leave to file a complaint alleging three violations of the Compact by Colorado. See 514 U. S., at 679-680. After taking evidence in the liability phase of the proceeding, Special Master Arthur L. Little-worth filed his first report, in which he recommended that two of the claims be denied, but that the Court find, that post-Compact increases in groundwater well pumping in Colorado had materially depleted the waters of the river in violation of Article IV-D. See id., at 680. We overruled Colorado’s exceptions to that recommendation, including an argument that Kansas was guilty of laches. Id., at 687-689. We remanded the ease to the Special Master to determine: an appropriate remedy for the violations of Article IV-D. Id., at 694. ,
After further proceedings the Special Master filed a second report recommending an award of damages. Colorado filed exceptions to that report, arguing that the Eleventh Amendment barred an award based on losses incurred by Kansas citizens, and that the report improperly recommended the recovery of prejudgment interest on an un-liquidated claim. We overruled those exceptions without prejudice to their renewal after the Special Master made a more specific recommendation for a remedy. 522 U. S. 1073 (1998). He did so in his third report, and we are now confronted with exceptions filed by both States.
In the third report, the Special Master recommends that damages be measured by Kansas’ losses, rather than Colorado’s profits, attributable to Compact violations after 1950; that the damages be paid in money rather than water; and that the damages should include prejudgment interest from 1969 to the date of judgment. Colorado has filed four objections to the report. It contends (1) that the recommended award of damages would violate the Eleventh Amendment to the United States Constitution; (2) that the damages award should not include prejudgment interest; (3) that the amount of interest awarded is excessive; and (4) that the Special Master improperly credited flawed expert testimony, with the result that Kansas’ crop production losses were improperly calculated. On the other hand, Kansas has filed an objection submitting that prejudgment interest should be paid from 1950, rather than 1969. The United States, which intervened because of its interest in the operation of flood control projects in Colorado, submits that both States’ objections should be overruled.
1 — 1
We have decided that a State may recover monetary damages from another State in an original action, without running afoul of the Eleventh Amendment. See, e.g., Texas v. New Mexico, 482 U. S. 124, 130 (1987) (“The Court has recognized the propriety of money judgments against a State in an original action, and specifically in a case involving a compact. In proper original actions, the Eleventh Amendment is no barrier, for by its terms, it applies only to suits by citizens against a State” (citations omitted)); see also Maryland v. Louisiana, 451 U. S. 725, 745, n. 21 (1981); South Dakota v. North Carolina, 192 U. S. 286, 317-321 (1904). Colorado contends, however, that the Eleventh Amendment precludes any such recovery based on losses sustained by individual water users in Kansas.
It is firmly established, and undisputed in this litigation, that the text of the Eleventh Amendment would bar a direct action against Colorado by citizens of Kansas. Moreover, we have several times held that a State may not invoke our original jurisdiction when it is merely acting as an agent or trustee for one or more of its citizens. For example, in New Hampshire v. Louisiana, 108 U. S. 76 (1883), we refused to assume jurisdiction over an action to recover payment, on defaulted bonds that had been formally assigned to the state plaintiffs but remained beneficially owned by private individuals. And, in North Dakota v. Minnesota, 263 U. S. 365 (1923), we held that, while the plaintiff State could obtain an injunction against the improper operation of Minnesota’s drainage ditches, the Eleventh Amendment precluded an award of damages based on injuries to individual farmers, where the damages claim was financed by contributions from the farmers and the State had committed to dividing any recovery among the farmers “in proportion to the amount of [their] loss.” Id., at 375.
Those cases make it clear that a “State is not permitted to enter a controversy as a nominal party in order to forward the claims of individual citizens.” Maryland v. Louisiana, 451 U. S., at 737; see also New Hampshire v. Louisiana, 108 U. S., at 89 (Eleventh Amendment applies and acts to bar jurisdiction where “the State and the attorney-general' are only nominal actors in the proceeding”). The “governing principle” is that in order to invoke our original jurisdiction, “the State must show a direct interest of its own and not merely seek recovery for the benefit of individuals who are the real parties in interest.” Oklahoma ex rel. Johnson v. Cook, 304 U. S. 387, 396 (1938).
Kansas has unquestionably made such a showing. Indeed, the present proceeding is but one of several in which Kansas’ own interest in preventing upstream diversions from the Arkansas River has justified an exercise of our original jurisdiction. In Cook we even offered as an example of proper original jurisdiction one of the prior original suits between Kansas and Colorado, see id., at 393-394 (citing Kansas v. Colorado, 206 U. S. 46 (1907)), and in Texas v. New Mexico we held that enforcement of an interstate water compact by means of a recovery of money damages can be within a State’s proper pursuit of the “general public interest” in an original action, 482 U. S., at 132, n. 7.
Moreover, the record in this case plainly discloses that the State of Kansas has been in full control of this litigation since its inception. Its right to control the disposition of any recovery of damages is entirely unencumbered. The injury to individual farmers is but one component of the formula adopted by the Special Master to quantify the damages caused by Colorado’s violation of its contractual obligations. In short, there is simply nothing in the record to suggest that the State of Kansas is merely a “nominal party” to this litigation or that the individual farmers are “the real parties in interest.”
When a State properly invokes our jurisdiction to seek redress for a wrong perpetrated against it by a sister State, neither the measure of damages that we ultimately determine to be proper nor our method for calculating those damages can retrospectively negate our jurisdiction. Nor would our jurisdiction to order a damages remedy be affected by Kansas’ postjudgment decisions concerning the use of the money recovered from Colorado. As we have previously recognized, it is the State’s prerogative either to deposit the proceeds of any judgment in “the general coffers of the State” or to use them to “benefit those who were hurt.” Ibid.
We overrule Colorado’s first exception.
II
Colorado next excepts to the Special Master’s conclusion that the damages award should include prejudgment interest despite the fact that Kansas’ claim is unliquidated. At one point in time, the fact that the claim was unliquidated would have been of substantial importance. As a general matter, early common-law cases drew a distinction between liquidated and unliquidated claims and refused to allow interest on the latter. See, e.g., Comment, Prejudgment Interest: Survey and Suggestion, 77 Nw. U. L. Rev. 192,196, and n. 26 (1982) (discussing history and collecting sources). This rule seems to have rested upon a belief that there was something inherently unfair about requiring debtors to pay interest when they were unable to halt its accrual by handing over to their creditors a fixed and unassailable amount. See, e. g., id., at 196.
This common-law distinction has long since lost its hold on the legal imagination. Beginning in the early part of the last century, numerous courts and commentators have rejected the distinction for failing to acknowledge the compensatory nature of interest awards. This Court allied itself with the evolving consensus in 1933, when we expressed the opinion that the distinction between cases of liquidated and unliquidated damages “is not a sound one.” Funkhouser v. J B. Preston Co., 290 U. S. 163, 168 (1933). The analysis supporting that conclusion gave no doubt as to our reasoning: ‘‘Whether the case is of the one class or the other, the injured party has suffered a loss which may be regarded as not fully compensated if he is confined to the amount found to be recoverable as of the time of breach and nothing is added for the delay in obtaining the award of damages.” Ibid. Our cases since 1933 have consistently acknowledged that a monetary award does not fully compensate for an injury unless it includes an interest component. See, e. g., Milwaukee v. Cement Div., National Gypsum Co., 515 U. S. 189, 195 (1995) (“The essential rationale for awarding prejudgment interest is to ensure that an injured party is fully compensated for its loss”); West Virginia v. United States, 479 U. S. 305, 310-311, n. 2 (1987); General Motors Corp. v. Devex Corp., 461 U. S. 648, 655-656, n. 10 (1983).
Relying on our cases, the Special Master “concluded that the unliquidated nature of Kansas’ money damages does not, in and of itself, bar an award of prejudgment interest.” Second Report, § XV, reprinted in App. to Third Report 43. In reaching that conclusion, the Special Master was fully cognizant of both the displaced common-law rule and the subsequent doctrinal evolution. In addition, he gave careful consideration to equitable considerations that might mitigate against an award of interest, concluding that “considerations of fairness,” Board of Comm’rs of Jackson Cty. v. United States, 308 U. S. 343, 352 (1939), supported the award of at least some prejudgment interest in this case.
We find no fault in the Special Master’s analysis of either our prior cases or the equities of this matter. While we will deal with the amount of prejudgment interest below, to answer Colorado’s second objection it is sufficient to conclude that the Special Master was correct in determining that the unliquidated nature of the damages does not preclude an award of prejudgment interest.
Colorado’s second exception is overruled.
III
Colorado’s third exception takes issue with both the rate of interest adopted by the Special Master and the date from which he recommended that interest begin to accrue. As to the second of these two concerns, Colorado submits that, if any prejudgment interest is to be awarded, it should begin to accrue in 1985 (when Kansas filed its complaint in this action), rather than in 1969 (when, the Special Master concluded, Colorado knew or should have known that it was violating the Compact). On the other hand, Kansas has entered an exception, arguing that the accrual of interest should begin in 1950. We first address the rate question, then the timing issue.
A
The Special Master credited the testimony of Kansas’ three experts who calculated the interest rates that they thought necessary to provide full compensation for the damages caused by Colorado’s violations of the Compact in the years since 1950. As a result of inflation and changing market conditions those rates varied from year to year. In their calculation of the damages suffered by Kansas farmers, the experts used the interest rates that were applicable to individuals in the relevant years rather than the (lower) rates available to States.
Colorado argues that the lower rates should have been used because it is the State, rather than the individual farmers, that is maintaining the action and will receive any award of damages. But if, as we have already decided, see Part I, supra, it is permissible for the State to measure a portion of its damages by losses suffered by individual farmers, it necessarily follows that the courts are free to utilize whatever interest rate will most accurately measure those losses. The money in question in this portion of the damages award is revenue that would — but for Colorado’s actions — have been earned by individual farmers. Thus, the Special Master correctly concluded that the economic consequences of Colorado’s breach could best be remedied by an interest award that mirrors the cost of any additional borrowing the farmers may have been forced to undertake in order to compensate for lost revenue.
B
Although the Special Master rejected Colorado’s submission that there is a categorical bar to the award of prejudgment interest on unliquidated claims, he concluded that such interest should not “be awarded according to [any] rigid theory of compensation for money withheld,” but rather should respond to “ ‘considerations of fairness.’ ” Third Report 97 (quoting Jackson Cty., 308 U. S., at 352). Kansas argues that our decisions subsequent to Jackson County have effectively foreclosed the equities-balancing approach that the Special Master adopted. There is some merit to Kansas’ position. See National Gypsum Co., 515 U. S., at 193 (affirming a decision of the Court of Appeals that had read our cases as “disapproving of a ‘balancing of the equities’ as a method of deciding whether to allow prejudgment interest”).
However, despite the clear direction indicated by some of our earlier opinions, we cannot say that by 1949 our case law had developed sufficiently to put Colorado on notice that, upon a violation of the Compact, we would automatically award prejudgment interest from the time of injury. Given the state of the law at that time, Colorado may well have believed that we would balance the equities in order to achieve a just and equitable remedy, rather than automatically imposing prejudgment interest in order to achieve full compensation. See Jackson Cty., 808 U. S., at 352 (prejudgment interest award limited by “considerations of fairness”); Miller v. Robertson, 266 U. S. 243, 258 (1924) (“[W]hen necessary in order to arrive at fair compensation, the court in the exercise of a sound discretion may include interest or its equivalent as an element of damages” on un-liquidated claims); Restatement of Contracts §337, p. 542 (1932) (prejudgment interest on unliquidated claims “may be allowed in the discretion of the court, if justice requires it”). While we are confident that, when it signed the Compact, Colorado was on notice that it might be subject to prejudgment interest if such interest was necessary to fashion an equitable remedy, we are unable to conclude with sufficient certainty that Colorado was on notice that such interest would be imposed as a matter of course. We, therefore, believe that the Special Master acted properly in carefully analyzing the facts of the case and in only awarding as much prejudgment interest as was required by a balancing of the equities.
We also agree with the Special Master that the equities in this case do not support an award of prejudgment interest from the date of the first violation of the Compact, but rather favor an award beginning on a later date. In reaching this conclusion, the Special Master appropriately considered several factors. In particular, he relied on the fact that in the early years after the Compact was signed, no one had any thought that the pact was being violated. Third Report 106. In addition, he considered the long interval that passed between the original injuries and these proceedings, as well as the dramatic impact of compounding interest over many years. Id., at 99-101; see also n. 3, supra.
In its exception, Kansas argues that the Special Master’s reasoning would be appropriate if damages were being awarded as a form of punishment, but does not justify a refusal to provide full compensation to an injured party. Moreover, Kansas argues, a rule that rewards ignorance might discourage diligence in making sure that there is full compliance with the terms of the Compact. Kansas’ argument is consistent with a “rigid theory of compensation for money withheld,” but, for the reasons discussed above, we are persuaded that the Special Master correctly declined to adopt such a theory. The equitable considerations identified by the Special Master fully justify his view that in this case it would be inappropriate to award prejudgment interest for any years before either party was aware of the excessive pumping in Colorado.
In its third exception, Colorado argues that, if prejudgment interest is to be awarded at all, the equities are best balanced by limiting such interest to the time after the complaint was filed, rather than the time after which Colorado knew or should have known that it was violating the Compact. Specifically, Colorado suggests that prejudgment interest should begin to accrue in 1985 rather than 1969. The choice between the two dates is surely debatable; it is a matter over which reasonable people can — and do — disagree. After examining the equities for ourselves, however, a majority of the Court has decided that the later date is the more appropriate.
When we overruled Colorado’s objections to the Special Master’s first report, we held that Kansas was not guilty of inexcusable delay in failing to complain more promptly about post-Compact well pumping. 514 U. S., at 687-689. In saying that the delay was not inexcusable, we recognized that the nature and extent Of Colorado’s violations continued to be unclear even in the years after which it became obvious that the Compact was being violated. Id., at 688-689. That conclusion is something of a two-edged sword, however. While Kansas’ delay was understandable given the amorphous nature of its claims, there is no doubt that the interests of both States would have been served if the claim had been advanced promptly after its basis became known. Once it became obvious that a violation of the Compact had occurred, it was equally clear that the proceedings necessary to evaluate the significance of the violations would be complex and protracted. Despite the diligence of the parties and the Special Master, over 15 years have elapsed since the complaint was filed. Given the uncertainty over the scope of damages that prevailed during the period between 1968 and 1985 and the fact that it was uniquely in Kansas’ power to begin the process by which those damages would be quantified, Colorado’s request that we deny prejudgment interest for that period is reasonable.
For these reasons, we overrule Kansas’ exception. We also overrule Colorado’s third exception insofar as it challenges the interest rates recommended by the Special Master, but we sustain that objection insofar as it challenges the award of interest for the years prior to 1985.
IV
Colorado’s final objection challenges the Special Master’s determination of the value of the crop losses attributable to the Compact violations, the largest component of Kansas’ damages claim. The Special. Master accomplished the calculation by estimating the amount of farmland affected by Colorado’s violations, the crops planted on that farmland, the price of those crops, and the difference in yield between what the affected land would have produced with the additional water and what the land actually produced with the water it received.
The parties were in agreement concerning most of the facts bearing on the Special Master’s calculation. They agreed that water was in short supply in the affected area each year, 178 Tr. 127-128; they agreed on the amount of the shortage that resulted from Colorado’s violations, ibid.; and they generally agreed on which crops were planted on the affected farmland as well as the prices of those crops in the relevant years. See Third Report 46.
The only issue on which the parties disagreed was the exact effect of the diverted water on the crop yields for the farmland in question. On that score, both Kansas and Colorado accepted the general notion that “[u]p to the point where crops no longer can make use of additional water, more water produces more crop yield.” Id., at 47. But they parted ways on the question of precisely how much additional yield would have been produced with the missing water. Kansas’ experts relied upon the hypothesis of a generally linear relationship between water available for use and increased crop yields. With figures drawn from a number of studies, Professor Norman Whittlesey, Kansas’ principal expert, developed quantitative estimates of the lost yield, per unit of water, for the various crops grown on the affected farmland. Although Colorado’s expert initially attempted to propose his own model, he ultimately abandoned his position when confronted with flaws in his data. 197 Tr. 44-46.
Its own expert having recanted his alternative proposal for calculating the effects of the diverted water on crop yield, Colorado attempts to poke holes in Kansas’ methodology through a speculative application of abstract economic theory. Kansas’ numbers (for crop losses due to diverted water) cannot be correct, Colorado argues, because if they were, it would have been economically profitable for the affected farmers to drill wells and obtain water from underground sources rather than suffer the reduced yield from the shortage of surface water. Brief for Colorado 41-49. Because Kansas farmers did not install wells, Colorado concludes, we can know that the diverted water was not as valuable as Kansas’ experts claim.
The Special Master did not question Colorado’s assertion that digging wells would, in retrospect, actually have been profitable for Kansas farmers, but he declined to employ Colorado’s argument as a basis for rejecting Kansas’ expert testimony on the extent of crop losses. His thoughtful analysis is worth quoting in full:
“Given the hindsight of present day economists, it might have been profitable for everyone to drill supplemental wells .... However, there are many reasons why this may not have been done, and the failure to drill wells does not by itself indicate that Kansas’ estimate of crop losses is too high. The favorable economics of drilling wells may not have been understood at the time. Quality information regarding costs and returns was not readily available. [211 Tr.] 31. Some farmers, for reasons of age or otherwise, may not have wanted to go into long-term debt. Some farmers may not have had the available capital, or the credit to borrow. Many farmers were ‘cash poor.’ Id. at 32. Some farmers may have been averse to risk. Some farmers may have been tenants, and the landlord may not have been willing to undertake the necessary investment. Some farms may have been small in terms of total acreage, or the acreage spread out over space, so that it was not feasible or practical to consider a well investment. [208 Tr.] 37-39. Capital for well investments, with three to ten year repayment periods, was less available than for long-term investments. [211 Tr.] 32.” Third Report 60-61.
We agree with the Special Master that accepting Colorado’s argument requires a good deal of speculation, not only about the comparative advantages of wells as opposed to irrigation, but also about the ability of the farmers fully to understand or to implement different choices without the benefit of expert hindsight. Given Colorado’s inability to mount an effective challenge to Kansas’ experts on their own terms and its complete failure to provide a plausible alternative estimate of the crop damage that resulted from its violations of the Compact, we conclude that its attack on Kansas’ conclusions is unpersuasive.
Colorado’s fourth exception is overruled.
V
We remand the ease to the Special Master for preparation of a final judgment consistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
That Amendment provides: “The Judicial power of the United States shall not be construed to extend to any suit in law or equity, commenced or prosecuted against one of the United States by Citizens of another State, or by Citizens or Subjects of any Foreign State.”
Though final damages have not yet been calculated, the importance of this issue is illustrated by breaking down the damages claimed by Kansas. Of $62,369,173 in damages so claimed, $9,218,305 represents direct and indirect losses in actual dollars when the damage occurred. Of the remaining $53,150,868, about $12 million constitutes an adjustment for inflation (a type of interest that Colorado concedes is appropriate) while the remaining amount (approximately $41 million) represents additional interest intended to compensate for lost investment opportunities. Third Report of Special Master 87-88 (hereinafter Third Report). The magnitude of prejudgment interest ultimately awarded in this case will, of .course, turn on the date from which interest accrues. See Part III-B, infra.
For sources from the early part of the century criticizing, qualifying, or rejecting the distinction, see, e. g., Faber v. New York, 222 N. Y. 255, 262, 118 N. E. 609, 610-611 (1918); Bernhard, v. Rochester German Ins. Co., 79 Conn. 388, 398, 65 A. 134, 138 (1906); Restatement of Contracts §337, p. 542 (1932); C. McCormick, Law of Damages §51, p. 210 (1935); 1 T. Sedgwick, Measure of Damages §315 (9th ed. 1912); cf. 3 S. Williston, Law of Contracts §1413, p. 2508 (1920) (“The disinclination to allow interest on claim of uncertain amount seems based on practice rather than theoretical grounds”). For a thorough modern treatment of the issue, see 1 D. Dobbs, Law of Remedies § 3.6(3) (2d ed. 1993).
Justice O’Connor argues that the state of the law was insufficiently evolved by 1949 for Colorado to have had notice that the courts might award prejudgment interest if it violated its obligations under the Compact. See post, at 21-25 (opinion concurring in part and dissenting in part). Though the law was indeed in flux at that time, this Court had already made it clear that it put no stock in the traditional common-law prohibition, see Funkhouser v. J. B. Preston Co., 290 U. S. 163, 168 (1933), and had stated explicitly that such interest may accrue when “considerations of fairness” demand it, see Board of Comm’rs of Jackson Cty. v. United States, 308 U. S. 343, 352 (1939). The contemporary Restatement of Contracts was in accord. See Restatement of Contracts § 337(b), at 542 (“Where the contract that is broken [is not for a set or easily ascertainable amount of money], interest may be allowed in the discretion of the court, if justice requires it, on the amount that would have been just compensation if it had been paid when performance was due”). Under those circumstances, we think it is clear that, in 1949, an informed contracting party would not have concluded that an agreement’s silence on the issue deprived a reviewing court of the authority to award compensatory interest if the party willfully violated its contractual obligations. Moreover, under Justice O’Connor’s reasoning, States who entered into interstate compacts before 1987, see post, at 23, would retain a perpetual incentive to breach their contractual obligations and reap the benefits of such a breach with the full knowledge that the courts lack the authority to order a fully compensatory remedy.
Justice O’Connor, Justice Scalia, and Justice Thomas would not allow any prejudgment interest. See post, at 20. Justice Kennedy and The Chief Justice are of the opinion that prejudgment interest should run from the date of the filing of the complaint. Justice Souter, Justice Ginsburg, Justice Breyer, and the author of this opinion agree with the Special Master’s view that interest should run from the time when Colorado knew or should have known that it was violating the Compact. In order to produce a majority for a judgment, the four Justices who agree with the Special Master have voted to endorse the position expressed in the text.
As the Special Master noted, “Colorado experts did not dispute, in general, the linear relationship between [water usage] and crop yield.... However, they were of the view that the particular linear crop yield coefficients used by Kansas were not sufficiently reliable to determine the increase in yields that would have occurred if there had been no depletions of headgate deliveries to the [affected] lands.” Third Report 47. Colorado suggests that Kansas’ model, based as it is upon academic studies, does not adequately account for reductions in crop yield from such real-world conditions as “weather, disease, and pests.” Brief for Colorado 44, n. 12. But, as the Special Master correctly noted, Kansas’ experts reduced the predicted crop yield by 25% in order to account for such possibilities. Third Report 51 (“The 25% reduction was calculated to adjust the controlled experimental data to ‘realistic long-term type conditions’ in western Kansas, including high temperatures, winds, insects, and other stressful conditions”).
Professor Whittlesey served for 20 years as a full professor and agricultural economist at Washington State University. His publications, many of which concern the kind of issues presented by this case, fill 14 pages on his curriculum vitae. See Kan. Exh. 891.
We also agree with the Special Master’s decision to disregard the Colorado expert’s comparison of the numbers produced by Kansas’ model with numbers drawn from the literature on the various crops planted on the affected farmland. As Colorado admits, see Brief for Colorado 46, the water values in the literature were not based on “a ‘short-short rim’ situation, that is, an intra-seasonal transaction in which no capital costs were involved, and only additional harvesting and irrigation costs would be required.” Third Report 63. Because the circumstances in Kansas involved short-short run situations, and because such short-short run situations generally involve higher values for water, values derived from other contexts are of limited use in evaluating Kansas’ model. See ibid.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer:
|
K
|
sc_issuearea
|
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Justice KENNEDY delivered the opinion of the Court.
This case involves the Federal Sentencing Guidelines. In sentencing petitioner, the District Court applied a Guidelines range higher than the applicable one. The error went unnoticed by the court and the parties, so no timely objection was entered. The error was first noted when, during briefing to the Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, petitioner himself raised the mistake. The Court of Appeals refused to correct the error because, in its view, petitioner could not establish a reasonable probability that but for the error he would have received a different sentence. Under that court's decisions, if a defendant's ultimate sentence falls within what would have been the correct Guidelines range, the defendant, on appeal, must identify "additional evidence" to show that use of the incorrect Guidelines range did in fact affect his sentence. Absent that evidence, in the Court of Appeals' view, a defendant who is sentenced under an incorrect range but whose sentence is also within what would have been the correct range cannot demonstrate he has been prejudiced by the error.
Most Courts of Appeals have not adopted so rigid a standard. Instead, in recognition of the Guidelines' central role in sentencing, other Courts of Appeals have concluded that a district court's application of an incorrect Guidelines range can itself serve as evidence of an effect on substantial rights. See, e.g., United States v. Sabillon-Umana, 772 F.3d 1328, 1333 (C.A.10 2014) (application of an erroneous Guidelines range " 'runs the risk of affecting the ultimate sentence regardless of whether the court ultimately imposes a sentence within or outside' " that range); United States v. Vargem, 747 F.3d 724, 728-729 (C.A.9 2014) ; United States v. Story, 503 F.3d 436, 440 (C.A.6 2007).
These courts recognize that, in most cases, when a district court adopts an incorrect Guidelines range, there is a reasonable probability that the defendant's sentence would be different absent the error. This Court granted certiorari to reconcile the difference in approaches.
I
A
The Sentencing Guidelines provide the framework for the tens of thousands of federal sentencing proceedings that occur each year. Congress directed the United States Sentencing Commission (USSC or Commission) to establish the Guidelines. 28 U.S.C. § 994(a)(1). The goal was to achieve " 'uniformity in sentencing... imposed by different federal courts for similar criminal conduct,' as well as 'proportionality in sentencing through a system that imposes appropriately different sentences for criminal conduct of different severity.' " Rita v. United States, 551 U.S. 338, 349, 127 S.Ct. 2456, 168 L.Ed.2d 203 (2007). To those ends, the Commission engaged in "a deliberative and dynamic process" to create Guidelines that account for a variety of offenses and circumstances. USSC, Guidelines Manual § 2, ch. 1, pt. A, intro. comment., p. 14 (Nov. 2015) (USSG). As part of that process, the Commission considered the objectives of federal sentencing identified in the Sentencing Reform Act of 1984-the same objectives that federal judges must consider when sentencing defendants. Compare 28 U.S.C. § 991(b) with 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a). The result is a set of elaborate, detailed Guidelines that aim to embody federal sentencing objectives "both in principle and in practice." Rita, supra, at 350, 127 S.Ct. 2456.
Uniformity and proportionality in sentencing are achieved, in part, by the Guidelines' significant role in sentencing. See Peugh v. United States, 569 U.S. ----, ----, 133 S.Ct. 2072, 2082-2083, 186 L.Ed.2d 84 (2013). The Guidelines enter the sentencing process long before the district court imposes the sentence. The United States Probation Office first prepares a presentence report which includes a calculation of the advisory Guidelines range it considers to be applicable. Fed. Rules Crim. Proc. 32(d)(1)(A)-(C) ; see generally 18 U.S.C. § 3552(a). The applicable Guidelines range is based on the seriousness of a defendant's offense (indicated by his "offense level") and his criminal history (indicated by his "criminal history category"). Rules 32(d)(1)(B)-(C). The presentence report explains the basis for the Probation Office's calculations and sets out the sentencing options under the applicable statutes and Guidelines. Rule 32(d)(1). It also contains detailed information about the defendant's criminal history and personal characteristics, such as education and employment history. Rule 32(d)(2).
At the outset of the sentencing proceedings, the district court must determine the applicable Guidelines range. Peugh, supra, at ----, 133 S.Ct., at 2082-2083. To do so, the court considers the presentence report as well as any objections the parties might have. The court then entertains the parties' arguments regarding an appropriate sentence, including whether the sentence should be within the Guidelines range or not. Although the district court has discretion to depart from the Guidelines, the court "must consult those Guidelines and take them into account when sentencing." United States v. Booker, 543 U.S. 220, 264, 125 S.Ct. 738, 160 L.Ed.2d 621 (2005).
B
The Guidelines are complex, and so there will be instances when a district court's sentencing of a defendant within the framework of an incorrect Guidelines range goes unnoticed. In that circumstance, because the defendant failed to object to the miscalculation, appellate review of the error is governed by Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 52(b).
Rule 52, in both its parts, is brief. It states:
"(a) HARMLESS ERROR. Any error, defect, irregularity, or variance that does not affect substantial rights must be disregarded.
"(b) PLAIN ERROR. A plain error that affects substantial rights may be considered even though it was not brought to the court's attention."
The starting point for interpreting and applying paragraph (b) of the Rule, upon which this case turns, is the Court's decision in United States v. Olano, 507 U.S. 725, 113 S.Ct. 1770, 123 L.Ed.2d 508 (1993). Olano instructs that a court of appeals has discretion to remedy a forfeited error provided certain conditions are met. First, there must be an error that has not been intentionally relinquished or abandoned. Id., at 732-733, 113 S.Ct. 1770. Second, the error must be plain-that is to say, clear or obvious. Id., at 734, 113 S.Ct. 1770. Third, the error must have affected the defendant's substantial rights, ibid., which in the ordinary case means he or she must "show a reasonable probability that, but for the error," the outcome of the proceeding would have been different, United States v. Dominguez Benitez, 542 U.S. 74, 76, 82, 124 S.Ct. 2333, 159 L.Ed.2d 157 (2004). Once these three conditions have been met, the court of appeals should exercise its discretion to correct the forfeited error if the error "'seriously affects the fairness, integrity or public reputation of judicial proceedings.' " Olano, supra, at 736, 113 S.Ct. 1770 (brackets omitted).
II
The petitioner here, Saul Molina-Martinez, pleaded guilty to being unlawfully present in the United States after having been deported following an aggravated felony conviction, in violation of 8 U.S.C. §§ 1326(a) and (b). As required, the Probation Office prepared a presentence report that related Molina-Martinez's offense of conviction, his criminal history, his personal characteristics, and the available sentencing options. The report also included the Probation Office's calculation of what it believed to be Molina-Martinez's Guidelines range. The Probation Office calculated Molina-Martinez's total offense level as 21. It concluded that Molina-Martinez's criminal history warranted 18 points, which included 11 points for five aggravated burglary convictions from 2011. Those 18 criminal history points resulted in a criminal history category of VI. That category, combined with an offense level of 21, resulted in a Guidelines range of 77 to 96 months.
At the sentencing hearing Molina-Martinez's counsel and the Government addressed the court. The Government acknowledged that the Probation Office had "recommended the low end on this case, 77 months." App. 30. But, the prosecution told the court, it "disagree[d] with that recommendation," and was "asking for a high end sentence of 96 months"-the top of the Guidelines range. Ibid. Like the Probation Office, counsel for Molina-Martinez urged the court to enter a sentence at the bottom of the Guidelines range. Counsel asserted that "77 months is a severe sentence" and that "after the 77 months, he'll be deported with probably a special release term." Id., at 32. A sentence of 77 months, counsel continued, "is more than adequate to ensure he doesn't come back again." Ibid.
After hearing from the parties, the court stated it was adopting the presentence report's factual findings and Guidelines calculations. It then ordered Molina-Martinez's sentence:
"It's the judgment of the Court that the defendant, Saul Molina-Martinez, is hereby committed to the custody of the Bureau of Prisons to be imprisoned for a term of 77 months. Upon release from imprisonment, Defendant shall be placed on supervised release for a term of three years without supervision." Id., at 33.
The court provided no further explanation for the sentence.
On appeal, Molina-Martinez's attorney submitted a brief pursuant to Anders v. California, 386 U.S. 738, 87 S.Ct. 1396, 18 L.Ed.2d 493 (1967). The attorney explained that, in his opinion, there were no nonfrivolous grounds for appeal. Molina-Martinez, however, submitted a pro se response to his attorney's Anders brief. In it he identified for the first time what he believed to be an error in the calculation of his criminal history points under the Guidelines. The Court of Appeals concluded that Molina-Martinez's argument did not appear frivolous. It directed his lawyer to file either a supplemental Anders brief or a brief on the merits of the Guidelines issue.
Molina-Martinez, through his attorney, filed a merits brief arguing that the Probation Office and the District Court erred in calculating his criminal history points, resulting in the application of a higher Guidelines range. The error, Molina-Martinez explained, occurred because the Probation Office failed to apply § 4A1.2(a)(2) of the Guidelines. See USSG § 4A1.2(a)(2) (Nov. 2012). That provision addresses how multiple sentences imposed on the same day are to be counted for purposes of determining a defendant's criminal history. It instructs that, when prior sentences were imposed on the same day, they should be counted as a single sentence unless the offenses "were separated by an intervening arrest (i.e., the defendant is arrested for the first offense prior to committing the second offense)." Ibid.
Molina-Martinez's presentence report included five aggravated burglary convictions for which he had been sentenced on the same day. The Probation Office counted each sentence separately, which resulted in the imposition of 11 criminal history points. Molina-Martinez contended this was error because none of the offenses were separated by an intervening arrest and because he had been sentenced for all five burglaries on the same day. Under a correct calculation, in his view, the burglaries should have resulted in 5 criminal history points instead of 11. That would have lowered his criminal history category from VI to V. The correct criminal history category, in turn, would have resulted in a Guidelines range of 70 to 87 months rather than 77 to 96 months. Had the correct range been used, Molina-Martinez's 77-month sentence would have been in the middle of the range, not at the bottom.
Molina-Martinez acknowledged that, because he did not object in the District Court, he was entitled to relief only if he could satisfy Rule 52(b)'s requirements. He nevertheless maintained relief was warranted because the error was plain, affected his substantial rights, and impugned the fairness, integrity, and public reputation of judicial proceedings.
The Court of Appeals disagreed. It held that Molina-Martinez had not established that the District Court's application of an incorrect Guidelines range affected his substantial rights. It reasoned that, when a correct sentencing range overlaps with an incorrect range, the reviewing court " 'do[es] not assume, in the absence of additional evidence, that the sentence [imposed] affects a defendant's substantial rights.' " 588 Fed.Appx. 333, 335 (C.A.5 2014) (per curiam ); see also United States v. Blocker, 612 F.3d 413, 416 (C.A.5 2010). Molina-Martinez, the court ruled, had not put forth the additional evidence necessary to show that the error affected his substantial rights. "The mere fact that the court sentenced Molina-Martinez to a low-end sentence," the Court of Appeals reasoned, "is insufficient on its own to show that Molina-Martinez would have received a similar low-end sentence had the district court used the correct Guidelines range." 588 Fed. Appx., at 335. Instead, Molina-Martinez needed to identify " 'additional evidence' " in the record showing that the Guidelines had an effect on the District Court's selection of his sentence. Ibid. The court noted that "the district court made no explicit statement suggesting that the Guidelines range was a primary factor in sentencing." Ibid. And the court did not view as probative "the parties' anchoring of their sentencing arguments in the Guidelines" or "the district court's refusal to grant the government's request for a high-end sentence of 96 months." Ibid.
This Court granted certiorari to resolve the disagreement among Courts of Appeals over how to determine whether the application of an incorrect Guidelines range at sentencing affected the defendant's substantial rights. See 576 U.S. ----, 136 S.Ct. 26, 192 L.Ed.2d 998 (2015).
III
The Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit stands generally apart from other Courts of Appeals with respect to its consideration of unpreserved Guidelines errors. This Court now holds that its approach is incorrect.
Nothing in the text of Rule 52(b), its rationale, or the Court's precedents supports a requirement that a defendant seeking appellate review of an unpreserved Guidelines error make some further showing of prejudice beyond the fact that the erroneous, and higher, Guidelines range set the wrong framework for the sentencing proceedings. This is so even if the ultimate sentence falls within both the correct and incorrect range. When a defendant is sentenced under an incorrect Guidelines range-whether or not the defendant's ultimate sentence falls within the correct range-the error itself can, and most often will, be sufficient to show a reasonable probability of a different outcome absent the error.
A
Today's holding follows from the essential framework the Guidelines establish for sentencing proceedings. The Court has made clear that the Guidelines are to be the sentencing court's "starting point and... initial benchmark." Gall v. United States, 552 U.S. 38, 49, 128 S.Ct. 586, 169 L.Ed.2d 445 (2007). Federal courts understand that they "'must begin their analysis with the Guidelines and remain cognizant of them throughout the sentencing process.' " Peugh, 569 U.S., at ----, 133 S.Ct., at 2083. The Guidelines are "the framework for sentencing" and "anchor... the district court's discretion." Id., at ----, ----, 133 S.Ct., at 2083, 2087"Even if the sentencing judge sees a reason to vary from the Guidelines, 'if the judge uses the sentencing range as the beginning point to explain the decision to deviate from it, then the Guidelines are in a real sense the basis for the sentence.'" Id., at ----, 133 S.Ct., at 2083.
The Guidelines' central role in sentencing means that an error related to the Guidelines can be particularly serious. A district court that "improperly calculat[es]" a defendant's Guidelines range, for example, has committed a "significant procedural error." Gall, supra, at 51, 128 S.Ct. 586. That same principle explains the Court's ruling that a "retrospective increase in the Guidelines range applicable to a defendant creates a sufficient risk of a higher sentence to constitute an ex post facto violation." Peugh, 569 U.S., at ----, 133 S.Ct., at 2084.
The Commission's statistics demonstrate the real and pervasive effect the Guidelines have on sentencing. In most cases district courts continue to impose "either within-Guidelines sentences or sentences that depart downward from the Guidelines on the Government's motion." Id., at ----, 133 S.Ct., at 2084 ; see USSC, 2014 Annual Report and 2014 Sourcebook of Federal Sentencing Statistics S-50 (19th ed.) (Table N) (2014 Sourcebook). In less than 20% of cases since 2007 have district courts "imposed above- or below-Guidelines sentences absent a Government motion." Peugh, supra, at ---- - ----, 133 S.Ct., at 2084 ; see also 2011 Annual Report and 2011 Sourcebook of Federal Sentencing Statistics 63 (16th ed.) (Figure G); 2015 Annual Report and 2015 Sourcebook of Federal Sentencing Statistics (20th ed.) (Figure G), online at http://www.ussc.gov/sites/default/files/pdf/research-and-publications/annual-reports-and-sourcebooks/2015/FigureG.pdf (as last visited Apr. 15, 2016). As the Court has recognized, "when a Guidelines range moves up or down, offenders' sentences [tend to] move with it." Peugh, supra, at ----, 133 S.Ct., at 2084 ; USSC, Final Quarterly Data Report, FY 2014, pp. 32-37 (Figures C to H). These realities have led the Court to observe that there is "considerable empirical evidence indicating that the Sentencing Guidelines have the intended effect of influencing the sentences imposed by judges." Peugh, supra, at ----, 133 S.Ct., at 2084.
These sources confirm that the Guidelines are not only the starting point for most federal sentencing proceedings but also the lodestar. The Guidelines inform and instruct the district court's determination of an appropriate sentence. In the usual case, then, the systemic function of the selected Guidelines range will affect the sentence. This fact is essential to the application of Rule 52(b) to a Guidelines error. From the centrality of the Guidelines in the sentencing process it must follow that, when a defendant shows that the district court used an incorrect range, he should not be barred from relief on appeal simply because there is no other evidence that the sentencing outcome would have been different had the correct range been used.
In most cases a defendant who has shown that the district court mistakenly deemed applicable an incorrect, higher Guidelines range has demonstrated a reasonable probability of a different outcome. And, again in most cases, that will suffice for relief if the other requirements of Rule 52(b) are met. There may be instances when, despite application of an erroneous Guidelines range, a reasonable probability of prejudice does not exist. The sentencing process is particular to each defendant, of course, and a reviewing court must consider the facts and circumstances of the case before it. See United States v. Davila, 569 U.S. ----, ----, 133 S.Ct. 2139, 2149, 186 L.Ed.2d 139 (2013) ("Our essential point is that particular facts and circumstances matter"). The record in a case may show, for example, that the district court thought the sentence it chose was appropriate irrespective of the Guidelines range. Judges may find that some cases merit a detailed explanation of the reasons the selected sentence is appropriate.
And that explanation could make it clear that the judge based the sentence he or she selected on factors independent of the Guidelines. The Government remains free to "poin[t] to parts of the record"-including relevant statements by the judge-"to counter any ostensible showing of prejudice the defendant may make." United States v. Vonn, 535 U.S. 55, 68, 122 S.Ct. 1043, 152 L.Ed.2d 90 (2002). Where, however, the record is silent as to what the district court might have done had it considered the correct Guidelines range, the court's reliance on an incorrect range in most instances will suffice to show an effect on the defendant's substantial rights. Indeed, in the ordinary case a defendant will satisfy his burden to show prejudice by pointing to the application of an incorrect, higher Guidelines range and the sentence he received thereunder. Absent unusual circumstances, he will not be required to show more.
The Court of Appeals' rule to the contrary fails to take account of the dynamics of federal sentencing. In a significant number of cases the sentenced defendant will lack the additional evidence the Court of Appeals' rule would require, for sentencing judges often say little about the degree to which the Guidelines influenced their determination. District courts, as a matter of course, use the Guidelines range to instruct them regarding the appropriate balance of the relevant federal sentencing factors. This Court has told judges that they need not provide extensive explanations for within-Guidelines sentences because "[c]ircumstances may well make clear that the judge rests his decision upon the Commission's own reasoning." Rita, 551 U.S., at 356-357, 127 S.Ct. 2456. In these situations, reviewing courts may presume that a sentence imposed within a properly calculated Guidelines range is reasonable. Id., at 341, 127 S.Ct. 2456. As a result, the cases where the Guidelines are most likely to have influenced the district court's sentencing decision-those where the court chose a sentence within what it believed to be the applicable Guidelines range-are also the cases least likely to provide the defendant with evidence of the Guidelines' influence beyond the sentence itself. The defendants in these cases should not be prevented by a categorical rule from establishing on appeal that there is a reasonable probability the Guidelines range applied by the sentencing court had an effect on their within-Guidelines sentence.
B
This case illustrates the unworkable nature of the Court of Appeals' additional evidence rule. Here the court held that Molina-Martinez could not establish an effect on his substantial rights. Yet the record points to a different conclusion. The District Court said nothing specific about why it chose the sentence it imposed. It merely "adopt[ed] the... guideline applications in the presentence investigation report," App. 33, which set the range at 77 to 96 months; rejected the Government's argument for a sentence at the top of the Guidelines range; and agreed with the defendant's request for, and the Probation Office's recommendation of, a sentence at the bottom of the range. As intended, the Guidelines served as the starting point for the sentencing and were the focal point for the proceedings that followed.
The 77-month sentence the District Court selected is conspicuous for its position as the lowest sentence within what the District Court believed to be the applicable range. As Molina-Martinez explained to the Court of Appeals, the District Court's selection of a sentence at the bottom of the range, despite the Government's request for the maximum Guidelines sentence, "evinced an intention... to give the minimum recommended by the Guidelines." Brief for Appellant in No. 13-40324(CA5), p. 18. The District Court said nothing to suggest that it would have imposed a 77-month sentence regardless of the Guidelines range. Given these circumstances, there is at least a reasonable probability that the District Court would have imposed a different sentence had it known that 70 months was in fact the lowest sentence the Commission deemed appropriate.
IV
The Government contends that permitting a defendant to establish prejudice through the fact of a Guidelines error alone eliminates the main difference between Rules 52(a) and 52(b) -which party must prove whether the complained-of error had an effect. Brief for United States 21. As noted, Rule 52(a) states: "Any error, defect, irregularity, or variance that does not affect substantial rights must be disregarded." When a defendant makes a timely objection, the Government can rely on Rule 52(a) to argue that the error does not warrant correction because it was harmless. Although Rules 52(a) and (b) both require an inquiry into whether the complained-of error was prejudicial, there is " 'one important difference' " between the subparts-under (b), but not (a), " '[i]t is the defendant rather than the Government who bears the burden of persuasion with respect to prejudice.' " Brief for United States 18 (quoting Olano, 507 U.S., at 734, 113 S.Ct. 1770 ). In the Government's view, ruling for Molina-Martinez will require the Government to prove the harmlessness of every Guidelines error raised on appeal regardless of whether it was preserved. Brief for United States 27-28.
The holding here does not lead to that result. The decision today simply states that courts reviewing sentencing errors cannot apply a categorical rule requiring additional evidence in cases, like this one, where the district court applied an incorrect range but nevertheless sentenced the defendant within the correct range. Rejection of that rule means only that a defendant can rely on the application of an incorrect Guidelines range to show an effect on his substantial rights.
The Government expresses concern over the judicial resources needed for the resentencing proceedings that might result from the Court's holding. It is doubtful today's holding will result in much of an increased burden. As already noted, today's holding is consistent with the approach taken by most Courts of Appeals. See, e.g., Sabillon-Umana, 772 F.3d, at 1333 (collecting cases). Yet only a small fraction of cases are remanded for resentencing because of Guidelines related errors. See 2014 Sourcebook S-6, S-153 (Tables 2 and 62) (of the roughly 75,000 cases sentenced in 2014, only 620 resulted in a remand for resentencing because of a statutory or Guidelines related error). Under the Olano framework, appellate courts retain broad discretion in determining whether a remand for resentencing is necessary. Courts have, for example, developed mechanisms short of a full remand to determine whether a district court in fact would have imposed a different sentence absent the error. See, e.g., United States v. Currie, 739 F.3d 960, 967 (C.A.7 2014) (ordering "limited remand so that the district judge [could] consider, and state on the record, whether she would have imposed the same sentence... knowing that [the defendant] was subject to a five-year rather than a ten-year statutory minimum term of imprisonment"). And even when a Court of Appeals does decide that resentencing is appropriate, "a remand for resentencing, while not costless, does not invoke the same difficulties as a remand for retrial does." United States v. Wernick, 691 F.3d 108, 117-118 (C.A.2 2012) ; see also Sabillon-Umana, supra, at 1334 (noting that the "cost of correction is... small" because "[a] remand for sentencing... doesn't require that a defendant be released or retried"). The Government's concern about additional, burdensome procedures appears unfounded, and, in any event, does not warrant reading into Rule 52(b) a requirement that does not exist.
* * *
In the ordinary case the Guidelines accomplish their purpose. They serve as the starting point for the district court's decision and anchor the court's discretion in selecting an appropriate sentence. It follows, then, that in most cases the Guidelines range will affect the sentence. When that is so, a defendant sentenced under an incorrect Guidelines range should be able to rely on that fact to show a reasonable probability that the district court would have imposed a different sentence under the correct range. That probability is all that is needed to establish an effect on substantial rights for purposes of obtaining relief under Rule 52(b).
The contrary judgment of the Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit is reversed, and the case is remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
Justice ALITO, with whom Justice THOMAS joins, concurring in part and concurring in the judgment.
I agree with the Court that the Fifth Circuit's rigid approach to unpreserved Guidelines errors is incorrect. And I agree that petitioner has shown a reasonable probability that the District Court would have imposed a different sentence in his case if his recommended Guidelines sentence had been accurately calculated. Unlike the Court, however, I would not speculate about how often the reasonable probability test will be satisfied in future cases. The Court's predictions in dicta about how plain-error review will play out are predicated on the view that sentencing judges will continue to rely very heavily on the Guidelines in the future, but that prediction may not turn out to be accurate. We should not make predictions about the future effects of Guidelines errors, particularly since some may misunderstand those predictions as veiled directives.
I
" 'No procedural principle is more familiar to this Court than that a constitutional right,' or a right of any other sort,'may be forfeited in criminal as well as civil cases by the failure to make timely assertion of the right before the tribunal having jurisdiction to determine it.' " United States v. Olano, 507 U.S. 725, 731, 113 S.Ct. 1770, 123 L.Ed.2d 508 (1993) (quoting Yakus v. United States, 321 U.S. 414, 444, 64 S.Ct. 660, 88 L.Ed. 834 (1944) ). Consistent with this principle, Rule 52 of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure treats defendants who preserve their claims much more favorably than those who fail to register a timely objection. When the defendant has made a timely objection to an error, the Government generally bears the burden of showing that the error was harmless. Olano, 507 U.S., at 734, 113 S.Ct. 1770. By contrast, when a defendant has failed to make a timely objection, "[i]t is the defendant rather than the Government who bears the burden of persuasion with respect to prejudice." Ibid. ; see also id., at 741-742, 113 S.Ct. 1770 (KENNEDY, J., concurring).
This framework applies to errors in the calculation of an advisory Guidelines sentence. If the defendant does not call the error to the attention of the sentencing judge, the defendant may obtain relief on appeal only if he or she proves that the error was prejudicial-specifically, that there is a "reasonable probability" that, but for the error, the sentence would have been different. United States v. Dominguez Benitez, 542 U.S. 74, 81-83, 124 S.Ct. 2333, 159 L.Ed.2d 157 (2004). Meeting this burden "should not be too easy for defendants." Id., at 82, 124 S.Ct. 2333. Instead, the standard should be robust enough to "enforce the policies that underpin Rule 52(b) generally, to encourage timely objections and reduce wasteful reversals by demanding strenuous exertion to get relief for unpreserved error." Ibid. By placing this burden on the defendant, Rule 52(b) compels defense counsel to devote careful attention to the potential complexities of the Guidelines at sentencing, thus providing the district court-which "is ordinarily in the best position to determine the relevant facts and adjudicate the dispute"-with "the opportunity to consider and resolve" any objections. Puckett v. United States, 556 U.S. 129, 134, 129 S.Ct. 1423, 173 L.Ed.2d 266 (2009) ; see also ibid. ("[A]ppellate-court authority to remedy" unpreserved errors "is strictly circumscribed" in order to "induce the timely raising of claims and objections"); United States v. Vonn, 535 U.S. 55, 73, 122 S.Ct. 1043, 152 L.Ed.2d 90 (2002) ("[T]he value of finality requires defense counsel to be on his toes, not just the judge, and the defendant who just sits there when a mistake can be fixed cannot just sit there when he speaks up later on"); Olano, supra, at 742-743, 113 S.Ct. 1770 (KENNEDY, J., concurring) ("[T]he operation of Rule 52(b) does not permit a party to withhold an objection... and then to demand automatic reversal").
Whether a defendant can show a "reasonable probability" of a different sentence depends on the "particular facts and circumstances" of each case. United States v. Davila, 569 U.S. ----, ---- - ----, 133 S.Ct. 2139, 2149, 186 L.Ed.2d 139 (2013). "We have previously warned against courts' determining whether an error is harmless through the use of mandatory presumptions and rigid rules rather than case-specific application of judgment, based upon examination of the record." Shinseki v. Sanders, 556 U.S. 396, 407, 129 S.Ct. 1696, 173 L.Ed.2d 532 (2009) (citing Kotteakos v. United States, 328 U.S. 750, 760, 66 S.Ct. 1239, 90 L.Ed. 1557 (1946) ). Instead of relying on presumptions, a court of appeals must "engage in [a] full-record assessment" to determine whether a defendant who forfeited a claim of Guidelines error has met his case-specific burden of showing of prejudice. Davila, supra, at ----, 133 S.Ct., at 2150. The answer may be affected by a variety of factors, including any direct evidence, the nature and magnitude of the error, the sentencing judge's view of the Guidelines, the approach of the circuit in question, and the particular crime at issue.
Under the specific circumstances here, Molina-Martinez met his burden. As the Court points out, Molina-Martinez demonstrated that the Guidelines "were the focal point for the proceedings"; that "[t]he 77-month sentence the District Court selected is conspicuous for its position as the lowest sentence within what the District Court believed to be the applicable range"; and that "the District Court's selection of a sentence at the bottom of the range, despite the Government's request for the maximum Guidelines sentence, 'evinced an intention... to give the minimum recommended by the Guidelines.' " Ante, at 1347 - 1348. This evidence establishes a "reasonable probability that the District Court would have imposed a different sentence had it known that 70 months was in fact the lowest sentence the Commission deemed appropriate." Ibid.
In concluding otherwise, the Fifth Circuit applied exactly the sort of strict, categorical rule against which we have warned. Under the Fifth Circuit's approach, Molina-Martinez could not satisfy his burden with circumstantial evidence regarding the parties' sentencing arguments or the District Court's selection of a sentence at the very bottom of the range. See 588 Fed.Appx. 333, 335 (C.A.5 2014) (per curiam ).
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer:
|
A
|
sc_issuearea
|
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Justice Rehnquist
delivered the opinion of the Court.
Last Term in Schweiker v. Gray Panthers, 453 U. S. 34, 49-50 (1981), we upheld the validity of federal Medicaid regulations that permit “deeming” of income between spouses in those States that have exercised the so-called “§ 209(b) option” provided for in the Social Security Act, 79 Stat. 343, as amended, 42 U. S. C. § 1396 et seq. (1976 ed. and Supp. III). “Deeming,” in the parlance of the Social Security laws and regulations, means that a State determines eligibility by assuming that a portion of the spouse’s income is “available” to the applicant. Because an individual’s eligibility for Medicaid benefits depends in part on the financial resources that are “available” to him, “[djeeming. . . has the effect of reducing both the number of eligible individuals and the amount of assistance paid to those who qualify.” Schweiker v. Gray Panthers, supra, at 36. We rejected contentions that these regulations were arbitrary or capricious and that the regulations were inconsistent with § 1902(a)(17) of the Social Security Act, 42 U. S. C. § 1396a(a)(17). 453 U. S., at 43. In the present case, we are called upon to decide to what extent the State of Iowa, an “SSI State,” may consider the income of the institutionalized Medicaid applicant’s noninstitutionalized spouse in determining eligibility for Medicaid.
As we explained in greater detail in Gray Panthers, supra, Medicaid as originally enacted “required participating States to provide medical assistance to ‘categorically needy’ individuals who received cash payments under one of four welfare programs established elsewhere in the [Social Security] Act.” Id., at 37. This program was restructured in 1972 by Congress, when it replaced three of the four categorical programs with Supplemental Security Income for the Aged, Blind, and Disabled (SSI), 42 U. S. C. § 1381 et seq. (1976 ed. and Supp. III). Fearing that some States might withdraw from the Medicaid program rather than bear the increased costs imposed by the restructuring, Congress offered the States the “§ 209(b) option.” 42 U. S. C. § 1396a(f). Under the § 209(b) option, the States may elect to provide Medicaid assistance only to those individuals who would have been eligible under the State’s Medicaid plan in effect on January 1, 1972. In other words, the § 209(b) option allows the States to avoid the effect of the link between the SSI and Medicaid programs: States may become either “§ 209(b) States” or “SSI States.”
If a State participates in the Medicaid program without exercising the § 209(b) option, the State is required to make Medicaid assistance available to all recipients of SSI benefits. 42 U. S. C. § 1396a(a)(10)(A); 42 CFR §435.120 (1980). SSI States, however, are not limited to providing Medicaid benefits to SSI recipients. The Medicaid program offers participating States the option of providing Medicaid assist-anee to certain other groups of individuals, see 42 U. S. C. § 1396a(a)(10)(C), one of which is the “optional categorically needy.” See 42 CFR §§435.200-435.231 (1980). Included among the “optional categorically needy,” are (1) individuals who would be eligible for, but for some reason are not receiving, SSI benefits and (2) individuals who would be eligible for SSI benefits but for their institutionalized status. 42 CFR §§435.210-435.211 (1980).
With regard to the “optional categorically needy,” the Secretary’s regulations require the States to “deem” the income and resources of spouses who share the same household. 42 CFR §435.723(b) (1980). Where both spouses are eligible for Medicaid, the States must “deem” income for the first six months after the spouses cease to live together. After this 6-month period, the States may consider only the income and resources actually contributed by one spouse to the other. § 435.723(c). If only one spouse is eligible for Medicaid, a similar rule applies but the time period is one month instead of six. § 435.723(d). In effect, § 435.723 places time limitations on the States’ ability to consider the spouse’s income as “available” to the applicant after the spouses cease to live together. The question addressed by the lower courts, and now presented for our decision, is whether this regulation is a permissible exercise of the Secretary’s authority under the Act to define what income is “available.”
I
Petitioner Elvina Herweg has been in a comatose state since August 1976 as a result of two cerebral hemorrhages. When she was placed in a long-term care facility, her husband, petitioner Darrell Herweg, applied for Medicaid assistance on Elvina’s behalf. Elvina does not receive SSI benefits, although .the parties and the United States as amicus curiae agree that she is eligible to receive such benefits. Iowa applied its own formula to determine Elvina’s eligibility for Medicaid and to ascertain the amount Darrell would be required to contribute toward his wife’s care. This formula was based on the income Darrell earned as a butcher and on standard living allowances allowed Darrell and his three children living at home. In other words, Iowa was “deeming,” or attributing, income earned by one spouse to the other.
Iowa, however, was deeming in a manner inconsistent with the Secretary’s regulations, which place time limitations upon the States’ ability to consider as available to the applicant his spouse’s income where the spouses do not share the same household. Swpra, at 269 and this page, and n. 4. Because Elvina was institutionalized and because Darrell is not eligible for Medicaid, the Secretary’s regulations prohibit Iowa from considering Darrell’s income after one month from the time the couple ceased to live together. See 42 CFR § 435.723(d) (1980).
Petitioners filed the instant suit in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Iowa challenging Iowa’s “deeming” of the income of a Medicaid applicant’s spouse. After certifying a class of plaintiffs, the District Court held that § 1902(a)(17) of the Social Security Act, 42 U. S. C. § 1396a(a)(17), required Iowa’s procedures to “provide for a factual determination in each instance of the amount of the spouse’s income which is in fact reasonably available for the support of the institutionalized spouse. . . . Such determination must give due consideration to the individual obligations and the particular needs of each spouse and family.” 443 F. Supp. 1315, 1319 (1978). In interpreting § 1902(a)(17), the District Court concluded that “ ‘deeming’ is contrary to congressional intent whether income of the non-institutionalized spouse is deemed available or unavailable.” Id., at 1320. The District Court noted that the predecessor to 42 CFR 435.723 (1980) was inconsistent with its interpretation of § 1902(a)(17). In the District Court’s view, therefore, the Secretary’s regulation was inconsistent with §1902(a)(17) because the regulation disabled the States in certain instances from considering the spouse’s income as available to the applicant.
In response to this order, Iowa adopted a procedure for making individualized factual determinations of the amount of income available to an institutionalized spouse. The District Court approved this plan and petitioners appealed. The Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit affirmed by an equally divided Court. 619 F. 2d 1265 (1980) (en banc). We reverse.
II
Although Elvina Herweg does not receive SSI benefits, the class certified without objection by the District Court includes SSI recipients. We therefore construe the order entered by the District Court, and the plan adopted by Iowa in response, as applying both to SSI recipients and to the optional categorically needy.
A
With regard to recipients of SSI benefits, the District Court’s order clearly conflicts with § 1902(a)(10)(A) of the Social Security Act, 42 U. S. C. § 1396a(a)(10)(A), which requires States not having exercised the § 209(b) option to provide Medicaid assistance to all SSI recipients. 42 CFR §435.120 (1980). See Beltran v. Myers, 451 U. S. 625, 626, n. 3 (1981). The SSI program, contained in Title XVI of the Social Security Act, 42 U. S. C. § 1382 et seq. (1976 ed. and Supp. Ill), contains its own eligibility provisions. See, e. g., 42 U. S. C. §§ 1382(a)(1), 1382c(b), (f)(1). Pursuant to the District Court’s order, however, Iowa is permitted to deny Medicaid benefits to institutionalized SSI recipients if, after making an individualized factual determination, Iowa concludes that the income of the SSI recipient’s spouse should be considered available even though it was not actually contributed. Because Congress has clearly spoken in this regard, to the extent it permits Iowa to deny Medicaid assistance to SSI recipients, the District Court’s order cannot stand.
In requiring individualized determinations of income available to the Medicaid applicant, the District Court held that the Secretary has exceeded his authority in permitting any “deeming” whatsoever. In Schweiker v. Gray Panthers, 453 U. S., at 45, however, we held that Congress intended to permit a state Medicaid plan to deem the income from the applicant’s spouse as part of the available income which the state plan may consider in determining eligibility. Thus, to the extent that the District Court’s order forbids deeming under any circumstances, the order conflicts with our decision in Gray Panthers.
B
The issue that remains, therefore, is whether § 1902(a)(17) precludes the Secretary from promulgating regulations that impose time limitations upon the States’ ability to consider the income of the institutionalized applicant’s spouse.
Relying on § 1902(a)(17)(D), respondents argue that the Secretary has exceeded his authority in placing time limitations upon the States’ authority to consider the financial responsibility of spouses. Subsection (17)(D), respondents argue, evidences Congress’ intent to permit the States to consider the financial responsibility of spouses and parents. Nothing in the statute or the legislative history, respondents contend, suggests that Congress intended to prevent the States from enforcing their financial responsibility policies simply because the Medicaid applicant is institutionalized.
We think, however, that respondents overemphasize the effect of subsection (17)(D). That provision may not be read independently of subsection (17)(B). Subsection (17)(B) provides that participating States must grant benefits to eligible individuals “taking into account only such income and resources as are, as determined in accordance with standards prescribed by the Secretary, available to the applicant.” 42 U. S. C. § 1396a(a)(17)(B) (emphasis added). In Gray Panthers, we recognized that subsection (17)(B) delegates to the Secretary broad authority to prescribe standards setting eligibility requirements for state Medicaid plans. In view of Congress’ explicit delegation of authority to give substance to the meaning of “available,” the Secretary’s definition of the term is “‘entitled to more than mere deference or weight.’” Schweiker v. Gray Panthers, supra, at 44, quoting Batterton v. Francis, 432 U. S. 416, 426 (1977). Because Congress has entrusted the primary responsibility of interpreting a statutory term to the Secretary rather than to the courts, his definition is entitled to “ ‘legislative effect.’ ” Schweiker v. Gray Panthers, supra, at 44; Batterton v. Francis, supra, at 426. As in Gray Panthers and Batterton, our review is limited to determining whether the Secretary has exceeded his statutory authority and whether the regulation is arbitrary and capricious.
Although Congress has approved of some deeming of income between Medicaid applicants and their spouses, Schweiker v. Gray Panthers, supra, at 48, we cannot agree with respondents that Congress intended the States to enforce their spousal responsibility policies wholly unimpeded by the Secretary’s congressionally authorized power to give substance to the term “available.” In placing time limitations upon the States’ ability to consider the spouse’s income where the Medicaid applicant and his spouse no longer live together, the Secretary has done nothing more than define what income is “available.” Although Congress intended that a spouse’s income could be part of the income which the Secretary may determine should be considered by the States as available to the Medicaid applicant, Schweiker v. Gray Panthers, supra, at 45, we see nothing in subsection (17)(D) that precludes the Secretary from imposing upon the States the time limits at issue in the instant case. We find nothing in subsection (17)(D) either that disables the Secretary from defining the term “available” in such circumstances, or that gives the States authority to “deem” income unimpeded by the Secretary’s authority under subsection (17)(B). Subsection (17)(D) cannot be read to require the Secretary to permit the States to consider the income of a spouse no longer living with the applicant as available to the applicant for an unlimited duration.
Although we do not agree with the contention of the United States, and apparently that of petitioners, that the time limitations in 42 CFR §435.723 (1980) are compelled by the relationship between the Medicaid and SSI programs, we do agree that the Secretary may acknowledge this relationship in defining “availability” of income with regard to Medicaid applicants within the optional categories. As we have explained, the optional categorically needy consists in part of those individuals who are eligible for, but are not receiving, SSI benefits and those individuals who, but for their institutionalization, would be eligible for SSI benefits. Supra, at 269. Since these groups are defined in part with regard to SSI income limitations, it is reasonable that the Secretary should determine that States electing to provide Medicaid assistance to the optional categorically needy should apply a similar method for calculating income as that employed in the SSI program. The 1-month and 6-month limitations in 42 CFR §435.723 (1980) are virtually identical to the SSI requirements. See 42 U. S. C. §§ 1382(a)(1), 1382c(b), (f)(1). We cannot say that it is either arbitrary or capricious for the Secretary to conclude that SSI recipients and the optional categorically needy should be treated similarly with respect to the method used for calculating income in determining whether the State is entitled to receive federal financial assistance under the Medicaid program.
In upholding the Secretary’s limitation on deeming, we do not thereby render subsection (17)(D) meaningless. That provision, however, may not be read in isolation from the other provisions of the Social Security Act. We have no doubt that some tension exists between the Secretary’s con-gressionally authorized power under subsection (17)(B) to determine what income is “available” to the applicant and Congress’ intent in subsection (17)(D) to permit the States to enforce their spousal responsibility policies. Because Congress in subsection (17)(B) has delegated broad authority to the Secretary to set eligibility standards for the Medicaid program, however, we cannot say that the Secretary’s regulations placing time limitations on the States’ ability to deem income between spouses who do not share the same household are unreasonable or contrary to law. A reviewing court may not set aside the Secretary’s regulations “simply because it would have interpreted the statute in a different manner.” Batterton v. Francis, supra, at 425. A fortiori, Iowa may not ignore federal regulations simply because it interprets § 1902(a)(17) in a manner it considers preferable to the Secretary’s interpretation.
This would be a different case, and respondents’ arguments more compelling, if the Secretary had sought to use his authority under subsection (17)(B) to foreclose entirely the States’ ability to consider the income of the institutionalized applicant’s spouse. Such a reading of the statute could well render subsection (17)(D) superfluous. See Schweiker v. Gray Panthers, 453 U. S., at 45. The Secretary’s regulations, however, impose no such across-the-board limitation on the States’ ability to implement their spousal responsibility policies. The challenged regulation applies only to those SSI States that have decided to extend Medicaid benefits to the optional categorically needy, and it prohibits deeming only after the spouses have ceased to live together for prescribed periods of time.
On the contrary, 42 CFR §435.723 (1980) is simply an exception to the general rule that the spouse’s income may be considered available to the applicant. With regard to the optional categorically needy, SSI States are required to deem the income and resources of spouses living in the same household. § 435.723(b). States exercising the § 209(b) option are required to deem income to the extent required in SSI States and may deem to the full extent they did before 1972. §435.734. See Schweiker v. Gray Panthers, supra, at 40. Finally, the SSI applicant is considered to a similar extent to have available to him his spouse’s income and financial resources. See n. 2, supra.
We conclude that the Secretary need not interpret § 1902 (a)(17) to require an individualized factual determination in each instance as to the amount of income of an applicant’s spouse that may reasonably be considered available to the applicant. With regard to SSI recipients in SSI States, such an interpretation would be contrary to § 1902(a)(10)(A), 42 U. S. C. § 1396a(a)(10)(A). With regard to the optional categorically needy, we find that the Secretary has not exceeded his authority in promulgating 42 CFR §435.723 (1980), and that this regulation is neither arbitrary nor capricious. Accordingly, we reverse the judgment of the Court of Appeals for the Eight Circuit and remand for proceedings consistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
Section 1902(a)(17) provides that a state plan for medical assistance must
"include reasonable standards ... for determining eligibility for and the extent of medical assistance under the plan which (A) are consistent with the objectives of this subchapter, (B) provide for taking into account only such income and resources as are, as determined in accordance with standards prescribed by the Secretary, available to the applicant or recipient . . . (C) provide for reasonable evaluation of any such income or resources, and (D) do not take into account the financial responsibility of any individual for any applicant or recipient under the plan unless such applicant or recipient is such individual’s spouse or such individual’s child who is under age 21 or (with respect to States eligible to participate in the State program established under subchapter XVI of this chapter), is blind or permanently and totally disabled, or is blind or disabled as defined in section 1382c of this title (with respect to States which are not eligible to participate in such program); and provide for flexibility in the application of such standards with respect to income by taking into account, except to the extent prescribed by the Secretary, the costs (whether in the form of insurance premiums or otherwise) incurred for medical care or for any other type of remedial care recognized under State law.” 42 U. S. C. § 1396a(a)(17).
The SSI program, in turn, has its own eligibility requirements, which include “deeming” provisions. See 42 U. S. C. §§ 1382, 1382c(b), (f)(1).
The States, if they choose to do so, may extend Medicaid coverage to the “medically needy.” 42 U. S. C. § 1396a(a)(10)(C); 42 CFR §§435.300-435.325, 435.800-435.845 (1980). Since Iowa does not extend Medicaid assistance to the medically needy, the Secretary’s deeming regulations applicable to this optional program are not at issue in this case. See 42 CFR §435.822 (1980).
Title 42 CFR § 435.723 (1980) provides:
“(a) If the agency provides Medicaid to SSI recipients, it must meet the requirements of this section in determining eligibility of aged, blind, and disabled individuals under the optional coverage provisions of §§435.210, 435.211, and 435.231.
“(b) The agency must consider income and resources of spouses living in the same household as available to each other, whether or not they are actually contributed.
“(c) If both spouses apply or are eligible as aged, blind, or disabled and cease to live together, the agency must consider their income and resources as available to each other for the first 6 months after the month they cease to live together. After this 6-month period, the agency must consider only the income and resources that are actually contributed by one spouse to the other.
“(d) If only one spouse in a couple applies or is eligible and they cease to live together, the agency must consider only the income and resources of the ineligible spouse that are actually contributed to the eligible spouse after the month in which they cease to live together.”
Elvina, therefore, is considered part of the optional categorically needy. 42 CFR §435.210 (1980).
Petitioners’ challenge was based both on statutory and constitutional grounds. Petitioners contended that Iowa’s procedures were in conflict with § 1902(a)(17) of the Social Security Act and with the Secretary’s regulations, now codified at 42 CFR §435.723'(1980). Petitioners also contended that Iowa’s procedures violated the Equal Protection Clause and the Due Process Clause. Petitioners’ constitutional claims were not considered either by the District Court or by the Court of Appeals and are not before this Court.
The District Court certified a class consisting of “all married couples residing in Iowa of which: (1) one spouse is eligible for Medicaid and requires institutionalization; and (2) the other spouse is not institutionalized; and (3) the non-institutionalized spouse has income which is, under current state procedures, being deemed available to the institutionalized spouse.” 443 F. Supp. 1315, 1320 (1978).
45 CFR §248.3 (1976).
Section 1902(a)(10)(A) requires a state Medicaid plan to provide
“for making medical assistance available to all individuals receiving aid or assistance under any plan of the State approved under subchapter I, X, XIV, or XVI, or part A of subchapter IV of this chapter, or with respect to whom supplemental security income benefits are being paid under sub-chapter XVI of this chapter . . . .” 42 U. S. C. § 1396a(a)(10)(A) (emphasis added).
Although we do not believe that § 1902(a)(10)(A) can be characterized as ambiguous in this regard, the legislative history of the original Medicaid statute is rather explicit in requiring the participating States to provide medical assistance to recipients under the four categorical welfare programs then in existence. “[A] State plan to be approved must include provision for medical assistance for all individuals receiving aid or assistance under State plans approved under titles I, IV, X, XIV, and XVI. It is only if this group is provided for that States may include medical assistance to the less needy.” S. Rep. No. 404, 89th Cong., 1st Sess., 77 (1965). Titles I, X, and XVI were respectively Old Age Assistance, Aid to the Blind, and Aid to the Permanently and Totally Disabled, the three categorical welfare programs replaced by SSI. See Schweiker v. Gray Panthers, 453 U. S. 34, 37-38, and nn. 1, 3 (1981). We find nothing in the adoption of the SSI program that would alter the meaning of § 1902(a)(10)(A).
Section 1902(a)(17)(D) provides that the States’ standards for determining eligibility for, and the extent of, Medicaid assistance may “not take into account the financial responsibility of any individual for any applicant or recipient under the plan unless such applicant or recipient is such individual’s spouse or such individual’s child . . . .” 42 U. S. C. § 1396a(a)(17)(D).
Respondents rely in particular on a portion of the 1965 Senate Report we quoted in Gray Panthers:
“The committee believes it is proper to expect spouses to support each other and parents to be held accountable for the support of their minor children and their blind or permanently and totally disabled children.” S. Rep. No. 404, 89th Cong., 1st Sess., 78.
Contrary to the dissent, we do not interpret subsection (17)(D) as "authorizing” the States to deem, without any limitation, income between spouses. That subsection simply prohibits the States from considering the financial responsibility of any individual for the Medicaid applicant unless that individual is the applicant’s spouse or parent. See nn. 1, 11, supra.
As conceded by petitioners at oral argument, Tr. of Oral Arg. 9, Iowa is free to obtain reimbursement from the noninstitutionalized spouse in a lawsuit brought under its family responsibility laws. We recognize that such lawsuits may not be a uniformly practical alternative. See Schweiker v. Gray Panthers, 453 U. S., at 46.
To a certain extent, therefore, the barriers Iowa faces in implementing its spousal responsibility policies are attributable to the choices it has made with regard to the Medicaid options available. Iowa has decided to become an SSI State rather than a § 209(b) State. The Secretary permits SSI States to opt for ‘“§ 209(b) status’ at any time.” Schweiker v. Gray Panthers, supra, at 39, n. 6. In addition, Iowa is subject to 42 CFR §435.723 (1980) only because it has decided to extend Medicaid assistance to the optional categorical needy. §435.700.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
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 sole question in this case is whether the District Court for the District of Arizona had jurisdiction to entertain on the merits petitioner’s application for a writ of habeas corpus. He is an enlisted man who was accepted in the Airman’s Education and Commissioning Program, an officer training project, and was assigned to Wright-Patterson Air Force Base (AFB), Ohio, “with duty at Arizona State University” for training. While studying in Arizona and before completion of the course, he was removed from the program, allegedly for engaging in civil rights activities on the campus.
While he was seeking administrative relief through command channels, he was reassigned to Moody AFB, Georgia, to complete the remainder of his six-year reenlistment in a noncommissioned status. After exhausting those remedies he was given permissive temporary duty to attend Arizona State for study, this time by his superiors at Moody AFB under a different program called Operation Bootstrap, and at his own expense.
Thereafter he filed his application for habeas corpus in Arizona alleging that his enlistment contract had been breached and that he was being detained unlawfully. The District Court denied the application. The Court of Appeals affirmed on the basis of Jarrett v. Resor, 426 F. 2d 213. The case is here on a petition for certiorari which we granted. 400 U. S. 865.
The respondents to this suit are the Secretary of the Air Force, the Commander of Moody AFB, and the Commander of the AF ROTC program on the Arizona State campus. The last respondent was the only one of the three present in Arizona and he had no control over petitioner who concededly was not in his chain of command, since petitioner was not in the AF ROTC program, but in Operation Bootstrap. The commanding officer at Moody AFB in Georgia did have custody and control over petitioner; but he was neither a resident of the Arizona judicial district nor amenable to its process.
It is true, of course, that the commanding officer at Moody AFB exerted control over petitioner in the sense that his arm was long and petitioner was effectively subject to his orders and directions. There are cases which suggest that such control to establish custody may be adequate for habeas corpus jurisdiction even though the control is exercised from a point located outside the State, as long as the petitioner is in the district or the State. Donigian v. Laird, 308 F. Supp. 449. For reasons to be stated, we do not reach that question.
The procedure governing issuance of the writ is provided by statute. The federal courts may grant the writ “within their respective jurisdictions.” 28 U. S. C. § 2241 (a). While the Act speaks of “a prisoner” (28 U. S. C. § 2241 (c)), the term has been liberally construed to include members of the armed services who have been unlawfully detained, restrained, or confined. Eagles v. Samuels, 329 U. S. 304, 312. The Act extends to those “in custody under or by color of the authority of the United States.” 28 U. S. C. §2241 (c)(1). The question in the instant case is whether any custodian, or one in the chain of command, as well as the person detained, must be in the territorial jurisdiction of the District Court.
In Ahrens v. Clark, 335 U. S. 188, we held that it was not sufficient if the custodian alone be found in the jurisdiction where the persons detained were outside the jurisdiction and that jurisdiction over the respondent was territorial. The dissent in that case thought that the critical element was not where the applicant was confined but where the custodian was located; that if the custodian were in the territorial jurisdiction of the District Court, then appropriate relief could be effected.
Whichever view is taken of the problem in Ahrens v. Clark, the case is of little help here. For while petitioner is within the territorial jurisdiction of the District Court, the custodian — the Commander of Moody AFB— is not. In other words, even under the minority view in Ahrens v. Clark, the District Court in Arizona has no custodian within its reach against whom its writ can run. Hence, even if we assume that petitioner is “in custody” in Arizona in the. sense that he is subject to military orders and control which act as a restraint on his freedom of movement (Jones v. Cunningham, 371 U. S. 236, 240), the absence of his custodian is fatal to the jurisdiction of the Arizona District Court. Cf. Rudick v. Laird, 412 F. 2d 16, 21.
Had petitioner, at the time of the filing of the petition, been under the command of the Air Force officer assigned as liaison officer at Arizona State to supervise the Education and Commissioning Program, we would have a different question. We do not reach it nor do we reach any aspects of the merits, viz., whether, if petitioner be right in contending that his contract of enlistment was breached, habeas corpus is the appropriate remedy.
Affirmed.
Mr. Justice Harlan concurs in the result.
Mr. Justice Stewart dissents.
Headquarters at Moody AFB assigned petitioner to temporary duty at Arizona State University. By its terms, the order “permitted [petitioner] to proceed from Moody AFB, GA. to Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ, effective on or about 4 June 1969 for approximately 70 days for the purpose of attending the University under Operation Bootstrap and then return to Moody AFB, GA.” The travel authorized was to be “at no expense to the Government.”
Petitioner attended Arizona State in the summer of 1969 and obtained his degree.
This action was started shortly after petitioner had obtained his degree at Arizona State and while he was still in Arizona.
Shortly thereafter Congress provided that a prisoner, no matter where held, could by motion invoke the jurisdiction of the sentencing court and be released on a showing that the sentence was unlawful. 28 U. S. C. § 2255. See United States v. Hayman, 342 U. S. 205, 220; Kaufman v. United States, 394 U. S. 217.
Later Congress made an exception to the jurisdictional requirement noted in Ahrens by allowing a state prisoner to seek habeas corpus in the district where he was sentenced, as well as in the district where he is confined, provided both are within the same State. 28 U. S. C. § 2241 (d) (1964 ed., Supp. V). As respects that amendment the Court said in Nelson v. George, 399 U. S. 224, 228 n. 5:
“The legislative history of the 1966 amendments to 28 U. S. C. § 2241 (d) (1964 ed., Supp. V) suggests that Congress may have intended to endorse and preserve the territorial rule of Ahrens to the extent that it was not altered by those amendments. See H. R. Rep. No. 1894, 89th Cong., 2d Sess., 1-2 (1966). See also S. Rep. No. 1502, 89th Cong., 2d Sess. (1966).”
Although by 28 U. S. C. § 1391 (e) (1964 ed., Supp. V), Congress has provided for nationwide service of process in a “civil action in which each defendant is an officer or employee of the United States,” the legislative history of that section is barren of any indication that Congress extended habeas corpus jurisdiction. That section was enacted to broaden the venue of civil actions which could previously have been brought only in the District of Columbia. See H. R. Rep. No. 536, 87th Cong., 1st Sess., 1; S. Rep. No. 1992, 87th Cong., 2d Sess., 2. Though habeas corpus is technically “civil,” it is not automatically subject to all the rules governing ordinary civil actions. See Harris v. Nelson, 394 U. S. 286.
The concept of “custody” has been an evolving one as Judge Northrop shows in Donigian v. Laird, 308 F. Supp. 449, 451. And see Peyton v. Rowe, 391 U. S. 54, 64-66. In Jones v. Cunningham, 371 U. S. 236, 238, 240, 243, we said:
“While limiting its availability to those 'in custody,' the statute does not attempt to mark the boundaries of ‘custody’ nor in any way other than by use of that word attempt to limit the situations in which the writ can be used. . . .
“History, usage, and precedent can leave no doubt that, besides physical imprisonment, there are other restraints on a man’s liberty, restraints not shared by the public generally, which have been thought sufficient in the English-speaking world to support the issuance of habeas corpus. . . .
“It [the Great Writ] is not now and never has been a static, narrow, formalistic remedy; its scope has grown to achieve its grand purpose — the protection of individuals against erosion of their right to be free from wrongful restraints upon their liberty. While petitioner’s parole releases him from immediate physical imprisonment, it imposes conditions which significantly confine and restrain his freedom; this is enough to keep him in the ‘custody’ of the members of the Virginia Parole Board within the meaning of the habeas corpus statute; if he can prove his allegations this custody is in violation of the Constitution, and it was therefore error for the Court of Appeals to dismiss his case as moot instead of permitting him to add the Parole Board members as respondents.”
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer:
|
A
|
sc_issuearea
|
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Mr. Justice Reed
delivered the opinion of the Court.
While participating as counsel in the trial of a cause the petitioner, Joe J. Fisher, was adjudged guilty of contempt committed in the presence of the court by the District Court of Jasper County, Texas. The petitioner’s client was the plaintiff in an action under the state workmen’s compensation law. The case was being tried before a jury and the parties had stipulated as to the average weekly wage of the claimant and the rate of compensation per week. The only remaining questions to be determined were as to the extent and duration of the incapacity resulting from an injury to the claimant’s foot. Seven special issúes, designed to furnish an answer to these problems and limited to them, were submitted to the jury.
Thereafter petitioner began his opening argument to the jury during which the following occurrence took place, as shown by the trial court’s order of contempt and commitment:
“Opening argument to Jury of Plaintiff’s Attorney, Joe J. Fisher
“Now, bear in mind, gentlemen, that this is what we call a specific injury. A general injury is an injury to the entire body. This is what is known as a specific injury, and it is confined to the left foot. We have specific injuries where you have injuries to the eye, to your hand, and to your foot; this is an injury to the foot, to the left foot; and the law states the amount of maximum compensation which a person can receive for such an injury, that is, one hundred and twenty-five weeks. That is the most compensation Anderson Godfrey could receive, would be one hundred and twenty-five weeks, because his injury is confined to his left foot. That is all we are asking. Now, that means one hundred and twenty-five weeks times the average weekly compensation rate.
“By Mr. Cox: Your Honor please—
“By the Court: Wait a minute.
“By Mr. Cox: The jury is not concerned with the computation; it has only one series of issues. That is not before the jury.
“By the Court: That has all been agreed upon.
“By Mr. Fisher: I think it is material, Your Honor, to tell the jury what the average weekly compensation is of this claimant so they can tell where he is.
“By the Court: They are not interested in dollars and cents.
“By Mr. Fisher: They are interested to this extent—
“By the Court: Don’t argue with me. Go ahead. I will give you your exception to it.
“By Mr. Fisher: Note our exception.
“By the Court: All right.
“[By Mr. Fisher:] This negro, as I stated, can only recover one hundred and twenty-five weeks compensation, at whatever compensation the rate will figure under the law.
“By Mr. Cox: I am objecting to that discussion, Your Honor, as to what the plaintiff can recover.
“By the Court: Gentlemen! Mr. Fisher, you know the rule, and I have sustained his objection.
“By Mr. Fisher: I am asking—
“By the Court: Don’t argue with me. Gentlemen, don’t give any consideration to the statement of Mr. Fisher.
“By Mr. Fisher: Note our exception. I think I have a right to explain whether it is a specific injury or general injury.
“By the Court: I will declare a mistrial if you mess with me two minutes and a half, and fine you besides.
“By Mr. Fisher: That is all right. We take exception to the conduct of the Court.
“By the Court: That is all right; I will fine you $25.00.
“By Mr. Fisher: If that will give you any satisfaction.
“By the Court: That is $50.00; that is $25.00 more. Mr. Sheriff come get it. Pay the clerk $50.00.
“By Mr. Fisher: You mean for trying to represent my client?
“By the Court: No, sir; for contempt of Court. Don’t argue with me.
“By Mr. Fisher: I am making no effort to commit contempt, but merely trying to represent the plaintiff and stating in the argument—
“By the Court: Don’t tell me. Mr. Sheriff, take him out of the courtroom. Go on out of the courtroom. I fine you three days in jail.
“By Mr. Fisher: If that will give you any satisfaction; you know you have all the advantage by you being on the bench.
“By the Court: That will be a hundred dollar fine and three days in jail. Take him out.
“By Mr. Fisher: I demand a right to state my position before the audience.
“By the Court: Don’t let him stand there. Take him out.”
The sheriff held the petitioner in custody upon the verbal order of the court until an amended order in conformity with Texas law, setting forth in full the above proceedings together with a formal commitment, was filed later the same day. Upon his application for a writ of habeas corpus from the Supreme Court of Texas to secure his release from the commitment, the judgment for contempt was upheld and the petitioner was denied any relief by that court and was remanded to the custody of the sheriff to undergo the punishment adjudged by the trial court. Ex parte Fisher, 146 Tex. 328, 206 S. W. 2d 1000. As the application alleged a denial of due process of law under the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, we granted certiorari to consider its application to this conviction for contempt. 334 U. S. 827. The claimed denial of due process consists of an alleged refusal to review the facts to ascertain whether a contempt was committed and in the alternative, if the facts were reviewed, due process was denied because no facts constituting contempt appear.
Historically and rationally the inherent power of courts to punish contempts in the face of the court without further proof of facts and without aid of jury is not open to question. This attribute of courts is essential to preserve their authority and to prevent the administration of justice from falling into disrepute. Such summary conviction and punishment accords due process of law.
There must be adequate facts to support an order for contempt in the face of the court. Contrary to the contention of the petitioner the state Supreme Court evaluated the facts to decide whether there was sufficient evidence to support the judgment of the trial court and held that there was. The opinion of the Texas Supreme Court states that the court set out to review the facts “for the purpose of determining whether they constituted acts sufficient to confer jurisdiction upon the court” to enter the contempt order. In other words, the highest court of the state proposed to satisfy itself that there was substantial evidence to validate the judgment of contempt and to insure that petitioner was not “restrained of his liberty without due process of law.” After a careful analysis of the facts as disclosed by the judgment of the trial court, the conclusion was reached that the conduct of the petitioner was clearly sufficient to support the power of the court to punish summarily the contempt committed in its presence.
The judgment of the Supreme Court of Texas must be affirmed. In a case of this type the transcript of the record cannot convey to us the complete picture of the courtroom scene. It does not depict such elements of misbehavior as expression, manner of speaking, bearing, and attitude of the petitioner. Reliance must be placed upon the fairness and objectivity of the presiding judge. The occurrence must be viewed as a unit in order to appraise properly the misconduct, and the relationship of the petitioner as an officer of the court must not be lost sight of.
The state Supreme Court pointed out that its practice of submitting special issues to the jury was adopted in order to remove from the jury’s consideration the effect on the ultimate outcome of the case of their answers to questions of disputed facts. In this case, the jury might be tempted to find a long incapacity or a severe injury if they knew the amount of recovery was limited by the employee’s wage and rate of compensation. Counsel are required to confine their arguments to the evidence and must not touch upon matters withdrawn from the consideration of the jury. Yet here, petitioner, a member of the Texas bar, ignored this rule and at the outset of his address to the jury exceeded the bounds of permissible argument by trying to tell the jury the maximum compensation which their answers to the special issues would allow his client. On objection of the opposing counsel petitioner was stopped by the trial judge, but in the face of the court’s decision he persisted in trying to tell the jury the effect of their answers. He switched his explanation of the stipulated amount of recovery from the words “one hundred and twenty-five weeks times the average weekly compensation rate” to “one hundred and twenty-five weeks compensation, at whatever compensation the rate will figure under the law.” The change obviously brought before the jury information on the limitation to the amount of recovery — a factor held by the trial judge inadmissible under the special issues. In addition to this stubborn effort to bring excluded matter to the knowledge of the jury, the petitioner twice refused to heed the court’s admonition not to argue the point. As the Supreme Court said,
“It was the duty and power of the trial judge in the trial of the compensation suit to determine the type, manner and character of the argument before the jury. Of course his rulings thereon were subject to review in the appellate courts, but he has the power to make them whether right or wrong. If they are erroneous the injured party has the plain, simple and adequate remedy of appeal. It was thus the duty of counsel to abide by his decisions even if erroneous; and if any rights of his clients were violated the remedy was by exception and appeal. Any other procedure would result in mockery of our trial courts and would destroy every concept of orderly process in the administration of justice.”
This judgment of the Supreme Court turned on their understanding of Texas law and practice. We see nothing in their opinion or conclusion that indicates any disregard of petitioner’s rights. The conduct of a judge should be such as to command respect for himself as well as for his office. We cannot say, however, that mildly provocative language from the bench puts a constitutional protection around an attorney so as to allow him to show the contempt for judge and court manifested by this record, particularly the last few sentences of the altercation.
The judgment of the Supreme Court of Texas accordingly is
Affirmed.
Me. Justice Douglas, with whom Me. Justice Black concurs, dissenting.
The power to punish for contempt committed in open court was recognized long ago as a means of vindicating the dignity and authority of the court. See Ex parte Terry, 128 U. S. 289, 301-304 and cases cited. But its exercise must be narrowly confined lest it become an instrument of tyranny. Chief Justice Taft in Cooke v. United States, 267 U. S. 517, 539, warned that its exercise by a federal court is “a delicate one and care is needed to avoid arbitrary or oppressive conclusions.” The same restraint is necessary under our constitutional scheme when state courts are claiming the right to take a person by the heels and fine or imprison him for contempt without a trial or an opportunity to defend. In Bridges v. California, 314 U. S. 252; Pennekamp v. Florida, 328 U. S. 331; and Craig v. Harney, 331 U. S. 367, we narrowly restricted the power to punish summarily for constructive contempts in order to maintain freedom of press and of speech in their preferred position. Freedom of speech in the courtroom deserves the same protection.
Fisher’s conviction is sustained because it is said that he persisted in trying to tell the jury what the judge held to be improper. I do not so read the record. The judge sustained an objection to Fisher’s attempt to get the average weekly compensation of the injured person before the jury, as appears from the following colloquy:
“By Mr. Cox: The jury is not concerned with the computation; it has only one series of issues. That is not before the jury.
“By the Court: That has all been agreed upon.
“By Mr. Fisher: I think it is material, Your Honor, to tell the jury what the average weekly compensation is of this claimant so they can tell where he is.
“By the Court: They are not interested in dollars and cents.
“By Mr. Fisher: They are interested to this extent — ■
“By the Court: Don’t argue with me. Go ahead. I will give you your exception to it.
“By Mr. Fisher: Note our exception.
“By the Court: All right.”
Fisher never again tried to get the amount of weekly compensation of the injured person into the record. He abided by the ruling of the judge. What next happened was as follows:
“By Mr. Fisher: This negro, as I stated, can only recover one hundred and twenty-five weeks compensation, at whatever compensation the rate will figure under the law.
“By Mr. Cox: I am objecting to that discussion, Your Honor, as to what the plaintiff can recover.
“By the Court: Gentlemen! Mr. Fisher, you know the rule, and I have sustained his objection.
“By Mr. Fisher: I am asking—
“By the Court: Don’t argue with me. Gentlemen, don’t give any consideration to the statement of Mr. Fisher.
“By Mr. Fisher: Note our exception. I think I have a right to explain whether it is a specific injury or general injury.”
Fisher’s statement that, “This negro, as I stated, can only recover one hundred and twenty-five weeks compensation, at whatever compensation the rate will figure under the law,” did not mention the matter of “dollars and cents” that the judge held irrelevant. It was not a new attempt by Fisher to get the “average weekly compensation” before the jury. Yet the record can be read as meaning that they were the only specific matters on which the judge had ruled. As Justice Sharp, dissenting in the Texas Supreme Court, stated, “This statement does not indicate that relator was disobeying the ruling of the court, but, on the contrary, shows that he was trying to obey same.” It also means to me that he was seeking to perfect the record so as to preserve all of his points.
It is said that the statement was improper under Texas practice. But it took a ruling of the Texas Supreme Court to make it so, and even then Justice Sharp dissented. If Texas law on the point is so uncertain that the highest judges of the State disagree as to what is the permissible practice, is a lawyer to be laid by the heels for pressing the point? Yet it was for pressing the point of law on which the Supreme Court of Texas divided that Fisher was held in contempt.
It is said, however, that such elements of misbehavior as expression, manner of speaking, bearing, and attitude of Fisher may have given the words a contemptuous flavor that the cold record does not reveal. I do not think freedom of speech should be so readily sacrificed, even in a courtroom. If that were the offense, it is not too much to ask that the judge make it the ground of his ruling. Certainly the judge did not purport to fine and imprison Fisher for the manner of making the objection, for the tone of his voice, or for his facial expression. The dispute was merely over the bounds of permissible comment before a jury. Fisher having been stopped at one point tried another strategy. He was acting the role of a resourceful lawyer. The decision which penalizes him for that zeal sanctions censorship inside a courthouse where the ideals of freedom of speech should flourish.
There is for me only one fair inference from the record— that the judge picked a quarrel with this lawyer and used his high position to wreak vengeance on him. It is shown, I think, by the commencement of the critical colloquy:
“By the Court: I will declare a mistrial if you mess with me two minutes and a half, and fine you besides.
“By Mr. Fisher: That is all right. We take exception to the conduct of the Court.
“By the Court: That is all right; I will fine you $25.00.”
This lawyer was the victim of the pique and hotheadedness of a judicial officer who is supposed to have a serenity that keeps him above the battle and the crowd. That is as much a perversion of the judicial function as if the judge who sat had a pecuniary interest in the outcome of the litigation. Tumey v. Ohio, 273 U. S. 510.
Ex parte Kearby, 35 Tex. Crim. Rep. 531, 34 S. W. 635; Ex parte Ray, 101 Tex. Crim. Rep. 432, 276 S. W. 709.
4 Bl. Comm. 286; Ex parte Terry, 128 U. S. 289, 302-304, 313-14; Ex parte Savin, 131 U. S. 267, 277; Eilenbecker v. District Court, 134 U. S. 31, 36-37; Cooke v. United States, 267 U. S. 517, 534-36; In re Oliver, 333 U. S. 257, 274-75.
Ex parte Terry, 128 U. S. 289, 313: “We have seen that it is a settled doctrine in the jurisprudence both of England and of this country, never supposed to be in conflict with the liberty of the citizen, that for direct contempts committed in the face of the court, at least one of superior jurisdiction, the offender may, in its discretion, be instantly apprehended and immediately imprisoned, without trial or issue, and without other proof than its actual knowledge of what occurred; and that, according to an unbroken chain of authorities, reaching back to the earliest times, such power, although arbitrary in its nature and liable to abuse, is absolutely essential to the protection of the courts in the discharge of their functions. Without it, judicial tribunals would be at the mercy of the disorderly and violent, who respect neither the laws enacted for the vindication of public and private rights, nor the officers charged with the duty of administering them.”
See also Cooke v. United States, supra, 534; Ex parte Hudgings, 249 U. S. 378, 383.
This rule is well established in Texas. Ex parte Testard, 101 Tex. 250, 106 S. W. 319; Ex parte Dulaney, 146 Tex. 108, 203 S. W. 2d 203. For other cases see the opinion in the instant case, Ex parte Fisher, 146 Tex. 328. 333. 206 S. W. 2d 1000, 1003.
Clark v. United. States, 289 U. S. 1, 12.
Ex parte Fisher, 146 Tex. 328, 334-335, 206 S. W. 2d 1000, 1004-1005.
Rule 269, Vernon’s Texas Rules of Civil Procedure; Ramirez v. Acker, 134 Tex. 647, 138 S. W. 2d 1054.
146 Tex. 328, 335, 206 S. W. 2d 1000, 1005; cf. United States v. United Mine Workers, 330 U. S. 258, 293, 302-303.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
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 O’Connor
delivered the opinion of the Court.
In a long line of cases, this Court has established that due process requires a “clear and certain” remedy for taxes collected in violation of federal law. Atchison, T. & S. F. R. Co. v. O’Connor, 223 U. S. 280, 285 (1912) (Holmes, J.). A State has the flexibility to provide that remedy before the disputed taxes are paid (predeprivation), after they are paid (postdeprivation), or both. But what it may not do, and what Georgia did here, is hold out what plainly appears to be a “clear and certain” postdeprivation remedy and then declare, only after the disputed taxes have been paid, that no such remedy exists.
I
For many years, numerous States, including Georgia, exempted from state personal income tax retirement benefits paid by the State, but not retirement benefits paid by the Federal Government (or any other employer). In March 1989, this Court held that such a tax scheme violates the constitutional intergovernmental tax immunity doctrine, which dates back to McCulloch v. Maryland, 4 Wheat. 316 (1819), and has been generally codified at 4 U. S. C. § 111. See Davis v. Michigan Dept. of Treasury, 489 U. S. 803 (1989).
In the aftermath of Davis, most of these States, Georgia included, repealed their special tax exemptions for state retirees, but few offered federal retirees any refunds for the unconstitutional taxes they had paid in the years before Davis was decided. Not surprisingly, a great deal of litigation ensued in an effort to force States to provide refunds. The instant suit is part of that litigation.
In April 1990, Reich, a retired federal military officer, sued Georgia in Georgia state court, seeking a refund for the tax years 1980 and after. The principal legal basis for Reich’s lawsuit was Georgia’s tax refund statute, which provides: “A taxpayer shall be refunded any and all taxes or fees which are determined to have been erroneously or illegally assessed and collected from him under the laws of this state, whether paid voluntarily or involuntarily . . . Ga. Code Ann. §48-2-35(a) (Supp. 1994).
The Georgia trial court first decided that, because of § 48-2-35’s statute of limitations, Reich’s refund request was limited to the tax years 1985 and after. Even as to these later tax years, however, the trial court refused to grant a refund, and the Georgia Supreme Court affirmed. See Reich v. Collins, 262 Ga. 625, 422 S. E. 2d 846 (1992) (Reich I). The Georgia high court explained that it was construing the refund statute not to apply to “the situation where the law under which the taxes are assessed and collected is itself subsequently declared to be unconstitutional or otherwise invalid.” Id., at 628-629, 422 S. E. 2d, at 849.
Reich then petitioned the Georgia Supreme Court for reconsideration of its decision on the grounds that even if the Georgia tax refund statute does not require a refund, federal due process does — due process, that is, as interpreted by McKesson Corp. v. Division of Alcoholic Beverages and Tobacco, Fla. Dept. of Business Regulation, 496 U. S. 18 (1990), and the long line of cases upon which McKesson depends. See id., at 32-36, citing Iowa-Des Moines Nat. Bank v. Bennett, 284 U. S. 239 (1931); Montana Nat. Bank of Billings v. Yellowstone County, 276 U. S. 499 (1928); Carpenter v. Shaw, 280 U. S. 363 (1930); Ward v. Board of Commr’s of Love Cty., 253 U. S. 17 (1920); Atchison, T. & S. F. R. Co. v. O’Connor, supra; see generally Fallon & Meltzer, New Law, NonRetroactivity, and Constitutional Remedies, 104 Harv. L. Rev. 1733, 1824-1830 (1991). As we said, these cases stand for the proposition that “a denial by a state court of a recovery of taxes exacted in violation of the laws or Constitution of the United States by compulsion is itself in contravention of the Fourteenth Amendment,” Carpenter, supra, at 369, the sovereign immunity States traditionally enjoy in their own courts notwithstanding. (We should note that the sovereign immunity States enjoy in federal court, under the Eleventh Amendment, does generally bar tax refund claims from being brought in that forum. See Ford Motor Co. v. Department of Treasury of Ind., 323 U. S. 459 (1945).)
Reich’s petition for reconsideration in light of McKesson was denied. He then petitioned for certiorari. While the petition was pending, we decided Harper v. Virginia Dept. of Taxation, 509 U. S. 86 (1993), which relied on McKesson in circumstances similar to this case. Accordingly, we remanded Reich’s case to the Georgia Supreme Court for further consideration in light of Harper. See Reich v. Collins, 509 U. S. 918 (1993).
On remand, the Georgia Supreme Court focused on the portion of Harper explaining that, under McKesson, a State is free to provide its “clear and certain” remedy in an exclusively predeprivation manner. “[A] meaningful opportunity for taxpayers to withhold contested tax assessments and to challenge their validity in a predeprivation hearing,” we said, is “ ‘a procedural safeguard [against unlawful deprivations] sufficient by itself to satisfy the Due Process Clause.’ ” See Harper, supra, at 101, quoting McKesson, supra, at 38, n. 21. The court then reviewed Georgia’s predeprivation procedures, found them “ample,” and denied Reich’s refund claim. Reich v. Collins, 263 Ga. 602, 604, 437 S. E. 2d 320, 322 (1993).
Reich again petitioned for certiorari, and we granted the writ, 510 U. S. 1109 (1994), to consider whether it was proper for the Georgia Supreme Court to deny Reich relief on the basis of Georgia’s predeprivation remedies.
II
The Georgia Supreme Court is no doubt right that, under McKesson, Georgia has the flexibility to maintain an exclusively predeprivation remedial scheme, so long as that scheme is “clear and certain.” Due process, we should add, also allows the State to maintain an exclusively postdeprivation regime, see, e. g., Bob Jones Univ. v. Simon, 416 U. S. 725, 746-748 (1974), or a hybrid regime. A State is free as well to reconfigure its remedial scheme over time, to fit its changing needs. Such choices are generally a matter only of state law.
But what a State may not do, and what Georgia did here, is to reconfigure its scheme, unfairly, in mid-course — to “bait and switch,” as some have described it. Specifically, in the mid-1980’s, Georgia held out what plainly appeared to be a “clear and certain” postdeprivation remedy, in the form of its tax refund statute, and then declared, only after Reich and others had paid the disputed taxes, that no such remedy exists. In this regard, the Georgia Supreme Court’s reliance on Georgia’s predeprivation procedures was entirely beside the point (and thus error), because even assuming the constitutional adequacy of these procedures — an issue on which we express no view — no reasonable taxpayer would have thought that they represented, in light of the apparent applicability of the refund statute, the exclusive remedy for unlawful taxes. See generally Rakowski, Harper and Its Aftermath, 1 Fla. Tax Rev. 445, 474 (1993).
Nor can there be any question that, during the 1980’s, prior to Reich I, Georgia did appear to hold out a “clear and certain” postdeprivation remedy. To recall, the Georgia refund statute says that the State “shall” refund “any and all taxes or fees which are determined to have been erroneously or illegally assessed and collected from [a taxpayer] under the laws of this state, whether paid voluntarily or involuntarily . . . .” Ga. Code Ann. §48-2-35(a) (Supp. 1994) (emphasis added). In our view, the average taxpayer reading this language would think it obvious that state taxes assessed in violation of federal law are “illegally assessed” taxes. Certainly the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit thought this conclusion was obvious when, in a 1986 case, it denied federal court relief to taxpayers raising claims similar to Reich’s, in part because it thought Georgia’s refund statute applied to the claims. See Waldron v. Collins, 788 F. 2d 736, 738, cert. denied, 479 U. S. 884 (1986).
Respondents, moreover, do not point to any Georgia Supreme Court cases prior to Reich I that put any limiting construction on the statute’s sweeping language; indeed, the cases we have found are all entirely consistent with that language’s apparent breadth. See, e. g., Georgia v. Private Truck Council of America, Inc., 258 Ga. 531, 371 S. E. 2d 378 (1988); Henderson v. Carter, 229 Ga. 876, 195 S. E. 2d 4 (1972); Parke, Davis & Co. v. Cook, 198 Ga. 457, 31 S. E. 2d 728 (1944); Wright v. Forrester, 192 Ga. 864, 16 S. E. 2d 873 (1941). Even apart from the statute and the cases, we find it significant that, for obvious reasons, States ordinarily prefer that taxpayers pursue only postdeprivation remedies, i. e., that taxpayers “pay first, litigate later.” This preference is significant in that it would seem especially unfair to penalize taxpayers who may have ignored the possibility of pursuing predeprivation remedies out of respect for that preference.
In many ways, then, this case bears a remarkable resemblance to NAACP v. Alabama ex rel. Patterson, 357 U. S. 449 (1958) (Harlan, J.). There, an Alabama trial court held the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People in contempt for failing to comply with a discovery order to produce its membership lists, and the Alabama Supreme Court denied review of the constitutionality of the contempt judgment on the grounds that the organization failed earlier to pursue a mandamus action to quash the underlying discovery order. The Court found that the Alabama high court’s refusal to review the contempt judgment was in error. Prior Alabama law, the Court said, showed “unambiguous[ly]” that judicial review of contempt judgments had consistently been available, the existence of mandamus notwithstanding. Id., at 456. For good measure, the Court also looked at prior Alabama law on mandamus and found nothing “suggesting] that mandamus is the exclusive remedy” in this situation. Id., at 457 (emphasis in original). Justice Harlan thus concluded: “Novelty in procedural requirements cannot be permitted to thwart review in this Court applied for by those who, in justified reliance upon prior decisions, seek vindication in state courts of their federal constitutional rights.” Id., at 457-458, citing Brinkerhoff-Faris Trust & Sav. Co. v. Hill, 281 U. S. 673 (1930) (due process violated when state court denied injunction against collection of unlawful taxes on the basis of taxpayer’s failure to pursue administrative remedies, where State’s prior “settled” law made clear that no such administrative remedies existed); see generally Meltzer, State Court Forfeitures of Federal Rights, 99 Harv. L. Rev. 1128, 1137-1139 (1986).
Finally, Georgia contends that Reich had no idea (before Davis) that the taxes he was paying throughout the 1980’s might be unconstitutional. Even assuming Reich had no idea, however, we are not sure we understand the argument. If the argument is that Reich would not have taken advantage of the State’s predeprivation remedies no matter how adequate they were (and thus has no standing to complain of those remedies), the argument is beside the point for the same reason that we said that the Georgia Supreme Court’s reliance on those remedies was beside the point: Reich was entitled to pursue what appeared to be a “clear and certain” postdeprivation remedy, regardless of the State’s predepri-vation remedies. Alternatively, if the argument is that Reich needed to have known of the unconstitutionality of his taxes in order to pursue the State’s postdeprivation remedy, the argument is wrong. It is wrong because Georgia’s refund statute has a relatively lengthy statute of limitations period, and, at least until this case, see Reich I, 262 Ga., at 629, 422 S. E. 2d, at 849, contained no contemporaneous protest requirement. Under such a regime, taxpayers need not have taken any steps to learn of the possible unconstitutionality of their taxes at the time they paid them. Accordingly, they may not now be put in any worse position for having failed to take such steps.
For the reasons stated, the judgment is reversed and the case is remanded for the provision of ‘“meaningful backward-looking relief,’” Harper, 509 U. S., at 101, quoting McKesson, 496 U. S., at 31, consistent with due process and our McKesson line of cases. See, e. g., Carpenter v. Shaw, 280 U. S. 363 (1930).
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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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 Scalia
delivered the opinion of the Court.
We decide in this case whether an individual may enforce the limitations on local zoning authority set forth in § 332(c)(7) of the Communications Act of 1934, 47. U. S. C. § 332(c)(7), through an action under Rev. Stat. §1979, 42 U. S. C. § 1983.
I
Congress enacted the Telecommunications Act of 1996 (TCA), 110 Stat. 56, to promote competition and higher quality in American telecommunications services and to “encourage the rapid deployment of new telecommunications technologies.” Ibid. One of the means by which it sought to accomplish these goals was reduction of the impediments imposed by local governments upon the installation of facilities for wireless communications, such as antenna towers. To this end, the TCA amended the Communications Act of 1934, 48 Stat. 1064, to include § 332(c)(7), which imposes specific limitations on the traditional authority of state and local governments to regulate the location, construction, and modification of such facilities, 110 Stat. 151, codified at 47 U. S. C. § 332(c)(7). Under this provision, local governments may not * “unreasonably discriminate among providers of functionally equivalent services,” § 332(c)(7)(B)(i)(I), take actions that “prohibit or have the effect of prohibiting the provision of personal wireless services,” § 332(c)(7)(B)(i)(II), or limit the placement of wireless facilities “on the basis of the environmental effects of radio frequency emissions,” § 332(c)(7)(B)(iv). They must act on requests for authorization to locate wireless facilities “within a reasonable period of time,” § 332(c)(7)(B)(ii), and each decision denying such a request must “be in writing and supported by substantial evidence contained in a written record,” § 332(c)(7)(B)(iii). Lastly, § 332(c)(7)(B)(v), which is central to the present case, provides as follows:
“Any person adversely affected by any final action or failure to act by a State or local government or any instrumentality thereof that is inconsistent with this subparagraph may, within 30 days after such action or failure to act, commence an action in any court of competent jurisdiction.”
Respondent Mark Abrams owns a home in a low-density, residential neighborhood in the city of Rancho Palos Verdes, California (City). His property is located at a high elevation, near the peak of the Rancho Palos Verdes Peninsula. Rancho Palos Verdes v. Abrams, 101 Cal. App. 4th 367, 371, 124 Cal. Rptr. 2d 80, 82 (2002). The record reflects that the location is both scenic and, because of its high elevation, ideal for radio transmissions. Id., at 371-372, 124 Cal. Rptr. 2d, at 82-83.
In 1989, respondent obtained a permit from the City to construct a 52.5-foot antenna on his property for amateur use. He installed the antenna shortly thereafter, and in the years that followed placed several smaller, tripod antennas on the property without prior permission from the City. He used the antennas both for noncommercial purposes (to provide an amateur radio service and to relay signals from other amateur radio operators) and for commercial purposes (to provide customers two-way radio communications from portable and mobile transceivers, and to repeat the signals of customers so as to enable greater range of transmission). Ibid.
In 1998, respondent sought permission to construct a second antenna tower. In the course of investigating that application, the City learned that respondent was using his antennas to provide a commercial service, in violation of a City ordinance requiring a “conditional-use permit” from the City Planning Commission (Commission) for commercial antenna use. See Commission Resolution No. 2000-12 (“A Resolution of the Planning Commission of the City of Rancho Palos Verdes Denying With Prejudice Conditional Use Permit No. 207 for the Proposed Commercial Use of Existing Antennae on an Existing Antenna Support Structure, Located at 44 Oceanaire Drive in the Del Cerro Neighborhood”), App. to Pet. for Cert. 54a. On suit by the City, Los Angeles County Superior Court enjoined respondent from using the antennas for a commercial purpose. Rancho Palos Verdes, supra, at 373, 124 Cal. Rptr. 2d, at 84; App. to Pet. for Cert. 35a.
Two weeks later, in July 1999, respondent applied to the Commission for the requisite conditional-use permit. The application drew strong opposition from several of respondent’s neighbors. The Commission conducted two hearings and accepted written evidence, after which it denied the application. Id., at 54a-63a. The Commission explained that granting respondent permission to operate commercially “would perpetuate ... adverse visual impacts” from respondent’s existing antennas and establish precedent for similar projects in residential areas in the future. Id., at 57a. The Commission also concluded that denial of respondent’s application was consistent with 47 U. S. C. § 332(c)(7), making specific findings that its action complied with each of that provision’s requirements. App. to Pet. for Cert. 61a-62a. The city council denied respondent’s appeal. Id., at 52a. See generally No. CV00-09071-SVW (RNBx) (CD Cal., Jan. 9, 2002), App. to Pet. for Cert. 22a-23a.
On August 24, 2000, respondent filed this action against the City in the District Court for the Central District of California, alleging, as relevant, that denial of the use permit violated the limitations placed on the City’s zoning authority by § 332(c)(7). In particular, respondent charged that the City’s action discriminated against the mobile relay services he sought to provide, § 332(c)(7)(B)(i)(I), effectively prohibited the provision of mobile relay services, § 332(c)(7)(B)(i)(II), and was not supported by substantial evidence in the record, § 332(c)(7)(B)(iii). App. to Pet. for Cert. 17a. Respondent sought injunctive relief under § 332(c)(7)(B)(v), and money damages and attorney’s fees under 42 U. S. C. §§ 1983 and 1988. Plaintiff/Petitioner’s Brief Re: Remedies and Damages, Case No. 00-09071-SVW (RNBx) (CD Cal., Feb. 25, 2002), App. to Reply Brief for Petitioners 2a-7a.
Notwithstanding § 332(c)(7)(B)(v)’s direction that courts “hear and decide” actions “on an expedited basis,” the District Court did not act on respondent’s complaint until January 9,2002,16 months after filing; it concluded that the City’s denial of a conditional-use permit was not supported by substantial evidence. App. to Pet. for Cert. 23a-26a. The court explained that the City could not rest its denial on esthetic concerns, since the antennas in question were already in existence and would remain in place whatever the disposition of the permit application. Id., at 23a-24a. Nor, the court said, could the City reasonably base its decision on the fear of setting precedent for the location of commercial antennas in residential areas, since adverse impacts from new structures would always be a basis for permit denial. Id., at 25a. In light of the paucity of support for the City’s action, the court concluded that denial of the permit was “an act of spite by the community.” Id., at 24a. In an order issued two months later, the District Court held that § 332(c)(7)(B)(v) provided the exclusive remedy for the City’s actions. Judgment of Injunction, No. CV00-09071-SVW (RNBx) (CD Cal., Mar. 18, 2002), App. to Pet. for Cert. 14a. Accordingly, it ordered the City to grant respondent’s application for a conditional-use permit, but refused respondent’s request for damages under §1983. Respondent appealed.
The Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit reversed on the latter point, and remanded for determination of money damages and attorney’s fees. 354 P. 3d 1094, 1101 (2004). We granted certiorari. 542 U. S. 965 (2004).,
II
A
Title 42 U. S. C. § 1983 provides:
“Every person who, under color of any statute, ordinance, regulation, custom, or usage, of any State or Territory ... subjects, or causes to be subjected, any citizen of the United States or other person within the jurisdiction thereof to the deprivation of any rights, privileges, or immunities secured by the Constitution and laws, shall be liable to the party injured in an action at law, suit in equity, or other proper proceeding for redress.”
In Maine v. Thiboutot, 448 U. S. 1 (1980), we held that this section “means what it says” and authorizes suits to enforce individual rights under federal statutes as well as the Constitution. Id., at 4.
Our subsequent cases have made clear, however, that §1983 does not provide an avenue for relief every time a state actor violates a federal law. As a threshold matter, the text of § 1983 permits the enforcement of “rights, not the broader or vaguer ‘benefits’ or ‘interests.’” Gonzaga Univ. v. Doe, 536 U. S. 273, 283 (2002) (emphasis in original). Accordingly, to sustain a § 1983 action, the plaintiff must demonstrate that the federal statute creates an individually enforceable right in the class of beneficiaries to which he belongs. See id., at 285.
Even after this showing, “there is only a rebuttable presumption that the right is enforceable under § 1983.” Blessing v. Freestone, 520 U. S. 329, 341 (1997). The defendant may defeat this presumption by demonstrating that Congress did not intend that remedy for a newly created right. See ibid.; Smith v. Robinson, 468 U. S. 992, 1012 (1984). Our cases have explained that evidence of such congressional intent may be found directly in the statute creating the right, or inferred from the statute’s creation of a “comprehensive enforcement scheme that is incompatible with individual enforcement under §1983.” Blessing, supra, at 341. See also Middlesex County Sewerage Authority v. National Sea Clammers Assn., 453 U. S. 1, 19-20 (1981). “The crucial consideration is what Congress intended.” Smith, supra, at 1012.
B.
The City conceded below, and neither the City nor the Government as amicus disputes here, that § 332(c)(7) creates individually enforceable rights; we assume, arguendo, that this is so. The critical question, then, is whether Congress meant the judicial remedy expressly authorized by § 332(c)(7) to coexist with an alternative remedy available in a § 1983 action. We conclude not.
The provision of an express, private means of redress in the statute itself is ordinarily an indication that Congress did not intend to leave open a more expansive remedy under § 1983. As we have said in a different setting, “[t]he express provision of one method of enforcing a substantive rule suggests that Congress intended to preclude others.” Alexander v. Sandoval, 532 U. S. 275, 290 (2001). Thus, the existence of a more restrictive private remedy for statutory violations has been the dividing line between those cases in which we have held that an action would lie under § 1983 and those in which we have held that it would not.
We have found § 1983 unavailable to remedy violations of federal statutory rights in two eases: Sea Clammers and Smith. Both of those decisions rested upon the existence of more restrictive remedies provided in the violated statute itself. See Smith, supra, at 1011-1012 (recognizing a § 1983 action “would . . . render superfluous most of the detailed procedural protections outlined in the statute”); Sea Clam-mers, supra, at 20 (“[W]hen a state official is alleged to have violated a federal statute which provides its own comprehensive enforcement scheme, the requirements of that enforcement procedure may not be bypassed by bringing suit directly under §1983” (internal quotation marks omitted)). Moreover, in all of the cases in which we have held that § 1983 is available for violation of a federal statute, we have emphasized that the statute at issue, in contrast to those in Sea Clammers and Smith, did not provide a private judicial remedy (or, in most of the cases, even a private administrative remedy) for the rights violated. See Blessing, supra, at 348 (“Unlike the federal programs at issue in [Sea Clammers and Smith], Title IV-D contains no private remedy— either judicial or administrative — through which aggrieved persons can seek redress”); Livadas v. Bradshaw, 512 U. S. 107, 133-134 (1994) (there was a “complete absence of provision for relief from governmental interference” in the statute); Golden State Transit Corp. v. Los Angeles, 493 U. S. 103, 108-109 (1989) (“There is ... no comprehensive enforcement scheme for preventing state interference with federally protected labor rights that would foreclose the §1983 remedy”); Wilder v. Virginia Hospital Assn., 496 U. S. 498, 521 (1990) (“The Medicaid Act contains no . . . provision for private judicial or administrative enforcement” comparable to those in Sea Clammers and Smith); Wright v. Roanoke Redevelopment and Housing Authority, 479 U. S. 418, 427 (1987) (“In both Sea Clammers and Smith . .., the statutes at issue themselves provided for private judicial remedies, thereby evidencing congressional intent to supplant the § 1983 remedy. There is nothing of that kind found in the . . . Housing Act”).
The Government as amicus, joined by the City, urges us to hold that the availability of a private judicial remedy is not merely indicative of, but conclusively establishes, a congressional intent to preclude § 1983 relief. Brief for United States as Amicus Curiae 17; Brief for Petitioners 35. We decline to do so. The ordinary inference that the remedy provided in the statute is exclusive can surely be overcome by textual indication, express or implicit, that the remedy is to complement, rather than supplant, § 1983.
There is, however, no such indication in the TCA, which adds no remedies to those available under § 1983, and limits relief in ways that § 1983 does not. Judicial review of zoning decisions under § 332(c)(7)(B)(v) must be sought within 30 days after the governmental entity has taken “final action,” and, once the action is filed, the court must “hear and decide” it “on an expedited basis.” § 332(c)(7)(B)(v). The remedies available, moreover, perhaps do not include compensatory damages (the lower courts are seemingly in disagreement on this point), and certainly do not include attorney’s fees and costs. A § 1983 action, by contrast, can be brought much later than 30 days after the final action, and need not be heard and decided on an expedited basis. And the successful plaintiff may recover not only damages but reasonable attorney’s fees and costs under 42 U. S. C. § 1988. Thiboutot, 448 U. S., at 9. Liability for attorney’s fees would have a particularly severe impact in the § 332(c)(7) context, making local governments liable for the (often substantial) legal expenses of large commercial interests for the misapplication of a complex and novel statutory scheme. See Nextel Partners Inc. v. Kingston Township, 286 F. 3d 687, 695 (CA3 2002) (Alito, J.) (“TCA plaintiffs are often large corporations or affiliated entities, whereas TCA defendants are often small, rural municipalities”); Primeco Personal Communications, Ltd. Partnership v. Mequon, 352 F. 3d 1147, 1152 (CA7 2003) (Posner, J.) (similar).
Respondent’s only response to the attorney’s-fees point is that it is a “policy argumen[t],” properly left to Congress. Brief for Respondent 35-36. That response assumes, however, that Congress’s refusal to attach attorney’s fees to the remedy that it created in the TCA does not itself represent a congressional choice. Sea Clammers and Smith adopt the opposite assumption — that limitations upon the remedy contained in the statute are deliberate and are not to be evaded through § 1983. See Smith, 468 U. S., at 1011-1012, and n. 5; Sea Clammers, 453 U. S., at 14, 20.
Respondent disputes that a § 1983 action to enforce § 332(c)(7)(B) would enjoy a longer statute of limitations than an action under § 332(c)(7)(B)(v). He argues that the rule adopted in Wilson v. Garcia, 471 U. S. 261 (1985), that § 1983 claims are governed by the state-law statute of limitations for personal-injury torts, does not apply to § 1983 actions to enforce statutes that themselves contain a statute of limitations; in such cases, he argues, the limitations period in the federal statute displaces the otherwise applicable state statute of limitations. This contention cannot be reconciled with our decision in Wilson, which expressly rejected the proposition that the limitations period for a § 1983 claim depends on the nature of the underlying right being asserted. See id., at 271-275. We concluded instead that 42 U. S. C. § 1988 is “a directive to select, in each State, the one most appropriate statute of limitations for all § 1983 claims.” 471 U. S., at 275 (emphasis added); see also Owens v. Okure, 488 U. S. 235, 240-241 (1989) (“42 U. S. C. § 1988 requires courts to borrow and apply to all §1983 claims the one most analogous state statute of limitations” (emphasis added)). We acknowledged that “a few § 1983 claims are based on statutory rights,” Wilson, supra, at 278, but carved out no exception for them.
Respondent also argues that, if 28 U. S. C. § 1658 (2000 ed., Supp. II), rather than Wilson, applies to his § 1983 action, see n. 5, supra, § 1658’s 4-year statute of limitations is inapplicable. This is so, he claims, because § 332(c)(7)(B)(v)’s requirement that actions be filed within 30 days falls within § 1658’s prefatory clause, “Except as otherwise provided by law.” We think not. The language of §332(c)(7)(B)(v) that imposes the limitations period (“within 30 days after such action or failure to act”) is inextricably linked to — indeed, is embedded within — the language that creates the right of action (“may ... commence an action in any court of competent jurisdiction”). It cannot possibly be regarded as a statute of limitations generally applicable to any action to enforce the rights created by §332(c)(7)(B). Cf. Agency Holding Corp. v. Malley-Duff & Associates, Inc., 483 U. S. 143, 168 (1987) (Scalia, J., concurring in judgment) (“Federal statutes of limitations . . . are almost invariably tied to specific causes of action”). Respondent’s argument thus reduces to a suggestion that we “borrow” § 332(c)(7)(B)(v)’s statute of limitations and attach it to § 1983 actions asserting violations of § 332(c)(7)(B). Section 1658’s “[ejxcept as otherwise provided by law” clause does not support this suggestion.
C
The Ninth Circuit based its conclusion that Congress intended to permit plaintiffs to proceed under § 1983, in part, on the TCA’s so-called “saving clause,” TCA § 601(c)(1), 110 Stat. 143, note following 47 U. S. C. § 152. 354 F. 3d, at 1099-1100. That provision reads as follows:
“(1) No IMPLIED EFFECT — This Act and the aménd-ments made by this Act shall not be construed to modify, impair, or supersede Federal, State, or local law unless expressly so provided in such Act or amendments.”
The Court of Appeals took this to be an express statement of Congress’s intent not to preclude an action under § 1983, reasoning that to do so would be to “ ‘impair’ ” the operation of that section. Id., at 1100.
We do not think this an apt assessment of what “impair[ment]” consists of. Construing § 332(c)(7), as we do, to create rights that may be enforced only through the statute’s express remedy leaves the pre-TCA operation of § 1983 entirely unaffected. Indeed, the crux of our holding is that § 332(c)(7) has no effect on §1983 whatsoever: The rights § 332(c)(7) created may not be enforced under § 1983 and, conversely, the claims available under § 1983 prior to the enactment of the TCA continue to be available after its enactment. The saving clause of the TCA does not require a court to go further and permit enforcement under § 1983 of the TCA’s substantive standards. To apply to the present case what we said with regard to a different statute: “The right [Abrams] claims under [§ 332(c)(7)] did not even arguably exist before the passage of [the TCA]. The only question here, therefore, is whether the rights created by [the TCA] may be asserted within the remedial framework of [§ 1983].” Great American Fed. Sav. & Loan Assn. v. Novotny, 442 U. S. 366, 376-377 (1979).
This interpretation of the saving clause is consistent with Sea Clammers. Saving clauses attached to the statutes at issue in that case provided that the statutes should not be interpreted to “ ‘restrict any right which any person ... may have under any statute or common law to seek enforcement of any . . . standard or limitation or to seek any other relief (including relief against the Administrator or a State agency).’ 33 U. S. C. § 1365(e).” 453 U. S., at 7, n. 10; see also id., at 7-8, n. 11. We refused to read those clauses to “preserve” a § 1983 action, holding that they did not “refer ... to a suit for redress of a violation of th[e] statutes [at issue] . . . .” Id., at 20-21, n. 31.
* * *
Enforcement of § 332(c)(7) through § 1983 would distort the scheme of expedited judicial review and limited remedies created by § 332(c)(7)(B)(v). We therefore hold that the TCA — by providing a judicial remedy different from § 1983 in § 332(c)(7) itself — precluded resort to § 1983. The judgment of the Court of Appeals is reversed, and the case is remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
The City’s approval specified a maximum height of 40 feet, but, because of an administrative error, the permit itself authorized respondent to construct a tower 12.5 feet taller. 354 F. 3d 1094, 1095 (CA9 2004).
This does not contravene the canon against implied repeal, see Posadas v. National City Bank, 296 U. S. 497, 503 (1936), because we have held that canon inapplicable to a statute that creates no rights but merely provides a civil cause of action to remedy “some otherwise defined federal right,” Great American Fed. Sav. & Loan Assn. v. Novotny, 442 U. S. 366, 376 (1979) (dealing with a provision related to § 1983,42 U. S. C. § 1985(3)). In such a case, “we are not faced ... with a question of implied repeal,” but with whether the rights created by a later statute “may be asserted within the remedial framework” of the earlier one. Great American Fed. Sav. & Loan Assn., supra, at 376-377.
Compare Primeco Personal Communications, Ltd. Partnership v. Mequon, 352 F. 3d 1147, 1152-1153 (CA7 2003) (damages are presumptively available), with Omnipoint Communications MB Operations, LLC v. Lincoln, 107 F. Supp. 2d 108, 120-121 (Mass. 2000) (“[T]he majority of district courts . . . have held that the appropriate remedy for a violation of the TCA is a mandatory injunction”).
Absent express provision to the contrary, litigants must bear their own costs. Alyeska Pipeline Service Co. v. Wilderness Society, 421 U. S. 240, 249-250 (1975). The Communications Act of 1934 authorizes the award of attorney’s fees in a number of provisions, but not in §332(c)(7)(B)(v). See, e. g., 47 U. S. C. §§206, 825(e)(10), 551(f)(2)(C), 605(e)(3)(B)(iii).
The statute of limitations for a § 1983 claim is generally the applicable state-law period for personal-injury torts. Wilson v. Garcia, 471 U. S. 261, 275, 276 (1985); see also Owens v. Okure, 488 U. S. 235, 240-241 (1989). On this basis, the applicable limitations period for respondent’s § 1983 action would presumably be one year. See Silva v. Crain, 169 F. 3d 608, 610 (CA9 1999) (citing Cal. Civ. Proc. Code Ann. § 340(3) (West 1982)). It may be, however, that this limitations period does not apply to respondent’s § 1983 claim. In 1990, Congress enacted 28 U. S. C. § 1658(a) (2000 ed., Supp. II), which provides a 4-year, catchall limitations period applicable to “civil action[s] arising under an Act of Congress enacted after” December 1, 1990. In Jones v. R. R. Donnelley & Sons Co., 541 U. S. 369 (2004), we held that this 4-year limitations period applies to all claims “made possible by a post-1990 [congressional] enactment.” Id., at 382. Since the claim here rests upon violation of the post-1990 TCA, §1658 would seem to apply.
Title 28 U. S. C. § 1658(a) provides as follows:
“Except as otherwise provided by law, a civil action arising under an Act of Congress enacted after the date of the enactment of this section may not be commenced later than 4 years after the cause of action accrues.”
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer:
|
B
|
sc_issuearea
|
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Justice Thomas
delivered the opinion of the Court.
Federal courts of appeals ordinarily have jurisdiction over appeals from “final decisions of the district courts.” 28 U. S. C. § 1291. This case presents the question whether an order imposing sanctions on an attorney pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 37(a)(4) is a final decision. We hold that it is not, even where, as here, the attorney no longer represents a party in the case.
I
Petitioner, an attorney, represented Darwin Lee Starcher in a federal civil rights suit filed against respondent and other defendants. Starcher brought the suit after his son, Casey, committed suicide while an inmate at the Hamilton County Justice Center. The theory of the original complaint was that the defendants willfully ignored their duty to care for Casey despite his known history of suicide attempts.
A Magistrate Judge oversaw discovery. On May 29, 1996, petitioner was served with a request for interrogatories and documents; responses were due within 30 days after service. See Fed. Rules Civ. Proe. 33(b)(3), 34(b). This deadline, however, passed without compliance. The Magistrate Judge ordered the plaintiff “by 4:00 p.m. on July 12, 1996 to make full and complete responses” to defendants’ requests for interrogatories and documents and further ordered that four witnesses — Rex Smith, Roxanne Dieffenbach, and two individual defendants — be deposed on July 25, 1996. Starcher v. Correctional Medical Systems, Inc., No. C1-95-815 (SD Ohio, July 11, 1996), p. 2.
Petitioner failed to heed the Magistrate Judge’s commands. She did not produce the requested documents, gave incomplete responses to several of the interrogatories, and objected to several others. Flouting the Magistrate Judge’s order, she noticed the deposition of Rex Smith on July 22, 1996, not July 25, and then refused to withdraw this notice despite reminders from defendants’ counsel. And even though the Magistrate Judge had specified that the individual defendants were to be deposed only if plaintiff had complied with his order to produce “full and complete” responses, she filed a motion to compel their appearance. Respondent and other defendants then filed motions for sanctions against petitioner.
At a July 19 hearing, the Magistrate Judge granted the defendants’ motions for sanctions. In a subsequent order, he found that petitioner had violated the discovery order and described her conduct as “egregious.” App. to Pet. for Cert. 9a. Relying on Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 37(a)(4), the Magistrate Judge ordered petitioner to pay the Hamilton County treasurer $1,494, representing costs and fees incurred by the Hamilton County prosecuting attorney as counsel for respondent and one individual defendant. He took care to specify, however, that he had not held a contempt hearing and that petitioner was never found to be in contempt of court.
The District Court affirmed the Magistrate Judge’s sanctions order. The court noted that the matter “ha[d] already consumed an inordinate amount of the Court’s time” and described the Magistrate’s job of overseeing discovery as a “task assuming] the qualities of a full time occupation.” App. to Pet. for Cert. 10a. It found that “[t]he Magistrate Judge did not err in concluding that sanctions were appropriate” and that “the amount of the Magistrate Judge’s award was not contrary to law.” Id., at 11a. The District Court also granted several defendants’ motions to disqualify petitioner as counsel for plaintiff due to the fact that she was a material witness in the ease.
Although proceedings in the District Court were ongoing, petitioner immediately appealed the District Court’s order affirming the Magistrate Judge’s sanctions award to the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. The Court of Appeals, over a dissent, dismissed the appeal for lack of jurisdiction. Starcher v. Correctional Medical Systems, Inc., 144 F. 3d 418 (1998). It considered whether the sanctions order was immediately appealable under the collateral order doctrine, which provides that certain orders may be appealed, notwithstanding the absence of final judgment, but only when they “are conclusive, . . . resolve important questions separate from the merits, and . .. are effectively unreviewable on appeal from the final judgment in the underlying action.” Swint v. Chambers County Comm’n, 514 U. S. 35, 42 (1995) (citing Cohen v. Beneficial Industrial Loan Corp., 337 U. S. 541, 546 (1949)). In the Sixth Circuit’s view, these conditions were not satisfied because the issues involved in petitioner’s appeal were not “completely separate” from the merits. 144 F. 3d, at 424. As for the fact that petitioner had been disqualified as counsel, the court held that “a non-participating attorney, like a participating attorney, ordinarily must wait until final disposition of the underlying ease before filing an appeal.” Id., at 425. It avoided deciding whether the order was effectively unre-viewable absent an immediate appeal but saw “no reason why, after final resolution of the underlying ease ... a sanctioned attorney should be unable to appeal the order imposing sanctions.” Ibid.
The Federal Courts of Appeals disagree over whether an order of Rule 37(a) sanctions against an attorney is immediately appealable under §1291. Compare, e.g., Eastern Maico Distributors, Inc. v. Maico-Fahrzeugfabrik, G.m.b.h., 658 F. 2d 944, 946-951 (CA3 1981) (order not immediately appealable), with Telluride Management Solutions, Inc. v. Telluride Investment Group, 55 F. 3d 463, 465 (CA9 1995) (order immediately appealable). We granted a writ of cer-tiorari, limited to this question, 525 U. S. 1098 (1999), and now affirm.
II
Section 1291 of the Judicial Code generally vests courts of appeals with jurisdiction over appeals from “final decisions” of the district courts. It descends from the Judiciary Act of 1789, where “the First Congress established the principle that only ‘final judgments and decrees’ of the federal district courts may be reviewed on appeal.” Midland Asphalt Corp. v. United States, 489 U. S. 794, 798 (1989) (quoting 1 Stat. 84); see generally Crick, The Final Judgment as a Basis for Appeal, 41 Yale L. J. 589, 548-551 (1932) (discussing history of final judgment rule in the United States). In accord with this historical understanding, we have repeatedly interpreted § 1291 to mean that an appeal ordinarily will not lie until after final judgment has been entered in a case. See, e. g., Quackenbush v. Allstate Ins. Co., 517 U. S. 706, 712 (1996); Digital Equipment Corp. v. Desktop Direct, Inc., 511 U. S. 863, 867 (1994); Richardson-Merrell Inc. v. Roller, 472 U. S. 424, 430 (1985). As we explained in Firestone Tire & Rubber Co. v. Risjord, 449 U. S. 368 (1981), the final judgment rule serves several salutary purposes:
“It emphasizes the deference that appellate courts owe to the trial judge as the individual initially called upon to decide the many questions of law and fact that occur in the course of a trial. Permitting piecemeal appeals would undermine the independence of the district judge, as well as the special role that individual plays in our judicial system. In addition, the rule is in accordance with the sensible policy of avoid[ing] the obstruction to just claims that would come from permitting the harassment and cost of a succession of separate appeals from the various rulings to which a litigation may give rise, from its initiation to entry of judgment. The rule also serves the important purpose of promoting efficient judicial administration.” Id., at 374 (citations and internal quotation marks omitted).
Consistent with these purposes, we have held that a decision is not final, ordinarily, unless it “ ‘ends the litigation on the merits and leaves nothing for the court to do but execute the judgment.’ ” Van Cauwenberghe v. Biard, 486 U. S. 517, 521-522 (1988) (quoting Catlin v. United States, 324 U. S. 229, 233 (1945)).
The Rule 37 sanction imposed on petitioner neither ended the litigation nor left the court only to execute its judgment. Thus, it ordinarily would not be considered a final decision under § 1291. See, e. g., Midland Asphalt Corp., supra, at 798; Richardson-Merrell, supra, at 430. However, we have interpreted the term “final decision” in § 1291 to permit jurisdiction over appeals from a small category of orders that do not terminate the litigation. E. g., Quackenbush, supra, at 711-715; Puerto Rico Aqueduct and Sewer Authority v. Metcalf & Eddy, Inc., 506 U. S. 139, 142-147 (1993); Mitchell v. Forsyth, 472 U. S. 511, 524-530 (1985); Cohen, supra, at 545-547. “That small category includes only decisions that are conclusive, that resolve important questions separate from the merits, and that are effectively unreviewable on appeal from the final judgment in the underlying action.” Swint, supra, at 42.
Respondent conceded that the sanctions order was conclusive, Brief in Opposition 11, so at least one of the collateral order doctrine’s conditions is presumed to have been satisfied. We do not think, however, that appellate review of a sanctions order can remain completely separate from the merits. See Van Cauwenberghe, supra, at 527-530; Coopers & Lybrand v. Livesay, 437 U. S. 463, 469 (1978). In Van Cauwenberghe, for example, we held that the denial of a motion to dismiss on the ground of forum non conveniens was not a final decision. We reasoned that consideration of the factors underlying that decision such as “the relative ease of access to sources of proof” and “the availability of witnesses” required trial courts to “scrutinize the substance of the dispute between the parties to evaluate what proof is required, and determine whether the pieces of evidence cited by the parties are critical, or even relevant, to the plaintiff’s cause of action and to any potential defenses to the action.” 486 U. S., at 528. Similarly, in Coopers & Lybrand, we held that a determination that an action may not be maintained as a class action also was not a final decision, noting that such a determination was enmeshed in the legal and factual aspects of the ease. 437 U. S., at 469.
Much like the orders at issue in Van Cauwenberghe and Coopers & Lybrand, a Rule 37(a) sanctions order often will be inextricably intertwined with the merits of the action. An evaluation of the appropriateness of sanctions may require the reviewing court to inquire into the importance of the information sought or the adequacy or truthfulness of a response. See, e. g., Thomas E. Hoar, Inc. v. Sara Lee Corp., 882 F. 2d 682, 687 (CA2 1989) (adequacy of responses); Outley v. New York, 837 F. 2d 587, 590-591 (CA2 1988) (importance of incomplete answers to interrogatories); Evanson v. Union Oil Company of Cal., 619 F. 2d 72, 74 (Temp. Emerg. Ct. App. 1980) (truthfulness of responses). Some of the sanctions in this case were based on the fact that petitioner provided partial responses and objections to some of the defendants’ discovery requests. To evaluate whether those sanctions were appropriate, an appellate court would have to assess the completeness of petitioner’s responses. See Fed. Rule Civ. Proc. 37(a)(3) (“For purposes of this subdivision an evasive or incomplete disclosure, answer, or response is to be treated as a failure to disclose, answer, or respond”). Such an inquiry would differ only marginally from an inquiry into the merits and counsels against application of the collateral order doctrine. Perhaps not every discovery sanction will be inextricably intertwined with the merits, but we have consistently eschewed a case-by-case approach to deciding whether an order is sufficiently collateral. See, e. g., Digital Equipment Corp., 511 U. S., at 868; Richardson-Merrell, 472 U. S., at 439.
Even if the merits were completely divorced from the sanctions issue, the collateral order doctrine requires that the order be effectively unreviewable on appeal from a final judgment. Petitioner claims that this is the ease. In support, she relies on a line of decisions holding that one who is not a party to a judgment generally may not appeal from it. See, e. g., Karcher v. May, 484 U. S. 72, 77 (1987). She also posits that contempt orders imposed on witnesses who disobey discovery orders are immediately appealable and argues that the sanctions order in this ease should be treated no differently.
Petitioner’s argument suffers from at least two flaws. It ignores the identity of interests between the attorney and client. Unlike witnesses, whose interests may differ substantially from the parties’, attorneys assume an ethical obligation to serve their clients’ interests. Evans v. Jeff D., 475 U. S. 717, 728 (1986). This obligation remains even where the attorney might have a personal interest in seeking vindication from the sanctions order. See Richardson-Merrell, supra, at 434-435. In Richardson-Merrell, we held that an order disqualifying an attorney was not an immediately appealable final decision. 472 U. S., at 429-440; see also Flanagan v. United States, 465 U. S. 259, 263-269 (1984) (order disqualifying attorney in criminal case not a “final decision” under § 1291). We explained that “[a]n attorney who is disqualified for misconduct may well have a personal interest in pursuing an immediate appeal, an interest which need not coincide with the interests of the client. As a matter of professional ethics, however, the decision to appeal should turn entirely on the client's interest.” Richardson-Merrell, supra, at 435 (citing ABA Model Rules of Professional Conduct 1.7(b), 2.1 (1985)). This principle has the same force when an order of discovery sanctions is imposed on the attorney alone. See In re Coordinated Pretrial Proceedings in Petroleum Products Antitrust Litigation, 747 F. 2d 1303, 1305 (CA9 1984) (Kennedy, J.). The effective congruence of interests between clients and attorneys counsels against treating attorneys like other nonparties for purposes of appeal. Cf. United States Catholic Conference v. Abortion Rights Mobilization, Inc., 487 U. S. 72, 78 (1988).
Petitioner's argument also overlooks the significant differences between a finding of contempt and a Rule 37(a) sanctions order. “Civil contempt is designed to force the con-temnor to comply with an order of the court.” Willy v. Coastal Corp., 503 U. S. 131, 139 (1992). In contrast, a Rule 37(a) sanctions order lacks any prospective effect and is not designed to compel compliance. Judge Adams captured the essential distinction between the two types of orders when he noted that an order such as civil contempt
“is not simply to deter harassment and delay, but to effect some discovery conduct. A non-party’s interest in resisting a discovery order is immediate and usually separate from the parties’ interests in delay. Before final judgment is reached, the non-party either will have surrendered the materials sought or will have suffered incarceration or steadily mounting fines imposed to compel the discovery. If the discovery is held unwarranted on appeal only after the case is resolved, the non-party’s injury may not be possible to repair. Under Rule 37(a), no similar situation exists. The objective of the Rule is the prevention of delay and costs to other litigants caused by the filing of groundless motions. An attorney sanctioned for such conduct by and large suffers no inordinate injury from a deferral of appellate consideration of the sanction. He need not in the meantime surrender any rights or suffer undue coercion.” Eastern Maico Distributors, 658 F. 2d, at 949-950 (citation and footnote omitted).
To permit an immediate appeal from such a sanctions order would undermine the very purposes of Rule 87(a), which was designed to protect courts and opposing parties from delaying or harassing tactics during the discovery process. Immediate appeals of such orders would undermine trial judges’ discretion to structure a sanction in the most effective manner. They might choose not to sanction an attorney, despite abusive conduct, in order to avoid further delays in their proceedings. Not only would such an approach ignore the deference owed by appellate courts to trial judges charged with managing the discovery process, see Firestone Tire & Rubber Co., 449 U. S., at 374, it also could forestall resolution of the case as each new sanction would give rise to a new appeal. The result might well be the very sorts of piecemeal appeals and concomitant delays that the final judgment rule was designed to prevent.
Petitioner finally argues that, even if an attorney ordinarily may not immediately appeal a sanction order, special considerations apply when the attorney no longer represents a party in the case. Like the Sixth Circuit, we do not think that the appealability of a Rule 37 sanction imposed on an attorney should turn on the attorney’s continued participation. Such a rule could not be easily administered. For example, it may be unclear precisely when representation terminates, and questions likely would arise over when the 30-day period for appeal would begin to run under Federal Rule of Appellate Procedure 4. The rule also could be subject to abuse if attorneys and clients strategically terminated their representation in order to trigger a right to appeal with a view to delaying the proceedings in the underlying ease. While we recognize that our application of the final judgment rule in this setting may require nonparticipating attorneys to monitor the progress of the litigation after their work has ended, the efficiency interests served by limiting immediate appeals far outweigh any nominal monitoring costs borne by attorneys. For these reasons, an attorney’s continued participation in a case does not affect whether a sanctions order is "final” for purposes of § 1291.
We candidly recognize the hardship that a sanctions order may sometimes impose on an attorney. Should these hardships be deemed to outweigh the desirability of restricting appeals to “final decisions,” solutions other than an expansive interpretation of § 1291’s “final decision” requirement remain available. Congress may amend the Judicial Code to provide explicitly for immediate appellate review of such orders. See, e. g., 28 U. S. C. §§ 1292(a)(1)-(3). Recent amendments to the Judicial Code also have authorized this Court to prescribe rules providing for the immediate appeal of certain orders, see §§ 1292(e), 2072(c), and “Congress’ designation of the rulemaking process as the way to define or refine when a district court ruling is ‘final’ and when an interlocutory order is appealable warrants the Judiciary’s full respect.” Swint, 514 U. S., at 48 (footnote omitted). Finally, in a particular case, a district court can reduce any hardship by reserving until the end of the trial decisions such as whether to impose the sanction, how great a sanction to impose, or when to order collection.
* * *
For the foregoing reasons, we conclude that a sanctions order imposed on an attorney is not a “final decision” under § 1291 and, therefore, affirm the judgment of the Court of Appeals.
It is so ordered.
Starcher died sometime after he initiated the suit, and Casey’s sister became the new administrator of Casey’s estate.
He also ordered petitioner to pay $2,432 as costs and fees incurred by other defendants in the case. Those sanctions were later satisfied pursuant to a settlement agreement and are not at issue in this appeal.
Petitioner also sought review of the Sixth Circuit’s decision to apply its appealability ruling to petitioner rather than to apply that ruling only prospectively. We declined to review this question.
Most of our collateral order decisions have considered whether an order directed at a party to the litigation is immediately appealable. E. g., Coopers & Lybrand v. Livesay, 437 U. S. 463, 468-469 (1978). Petitioner, of course, was an attorney representing the plaintiff in the case. It is nevertheless clear that a decision does not automatically become final merely because it is directed at someone other than a plaintiff or defendant. See Richardson-Merrell Inc. v. Koller, 472 U. S. 424, 434-435 (1985) (rejecting, as outside collateral order doctrine, immediate appeal of order disqualiiying counsel). For example, we have repeatedly held that a witness subject to a discovery order, but not held in contempt, generally may not appeal the order. See, e. g., United States Catholic Conference v. Abortion Rights Mobilization, Inc., 487 U.S. 72, 76 (1988); United States v. Ryan, 402 U. S. 530, 533-534 (1971); Cobbledick v. United States, 309 U. S. 323, 327-330 (1940); Webster Coal & Coke Co. v. Cassatt, 207 U. S. 181, 186-187 (1907); Alexander v. United States, 201 U. S. 117, 121 (1906).
In 1970, the prerequisites for imposing sanctions were redesigned “to encourage judges to be more alert to abuses occurring in the discovery process.” Advisory Committee’s Notes on Fed. Rule Civ. Proc. 37(a)(4), 28 U. S. C., p. 748. Before 1970, the Rule required a court, after granting a motion to compel discovery but before imposing sanctions, to find the losing party to have acted without substantial justification. At that time, courts rarely exercised this authority to impose sanctions. See W. Glaser, Pretrial Discovery and the Adversary System 154 (1968). While the amended Rule retained the substantial justification requirement, the placement of the requirement was changed so that the Rule provided that the district court, upon granting the motion to compel, “shall” impose the sanction unless it found that the losing party’s conduct was “substantially justified.” The change in placement signaled a shift in presumption about the appropriateness of sanctions for discovery abuses. See Federal Discovery Rules: Effects of the 1970 Amendments, 8 Colum. J. L. & Soc. Probs. 623, 642 (1972) (“The Advisory Committee reversed the presumption in Rule 37(a)(4) in order to encourage the awarding of expenses and fees wherever applicable”).
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer:
|
I
|
sc_issuearea
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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.
Brinegar was convicted of importing intoxicating liquor into Oklahoma from Missouri in violation of the federal statute which forbids such importation contrary to the laws of any state. His conviction was based in part on the use in evidence against him of liquor seized from his automobile in the course of the alleged unlawful importation.
Prior to the trial Brinegar moved to suppress this evidence as having been secured through an unlawful search and seizure. The motion was denied, as was a renewal of the objection at the trial.
The Court of Appeals affirmed the conviction, 165 F. 2d 512, and certiorari was sought solely on the ground that the search and seizure contravened the Fourth Amendment and therefore the use of the liquor in evidence vitiated the conviction. We granted the writ to determine this question. 333 U. S. 841.
The facts are substantially undisputed. At about six o’clock on the evening of March 3, 1947, Malsed, an investigator of the Alcohol Tax Unit, and Creehan, a special investigator, were parked in a car beside a highway near the Quapaw Bridge in northeastern Oklahoma. The point was about five miles west of the Missouri-Oklahoma line. Brinegar drove past headed west in his Ford coupe. Malsed had arrested him about five months earlier for illegally transporting liquor; had seen him loading liquor into a car or truck in Joplin, Missouri, on at least two occasions during the preceding six months; and knew him to have a reputation for hauling liquor. As Brinegar passed, Malsed recognized both him and the Ford. He told Creehan, who was driving the officers’ car, that Brinegar was the driver of the passing car. Both agents later testified that the car, but not especially its rear end, appeared to be “heavily loaded” and “weighted with something.” Brinegar increased his speed as he passed the officers. They gave chase. After pursuing him for about a mile at top speed, they gained on him as his car skidded on a curve, sounded their siren, overtook him, and crowded his car to the side of the road by pulling across in front of it. The highway was one leading from Joplin, Missouri, toward Vinita, Oklahoma, Brinegar’s home.
As the agents got out of their car and walked back toward petitioner, Malsed said, “Hello, Brinegar, how much liquor have you got in the car?” or “How much liquor have you got in the car this time?” Petitioner replied, “Not too much,” or “Not so much.” After further questioning he admitted that he had twelve cases in the car. Malsed testified that one case, which was on the front seat, was visible from outside the car, but petitioner testified that it was covered by a lap robe. Twelve more cases were found under and behind the front seat. The agents then placed Brinegar under arrest and seized the liquor.
The district judge, after a hearing on the motion to suppress at which the facts stated above appeared in evidence, was of the opinion that “the mere fact that the agents knew that this defendant was engaged in hauling whiskey, even coupled with the statement that the car appeared to be weighted, would not be probable cause for the search of this car.” Therefore, he thought, there was no probable cause when the agents began the chase. He held, however, that the voluntary admission made by petitioner after his car had been stopped constituted probable cause for a search, regardless of the legality of the arrest and detention, and that therefore the evidence was admissible. At the trial, as has been said, the court overruled petitioner’s renewal of the objection.
The Court of Appeals, one judge dissenting, took essentially the view held by the District Court. The dissenting judge thought that the search was unlawful and therefore statements made during its course could not justify the search.
The crucial question is whether there was probable cause for Brinegar’s arrest, in the light of prior adjudications on this problem, more particularly Carroll v. United States, 267 U. S. 132, which on its face most closely approximates the situation presented here.
The Carroll decision held that, under the Fourth Amendment, a valid search of a vehicle moving on a public highway may be had without a warrant, but only if probable cause for the search exists. The Court then went on to rule that the facts presented amounted to probable cause for the search of the automobile there involved. 267 U. S. 132,160.
In the Carroll case three federal prohibition agents and a state officer stopped and searched the defendants’ car on a highway leading from Detroit to Grand Rapids, Michigan, and seized a quantity of liquor discovered in the search. About three months before the search, the two defendants and another man called on two of the agents at an apartment in Grand Rapids and, unaware that they were dealing with federal agents, agreed to sell one of the agents three cases of liquor. Both agents noticed the Oldsmobile roadster in which the three men came to the apartment and its license number. Presumably because the official capacity of the proposed purchaser was suspected by the defendants, the liquor was never delivered.
About a week later the same two agents, while patrolling the road between Grand Rapids and Detroit on the lookout for violations of the National Prohibition Act, were passed by the defendants, who were proceeding in a direction from Grand Rapids toward Detroit in the same Oldsmobile roadster. The agents followed the defendants for some distance but lost trace of them. Still later, on the occasion of the search, while the officers were patrolling the same highway, they met and passed the defendants, who were in the same roadster, going in a direction from Detroit toward Grand Rapids. Recognizing the defendants, the agents turned around, pursued them, stopped them about sixteen miles outside Grand Rapids, searched their car and seized the liquor it carried.
This Court ruled that the information held by the agents, together with the judicially noticed fact that Detroit was “one of the most active centers for introducing illegally into this country spirituous liquors for distribution into the interior” (267 U. S. at 160), constituted probable cause for the search.
I.
Obviously the basic facts held to constitute probable cause in the Carroll case were very similar to the basic facts here. In each case the search was of an automobile moving on a public highway and was made without a warrant by federal officers charged with enforcing federal statutes outlawing the transportation of intoxicating liquors (except under conditions not complied with). In each instance the officers were patrolling the highway in the discharge of their duty. And in each before stopping the car or starting to pursue it they recognized both the driver and the car, from recent personal contact and observation, as having been lately engaged in illicit liquor dealings. Finally, each driver was proceeding in his identified car in a direction from a known source of liquor supply toward a probable illegal market, under circumstances indicating no other probable purpose than to carry on his illegal adventure.
These are the ultimate facts. Necessarily the concrete, subordinate facts on which they were grounded in the two cases differed somewhat in detail. The more important of the variations in details of the proof are as follows:
In Carroll the agent’s knowledge of the primary and ultimate fact that the accused were engaged in liquor running was derived from the defendants’ offer to sell liquor to the agents some three months prior to the search, while here that knowledge was derived largely from Malsed’s personal observation, reinforced by hearsay; the officers when they bargained for the liquor in Carroll saw the number of the defendants’ car, whereas no such fact is shown in this record; and in Carroll the Court took judicial notice that Detroit was on the international boundary and an active center for illegal importation of spirituous liquors for distribution into the interior, while in this case the facts that Joplin, Missouri, was a ready source of supply for liquor and Oklahoma a place of likely illegal market were known to the agent Malsed from his personal observation and experience as well as from facts of common knowledge.
Treating first the two latter and less important matters, in view of the positive and undisputed evidence concerning Malsed’s identification of Brinegar’s Ford, we think no significance whatever attaches, for purposes of distinguishing the cases, to the fact that in the Carroll case the officers saw and recalled the license number of the offending car while this record discloses no like recollection.
Likewise it is impossible to distinguish the Carroll case with reference to the proof relating to the source of supply, the place of probable destination and illegal market, and consequently the probability that the known liquor operators were using the connecting highway for the purposes of their unlawful business.
There were of course some legal as well as some factual differences in the two situations. Under the statute in review in Carroll the whole nation was legally dry. Not only the manufacture, but the importation, transportation and sale of intoxicating liquors were prohibited throughout the country. Under the statute now in question only the importation of such liquors contrary to the law of the state into which they are brought and in which they were seized is forbidden.
In the Carroll case the Court judicially noticed that Detroit was located on the international boundary with Canada and had become an active center for illegally bringing liquor into the country for distribution into the interior. This was pertinent in connection with other circumstances, for showing the probability under which the agents acted that use of the highway connecting Detroit and Grand Rapids by the known operators in liquor was for the purpose of carrying on their unlawful traffic.
In this case, the record shows that Brinegar had used Joplin, Missouri, to Malsed’s personal knowledge derived from direct observation, not merely from hearsay as seems to be suggested, as a source of supply on other occasions within the preceding six months. It also discloses that Brinegar’s home was in Vinita, Oklahoma, and that Brinegar when apprehended was traveling in a direction leading from Joplin to Vinita, at a point about four or five miles west of the Missouri-Oklahoma line.
Joplin, like Detroit in the Carroll case, was a ready source of supply. But unlike Detroit it was not an illegal source. So far as appears, Brinegar’s purchases there were entirely legal. And so, we may assume for present purposes, was his transportation of the liquor in Missouri, until he reached and crossed the state line into Oklahoma.
This difference, however, is insubstantial. For the important thing here is not whether Joplin was an illegal source of supply; it is rather that Joplin was a ready, convenient and probable one for persons disposed to violate the Oklahoma and federal statutes. That fact was demonstrated fully, not only by the geographic facts, but by Malsed’s direct and undisputed testimony of his personal observation of Brinegar’s use of liquor-dispensing establishments in Joplin for procuring his whiskey. Such direct evidence was lacking in Carroll as to Detroit, and for that reason the Court resorted to judicial notice of the commonly known facts to supply that deficiency. Malsed’s direct testimony, based on his personal observation, dispensed with that necessity in this case.
The situation relating to the probable place of market, as bearing on the probability of unlawful importation, is somewhat different. Broadly on the facts this may well have been taken to be the State of Oklahoma as a whole or its populous northeastern region. From the facts of record we know, as the agents knew, that Oklahoma was a “dry” state. At the time of the search, its law forbade the importation of intoxicating liquors from other states, except under a permit not generally procurable and which there is no pretense Brinegar had secured or attempted to secure. This fact, taken in connection with the known “wet” status of Missouri and the location of Joplin close to the Oklahoma line, affords a very natural situation for persons inclined to violate the Oklahoma and federal statutes to ply their trade. The proof therefore concerning the source of supply, the place of probable destination and illegal market, and hence the probability that Brinegar was using the highway for the forbidden transportation, was certainly no less strong than the showing in these respects in the Carroll case.
Finally, as for the most important potential distinction, namely, that concerning the primary and ultimate fact that the petitioner was engaging in liquor running, Malsed’s personal observation of Brinegar’s recent activities established that he was so engaged quite as effectively as did the agent’s prior bargaining with the defendants in the Carroll case. He saw Brinegar loading liquor, in larger quantities than would be normal for personal consumption, into a car or a truck in Joplin on other occasions during the six months prior to the search. He saw the car Brinegar was using in this case in use by him at least once in Joplin within that period and followed it. And several months prior to the search he had arrested Brine-gar for unlawful transportation of liquor and this arrest had resulted in an indictment which was pending at the time of this trial. Moreover Malsed instantly recognized Brinegar’s Ford coupe and Brinegar as the driver when he passed the parked police car. And at that time Brinegar was moving in a direction from Joplin toward Vinita only a short distance inside Oklahoma from the state line.
All these facts are undisputed. Wholly apart from Malsed’s knowledge that Brinegar bore the general reputation of being engaged in liquor running, they constitute positive and convincing evidence that Brinegar was engaged in that activity, no less convincing than the evidence in Carroll that the defendants had offered to sell liquor to the officers. The evidence here is undisputed, is admissible on the issue of probable cause, and clearly establishes that the agent had good ground for believing that Brinegar was engaged regularly throughout the period in illicit liquor running and dealing.
Notwithstanding the variations in detail, therefore, we think the proof in this case furnishes support quite as strong as that made in the Carroll case, indeed stronger in some respects, to sustain the ultimate facts there held in the aggregate to constitute probable cause for a search identical in all substantial and material respects with the one made here. Nothing in the variations of detail affords a substantial basis for undermining here any of the ultimate facts held to be sufficient in Carroll or for distinguishing the cases. Each of the ultimate facts found in Carroll to constitute probable cause, when taken together, is present in this case and is fully substantiated by the proof. Accordingly the Carroll decision must be taken to control this situation, unless it is now to be overruled.
This is true, although the trial court and the Court of Appeals, including the dissenting judge, were of the opinion, as stated by the latter court, “that the facts within the knowledge of the investigators and of which they had reasonable trustworthy information prior to the time the incriminating statements were made by Brinegar were not sufficient to lead a reasonably discreet and prudent man to believe that intoxicating liquor was being transported in the coupe, and did not constitute probable cause for a search.” 165 F. 2d at 514. If, as we think, the Carroll case is indistinguishable from this one on the material facts, and that decision is to continue in force, it necessarily follows that the quoted “finding” or “conclusion” was erroneous. In the absence of any significant difference in the facts, it cannot be that the Fourth Amendment’s incidence turns on whether different trial judges draw general conclusions that the facts are sufficient or insufficient to constitute probable cause.
II.
It remains to consider one further asserted difference between this case and the Carroll case, having to do with the admissibility or inadmissibility at the trial of the evidence on which the agents acted in making the search, particularly the evidence concerning their knowledge that the defendants were engaging in illicit liquor running.
It is argued first that this case can be distinguished from Carroll because Malsed’s knowledge of this primary and ultimate fact rested wholly or largely on surmise or hearsay. This argument is disproved by the facts of record which we have set forth above. There was hearsay, but there was much more. Indeed, as we have emphasized, the facts derived from Malsed’s personal observations were sufficient in themselves, without the hearsay concerning general reputation, to sustain his conclusion concerning the illegal character of Brinegar’s operations.
But a further distinction based upon inadmissibility of the evidence is asserted. It is said that, while in Carroll the defendants’ offer to sell .liquor to the agents was admissible and was admitted at the trial, here the evidence that Malsed had arrested Brinegar for illegal transportation of liquor several months before the search, though admitted on the hearing on the motion to suppress, was excluded at the trial. Cf. Michelson v. United States, 335 U. S. 469. The inference seems to be that the evidence concerning the prior arrest should not have been received at the hearing on the motion. In any event, the conclusion is drawn that the factors relating to inadmissibility of the evidence here, for purposes of proving guilt at the trial, deprive the evidence as a whole of sufficiency to show probable cause for the search and therefore distinguish this case from the Carroll case.
Apart from its failure to take account of the facts disclosed by Malsed’s direct and personal observation, even if his testimony concerning the prior arrest were excluded, the so-called distinction places a wholly unwarranted emphasis upon the criterion of admissibility in evidence, to prove the accused’s guilt, of the facts relied upon to show probable cause. That emphasis, we think, goes much too far in confusing and disregarding the difference between what is required to prove guilt in a criminal case and what is required to show probable cause for arrest or search. It approaches requiring (if it does not in practical effect require) proof sufficient to establish guilt in order to substantiate the existence of probable cause. There is a large difference between the two things to be proved, as well as between the tribunals which determine them, and therefore a like difference in the quanta and modes of proof required to establish them.
For a variety of reasons relating not only to probative value and trustworthiness, but also to possible prejudicial effect upon a trial jury and the absence of opportunity for cross-examination, the generally accepted rules of evidence throw many exclusionary protections about one who is charged with and standing trial for crime. Much evidence of real and substantial probative value goes out on considerations irrelevant to its probative weight but relevant to possible misunderstanding or misuse by the jury.
Thus, in this case, the trial court properly excluded from the record at the trial, cf. Michelson v. United States, 335 U. S. 469, Malsed’s testimony that he had arrested Brinegar several months earlier for illegal transportation of liquor and that the resulting indictment was pending in another court at the time of the trial of this case. This certainly was not done on the basis that the testimony concerning arrest, or perhaps even the indictment, was surmise or hearsay or that it was without probative value. Yet the same court admitted the testimony at the hearing on the motion to suppress the evidence seized in the search, where the issue was not guilt but probable cause and was determined by the court without a jury.
The court’s rulings, one admitting, the other excluding the identical testimony, were neither inconsistent nor improper. They illustrate the difference in standards and latitude allowed in passing upon the distinct issues of probable cause and guilt. Guilt in a criminal case must be proved beyond a reasonable doubt and by evidence confined to that which long experience in the common-law tradition, to some extent embodied in the Constitution, has crystallized into rules of evidence consistent with that standard. These rules are historically grounded rights of our system, developed to safeguard men from dubious and unjust convictions, with resulting forfeitures of life, liberty and property.
However, if those standards were to be made applicable in determining probable cause for an arrest or for search and seizure, more especially in cases such as this involving moving vehicles used in the commission of crime, few indeed would be the situations in which an officer, charged with protecting the public interest by enforcing the law, could take effective action toward that end. Those standards have seldom been so applied.
In dealing with probable cause, however, as the very name implies, we deal with probabilities. These are not technical; they are the factual and practical considerations of everyday life on which reasonable and prudent men, not legal technicians, act. The standard of proof is accordingly correlative to what must be proved.
“The substance of all the definitions” of probable cause “is a reasonable ground for belief of guilt.” McCarthy v. De Armit, 99 Pa. St. 63, 69, quoted with approval in the Carroll opinion. 267 U. S. at 161. And this “means less than evidence which would justify condemnation” or conviction, as Marshall, C. J., said for the Court more than a century ago in Locke v. United States, 7 Cranch 339, 348. Since Marshall’s time, at any rate, it has come to mean more than bare suspicion: Probable cause exists where “the facts and circumstances within their [the officers’] knowledge and of which they had reasonably trustworthy information [are] sufficient in themselves to warrant a man of reasonable caution in the belief that” an offense has been or is being committed. Carroll v. United States, 267 U. S. 132, 162.
These long-prevailing standards seek to safeguard citizens from rash and unreasonable interferences with privacy and from unfounded charges of crime. They also seek to give fair leeway for enforcing the law in the community’s protection. Because many situations which confront officers in the course of executing their duties are more or less ambiguous, room must be allowed for some mistakes on their part. But the mistakes must be those of reasonable men, acting on facts leading sensibly to their conclusions of probability. The rule of probable cause is a practical, nontechnical conception affording the best compromise that has been found for accommodating these often opposing interests. Requiring more would unduly hamper law enforcement. To allow less would be to leave law-abiding citizens at the mercy of the officers’ whim or caprice.
The troublesome line posed by the facts in the Carroll case and this case is one between mere suspicion and probable cause. That line necessarily must be drawn by an act of judgment formed in the light of the particular situation and with account taken of all the circumstances. No problem of searching the home or any other place of privacy was presented either in Carroll or here. Both cases involve freedom to use public highways in swiftly moving vehicles for dealing in contraband, and to be unmolested by investigation and search in those movements. In such a case the citizen who has given no good cause for believing he is engaged in that sort of activity is entitled to proceed on his way without interference. But one who recently and repeatedly has given substantial ground for believing that he is engaging in the forbidden transportation in the area of his usual operations has no such immunity, if the officer who intercepts him in that region knows that fact at the time he makes the interception and the circumstances under which it is made are not such as to indicate the suspect is going about legitimate affairs.
This does not mean, as seems to be assumed, that every traveler along the public highways may be stopped and searched at the officers’ whim., caprice or mere suspicion. The question presented in the Carroll case lay on the border between suspicion and probable cause. But the Court carefully considered that problem and resolved it by concluding that the facts within the officers’ knowledge when they intercepted the Carroll defendants amounted to more than mere suspicion and constituted probable cause for their action. We cannot say this conclusion was wrong, or was so lacking in reason and consistency with the Fourth Amendment’s purposes that it should now be overridden. Nor, as we have said, can we find in the present facts any substantial basis for distinguishing this case from the Carroll case.
Accordingly the judgment is
Affirmed.
Section 3 (a) of the Liquor Enforcement Act of 1936, 49 Stat. 1928, 27 U. S, C. §223, provides: “Whoever shall import, bring, or transport any intoxicating liquor into any State in which all sales (except for scientific, sacramental, medicinal, or mechanical purposes) of intoxicating liquor containing more than 4 per centum of alcohol by volume are prohibited, otherwise than in the course of continuous interstate transportation through such State, or attempt so to do, or assist in so doing, shall: (1) If such liquor is not accompanied by such permit or permits, license or licenses therefor as are now or hereafter required by the laws of such State; or (2) if all importation, bringing, or transportation of intoxicating liquor into such State is prohibited by the laws thereof; be guilty of a misdemeanor and shall be fined not more than $1,000 or imprisoned not more than one year, or both.” Okla. Sess. Laws, 1939, c. 16, Art. 1, § 1, in effect at the time of petitioner’s arrest, made it unlawful to import or cause to be imported into that state, without a permit, any intoxicating liquor containing more than 4 per cent of alcohol by volume.
“The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.” U. S. Const. Amend. IV.
Neither the opinion of the Court of Appeals nor the unpublished opinion of the trial court refers to the Carroll case.
“The Fourth Amendment does not denounce all searches or seizures, but only such as are unreasonable. ... On reason and authority the true rule is that if the search and seizure without a warrant are made upon probable cause, that is, upon a belief, reasonably arising out of circumstances known to the seizing officer, that an automobile or other vehicle contains that which by law is subject to seizure and destruction, the search and seizure are valid.” Carroll v. United States, 267 U. S. 132, 147, 149.
The substantive offense charged in Carroll was violation of the National Prohibition Act, 41 Stat. 305; here, violation of the Liquor Enforcement Act of 1936.
In this case identification of the car as having been previously used by Brinegar in his liquor-running activities was inferential, although identification of its use by him in Joplin, Mo., his source of supply, was direct and undisputed.
The Government also stresses the fact, not present in the Carroll case, of flight by Brinegar after he realized he was being pursued. We find it is unnecessary to take account of this factor in deciding this case. As to the factor of flight, see Husty v. United States, 282 U. S. 694, 700-701; Talley v. United States, 159 F. 2d 703; United States v. Heitner, 149 F. 2d 105, 107; Jones v. United States, 131 F. 2d 539, 541; Levine v. United States, 138 F. 2d 627, 629.
It was unlawful to import into Oklahoma, without a permit, any intoxicating liquor, as defined by the laws of that state, containing more than four per cent of alcohol by volume. See note 1 supra. Manufacture, sale, furnishing or transportation of intoxicating liquor was forbidden in Oklahoma. 37 Okla. Stat. § 1 (1941).
Indeed the showing here was stronger because there was no necessity, as there was in the Carroll case, for resorting to judicial notice to establish either the probable source of supply or that it was illegal. On the present record judicial notice is hardly needed to give us cognizance of the differing laws of Missouri and Oklahoma, or of Joplin’s proximity to the state line, and its ready convenience to one living as near by as Vinita who might be disposed to use it as a base of supply for importing liquor into Oklahoma in violation of the state and federal statutes.
As has been noted above, the Carroll case is neither cited nor referred to in any of the opinions filed in the trial court and the Court of Appeals. Nor is there anything in the record before us showing that the Carroll decision was considered in any of the rulings made in the hearing on the motion to suppress, at the trial, or in the Court of Appeals.
The court however thought that, even with the fact of the arrest before it, the evidence was insufficient to show probable cause at the time Brinegar passed the police car.
The inappropriateness of applying the rules of evidence as a criterion to determine probable cause is apparent in the case of an application for a warrant before a magistrate, the context in which the issue of probable cause most frequently arises. The ordinary rules of evidence are generally not applied in ex parte proceedings, “partly because there is no opponent to invoke them, partly because the judge’s determination is usually discretionary, partly because it is seldom final, but mainly because the system of Evidence rules was devised for the special control of trials by jury.” 1 Wigmore, Evidence (3d ed., 1940) 19. See also Note, 46 Harv. L. Rev. 1307, 1310-1311.
But see, e. g., Grau v. United States, 287 U. S. 124, 128, in which it was said by way of dictum that “A search warrant may issue only upon evidence which would be competent in the trial of the offense before a jury (Giles v. United States, 284 Fed. 208; Wagner v. United States, 8 F. (2d) 581 . . . .” For this proposition there was no authority in the decisions of this Court. It was stated in a case in which the evidence adduced to prove probable cause was not incompetent, but was insufficient to support the inference necessary to the existence of probable cause. The statement has not been repeated by this Court.
The Wagner case relies solely upon Giles, the other case cited in Grau, and holds a warrant bad which issued on the basis of “hearsay and conclusions.” The Grau dictum occasionally has been applied or stated as dictum by the courts of appeals and district courts: Simmons v. United States, 18 F. 2d 85, 88; Worthington v. United States, 166 F. 2d 557, 564-565; see also Reeve v. Howe, 33 F. Supp. 619, 622; United States v. Novero, 58 F. Supp. 275, 279. Cf. Davis v. United States, 35 F. 2d 957. See Note, 46 Harv. L. Rev. 1307, 1310-1311, for a criticism of the Grau dictum. And see note 15, infra, and text.
Marshall’s full statement in Locke v. United States was: “It may be added, that the term ‘probable cause,’ according to its usual acceptation, means less than evidence which would justify condemnation ; and, in all cases of seizure, has a fixed and well known meaning. It imports a seizure made under circumstances which warrant suspicion.” 7 Cranch 339, 348.
To the same effect are: Husty v. United States, 282 U. S. 694, 700-701; Dumbra v. United States, 268 U. S. 435, 441; Steele v. United States No. 1, 267 U. S. 498, 504-505; Stacey v. Emery, 97 U. S. 642, 645.
The Carroll opinion also quotes with approval the following statement: “If the facts and circumstances before the officer are such as to warrant a man of prudence and caution in believing that the offense has been committed, it is sufficient.” P. 161. Ascription of the statement to Locke v. United States, 7 Cranch 339, appears to be an error in citation.
See the discussion of exceptions in the Carroll opinion, 267 U. S. 132, 149 ff.
“It would be intolerable and unreasonable if a prohibition agent were authorized to stop every automobile on the chance of finding liquor and thus subject all persons lawfully using the highways to the inconvenience and indignity of such a search. Travellers may be so stopped in crossing an international boundary because of national self protection reasonably requiring one entering the country to identify himself as entitled to come in, and his belongings as effects which may be lawfully brought in. But those lawfully within the country, entitled to use the public highways, have a right to free passage without interruption or search unless there is known to a competent official authorized to search, probable cause for believing that their vehicles are carrying contraband or illegal merchandise.” Carroll v. United States, 267 U. S. 132, 153-154.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
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.
These cases require us to determine the proper standard for evaluating claims for negligent infliction of emotional distress that are brought under the Federal Employers’ Liability Act. Because the standard adopted by the Court of Appeals is inconsistent with the principles embodied in the statute and with relevant common-law doctrine, we reverse the judgments below.
I
Respondents James Gottshall and Alan Carlisle each brought suit under the Federal Employers’ Liability Act (FELA), 35 Stat. 65, as amended, 45 U. S. C. §§ 51-60, against their former employer, petitioner Consolidated Rail Corporation (Conrail). We set forth the facts of each case in turn.
A
Gottshall was a member of a Conrail work crew assigned to replace a stretch of defective track on an extremely hot and humid day. The crew was under time pressure, and so the men were discouraged from taking scheduled breaks. They were, however, allowed to obtain water as needed. Two and one-half hours into the job, a worker named Richard Johns, a longtime friend of Gottshall, collapsed. Gottshall and several others rushed to help Johns, who was pale and sweating profusely. They were able to revive him by administering a cold compress. Michael Norvick, the crew supervisor, then ordered the men to stop assisting Johns and to return to work. Five minutes later, Gottshall again went to Johns’ aid after seeing his friend stand up and collapse. Realizing that Johns was having a heart attack, Gottshall began cardiopulmonary resuscitation. He continued the process for 40 minutes.
Meanwhile, Norvick attempted to summon assistance, but found that his radio was inoperative; unbeknownst to him, Conrail had temporarily taken the nearest base station off the air for repairs. Norvick drove off to get help, but by the time he returned with paramedics, Johns had died. The paramedics covered the body with a sheet, ordered that it remain undisturbed until the coroner could examine it, and directed the crew not to leave until the coroner had arrived. Norvick ordered the men back to work, within sight of Johns’ covered body. The coroner, who arrived several hours later, reported that Johns had died from a heart attack brought on by the combined factors of heat, humidity, and heavy exertion.
The entire experience left Gottshall extremely agitated and distraught. Over the next several days, during which he continued to work in hot and humid weather conditions, Gottshall began to feel ill. He became preoccupied with the events surrounding Johns’ death, and worried that he would die under similar circumstances. Shortly after Johns’ funeral, Gottshall was admitted to a psychiatric institution, where he was diagnosed as suffering from major depression and posttraumatic stress disorder. During the three weeks he spent at the institution, Gottshall experienced nausea, insomnia, cold sweats, and repetitive nightmares concerning Johns’ death. He lost a great deal of weight and suffered from suicidal preoccupations and anxiety. Gottshall has continued to receive psychological treatment since his discharge from the hospital.
Gottshall sued Conrail under FELA for negligent infliction of emotional distress. He alleged that Conrail’s negligence had created the circumstances under which he had been forced to observe and participate in the events surrounding Johns’ death. The District Court granted Conrail’s motion for summary judgment, holding that FELA did not provide a remedy for Gottshall’s emotional injuries.
A divided panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit reversed and remanded for trial. Gottshall v. Consolidated Rail Corp., 988 F. 2d 355 (1993). The court observed that most States recognize a common-law cause of action for negligent infliction of emotional distress, but limit recovery to certain classes of plaintiffs or categories of claims through the application of one or more tests. Id., at 361 (discussing “physical impact,” “zone of danger,” and “relative bystander” tests). The Third Circuit suggested that because “an emotional injury is easier to fake” than a physical injury, these tests have been “judicially developed to screen causes of action and send only the meritorious ones to juries.” Ibid.
The court below identified what it considered to be a fundamental tension between the restrictive attitude of the common law toward claims for negligent infliction of emotional distress on the one hand, and the general policy underlying FELA on the other. According to the Third Circuit, the common law places harsh and arbitrary limits on recovery for emotional injury, while FELA has consistently been interpreted to accord liberal relief to railroad workers injured through the negligence of their employers. Id., at 367-368 (discussing cases).
In the Third Circuit’s view, the only way to reconcile the apparent tension was to give preference to the liberal recovery policy embodied in FELA over the common law: “[D]octrinal common law distinctions are to be discarded when they bar recovery on meritorious FELA claims.” Id., at 369. Determining that judges could weed out fraudulent emotional injury claims through careful scrutiny of the facts, the court held that the facts alleged in support of a claim under FELA for negligent infliction of emotional distress must “provide a threshold assurance that there is a likelihood of genuine and serious emotional injury.” Id., at 371. The Third Circuit suggested that a court’s factual inquiry might include consideration of the plaintiff’s claim in light of the present state of the common law.
After reviewing the facts of Gottshall’s case, the Third Circuit concluded that Gottshall had made a sufficient showing that his injuries were genuine and severe. Id., at 374. Because his claim had met the court’s threshold “genuineness” test, the court next considered whether the claim adequately alleged the usual FELA elements of breach of a duty of care (that is, conduct unreasonable in the face of a foreseeable risk of harm), injury, and causation. The panel majority concluded that there were genuine issues of material fact concerning whether Gottshall’s injuries were foreseeable by Conrail, whether Conrail had acted unreasonably, and whether Conrail’s conduct had caused cognizable injury to Gottshall. The court therefore remanded for trial. Id., at 383.
Judge Roth dissented in part because she believed that there was no triable issue regarding breach of duty. She reasoned that “outside of the interruption of the communications link, the allegedly negligent conditions created by Conrail at the time of Johns’ collapse consisted in fact of the members of the work gang performing the negotiated duties of their jobs under conditions which may indeed have been difficult but which had occurred in the past and will probably occur again in the future.” Id., at 385. In her view, these negotiated duties could not support a finding of negligence. Judge Roth concluded that “Conrail could not reasonably have foreseen that its negligence in interrupting the work gang’s communication^] link might cause James Gottshall’s severe emotional reaction to the death of Richard Johns.” Id., at 386.
B
Respondent Carlisle began working as a train dispatcher for Conrail in 1976. In this position, he was responsible for ensuring the safe and timely movement of passengers and cargo. Aging railstock and outdated equipment made Car-lisle’s job difficult. Reductions in Conrail’s work force required Carlisle to take on additional duties and to work long hours. Carlisle and his fellow dispatchers frequently complained about safety concerns, the high level of stress in their jobs, and poor working conditions. In 1988, Carlisle became trainmaster in the South Philadelphia yards. With this promotion came added responsibilities that forced him to work erratic hours. Carlisle began to experience insomnia, headaches, depression, and weight loss. After an extended period during which he was required to work 12- to 15-hour shifts for weeks at a time, Carlisle suffered a nervous breakdown.
Carlisle sued Conrail under FELA for negligent infliction of emotional distress. He alleged that Conrail had breached its duty to provide him with a safe workplace by forcing him to work under unreasonably stressful conditions, and that this breach had resulted in foreseeable stress-related health problems. At trial, Carlisle called medical experts who testified that his breakdown and ensuing severe depression were caused at least in part by the strain of his job. The jury awarded Carlisle $386,500 in damages.
The Third Circuit affirmed, “uphold[ing] for the first time a claim under the FELA for negligent infliction of emotional distress arising from work-related stress.” Carlisle v. Con solidated Rail Corp., 990 F. 2d 90, 97-98 (1993). In rejecting Conrail’s argument that Carlisle had failed to make out a claim under FELA because he had not alleged any accident or physical injury or impact, the court noted that in Gottshall (decided the month before), it had “upheld recovery under the FELA for negligent infliction of emotional distress without proof of any physical impact.” 990 F. 2d, at 96. Restating its holding in Gottshall, the court advised that, when evaluating a claim under FELA for negligently inflicted emotional distress, district courts within the Third Circuit “should engage in an initial review of the factual indicia of the genuineness of a claim, taking into account broadly used common law standards, then should apply the traditional negligence elements of duty, foreseeability, breach, and causation in weighing the merits of that claim.” 990 F. 2d, at 98.
In the case before it, however, the court did not examine Carlisle’s suit in light of any of the various common-law tests for dealing with negligent infliction of emotional distress claims. Instead, it shifted its primary emphasis to the foreseeability of the alleged injury and held that “when it is reasonably foreseeable that extended exposure to dangerous and stressful working conditions will cause injury to the worker, the employer may be held to be liable under the FELA for the employee’s resulting injuries.” Id., at 97. The Third Circuit held that Carlisle had produced sufficient evidence that his injury had been foreseeable to Conrail. The court also found sufficient evidence that Conrail had breached its duty to provide Carlisle with a safe workplace by making his employment too demanding, and that this breach had caused Carlisle’s injury. Ibid.
Pursuant to this Court’s Rule 12.2, Conrail petitioned for review of the Third Circuit’s decisions in Gottshall and Car-lisle. We granted certiorari, 510 U. S. 912 (1993), to resolve a conflict among the Courts of Appeals concerning the threshold standard that must be met by plaintiffs bringing claims for negligent infliction of emotional distress under FELA.
II
In these cases, we address questions left unanswered in Atchison, T & S. F. R. Co. v. Buell, 480 U. S. 557 (1987). That case involved a FELA complaint filed by a railroad car-man who alleged that the intentional and negligent actions of his employer had caused him to suffer emotional injuries. We rejected the railroad’s contention that the FELA action should be barred because the conduct complained of was subject to arbitration under the terms of the Railway Labor Act, 44 Stat. 577, as amended, 45 U. S. C. § 151 et seq. See 480 U. S., at 564-567. Because the record was not fully developed, however, we were unable to reach the railroad’s alternative argument that purely emotional injury was not compensable under FELA. Today, we must resolve one of the questions reserved in Buell: whether recovery for negligent infliction of emotional distress is available under FELA. If we conclude that it is, we must consider the proper scope of that availability. Our FELA jurisprudence outlines the analysis we must undertake when deciding whether, and to what extent, this new category of claims should be cognizable under the statute.
First, as in other cases involving the scope of the statute, we must look to FELA itself, its purposes and background, and the construction we have given it over the years. See, e. g., id., at 561-562. Second, because “FELA jurisprudence gleans guidance from common-law developments,” id., at 568, we must consider the common law’s treatment of the right of recovery asserted by respondents. See, e. g., Monessen Southwestern R. Co. v. Morgan, 486 U. S. 330, 336-339 (1988) (disallowing prejudgment interest under FELA in large part because such interest was unavailable at common law when FELA was enacted); Buell, supra, at 568-570. Cf. Urie v. Thompson, 337 U. S. 163, 174 (1949); Kernan v. American Dredging Co., 355 U. S. 426, 432 (1958).
A
We turn first to the statute. Section 1 of FELA provides that “[e]very common carrier by railroad... shall be liable in damages to any person suffering injury while he is employed by such carrier... for such injury or death resulting in whole or in part from the negligence of any of the officers, agents, or employees of such carrier.” 45 U. S. C. § 51. Our task today is determining under what circumstances emotional distress may constitute “injury” resulting from “negligence” for purposes of the statute. As we previously have recognized when considering §51, when Congress enacted FELA in 1908, its “attention was focused primarily upon injuries and death resulting from accidents on interstate railroads.” Urie, supra, at 181. Cognizant of the physical dangers of railroading that resulted in the death or maiming of thousands of workers every year, Congress crafted a federal remedy that shifted part of the “ ‘human overhead’ ” of doing business from employees to their employers. Tiller v. Atlantic Coast Line R. Co., 318 U. S. 54, 58 (1943). See also Wilkerson v. McCarthy, 336 U. S. 53, 68 (1949) (Douglas, J., concurring) (FELA “was designed to put on the railroad industry some of the cost for the legs, eyes, arms, and lives which it consumed in its operations”). In order to further FELA’s humanitarian purposes, Congress did away with several common-law tort defenses that had effectively barred recovery by injured workers. Specifically, the statute abolished the fellow servant rule, rejected the doctrine of contributory negligence in favor of that of comparative negligence, and prohibited employers from exempting themselves from FELA through contract; a 1939 amendment abolished the assumption of risk defense. See 45 U. S. C. §§ 51, 53-55.
We have liberally construed FELA to further Congress’ remedial goal. For example, we held in Rogers v. Missouri Pacific R. Co., 352 U. S. 500 (1957), that a relaxed standard of causation applies under FELA. We stated that “[u]nder this statute the test of a jury case is simply whether the proofs justify with reason the conclusion that employer negligence played any part, even the slightest, in producing the injury or death for which damages are sought.” Id., at 506. In Kernan, supra, we extended the reach of the principle of negligence per se to cover injuries suffered by employees as a result of their employers’ statutory violations, even if the injuries sustained were not of a type that the relevant statute sought to prevent. See id., at 432-436. And in Urie, supra, we held that occupational diseases such as silicosis constitute compensable physical injuries under FELA, thereby rejecting the argument that the statute covered only injuries and deaths caused by accidents. See id., at 181.
That FELA is to be liberally construed, however, does not mean that it is a workers’ compensation statute. We have insisted that FELA “does not make the employer the insurer of the safety of his employees while they are on duty. The basis of his liability is his negligence, not the fact that injuries occur.” Ellis v. Union Pacific R. Co., 329 U. S. 649, 653 (1947). Accord, Inman v. Baltimore & Ohio R. Co., 361 U. S. 138, 140 (1959); Wilkerson, supra, at 61. And while “[wjhat constitutes negligence for the statute’s purposes is a federal question,” Urie, 337 U. S., at 174, we have made clear that this federal question generally turns on principles of common law: “[T]he Federal Employers’ Liability Act is founded on common-law concepts of negligence and injury, subject to such qualifications as Congress has imported into those terms,” id., at 182. Those qualifications, discussed above, are the modification or abrogation of several common-law defenses to liability, including contributory negligence and assumption of risk. See 45 U. S. C. §§51, 53-55. Only to the extent of these explicit statutory alterations is FELA “an avowed departure from the rules of the common law.” Sinkler v. Missouri Pacific R. Co., 356 U. S. 326, 329 (1958). Thus, although common-law principles are not necessarily dispositive of questions arising under FELA, unless they are expressly rejected in the text of the statute, they are entitled to great weight in our analysis. Cf. Buell, 480 U. S., at 568. Because FELA is silent on the issue of negligent infliction of emotional distress, common-law principles must play a significant role in our decision.
B
We turn, therefore, to consider the right of recovery pursued by respondents in light of the common law. Cf. Monessen, supra, at 336-339; Buell, 480 U. S., at 568-570. The term “negligent infliction of emotional distress” is largely self-explanatory, but a definitional point should be clarified at the outset. The injury we contemplate when considering negligent infliction of emotional distress is mental or emotional injury, cf. id., at 568, apart from the tort law concepts of pain and suffering. Although pain and suffering technically are mental harms, these terms traditionally “have been used to describe sensations stemming directly from a physical injury or condition.” Pearson, Liability to Bystanders for Negligently Inflicted Emotional Harm — A Comment on the Nature of Arbitrary Rules, 34 U. Fla. L. Rev. 477, 485, n. 45 (1982). The injury we deal with here is mental or emotional harm (such as fright or anxiety) that is caused by the negligence of another and that is not directly brought about by a physical injury, but that may manifest itself in physical symptoms.
Nearly all of the States have recognized a right to recover for negligent infliction of emotional distress, as we have defined it. No jurisdiction, however, allows recovery for all emotional harms, no matter how intangible or trivial, that might be causally linked to the negligence of another. Indeed, significant limitations, taking the form of “tests” or “rules,” are placed by the common law on the right to recover for negligently inflicted emotional distress, and have been since the right was first recognized late in the last century.
Behind these limitations lie a variety of policy considerations, many of them based on the fundamental differences between emotional and physical injuries. “Because the etiology of emotional disturbance is usually not as readily apparent as that of a broken bone following an automobile accident, courts have been concerned... that recognition of a cause of action for [emotional] injury when not related to any physical trauma may inundate judicial resources with a flood of relatively trivial claims, many of which may be imagined or falsified, and that liability may be imposed for highly remote consequences of a negligent act.” Maloney v. Conroy, 208 Conn. 392, 397-398, 545 A. 2d 1059, 1061 (1988). The last concern has been particularly significant. Emotional injuries may occur far removed in time and space from the negligent conduct that triggered them. Moreover, in contrast to the situation with physical injury, there are no necessary finite limits on the number of persons who might suffer emotional injury as a result of a given negligent act. The incidence and severity of emotional injuries are also more difficult to predict than those of typical physical injuries because they depend on psychological factors that ordinarily are not apparent to potential tortfeasors.
. For all of these reasons, courts have realized that recognition of a cause of action for negligent infliction of emotional distress holds out the very real possibility of nearly infinite and unpredictable liability for defendants. Courts therefore have placed substantial limitations on the class of plaintiffs that may recover for emotional injuries and on the injuries that may be compensable. See, e. g., Thing v. La Chusa, 48 Cal. 3d 644, 654, 771 P. 2d 814, 819 (1989) (“[Pjolicy considerations mandat[e] that infinite liability be avoided by restrictions that... narrow the class of potential plaintiffs”); Tobin v. Grossman, 24 N. Y. 2d 609, 616, 249 N. E. 2d 419, 423 (1969). Some courts phrase the limitations in terms of proximate causation; that is, only certain plaintiffs or injuries are reasonably foreseeable. Other courts speak of the limitations in terms of duty; the defendant owes only a certain class of plaintiffs a duty to avoid inflicting emotional harm. See, e. g., Pearson, supra, at 489, n. 72 (discussing Palsgraf v. Long Island R. Co., 248 N. Y. 339, 162 N. E. 99 (1928)). These formulations are functionally equivalent. We shall refer to the common-law limitations as outlining the duty of defendants with regard to negligent infliction of emotional distress.
Three major limiting tests for evaluating claims alleging negligent infliction of emotional distress have developed in the common law. The first of these has come to be known as the “physical impact” test. It originated a century ago in some of the first cases recognizing recovery for negligently inflicted emotional distress. At the time Congress enacted FELA in 1908, most of the major industrial States had embraced this test. See Throckmorton, Damages for Fright, 34 Harv. L. Rev. 260, 263-264, and n. 25 (1921). Under the physical impact test, a plaintiff seeking damages for emotional injury stemming from a negligent act must have contemporaneously sustained a physical impact (no matter how slight) or injury due to the defendant’s conduct. Most jurisdictions have abandoned this test, but at least five States continue to adhere to it.
The second test has come to be referred to as the “zone of danger” test. It came into use at roughly the same time as the physical impact test, and had been adopted by several jurisdictions at the time FELA was enacted. See Throckmorton, supra, at 264-265, and n. 28. See also Bohlen, Right to Recover for Injury Resulting from Negligence Without Impact, 50 Am. L. Reg. 141, and nn. 3-5 (1902). Perhaps based on the realization that “a near miss may be as frightening as a direct hit,” Pearson, U. Fla. L. Rev., at 488, the zone of danger test limits recovery for emotional injury to those plaintiffs who sustain a physical impact as a result of a defendant’s negligent conduct, or who are placed in immediate risk of physical harm by that conduct. That is, “those within the zone of danger of physical impact can recover for fright, and those outside of it cannot.” Id., at 489. The zone of danger test currently is followed in 14 jurisdictions.
The third prominent limiting test is the “relative bystander” test, which was first enunciated in Dillon v. Legg, 68 Cal. 2d 728, 441 P. 2d 912 (1968). In Dillon, the California Supreme Court rejected the zone of danger test and suggested that the availability of recovery should turn, for the most part, on whether the defendant could reasonably have foreseen the emotional injury to the plaintiff. The court offered three factors to be considered as bearing on the question of reasonable foreseeability:
“(1) Whether plaintiff was located near the scene of the accident as contrasted with one who was a distance away from it. (2) Whether the shock resulted from a direct emotional impact upon plaintiff from the sensory and contemporaneous observance of the accident, as contrasted with learning of the accident from others after its occurrence. (3) Whether plaintiff and the victim were closely related, as contrasted with an absence of any relationship or the presence of only a distant relationship.” Id., at 740-741, 441 P. 2d, at 920.
The courts of nearly half the States now allow bystanders outside of the zone of danger to obtain recovery in certain circumstances for emotional distress brought on by witnessing the injury or death of a third party (who typically must be a close relative of the bystander) that is caused by the defendant’s negligence. Most of these jurisdictions have adopted the Dillon factors either verbatim or with variations and additions, and have held some or all of these factors to be substantive limitations on recovery.
HI
A
Having laid out the relevant legal framework, we turn to the questions presented. As an initial matter, we agree with the Third Circuit that claims for damages for negligent infliction of emotional distress are cognizable under FELA. A combination of many of the factors discussed above makes this conclusion an easy one. A right to recover for negligently inflicted emotional distress was recognized in some form by many American jurisdictions at the time FELA was enacted, see nn. 6 and 8, supra, and this right is nearly universally recognized among the States today. See supra, at 546-549. Moreover, we have accorded broad scope to the statutory term “injury” in the past in light of FELA’s remedial purposes. Cf. Urie, 337 U. S., at 181. We see no reason why emotional injury should not be held to be encompassed within that term, especially given that “severe emotional injuries can be just as debilitating as physical injuries.” Gottshall, 988 F. 2d, at 361. We therefore hold that, as part of its “duty to use reasonable care in furnishing its employees with a safe place to work,” Buell, 480 U. S., at 558, a railroad has a duty under FELA to avoid subjecting its workers to negligently inflicted emotional injury. This latter duty, however, is not self-defining. Respondents defend the Third Circuit’s definition of the duty we recognize today; Conrail offers its own proposed delineation. We consider the proposals in turn.
B
When setting out its view of the proper scope of recovery for negligently inflicted emotional distress under FELA, the Third Circuit explicitly refused to adopt any of the common-law tests described above; indeed, the court in Gottskall went so far as to state that “doctrinal common law distinctions are to be discarded when they bar recovery on meritorious FELA claims.” 988 F. 2d, at 369. Instead, the court developed its own test, under which “[t]he issue is whether the factual circumstances... provide a threshold assurance that there is a likelihood of genuine and serious emotional injury.” Id., at 371. If this threshold test is satisfied, the claim should be evaluated in light of traditional tort concepts such as breach of duty, injury, and causation, with the focus resting on the foreseeability of the plaintiff’s injury. Id., at 374-375. In Gottshall, the Third Circuit did at least consider the plaintiff’s claim in light of the common law of negligent infliction of emotional distress as part of its factual “genuineness” inquiry. By the time the court next applied the Gottshall genuineness test, however, the common-law aspect of its analysis had completely disappeared; Carlisle’s stress-related claim was not evaluated under any of the common-law tests. In Carlisle, the Third Circuit refined its test to two questions — whether there was convincing evidence of the genuineness of the emotional injury claim (with “genuine” meaning authentic and serious), and if there was, whether the injury was foreseeable. If these questions could be answered affirmatively by the court, there was “no bar to recovery under the FELA.” 990 F. 2d, at 98.
The Third Circuit’s standard is fatally flawed in a number of respects. First, as discussed above, because negligent infliction of emotional distress is not explicitly addressed in the statute, the common-law background of this right of recovery must play a vital role in giving content to the scope of an employer’s duty under FELA to avoid inflicting emotional injury. Cf. Monessen, 486 U. S., at 336-339; Buell, supra, at 568-570; Urie, supra, at 182. By treating the common-law tests as mere arbitrary restrictions to be disregarded if they stand in the way of recovery on “meritorious” FELA claims, the Third Circuit put the cart before the horse: The common law must inform the availability of a right to recover under FELA for negligently inflicted emotional distress, so the “merit” of a FELA claim of this type cannot be ascertained without reference to the common law.
Perhaps the court below believed that its focus on the perceived genuineness of the claimed emotional injury adequately addressed the concerns of the common-law courts in dealing with emotional injury claims. But the potential for fraudulent and trivial claims — the concern identified by the Third Circuit — is only one of the difficulties created by allowing actions for negligently inflicted emotional distress. A more significant problem is the prospect that allowing such suits can lead to unpredictable and nearly infinite liability for defendants. The common law consistently has sought to place limits on this potential liability by restricting the class of plaintiffs who may recover and the types of harm for which plaintiffs may recover. This concern underlying the common-law tests has nothing to do with the potential for fraudulent claims; on the contrary, it is based upon the recognized possibility of genuine claims from the essentially infinite number of persons, in an infinite variety of situations, who might suffer real emotional harm as a result of a single instance of negligent conduct.
Second, we question the viability of the genuineness test on its own terms. The Third Circuit recognized that “there must be some finite limit to the railway’s potential liability” for emotional injury claims under FELA, and suggested that liability could be restricted through application of the genuineness test. Gottshall, supra, at 379. But as just explained, testing for the “genuineness” of an injury alone cannot appreciably diminish the possibility of infinite liability. Such a fact-specific test, moreover, would be bound to lead to haphazard results. Judges would be forced to make highly subjective determinations concerning the authenticity of claims for emotional injury, which are far less susceptible to objective medical proof than are their physical counterparts. To the extent the genuineness test could limit potential liability, it could do so only inconsistently. Employers such as Conrail would be given no standard against which to regulate their conduct under such an ad hoc approach. In the context of claims for intangible harms brought under a negligence statute, we find such an arbitrary result unacceptable. Cf. Stadler v. Cross, 295 N. W. 2d 552, 554 (Minn. 1980).
Third, to the extent the Third Circuit relied on the concept of foreseeability as a meaningful limitation on liability, we believe that reliance to be misplaced. If one takes a broad enough view, all consequences of a negligent act, no matter how far removed in time or space, may be foreseen. Conditioning liability on foreseeability, therefore, is hardly a condition at all. “Every injury has ramifying consequences, like the ripplings of the waters, without end. The problem for the law is to limit the legal consequences of wrongs to a controllable degree.” Tobin, 24 N. Y. 2d, at 619, 249 N. E. 2d, at 424. See also Thing, 48 Cal. 3d, at 668, 771 P. 2d, at 830 (“[T]here. are clear judicial days on which a court can foresee forever and thus determine liability but none on which that foresight alone provides a socially and judicially acceptable limit on recovery”).
This is true as a practical matter in the FELA context as well, even though the statute limits recovery to railroad workers. If emotional injury to Gottshall was foreseeable to Conrail, such injury to the other seven members of his work crew was also foreseeable. Because one need not witness an accident to suffer emotional injury therefrom, however, the potential liability would not necessarily have to end there; any Conrail employees who heard or read about the events surrounding Johns’ death could also foreseeably have suffered emotional injury as a result. Of course, not all of these workers would have been as traumatized by the tragedy as was Gottshall, but many could have been. Under the Third Circuit’s standard, Conrail thus could face the potential of unpredictable liability to a large number of employees far removed from the scene of the allegedly negligent conduct that led to Johns’ death.
Finally, the Third Circuit in Carlisle erred in upholding “a claim under the FELA for negligent infliction of emotional distress arising from work-related stress.” 990 F. 2d, at 97-98. We find no support in the common law for this unprecedented holding, which would impose a duty to avoid creating a stressful work environment, and thereby dramatically expand employers’ FELA liability to cover the stresses and strains of everyday employment. Indeed, the Third Circuit’s ruling would tend to make railroads the insurers of the emotional well-being and mental health of their employees. We have made clear, however, that FELA is not an insurance statute. See, e. g., Ellis, 329 U. S., at 653. For the foregoing reasons, we reject the Third Circuit’s approach.
C
Conrail suggests that we adopt the common-law zone of danger test as delimiting the proper scope of an employer’s duty under FELA to avoid subjecting its employees to negligently inflicted emotional injury. We agree that the zone of danger test best reconciles the concerns of the common law with the principles underlying our FELA jurisprudence.
As we did in Monessen, we begin with the state of the common law in 1908, when FELA was enacted. In determining in Monessen whether prejudgment interest was available under FELA, we recognized that the common law in 1908 did not allow such interest in personal injury and wrongful-death suits. Because in enacting FELA, “Congress expressly dispensed with other common-law doctrines of that era, such as the defense of contributory negligence,” but “did not deal at all with the equally well established doctrine barring the recovery of prejudgment interest,” we concluded that Congress intended to leave the common-law rule intact. 486 U. S., at 337-338. In contrast, the right to recover for negligently inflicted emotional distress was well established in many jurisdictions in 1908. Although at that time, “the weight of American authority” favored the physical impact test, Throckmorton, 34 Harv. L. Rev., at 264, the zone of danger test had been adopted by a significant number of jurisdictions. See n. 8, supra. Moreover, because it was recognized as being a progressive rule of liability that was less restrictive than the physical impact test, the zone of danger test would have been more consistent than the physical impact test with FELA’s broad remedial goals. See Waube
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
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.
Per Curiam.
Pro se petitioner Sylvester Jones requests leave to proceed in forma pauperis under Rule 39 of this Court. We deny this request pursuant to Rule 39.8. Jones is allowed until March 18, 1996, within which to pay the docketing fee required by Rule 38 and to submit his petition in compliance with this Court’s Rule 33.1. We also direct the Clerk not to accept any further petitions for certiorari from Jones in noncriminal matters unless he pays the docketing fee required by Rule 38 and submits his petition in compliance with Rule 33.1.
Jones has abused this Court’s certiorari process. In October 1992, we first invoked Rule 39.8 to deny Jones informa pauperis status in two petitions for certiorari. See Jones v. Wright, 506 U. S. 810; In re Jones, 506 U. S. 810. At that time, Jones had filed over 25 petitions in this Court, all of which were patently frivolous and had been denied without recorded dissent. And since October 1992, we have invoked Rule 39.8 five times to deny Jones informa pauperis status. See Jones v. Schulze, 513 U. S. 805 (1994); In re Jones, 510 U. S. 963 (1993); Jones v. Jackson, 510 U. S. 808 (1993); Jones v. Suter, 508 U. S. 949 (1993); Jones v. Jackson, 506 U. S. 1047 (1993). Currently, Jones has at least two more petitions for certiorari pending.
We enter the order barring prospective filings for the reasons discussed in Martin v. District of Columbia Court of Appeals, 506 U. S. 1 (1992). Jones’ abuse of the writ of cer-tiorari has been in noncriminal cases and so we limit our sanction accordingly. The order will not prevent Jones from petitioning to challenge criminal sanctions which might be imposed against him. The order will, however, allow this Court to devote its limited resources to the claims of petitioners who have not abused our certiorari process.
It is so ordered.
Justice Breyer took no part in the consideration or decision of this motion.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
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.
This case arises out of the dismissal, under Fed. Rule Ciy. Proc. 37, of respondents’ antitrust action against petitioners for failure to timely answer written interrogatories as ordered by the District Court. The Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit reversed the judgment of dismissal, finding that the District Court had abused its discretion. The question presented is whether the Court of Appeals was correct in so concluding. Rule 37 (b) (2) provides in pertinent part as follows:
“If a party . . . fails to obey an order to provide or permit discovery . . . the court in which the action is pending may make such orders in regard to the failure as are just, and among others the following:
“(C) An order striking out pleadings or parts thereof, or staying further proceedings until the order is obeyed, or dismissing the action or proceeding or any part thereof, or rendering a judgment by default against the disobedient party.”
This Court held in Societe Internationale v. Rogers, 357 U. S. 197, 212 (1958), that Rule 37
“should not be construed to authorize dismissal of [a] complaint because of petitioner’s noncompliance with a pretrial production order when it has been established that failure to comply has been due to inability, and not to willfulness, bad faith, or any fault of petitioner.”
While there have been amendments to the Rule since the decision in Rogers, neither the parties, the District Court, nor the Court of Appeals suggested that the changes would affect the teachings of the quoted language from that decision.
The District Court, in its memorandum opinion directing that respondents’ complaint be dismissed, summarized the factual history of the discovery proceeding in these words:
“After seventeen months where crucial interrogatories remained substantially unanswered despite numerous extensions granted at the eleventh hour and, in many instances, beyond the eleventh hour, and notwithstanding several admonitions by the Court and promises and commitments by the plaintiffs, the Court must and does conclude that the conduct of the plaintiffs demonstrates the callous disregard of responsibilities counsel owe to the Court and to their opponents. The practices of the plaintiffs exemplify flagrant bad faith when after being expressly directed to perform an act by a date certain, viz., June 14, 1974, they failed to perform and compounded that noncompliance by waiting until five days afterwards before they filed any motions. Moreover, this action was taken in the face of warnings that their failure to provide certain information could result in the imposition of sanctions under Fed. R. Civ. P. 37. If the sanction of dismissal is not warranted by the circumstances of this case, then the Court can envisage no set of facts whereby that sanction should ever be applied.” 63 F. R. D. 641, 656 (1974).
The Court of Appeals, in reversing the order of the District Court by a divided vote, stated :
“After carefully reviewing the record, we conclude that there is insufficient evidence to support a finding that M-GB’s failure to file supplemental answers by June 14, 1974 was in flagrant bad faith, willful or intentional.” 531 F. 2d 1188, 1195 (1976).
The Court of Appeals did not question any of the findings of historical fact which had been made by the District Court, but simply concluded that there was in the record evidence of “extenuating factors.” The Court of Appeals emphasized that none of the parties had really pressed discovery until after a consent decree was entered between petitioners and all of the other original plaintiffs except the respondents approximately one year after the commencement of the litigation. It also noted that respondents’ counsel took over the litigation, which previously had been managed by another attorney, after the entry of the consent decree, and that respondents’ counsel encountered difficulties in obtaining some of the requested information. The Court of Appeals also referred to a colloquy during the oral argument on petitioners’ motion to dismiss in which respondents’ lead counsel assured the District Court that he would not knowingly and willfully disregard the final deadline.
While the Court of Appeals stated that the District Court was required to consider the full record in determining whether to dismiss for failure to comply with discovery orders, see Link v. Wabash R. Co., 370 U. S. 626, 633-634 (1962), we think that the comprehensive memorandum of the District Court supporting its order of dismissal indicates that the court did just that. That record shows that the District Court was extremely patient in its efforts to allow the respondents ample time to comply with its discovery orders.. Not only did respondents fail to file their responses on time, but the responses which they ultimately did file were found by the District Court to be grossly inadequate.
The question, of course, is not whether this Court, or whether the Court of Appeals, would as an original matter have dismissed the action; it is whether the District Court abused its discretion in so doing. E. g., C. Wright & A. Miller, Federal Practice and Procedure: Civil § 2284, p. 765 (1970); General Dynamics Corp. v. Selb Mfg. Co., 481 F. 2d 1204, 1211 (CA8 1973); Baker v. F & F Investment, 470 F. 2d 778, 781 (CA2 1972). Certainly the findings contained in the memorandum opinion of the District Court quoted earlier in this opinion are fully supported by the record. We think that the lenity evidenced in the opinion of the Court of Appeals, while certainly a significant factor in considering the imposition of sanctions under Rule 37, cannot be allowed to wholly supplant other and equally necessary considerations embodied in that Rule.
There is a natural tendency on the part of reviewing courts, properly employing the benefit of hindsight, to be heavily influenced by the severity of outright dismissal as a sanction for failure to comply with a discovery order. It is quite reasonable to conclude that a party who has been subjected to such an order will feel duly chastened, so that even though he succeeds in having the order reversed on appeal he will nonetheless comply promptly with future discovery orders of the district court.
But here, as in other areas of the law, the most severe in the spectrum of sanctions provided by statute or rule must be available to the district court in appropriate cases, not merely to penalize those whose conduct may be deemed to warrant such a sanction, but to deter those who might be tempted to such conduct in the absence of such a deterrent. If the decision of the Court of Appeals remained undisturbed in this case, it might well be that these respondents would faithfully comply with all future discovery orders entered by the District Court in this case. But other parties to other lawsuits would feel freer than we think Rule 37 contemplates they should feel to flout other discovery orders of other district courts. Under the circumstances of this case, we hold that the District Judge did not abuse his discretion in finding bad faith on the part of these respondents, and concluding that the extreme sanction of dismissal was appropriate in this case by reason of respondents’ “flagrant bad faith” and their counsel’s “callous disregard” of their responsibilities. Therefore, the petition for a writ of certiorari is granted and the judgment of the Court of Appeals is reversed.
So ordered.
Mr. Justice Brennan and Mr. Justice White dissent.
Mr. Justice Stevens took no part in the consideration or decision of this case.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer:
|
I
|
sc_issuearea
|
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Per Curiam.
Appellees are illegitimate children on whose behalf a class action was commenced seeking to enjoin enforcement of § 203 (a) of the Social Security Act, 49 Stat. 623, as amended, 42 U. S. C. §403 (a), on the ground that the provision was unconstitutional under this Court’s decisions in Weber v. Aetna Casualty & Surety Co., 406 U. S. 164 (1972), and Levy v. Louisiana, 391 U. S. 68 (1968). The District Court granted appellees’ request for declaratory and injunctive relief.
On the merits, this appeal involves the same issues that were raised in Davis v. Richardson, 342 F. Supp. 588 (Conn.), aff’d, post, p. 1069, and Griffin v. Richardson, 346 F. Supp. 1226 (Md.), aff’d, post, p. 1069. Unlike those cases, however, the District Court here purported to predicate its jurisdiction on the Tucker Act, 28 U. S. C. § 1346 (a)(2). Assuming, arguendo, that exhaustion of the administrative remedies provided by the Social Security Act was not a prerequisite to appellees’ attack on the facial constitutionality of § 203 (a), see Public Utilities Comm’n of California v. United States, 355 U. S. 534 (1958), we nonetheless conclude that it was error for the District Court to assume jurisdiction under the Tucker Act.
The Tucker Act plainly gives district courts jurisdiction over claims against the United States for money damages of less than $10,000 that are “founded . . . upon the Constitution.” But the Act has long been con-trued as authorizing only actions for money judgments and not suits for equitable relief against the United States. See United States v. Jones, 131 U. S. 1 (1889). The reason for the distinction flows from the fact that the Court of Claims has no power to grant equitable relief, see Glidden Co. v. Zdanok, 370 U. S. 530, 557 (1962) (Harlan, J., announcing the judgment of the Court), and the jurisdiction of the district courts under the Act was expressly made “concurrent with the Court of Claims.” See United States v. Sherwood, 312 U. S. 584, 589-591 (1941); Bates Mfg. Co. v. United States, 303 U. S. 567, 570 (1938). What was said in Sherwood, supra, at 591, applies here:
“[T]he Tucker Act did no more than authorize the District Court to sit as a court of claims and . . . the authority thus given to adjudicate claims against the United States does not extend to any suit which could not be maintained in the Court of Claims.”
Although appellees contend that jurisdiction was properly asserted under various alternative provisions of the Judicial Code, the District Court did not pass upon the applicability of those other provisions. Accordingly, ap-pellees' motion for leave to proceed in forma pauperis is granted, the judgment is vacated, and the case remanded to the District Court for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
The Act, in pertinent part, reads as follows:
“(a) The district courts shall have original jurisdiction, concurrent with the Court of Claims, of:
“ (2) Any other [excepting certain tax cases] civil action or claim against the United States, not exceeding $10,000 in amount, founded either upon the Constitution, or any Act of Congress, or any regulation of an executive department, or upon any express or implied contract with the United States, or for liquidated or unliquidated damages in cases not sounding in tort.”
The Act was passed in 1887. 24 Stat. 505. As enacted, the Act read in terms of “[a]ll claims” rather than “[a]ny other civil action or claim.” Appellees suggest that the added phrase was intended to broaden the scope of district court jurisdiction to include “actions” for injunctions as well as “claims” for monetary damages. The phrase, however, did not appear in the 1940 edition of the Judicial Code, 28 U. S. C. §41 (20), and appears to have been inserted during the revision in 1948, without any suggestion that the change was to affect the section’s substance. In any event, the corresponding section dealing with the concurrent jurisdiction of the Court of Claims contains no such addition. See 28 U. S. C. § 1491.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
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.
Opinion of the Court by
Mr. Justice Douglas,
announced by Mr. Justice Reed.
This is a companion case to Estin v. Estin, ante, p. 541, also here on certiorari to the Court of Appeals of New York'.
The parties were married in New York in 1933 and lived there together until their separation in 1935. In 1940 respondent obtained a decree of separation in New York on grounds of abandonment. Petitioner appeared in the action; and respondent was awarded $60 a week alimony for the support of herself and their only child, whose custody she was given.
Petitioner thereafter went to Nevada where he continues to reside. He instituted divorce proceedings in that state in the fall of 1944. Constructive service was made on respondent who made no appearance in the Nevada proceedings. While they were pending, respondent obtained an order in New York purporting to enjoin petitioner from seeking a divorce and from remarrying. Petitioner was neither served with process in New York nor entered an appearance in the latter proceeding. The Nevada court, with knowledge of the injunction and the New York judgment for alimony, awarded petitioner an absolute divorce on grounds of three consecutive years of separation without cohabitation. The judgment made no provision for alimony. It did provide that petitioner was to support, maintain and educate the child, whose custody it purported to grant him, and as to which jurisdiction was reserved. Petitioner thereafter tendered $50 a month for the support of the child but ceased making payments under the New York decree.
Respondent thereupon brought suit on the New York judgment in a federal district court in Nevada. Without waiting the outcome of that litigation she obtained a judgment in New York for the amount of the arrears, petitioner appearing and unsuccessfully pleading his Nevada divorce as a defense. The judgment was affirmed by the Appellate Division, two judges dissenting. 271 N. Y. App. Div. 872, 66 N. Y. S. 2d 798. The Court of Appeals affirmed without opinion, 297 N. Y. 530, 74 N. E. 2d 468, but stated in its remittitur that its action was based upon Estin v. Estin, 296 N. Y. 308, 73 N. E. 2d 113. Respondent does not attack the bona fides of petitioner’s Nevada domicile.
For the reasons stated in Estin v. Estin, ante, p. 541, we hold that Nevada had no power to adjudicate respondent’s rights in the New York judgment and thus New York was not required to bow to that provision of the Nevada decree. It is therefore unnecessary to pass upon New York’s attempt to enjoin petitioner from securing a divorce or to reach the question whether the New York judgment was entitled to full faith and credit in the Nevada proceedings. No issue as to the custody of the child was raised either in the court below or in this Court. The judgment is
Affirmed.
Mr. Justice Frankfurter dissents for the reasons stated in his dissenting opinion in Estin v. Estin, ante, p. 549.
Mr. Justice Jackson dissents for the reasons set forth in his opinion in Estin v. Estin, ante, p. 553.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer:
|
K
|
sc_issuearea
|
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Mr. Justice Brennan
delivered the opinion of the Court.
Pursuant to Ohio Rev. Code Ann. § 1905.01 et seq. (1968), which authorizes mayors to sit as judges in cases of ordinance violations and certain traffic offenses, the Mayor of Monroeville, Ohio, convicted petitioner of two traffic offenses and fined him $50 on each. The Ohio Court of Appeals for Huron County, 21 Ohio App. 2d 17, 254 N. E. 2d 375 (1969), and the Ohio Supreme Court, 27 Ohio St. 2d 179, 271 N. E. 2d 757 (1971), three justices dissenting, sustained the conviction, rejecting petitioner’s objection that trial before a mayor who also had responsibilities for revenue production and law enforcement denied him a trial before a disinterested and impartial judicial officer as guaranteed by the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. We granted certiorari. 404 U. S. 1058 (1972).
The Mayor of Monroeville has wide executive powers and is the chief conservator of the peace. He is president of the village council, presides at all meetings, votes in case of a tie, accounts annually to the council respecting village finances, fills vacancies in village offices and has general overall supervision of village affairs. A major part of village income is derived from the fines, forfeitures, costs, and fees imposed by him in his mayor’s court. Thus, in 1964 this income contributed $23,589.50 of total village revenues of $46,355.38; in 1965 it was $18,508.95 of $46,752.60; in 1966 it was $16,085 of $43,585.13; in 1967 it was $20,060.65 of $53,931.43; and in 1968 it was $23,439.42 of $52,995.95. This revenue was of such importance to the village that when legislation threatened its loss, the village retained a management consultant for advice upon the problem.
Conceding that “the revenue produced from a mayor’s court provides a substantial portion of a municipality’s funds,” the Supreme Court of Ohio held nonetheless that “such fact does not mean that a mayor’s impartiality is so diminished thereby that he cannot act in a disinterested fashion in a judicial capacity.” 27 Ohio St. 2d, at 185, 271 N. E. 2d, at 761. We disagree with that conclusion.
The issue turns, as the Ohio court acknowledged, on whether the Mayor can be regarded as an impartial judge under the principles laid down by this Court in Tumey v. Ohio, 273 U. S. 510 (1927). There, convictions for prohibition law violations rendered by the Mayor of North College Hill, Ohio, were reversed when it appeared that, in addition to his regular salary, the Mayor received $696.35 from the fees and costs levied by him against alleged violators. This Court held that “it certainly violates the Fourteenth Amendment, and deprives a defendant in a criminal case of due process of law, to subject his liberty or property to the judgment of a court the judge of which has a direct, personal, substantial, pecuniary interest in reaching a conclusion against him in his case.” Id., at 523.
The fact that the mayor there shared directly in the fees and costs did not define the limits of the principle. Although “the mere union of the executive power and the judicial power in him can not be said to violate due process of law,” id., at 534, the test is whether the mayor’s situation is one “which would offer a possible temptation to the average man as a judge to forget the ■burden of proof required to convict the defendant, or which might lead him not to hold the balance nice, clear and true between the State and the accused . . . .” Id., at 532. Plainly that “possible temptation” may also exist when the mayor’s executive responsibilities for village finances may make him partisan to maintain the high level of contribution from the mayor’s court. This, too, is a “situation in which an official perforce occupies two practically and seriously inconsistent positions, one partisan and the other judicial, [and] necessarily involves a lack of due process of law in the trial of defendants charged with crimes before him.” Id., at 534.
This situation is wholly unlike that in Dugan v. Ohio, 277 U. S. 61 (1928), which the Ohio Supreme Court deemed controlling here. There the Mayor of Xenia, Ohio, had judicial functions but only very limited executive authority. The city was governed by a commission of five members, including the Mayor, which exercised all legislative powers. A city manager, together with the commission, exercised all executive powers. In those circumstances, this Court held that the Mayor’s relationship to the finances and financial policy of the city was too remote to warrant a presumption of bias toward conviction in prosecutions before him as judge.
Respondent urges that Ohio's statutory provision, Ohio Rev. Code Ann. § 2937.20 (Supp. 1971), for the disqualification of interested, biased, or prejudiced judges is a sufficient safeguard to protect petitioner’s rights. This argument is not persuasive. First, it is highly dubious that this provision was available to raise petitioner’s broad challenge to the mayor’s court of this village in respect to all prosecutions there in which fines may be imposed. The provision is apparently designed only for objection to a particular mayor “in a specific case where the circumstances in that municipality might warrant a finding of prejudice in that case.” 27 Ohio St. 2d, at 184, 271 N. E. 2d, at 760 (emphasis added). If this means that an accused must show special prejudice in his particular case, the statute requires too much and protects too little. But even if petitioner might have utilized the procedure to make his objection, the Ohio Supreme Court passed upon his constitutional contention despite petitioner’s failure to invoke the procedure. In that circumstance, see Raley v. Ohio, 360 U. S. 423, 436 (1959), he may be heard in this Court to urge that the Ohio Supreme Court erred in holding that he had not established his Fourteenth Amendment claim.
Respondent also argues that any unfairness at the trial level can be corrected on appeal and trial de novo in the County Court of Common Pleas. We disagree. This “procedural safeguard” does not guarantee a fair trial in the mayor’s court; there is nothing to suggest that the incentive to convict would be diminished by the possibility of reversal on appeal. Nor, in any event, may the State’s trial court procedure be deemed constitutionally acceptable simply because the State eventually offers a defendant an impartial adjudication. Petitioner is entitled to a neutral and detached judge in the first instance. Accordingly, the judgment of the Supreme Court of Ohio is reversed and the case is remanded for further proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
Ordinance No. 59-9:
“WHEREAS, the legislation known as the County Court law passed by the 102nd General Assembly greatly reduces the jurisdictional powers of Mayor Courts as of January 1, 1960; and
“WHEREAS, such restrictions may place such a hardship upon law enforcement personnel in this village and surrounding areas as to endanger the health, welfare and safety of persons residing or being in our village; and
“WHEREAS, other such provisions of this legislation may cause such a reduction in revenue to this village that an additional burden may result from increased taxation and/or curtailment of services essential to the health, welfare and safety of this village; . . .
“BE IT ORDAINED BY THE VILLAGE OF [MONROE-VILLE] OHIO:
“Section 1. That the services of the management consulting firm of Midwest Consultants, Incorporated of Sandusky, Ohio, be employed to conduct a survey and study to ascertain the extent of the effects of the County Court Law on law enforcement and loss of revenue in and to the Village of [Monroeville], Ohio, so that said Village can prepare for the future operations of the Village to safeguard the heath [sic], welfare and safety of its citizens . . .”
Moreover, Monroeville’s Chief of Police, appointed by the Mayor, Ohio Rev. Code Ann. § 737.15 (Supp. 1971), testified that it was his regular practice to charge suspects under a village ordinance, rather than a state statute, whenever a choice existed. App. 9. That policy must be viewed in light of §733.40 (1954), which provides that fines and forfeitures collected by the Mayor in state cases shall be paid to the county treasury, whereas fines and forfeitures collected in ordinance and traffic cases shall be paid into the municipal treasury. Petitioner asserts that the Mayor conceded at trial that this policy was carried out under the Mayor’s orders. The record lends itself to this inference. App. 10-11.
The question presented on this record is the constitutionality of the Mayor’s participation in the adjudication and punishment of a defendant in a litigated case where he elects to contest the charges against him. We intimate no view that it would be unconstitutional to permit a mayor or similar official to serve in essentially a ministerial capacity in a traffic or ordinance violation case to accept a free and voluntary plea of guilty or nolo contendere, a forfeiture of collateral, or the like.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer:
|
D
|
sc_issuearea
|
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Justice White
delivered the opinion of the Court.
Under the Quiet Title Act of 1972 (QTA), the United States, subject to certain exceptions, has waived its sovereign immunity and has permitted plaintiffs to name it as a party defendant in civil actions to adjudicate title disputes involving real property in which the United States claims an interest. These cases present two separate issues concerning the QTA. The first is whether Congress intended the QTA to provide the exclusive procedure by which a claimant can judicially challenge the title of the United States to real property. The second is whether the QTA's 12-year statute of limitations, 28 U. S. C. § 2409a(f), is applicable in instances where the plaintiff is a State, such as respondent North Dakota. We conclude that the QTA forecloses the other bases for relief urged by the State, and that the limitations provision is as fully applicable to North Dakota as it is to all others who sue under the QTA.
I
It is undisputed that under the equal-footing doctrine first set forth in Pollard's Lessee v. Hagan, 3 How. 212 (1845), North Dakota, like other States, became the owner of the beds of navigable streams in the State upon its admission to the Union. It is also agreed that under the law of North Dakota, a riparian owner has title to the center of the bed of a nonnavigable stream. See N. D. Cent. Code § 47-01-15 (1978); Amoco Oil Co. v. State Highway Dept., 262 N. W. 2d 726, 728 (N. D. 1978). Because of differing views of naviga- bility, the United States and North Dakota assert competing claims to title to certain portions of the bed of the Little Mis- souri River within North Dakota. The United States con- tends that the river is not now and never has been navigable, and it claims most of the disputed area based on its status as riparian landowner. North Dakota, on the other hand, asserts that the river was navigable on October 1, 1889, the date North Dakota attained statehood, and therefore that title to the disputed bed vested in it under the equal-footing doctrine on that date. Since at least 1955, the United States has been issuing riverbed oil and gas leases to private
entities. Seeking to resolve this dispute as to ownership of the riverbed, North Dakota filed this suit in the District against several federal officials. The State’s complaint requested injunctive and mandamus relief directing the defendants to “cease and desist from developing] or otherwise exercising privileges of ownership upon the bed of the Little Missouri River within the State of North Dakota,” and it further sought a declaratory judgment “[declaring the Little Missouri River to be a navigable river for the purpose of determining ownership of the bed.” App. 9. As the jurisdictional basis for its suit, North Dakota invoked 28 U. S. C. § 1331 (federal question); 28 U. S. C. § 1361 (mandamus); 28 U. S. C. §§ 2201-2202 (declaratory judgment and further relief); and 5 U. S. C. §§701-706 (the judicial review provisions of the Administrative Procedure Act). App. 6. North Dakota’s original complaint did not mention the QTA. However, the District Court required the State to amend its complaint to recite a claim thereunder. App. to Pet. for Cert. in No. 81-2337, pp. A-14 — A-16. The State complied and filed an amended complaint. App. 13-16.
The matter thereafter proceeded to trial. North Dakota introduced evidence in support of its claim that the river was navigable on the date of statehood. The federal defendants, while denying navigability, presented no evidence on this point; their evidence was limited to showing, for statute of limitations purposes, that the State had notice of the United States’ claim more than 12 years prior to the commencement of the suit.
After trial, the District Court rendered judgment for North Dakota. The court first concluded that the Little Missouri River was navigable in 1889 and that North Dakota attained title to the bed at statehood under the equal-footing doctrine and the Submerged Lands Act of 1953, 43 U. S. C. § 1311(a). 506 F. Supp. 619, 622-624 (ND 1981). Then, applying what it deemed to be an accepted rule of construction that statutes of limitations do not apply to sovereigns unless a contrary legislative intention is clearly evident from the express language of the statute or otherwise, the court rejected the defendants’ claim that North Dakota’s suit was barred by the QTA’s 12-year statute of limitations, 28 U. S. C. §2409a(f). 506 F. Supp., at 625-626. The District Court accordingly entered judgment quieting North Dakota’s title to the bed of the river. App. to Pet. for Cert. in No. 81-2337, pp. A-29 — A-30. The Court of Appeals affirmed in all respects. 671 F. 2d 271 (CA8 1982).
The defendants’ petition for certiorari, which we granted, 459 U. S. 820 (1982), challenged only the Court of Appeals’ conclusion that the QTA’s statute of limitations is inapplicable to States. North Dakota filed a conditional cross-petition, No. 82-132, asserting that even if its suit under the QTA is barred by §2409a(f), the judgment below is still correct because the QTA remedy is not exclusive and its suit against the federal officers is still maintainable wholly aside from the QTA. This submission, which the Court of Appeals did not find it necessary to address, is also urged by the State, as respondent in No. 81-2337, as a ground for affirming the judgment in its favor. See United States v. New York Telephone Co., 434 U. S. 159, 166, n. 8 (1977); Dayton Board of Education v. Brinkman, 433 U. S. 406, 419 (1977). We now grant the cross-petition, which heretofore has remained pending, and we first address the question presented by it.
n
The States of the Union, like all other entities, are barred by federal sovereign immunity from suing the United States in the absence of an express waiver of this immunity by Congress. California v. Arizona, 440 U. S. 59, 61-62 (1979); Minnesota v. United States, 305 U. S. 382, 387 (1939); Kansas v. United States, 204 U. S. 331, 342 (1907). Only upon passage of the QTA did the United States waive its immunity with respect to suits involving title to land. Prior to 1972, States and all others asserting title to land claimed by the United States had only limited means of obtaining a resolution of the title dispute — they could attempt to induce the United States to file a quiet title action against them, or they could petition Congress or the Executive for discretionary relief. Also, since passage of the Tucker Act in 1887, those claimants willing to settle for monetary damages rather than title to the disputed land could sue in the Court of Claims and attempt to make out a constitutional claim for just compensation. See 28 U. S. C. § 1491; Malone v. Bowdoin, 369 U. S. 643, 647, n. 8 (1962).
Enterprising claimants also pressed the so-called “officer’s suit” as another possible means of obtaining relief in a title dispute with the Federal Government. In the typical officer’s suit involving a title dispute, the claimant would proceed against the federal officials charged with supervision of the disputed area, rather than against the United States. The suit would be in ejectment or, as here, for an injunction or a writ of mandamus forbidding the defendant officials to interfere with the claimant’s property rights.
As a device for circumventing federal sovereign immunity in land title disputes, the officer’s suit ultimately did not prove to be successful. This Court appeared to accept the device in early cases. See United States v. Lee, 106 U. S. 196 (1882); Meigs v. M‘Clung’s Lessee, 9 Cranch 11 (1815). Later cases, however, were inconsistent; some held that such suits were barred by sovereign immunity, while others did not, and “it is fair to say that to reconcile completely all the decisions of the Court in this field... would be a Procrustean task.” Malone v. Bowdoin, supra, at 646. Compare, e. g., the cases cited 369 U. S., at 646, n. 6, with those cited id., at 646, n. 7.
In Malone, the Court cut through the tangle of the previous decisions and applied to land disputes the rule announced in Larson v. Domestic & Foreign Corp., 337 U. S. 682 (1949):
“[T]he action of a federal officer affecting property claimed by a plaintiff can be made the basis of a suit for specific relief against the officer as an individual only if the officer’s action is ‘not within the officer’s statutory powers or, if within those powers, only if the powers, or their exercise in the particular case, are constitutionally void.’” Malone, supra, at 647 (quoting Larson, supra, at 702).
The Larson-Malone test plainly made it more difficult for a plaintiff to employ a suit against federal officers as a vehicle for resolving a title dispute with the United States. Thus, in the decade after Malone, claimants having disputes with the United States over real property met with little success in most courts.
Against this background, Congress considered and passed the QTA in 1972. At a hearing on the bill, the officer’s-suit possibility was called to the attention of Congress. The predominant view, however, was that citizens asserting title to or the right to possession of lands claimed by the United States were “without benefit of a recourse to the courts,” because of the doctrine of sovereign immunity.
Congress sought to rectify this state of affairs. The original version of S. 216, the bill that became the QTA, was short and simple. Its substantive provision provided for no qualifications whatsoever. It stated in its entirety: “The United States may be named a party in any civil action brought by any person to quiet title to lands claimed by the United States.” 117 Cong. Rec. 46380 (1971). The Executive Branch opposed the original version of S. 216 and proposed, in its stead, a more elaborate bill, reprinted in S. Rep. No. 92-575, pp. 7-8 (1971), providing several “appropriate safeguards for the protection of the public interest.”
This Executive proposal, made by the Justice Department, limited the waiver of sovereign immunity in several important respects. First, it excluded Indian lands from the scope of the waiver. The Executive Branch felt that a waiver of immunity in this area would not be consistent with “specific commitments” it had made to the Indians through treaties and other agreements. Second, in order to insure that the waiver would not “serve to disrupt costly ongoing Federal programs that involve the disputed lands,” the proposal allowed the United States the option of paying money damages instead of surrendering the property if it lost a case on the merits. Third, the Justice Department proposal provided that the legislation would have prospective effect only; that is, it would not apply to claims that accrued prior to the date of enactment. This was deemed necessary so that the workload of the Justice Department and the courts could develop at a rate which could be absorbed. Fourth, to insure that stale claims would not be opened up to litigation, the proposed bill included a 6-year statute of limitations.
The Senate accepted the Justice Department’s proposal, with the notable exception of the provision that would have given the bill prospective effect only. The Senate-passed version of the bill contained a “grandfather clause” that would have allowed old claims to be asserted for two years after the bill became law.
Primarily because of the grandfather clause, the Executive Branch could still not accept the bill. The Department of Justice argued that this clause could cause “a flood of litigation on old claims, many of which had already been submitted to the Congress and rejected,” thereby putting “an undue burden on the Department and the courts.” As a compromise, the Department proposed to give up its insistence on “prospective only” language and to accept an increase in the statute of limitations to 12 years, in exchange for elimination of the grandfather clause. This proposal had the effect of making the bill retroactive for a 12-year period. The House included this compromise in the version of the bill passed by it, and the Senate acquiesced and the bill became law with the compromise language intact.
In light of this legislative history, we need not be detained long by North Dakota’s contention that it can avoid the QTA’s statute of limitations and other restrictions by the device of an officer’s suit. If North Dakota’s position were correct, all of the carefully crafted provisions of the QTA deemed necessary for the protection of the national public interest could be averted. “It would require the suspension of disbelief to ascribe to Congress the design to allow its careful and thorough remedial scheme to be circumvented by artful pleading.” Brown v. GSA, 425 U. S. 820, 833 (1976).
If we were to allow claimants to try the Federal Government’s title to land under an officer’s-suit theory, the Indian lands exception to the QTA would be rendered nugatory. The United States could also be dispossessed of the disputed property without being afforded the option of paying damages, thereby thwarting the congressional intent to avoid disruptions of costly federal activities. Finally, and most relevant to the present cases, the QTA’s 12-year statute of limitations, the one point on which the Executive Branch was most insistent, could be avoided, and, contrary to the wish of Congress, an unlimited number of suits involving stale claims might be instituted.
Brown v. GSA, supra, is instructive here. In that case, we held that § 717 of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U. S. C. §2000e-16, was the exclusive remedy for federal employment discrimination. There, as here, it was “problematic” whether any judicial relief at all was available prior to passage of the Act; the prevailing congressional view was that there was none. 425 U. S., at 826-828. There, as here, the “balance, completeness, and structural integrity” of the statute belied the contention that it “was designed merely to supplement other putative judicial relief.” Id., at 832. Thus, we applied the rule that a precisely drawn, detailed statute pre-empts more general remedies. 7d., at 834. That rule is equally applicable in the present context.
Accordingly, we need not reach the question whether, prior to 1972, Larson v. Domestic & Foreign Corp., 337 U. S. 682 (1949), and Malone v. Bowdoin, 369 U. S. 643 (1962), would have permitted an officer’s suit to be maintained under the present circumstances. We hold that Congress intended the QTA to provide the exclusive means by which adverse claimants could challenge the United States’ title to real property.
III
We also cannot agree with North Dakota’s submission, which was accepted by the District Court and the Court of Appeals, that the States are not subject to the operation of § 2409a(f). This issue is purely one of statutory interpretation, and we find no support for North Dakota’s position in either the plain statutory language or the legislative history. The basic rule of federal sovereign immunity is that the United States cannot be sued at all without the consent of Congress. A necessary corollary of this rule is that when Congress attaches conditions to legislation waiving the sovereign immunity of the United States, those conditions must be strictly observed, and exceptions thereto are not to be lightly implied. See, e. g., Lehman v. Nakshian, 453 U. S. 156, 160-161 (1981); United States v. Kubrick, 444 U. S. 111, 117-118 (1979); Honda v. Clark, 386 U. S. 484, 501 (1967); Soriano v. United States, 352 U. S. 270 (1957); United States v. Sherwood, 312 U. S. 584, 591 (1941). When waiver legislation contains a statute of limitations, the limitations provision constitutes a condition on the waiver of sovereign immunity. Accordingly, although we should not construe such a time-bar provision unduly restrictively, we must be careful not to interpret it in a manner that would “extend the waiver beyond that which Congress intended.” United States v. Kubrick, supra, at 117-118 (citing Soriano v. United States, supra; Indian Towing Co. v. United States, 350 U. S. 61 (1955)). Accordingly, before finding that Congress intended here to exempt the States from satisfying the time-bar condition on its waiver of immunity, we should insist on some clear indication of such an intention.
Proceeding in accordance with these well-established principles, we observe that §2409a(f) expressly states that any civil action is time-barred unless filed within 12 years after the date it accrued. The statutory language makes no exception for civil actions by States. Nor is there any evidence in the legislative history suggesting that Congress intended to exempt the States from the condition attached to the immunity waiver. These facts alone, in the light of our approach to sovereign immunity cases, would appear to compel the conclusion that States are not entitled to an exemption from the strictures of § 2409a(f).
The State, however, relies on the well-known canon of statutory construction that “[statutes of limitation are not... held to embrace the State, unless she is expressly designated, or necessarily included by the nature of the mischiefs to be remedied.” Weber v. Board of Harbor Comm’rs, 18 Wall. 57, 70 (1873). Accord, Guaranty Trust Co. v. United States, 304 U. S. 126, 132-133 (1938). Because §2409a(f) does not expressly include the State, North Dakota urges, and the Court of Appeals held, that the State was not barred by the statute. While recognizing that immunity waivers by the United States are to be carefully construed, the Court of Appeals concluded that precedence should be given to the competing canon of statutory construction that statutes of limitations should not apply to the States absent express legislative inclusion. 671 F. 2d, at 275-276.
We do not agree. In fashioning sovereign-immunity waiver legislation, Congress is certainly free to exempt the States from a statute of limitations or any other condition of the waiver. But there is no merit to North Dakota’s assertion that a condition on a congressional waiver of federal sovereign immunity should be regarded as inapplicable to States in the absence of express intent to the contrary. This Court has never sanctioned such a rule. Quite the contrary, in United States v. Louisiana, 127 U. S. 182 (1888), the Court held that a general statute of limitations, one that did not expressly mention States, barred a State’s claim against the Federal Government. And in Minnesota v. United States, 305 U. S., at 388-389, where the United States had waived its immunity on the condition that any suit ágainst it had to be brought in a federal court, we concluded without hesitation that the plaintiff State’s suit should have been dismissed for lack of jurisdiction, because it had been filed in state court, even though the federal-court condition did not expressly apply to States. Thus, neither Congress nor the decisions of this Court have suggested that the States are presumed to be exempt from satisfying the conditions placed by Congress on its immunity waivers; and, in light of our Constitution, which makes the federal law ultimately supreme, these holdings should not have been surprising.
We do not discount the importance of the generally applicable rule of statutory construction relied upon by the Court of Appeals. The judicially created rule that a sovereign is normally exempt from the operation of a generally worded statute of limitations has retained its vigor because it serves the public policy of preserving the public rights, revenues, and property from injury and loss, by the negligence of public officers. Guaranty Trust Co. v. United States, supra, at 132. Thus, in these cases, the rule would further the interests of the citizens of North Dakota, by affording them some protection against the negligence of state officials in failing to comply with the otherwise applicable statute of limitations.
Even assuming, however, that this rule has relevance in construing the applicability to the States of a congressionally imposed statute of limitations not expressly including the States, here the will of Congress is apparent and we must follow it. As the legislative history outlined in Part II above shows, Congress agreed with the Executive that §2409a(f) was necessary for protection of national public interests. In general, a suit by a State against the United States affects the congressionally recognized national public interests to the same degree as does a suit by a private entity. Therefore, the judge-created rule designed to protect the interests of the citizens of one particular State must yield in the face of the evidence that Congress has determined that the national interest requires a contrary rule. We are convinced that Congress had no intention of exempting the States from compliance with § 2409a(f). That section must be applied to the States because they are “necessarily included by the nature of the mischiefs to be remedied.” Weber v. Board of Harbor Comm’rs, supra, at 70. We thus conclude that States must fully adhere to the requirements of § 2409a(f) when suing the United States under the QTA.
f — I <1
North Dakota finally argues that, even if Congress intended to apply §2409a(f) to it, and even if valid when applied in suits relating to other kinds of land, the section is unconstitutional under the equal-footing doctrine and the Tenth Amendment insofar as it purports to bar claims to lands constitutionally vested in the State. We are unable to agree.
The State probably is correct in stating that Congress could not, without making provision for payment of compensation, pass a law depriving a State of land vested in it by the Constitution. Such a law would not run afoul of the equal-footing doctrine or the Tenth Amendment, as asserted by North Dakota, but it would constitute a taking of the State’s property without just compensation, in violation of the Fifth Amendment. Section 2409a(f), however, does not purport to strip any State, or anyone else for that.matter, of any property rights. The statute limits the time in which a quiet title suit against the United States can be filed; but, unlike an adverse possession provision, §2409a(f) does not purport to effectuate a transfer of title. If a claimant has title to a disputed tract of land, he retains title even if his suit to quiet his title is deemed time-barred under § 2409a(f). A dismissal pursuant to §2409a(f) does not quiet title to the property in the United States. The title dispute remains unresolved. Nothing prevents the claimant from continuing to assert his title, in hope of inducing the United States to file its own quiet title suit, in which the matter would finally be put to rest on the merits.
Thus, we see no constitutional infirmity in §2409a(f). A constitutional claim can become time-barred just as any other claim can. See, e. g., Board of Regents v. Tomanio, 446 U. S. 478 (1980); Soriano v. United States, 352 U. S. 270 (1957). Nothing in the Constitution requires otherwise.
V
Admittedly, North Dakota comes before us with an appealing case. Both lower courts held that the Little Missouri is navigable and that the State obtained title to the disputed land at statehood. The federal defendants have not asked this Court to review the correctness of these substantive holdings other than to submit that these determinations are time-barred by the QTA. We agree with this submission. Whatever the merits of the title dispute may be, the federal defendants are correct: If North Dakota’s suit is barred by § 2409a(f), the courts below had no jurisdiction to inquire into the merits.
In view of the foregoing, the judgment of the Court of Appeals is reversed. North Dakota’s action may proceed, if at all, only under the QTA. If the State’s suit was filed more than 12 years after its action accrued, the suit is barred by § 2409a(f). Since the lower courts made no findings as to the date on which North Dakota’s suit accrued, the cases must be remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
So ordered.
Act of Oct. 25, 1972, Pub. L. 92-562, 86 Stat. 1176, codified at 28 U. S. C. § 2409a, 28 U. S. C. § 1346(f), and 28 U. S. C. § 1402(d).
The provision relevant to the present case, 28 U. S. C. § 2409a, states:
“(a) The United States may be named as a party defendant in a civil action under this section to adjudicate a disputed title to real property in which the United States claims an interest, other than a security interest or water rights. This section does not apply to trust or restricted Indian lands, nor does it apply to or affect actions which may be or could have been brought under sections 1346, 1347, 1491, or 2410 of this title, sections 7424, 7425, or 7426 of the Internal Revenue Code of 1954, as amended (26 U. S. C. 7424, 7425, and 7426), or section 208 of the Act of July 10, 1952 (43 U. S. C. 666).
“(b) The United States shall not be disturbed in possession or control of any real property involved in any action under this section pending a final judgment or decree, the conclusion of any appeal therefrom, and sixty days; and if the final determination shall be adverse to the United States, the United States nevertheless may retain such possession or control of the real property or of any part thereof as it may elect, upon payment to the person determined to be entitled thereto of an amount which upon such election the district court in the same action shall determine to be just compensation for such possession or control.
“(c) The complaint shall set forth with particularity the nature of the right, title, or interest which the plaintiff claims in the real property, the circumstances under which it was acquired, and the right, title, or interest claimed by the United States.
“(d) If the United States disclaims all interest in the real property or interest therein adverse to the plaintiff at any time prior to the actual commencement of the trial, which disclaimer is confirmed by order of the court, the jurisdiction of the district court shall cease unless it has jurisdiction of the civil action or suit on ground other than and independent of the authority conferred by section 1346(f) of this title.
“(e) A civil action against the United States under this section shall be tried by the court without a jury.
“(f) Any civil action under this section shall be barred unless it is commenced within twelve years of the date upon which it accrued. Such action shall be deemed to have accrued on the date the plaintiff or his predecessor in interest knew or should have known of the claim of the United States.
“(g) Nothing in this section shall be construed to permit suits against the United States based upon adverse possession.”
Court `In some parts of the disputed area, the United States' claim to the bed is founded on reasons other than its status as riparian landowner. See Tr. 38-48.
The complaint named as defendants the Secretary of the Interior, the Secretary of Agriculture, the Director of the United States Bureau of Land Management, and the Chief of the United States Forest Service. App. 6. The defendants were alleged to have “final authority” over the agencies that were “presently unlawfully asserting ownership over sovereign lands of the State of North Dakota.” Id., at 7.
North Dakota’s amended complaint did not name the United States as a party defendant, even though the United States appears to be the only proper federal defendant under 28 U. S. C. § 2409a(a). The Solicitor General has expressly waived any objection the United States or the defendants might have as to this point. Brief for Petitioners in No. 81-2837, p. 31, n. 20.
North Dakota’s case consisted of documentary evidence of canoe travel on the river prior to statehood, an effort to float logs down the river shortly after statehood, present-day recreational canoe traffic, and other small craft usage over the years.
The federal defendants took the position that the State’s evidence of navigability was so weak that it actually supported the view that the river was nonnavigable.
To further support this conclusion, the court stated, albeit without elaboration, that the legislative history of the QTA showed that Congress intended the statute of limitations “to apply exclusively to persons, be they private citizens or private or public corporations.” 506 F. Supp., at 625. The court also commented that the federal defendants’ position was contrary to the express will of Congress, as indicated by the Submerged Lands Act, 43 U. S. C. § 1311(a). 506 F. Supp., at 626.
The defendants also argued in the District Court that the United States had acquired title to the bed by adverse possession, and that, in any event, the suit was barred by laches. The District Court rejected both of these contentions, id,., at 624-626, and the defendants did not pursue them further.
The judgment excluded those portions of the bed in which the Three Affiliated Tribes of the Fort Berthold Reservation had an interest. The Tribes were not named as parties to the State’s suit, and the court concluded that their rights should be left unaffected by the judgment. Id., at 622.
See, e. g., County of Bonner v. Anderson, 439 F. 2d 764 (CA9 1971); Simons v. Vinson, 394 F. 2d 732 (CA5), cert. denied, 393 U. S. 968 (1968); Gardner v. Harris, 391 F. 2d 885 (CA5 1968); Switzerland Co. v. Udall, 387 F. 2d 56 (CA4 1964), cert. denied, 380 U. S. 914 (1965). One Court of Appeals, however, construed Malone narrowly. See Armstrong v. Udall, 435 F. 2d 38, 42 (CA9 1970); Andros v. Rupp, 433 F. 2d 70, 73-74 (CA9 1970) (holding Malone to be inapplicable where the plaintiff has record title to the disputed land).
See Hearing on S. 216 et al. before the Subcommittee on Public Lands of the Senate Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs, 92d Cong., 1st Sess., 64 (1971) (statement of Prof. J. Steadman); id., at 81 (letter from L. Gendron, Esq.).
S. Rep. No. 92-575, p. 1 (1971). See also H. R. Rep. No. 92-1559, p. 6 (1972); id., at 9 (letter from the Attorney General); Hearing, supra n. 10, at 8 (Sen. Church); id., at 2, 19 (M. Melich, Solicitor, Dept. of the Interior); id., at 45 (letter from Sen. Hansen); id., at 55 (T. McKnight); id., at 74 (letter from R. Reynolds); id., at 77 (statement of T. Cavanaugh).
Hearing, supra n. 10, at 21 (S. Kashiwa, Assistant Attorney General); see id., at 32 (J. McGuire, Dept. of Agriculture).
Id., at 2, 19 (M. Melich, Solicitor, Dept. of the Interior).
Ibid. See also id., at 3, 32 (views of Dept. of Agriculture); S. Rep. No. 92-575, pp. 5-6 (1971) (letter from the Attorney General).
Id., at 7 (letter from the Attorney General).
H. R. Rep. No. 92-1559, p. 7 (1972) (letter from the Deputy Attorney General).
The Justice Department proposal contained other, relatively minor limitations on the waiver. For example, it expressly stated that no one could claim against the United States by adverse possession, and it provided for exclusive federal jurisdiction. All of these changes were ultimately included in the legislation.
This provision stated that an action would be barred unless an action was begun “within six years after the claim for relief first accrues or within two years after the effective date of this Act, whichever is later.” 117 Cong. Rec. 46380 (1971) (emphasis added).
H. R. Rep. No. 92-1559, p. 7 (1972) (letter from the Deputy Attorney General).
Id., at 7-8. The Department of Justice also objected to a provision in the Senate-passed version that would have made the limitations period begin to run only on the date that the plaintiff obtained actual knowledge of the United States’ claim. The Department contended that the limitations period should begin to run on the date the claimant knew or should have known of the United States’ claim, see ibid., and Congress agreed to this change.
See also Great American Federal Savings & Loan Assn. v. Novotny, 442 U. S. 366, 375-377 (1979); Preiser v. Rodriguez, 411 U. S. 475, 488-490 (1973); United States v. Demko, 385 U. S. 149, 151-152 (1966); 1A C. Sands, Statutes and Statutory Construction §23.16 (4th ed. 1972).
We also reject North Dakota's claim that, even if the QTA pre-empted alternative remedies in 1972, Congress created a new supplemental remedy four years later when it amended 5 U. S. C. § 702 with Pub. L. 94-574, 90 Stac. 2721. That statute waived federal sovereign immunity for suits against federal officers in which the plaintiff seeks relief other than money damages, but it specifically confers no “authority to grant relief if any other statute that grants consent to suit expressly or impliedly forbids the relief which is sought.” The QTA is such an “other statute,” because, if a suit is untimely under the QTA, the QTA expressly “forbids the relief” which would be sought under § 702. See H. R. Rep. No. 94-1656, p. 13 (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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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.
The right to a fair trial, guaranteed to state criminal defendants by the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, imposes on States certain duties consistent with their sovereign obligation to ensure “that ‘justice shall be done’” in all criminal prosecutions. United States v. Agurs, 427 U. S. 97, 111 (1976) (quoting Berger v. United States, 295 U. S. 78, 88 (1935)). In Brady v. Maryland, 373 U. S. 83 (1963), we held that when a State suppresses evidence favorable to an accused that is material to guilt or to punishment, the State violates the defendant’s right to due process, “irrespective of the good faith or bad faith of the prosecution.” Id., at 87.
In this case, Gary Cone, a Vietnam veteran sentenced to death, contends that the State of Tennessee violated his right to due process by suppressing witness statements and police reports that would have corroborated his trial defense and bolstered his case in mitigation of the death penalty. At his trial in 1982, Cone asserted an insanity defense, contending that he had killed two people while suffering from acute amphetamine psychosis, a disorder caused by drug addiction. The State of Tennessee discredited that defense, alleging that Cone’s drug addiction was “ ‘baloney.’ ” 492 F. 3d 743, 760 (CA6 2007) (Merritt, J., dissenting). Ten years later, Cone learned that the State had suppressed evidence supporting his claim of drug addiction.
Cone presented his new evidence to the state courts in a petition for postconviction relief, but the Tennessee courts denied him a hearing on the ground that his Brady claim had been “previously determined,” id., at 753 (majority opinion), either on direct appeal from his conviction or in earlier collateral proceedings. On application for a writ of habeas corpus pursuant to 28 U. S. C. § 2254, the Federal District Court concluded that the state courts’ disposition rested on an adequate and independent state ground that barred further review in federal court, and the Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit agreed. Doubt concerning the correctness of that holding, coupled with conflicting decisions from other Courts of Appeals, prompted our grant of certiorari. 554 U. S. 916 (2008).
After a complete review of the trial and postconviction proceedings, we conclude that the Tennessee courts’ rejection of petitioner’s Brady claim does not. rest on a ground that bars federal review. Furthermore, although the District Court and the Court of Appeals passed briefly on the merits of Cone’s claim, neither court distinguished the materiality of the suppressed evidence with respect to Cone’s guilt from the materiality of the evidence with respect to his punishment. While we agree that the withheld documents were not material to the question whether Cone committed murder with the requisite mental state, the lower courts failed to adequately consider whether that same evidence was material to Cone’s sentence. Therefore, we vacate the decision of the Court of Appeals and remand the case to the District Court to determine in the first instance whether there is a reasonable probability that the withheld evidence would have altered at least one juror’s assessment of the appropriate penalty for Cone’s crimes.
I
On the afternoon of Saturday, August 10, 1980, Cone robbed a jewelry store in downtown Memphis, Tennessee. Fleeing the scene by car, he led police on a high-speed chase into a residential neighborhood. Once there, he abandoned his vehicle and shot a police officer. When a bystander tried to impede his escape, Cone shot him, too, before escaping on foot.
A short time later, Cone tried to hijack a nearby car. When that attempt failed (because the driver refused to surrender his keys), Cone tried to shoot the driver and a hovering police helicopter before realizing he had run out of ammunition. He then fled the scene. Although police conducted a thorough search, Cone was nowhere to be found.
Early the next morning, Cone reappeared in the same neighborhood at the door of an elderly woman. He asked to use her telephone, and when she refused, he drew a gun. Before he was able to gain entry, the woman slammed the door and called the police. By the time officers arrived, however, Cone had once again disappeared.
That afternoon, Cone gained entry to the home of 93-year-old Shipley Todd and his wife, 79-year-old Cleopatra Todd. Cone beat the couple to death with a blunt instrument and ransacked the first floor of their home. Later, he shaved his beard and escaped to the airport without being caught. Cone then traveled to Florida, where he was arrested several days later after robbing a drugstore in Pompano Beach.
A Tennessee grand jury charged Cone with two counts of first-degree murder, two counts of murder in the perpetration of a burglary, three counts of assault with intent to murder, and one count of robbery by use of deadly force. At his jury trial in 1982, Cone did not challenge the overwhelming physical and testimonial evidence supporting the charges against him. His sole defense was that he was not guilty by reason of insanity.
Cone’s counsel portrayed his client as suffering from severe drug addiction attributable to trauma Cone had experienced in Vietnam. Counsel argued that Cone had committed his crimes while suffering from chronic amphetamine psychosis, a disorder brought about by his drug abuse. That defense was supported by the testimony of three witnesses. First was Cone’s mother, who described her son as an honorably discharged Vietnam veteran who had changed following his return from service. She recalled Cone describing “how terrible” it had been to handle the bodies of dead soldiers, and she explained that Cone slept restlessly and sometimes “holler[ed]” in his sleep. Tr. 1643-1645 (Apr. 20, 1982). She also described one occasion, following Cone’s return from service, when a package was shipped to him that contained marijuana. Before the war, she asserted, Cone had not used drugs of any kind.
Two expert witnesses testified on Cone’s behalf. Matthew Jaremko, a clinical psychologist, testified that Cone suffered from substance abuse and posttraumatic stress disorders related to his military service in Vietnam. Jaremko testified that Cone had expressed remorse for the murders, and he opined that Cone’s mental disorder rendered him substantially incapable of conforming his conduct to the law. Jonathan Lipman, a neuropharmacologist, recounted at length Cone’s history of illicit drug use, which began after Cone joined the Army and escalated to the point where Cone was consuming “rather horrific” quantities of drugs daily. App. 100. According to Lipman, Cone’s drug abuse had led to chronic amphetamine psychosis, a disorder manifested through hallucinations and ongoing paranoia that prevented Cone from obeying the law and appreciating the wrongfulness of his actions.
In rebutting Cone’s insanity defense the State’s strategy throughout trial was to present Cone as a calculating, intelligent criminal who was fully in control of his decisions and actions at the time of the crimes. A key component of that strategy involved discrediting Cone’s claims of drug use. Through cross-examination, the State established that both defense experts’ opinions were based solely on Cone’s representations to them about his drug use rather than on any independently corroborated sources, such as medical records or interviews with family or friends. The prosecution also adduced expert and lay testimony to establish that Cone was not addicted to drugs and had acted rationally and intentionally before, during, and after the Todd murders.
Particularly damaging to Cone’s defense was the testimony of rebuttal witness llene Blankman, who had spent time with Cone several months before the murders and at whose home Cone had stayed in the days leading up to his arrest in Florida. Blankman admitted to being a former heroin addict but testified that she no longer used drugs and tried to stay away from people who did. She testified that she had never seen Cone use drugs, had never observed track marks on his body, and had never seen him exhibit signs of paranoia.
Emphasizing the State’s position with respect to Cone’s alleged addiction, the prosecutor told the jury during closing argument, “[YJou’re not dealing with a crazy person, an insane man. A man... out of his mind. You’re dealing, I submit to you, with a premeditated, cool, deliberate — and even cowardly, really — murderer.” Tr. 2084 (Apr. 22, 1982). Pointing to the quantity of drugs found in Cone’s car, the prosecutor suggested that far from being a drug addict, Cone was actually a drug dealer. The prosecutor argued, “Pm not trying to be absurd, but he says he’s a drug addict. I say balony. He’s a drug seller. Doesn’t the proof show that?” App. 107.
The jury rejected Cone’s insanity defense and found him guilty on all counts. At the penalty hearing, the prosecution asked the jury to find that Cone’s crime met the criteria for four different statutory aggravating factors, any one of which would render him eligible for a capital sentence. Cone’s counsel called no witnesses but instead rested on the evidence adduced during the guilt phase proceedings. Acknowledging that the prosecution’s experts had disputed the existence of Cone’s alleged mental disorder, counsel nevertheless urged the jury to consider Cone’s drug addiction when weighing the aggravating and mitigating factors in the case. The jury found all four aggravating factors and unanimously returned a sentence of death.
II
On direct appeal Cone raised numerous challenges to his conviction and sentence. Among those was a claim that the prosecution violated state law by failing to disclose a tape-recorded statement and police reports relating to several trial witnesses. See id., at 114-117. The Tennessee Supreme Court rejected each of Cone’s claims, and affirmed his conviction and sentence. State v. Cone, 665 S. W. 2d 87 (1984). Cone then filed a petition for postconviction relief, primarily raising claims that his trial counsel had been ineffective; the Tennessee Court of Criminal Appeals affirmed the denial of that petition in 1987. Cone v. State, 747 S. W. 2d 353.
In 1989, Cone, acting pro se, filed a second petition for postconviction relief, raising myriad claims of error. Among these was a claim that the State had failed to disclose evidence in violation of his rights under the United States Constitution. At the State’s behest, the postconvietion court summarily denied the petition, concluding that all the claims raised in it had either been “previously determined” or “waived.” Order Dismissing Petition for Post-Conviction Relief in Cone v. State, No. P-06874 (Crim. Ct. Shelby Cty., Tenn., Jan. 2,199Q). At that time, the court did not specify which claims fell into which category.
Cone appealed the denial of his petition to the Tennessee Court of Criminal Appeals, asserting that the postconvietion court had erred by dismissing 13 claims — his Brady claim among them — as previously determined when, in fact, they had not been “previously addressed or determined by any court.” Brief for Petitioner-Appellant in No. P-06874, pp. 23-24, and n. 11. In addition Cone urged the court to remand the case to allow him, with the assistance of counsel, to rebut the presumption that he had waived any of his claims by not raising them at an earlier stage in the litigation. Id., at 24. The court agreed and remanded the case for further proceedings.
On remand counsel was appointed, and an amended petition was filed. The State once again urged the postconviction court to dismiss Cone’s petition. Apparently conflating the state-law disclosure claim Cone had raised on direct appeal with his newly filed Brady claim, the State represented that the Tennessee Supreme Court had already decided the Brady issue and that Cone was therefore barred from relitigating it. See App. 15-16.
While that petition remained pending before the postconvietion court, the Tennessee Court of Appeals held for the first time that the State’s Public Records Act allowed a criminal defendant to review the prosecutor’s file in his ease. See Capital Case Resource Center of Tenn., Inc. v. Woodall, No. 01-A-019104CH00150, 1992 WL 12217 (Jan. 29, 1992). Based on that holding, Cone obtained access to the prosecutor’s files, in which he found proof that evidence had indeed been withheld from him at trial. Among the undisclosed documents Cone discovered were statements from witnesses who had seen him several days before and several days after the murders. The witnesses described Cone’s appearance as “wild eyed,” App. 50, and his behavior as “real weird,” id., at 49. One witness affirmed that Cone had appeared “to be drunk or high.” Ibid. The file also contained a police report describing Cone’s arrest in Florida following the murders. In that report, a police officer described Cone looking around “in a frenzied manner,” and “walking in [an] agitated manner” prior to his apprehension. Id., at 53. Multiple police bulletins describing Cone as a “drug user” and a “heavy drug user” were also among the undisclosed evidence. See id., at 55-59.
With the newly discovered evidence in hand, Cone amended his postconviction petition once again in October 1993, expanding his Brady claim to allege more specifically that the State had withheld exculpatory evidence demonstrating that he “did in fact suffer drug problems and/or drug withdrawal or psychosis both at the time of the offense and in the past.” App. 20. Cone pointed to specific examples of evidence that had been withheld, alleging the evidence was “exculpatory to both the jury’s determination of petitioner’s guilt and its consideration of the proper sentence,” and that there was “a reasonable probability that, had the evidence not been withheld, the jurors would not have convicted [him] and would not have sentenced him to death.” Id., at 20-21. In a lengthy affidavit submitted with his amended petition, Cone explained that he had not raised his Brady claim in earlier proceedings because the facts underlying it “ha[d] been revealed through disclosure of the State’s files, which occurred after the first post-conviction proceeding.” App. 18.
After denying Cone’s request for an evidentiary hearing, the postconviction court denied relief on each claim presented in the amended petition. Many of the claims were dismissed on the ground that they had been waived by Cone’s failure to raise them in earlier proceedings; however, consistent with the position urged by the State, the court dismissed many others, including the Brady claim, as mere “re-statements of previous grounds heretofore determined and denied by the Tennessee Supreme Court upon Direct Appeal or the Court of Criminal Appeals upon the First Petition.” App. 22.
Noting that “the findings of the trial court in post-conviction hearings are conclusive on appeal unless the evidence preponderates against the judgment,” the Tennessee Court of Criminal Appeals affirmed. Cone v. State, 927 S. W. 2d 579, 581-582 (1995). The court concluded that Cone had “failed to rebut the presumption of waiver as to all claims raised in his second petition for post-conviction relief which had not been previously determined." Id., at 582 (emphasis added). Cone unsuccessfully petitioned for review in the Tennessee Supreme Court, and we denied certiorari. Cone v. Tennessee, 519 U. S. 934 (1996).
Ill
In 1997, Cone filed a petition for a federal writ of habeas corpus. Without disclosing to the District Court the contrary position it had taken in the state-court proceedings, the State acknowledged that Cone’s Brady claim had not been raised prior to the filing of his second postconviction petition. However, wrenching out of context the state appellate court’s holding that Cone had “waived ‘all claims... which had not been previously determined,’ ” the State now asserted the Brady claim had been waived. App. 39 (quoting Cone, 927 S. W. 2d, at 582).
In May 1998, the District Court denied Cone’s request for an evidentiary hearing on his Brady claim. Lamenting that its consideration of Cone's claims had been “made more difficult” by the parties’ failure to articulate the state procedural rules under which each of Cone's claims had allegedly been defaulted, App. to Pet. for Cert. 98a, the District Court nevertheless held that the Brady claim was procedurally barred. After parsing the claim into 11 separate subclaims based on 11 pieces of withheld evidence identified in the habeas petition, the District Court concluded that Cone had waived each subclaim by failing to present or adequately develop it in state court. App. to Pet. for Cert. 112a-113a. Moreover, the court concluded that even if Cone had not defaulted his Brady claim, it would fail on its merits because none of the withheld evidence would have cast doubt on Cone’s guilt. App. to Pet. for Cert. 116a-119a. Throughout its opinion the District Court repeatedly referenced factual allegations contained in early versions of Cone’s second petition for post-conviction relief rather than the amended version of the petition upon which the state court’s decision had rested. See, e. g., id., at 112a.
After the District Court dismissed the remainder of Cone’s federal claims, the Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit granted him permission to appeal several issues, including the alleged suppression of Brady material. Before the Court of Appeals, the State shifted its procedural default argument once more, this time contending that Cone had “simply never raised” his Brady claim in the state court because he failed to make adequate factual allegations to support that claim in his second petition for postconviction relief. App. 41. Repeating the District Court’s error, the State directed the Court of Appeals’ attention to Cone’s pro se petition and to the petition Cone’s counsel filed before he gained access to the prosecution’s case file. Id., at 41-42, and n. 7. In other words, instead of citing the October 1993 amended petition on which the state court’s decision had been based and to which its order explicitly referred, the State pointed the court to earlier, less developed versions of the same claim.
The Court of Appeals concluded that Cone had proeedurally defaulted his Brady claim and had failed to show cause and prejudice to overcome the default. Cone v. Bell, 243 F. 3d 961, 968 (2001). The court acknowledged that Cone had raised his Brady claim. 243 F. 3d, at 969. Nevertheless, the court considered itself barred from reaching the merits of the claim because the Tennessee courts had concluded the claim was “previously determined or waived under Tenn. Code Ann. §40-30-112.” Ibid.
Briefly mentioning several isolated pieces of suppressed evidence, the court summarily concluded that even if Cone’s Brady claim had not been defaulted, the suppressed evidence would not undermine confidence in the verdict (and hence was not Brady material) “because of the overwhelming evidence of Cone’s guilt.” 243 F. 3d, at 968, 969. The court did not discuss whether any of the undisclosed evidence was material with respect to Cone’s sentencing proceedings.
Although the Court of Appeals rejected Cone’s Brady claim, it held that he was entitled to have his death sentence vacated because of his counsel’s ineffective assistance at sentencing. See 243 F. 3d, at 975. In 2002, this Court reversed that holding after concluding that the Tennessee courts’ rejection of Cone’s ineffective-assistance-of-eounsel claim was not “objectively unreasonable” within the meaning of the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 (AEDPA). See Bell v. Cone, 535 U. S. 685, 699.
In 2004, following our remand, the Court of Appeals again entered judgment ordering a new sentencing hearing, this time based on the purported invalidity of an aggravating circumstance found by the jury. Cone v. Bell, 359 F. 3d 785. Again we granted certiorari and reversed, relying in part on the deferential standard that governs our review of state-court decisions under AEDPA. See Bell v. Cone, 543 U. S. 447, 452-458 (2005) (per curiam).
Following our second remand, the Court of Appeals revisited Cone’s Brady claim. This time, the court divided the claim into four separate subclaims: “(1) evidence regarding [Cone’s] drug use; (2) evidence that might have been useful to impeach the testimony and credibility of prosecution witness Sergeant Ralph Roby; (3) FBI reports; and (4) evidence showing that prosecution witness llene Blankman was untruthful and biased.” 492 F. 3d, at 753. Noting that it had previously found all four subclaims to be proeedurally defaulted, the court declined to reconsider its earlier decision. See ibid, (citing Cone, 243 F. 3d, at 968-970). At the same time, the court reiterated that the withheld evidence “would not have overcome the overwhelming evidence of Cone’s guilt in committing a brutal double murder and the persuasive testimony that Cone was not under the influence of drugs.” 492 F. 3d, at 756. Summarily discounting Cone’s contention that the withheld evidence was material with respect to his sentence, the court concluded that the introduction of the suppressed evidence would not have altered the jurors’ finding that Cone’s alleged drug use did not “vitiate his specific intent to murder his victims and did not mitigate his culpability sufficient to avoid the death sentence.” Id., at 757.
Judge Merritt dissented. He castigated the State not only for withholding documents relevant to Cone’s sole defense and plea for mitigation, but also for its “falsification of the procedural record... concerning the State’s procedural default defense to the Brady claim.” Id., at 760. Over the dissent of seven judges, Cone’s petition for rehearing en banc was denied. 505 F. 3d 610 (2007).
We granted certiorari to answer the question whether a federal habeas claim is “ ‘procedurally defaulted’ ” when it is twice presented to the state courts. Pet. for Cert. i.
IV
During the state and federal proceedings below, the State of Tennessee offered two different justifications for denying review of the merits of Cone’s Brady claim. First, in connection with Cone’s amended petition for state postconviction relief, the State argued that the Brady claim was barred because it had been decided on direct appeal. See App. 15-16. Then, in connection with Cone’s federal habeas petition, the State argued that Cone’s claim was waived because it had never been properly raised before the state courts. See id,., at 39. The District Court and the Court of Appeals agreed that Cone’s claim was procedurally barred, but for different reasons. The District Court held that the claim had been waived, App. to Pet. for Cert. 102a, while the Court of Appeals held that the claim had been either waived or previously determined, Cone, 243 F. 3d, at 969. We now conclude that neither prior determination nor waiver provides an independent and adequate state ground for denying Cone review of his federal claim.
It is well established that federal courts will not review questions of federal law presented in a habeas petition when the state court’s decision rests upon a state-law ground that “is independent of the federal question and adequate to support the judgment.” Coleman v. Thompson, 501 U. S. 722, 729 (1991); Lee v. Kemna, 534 U. S. 362, 375 (2002). In the context of federal habeas proceedings, the independent and adequate state ground doctrine is designed to “ensur[e] that the States’ interest in correcting their own mistakes is respected in all federal habeas cases.” Coleman, 501 U. S., at 732. When a petitioner fails to properly raise his federal claims in state court, he deprives the State of “an opportunity to address those claims in the first instance” and frustrates the State’s ability to honor his constitutional rights. Id., at 732,748. Therefore, consistent with the longstanding requirement that habeas petitioners must exhaust available state remedies before seeking relief in federal court, we have held that when a petitioner fails to raise his federal claims in compliance with relevant state procedural rules, the state court’s refusal to adjudicate the claim ordinarily qualifies as an independent and adequate state ground for denying federal review. See id., at 731.
That does not mean, however, that federal habeas review is barred every time a state court invokes a procedural rule to limit its review of a state prisoner’s claims. We have recognized that “ ‘[t]he adequacy of state procedural bars to the assertion of federal questions’... is not within the State’s prerogative finally to decide; rather, adequacy ‘is itself a federal question.’” Lee, 534 U. S., at 375 (quoting Douglas v. Alabama, 380 U. S. 415, 422 (1965)); see also Coleman, 501 U. S., at 736 (“[Fjederal habeas courts must ascertain for themselves if the petitioner is in custody pursuant to a state court judgment that rests on independent and adequate state grounds”). The question before us now is whether federal review of Cone’s Brady claim is procedurally barred either because the claim was twice presented to the state courts or because it was waived, and thus not presented at all.
First, we address the contention that the repeated presentation of a claim in state court bars later federal review. The Tennessee postconviction court denied Cone’s Brady claim after concluding it had been previously determined following a full and fair hearing in state court. See Tenn. Code Ann. §40-30-112(a). That conclusion rested on a false premise: Contrary to the state courts’ finding, Cone had not presented his Brady claim in earlier proceedings, and, consequently, the state courts had not passed on it. The Sixth Circuit recognized that Cone’s Brady claim had not been decided on direct appeal, see Cone, 243 F. 3d, at 969, but felt constrained by the state courts’ refusal to reach the merits of that claim on postconviction review. The Court of Appeals concluded that because the state postconviction courts had applied a state procedural law to avoid reaching the merits of Cone’s Brady claim, “an ‘independent and adequate' state ground” barred federal habeas review. 243 F. 3d, at 969. In this Court the State does not defend that aspect of the Court of Appeals’ holding, and rightly so.
When a state court declines to review the merits of a petitioner’s claim on the ground that it has done so already, it creates no bar to federal habeas review. In Ylst v. Nunnemaker, 501 U. S. 797, 804, n. 3 (1991), we observed in passing that when a state court declines to revisit a claim it has already adjudicated, the effect of the later decision upon the availability of federal habeas is “nil” because “a later state decision based upon ineligibility for further state review neither rests upon procedural default nor lifts a pre-existing procedural default.” When a state court refuses to readjudicate a claim on the ground that it has been previously determined, the court’s decision does not indicate that the claim has been procedurally defaulted. To the contrary, it provides strong evidence that the claim has already been given full consideration by the state courts and thus is ripe for federal adjudication. See 28 U. S. C. § 2254(b)(1)(A) (permitting issuance of a writ of habeas corpus only after “the applicant has exhausted the remedies available in the courts of the State”).
A claim is procedurally barred when it has not been fairly presented to the state courts for their initial consideration— not when the claim has been presented more than once. Accordingly, insofar as the Court of Appeals rejected Cone’s Brady claim as procedurally defaulted because the claim had been twice presented to the Tennessee courts, its decision was erroneous.
As an alternative (and contradictory) ground for barring review of Cone’s Brady claim, the State has argued that Cone’s claim was properly dismissed by the state postconviction court on the ground it had been waived. We are hot persuaded. The state appellate court affirmed the denial of Cone’s Brady claim on the same mistaken ground offered by the lower court — that the claim had been previously determined. Contrary to the State’s assertion, the Tennessee appellate court did not hold that Cone’s Brady claim was waived.
When a state court declines to find that a claim has been waived by a petitioner’s alleged failure to comply with state procedural rules, our respect for the state-court judgment counsels us to do the same. Although we have an independent duty to scrutinize the application of state rules that bar our review of federal claims, Lee, 584 U. S., at 375, we have no concomitant duty to apply state procedural bars where state courts have themselves declined to do so. The Tennessee courts did not hold that Cone waived his Brady claim, and we will not second-guess their judgment.
The State’s procedural objections to federal review of the merits of Cone’s claim have resulted in a significant delay in bringing this unusually protracted case to a conclusion. Ultimately, however, they provide no obstacle to judicial review. Cone properly preserved and exhausted his Brady claim in the state court; therefore, it is not defaulted. We turn now to the merits of that claim.
V
Although the State is obliged to “prosecute with earnestness and vigor,” it “is as much [its] duty to refrain from improper methods calculated to produce a wrongful conviction as it is to use every legitimate means to bring about a just one.” Berger, 295 U. S., at 88. Accordingly, we have held that when the State withholds from a criminal defendant evidence that is material to his guilt or punishment, it violates his right to due process of law in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment. See Brady, 373 U. S., at 87. In United States v. Bagley, 473 U. S. 667, 682 (1985) (opinion of Blackmun, J.), we explained that evidence is “material” within the meaning of Brady when there is a reasonable probability that, had the evidence been disclosed, the result of the proceeding would have been different. In other words, favorable evidence is subject to constitutionally mandated disclosure when it “could reasonably be taken to put the whole case in such a different light as to undermine confidence in the verdict.” Kyles v. Whitley, 514 U. S. 419, 435 (1995); accord, Banks v. Dretke, 540 U. S. 668, 698-699 (2004); Strickler v. Greene, 527 U. S. 263, 290 (1999).
The documents suppressed by the State vary in kind, but they share a common feature: Each strengthens the inference that Cone was impaired by his use of drugs around the time his crimes were committed. The suppressed evidence includes statements by witnesses acknowledging that Cone appeared to be “drunk or high,” App. 49, “acted real weird,” ibid., and “looked wild eyed,” id., at 50, in the two days preceding the murders. It also includes documents that could have been used to impeach witnesses whose trial testimony cast doubt on Cone’s drug addiction. For example, Memphis police officer Ralph Roby testified at trial that Cone had no needle marks on his body when he was arrested — an observation that bolstered the State’s argument that Cone was not a drug user. The suppressed evidence reveals, however, that Roby authorized multiple teletypes to law enforcement agencies in the days following the murders in which he described Cone as a “drug user” and a “heavy drug user. ” See id., at 55-58. A suppressed statement made by the chief of police of Cone’s hometown also describes Cone as a serious drug user. See Cone, 243 F. 3d, at 968. And undisclosed notes of a police interview with llene Blankman conducted several days after the murders reveal discrepancies between her initial statement and her trial testimony relevant to Cone’s alleged drug use. App. 72-73. In sum, both the quantity and the quality of the suppressed evidence lends support to Cone’s position at trial that he habitually used excessive amounts of drugs, that his addiction affected his behavior during his crime spree, and that the State’s arguments to the contrary were false and misleading.
Thus, the federal question that must be decided is whether the suppression of that probative evidence deprived Cone of his right to a fair trial. See Agurs, 427 U. S., at 108. Because the Tennessee courts did not reach the merits of Cone’s Brady claim, federal habeas review is not subject to the deferential standard that applies under AEDPA to “any claim that was adjudicated on the merits in State court proceedings.” 28 U. S. C. § 2254(d). Instead, the claim is reviewed de novo. See, e. g., Rompilla v. Beard, 545 U. S. 374, 390 (2005) (de novo review where state courts did not reach prejudice prong under Strickland v. Washington, 466 U. S. 668 (1984)); Wiggins v. Smith, 539 U. S. 510, 534 (2003) (same).
Contending that the Federal District Court and Court of Appeals adequately and correctly resolved the merits of that claim, the State urges us to affirm the Sixth Circuit’s denial of habeas relief. In assessing the materiality of the evidence suppressed by the State, the Court of Appeals suggested that two facts outweighed the potential force of the suppressed evidence. First, the evidence of Cone’s guilt was overwhelming. Second, the evidence of Cone’s drug use was cumulative because the jury had heard evidence of Cone’s alleged addiction from witnesses and from officers who interviewed Cone and recovered drugs from his vehicle. The Court of Appeals did not thoroughly review the suppressed evidence or consider what its cumulative effect on the jury would have been. Moreover, in concluding that the suppressed evidence was not material within the meaning of Brady, the court did not distinguish between the materiality of the evidence with respect to guilt and the materiality of the evidence with respect to punishment — an omission we find significant.
Evidence that is material to guilt will often be material for sentencing purposes as well; the converse is not always true, however, as Brady itself demonstrates. In our seminal case on the disclosure of prosecutorial evidence, defendant John Brady was indicted for robbery and capital murder. At trial, Brady took the stand and confessed to robbing the victim and being present at the murder but testified that his accomplice had actually strangled the victim. Brady v. State, 226 Md. 422, 425, 174 A. 2d 167, 168 (1961). After Brady was convicted and sentenced to death he discovered that the State had suppressed the confession of his accomplice, which included incriminating statements consistent with Brady’s version of events. Id., at 426, 174 A. 2d, at 169. The Maryland Court of Appeals concluded that Brady’s due process rights were violated by the suppression of the accomplice’s confession but declined to order a new trial on guilt. Observing that nothing in the accomplice’s confession “could have reduced... Brady’s offense below murder in the first degree,” the state court ordered a new trial on the question of punishment only. Id., at 430, 174 A. 2d, at 171. We granted certiorari and affirmed, rejecting Brady’s contention that the state court’s limited remand violated his constitutional rights. 373 U. S., at 88.
As in Brady, the distinction between the materiality of the suppressed evidence with respect to guilt and punishment
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
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.
This case presents a variation of the fact situation encountered by the Court in Harris v. New York, 401 U. S. 222 (1971): When a suspect, who is in the custody of a state police officer, has been given full Miranda warnings and accepts them, and then later states that he would like to telephone a lawyer but is told that this cannot be done until the officer and the suspect reach the station, and the suspect then provides inculpatory information, is that information admissible in evidence solely for impeachment purposes after the suspect has taken the stand and testified contrarily to the inculpatory information, or is it inadmissible under the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments?
I
The facts are not in dispute. In August 1972, bicycles were taken from two residential garages in the Moyina Heights area of Klamath Falls, Ore. Respondent Hass, in due course, was indicted for burglary in the first degree, in violation of Ore. Rev. Stat. § 164.225, with respect to the bicycle taken from the garage attached to one of the residences, a house occupied by a family named Lehman. He was not charged with the other burglary.
On the day of the thefts, Officer Osterholme of the Oregon State Police traced an automobile license number to the place where Hass lived. The officer met Hass there and placed him under arrest. App. 15. At Hass’ trial Osterholme testified in camera that, after giving Hass the warnings prescribed by Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U. S. 436, 467-473 (1966), he asked Hass about the theft of the bicycle taken from the Lehman residence. Hass admitted that he had taken two bicycles but stated that he was not sure, at first, which one Osterholme was talking about. App. 10. He further said that he had returned one of them and that the other was where he had left it. Id., at 12. Osterholme and Hass then departed in a patrol car for the site. Id., at 12-13. On the way Hass opined that he “was in a lot of trouble,” id., at 13, 26, and would like to telephone his attorney. Id., at 13. Osterholme replied that he could telephone the lawyer “as soon as we got to the office.” Ibid. Thereafter, respondent pointed out a place in the brush where the bicycle was found.
The court ruled that statements made by Hass after he said he wanted to see an attorney, and his identification of the bicycle's location, were not admissible. The prosecution then elicited from Osterholme, in its case in chief before the jury, that Hass had admitted to the witness that he had taken two bicycles that day because he needed money, that he had given one back, and that the other had been recovered. Id., at 31-32.
Later in the trial Hass took the stand. He testified that he and two friends, Walker and Lee, were “just riding around” in his Volkswagen truck, id., at 42; that the other two got out and respondent drove slowly down the street; that Lee suddenly reappeared, tossed a bicycle into the truck, and “ducked down” on the floor of the vehicle, id., at 44; that respondent did not know that Lee “stole it at first,” id., at 45; that it was his own intention to get rid of the bike; that they were overtaken by a jeep occupied by Mr. Lehman and his son; that the son pointed out Lee as “that’s the guy,” id., at 46; that Lee then returned the bike to the Lehmans; that respondent drove on and came upon Walker “sitting down there and he had this other bicycle by him,” and threw it into the truck, id., at 48; that he, respondent, went “out by Washburn Way and I threw it as far as I could,” ibid.; that later he told police he had stolen two bicycles, id., at 49; that he had had no idea what Lee and Walker were going to do, id., at 61; and that he did not see any of the bikes being taken and did not know “where those residences were located,” id., at 63.
The prosecution then recalled Officer Osterholme in rebuttal. He testified that Hass had pointed out the two houses from which the bicycles were taken. Id., at 65. On cross-examination, the officer testified that, prior to so doing, Hass had told Osterholme “that he knew where the bicycles came from, however, he didn’t know the exact street address.” Id., at 66. Osterholme also stated that Lee was along at the time but that Lee “had some difficulty” in identifying the residences “until My. Hass actually pointed them” and then “he recognized it.” Id., at 78.
The trial court, at the request of the defense, then advised the jury that the portion of Officer Osterholme’s testimony describing the statement made by Hass to him “may not be used by you as proof of the Defendant’s guilt . . . but you may consider that testimony only as it bears on the [credibility] of the Defendant as a witness when he testified on the witness stand.” Id., at 79.
Respondent again took the stand and said that Oster-holme’s testimony that he took him out to the residences and that respondent pointed out the houses was “wrong.” Id., at 81.
The jury returned a verdict of guilty. Hass received a sentence of two years’ probation and a $250 fine. The Oregon Court of Appeals, feeling itself bound by the earlier Oregon decision in State v. Brewton, 247 Ore. 241, 422 P. 2d 581, cert. denied, 387 U. S. 943 (1967), a pre-Harri's case, reversed on the ground that Hass’ statements were improperly used to impeach his testimony. 13 Ore. App. 368, 374, 510 P. 2d 852, 855 (1973). On petition for review, the Supreme Court of Oregon, by a 4-to-3 vote, affirmed. 267 Ore. 489, 517 P. 2d 671 (1973). The court reasoned that in a situation of proper Miranda warnings, as here, the police have nothing to lose, and perhaps could gain something, for impeachment purposes, by continuing their interrogation after the warnings; thus, there is no deterrence. In contrast, the court said, where warnings are yet to be given, there is an element of deterrence, for the police “will not take the chance of losing incriminating evidence for their case in chief by not giving adequate warnings.” Id., at 492, 517 P. 2d, at 673. The three dissenters perceived no difference between the two situations. Id., at 493-495, 517 P. 2d, at 674. Because the result was in conflict with that reached by the North Carolina court in State v. Bryant, 280 N. C. 551, 554-556, 187 S. E. 2d 111, 113-114 (1972), and because it bore upon the reach of our decision in Harris v. New York, 401 U. S. 222 (1971), we granted certiorari. 419 U. S. 823 (1974). We reverse.
II
The respondent raises some preliminary arguments. We mention them in passing:
1. Hass suggests that “when state law is more restrictive against the prosecution than federal law,” this Court has no power “to compel a state to conform to federal law.” Brief for Respondent 1. This, apparently, is proffered as a reference to our expressions that a State is free as a matter of its own law to impose greater restrictions on police activity than those this Court holds to be necessary upon federal constitutional standards. See, e. g., Cooper v. California, 386 U. S. 58, 62 (1967); Sibron v. New York, 392 U. S. 40, 60-61 (1968). See also State v. Kaluna, 55 Haw. 361, 368-369, 520 P. 2d 51, 58-59 (1974). But, of course, a State may not impose such greater restrictions as a matter of federal constitutional law when this Court specifically refrains from imposing them. See Smayda v. United States, 352 F. 2d 251, 253 (CA9 1965), cert. denied, 382 U. S. 981 (1966); Aftanase v. Economy Baler Co., 343 F. 2d 187, 193 (CA8 1965).
Although Oregon has a constitutional provision against compulsory self-incrimination in any criminal prosecution, Ore. Const., Art. 1, § 12, the present case was decided by the Oregon courts on Fifth and Fourteenth Amendment grounds. The decision did not rest on the Oregon Constitution or state law; neither was cited. The fact that the Oregon courts found it necessary to attempt to distinguish Harris v. New York, supra, reveals the federal basis.
“If we choose we can continue to apply this interpretation. We can do so by interpreting Article 1, § 9, of the Oregon constitutional prohibition of unreasonable searches and seizures as being more restrictive than the Fourth Amendment of the federal constitution. Or we can interpret the Fourth Amendment more restrictively than interpreted by the United States Supreme Court” (footnote omitted). The second sentence of this quoted excerpt is, of course, good law. The last sentence, unsupported by any cited authority, is not the law and surely must be an inadvertent error; in any event, we reject it.
2. Hass suggests that a decision by a State’s highest court in favor of a criminal defendant is not reviewable here. This, we assume, is a standing argument advanced on the theory that the State is not aggrieved by the Oregon judgment. Surely, a holding that, for constitutional reasons, the prosecution may not utilize otherwise relevant evidence makes the State an aggrieved party for purposes of review. This should be self-evident, but cases such as California v. Green, 399 U. S. 149 (1970), manifest its validity.
3. State v. Brewton, 247 Ore. 241, 422 P. 2d 581 (1967), by which the Oregon Court of Appeals in the present case felt itself bound, merits comment. There the Oregon court, again by a 4-to-3 vote, held that statements, elicited from a murder defendant, that were inadmissible in the State’s case in chief because they had not been preceded by adequate warnings, could not be used to impeach the defendant’s own testimony even though the statements had been voluntarily made.
In the present case the Supreme Court of Oregon stated that it took review “for the purpose of deciding whether we wished to overrule Brewton,” 267 Ore., at 492, 517 P. 2d, at 673. It found it “not necessary to make that determination” because, in the majority view, Brewton and Harris were distinguishable. Ibid. As set forth below, we are unable so to distinguish the two cases. Furthermore, Brewton is pre-Harris.
Ill
This takes us to the real issue, namely, that of the bearing of Harris v. New York upon this case.
In Harris, the defendant was charged by the State in a two-count indictment with twice selling heroin to an undercover police officer. The prosecution introduced evidence of the two sales. Harris took the stand in his own defense. He denied the first sale and described the second as one of baking powder utilized as part of a scheme to defraud the purchaser. On cross-examination, Harris was asked whether he had made specified statements to the police immediately following his arrest; the statements partially contradicted Harris' testimony. In response, Harris testified that he could not remember the questions or answers recited by the prosecutor. The trial court instructed the jury that the statements attributed to Harris could be used only in passing on his credibility and not as evidence of guilt. The jury returned a verdict of guilty on the second count of the indictment.
The prosecution had not sought to use the statements in its case in chief, for it conceded that they were inadmissible under Miranda because Harris had not been advised of his right to appointed counsel. The Chief Justice, speaking for the Court, observed, 401 U. S., at 224: "It does not follow from Miranda that evidence inadmissible against an accused in the prosecution's case in chief is barred for all purposes, provided of course that the trustworthiness of the evidence satisfies legal standards.” Relying on Walder v. United States, 347 U. S. 62 (1954), a Fourth Amendment case, we ruled that there was no “difference in principle” between Walder and Harris; that the “impeachment process here undoubtedly provided valuable aid to the jury in assessing petitioner’s credibility”; that the “benefits of this process should not be lost”; that, “[a]ssuming that the exclusionary rule has a deterrent effect on proscribed police conduct, sufficient deterrence flows when the evidence in question is made unavailable to the prosecution in its case in chief,” 401 U. S., at 225, and that the “shield provided by Miranda cannot be perverted into a license to use perjury by way of a defense, free from the risk of confrontation with prior inconsistent utterances.” Id., at 226. It was held, accordingly, that Harris’ credibility was appropriately impeached by the use of his earlier conflicting statements.
We see no valid distinction to be made in the application, of the principles of Harris to that case and to Hass’ case. Hass’ statements were made after the defendant knew Osterholme’s opposing testimony had been ruled inadmissible for the prosecution’s case in chief.
As in Harris, it does not follow from Miranda that evidence inadmissible against Hass in the prosecution’s case in chief is barred for all purposes, always provided that “the trustworthiness of the evidence satisfies legal standards.” 401 U. S., at 224. Again, the impeaching material would provide valuable aid to the jury in assessing the defendant’s credibility; again, “the benefits of this process should not be lost,” id., at 225; and, again, making the deterrent-effect assumption, there is sufficient deterrence when the evidence in question is made unavailable to the prosecution in its case in chief. If all this sufficed for the result in Harris, it supports and demands a like result in Hass’ case. Here, too, the shield provided by Miranda is not to be perverted to a license to testify inconsistently, or even perjuriously, free from the risk of confrontation with prior inconsistent utterances.
We are, after all, always engaged in a search for truth in a criminal case so long as the search is surrounded with the safeguards provided by our Constitution. There is no evidence or suggestion that Hass’ statements to Officer Osterholme on the way to Moyina Heights were involuntary or coerced. He properly sensed, to be sure, that he was in “trouble”; but the pressure on him was no greater than that on any person in like custody or under inquiry by any investigating officer.
The only possible factual distinction between Harris and this case lies in the fact that the Miranda warnings given Hass were proper, whereas those given Harris were defective. The deterrence of the exclusionary rule, of course, lies in the necessity to give the warnings. That these warnings, in a given case, may prove to be incomplete, and therefore defective, as in Harris, does not mean that they have not served as a deterrent to the officer who is not then aware of their defect; and to the officer who is aware of the defect the full deterrence remains. The effect of inadmissibility in the Harris case and in this case is the same: inadmissibility would pervert the constitutional right into a right to falsify free from the embarrassment of impeachment evidence from the defendant’s own mouth.
One might concede that when proper Miranda warnings have been given, and the officer then continues his interrogation after the suspect asks for an attorney, the officer may be said to have little to lose and perhaps something to gain by way of possibly uncovering impeachment material. This speculative possibility, however, is even greater where the warnings are defective and the defect is not known to the officer. In any event, the balance was struck in Harris, and we are not disposed to change it now. If, in a given case, the officer’s conduct amounts to abuse, that case, like those involving coercion or duress, may be taken care of when it arises measured by the traditional standards for evaluating voluntariness and trustworthiness.
We therefore hold that the Oregon appellate courts were in error when they ruled that Officer Osterholme’s testimony on rebuttal was inadmissible on Fifth and Fourteenth Amendment grounds for purposes of Hass' impeachment. The judgment of the Supreme Court of Oregon is reversed.
It is so ordered.
Mr. Justice Douglas took no part in the consideration or decision of this case.
Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U. S. 436, 467-473 (1966).
Hass’ testimony would appear to be an admission of guilt of the Oregon crime of “theft by receiving,” Ore. Rev. Stat. § 164.095, that is, the receipt or disposal of property of another, knowing that the property was stolen. Hass, however, was not charged with that offense,
See also United States ex rel. Wright v. LaVallee, 471 F. 2d 123, 125 (CA2 1972), cert. denied, 414 U. S. 867 (1973); United States ex rel. Padgett v. Russell, 332 F. Supp. 41 (ED Pa. 1971); State v. Johnson, 109 Ariz. 70, 505 P. 2d 241 (1973); Rooks v. State, 250 Ark. 561, 466 S. W. 2d 478 (1971); People v. Nudd, 12 Cal. 3d 204, 524 P. 2d 844 (1974), cert. pending, No. 74-5472; Jorgenson v. People, 174 Colo. 144, 482 P. 2d 962 (1971); Williams v. State, 301 A. 2d 88 (Del. 1973); State v. Retherford, 270 So. 2d 363 (Fla. 1972), cert. denied, 412 U. S. 953 (1973); Campbell v. State, 231 Ga. 69, 200 S. E. 2d 690 (1973); People v. Moore, 54 Ill. 2d 33, 294 N. E. 2d 297, cert. denied, 412 U. S. 943 (1973); Davis v. State, 257 Ind. 46, 271 N. E. 2d 893 (1971); Sabatini v. State, 14 Md. App. 431, 287 A. 2d 511 (1972); Commonwealth v. Harris, — Mass. —, 303 N. E. 2d 115 (1973); State v. Kish, 28 Utah 2d 430, 503 P. 2d 1208 (1972); Riddell v. Rhay, 79 Wash. 2d 248, 484 P. 2d 907, cert. denied, 404 U. S. 974 (1971); Ameen v. State, 51 Wis. 2d 175, 186 N. W. 2d 206 (1971). Cf. Commonwealth v. Horner, 453 Pa. 435, 441, 309 A. 2d 552, 555 (1973).
The respondent would take comfort in the following pronouncement of the Supreme Court of Oregon in State v. Florance, 270 Ore. 169, 182, 527 P. 2d 1202, 1208 (1974), a search and seizure case:
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer:
|
A
|
sc_issuearea
|
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Certiorari, 348 U. S. 860, to the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit.
Per Curiam:
Upon the facts disclosed in the opinion of the Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, 211 F. 2d 95, the applicable Acts of Congress, and the opinion of this Court in Oakley v. Louisville & Nashville R. Co., 338 U. S. 278, the judgment of the Court of Appeals is reversed. Mr. Justice Reed dissents for the reasons given in the opinion of the Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit.
Solicitor General Sobeloff, Assistant Attorney General Burger and Samuel D. Slade filed a memorandum for the United States, as amicus curiae, urging reversal.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer:
|
B
|
sc_issuearea
|
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Mr. Justice Marshall
delivered the opinion of the Court.
These cases involve a dispute over the title to land underlying the navigable portion of parts of the Arkansas River in the State of Oklahoma. As a practical matter, what is at stake is the ownership of the minerals beneath the river bed and of the dry land created by navigation projects that are narrowing and deepening the river channel.
In December 1966, petitioner Cherokee Nation brought suit in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Oklahoma against the State of Oklahoma and various corporations to which the State had leased oil and gas and other mineral rights. In its complaint, the Cherokee Nation sought both to recover the royalties derived from the leases and to prevent future interference with its property rights, claiming that it had been since 1835 the absolute fee owner of certain land below the mean high water level of the Arkansas River. Subsequently, petitioners Choctaw and Chickasaw Nations sought and were granted leave to intervene in the case in order to present their claims that part of the river bed belongs to them.
After pre-trial proceedings in the District Court, a judgment on the pleadings was entered against petitioners and in favor of the State. The District Court held that land grants made to petitioners by the United States conveyed no rights to the bed of the navigable portion of the Arkansas River. The court thus held that title to the river bed remained in the United States until 1907, when it passed to the State upon Oklahoma’s admission to the Union. On appeal, the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit affirmed the judgment of the District Court. 402 F. 2d 739 (1968). We granted certiorari, 394 U. S. 972 (1969), to consider petitioners’ claims that they received title to the land in question by treaties with the United States in 1830 and 1835.
I
At the outset, we note that these cases require us to pass upon the effect of treaties that were entered into nearly a century and a half ago. As background, it is necessary briefly to relate the circumstances by which petitioners received large grants of land by treaty from the United States.
The history behind these treaties goes back at least to the period immediately after the Revolutionary War and prior to the adoption of the Constitution — a time when petitioners and other Indian Nations occupied much of what are today the southern and southeastern parts of the United States. In 1785, in the Treaty of Hopewell, November 28, 1785, 7 Stat. 18, the United States entered into a treaty of peace and friendship with the Cherokee Indians which established the boundaries of the Cherokee Nation and in which the Indians acknowledged themselves to be under the protection of the United States. The next year, a similar treaty was concluded between the Choctaws and the United States. Treaty of Hopewell, January 3, 1786, 7 Stat. 21.
In following years, the United States entered into a number of additional treaties with both the Cherokees and Choctaws. By means of these treaties, the United States purchased large areas of land from the Indians to provide room for the increasing numbers of new settlers who were encroaching upon Indian lands during their westward migrations. Although the Indians were not considered to own the fee title to the land on which they lived, they did have the right to the exclusive use and occupancy of the land— a right that could be ceded only to the United States. Moreover, the Indians continued to live on the land not ceded under their own laws and way of life, and their rights to those lands were “solemnly” guaranteed by the United States. Treaty of Holston, July 2, 1791, 7 Stat. 39, 40; see Indian Intercourse Act of 1802, 2 Stat. 139.
Even while it was making this solemn guarantee, however, the United States adopted a policy aimed at completely extinguishing these Indian Nations’ rights to their native lands. The United States had acquired a large western territory in 1803 by the Louisiana Purchase, and it was soon proposed that the Indians be relocated on new lands west of the Mississippi. For a time, it seemed that the westward removal of the Indians might be readily accomplished. In the Treaty of July 8, 1817, 7 Stat. 156, the Cherokee Nation agreed to trade part of its lands in Georgia for a large amount of land in the Arkansas Territory. See also Treaty of February 27, 1819, 7 Stat. 195. Thereafter, a number of the Cherokees left their eastern lands and traveled west. Three years later, in the Treaty of Doak’s Stand, October 18, 1820, 7 Stat. 210, the Choctaw Nation agreed to exchange approximately half of its remaining Mississippi lands for a large tract of land in the Arkansas Territory and an even larger one farther west.
Before the United States could relocate the Indians on these new lands, however, at least part of the land that had been set aside in the Arkansas Territory was already settled. It was apparent that the westward removal had not been aimed far enough west to escape the new nation’s expansion. By the Treaty of January 20, 1825, 7 Stat. 234, the Choctaws were persuaded to cede back to the United States the eastern portion of the land given them in the Treaty of Doak’s Stand. Similarly, the Cherokees who had voluntarily moved to Arkansas agreed to move again — farther west to a new tract of land, “a permanent home, and which shall, under the most solemn guarantee of the United States, be, and remain, theirs forever.” Treaty of May 6, 1828, 7 Stat. 311.
The prospect of the voluntary removal of the Indians to land west of the Mississippi soon disappeared. For the most part, the Choctaws and the Cherokees who had not already left their eastern lands refused to give up the land that had long been their home. The abortive attempt to set aside Arkansas Territory land for the Indians justifiably made many of them doubt that the United States would protect them in their new lands. But at the same time the Indians were deciding to remain, the new settlers’ expansion and desire for their lands increased. In Georgia, the state legislature, tired of waiting for the United States to fulfill its promise to extinguish Indian rights to Georgia lands, asserted jurisdiction over the Cherokees and prepared to distribute the Cherokee lands. Mississippi soon followed suit, abolishing tribal government and extending its laws to Choctaw territory.
A clash between the obligation of the United States to protect Indian property rights on the one hand and the policy of forcing their relinquishment on the other was inevitable. With the passage of the Indian Removal Act of 1830, 4 Stat. 411, it became apparent that policy, not obligation, would prevail. In spite of the promises to protect the Indians’ land and sovereignty, it was clear that the United States was unable or unwilling to prevent the States and their citizens from violating Indian rights.
Thus faced with the prospect of losing both their lands and way of life, the Choctaws agreed in 1830 to leave Mississippi and to move to new lands west of the Arkansas Territory. As a guarantee that they would not again be forced to move, the United States promised to convey the land to the Choctaw Nation in fee simple “to inure to them while they shall exist as a nation and live on it.” In addition, the United States pledged itself to secure to the Choctaws the “jurisdiction and government of all the persons and property that may be within their limits west, so that no Territory or State shall ever have a right to pass laws for the government of the Choctaw Nation . . . and that no part of the land granted to them shall ever be embraced in any Territory or State.” Treaty of Dancing Rabbit Creek, Sept. 27, 1830, 7 Stat. 333-334.
The Cherokees were at first determined to retain the Georgia lands on which they had by that time settled down, establishing farms and towns. However, after a time, they, too, were forced to leave. In the Treaty of New Echota, December 29, 1835, 7 Stat. 478, the Cherokees who had remained in the East agreed to leave their lands and to join the Cherokees who had already moved west of the Mississippi. Once again, the United States assured the Indians that they would not be forced to move from their new lands: a patent would issue to convey those lands in fee simple, and they would never be embraced within the boundaries of any State or Territory.
The United States thus succeeded in its efforts to remove the Indians from their eastern lands. In exchange, by the Treaty of Dancing Rabbit Creek with the Choctaws in 1830 and the Treaty of New Echota with the Cherokees in 1835, the United States granted a vast area of its western territory to the two Indian Nations. The land thus granted to the Choctaws encompassed what is today approximately the southern third of the State of Oklahoma; to the north, the Cherokees received title to a tract of land in the eastern part of the remainder of the State with a perpetual outlet to and other rights in land farther west.
Although by later treaties other Indian tribes were settled on parts of the land originally included in these grants, and the Chickasaw Nation was granted an undivided one-fourth interest in the remainder of the Choctaw land, see Treaty of January 17, 1837, 11 Stat. 573; Treaty of June 22, 1855, 11 Stat. 611, the fee simple title to a vast tract of land continued to be held by the petitioner Indian Nations for well over half a century.
Then, again due in large part to the pressure of settlers who were encroaching on Indian lands, Congress acted to change the arrangement. By § 16 of the Act of March 3, 1893, 27 Stat. 646, a commission was created to negotiate with the Indian tribes that had been located in Oklahoma on the allotment of land to their individual members in preparation for the final dissolution of the tribes. Thereafter, the Indians — including the Choctaws, Chickasaws, and Cherokees — agreed to the allotment of their lands and the termination of tribal affairs. See Act of June 28, 1898, 30 Stat. 495; Act of July 1, 1902, 32 Stat. 716. Finally, Congress provided for the disposition of all petitioners’ lands with the provision that any remaining tribal property “be held in trust by the United States for the use and benefit of the Indians.” Act of April 26, 1906, § 27, 34 Stat. 148. The way was thus paved for Oklahoma’s admission to the Union “on an equal footing with the original States,” conditioned on its disclaimer of all right and title to lands “owned or held by any Indian, tribe, or nation.” Act of June 16, 1906, §§ 3, 4, 34 Stat. 270, 271.
According to petitioners, they received title to the bed of the Arkansas River by treaty and patent from the United States. Because the land was not individually allotted or otherwise disposed of pursuant to the 1906 Act, title remained in petitioners or passed to the United States to be held in trust for them. The State, on the other hand, claims that petitioners never received title to the land. The courts below held in favor of the State, thus disposing of the case since it was undisputed that if title remained in the United States, it passed to Oklahoma upon admission to the Union as an incident of statehood. The sole question for review then is whether the treaty grants from the United States conveyed title to the bed of the Arkansas River to the Cherokee and Choctaw Nations.
II
We move then to the construction and effect of the treaties between petitioners and the United States. At the outset, the State argues that the bed of the Arkansas River was not included in the grants to petitioners even by the accepted standards of ordinary conveyancing since to a skilled draftsman “the land descriptions in the treaties, standing alone, actually exclude the river beds.”
Part of the Arkansas River here in question is surrounded on both sides by land granted to the Cherokees, and with regard to it the argument is at the least strained. There is no explicit exclusion of the river bed in the 1836 Treaty of New Echota; in fact, there is no reference at all to the river from “a point where a stone is placed opposite the east or lower bank of Grand river at its junction with the Arkansas” to its junction with the Canadian. See 7 Stat. 480. As we read the Cherokee treaties and the patent issued thereunder by the President, the Cherokee Nation was granted one undivided tract of land described merely by exterior metes and bounds. That portion of the Arkansas River between its junctions with the Grand and Canadian Rivers lies completely within those metes and bounds, and all of the land inside those boundaries including the river bed seems clearly encompassed within the grant.
Below its confluence with the Canadian, the Arkansas River forms the boundary between the land granted to the Cherokees to the north and the Choctaws to the south, and the treaties do explicitly refer to this portion of the river. In the Treaty of Doak’s Stand in 1820, petitioner Choctaw Nation was granted all the land within the following boundaries:
“Beginning on the Arkansas River, where the lower boundary line of the Cherokees strikes the same; thence up the Arkansas to the Canadian Fork, and up the same to its source; thence due South to the Red River; thence down Red River, three miles below the mouth of Little River, which empties itself into Red River on the north side; thence a direct line to the beginning.” 7 Stat. 211. (Emphasis added.)
Ten years later, this grant was superseded by the Treaty of Dancing Rabbit Creek, which “varied the description a little and provided for a special patent,” Fleming v. McCurtain, 215 U. S. 56, 59 (1909):
“beginning near Fort Smith where the Arkansas boundary crosses the Arkansas River, running thence to the source of the Canadian fork; jf in the limits of the United States, or to those limits; thence due south to Red River, and down Red River to the west boundary of the Territory of Arkansas; thence north along that line to the beginning.” 7 Stat. 333. (Emphasis added.)
And the patent issued to the Choctaw Nation in 1842 by President Tyler merely repeated the language of this latter treaty.
The Choctaw treaties preceded any grant to the Cherokee Nation; and, under them, petitioners Choctaw and Chickasaw Nations claim the entire bed of the Arkansas River between its confluence with the Canadian River and the Oklahoma-Arkansas border. The Cherokees, however, also have a claim to this part of the river, based on the language setting out the southern border of the land granted them in the Treaty of New Echota: From a point on the Canadian River,
“thence down the Canadian to the Arkansas; thence down the Arkansas to that point on the Arkansas where the eastern Choctaw boundary strikes said river . . . 7 Sta-t. 480. (Emphasis added.)
Moreover, they point to the patent issued them by President Van Burén in 1838, which described the southern boundary of their lands as follows:
“down the Canadian river on its north bank to its junction with Arkansas river; thence down the main channel of Arkansas river to the western boundary of the State of Arkansas at the northern extremity of the eastern boundary of the lands of the Choctaws on the south bank of Arkansas river . . . .” (Emphasis added.)
According to the Cherokee Nation, the United States thereby conveyed to it the north half of the Arkansas River from its junction with the Canadian to the eastern Oklahoma border. Petitioners thus are in disagreement about the effect of the words in the treaties and patents with regard to this lower portion of the river.
That disagreement, however, does nothing to make convincing even the State’s argument that this part of the river bed was excluded from the grants as a matter of conveyancing law. About all that can be said about the treaties from the standpoint of a skilled draftsman is that they were not skillfully drafted. More important is the fact that these treaties are not to be considered as exercises in ordinary conveyancing. The Indian Nations did not seek out the United States and agree upon an exchange of lands in an arm’s-length transaction. Rather, treaties were imposed upon them and they had no choice but to consent. As a consequence, this Court has often held that treaties with the Indians must be interpreted as they would have understood them, see, e. g., Jones v. Meehan, 175 U. S. 1, 11 (1899), and any doubtful expressions in them should be resolved in the Indians’ favor. See Alaska Pacific Fisheries v. United States, 248 U. S. 78, 89 (1918). Indeed, the Treaty of Dancing Rabbit Creek itself provides that "in the construction of this Treaty wherever well founded doubt shall arise, it shall be construed most favourably towards the Choctaws.” 7 Stat. 336.
Applying these principles here, we conclude that the entire Arkansas River below its confluence with the Grand River was within the metes and bounds of the treaty grants to petitioners. The State argues that the treaty terms "up the Arkansas” and "down the Arkansas” should be read to mean “along the bank of the Arkansas River.” However, the United States was competent to say the “north side” or “bank” of the Arkansas River when that was what it meant, as it had in the 1817 grant to the Cherokees in the Arkansas Territory. See 7 Stat. 158. Even more damaging to the State’s argument is the contemporaneous interpretation of the treaty language by the President as reflected in the specific language of the Cherokee patent, “down the Canadian river on its north bank to its junction with Arkansas river; thence down the main channel of Arkansas river.” (Emphasis added.) According to the State, the italicized part of this description should be read to mean “down the north bank of the main branch of the Arkansas River.” However, not only does this reading itself seem to include part of the river bed — that underlying the “secondary” branches — but it also conflicts with this Court’s interpretation of the term in Brewer-Elliott Oil & Gas Co. v. United States, 260 U. S. 77 (1922).
The facts involved in Brewer-Elliott were essentially similar to those of the present cases. There the United States had established a reservation for the Osage Indians which was bounded on one side by “the main channel of the Arkansas river.” 260 U. S., at 81. The United States brought suit to establish the Indians’ right to the river bed and the oil reserves beneath it, and the State of Oklahoma intervened to claim that the river bed had passed to it at statehood. The case came here after the Court of Appeals had held that “whether the river was navigable or non-navigable, the United States, as the owner of the territory through which the Arkansas flowed before statehood, had the right to disi-póse of the river bed, and had done so, to the Osages.” Id., at 80. This Court held that in the region in question the Arkansas River was nonnavigable and that “the title of the Osages as granted certainly included the bed of the river as far as the main channel, because the words of the grant expressly carry the title to that line” Id., at 87. (Emphasis added.) The question whether it would have been beyond the power of the United States to make the grant had the river been navigable was reserved for future decision.
In the present cases, there is no question that the Arkansas River is navigable below its junction with the Grand River. However, we do not understand the State to argue the question reserved in Brewer-EUiott. Indeed, it seems well settled that the United States can dispose of lands underlying navigable waters just as it can dispose of other public lands. See Shively v. Bowlby, 152 U. S. 1, 47-48 (1894). Rather, the question is whether the United States intended to convey title to the river bed to petitioners. See Alaska Pacific Fisheries v. United States, supra, at 87; Moore v. United States, 157 F. 2d 760, 763 (C. A. 9th Cir. 1946); cf. Donnelly v. United States, 228 U. S. 243, 259 (1913).
Turning then to that question, we think it clear, as did the Court of Appeals, that the parties to the treaties and patents did not pause specifically to provide for the ownership of the river bed. According to the State — even if the river bed was within the bounds of the grants to petitioners — we need look no further because “disposals by the United States during the territorial period are not lightly to be inferred, and should not be regarded as intended unless the intention was definitely declared or otherwise made very plain.” United States v. Holt State Bank, 270 U. S. 49, 55 (1926). Even were we limited to the treaties and patents alone, the most specific language of those instruments is identical to that which we said “expressly” conveyed title to the river bed in Brewer-Elliott. However, nothing in the Holt State Bank case or in the policy underlying its rule of construction, (see Shively v. Bowlby, supra, at 49-50) requires that courts blind themselves to the circumstances of the grant in determining the intent of the grantor. Indeed, the court in Holt State Bank itself examined the circumstances in detail and concluded “the reservation was not intended to effect such a disposal.” 270 U. S., at 58. We think that the similar conclusion of the Court of Appeals in this case was in error, given the circumstances of the treaty grants and the countervailing rule of construction that well-founded doubt should be resolved in petitioners’ favor.
Together, petitioners were granted fee simple title to a vast tract of land through which the Arkansas River winds its course. The natural inference from those grants is that all the land within their metes and bounds was conveyed, including the banks and bed of rivers. To the extent that the documents speak to the question, they are consistent with and tend to confirm this natural reading. Certainly there was no express exclusion of the bed of the Arkansas River by the United States as there was to other land within the grants.
As a practical matter, reservation of the river bed would have meant that petitioners were not entitled to enter upon and take sand and gravel or other minerals from the shallow parts of the river or islands formed when the water was low. In many respects however, the Indians were promised virtually complete sovereignty over their new lands. See Atlantic & Pacific R. Co. v. Mingus, 165 U. S. 413, 435-436 (1897). We do not believe that petitioners would have considered that they could have been precluded from exercising these basic ownership rights to the river bed, and we think it very unlikely that the United States intended otherwise. Nor do we believe that the United States would intend that it rather than petitioners have title to the dry bed left from avulsive changes of the river’s course, which as the District Court noted are common in this area. Indeed, the United States seems to have had no present interest in retaining title to the river bed at all; it had all it was concerned with in its navigational easement via the constitutional power over commerce. Cf. Pollard v. Hagan, 3 How. 212, 229 (1845).
Finally, it must be remembered that the United States accompanied its grants to petitioners with the promise that “no part of the land granted to them shall ever be embraced in any Territory or State.” In light of this promise, it is only by the purest of legal fictions that there can be found even a semblance of an understanding (on which Oklahoma necessarily places its principal reliance), that the United States retained title in order to grant it to some future State.
We thus conclude that the United States intended to and did convey title to the .bed of the Arkansas River below its junction with the Grand River within the present State of Oklahoma in the grants it made to petitioners. The judgments of the Court of Appeals are therefore reversed, and the cases are remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
Mr. Justice Harlan took no part in the consideration or decision of these cases.
E. g., Treaty of October 2, 1798, 7 Stat. 62; Treaty of December 17, 1801, 7 Stat. 66; Treaty of October 25, 1805, 7 Stat. 93.
See Johnson v. McIntosh, 8 Wheat. 543 (1823); Fletcher v. Peck, 6 Cranch 87, 142-143 (1810).
See Act of March 26, 1804, §15, 2 Stat. 289. In 1802, even before it had acquired new lands west of the Missisáppi, “the United States agreed to extinguish Indian title within the limits of the States as soon as it could be done 'peaceable [sic] and on reasonable terms.’ ” U. S. Interior Dept., Federal Indian Law 180-181 (1958).
See n. 3, supra.
The efforts on behalf of the Cherokees remaining in Georgia included two cases that were brought to this court, Cherokee Nation v. Georgia, 5 Pet. 1 (1831), and Worcester v. Georgia, 6 Pet. 515 (1832). For a recent account of these and other Cherokee efforts, see Burke, The Cherokee Cases: A Study in Law, Polities, and Morality, 21 Stan. L. Rev. 500 (1969). See generally Federal Indian Law, supra, n. 3, at 180-200.
See Marlin v. Lewallen, 276 U. S. 58, 61 (1928); Choate v. Trapp, 224 U. S. 665, 667-668 (1912).
The courts below did not resolve the dispute between petitioners, and we likewise do not pass on that question.
This construction of the treaty term “down the Arkansas” indicates that at the minimum the boundary of the Choctaws was also the middle of the main channel. Congress was accustomed to using the terms “up” or “down” the river when designating a navigable river as the boundary between States, see, e. g., Act of March 2, 1819, § 2, 3 Stat. 490 (Alabama); Act of February 20, 1811, § 1, 2 Stat. 641 (Louisiana); and, when it did so, the boundary was set as the middle of the main channel. See Arkansas v. Mississippi, 250 U. S. 39 (1919); Iowa v. Illinois, 147 U. S. 1 (1893).
Given this congressional usage, it seems natural for the President, on whose behalf the treaties had been negotiated, to have given the same interpretation to identical language in the analogous situation involving the boundary between petitioners Choctaw and Cherokee Nations, which had long been considered sovereign entities. In fact, this Court recognized the analogy in Barney v. Keokuk, 94 U. S. 324, 337 (1877), a case involving a grant bounded by the Mississippi River, when it quoted with apparent approval the following language from Haight v. City of Keokuk, 4 Iowa 199, 213 (1856): “The grant to the [Indians] was to them as persons,, and not as a political body. The political jurisdiction remained in the United States. Had the grant been to them as a political society, it would have been a question of boundary between nations or states, and then the line would have been the medium filum aquae, as it is now between Iowa and Illinois.” The grants to petitioners were undoubtedly to them as “a political society,” and any “well founded doubt” regarding the boundaries must, of course, be resolved in their favor.
The District Court took judicial notice of the navigability at all relevant times of those portions of the Arkansas River in question, and that issue is not in dispute here. In the Brewer-EUiott case, this Court affirmed the finding of the District Court that “the head of navigation is and was the mouth of the Grand River.” 260 U. S., at 86.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer:
|
B
|
sc_issuearea
|
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Mr. Justice Stewart
delivered the opinion of the Court.
A federal grand jury in Georgia returned an eight-count indictment against' the respondents Gaddis and Birt, charging them with entering a federally insured bank with intent to rob it by force and violence (Count 1) and robbing the bank by force and violence (Count 2), in violation of 18 U. S. C. § 2113 (a); with possessing the funds stolen in the robbery (Count 3), in violation of 18 U. S. C. § 2113 (c); and with assaulting four people with dangerous weapons during the course of the robbery (Counts 4 to 8), in violation of 18 U. S. C. § 2113 (d). At the ensuing trial the Government's evidence showed that three armed men had on March 6, 1974, robbed the National Bank of Walton County in Loganville, Ga., and that the robbers in making their getaway had engaged in an exchange of gunfire with Loganville’s lone police officer. The Government’s evidence further showed that two of the three robbers had been Gaddis and Birt. The jury found the respondents guilty on all counts of the indictment, and the trial judge sentenced each of them to aggregate prison terms of 25 years. In imposing the prison sentences, the judge stated:
“[T]he Court realizes that twenty-five years is the maximum, and the cases say that there is a merger of all of those offenses. If there is any question as to the legality of that sentence, that’s the Court’s intention.”
The Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit reversed the judgments of conviction and ordered a new trial upon the ground that the District Judge had been in error in permitting the jury to convict the respondents on all eight counts of the indictment. Specifically, the appellate court held that this Court’s decision in Heflin v. United States, 358 U. S. 415, had made it clear that “it is plain error to allow a jury to convict an accused of taking and possessing the same money obtained in the same bank robbery,” and that under this Court’s decision in Milano-vich v. United States, 365 U. S. 551, “the proper appellate remedy is to remand for a new trial.” 506 F. 2d 352, 354. We granted certiorari because of the discordant views in the Circuits regarding the proper application of the Heflin and Milanovich decisions. 421 U. S. 987.
The Court of Appeals was correct in holding that a person convicted of robbing a bank in violation of 18 U. S. C. §§ 2113 (a), (b), and (d), cannot also be convicted of receiving or possessing the proceeds of that robbery in violation of 18 U. S. C. § 2113(c). This much was clearly settled in the Heflin case. The Court there held that “subsection (c) was not designed to increase the punishment for him who robs a bank but only to provide punishment for those who receive the loot from the robber.” 358 U. S., at 419. In “subsection (c) ... Congress was trying to reach a new group of wrongdoers, not to multiply the offense of the bank robbers themselves.” Id., at 420. Thus, while there was in the present case a “merger” of the convictions under §§ 2113 (a) and (d), Prince v. United States, 352 U. S. 322, the merger could not include the conviction under § 2113 (c). Receipt or possession of the proceeds of a bank robbery in violation of §2113 (c) is simply not a lesser included offense within the total framework of the bank robbery provisions of § 2113. Rather, § 2113 (c) reaches a different “group of wrongdoers,” i. e., “those who receive the loot from the robber.”
The Court of Appeals was mistaken, however, in supposing that our decision in Milanovich required the ordering of a new trial as the “proper appellate remedy” for the District Judge’s error in this case. The very unusual facts in that case were wholly different from those presented here.
In Milanovich there was evidence that the petitioner and her husband, “as owners of an automobile, transported three others under an arrangement whereby the three were to break into a United States naval commissary building with a view to stealing government funds,” that she and her husband “were to remain outside for the return of their accomplices after the accomplishment of the theft,” but that they “drove off without awaiting the return of their friends.” If believed by the jury, this evidence was clearly sufficient to support a verdict that the petitioner was guilty of robbing the naval commissary. There was also evidence in Milanovich, however, of other and different conduct on the part of the petitioner — that about 17 days after the naval commissary robbery she had obtained and appropriated silver currency taken in the robbery and concealed the same in a suitcase in her home. If believed by the jury, this evidence was clearly sufficient to support a verdict that the petitioner was guilty of receiving and concealing the stolen property. The trial judge refused to instruct the jury that the petitioner could not be convicted for both stealing and receiving the same currency, and she was convicted and separately sentenced on both counts. This Court held that under Heflin the jury should have been instructed that the petitioner could not be separately convicted for stealing and receiving the proceeds of the same theft. Since it was impossible to say upon which count, if either, a properly instructed jury would have convicted the petitioner, and in view of the grossly disparate sentences imposed upon the petitioner and upon her husband (who was convicted only upon the larceny count), her convictions were set aside and the case was remanded for a new trial.
The present case is of a very different order. While the evidence was certainly sufficient to support a jury verdict that the respondents were guilty beyond a reasonable doubt of aggravated bank robbery, there was no evidence whatever that they were guilty of receiving the proceeds “from the robber.” Indeed, except for the evidence of asportation during the robbery itself, there was nothing to show that the respondents had ever received or possessed the bank’s funds. Their share of the loot was, in fact, never found. Accordingly, the trial judge should have dismissed Count 3 of the indictment. His error in not doing so can be fully corrected now by the simple expedient of vacating the convictions and sentences under that count.
In many prosecutions under 18 U. S. C. § 2113 the evidence will not, of course, be so clearcut as in the present case. . Situations will no doubt often exist where there is evidence before a grand jury or prosecutor that a certain person participated in a bank robbery and also evidence that that person, though not himself the robber, at least knowingly received the proceeds of the robbery. In such a case there can be no impropriety for a grand jury to return an indictment or for a prosecutor to file an information containing counts charging violations of 18 U. S. C. §2113 (a), (b), or (d), as well as of § 2113 (c). “If, upon the trial of the case the District Judge is satisfied that there is sufficient evidence to go to the jury upon both counts, he must, under Heflin and Milanovich, instruct the members of the jury that they may not convict the defendant both for robbing a bank and for receiving the proceeds of the robbery. He should instruct them that they must first consider the charges' under § 2113 (a), (b), or (d), and should consider the charge under § 2113 (c) only if they find insufficient proof that the defendant himself was a participant in the robbery.
For the reasons stated, the judgment of the Court of Appeals is vacated, and the case is remanded to that court for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
Mr. Justice Stevens took no part in the consideration or decision of this case.
“(a) Whoever, by force and violence, or by intimidation, takes, or attempts to take, from the person or presence of another any property or money or any other thing of value belonging to, or in the care, custody, control, management, or possession of, any bank, credit union, or any savings and loan association; or
“Whoever enters or attempts to enter any bank, credit union, or any savings and loan association, or any building used in whole or in part as a bank, credit union, or as a savings and loan association, with intent to commit in such bank, credit union, or in such savings and loan association, or building, or part thereof, so used, any felony affecting such bank, credit union, or such savings and loan association and in violation of any statute of the United States, or any larceny—
“Shall be fined not more than $5,000 or imprisoned not more than twenty years, or both.”
“(e) Whoever receives, possesses, conceals, stores, barters, sells, or disposes of, any property or money or other thing of value knowing the same to have been taken from a bank, credit union, or a savings and loan association, in violation of subsection (b) of this section shall be subject to the punishment provided by said subsection (b) for the taker.”
“(d) Whoever, in committing, or in attempting to commit, any offense defined in subsections (a) and (b) of this section, assaults any person, or puts in jeopardy the life of any person by the use of a dangerous weapon or device, shall be fined not more than $10,000 or imprisoned not more than twenty-five years, or both.”
Two of the men had entered the bank, brandishing pistols, while the third man had remained in the getaway car outside.
A third man indicted, Billy Wayne Davis, had pleaded guilty and was a principal witness for the Government at the respondents’ trial.
The judge imposed 20-year sentences for aggravated bank robbery (18 U. S. C. §2113 (a)), 25-year sentences for assaults in the course of the bank robbery (§2113 (d)), and 10-year sentences for possession of the proceeds of the robbery (§2113 (e)), all of the sentences to run concurrently.
See, e. g., United States v. Sharpe, 452 F. 2d 1117, 1119 (CA1); United States v. Ploof, 464 F. 2d 116, 119-120 (CA2); United States v. Roach, 321 F. 2d 1, 6 (CA3); Phillips v. United States, 518 F. 2d 108, 110 (CA4); United States v. Sellers, 520 F. 2d 1281, 1286 (CA4); United States v. Harris, 346 F. 2d 182, 184 (CA4); United States v. Abercrombie, 480 F. 2d 961, 964-965 (CA5); Ethridge v. United States, 494 F. 2d 351 (CA6); United States v. Dixon, 507 F. 2d 683 (CA8); United States v. Tyler, 466 F. 2d 920 (CA9); Keating v. United States, 413 F. 2d 1028 (CA9); Glass v. United States, 351 F. 2d 678 (CA10).
365 U. S., at 557 (dissenting opinion).
18 U. S. C. §§ 641, 2.
365 U. S., at 554-555, n. 5.
18 U. S. C. § 641.
In light of Prince v. United States, 352 U. S. 322, the concurrent sentences under Counts 1 and 2 should also be vacated, leaving the respondents under single 25-year prison sentences for violating 18 U. S. C. § 2113 (d).
Such a case is not hard to hypothesize. A grand jury or prosecutor may often possess clear evidence that the proceeds of a bank robbery were found in a certain person’s possession, and less certain eyewitness or circumstantial evidence that that person was an actual participant in the robbery.
The statement to the contrary in a dissenting opinion in Milanovich, 365 U. S., at 558, is incorrect.
If, on the other hand, the indictment or information charges only a violation of §2113 (c) , it is incumbent upon the prosecution at trial to prove beyond a reasonable doubt only the elements of that offense, and the identity of the participant or participants in the robbery or theft is irrelevant to the issue of the defendant’s guilt. While a mechanistic reading of Heflin’s language might not wholly support this rule, it is to be remembered that Heflin ultimately held no more than that a person could not be convicted and separately sentenced under §2113 (a), (b), or (d) and under § 2113 (c) because § 2113 (c) could not be used to “pyramid penalties.” 358 U. S., at 419. Heflin did not purport to, and did not, add to or alter the statutory elements of the offense under §2113 (c).
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer:
|
A
|
sc_issuearea
|
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Mr Justice Marshall
delivered the opinion of the Court.
Petitioners were convicted of violating 18 U. S. C. § 241, which, in pertinent part, makes it unlawful for two or more persons to “conspire to injure, oppress, threaten, or intimidate any citizen in the free exercise or enjoyment of any right or privilege secured to him by the Constitution or laws of the United States . . . Specifically, the Government proved that petitioners engaged in a conspiracy to cast fictitious votes for candidates for federal, state, and local offices in a primary election in Logan County, West Virginia. At the trial, a question arose concerning the admissibility against all of the petitioners of certain out-of-court statements made by some of them. In considering the propriety of the District Court’s decision to admit this evidence, the Court of Appeals thought it necessary to resolve the question whether a conspiracy to cast false votes in a state or local election, as opposed to a conspiracy to cast false votes in a federal election, is unlawful under § 241. The Court of Appeals affirmed petitioners’ convictions, concluding that § 241 encompasses “conspiracies, involving state action at least, to dilute the effect of ballots cast for the candidate of one’s choice in wholly state elections.” 481 F. 2d 685, 700-701 (CA4 1973). We granted certiorari to consider this question. 414 U. S. 1091 (1973). It now appears, however, that the out-of-court statements at issue were admissible under basic principles of the law of evidence and conspiracy, regardless of whether or not § 241 encompasses conspiracies to cast fraudulent votes in state and local elections. Accordingly we affirm the judgment of the Court of Appeals without passing on its interpretation of § 241.
I
The underlying facts are not in dispute. On May 12, 1970, a primary election was held in West Virginia for the purpose of nominating candidates for the United States Senate, United States House of Representatives, and various state and local offices. One of the nominations most actively contested in Logan County was the Democratic nomination for County Commissioner, an office vested with a wide variety of legislative, executive, and judicial powers. Among the several candidates for the Democratic nomination for this office were the incumbent, Okey Hager, and his major opponent, Neal Scaggs.
Petitioners are state or county officials, including the Clerk of the Logan County Court, the Clerk of the County Circuit Court, the Sheriff and Deputy Sheriff of the County, and a State Senator. The evidence at trial showed that by using the power of their office, the petitioners convinced three election officials in charge of the Mount Gay precinct in Logan County to cast false and fictitious votes on the voting machines and then to destroy poll slips so that the number of persons who had actually voted could not be determined except from the machine tally. While it is apparent from the record that the primary purpose behind the casting of false votes was to secure the nomination of Hager for the office of County Commissioner, it is equally clear that about 100 false votes were in fact cast not only for Hager, but also for Senator Robert Byrd and Representative Ken Hechler, who appeared on the ballot for renomination to their respective chambers of the United States Congress, as well as for other state and local candidates considered part of the Hager slate.
The conspiracy achieved its primary objective, the countywide vote totals showing Hager the winner by 21 votes, counting the Mount Gay precinct returns. About two weeks after the election, on May 27, 1970, the election results were certified. After that date, Scaggs filed an election contest challenging certain returns, including the Mount Gay County Commissioner votes. No challenge was made, however, to the Mount Gay votes for either of the federal offices, and they became final on May 27.
A hearing was held in the County Court on the election contest at which petitioners Earl Tomblin and John R. Browning gave sworn testimony. The prosecution in the § 241 trial sought to prove that Tomblin and Browning perjured themselves at the election contest hearing in a continuing effort to have the fraudulent votes for Hager counted and certified. For example, one of the key issues in the election contest was whether sufficient voters had in fact turned out in Mount Gay precinct to justify the unusually high reported returns. Tomblin testified under oath at the election contest that he had visited Mount Gay precinct on election day and had observed one Garrett Sullins there as Sullins went in to vote. The prosecution at the § 241 trial, however, offered testimony from Sullins himself that he was in the hospital and never went to the Mount Gay precinct on election day.
At trial, the other defendants objected to the introduction of Tomblin’s prior testimony on the ground that it was inadmissible against anyone but Tomblin. The District Court overruled the objection but instructed the jury that Tomblin’s testimony could be considered only as bearing upon his guilt or innocence, unless the jury should determine that at the time Tomblin gave this testimony, a conspiracy existed between him and the other defendants and that the testimony was made in furtherance of the conspiracy, in which case the jury could consider the testimony as bearing upon the guilt or innocence of the other defendants. A similar objection was made to the introduction of Browning’s election contest testimony and a similar cautionary instruction given when that objection was overruled.
In oral argument before the Court of Appeals, petitioners for the first time sought to link their objection to the introduction of this evidence to a particular interpretation of § 241. See 481 F. 2d, at 694. Specifically, petitioners argued that § 241 was limited to conspiracies to cast false votes in-federal elections and did not apply to local elections. Accordingly, they contended that the conspiracy in the present case, so far as federal jurisdiction was concerned, ended on May 27, 1970, the date on which the election returns were certified and the federal returns became final. Statements made after this date by one alleged conspirator, the argument continued, could not, as a matter of law, have been made in furtherance of the conspiracy charged under § 241 and therefore should not have been considered by the jury in determining the guilt or innocence of the other defendants.
The Government countered before the Court of Appeals that, whether the federal conspiracy had ended or not, the election contest testimony of Tomblin and Browning was admissible under the principles enunciated in Lutwak v. United States, 344 U. S. 604 (1953). The Court of Appeals, however, decided not to tarry over this point and instead, in its own words, chose “to meet directly the contention that federal jurisdiction over the alleged conspiracy ended with the certification in the federal election contests . . . .” See 481 F. 2d, at 698. We think it inadvisable, however, to reach out in this fashion to pass on important questions of statutory construction when simpler, and more settled, grounds are available for deciding the case at hand. In our view, the basic principles of evidence and conspiracy law set down in Lutwak are dispositive of petitioners’ evidentiary claims.
The doctrine that declarations of one conspirator may be used against another conspirator, if the declaration was made during the course of and in furtherance of the conspiracy charged, is a well-recognized exception to the hearsay rule which would otherwise bar the introduction of such out-of-court declarations. See Lutwak v. United States, supra, at 617. See also Krulewitch v. United States, 336 U. S. 440 (1949). The hearsay-conspiracy exception applies only to declarations made while the conspiracy charged was still in progress, a limitation that this Court has “scrupulously observed.” See Krulewitch v. United States, supra, at 443-444. See also Lutwak v. United States, supra, at 617-618; Fiswick v. United States, 329 U. S. 211, 217 (1946); Wong Sun v. United States, 371 U. S. 471, 490 (1963).
But, as the Court emphasized in Lutwak, the requirement that out-of-court declarations by a conspirator be shown to have been made while the conspiracy charged was still in progress and in furtherance thereof arises only because the declaration would otherwise be hearsay. The ongoing conspiracy requirement is therefore inapplicable to evidence, such as that of acts of alleged conspirators, which would not otherwise be hearsay. Thus the Court concluded in Lutwak that acts of one alleged conspirator could be admitted into evidence against the other conspirators, if relevant to prove the existence of the conspiracy, “even though they might have occurred after the conspiracy ended.” 344 U. S., at 618. See also United States v. Chase, 372 F. 2d 453 (CA4 1967); Note, Developments in the Law — Criminal Conspiracy, 72 Harv. L. Rev. 920, 988 (1959).
The obvious question that arises in the present case, then, is whether the out-of-court statements of Tomblin and Browning were hearsay. We think it plain they were not. Out-of-court statements constitute hearsay only when offered in evidence 'to prove the truth of the matter asserted. The election contest testimony of Tomblin and Browning, however, was not admitted into evidence in the § 241 trial to prove the truth of anything asserted therein. Quite the contrary, the point of the prosecutor’s introducing those statements was simply to prove that the statements were made so as to establish a foundation for later showing, through other admissible evidence, that they were false. The rationale of the hearsay rule is inapplicable as well. The primary justification for the exclusion of hearsay is the lack of any opportunity for the adversary to cross-examine the absent declarant whose out-of-court statement is introduced into evidence. Here, since the prosecution was not contending that anything Tomblin or Browning said at the election contest was true, the other defendants had no interest in cross-examining them so as to put their credibility in issue. Cf. Pointer v. Texas, 380 U. S. 400 (1965); Barber v. Page, 390 U. S. 719 (1968); Bruton v. United States, 391 U. S. 123 (1968).
Since these prior statements were not hearsay, the jury did not have to make a preliminary finding that the conspiracy charged under § 241 was still in progress before it could consider them as evidence against the other defendants. The prior testimony was accordingly admissible simply if relevant in some way to prove the conspiracy charged. See Lutwak v. United States, 344 U. S., at 617.
As we read the record, there can be no doubt that the evidence of perjury by petitioners Tomblin and Browning in the election contest was relevant to make out the Government’s case under § 241, even assuming, arguendo, that the petitioners’ conspiracy ended, for purposes of federal jurisdiction, on May 27, 1970, with the certification of the federal election returns. For even if federal jurisdiction rested only on that aspect of the conspiracy involving the federal candidates, the proof at trial need not have been so limited. The prosecution was entitled to prove the underlying purpose and motive of the conspirators in order to convince the jury, beyond a reasonable doubt, that petitioners had in fact unlawfully conspired to cast false votes in the election. See Lutwak v. United States, supra, at 617. As it was never suggested that either Senator Byrd or Representative Hechler needed or sought the assistance of an unlawful conspiracy in order to win his respective nomination, a key issue in this prosecution, accepting for the sake of argument petitioners' view of § 241, was whether and why petitioners conspired to have false votes cast for these federal candidates. The fact that two of the petitioners perjured themselves at an election contest in which the Mount Logan votes for Hager were at stake helped prove the underlying motive of the conspiracy, by demonstrating that the false votes for federal officers were not an end in themselves, but rather part of a conspiracy to obtain Hager’s nomination through unlawful means. The jury could have inferred that the petitioners were motivated in casting false federal ballots by the need to conceal the fraudulent votes for Hager, since the casting of large numbers of false ballots for County Commissioner would likely have aroused suspicion in the absence of the casting of a similar number of false votes for the other offices at issue in the election.
Even if the federal conspiracy ended on May 27, then, the Tomblin and Browning election contest testimony was relevant to prove the offense charged. Accordingly, in order to rule on petitioners’ challenge to the admissibility of this evidence, there was no need for the Court of Appeals, and there is no need for us, to decide whether petitioners’ conspiracy ended on May 27 for purposes of federal jurisdiction or whether § 241 applies to conspiracies to cast fraudulent votes in local elections.
II
Petitioners argue, however, that the evidence at trial was insufficient to show that they had engaged in a conspiracy to cast false votes for the federal officers and that their convictions under § 241 can stand only if we hold that section applicable to a conspiracy to cast false votes in a local election. Our examination of the record leads us to conclude otherwise.
Two principles form the backdrop for our analysis of the record. It is established that since the gravamen of the offense under § 241 is conspiracy, the prosecution must show that the offender acted with a specific intent to interfere with the federal rights in question. See United States v. Guest, 383 U. S. 745, 753-754 (1966); Screws v. United States, 325 U. S. 91 (1945). Moreover, we scrutinize the record for evidence of such intent with special care in a conspiracy case for, as we have indicated in a related context, “charges of conspiracy are not to be made out by piling inference upon inference, thus fashioning ... a dragnet to draw in all substantive crimes.” Direct Sales Co. v. United States, 319 U. S. 703, 711 (1943). See also Ingram v. United States, 360 U. S. 672, 680 (1959).
Even with these caveats in mind, we find the record amply bears out the verdict that each of the petitioners engaged in the conspiracy with the intent of having false votes cast for the federal officers. The Government’s chief witness was Cecil Elswick, an unindicted coconspir-ator who served as the Republican election officer at the Mount Gay precinct and who actually cast most of the fraudulent votes. Elswick testified that he was first approached by petitioner Red Hager, the son of Okey Hager, who told Elswick to go along with them to win the Mount Gay precinct or else he, Red Hager, would cause Elswick trouble. When asked on direct examination for whom he was told to win the precinct, Elswick testified: “For the Okey Hager slate and Senator Byrd and Ken Hechler.” App. 40. When Elswick expressed an interest in going along, Red Hager arranged for a meeting between Elswick and Tomblin at which Tomblin confirmed an offer of a part-time deputy sheriff job for Elswick as a reward for his help in the election fraud. Elswick later met with petitioner W. Bernard Smith in Tomblin’s office, and Smith then instructed him on how to proceed to win the election. The night before the election, Elswick met with all five of the petitioners. At this meeting cash payments for the false votes were discussed and petitioners Smith and Hager emphasized the need for( putting “all the votes” on the machine. Later that evening, Elswick accompanied Tomblin to visit Garrett Sullins, a candidate for justice of the peace listed on the Hager slate. Tomblin told Sullins not to worry about his election because they had him “slated,” so long as Sullins’ wife, another Mount Gay precinct election official, would go along with the illegal voting.
Elswick then testified as to how he actually put the fraudulent votes on the machines. When a voter came into the precinct and asked for help in using the machines to vote the Neal Scaggs slate, Elswick and Mrs. Sullins would join the voter in the voting machine and, aligning their bodies so as to conceal what they were doing, would put votes on the machine for the entire Hager slate. In addition, Elswick simply went into the voting machine on his own and cast many fictitious ballots. Through a comparison between the reported returns and the number of persons who actually voted, false votes were shown to have been cast for every office — federal, state, and local. See n. 3, supra.
We think this evidence amply supported the jury’s conclusion that each of the petitioners knowingly participated in a conspiracy which contemplated the casting of false votes for all offices at issue in the election. The evidence at trial tended to show a single conspiracy, the primary objective of which was to have false votes cast for Hager but which also encompassed the casting of false votes for candidates for all other offices, including Senator Byrd and Representative Hechler. True, there was little discussion among the conspirators of the federal votes per se, just as there was little discussion of the Hager votes in and of themselves, but the jury could believe this was only a reflection of the conspirators’ underlying assumption that false votes would have to be cast for entire slates of candidates in order to have their fraud go undetected.
In our view, petitioners err in seeking to attach significance to the fact that the primary motive behind their conspiracy was to affect the result in the local rather than the federal election. A single conspiracy may have several purposes, but if one of them — whether primary or secondary — be the violation of a federal law, the conspiracy is unlawful under federal law. See Ingram v. United States, 360 U. S., at 679-680. It has long been settled that § 241 embraces a conspiracy to stuff the ballot box at an election for federal officers, and thereby to dilute the value of votes of qualified voters; see United States v. Saylor, 322 U. S. 385 (1944). See also United States v. Mosley, 238 U. S. 383 (1915). This applies to primary as well as general elections. See United States v. Classic, 313 U. S. 299 (1941).
That petitioners may have had no purpose to change the outcome of the federal election is irrelevant. The specific intent required under § 241 is not the intent to change the outcome of a federal election, but rather the intent to have false votes cast and thereby to injure the right of all voters in a federal election to express their choice of a candidate and to have their expressions of choice given full value and effect, without being diluted or distorted by the casting of fraudulent ballots. See United States v. Saylor, supra, at 386. As one court has stated:
“The deposit of forged ballots in the ballot boxes, no matter how small or great their number, dilutes the influence of honest votes in an election, and whether in greater or less degree is immaterial. The right to an honest [ count] is a right possessed by each voting elector, and to the extent that the importance of his vote is nullified, wholly or in part, he has been injured in the free exercise of a right or privilege secured to him by the laws and Constitution of the United States.” Prichard v. United States, 181 F. 2d 326, 331 (CA6), aff’d due to absence of quorum, 339 U. S. 974 (1950).
Every voter in a federal primary election, whether he votes for a candidate with little chance of winning or for one with little chance of losing, has a right under the Constitution to have his vote fairly counted, without its being distorted by fraudulently cast votes. And, whatever their motive, those who conspire to cast false votes in an election for federal office conspire to injure that right within the meaning of § 241.
While the District Court’s jury instructions did not specifically focus upon the conspiracy to cast false votes for candidates for federal offices, no objection was made at trial or before the Court of Appeals with respect to this aspect of the instructions. See Johnson v. United States, 318 U. S. 189, 200 (1943); Adickes v. S. H. Kress & Co., 398 U. S. 144, 147 n. 2 (1970). And, even assuming, arguendo, that § 241 is limited to conspiracies to cast false votes for candidates for federal offices, we could find no plain error here. The prosecution’s case, as indicated earlier, showed a single conspiracy to cast entire slates of false votes. The defense consisted in large part of a challenge to the credibility of the Government’s witnesses, primarily the three unindicted coconspirators. The case therefore ultimately hinged on whether the jury would believe or disbelieve their testimony. Given the record, we think it inconceivable that, even if charged by more specific instructions, the jury could have found a conspiracy to cast false votes for local offices without finding a conspiracy to cast false votes for the federal offices as well.
This case is therefore an inappropriate vehicle for us to decide whether a conspiracy to cast false votes for candidates for state or local office, as opposed to candidates for federal office, is unlawful under § 241, and we intimate no views on that question.
Affirmed.
The County Commissioner sits on the County Court which is the central governmental body in the county. See State ex rel. Dingess v. Scaggs, — W. Va. —, —, 195 S. E. 2d 724, 726 (1973). See also W. Va. Code Ann., §7-1-3 et seq. (1969).
The participation of the election officials was secured by threats of indictment or arrest, or promises of county jobs and money.
Of the 541 persons listed as eligible to vote at the Mount Gay precinct, the Government proved that 222 did not vote and that 13 more were either dead, in the hospital, or in prison. This left a maximum of 306 who could have voted. Observers at the precinct throughout election day estimated that about 275 persons had actually voted. Nevertheless 348 votes were recorded as cast for candidates for the nominees for United States Senator, 328 for Congressman, 358 for State Senator, 458 for House of- Delegates, 375 for County Commissioner (long term), 365 for County Commissioner (short term), 371 for Justice of the Peace, and 371 for Constable.
The election contest, at which candidate Hager was one of the two presiding judges, was concluded on August 25, 1970. Although the court was required by statute to rule on the contest by September 17, 1970, see W. Va. Code Ann., § 3-7-7, it failed to enter a final order within the statutory period. Scaggs appealed to an intermediate appellate court, which granted an appeal. The Supreme Court of Appeals of West Virginia, however, ruled that the intermediate appellate court lacked jurisdiction since no decision had been rendered by the County Court within the statutory time allowed. See State ex rel. Hager v. Oakley, 154 W. Va. 528, 177 S. E. 2d 585 (1970).
Other gounds for exclusion argued before the District Court and in the briefs before the Court of Appeals have not been pursued here. These include a contention that introduction of the prior testimony had the effect of putting Tomblin and Browning on the witness stand in violation of their constitutional right to stand mute, a suggestion that since the testimony was given in a judicial hearing there might be Miranda problems, and the argument that the prior testimony of Tomblin and Browning was inadmissible impeachment evidence since both had exercised their constitutional right not to testify. See 481 F. 2d 685, 694.
The Court of Appeals recognized that it need not ordinarily consider grounds of objection not presented to the trial court. See Hormel v. Helvering, 312 U. S. 552, 556 (1941). This rule is not without its exceptions, however, particularly in criminal cases where appellate courts can notice errors seriously affecting the fairness or integrity of judicial proceedings. See United States v. Atkinson, 297 U. S. 157, 160 (1936). See also Hormel v. Helvering, supra, at 557. In view of the fact that petitioners did challenge the admissibility of the Tomblin and Browning testimony at trial, we think it was proper for the Court of Appeals to consider all grounds related to that underlying objection.
The rationale for both the hearsay-conspiracy exception and its limitations is the notion that conspirators are partners in crime. United States v. Socony-Vacuum Oil Co., 310 U. S. 150, 253 (1940); Fiswick v. United States, 329 U. S. 211, 216 (1946). As such, the law deems them agents of one another. And just as the declarations of an agent bind the principal only when the agent acts within the scope of his authority, so the declaration of a conspirator must be made in furtherance of the conspiracy charged in order to be admissible against his partner. See Krulewitch v. United States, 336 U. S. 440, 442-443 (1949); Fiswick v. United States, supra, at 217; Wong Sun v. United States, 371 U. S. 471, 490 (1963). See generally 4 J. Wigmore, Evidence §§ 1077-1079 (Chadbourne rev. 1972).
See 5 J. Wigmore, Evidence § 1361 (3d ed. 1940); C. McCormick, Law of Evidence 460 (1954).
Of course, evidence is not hearsay when it is used only to prove that a prior statement was made and not to prove the truth of the statement. See Dutton v. Evans, 400 U. S. 74, 88 (1970) (opinion of Stewart, J.). See also Creaghe v. Iowa Home Mut. Cas. Co., 323 F. 2d 981 (CA10 1963); General Tire of Miami Beach, Inc. v. NLRB, 332 F. 2d 58 (CA5 1964); Safeway Stores, Inc. v. Combs, 273 F. 2d 295 (CA5 1960); Ford Motor Co. v. Webster's Auto Sales, Inc., 361 F. 2d 874 (CA1 1966).
Thus, in his opening argument the prosecutor said: 'T believe the evidence will show, frankly, that that election contest was full of perjurious testimony, full of lies. Some of it, the evidence will show, was solicited and caused by these defendants.” App. 22. The same point was made in closing argument. Tr. 1851-1852.
See 5 J. Wigmore, supra, n. 7, at § 1362. See also Colorificio Italiano Max Meyer, S. P. A. v. S/S Hellenic Wave, 419 F. 2d 223 (CA5 1969); Rossville Salvage Corp. v. S. E. Graham Co., 319 F. 2d 391 (CA3 1963); Superior Engraving Co. v. NLRB, 183 F. 2d 783 (CA7 1950), cert. denied, 340 U. S. 930 (1951).
Technically, of ccurse, the proffered evidence was hearsay in that the Government sought to prove the prior testimony of Tomblin and Browning by reading a transcript of the election contest hearing into evidence at the § 241 trial, rather than by calling as a witness a person who himself heard the Tomblin and Browning testimony. A well-recognized exception to the hearsay rule, however, permits the introduction of certified court transcripts to prove the testimony given at a prior proceeding. See generally 5 J. Wigmore, supra, n. 7, at § 1681. Nor is there any right-of-confrontation problem here, since petitioners did not suggest below that the transcript read at the § 241 trial did not accurately reflect the testimony actually given at the election contest hearing.
In briefing this case, all parties appear to have assumed that this sufficiency-of-the-evidence claim was properly before this Court. It seems clear, however, that this issue was presented neither to the Court of Appeals nor to us in the petition for a writ of certiorari. As indicated earlier, the § 241 question arose below only with respect to the admissibility of the prior testimony of Browning and Tomblin, and not in connection with any claim that the evidence was insufficient to support a verdict under the statute. We nevertheless consider the sufficiency-of-the-evidence claim here. We recognize that petitioners did raise before both the District Court and the Court of Appeals, and in the petition for a writ of certiorari a claim that the indictment was unconstitutionally vague, and the gist of their argument on this point was that the Government had charged a conspiracy to cast false votes for both federal and local candidates in order to survive a motion to dismiss the indictment, but had turned around at trial and proved only a conspiracy to cast false votes for the local candidates. This argument therefore raised the substance of petitioners’ present contention that the evidence was insufficient to show a conspiracy to cast false votes for federal candidates. Moreover, as we have had occasion to note, a claim that a conviction is based on a record lacking any evidence relevant to crucial elements of the offense is a claim with serious constitutional overtones. See, e. g., Thompson v. Louisville, 362 U. S. 199 (1960); Johnson v. Florida, 391 U. S. 596 (1968). See also Adderley v. Florida, 385 U. S. 39, 44 (1966). Accordingly, even though the sufficiency-of-the-evidence issue was not raised below with any particularity, we think the interests of justice require its consideration here. See Screws v. United States, 325 U. S. 91, 107 (1945) (opinion of Douglas, J.). Cf. Lawn v. United States, 355 U. S. 339, 362 n. 16 (1958).
We also find no merit in petitioners’ contention that the indictment was unconstitutionally vague. The indictment states that on May 12, 1970, a primary election was held in Logan County, West Virginia, for the purpose of nominating candidates for the offices of United States Senator, Representative to Congress, and various state and county public offices. It then charges each of the defendants with conspiring to injure and oppress the qualified voters of Mount Gay precinct in the free exercise and enjoyment of their “right to vote for candidates for the aforesaid offices and to have such vote cast, counted, recorded, and certified at their full value and given full effect The indictment further specifies that it was a part of the conspiracy “to cause fraudulent and fictitious votes to be east in said precinct ....’’ Pet. for Cert. 3b. We think it plain that the indictment gave petitioners adequate notice of the specific charges against them. We also note, and petitioners themselves concede, that the form of the indictment was similar to those used in other § 241 prosecutions. See United States v. Saylor, 322 U. S. 385 (1944); United States v. Kantor, 78 F. 2d 710 (CA2 1935); Walker v. United States, 93 F. 2d 383 (CA8 1937); Ledford v. United States, 155 F. 2d 574 (CA6), cert. denied, 329 U. S. 733 (1946).
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer:
|
A
|
sc_issuearea
|
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Chief Justice Roberts
delivered the opinion of the Court.
The Railroad Revitalization and Regulatory Reform Act of 1976 prohibits States from discriminating against railroads by taxing railroad property more heavily than other commercial property in the State. Two decades ago, we held that this statute permits an aggrieved railroad to challenge a State’s valuation of its property for tax purposes. Burlington Northern R. Co. v. Oklahoma Tax Comm’n, 481 U. S. 454, 462 (1987). Because the railroad in that case challenged only the State’s application of its valuation methods, we expressly reserved the question whether a railroad may challenge the State’s methods themselves. We answer that question today, and hold that railroads may challenge state methods for determining the value of railroad property, as well as how those methods are applied. The statute provides for nothing less.
I
Congress enacted the Railroad Revitalization and Regulatory Reform Act in 1976. 90 Stat. 31. Called the “4-R Act” for brevity, the law aimed to halt the economic decline of the rail industry by, among other means, barring “discriminatory state taxation of railroad property.” Burlington Northern, supra, at 457; see also Department of Revenue of Ore. v. ACF Industries, Inc., 510 U. S. 332, 336 (1994). The 4-R Act prohibits four separate forms of discriminatory state taxation of railroads. Only the first is at issue here: States, the Act provides, may not “[a]ssess rail transportation property at a value that has a higher ratio to the [property’s] true market value . . . than the ratio” between the assessed and true market values of other commercial and industrial property in the same taxing jurisdiction. 49 U. S. C. § 11501(b)(1). If the railroad ratio exceeds the ratio for other property by at least five percent, the district court may enjoin the tax. § 11501(c).
Petitioner CSX Transportation, Inc., is a freight rail carrier with multiple routes across the State of Georgia. As a consequence, it is subject to Georgia’s ad valorem tax on real property. Under Georgia law, most commercial and industrial property is valued locally by county boards. Public utilities such as railroads, however, are initially valued by the State, which then certifies the proposed valuations to the county boards for adoption or alteration. In 2001, Georgia’s State Board of Equalization, a respondent here, put CSX’s ad valorem tax liability at $4.6 million. A year later, the State’s appraiser used a different combination of methodologies to determine the market value of CSX’s in-state property. The result was a significantly higher tax levy. The State estimated the railroad’s 2002 market value at approximately $7.8 billion, 472 F. 3d 1281, 1285 (CA11 2006), a 47 percent increase over the previous year. That brought the assessed value of CSX’s Georgia property to $514.9 million, for a final property tax bill of $6.5 million. Brief for Petitioner 15.
CSX filed suit in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Georgia, contending that the State’s 2002 tax assessment violated the 4-R Act. The railroad alleged that Georgia had grossly overestimated the market value of its in-state property while accurately valuing other commercial and industrial property in the State. The result, according to CSX, was that its rail property was taxed at a ratio of assessed-to-market value considerably more than five percent greater than the same ratio for the other property in the State.
To make its case, CSX submitted the testimony of its own expert appraiser, who relied on a combination of valuation methods different from those used by the appraiser for Georgia. The CSX appraiser calculated the 2002 market value of the railroad’s property to be $6 billion, not the $7.8 billion figure used by the State. 472 F. 3d, at 1285-1286. CSX maintained that the state appraiser’s valuation methodologies were flawed, and urged the District Court to accept the market value estimated by its expert as more accurate.
The District Court refused to do so. Following a bench trial, the court ruled Georgia had not discriminated against CSX in violation of the 4-R Act because the State had used widely accepted valuation methods to arrive at its estimate of true market value. 448 F. Supp. 2d 1330, 1341 (ND Ga. 2005). In the judgment of the District Court, the Act “does not generally allow a railroad to challenge the state’s chosen methodology,” as long as the State’s methods are rational and not motivated by discriminatory intent. Ibid.
A divided panel of the Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit affirmed. 472 F. 3d 1281. The majority reasoned that the “text of the Act does not clearly state that railroads may challenge valuation methodologies,” and that such a clear statement was required in light of the intrusion on state taxing prerogatives. Id., at 1289. Judge Fay dissented. Id., at 1292. Recognizing the division on this question among the Circuits, compare Consolidated Rail Corporation v. Hyde Park, 47 F. 3d 473, 481-482 (CA2 1995) (a railroad may challenge a State’s valuation methodology), and Burlington Northern R. Co. v. Department of Revenue of Wash., 23 F. 3d 239, 240-241 (CA9 1994) (same), with Chesa peake Western R. Co. v. Forst, 938 F. 2d 528, 531 (CA4 1991) (a railroad may not challenge a State’s valuation methodology), and 472 F. 3d, at 1289 (case below), we granted certiorari, 550 U. S. 968 (2007), and now reverse.
II
“[T]he language of § 1150[1] plainly declares the congressional purpose.” Burlington Northern, 481 U. S., at 461. States may not tax railroad property at a ratio of assessed-to-true-market value higher than the ratio for other commercial and industrial property in the same jurisdiction. In order to apply the Act, district courts must calculate the true market value óf in-state railroad property. A court cannot undertake the comparison of ratios the statute requires without that figure at hand. We said as much in: Burlington Northern: “It is clear from [the Act’s] language that in order to compare the actual assessment ratios, it is necessary to determine what the ‘true market values’ are.” Ibid.
We do not see how a court can go about determining true market value if it may not look behind the State’s choice of valuation methods. Georgia insists there is a clear and important distinction between valuation methodologies and their application. As the State would have it, the statute allows courts to question only the latter. We find no distinction between method and application in the language of the Act, and see no passage limiting district court factfinding in the manner the State proposes. The total lack of textual support for Georgia’s position is not surprising. The dichotomy the State presses would eviscerate the statute by forcing courts to defer to the valuation estimate of the State, when discriminatory taxation by States was the very evil the Act aimed to ban.
Georgia’s position is untenable given the way market value is calculated. Valuation is not a matter of mathematics, as if the district court could prevent discriminatory taxation simply by doublechecking the State’s assessment equations. Rather, the calculation of true market value is an applied science, even a craft. Most appraisers estimate market value by employing not one methodology but a combination. These various methods generate a range of possible market values which the appraiser uses to derive what he considers to be an accurate estimate of market value, based on careful scrutiny of all the data available. Appraisal Institute, The Appraisal of Real Estate 49-50 (12th ed. 2001).
Georgia’s appraiser in the instant case, for example, used three different valuation techniques — the discounted cash-flow approach, a market multiple approach, and a stock and debt approach. He derived five values from these three methods, ranging from $8,126 billion to $12,346 billion. After selecting a number at the low end of the range and then subtracting another $400 million to account for intangible property not subject to ad valorem taxation, he settled on $7.8 billion as his final estimate of the true market value. 472 F. 3d, at 1284-1285.
Appraisers typically employ a combination of methods because no one approach is entirely accurate, at least in the absence of an established market for the type of property at issue. The individual methods yield sometimes more, sometimes less reliable results depending on the peculiar features of the property evaluated. As the variation in the state appraiser’s market-value range reveals, different methods can produce substantially different estimates. W. Kinnard, Income Property Valuation: Principles and Techniques of Appraising Income-Producing Real Estate 52 (1971).
Given the extent to which the chosen methods can affect the determination of value, preventing courts from scrutinizing state valuation methodologies would render §11501 a largely empty command. It would force district courts to accept as “true” the market value estimated by the State, one of the parties to the litigation. States, in turn, would be free to employ appraisal techniques that routinely overestimate the market worth of railroad assets. By then levying taxes based on those overestimates, States could implement the very discriminatory taxation Congress sought to eradicate. On Georgia’s reading of the statute, courts would be powerless to stop them, and the Act would ultimately guarantee railroads nothing more than mathematically accurate discriminatory taxation. We do not find this interpretation compelling. Instead, we agree with Judge Fay in dissent below: “Since the objective of any methodology is a determination of true market value, a railroad should be allowed to challenge the method[s] used [by the State] in an attempt to prove that the result... was not the true market value of its property.” 472 F. 3d, at 1294.
The State agrees that it may not be possible to fix true market value with any precision. But it draws a different conclusion from this premise. Because any number of estimates are plausible, Georgia argues, the court is as likely to get an accurate result by verifying the application of the State’s methods — so long as they are broadly reasonable — as it is by employing another method altogether. The State warns that allowing railroads to introduce their own valuation estimates based on different methodologies will inevitably lead to a futile clash of experts, which courts will have no reasonable way to settle. At least one of the Courts of Appeals shares this concern. See Chesapeake Western, 938 F. 2d, at 532 (“There is no absolute way to test the assertions of competing valuations ...” (internal quotation marks and brackets omitted)).
Congress was not similarly troubled. It directed courts to find true market value, however elusive. It made that value the objective benchmark for courts’ evaluation of state taxes on railroad property. True market value may well not be a single, precise number, but Congress obviously believed it was susceptible to judicial inquiry and that some approximations were better than others.
Georgia’s grim prophecies notwithstanding, the inquiry the statute mandates is not unfamiliar to courts. Valuation of property, though admittedly complex, is at bottom just “an issue of fact about possible market prices,” Suitum v. Tahoe Regional Planning Agency, 520 U. S. 725, 741 (1997), an issue district courts are used to addressing. Railroad property is not frequently sold, but “determinations of market value are routinely made in judicial proceedings without the benefit of a market transaction.” Id., at 742. The District Court in this case made clear that it knew how to find true market value: “In a more typical case, the court would look at both [the railroad expert’s] appraisal and [the State’s] appraisal to determine the true market value of [the railroad].” 448 F. Supp. 2d, at 1338, n. 8. It refused to do so not because true market value is inherently elusive, but because it believed the Act did not allow it to question the State’s methods.
In light of the statute’s directive making true market value a factual question to be determined by the district court, what Georgia is really asking for is a limitation on the types of evidence courts may consider as part of their factual inquiry. If Congress had wanted to impose such a limit by reserving to States the prerogative of selecting which valuation methods may be used, it surely could have done so. Out of deference to the States, for example, § 11501(c) provides that “[t]he burden of proof in determining . . . true market value [shall be] governed by State law.” Congress could easily have included similar language insulating the State’s chosen methodologies from judicial scrutiny. It did not. Like Oklahoma’s argument in Burlington Northern, Georgia’s position in this case ultimately “depends upon the addition of words to a statutory provision which is complete as it stands.” 481.U. S., at 463. We decline to find distinctions in the statute where they do not exist, especially where, as here, those distinctions would thwart the law’s operation.
III
Considering the clarity of the statute, we are tempted to leave the discussion at that. “When we find the terms of a statute unambiguous, judicial inquiry is complete . . . .” Rubin v. United States, 449 U. S. 424, 430 (1981). Georgia, however, lodges two objections to our interpretation, each of which merits a reply. First, the State argues that any interpretation of the Act allowing courts to question state valuation methods ignores the background principles of federalism against which the statute was enacted. The majority below expressed a similar concern. “The selection of a valuation methodology,” it ruled, “is part of th[e] fundamental power of a state [to tax],” 472 F. 3d, at 1288, and should not be limited absent a clear statement from Congress. We have long held that the means States adopt to collect their taxes “should be interfered with as little as possible.” Dows v. Chicago, 11 Wall. 108, 110 (1871). But we are persuaded that allowing railroads to challenge a State’s valuation methodologies has been clearly authorized by the terms of the 4-R Act.
As an initial matter, we question Georgia’s contention that its selection of valuation methodologies is an important state policy choice intimately connected to its tax power. Georgia does not prescribe any particular methodology as a matter of state law. Its appraisers use different methodologies in different combinations, as they see fit. See 472 F. 3d, at 1284-1285 (explaining that the state appraiser employed multiple methods and selected a value according to his best judgment). This suit, in fact, is the result of an individual appraiser’s decision to employ a different combination of assessment techniques than that used by his immediate predecessors. The methods he selected were his choice, not the dictate of any state statute or regulation. Ibid.
But even if important questions of state policy are, as the Eleventh Circuit believed, “intertwined with the selection of a valuation methodology,” id., at 1288, judicial scrutiny of those methodologies is authorized by the 4-R Act’s clear command to find true market value. As we explained above, the power to calculate true market value necessarily includes the power to look behind a State’s valuation methods. That the statute should vest this authority in the Nation’s courts is hardly surprising, given Congress’s conclusion that the States were assessing railroad property unfairly.
Our decision in Department of Revenue of Ore. v. ACF Industries, Inc., 510 U. S. 332 (1994), is not to the contrary. That case concerned a different provision of the 4-R Act— namely, the command in § 11501(b)(4) preventing a State from “[i]mpos[ing] another tax that discriminates against a rail carrier providing transportation” in the taxing jurisdiction. This bar on facially discriminatory taxes, we held, did not prevent a State from exempting certain nonrailroad property from otherwise generally applicable ad valorem taxes. Id., at 343. At the time the 4-R Act was adopted, a majority of States exempted one or more classes of business property from ad valorem taxation, “including business inventories, raw materials used in textile manufacturing, . . . and mechanics tools,” to name just a few. Id., at 344. The States had provided such property tax exemptions for years. In the face of this widespread and historical practice, we declined to read the 4-R Act to prohibit a type of tax exemption the text did not expressly mention. Ibid.
By contrast, we pointedly noted that the Act “prohibit[s] discriminatory tax rates and assessment ratios in no uncertain terms . . . and set[s] forth precise standards for judicial scrutiny of challenged rate and assessment practices.” Id., at 343. Georgia’s claim that court review of state valuation methodologies is not authorized by a clear statement in the Act ignores the statute’s explicit prohibition of discriminatory assessment ratios. A district court cannot accurately calculate or compare those ratios without determining true market value. Congress clearly permitted courts to question state valuation methodologies when it banned discriminatory assessment ratios and made true market value a question to be litigated in federal court.
Georgia also protests that our interpretation will destroy the States’ discretion to choose their own valuation methodologies. We disagree. A State may use whatever method or methods it likes, so long as the result is not discriminatory. The Act does not prohibit the use of any valuation methodology. It prohibits discrimination. Far from requiring States to follow a particular method, we hold only that nothing in the statute prevents a railroad from attempting to show that the methods chosen by the State result in a discriminatory determination of true market value.
The judgment of the Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit is reversed.
It is so ordered.
The portion of the Act that concerns us here, §306, was originally codified at 49 U. S. C. §26c (1976 ed.). In 1978, Congress recodified it at 49 U. S. C. § 11503 (1976 ed., Supp. II). Congress recodified it again in 1995, without substantive change, this time as §11501. For convenience, all references to the statute are to the text of § 11501.
Section 11501 reads, in relevant part:
“(b) The following acts unreasonably burden and discriminate against interstate commerce, and a State, subdivision of a State, or authority acting for a State or subdivision of a State may not do any of them:
“(1) Assess rail transportation property at' a value that has a' higher ratio to the true market value of the rail transportation property than the ratio that the assessed value of other commercial and industrial property in the same assessment jurisdiction has to the true market value of the other commercial and industrial property.
“(2) Levy or collect a tax on an assessment that may not be made under paragraph (1) of this subsection.
“(3) Levy or collect an ad valorem property tax on rail transportation property at a tax rate that exceeds the tax rate applicable to commercial and industrial property in the same assessment jurisdiction.
“(4) Impose another tax that discriminates against a rail carrier providing transportation subject to the jurisdiction of the Board under this part.”
Section 11501(e) provides:
“Notwithstanding section 1341 of title 28 and without regard to the amount in controversy or citizenship of the parties, a district court of the United States has jurisdiction, concurrent with other jurisdiction of courts of the United States and the States, to prevent a violation of subsection (b) of this section. Relief may be granted under this subsection only if the ratio of assessed value to true market value of rail transportation property exceeds by at least 5 percent the ratio of assessed value to true market value of other commercial and industrial property in the same assessment jurisdiction. The burden of proof in determining assessed value and true market value is governed by State law. If the ratio of the assessed value of other commercial and industrial property in the assessment jurisdiction to the true market value of all other commercial and industrial property cannot be determined to the satisfaction of the district court through the random-sampling method known as a sales assessment ratio study (to be carried out under statistical principles applicable to such a study), the court shall find, as a violation of this section—
“(1) an assessment of the rail transportation property at a value that has a higher ratio to the true market value of the rail transportation property than the assessed value of all other property subject to a property tax levy in the assessment jurisdiction has to the true market value of all other commercial and industrial property; and
“(2) the collection of an ad valorem property tax on the rail transportation property at a tax rate that exceeds the tax ratio rate applicable to taxable property in the taxing district.”
Georgia assesses public utilities using the “unit rule.” Under this rule, “an appraiser first determines the value of all assets of an entity, regardless of location,” then multiplies “by the percentage of the entity located within [the State] to determine what portion of the value of the company should be allocated to the state.” 472 F. 3d 1281, 1283 (CA11 2006). The parties agree the unit rule is the appropriate rule for valuing CSX’s property. There are, however, numerous methods available to value property under the unit rule, and many of these methods themselves have multiple variations. See id., at 1284.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer:
|
H
|
sc_issuearea
|
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Mr. Justice Brennan
delivered the opinion of the Court.
These two appeals involve convictions of four appellants for refusal to answer certain questions put to them at sessions of the “Un-American Activities Commission” of the State of Ohio, established in the legislative branch of the Ohio Government. The appellants had claimed the privilege against self ^incrimination in refusing to answer each of the questions. The cases are before us for the second time; on prior appeals the judgments below were vacated and the causes remanded for reconsideration in the light of Sweezy v. New Hampshire, 354 U. S. 234, and Watkins v. United States, 354 U. S. 178. See 354 U. S. 929. The remand resulted in a reaffirmance of the prior judgment without discussion, 167 Ohio St. 295, 147 N. E. 2d 847, and on the present appeals we postponed further consideration of the jurisdictional questions presented until the arguments on the merits. 358 U. S. 862, 863.
The issues tendered by the parties range broadly and involve the powerof the Ohio Legislature, in view of existing federal legislation, to investigate activities deemed subversive of the forms of government within the Nation, cf. Pennsylvania v. Nelson, 350 U. S. 497; the power of the State to compel disclosure of matters interconnected with the protected freedoms of speech and assembly, cf. NAACP v. Alabama, 357 U. S. 449; Sweezy v. New Hampshire, supra; the existence of an expressed legislative interest for such an inquiry, and its definition and articulation to the person summoned, cf. Watkins v. United States, supra; Sweezy v. New Hampshire, supra; Scull v. Virginia, 359 U. S. 344; and the effect on testimonial compulsion of state immunity statutes not affording immunity from federal prosecution, cf. Knapp v. Schweitzer, 357 U. S. 371. But our disposition of these cases makes it unnecessary to corisider the application of the principles of the cases just cited. The appellants were informed by the Commission that they had a right to rely on the privilege against self-incrimination afforded by Art. I, § 10, of the Ohio Constitution. The Ohio Supreme Court, however, held that the appellants were presumed to kriow the law of Ohio — that an Ohio immunity statute deprived them of the protection of the privilege — and that they therefore had committed an offense by not answering the questions as to which they asserted the privilege. We hold that in the circumstances of these cases, the judgments of the Ohio Supreme Court affirming the convict’ ¿ns violated the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment and must be reversed, except as to one conviction, as to which we are equally divided. After the Commission, speaking for the State, acted as it did; to sustain the Ohio Supreme Court’s judgment. would be to sanction an indefensible sort of entrapment by the State — convicting a citizen for exercising a privilege which the State had clearly told him was available to him. We agree with that part of Judge Stewart’s dissenting opinion in the Ohio Supreme Court in which he said: “since the defendants were apprised by the commission at the time they were testifying that they had a right to refuse to answer questions which might incriminate' them, they could not possibly in following the admonition of the commission be in contempt of it....” 164 Ohio St., at 563, 133 N. E. 2d, at 125. A rather detailed description of the proceedings below must be made to illuminate - the basis- of decision below and the turning point of our review of it here.
- Mrs. Morgan, appellant in No. 463, was summoned before the Commission and interrogated mainly in regard to Communist Party activities. She appeared without counsel. To each question put she answered, “I regret that I cannot answer your question under the Fifth Amendment of the Constitution, because to do so would give your Committee an opportunity to incriminate me,” or some more abbreviated form of words to the same effect. Such responses were given to virtually all the questions and in almost every case the Commission proceeded directly to ask its next question after receiving the response. In no case did the Commission direct that she answer its question. In one or two. cases Commission members expressed surprise that she might consider an answer incriminating, and on such an occasion the Chairman asked her, “Mrs. Morgan, are you aware of the fact that your failure to answer questions — some questions of this Commission, might also tend to put you in an embarrassing situation?” At another point, the Chairman positively informed her, “I should like to advise you under the Fifth Amendment, you are permitted to refuse to answer questions that might tend to incriminate you.... But you are not permitted to refuse to answer questions simply for your own convenience.”
Raley, Stern, and Brown, appellants in No. 175, appeared before the Commission successively on another occasion, about six months later. They were interrogated about subversive activities in the labor movement. Raley answered some questions, but to most of them asserted the privilege against self-incrimination of the Federal and Ohio Constitutions. Most of his assertions of the privilege, including his initial ones, were not made the subject of comment or question by the Commission, the next question in the inquiry being put at once. On some few occasions, when Raley claimed the privilege, the Commission members indicated their doubts whether any answer to a specific question put could be incriminating. On one occasion, the Commission asked Raley as- to whether he recollected a certain interview. Raley claimed the.privilege. The Chairman took the view that Raley was required to speak as to whether he recalled the interview, but assured him that the privilege existed, as to the details of the interview: “If you recall it, and we ask you as to your recollection, then, you are privileged to claim.your rights under the Constitution....”' This and one other occasion were the only ones in which the Commission even approached directing an answer to a question by Raley; but in one case the Chairman finally asked Raley to confer with his counsel to determine whether in:-his opinion the privilege applied, and in another- Raley did so" of his own accord; then, upon an affirmative reply by Raley’s counsel, the Commission passed at once to the next question,
Stern was the next person to appear at the inquiry. After giving his name, he claimed the privilege against self-incrimination at the very next question, which called for his address. Commission counsel asked him, “Is there something about the nature or character of the home in which you live that to admit you live there would make you subject to criminal prosecution?” On.Stern’s continued refusal to answer, the Chairman directed an answer to the question, which was refused. To most subsequent questions, Stern again claimed the privilege against self-incrimination, and on the great majority of questions, the Commission simply passed on to the next question. The Chairman and Stern worked out a short form of words whereby he would be understood to be claiming the privilege as'to a particular question. At one point Stern asked the Commission if the Commission had the right to go into his opinions and to require him to speak as to them. The Chairman informed him, “Not if iii your opinion by' so doing, you might tend to incriminate yourself.” On a few occasions the Chairman requested that Stern answer a question, but except for the question as to his residence, the occasions were-those in which Stern had neither given a direct answer nor invoked the privilege, and upon assertion of the privilege in these cases the request was not renewed.
Brown then was subjected to inquiry. He claimed the privilege as to self-incrimination to most of the questions put to him. While the Chairman never told him in so many words (as hfe had told the other three appellants) that the privilege was available, Brown and the Chairman engaged in long colloquies in an attempt by the Chairman to clarify that by using a certain form of words Brown was claiming the privilege. The Chairman’s com cern is inexplicable on any other basis than that he. deemed the privilege available at the inquiry, and his statements would tend to create such an impression in one appearing at the inquiry. When once he made it clear that he was claiming the privilege as to a question, Brown was never directed to answer. He was on a couple of occasions directed to answer a question when he was engaging iñ a colloquy with the Commission without either having answered it directly or having claimed the privilege; upon his claim of the privilege, the next question was at once put.
The Ohio immunity statute extends, so far as is here relevant, to any person appearing before a legislative committee and grants immunity from state prosecutions or penalties “on account of a transaction, matter, or thing, concerning which he testifies”; the statute declares that the testimony given on such an appearance “shall not be used as evidence in a criminal proceeding” against the person testifying. Ohio Rev. Code § 101.44. For reasons unexplained, the existence of this immunity was never suggested by the Commission to any of the appellants, and in fact, as the above statement makes..evident, the Commission’s actions were totally inconsistent with á view on its part- that the privilege against self-incrimination was not available. The Commission thought the privilege available, and it gave positive advice that it could be used. As the Chairman testified in the proceedings below: “It was the policy of the commission not [to] press questions which we felt would be of an incriminating nature. For instance, whenever a witness was asked a question — I believe every witness before the commission was asked the question — Are you or have you ever been a member of the communist party, and if the witness refused to answer that qúestion, we did not press, it. Frequently I made statements which indicated the policy of the commission.”
Indictments were found against the four appellants for failure to answer various of the questions put to them at the inquiry. In the cases of Raley, Stern, and Brown— who were indicted at the same time and tried together, but in a different court from Mrs. Morgan — only a-.few of the questions were made the subject of the indictment. There appears to have been some effort to restrict their indictments to those questions to which the prosecution thought no answer co,uld have been incriminating. On the other hand, virtually every question asked Mrs. Morgan was made the subject of her indictment. •
A jury was waived by Raley, Stern, and Brown, and they were found guilty on each of the relatively few counts found against them, the trial court filing no opinion or conclusions of law. The Court of Appeals affirmed the convictions on some of the counts as to Raley, on one of the two counts as to Stern, and on all the counts as to Brown, and reversed the convictions on some of the counts as to Raley and on one count as to Stern. 100 Ohio App. 75, 99-100, 136 N. E. 2d 295, 315-316. It held that there was sufficient direction to the witnesses to answer the questions involved, so that their refusal was willful. The touchstone by which it affirmed some of the counts of the convictions and reversed others was whether, in the court’s view, an answer to the question might have in fact been incriminating. While the court indicated that the immunity statute applied, it did not rely upon it in its judgment — as it expressly stated, 100 Ohio App., at 99, 136 N. E. 2d, at 315, and as its reversals of certain of the counts indicated.
A jury was also waived by Mrs. Morgan and she too was found guilty by a trial judge. The judge acquitted her on a few counts as to questions found not pertinent to the inquiry or duplicative of other questions. But as to the remaining counts, he ruled that her plea of self-incrimination was not valid, because she had referred solely to the Fifth Amendment andjiot to the appropriate provision of the Ohio Constitution guaranteeing freedom from compulsory self-incrimination. Ohio Const., Art. I, § 10. Because of this, he held that it was unnecessary to have directed Mrs. Morgan to answer the questions or to have advised her at the inquiry that her plea of the privilege against self-incrimination was rejected. Further constitutional claims were summarily rejected. The Court of Appeals — a different &ne from that which passed on the appeal of Raley, Stern, and Brown — affirmed the judgment for the reasons stated in the trial court’s opinion.
On appeal, the Supreme Court of Ohio, though affirming the convictions, abandoned reliance on the theories under.which the appellants were found guilty by the courts below. It ruled that a fair reference to the privilege against self-incrimination of the United States Constitution was adequate to invoke the privilege under the Ohio Constitution, finding such reference made. 164 Ohio St., at 538-539, 133 N. E. 2d, at 111-112. And it did not discuss the theory on which the Court of Appeals relied in the case of Raley, Stern, and Brown; its basis for. affirming the judgment was entirely independent of that of the Court of Appeals. The Supreme Court placed its reliance entirely on the immunity statute. It held that the immunity under the statute was automatically available to the appellants, that even though it did not preclude federal prosecution it was adequate to make answers compellable, and that since “the immunity granted... precluded the possibility of justifying a refusal” to answer on the grounds of self-incrimination, 164 Ohio St., at 553, 133 N. E. 2d, at 120, a direction by the Commission to the appellants to answer was not necessary. Various objections to the convictions under state law were also passed on and rejected. As we have noted, on remand from this Court, the Ohio Supreme Court passed on contentions made under Sweezy v. New Hampshire, supra, and Watkins v. United States, supra, and adhered to its former judgments.
First. We must examine our. jurisdiction over these appeals. Appellants assert jurisdiction under 28 U. S. C. § 1257 (2), a grant of jurisdiction oru appeal, “where is drawn in question the validity of a statute of any state on the ground of its being repugnant to the Constitution, treaties or laws of the United States, and the decision is in favor of its validity.” In their notices of appeal to this Court, appellants have phrased some of their federal constitutional claims’ as attacks on the constitutionality of the Ohio statute authorizing the Commission and the statute providing for immunity. But this dogs not suffice: “It is essential to our jurisdiction on appeal ;.. that there be an explicit and timely insistence in the state courts that a state statute, as applied, is repugnant to the federal Constitution, treaties or laws.” Charleston Federal Savings & Loan Assn. v. Alderson, 324 U. S. 182, 185. Despite the import of our order postponing the consideration of jurisdiction' till the hearing on the merits, see Rule 16 (4) of this Court, appellants have made no effort to support their burden of demonstrating an attack made by them on the validity of a state statute in the state courts, and we have found none. Accordingly the appeals are dismissed. See Sweezy v. New Hampshire, supra, at 236. But since various rights, privileges and immunities under the Federal Constitution were claimed below, 28 U. S. C. § 1257 (3), we consider the appeal papers as petitions for certiorari, and in view of the public importance of the questions presented, grant certiorari. 28 U. S. C. § 2103.
The view we take of the merits of the case requires us to examine whether the appellants made a proper challenge to their convictions below, on federal constitutional grounds, on the theory that they were being convicted for claiming the privilege against self-incrimination after not being given to understand at the time of the inquiry that such a privilege was unavailable. In the lower Ohio courts, federal constitutional questions as to the adequacy of the insistence of the Commission on an answer to its questions were involved in the lower courts’ discussion of the cases. In the appeal of Raley, Stern and Brown, the Court of Appeals discussed the extent to which the Commission gave the defendants to understand that answers were in fact desired to particular questions, and this as part of its consideration of constitutionál claims under both the Federal and Ohio Constitutions. 100 Ohio App., at 87-90, 136 N. E. 2d, at 308-310. The trial court’s opinion, in Mrs. Morgan’s case refers to the contention that a direction to answer was not given to the defendant, and also recites that a due process claim under the Federal Constitution was made.
The assignments of error made by Mrs. Morgan in the State Supreme Court show that she claimed in that court that the judgment of conviction was violative of due process, as guaranteed by the Federal Constitution, in that while she claimed the privilege, she was not “charged with refusal to answer any questions asked by members of the Commission and that she was not notified that her claim of the privilege was rejected by the Commission.” The State Supreme Court passed on this claim, holding that a direction to answer was unnecessary because of the immunity statute, and stated generally that its reasoning and conclusions in her case “apply with equal force to the appeal of Raley, Stern and Brown.” 164 Ohio St., at 532, 133 N. E. 2d, at 108. There can be no question as to the proper presentation of a federal claim when the highest state court passes on it. See Manhattan Life Ins. Co. v. Cohen, 234 U. S. 123, 134. We think this sufficient here to satisfy the statutory requirement that the federal right sought to be vindicated in this Court be one claimed below. 28 U. S. C. § 1257 (3).
Second. We conclude that the judgments of conviction rendered below violate the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, with an exception, to be later noted. We need not decide whether there is demanded of state investigating bodies as explicit a rejection of a claimed privilege against self-incrimination as has been held to be' necessary under the statute punishing contempts of Congress. Quinn v. United States, 349 U. S. 155; Emspak v. United States, 349 U. S. 190, 202; Bart v. United States, 349 U. S. 219. Nor need we decide whether it would be a sufficient basis for reversal here simply that the appellants were not - given notice of the immunity law at the inquiry, though in analogous contexts we have insisted that state investigators make clear to those before them the basis on which an answer is required. Scull v. Virginia, 359 U. S. 344, 353. This case is more than that; here the Chairman of the Commission, who clearly appeared to be the agent of the State in a position to give such assurances, apprised three of the appellants that the privilege in fact existed, and by his behavior toward, the fourth obviously gave the same impression. Other members of the Commission and its counsel made statements which were totally inconsistent with any belief in the applicability of the immunity statute, and it is fair to characterize the whole conduct of the inquiry as to the four as identical with what it would have been if Ohio had had no immunity statute at all., Yet here the crim.e said to have been committed by the appellants, as defined by the State Supreme Court, was simply that of declining, to answer any relevant question on the groünd of possible self-incrimination. This was because the Court held that the Ohio immunity statute automatically removed any basis for a valid claim of the privilege, which generally exists under Ohio law. Ohio Const., Art. I, § 10. Accordingly, any refusal to answer, based on a claim of the privilege, was said to constitute the offense. While there is no suggestion that the Commission had any intent to deceive the appellants, we repeat that to.sustain the judgment of the Ohio Supreme Court on such a basis after the Commission had acted as it did would be to sanction the most indefensible sort of entrapment by the State — convicting a citizen for exercising a privilege which the State clearly had told him was available to him. Cf. Sorrells v. United States, 287 U. S. 435, 442. A State may not issue commands to its citizens, under criminal sanctions, in language so vague and undefined as to afford no fair warning of- what conduct might transgress them. Lanzetta v. New Jersey, 306 U. S. 451. Inexplicably contradictory commands in statutes ordaining criminal penalties have, in the same fashion, judicially been denied the force of criminal sanctions. United States v. Cardiff, 344 U. S. 174. Here there were more than commands simply vague or even contradictory. There was active misleading. Cf. Johnson v. United States, 318 U. S. 189, 197. The State Supreme Court dismissed the statements of the Commission as legally erroneous, but the fact remains that at the inquiry they were the voice of the State most presently speaking to the appellants; We cannot hold-that the Due Process Clause permits convictions to be obtained under such circumstances.
We cannot reach a contrary conclusion by joining with the speculation of the court below that some of appellants might have behaved the same way regardless of what the Commission told them. We think it impermissible in a criminal case to excuse fatal defects by assuming that a person summoned to an inquiry, simply because he expresses defiance beforehand, will continue to be defiant even if a proper explanation is made of what the inquiry wants of him and the basis on which it is wanted. See Flaxer v. United States, 358 U. S. 147, 151. It is alleged that the personal attitudes of the appellants toward the Commission were defective in various ways, but of course the indictments and convictions were had. simply for refusing to answer questions. Neither can we find any ground for affirmance in the fact that certain refusals to answer occurred before the Chairman’s assurances to the various appellants that the privilege existed became explicit. Certainly such assurances removed any reason for the appellants to reconsider their prior assertions of the privilege. And the positive assurances given only made explicit an attitude that the Commission had ■ manifested throughout its interviews with these appellants. We cannot carve the inquiry into segments; the record does not suggest any picture of the Commission’s negation of the privilege followed by an acquiescence in its use.
Finally, it is argued that the convictions may be supportable here as to those questions which an appellant was. directed to answer after claiming the privilege. As the statement of the case we have made indicates, it is not shown that there was such a direction as to any question except one put to Stern, which stands as the basis for the sole count on which his conviction rests. As to the.conviction based on this question, the Court is equally divided. To four of us, the matter is plain. Under the circumstances of the inquiry, the direction to answer given Stern was obviously not given because of the immunity statute, but because the Commission took the position that a generally available privilege did not exist as to a particular question, since no answer to it could possibly incriminate. Stern made his decision not to answer, it must be assumed, in the light of the Commission’s attitude that the privilege generally applied, and on the basis of his own determination that the answer would tend to incriminate him. The Ohio Supreme Court has not disagreed with him.on the issue on which he was directed to answer; it made no finding that the Commission was correct on the'basis on which it ordered, the answer — that no response to the question possibly could* incriminate. Four of us think that the same affront to the Due Process Clause as is.generally presented in this case is presented by a judgment ignoring the grounds on which the Commission’s direction to answer was given, and affirming the conviction by reason of an immunity statute whose, existence the Commission negated. To four of us, it is obvious that Stern was as much “entrapped” as the others. -It is hardly an answer, in our view, to say he was directed to answer the question. In effect, the Commission said to Stern: “We recognize your privilege against self-incrimination in this inquiry, but you must take care that you claim it only where your answer might really tend to be incriminating. We do not see how saying where you live might incriminate you, so as to this question we reject your claim of privilege and order you to answer.” Stern’s refusal to answer after the direction opened him to the risk that a court might hold that' he was wrong and that the Commission properly ruled that no answer could be incriminatory. But the Ohio Supreme Court has not held this; it has not held that Stern’s decision that the answer would tend to incriminate him was wrong, but only that the Commission was wrong in telling him that the privilege applied at all. It may have been at his peril that Stern made his decision that the answer was incriminatory, but four of us cannot see how consistently with the Due Process Clause it can be said that he thereby also assumed the very different peril that the basic premise of what the Commission was telling him — that the privilege existed — was one hundred percent in error. We four regret' that our Brethren remain unpersuaded on this score, and that accordingly as to Stern the judgment must be affirmed by an equally divided Court..
Appeals dismissed.
On writs of certiorari, judgments reversed as to Raley, Brown and Morgan; judgment affirmed as to Stern by an equally divided Court.
Mr. Justice Stewart took no part in the consideration or decision of these cases.
Mr. Justice Clark, with whom Mr. Justice Frankfurter, Mr. Justice Harlan and Mr. Justice Whit-taker join.
We think the conviction of Stern must be affirmed. Like our Brethren who would reverse as to him we, too, agree with Judge Stewart, of Ohio’s Supreme Court. But, as we read his opinion, he swept with a whisk broom not a carpet sweeper. Our Brothers take too broad a swath.
Judge Stewart said that since Ohio’s Commission advised appellants that they had a right to refuse to answer questions which might incriminate them, “they could not possibly in following the admonition of the Commission be in contempt of it” in refusing to answer any such queries. Brother Brennan’s opinion characterizes the action of the Commission.as an “indefensible sort of entrapment... convicting a- citizen for exercising a privilege which the State clearly had told-him was available to him.” We agree that such was true as to three of these appellants, and therefore concur in the opinion as to Brown, Raley and Morgan. But, as Judge Stewart went on to point out, the record clearly shows that Stern was not so entrapped.
Stern was convicted for refusal to answer the question, “Where do you reside, Mr. Stern?” The Chairman refused to accept Stern’s plea of the privilege and twice unequivocally directed him to answer the question. Stern' persisted in his refusal. The due process ground used in our Brother Brennan’s opinion to invalidate the convictions of Brown, Raley and Morgan is, therefore, not present as to Stern. There was no “entrapment” in the above question, upon which he was convicted, since it was made clear, even'without reference to the Ohio immunity statute, that as to that' question the privilege was not available. The reason given by the Commission, except where bad faith is necessary which is not true here, is irrelevant. The test is whether the witness was commanded' to answer regardless. Neither Morgan nor Raley was so directed, but Stern was categorically instructed to do so.
Admitting that the direction to answer was “obviously... [given] because' the Commission, took the position that a generally available privilege did not exist,” four members of the Court still refuse to affirm as to Stern because the State Supreme Court did not go on that ground. But they overlook the sweep of their own opinion. It is the Federal Due Process Clause that is being applied and the Court must take the. facts as shown by the record. It cléarly shows that Stern was not entrapped by the statements of the Chairman as to the availability of the privilege for the question forming the. basis of the only count of the indictment before us. Unlike the others, he was specifically ordered to answer. In this posture of the facts there could be no entrapment and hence no lack of due process. We would therefore affirm as to Stern.
The three appellants in No. 175, Raley, Stern, and Brown, were convicted in a joint trial in a different Common Pleas Court from the one in which appellant in No. 463, Mrs. Morgan, was convicted. The judgments as to Raley, Stern, and Brown were affirmed in the Court of Appeals for Hamilton County, 100 Ohio App. 75, 136 N. E. 2d 295, and that of Mrs. Morgan in tbe Court of Appeals for Franklin County. • The cases were decided by the Ohio Supreme Court in a single opinion, 164 Ohio St. 529, 133 N. E. 2d 104, which affirmed the •convictions.
■ Raley, Stern, and Brown were convicted under the then applicable provisions of Ohio General Code § 12137, which provided that “a failure...• to answer as a witness, when lawfully required” may be punished “as.... for a contempt.” Mrs. Morgan was convicted under Ohio General Code § 12845-, which punished those, summoned before a Committee of the State Legislature, who refuse “to answer a question pertinent, to the matter under inquiry.”
After the Chairman’s initial statement quoted in the text,, and some exchange between the Chairman and Raley’s counsel, the following occurred:
“Chairman Renner: I should like for you to, consult with counsel to determine whether, in his opinion you are required to answer the question, whether you recollect having had such an interview.
“The Witness: I have been advised by counsel that the privilege does apply, if I desire to use it.
“Chairman Renner: Counsel [for the Commission] may proceed.”
Whereupon’ the next question was put. In the other instance Raley appears to have consulted with counsel of his own accord:
“Chairman Renner: Mr. Raley, would you explain to the Commission how you could incriminate yourself by acknowledeing the location of the headquarters of Local 766 on that date?
“The Witness: I don’t believe, Mr. Chairman, that I have to give a reason for asserting the privileges of the Constitution, so my answer would be the same to that that I gave Mr. Isaacs. [The Commission Counsel.] I will assert my privileges.
“Chairman Renner: I nevertheless request an answer.
“The Witness: Just a second while I confer with counsel.
“Mr. Berger [Raley’s counsel]: I would like to hear the question read.
“Chairman Renner: Read the question, please.
“(Several questions and answers read by the reporter.)
“Mr. Berger:' That is what I thought.
“(The witness nonferred with counsel.)
“The Witness: I think I was correct in view of the line of questions that I have to assert my privileges under the Constitution.
“Chairman Renner: Counsel will proceed.”
And again the next question was forthwith put.
“Chairman Renner: Counsel, just a moment. When you say you claim the privilege, you claim the’ privilege of not replying by reason of the fact that your answer might tend to incriminate you?
“The Witness: I claim the privilege of not answering under the Fifth Amendment of the United States Constitution, and Section i, Article 10 of the Ohio Constitution, as I understand them.
“Chairman Renner:. I do not insist that you recite in full the precise article or section of the Bill of Rights of the state of Ohio, or the Federal Constitution, but in your reply, if you are' resorting to those sections, make it clear that you are resorting to those sections, or-let us-have an understanding that when you say, ‘The same answer-,’ that.that is what it means.
“The Witness: It means that I claim the privilege of the Fifth Amendment, of the United States Constitution, and Article 1, Section 10 of the Ohio Constitution, as I understand them.
“Chairman Renner: And when you say, T claim the privilege,’ that is'what-you mean in full; is.that correct?
“The Witness: That is correct.!’
One such exchange was as follows:
“Chairman Renner: The chair will ask the witness to answer the question that has been placed by Counsel. It.'is to be presumed that the witness is excused. from answering the previous question. We are trying to make.it easier for you, Mr. Stern.
“The Witness: I plead the privilege.
“By Mr. Isaacs:
“Q. I take it you are not rhaking the denial that you startéd’to make before?
“A. I invoke the privilége.”
Whereupon the next question was put.
“Chairman Renner: What do.you mean when you say ‘The answer is the same’?
“The Witness: I mean when I say ‘The answer is the same,’ the preceding question that was asked me, linking up with the next question that is asked me, I answered the first question. I said I invoked the Fifth Amendment of the United States Constitution.
“Chairman Renner: You mean you refuse to answer?
“The Witness: I did not say I refuse. I didn’t refuse and I don’t know what you mean. I said, ‘invoked.’ Do you know what the word ‘invoked’ means?
“Chairman Renner: Do you refuse.to answer?
“The Witness: The answer is the same.”
Later, Ahe Chairman tried again:
“Chairman Renner: Each time you have replied by saying/ ‘The answer is the same,’ that full explanation that you have given, is that what you mean; is that correct?
“The Witness: I understand this amendment to mean that I can’t be forced to testify against myself.
“Chairman Renner: And each time that you say the answer is the same, you mean to invoke that right; is that correct?
“The Witness: When a question is projected to me—
“Chairman Renner: Will you answer my question?
“The Witness: By you, I will answer that question on the basis of that question that is projected at that time....
“Chairman Renner: I am simply trying to clarify for the record what you mean each time you say, ’‘The answer is the same.’ ”
On another occasion, the Chairman had the matter cleared'up, at least for a while:
"Chairman Renner: What do you mean, ‘the answer is the same’?
“The Witness: In regard to that question, in the manner in which that question was phrased, I again invoke — see—the Fifth -Amendment of the Constitution of the United States, see? Do you understand what that means?
“Chairman Renner: That is what I wanted.”
The following is illustrative:
“Q. I ask you if it is not. a fact that in February of 1950, you caused to be distributed a leaflet stated to be issued by the Workers Club, Emmett C. Brown, Chairman, 1064 Flint Street?.
“A. Is that a fact?
“Q. I am- asking you to affirm or deny that fact.
“A. If you know it, why ask me to affirm?
“Chairman Renner: Answer the question, Mr. Brown.
“The Witness
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer:
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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 Stewart
delivered the opinion of the Court.
On November 26, 1955, in Canton, Illinois, an eight-year-old girl died as the result of a brutal sexual attack. The petitioner was charged with her murder.
Prior to his trial in an Illinois court, his counsel filed a motion for an order permitting a scientific inspection of the physical evidence the prosecution intended to introduce. The motion was resisted by the prosecution and denied by the court. The jury trial ended in a verdict of guilty and a sentence of death, On appear the judgment was affirmed by the Supreme Court of Illinois. On the basis of leads, developed at a subsequent unsuccessful state clemency hearing, the petitioner applied to a federal district court for a writ of habeas corpus. After a hearing, the court granted the writ and ordered the petitioner’s release or prompt retrial. The Court of Appeals reversed, and we granted certiorari to consider whether the trial that led to the petitioner’s conviction was constitutionally valid. We have concluded that it was not.
There were no eyewitnesses to the brutal crime which the petitioner was charged with perpetrating. A vital component of the case against him was a pair of men’s underwear shorts covered with large, dark, reddish-brown stains — People’s Exhibit 3 in the trial record. These shorts had been found by a Canton policeman in a place known as the Van Burén Flats three days after the murder. The Van Burén Flats were about a mile from the scene of the crime. It was the prosecution’s theory that the petitioner had been wearing these shorts when he committed the murder, and that he had afterwards removed and discarded them at the Van Burén Flats.
During the presentation of the prosecution’s case, People’s Exhibit 3 was variously described by witnesses in such terms as the “bloody shorts” and “a pair of jockey shorts stained with blood.” Early in the trial the victim’s mother testified that her daughter “had type ‘A’ positive blood.” Evidence was later introduced to show that the petitioner’s blood “was of group ‘O.’ ”
Against this background the jury heard the testimony of a chemist for the State Bureau of Crime Identification. The prosecution established his qualifications as an expert, whose “duties include blood identification, grouping and typing both dry. and fresh stains,” and who had “made approximately one thousand blood typing analyses while at the State Bureau.” His crucial testimony was as follows:
“I examined and tested ‘People’s Exhibit 3’ to determine the nature of the staining material upon it, The result, of the first test was that this material upon the shorts is blood. I made a second examination which disclosed 'that the blood is of human origin. I made a further examination which disclosed that the blood is of group ‘A.’ ”
The petitioner, testifying in his own behalf, denied that he had ever owned or worn the shorts in evidence as People’s Exhibit 3. He himself referred to the shorts as having “dried blood on them.”
In argument to the jury the prosecutor made the most of People’s Exhibit 3:
“Those shorts were found in the Van Burén Flats, with blood. What type blood? Not ‘O’ blood as the defendant has, but ‘A’ — type ‘A.’ ”
And later in his argument he said to the jury:
“And, if you will recall, it has never been contradicted the blood type of Janice May was blood type ‘A’ positive. Blood type ‘A.’ Blood type ‘A’ on these shorts. It wasn’t ‘O’ type as the defendant has. It is ‘A’ type, what the little girl had.”
Such was the state of the evidence with respect to People’s Exhibit 3 as the case went to the jury. And such was the state of the record as the judgment of conviction was reviewed by ,the Supreme Court of Illinois. The “blood stained shorts” clearly played a vital part in the case for the prosecution. They were an' important linE in the chain of circumstantial evidence against the petitioner, and, in the context of the revolting crime with which he was charged, their gruesomely emotional impact upon the jury was incalculable.
So matters stood with respect to People’s Exhibit 3, until the present habeas corpus proceeding in the Federal District Court. In this proceeding the State was ordered to produce the stained shorts, and they were admitted in evidence. It was established that their appearance was the same as when they had been introduced at the trial as People’s Exhibit 3. The petitioner was permitted to have the shorts examined by a chemical micro-analyst. What the microanalyst found cast an extraordinary new light on People’s Exhibit 3. The reddish-brown stains on the shorts were not blood, but paint.
The witness said that he had tested threads from each of the 10 reddish-brown stained areas on the shorts, and that he had found that all of them were encrusted with mineral pigments “. . . which one commonly uses in the preparation of paints.” He found “no traces of human blood.” The State did not dispute this testimony, its counsel contenting himself with prevailing upon the witness to concede on cross-examination that he could not swear that there had never been any blood on the shorts.
It was further established that counsel for the prosecution had known at the time of the trial that the shorts were stained with paint. The prosecutor even admitted that the Canton police had prepared a memorandum attempting to explain “how this exhibit contains all the paint on it.”
In argument at the close of the habeas corpus hearing, counsel for the State contended that “[ejverybody” at the trial had known that the shorts were stained with paint. That contention is totally belied by the record. The microanalyst correctly described the appearance of the shorts when he said, “I assumed I was dealing . . . with a pair of shorts which was heavily stained with blood. ... [I] t would appear to a layman . . . that what I see before me is a garment heavily stained with blood.” The record of the petitioner’s trial reflects the prosecution’s consistent and repeated misrepresentation that People’s Exhibit 3 was, indeed, “a garment heavily stained with blood.’’. The prosecution’s whole theory with respect to the exhibit depended upon that misrepresentation. For the theory was that the victim’s assailant had discarded the shorts because they were stained with blood. A pair of paint-stained shorts, found in an abandoned building a mile away from the scene of the crime, was virtually valueless as evidence against the petitioner. The prosecution deliberately misrepresented the truth.
More than 30 years ago this Court held that the Fourteenth Amendment cannot tolerate a state criminal conviction obtained by the knowing use of false evidence. Mooney v. Holohan, 294 U. S. 103. There has been no deviation from that established principle. Napue v. Illinois, 360 U. S. 264; Pyle v. Kansas, 317 U. S. 213; cf. Alcorta v. Texas, 355 U. S. 28. There can be no retreat from that principle 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.
“Comes now the defendant, Lloyd Eldon, Miller Junior, by William H. Malmgren, his attorney, and hereby moves the Court to enter an order permitting defendant to make, or cause to be made, upon such terms and conditions as to the court seems necessary to adequately insure the interests of-the parties, a scientifice [sic] examination of the physical evidence to be introduced by the People in this cause and, to that end, enter an order requiring the People, by their attorney, to produce and make available all of said evidence for such an examination.
-.“For cause, movant says that such an examination is necessary to adequately prepare the.defense herein.”
13 Ill. 2d 84, 148 N. E. 2d 455.
An earlier federal habeas corpus application had been unsuccessful. Miller v. Pate, 300 F. 2d 414.
226 F. Supp. 541.
342 F. 2d 646.
384 U. S. 998.
'The petitioner has relied upon several different grounds for reversal of the judgment of the Court of Appeals. In deciding the case upon only one of those grounds, we intimate no view as to the merits of the others.
In affirming the petitioner’s conviction, the Supreme Court of Illinois stated that “it was determined” that the shorts “were stained with human blood from group A,” and referred to the petitioner’s “bloody shorts.” 13 Ill. 2d, at 89 and 106, 148 N. E. 2d, at 458 and 467.
People’s Exhibit 3 was forwarded here as part of the record, and we have accordingly had an opportunity to see it with our own eyes.
At the state clemency, hearing, some additional evidence was adduced to show that the shorts had not belonged to the petitioner.
There were two other discolored areas on the shorts, one black and the other “a kind of yellowish color.” A thread from the first of these areas contained material “similar to a particle of carbon.” “[N]o particulates showed up” on the thread taken from the other.
The witness pointed Out, however, that ^“blood substances are detectable over prolonged periods. That is, there are records of researches in which substances extracted from Egyptian mummies have been identified as blood.”
“Now, then, concerning the paint on the shorts, the petitioner yesterday, introduced scientific evidence to prove that there was paint on the shorts, a fact that they knew without scientific evidence. Everybody knew, in connection with the case, whoever looked at the shorts, and I think that the Court can look at them now and know there is. paint on them. This is not anything that was not disclosed to anybody. It is very obvious by merely looking at them . . . .”
See n. 9, supra.
The petitioner was not a painter but a taxi driver.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
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
|
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 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.
Motion of the petitioners for a further stay of the execution, as set forth in the written motion, is denied.
Mr. Justice Black dissents.
Mr. Justice Frankfurter.
On the assumption that the sentences against the Ro-senbergs are to be carried out at 11 o’clock tonight, their counsel ask this Court to stay their execution until opportunity has been afforded to them to invoke the constitutional prerogative of clemency. The action of this Court, and the division of opinion in vacating the stay granted by Mr. Justice Douglas, are, of course, a factor in the situation, which arose within the last hour. It is not for this Court even remotely to enter into the domain of clemency reserved by the Constitution exclusively to the President. But the Court must properly take into account the possible consequences of a stay or of a denial of a stay of execution of death sentences upon making an appeal for executive clemency. Were it established that counsel are correct in their assumption that the sentences of death are to be carried out at 11 p. m. tonight, I believe that it would be right and proper for this Court formally to grant a stay with a proper time-limit to give appropriate opportunity for the process of executive clemency to operate. I justifiably assume, however, that the time for the execution has not been fixed as of 11 o’clock tonight. Of course I respectfully assume that appropriate consideration will be given to a clemency application by the authority constitutionally charged with the clemency function.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
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 these consolidated cases, we decide whether the Government created lawful exemptions from a regulatory requirement implementing the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010 (ACA), 124 Stat. 119. The requirement at issue obligates certain employers to provide contraceptive coverage to their employees through their group health plans. Though contraceptive coverage is not required by (or even mentioned in) the ACA provision at issue, the Government mandated such coverage by promulgating interim final rules (IFRs) shortly after the ACA's passage. This requirement is known as the contraceptive mandate.
After six years of protracted litigation, the Departments of Health and Human Services, Labor, and the Treasury (Departments)-which jointly administer the relevant ACA provision -exempted certain employers who have religious and conscientious objections from this agency-created mandate. The Third Circuit concluded that the Departments lacked statutory authority to promulgate these exemptions and affirmed the District Court's nationwide preliminary injunction. This decision was erroneous. We hold that the Departments had the authority to provide exemptions from the regulatory contraceptive requirements for employers with religious and conscientious objections. We accordingly reverse the Third Circuit's judgment and remand with instructions to dissolve the nationwide preliminary injunction.
I
The ACA's contraceptive mandate-a product of agency regulation-has existed for approximately nine years. Litigation surrounding that requirement has lasted nearly as long. In light of this extensive history, we begin by summarizing the relevant background.
A
The ACA requires covered employers to offer "a group health plan or group health insurance coverage" that provides certain "minimum essential coverage." 26 U.S.C. § 5000A(f)(2) ; §§ 4980H(a), (c)(2). Employers who do not comply face hefty penalties, including potential fines of $100 per day for each affected employee. §§ 4980D(a)-(b); see also Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc., 573 U.S. 682, 696-697, 134 S.Ct. 2751, 189 L.Ed.2d 675 (2014). These cases concern regulations promulgated under a provision of the ACA that requires covered employers to provide women with "preventive care and screenings" without "any cost sharing requirements." 42 U.S.C. § 300gg-13(a)(4).
The statute does not define "preventive care and screenings," nor does it include an exhaustive or illustrative list of such services. Thus, the statute itself does not explicitly require coverage for any specific form of "preventive care." Hobby Lobby, 573 U.S. at 697, 134 S.Ct. 2751. Instead, Congress stated that coverage must include "such additional preventive care and screenings... as provided for in comprehensive guidelines supported by the Health Resources and Services Administration" (HRSA), an agency of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). § 300gg-13(a)(4). At the time of the ACA's enactment, these guidelines were not yet written. As a result, no specific forms of preventive care or screenings were (or could be) referred to or incorporated by reference.
Soon after the ACA's passage, the Departments began promulgating rules related to § 300gg-13(a)(4). But in doing so, the Departments did not proceed through the notice and comment rulemaking process, which the Administrative Procedure Act (APA) often requires before an agency's regulation can "have the force and effect of law." Perez v. Mortgage Bankers Assn., 575 U.S. 92, 96, 135 S.Ct. 1199,191 L.Ed.2d 186 (2015) (internal quotation marks omitted); see also 5 U.S.C. § 553. Instead, the Departments invoked the APA's good cause exception, which permits an agency to dispense with notice and comment and promulgate an IFR that carries immediate legal force. § 553(b)(3)(B).
The first relevant IFR, promulgated in July 2010, primarily focused on implementing other aspects of § 300gg-13. 75 Fed. Reg. 41728. The IFR indicated that HRSA planned to develop its Preventive Care Guidelines (Guidelines) by August 2011. Ibid. However, it did not mention religious exemptions or accommodations of any kind.
As anticipated, HRSA released its first set of Guidelines in August 2011. The Guidelines were based on recommendations compiled by the Institute of Medicine (now called the National Academy of Medicine), "a nonprofit group of volunteer advisers." Hobby Lobby, 573 U.S. at 697, 134 S.Ct. 2751. The Guidelines included the contraceptive mandate, which required health plans to provide coverage for all contraceptive methods and sterilization procedures approved by the Food and Drug Administration as well as related education and counseling. 77 Fed. Reg. 8725 (2012).
The same day the Guidelines were issued, the Departments amended the 2010 IFR. 76 Fed. Reg. 46621 (2011). When the 2010 IFR was originally published, the Departments began receiving comments from numerous religious employers expressing concern that the Guidelines would "impinge upon their religious freedom" if they included contraception. Id., at 46623. As just stated, the Guidelines ultimately did contain contraceptive coverage, thus making the potential impact on religious freedom a reality. In the amended IFR, the Departments determined that "it [was] appropriate that HRSA... tak[e] into account the [mandate's] effect on certain religious employers" and concluded that HRSA had the discretion to do so through the creation of an exemption. Ibid. The Departments then determined that the exemption should cover religious employers, and they set out a four-part test to identify which employers qualified. The last criterion required the entity to be a church, an integrated auxiliary, a convention or association of churches, or "the exclusively religious activities of any religious order." Ibid. HRSA created an exemption for these employers the same day. 78 Fed. Reg. 39871 (2013). Because of the narrow focus on churches, this first exemption is known as the church exemption.
The Guidelines were scheduled to go into effect for plan years beginning on August 1, 2012. 77 Fed. Reg. 8725-8726. But in February 2012, before the Guidelines took effect, the Departments promulgated a final rule that temporarily prevented the Guidelines from applying to certain religious nonprofits. Specifically, the Departments stated their intent to promulgate additional rules to "accommodat[e] non-exempted, non-profit organizations' religious objections to covering contraceptive services." Id., at 8727. Until that rulemaking occurred, the 2012 rule also provided a temporary safe harbor to protect such employers. Ibid. The safe harbor covered nonprofits "whose plans have consistently not covered all or the same subset of contraceptive services for religious reasons." Thus, the nonprofits who availed themselves of this safe harbor were not subject to the contraceptive mandate when it first became effective.
The Departments promulgated another final rule in 2013 that is relevant to these cases in two ways. First, after reiterating that § 300gg-13(a)(4) authorizes HRSA "to issue guidelines in a manner that exempts group health plans established or maintained by religious employers," the Departments "simplif[ied]" and "clarif[ied]" the definition of a religious employer. 78 Fed. Reg. 39873. Second, pursuant to that same authority, the Departments provided the anticipated accommodation for eligible religious organizations, which the regulation defined as organizations that "(1) [o]ppos[e] providing coverage for some or all of the contraceptive services... on account of religious objections; (2) [are] organized and operat[e] as... nonprofit entit[ies]; (3) hol[d] [themselves] out as... religious organization[s]; and (4) self-certif[y] that [they] satisf[y] the first three criteria." Id., at 39874. The accommodation required an eligible organization to provide a copy of the self-certification form to its health insurance issuer, which in turn would exclude contraceptive coverage from the group health plan and provide payments to beneficiaries for contraceptive services separate from the health plan. Id., at 39878. The Departments stated that the accommodation aimed to "protec[t]" religious organizations "from having to contract, arrange, pay, or refer for [contraceptive] coverage" in a way that was consistent with and did not violate the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993 (RFRA), 107 Stat. 1488, 42 U.S.C. § 2000bb et seq. 78 Fed. Reg. 39871, 39886-39887. This accommodation is referred to as the self-certification accommodation.
B
Shortly after the Departments promulgated the 2013 final rule, two religious nonprofits run by the Little Sisters of the Poor (Little Sisters) challenged the self-certification accommodation. The Little Sisters "are an international congregation of Roman Catholic women religious" who have operated homes for the elderly poor in the United States since 1868. See Mission Statement: Little Sisters of the Poor, http://www.littlesistersofthepoor.org/mission-statement. They feel called by their faith to care for their elderly residents regardless of "faith, finances, or frailty." Brief for Residents and Families of Residents at Homes of the Little Sisters of the Poor as Amici Curiae 14. The Little Sisters endeavor to treat all residents "as if they were Jesus [Christ] himself, cared for as family, and treated with dignity until God calls them to his home." Complaint ¶14 in Little Sisters of the Poor Home for the Aged, Denver, Colo. v. Sebelius, 6 F.Supp.3d 1225 (D Colo.2013), p. 5 (Complaint).
Consistent with their Catholic faith, the Little Sisters hold the religious conviction "that deliberately avoiding reproduction through medical means is immoral." Little Sisters of the Poor Home for the Aged, Denver, Colo. v. Burwell, 794 F.3d 1151, 1167 (CA10 2015). They challenged the self-certification accommodation, claiming that completing the certification form would force them to violate their religious beliefs by "tak[ing] actions that directly cause others to provide contraception or appear to participate in the Departments' delivery scheme." Id., at 1168. As a result, they alleged that the self-certification accommodation violated RFRA. Under RFRA, a law that substantially burdens the exercise of religion must serve "a compelling governmental interest" and be "the least restrictive means of furthering that compelling governmental interest." §§ 2000bb-1(a)-(b). The Court of Appeals disagreed that the self-certification accommodation substantially burdened the Little Sisters' free exercise rights and thus rejected their RFRA claim. Little Sisters, 794 F.3d at 1160.
The Little Sisters were far from alone in raising RFRA challenges to the self-certification accommodation. Religious nonprofit organizations and educational institutions across the country filed a spate of similar lawsuits, most resulting in rulings that the accommodation did not violate RFRA. See, e.g., East Texas Baptist Univ. v. Burwell, 793 F.3d 449 (CA5 2015) ; Geneva College v. Secretary, U. S. Dept. of Health and Human Servs., 778 F.3d 422 (CA3 2015) ; Priests for Life v. United States Dept. of Health and Human Servs., 772 F.3d 229 (CADC 2014) ; Michigan Catholic Conference v. Burwell, 755 F.3d 372 (CA6 2014) ; University of Notre Dame v. Sebelius, 743 F.3d 547 (CA7 2014) ; but see Sharpe Holdings, Inc. v. United States Dept. of Health and Human Servs., 801 F.3d 927 (CA8 2015) ; Dordt College v. Burwell, 801 F.3d 946 (CA8 2015). We granted certiorari in cases from four Courts of Appeals to decide the RFRA question. Zubik v. Burwell, 578 U. S. ----, ----, 136 S.Ct. 1557, 1560, 194 L.Ed.2d 696 (2016) (per curiam ). Ultimately, however, we opted to remand the cases without deciding that question. In supplemental briefing, the Government had "confirm[ed]" that " 'contraceptive coverage could be provided to petitioners' employees, through petitioners' insurance companies, without any... notice from petitioners.' " Id., at ----, 136 S.Ct., at 1560. Petitioners, for their part, had agreed that such an approach would not violate their free exercise rights. Ibid. Accordingly, because all parties had accepted that an alternative approach was "feasible," ibid., we directed the Government to "accommodat[e] petitioners' religious exercise while at the same time ensuring that women covered by petitioners' health plans receive full and equal health coverage, including contraceptive coverage," id., at ----, 136 S.Ct., at 1560 (internal quotation marks omitted).
C
Zubik was not the only relevant ruling from this Court about the contraceptive mandate. As the Little Sisters and numerous others mounted their challenges to the self-certification accommodation, a host of other entities challenged the contraceptive mandate itself as a violation of RFRA. See, e.g., Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc. v. Sebelius, 723 F.3d 1114 (CA10 2013) (en banc); Korte v. Sebelius, 735 F.3d 654 (CA7 2013) ; Gilardi v. United States Dept. of Health and Human Servs., 733 F.3d 1208 (CADC 2013) ; Conestoga Wood Specialties Corp. v. Secretary of U. S. Dept. of Health and Human Servs., 724 F.3d 377 (CA3 2013) ;
Autocam Corp. v. Sebelius, 730 F.3d 618 (CA6 2013). This Court granted certiorari in two cases involving three closely held corporations to decide whether the mandate violated RFRA. Hobby Lobby, 573 U.S. 682, 134 S.Ct. 2751.
The individual respondents in Hobby Lobby opposed four methods of contraception covered by the mandate. They sincerely believed that human life begins at conception and that, because the challenged methods of contraception risked causing the death of a human embryo, providing those methods of contraception to employees would make the employers complicit in abortion. Id., at 691, 720, 134 S.Ct. 2751. We held that the mandate substantially burdened respondents' free exercise, explaining that "[if] the owners comply with the HHS mandate, they believe they will be facilitating abortions, and if they do not comply, they will pay a very heavy price." Id., at 691, 134 S.Ct. 2751. "If these consequences do not amount to a substantial burden," we stated, "it is hard to see what would." Ibid. We also held that the mandate did not utilize the least restrictive means, citing the self-certification accommodation as a less burdensome alternative. Id., at 730-731, 134 S.Ct. 2751.
Thus, as the Departments began the task of reformulating rules related to the contraceptive mandate, they did so not only under Zubik's direction to accommodate religious exercise, but also against the backdrop of Hobby Lobby's pronouncement that the mandate, standing alone, violated RFRA as applied to religious entities with complicity-based objections.
D
In 2016, the Departments attempted to strike the proper balance a third time, publishing a request for information on ways to comply with Zubik. 81 Fed. Reg. 47741. This attempt proved futile, as the Departments ultimately concluded that "no feasible approach" had been identified. Dept. of Labor, FAQs About Affordable Care Act Implementation Part 36, p. 4 (2017). The Departments maintained their position that the self-certification accommodation was consistent with RFRA because it did not impose a substantial burden and, even if it did, it utilized the least restrictive means of achieving the Government's interests. Id., at 4-5.
In 2017, the Departments tried yet again to comply with Zubik, this time by promulgating the two IFRs that served as the impetus for this litigation. The first IFR significantly broadened the definition of an exempt religious employer to encompass an employer that "objects... based on its sincerely held religious beliefs," "to its establishing, maintaining, providing, offering, or arranging [for] coverage or payments for some or all contraceptive services." 82 Fed. Reg. 47812 (2017). Among other things, this definition included for-profit and publicly traded entities. Because they were exempt, these employers did not need to participate in the accommodation process, which nevertheless remained available under the IFR. Id., at 47806.
As with their previous regulations, the Departments once again invoked § 300gg-13(a)(4) as authority to promulgate this "religious exemption," stating that it "include[d] the ability to exempt entities from coverage requirements announced in HRSA's Guidelines." Id., at 47794. Additionally, the Departments announced for the first time that RFRA compelled the creation of, or at least provided the discretion to create, the religious exemption. Id., at 47800-47806. As the Departments explained: "We know from Hobby Lobby that, in the absence of any accommodation, the contraceptive-coverage requirement imposes a substantial burden on certain objecting employers. We know from other lawsuits and public comments that many religious entities have objections to complying with the [self-certification] accommodation based on their sincerely held religious beliefs." Id., at 47806. The Departments "believe[d] that the Court's analysis in Hobby Lobby extends, for the purposes of analyzing a substantial burden, to the burdens that an entity faces when it religiously opposes participating in the [self-certification] accommodation process." Id., at 47800. They thus "conclude[d] that it [was] appropriate to expand the exemption to other... organizations with sincerely held religious beliefs opposed to contraceptive coverage." Id., at 47802 ; see also id., at 47810-47811.
The second IFR created a similar "moral exemption" for employers-including nonprofits and for-profits with no publicly traded components-with "sincerely held moral" objections to providing some or all forms of contraceptive coverage. Id., at 47850, 47861-47862. Citing congressional enactments, precedents from this Court, agency practice, and state laws that provided for conscience protections, id., at 47844-47847, the Departments invoked their authority under the ACA to create this exemption, id., at 47844. The Departments requested post-promulgation comments on both IFRs. Id., at 47813, 47854.
E
Within a week of the 2017 IFRs' promulgation, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania filed an action seeking declaratory and injunctive relief. Among other claims, it alleged that the IFRs were procedurally and substantively invalid under the APA. The District Court held that the Commonwealth was likely to succeed on both claims and granted a preliminary nationwide injunction against the IFRs. The Federal Government appealed.
While that appeal was pending, the Departments issued rules finalizing the 2017 IFRs. See 83 Fed. Reg. 57536 (2018) ; 83 Fed. Reg. 57592, codified at 45 C.F.R. pt. 147 (2018). Though the final rules left the exemptions largely intact, they also responded to post-promulgation comments, explaining their reasons for neither narrowing nor expanding the exemptions beyond what was provided for in the IFRs. See 83 Fed. Reg. 57542-57545, 57598-57603. The final rule creating the religious exemption also contained a lengthy analysis of the Departments' changed position regarding whether the self-certification process violated RFRA. Id., at 57544-57549. And the Departments explained that, in the wake of the numerous lawsuits challenging the self-certification accommodation and the failed attempt to identify alternative accommodations after the 2016 request for information, "an expanded exemption rather than the existing accommodation is the most appropriate administrative response to the substantial burden identified by the Supreme Court in Hobby Lobby." Id., at 57544-57545.
After the final rules were promulgated, the State of New Jersey joined Pennsylvania's suit and, together, they filed an amended complaint. As relevant, the States-respondents here-once again challenged the rules as substantively and procedurally invalid under the APA. They alleged that the rules were substantively unlawful because the Departments lacked statutory authority under either the ACA or RFRA to promulgate the exemptions. Respondents also asserted that the IFRs were not adequately justified by good cause, meaning that the Departments impermissibly used the IFR procedure to bypass the APA's notice and comment procedures. Finally, respondents argued that the purported procedural defects of the IFRs likewise infected the final rules.
The District Court issued a nationwide preliminary injunction against the implementation of the final rules the same day the rules were scheduled to take effect. The Federal Government appealed, as did one of the homes operated by the Little Sisters, which had in the meantime intervened in the suit to defend the religious exemption. The appeals were consolidated with the previous appeal, which had been stayed.
The Third Circuit affirmed. In its view, the Departments lacked authority to craft the exemptions under either statute. The Third Circuit read 42 U.S.C. § 300gg-13(a)(4) as empowering HRSA to determine which services should be included as preventive care and screenings, but not to carve out exemptions from those requirements. It also concluded that RFRA did not compel or permit the religious exemption because, under Third Circuit precedent that was vacated and remanded in Zubik, the Third Circuit had concluded that the self-certification accommodation did not impose a substantial burden on free exercise. As for respondents' procedural claim, the court held that the Departments lacked good cause to bypass notice and comment when promulgating the 2017 IFRs. In addition, the court determined that, because the IFRs and final rules were "virtually identical," "[t]he notice and comment exercise surrounding the Final Rules [did] not reflect any real open-mindedness." Pennsylvania v. President of United States, 930 F.3d 543, 568-569 (2019). Though it rebuked the Departments for their purported attitudinal deficiencies, the Third Circuit did not identify any specific public comments to which the agency did not appropriately respond. Id., at 569, n. 24. We granted certiorari. 589 U. S. ----, 140 S.Ct. 918, 205 L.Ed.2d 519 (2020).
II
Respondents contend that the 2018 final rules providing religious and moral exemptions to the contraceptive mandate are both substantively and procedurally invalid. We begin with their substantive argument that the Departments lacked statutory authority to promulgate the rules.
A
The Departments invoke 42 U.S.C. § 300gg-13(a)(4) as legal authority for both exemptions. This provision of the ACA states that, "with respect to women," "[a] group health plan and a health insurance issuer offering group or individual health insurance coverage shall, at a minimum provide... such additional preventive care and screenings not described in paragraph (1) as provided for in comprehensive guidelines supported by [HRSA]." The Departments maintain, as they have since 2011, that the phrase "as provided for" allows HRSA both to identify what preventive care and screenings must be covered and to exempt or accommodate certain employers' religious objections. See 83 Fed. Reg. 57540-57541 ; see also post, at 2397 - 2398 (KAGAN, J., concurring in judgment). They also argue that, as with the church exemption, their role as the administering agencies permits them to guide HRSA in its discretion by "defining the scope of permissible exemptions and accommodations for such guidelines." 82 Fed. Reg. 47794. Respondents, on the other hand, contend that § 300gg-13(a)(4) permits HRSA to only list the preventive care and screenings that health plans "shall... provide," not to exempt entities from covering those identified services. Because that asserted limitation is found nowhere in the statute, we agree with the Departments.
"Our analysis begins and ends with the text." Octane Fitness, LLC v. ICON Health & Fitness, Inc., 572 U.S. 545, 553, 134 S.Ct. 1749, 188 L.Ed.2d 816 (2014). Here, the pivotal phrase is "as provided for." To "provide" means to supply, furnish, or make available. See Webster's Third New International Dictionary 1827 (2002) (Webster's Third); American Heritage Dictionary 1411 (4th ed. 2000); 12 Oxford English Dictionary 713 (2d ed. 1989). And, as the Departments explained, the word "as" functions as an adverb modifying "provided," indicating "the manner in which" something is done. 83 Fed. Reg. 57540. See also Webster's Third 125; 1 Oxford English Dictionary, at 673; American Heritage Dictionary 102 (5th ed. 2011).
On its face, then, the provision grants sweeping authority to HRSA to craft a set of standards defining the preventive care that applicable health plans must cover. But the statute is completely silent as to what those "comprehensive guidelines" must contain, or how HRSA must go about creating them. The statute does not, as Congress has done in other statutes, provide an exhaustive or illustrative list of the preventive care and screenings that must be included. See, e.g., 18 U.S.C. § 1961(1) ; 28 U.S.C. § 1603(a). It does not, as Congress did elsewhere in the same section of the ACA, set forth any criteria or standards to guide HRSA's selections. See, e.g., 42 U.S.C. § 300gg-13(a)(3) (requiring "evidence-informed preventive care and screenings" (emphasis added)); § 300gg-13(a)(1) ("evidence-based items or services"). It does not, as Congress has done in other contexts, require that HRSA consult with or refrain from consulting with any party in the formulation of the Guidelines. See, e.g., 16 U.S.C. § 1536(a)(1) ; 23 U.S.C. § 138. This means that HRSA has virtually unbridled discretion to decide what counts as preventive care and screenings. But the same capacious grant of authority that empowers HRSA to make these determinations leaves its discretion equally unchecked in other areas, including the ability to identify and create exemptions from its own Guidelines.
Congress could have limited HRSA's discretion in any number of ways, but it chose not to do so. See Ali v. Federal Bureau of Prisons, 552 U.S. 214, 227, 128 S.Ct. 831, 169 L.Ed.2d 680 (2008) ; see also Rotkiske v. Klemm, 589 U. S. ----, ----, 140 S.Ct. 355, 361, 205 L.Ed.2d 291 (2019) ; Husted v. A. Philip Randolph Institute, 584 U. S. ----, ----, 138 S.Ct. 1833, 1845-1846, 201 L.Ed.2d 141 (2018). Instead, it enacted " 'expansive language offer[ing] no indication whatever' " that the statute limits what HRSA can designate as preventive care and screenings or who must provide that coverage. Ali, 552 U.S. at 219-220, 128 S.Ct. 831 (quoting Harrison v. PPG Industries, Inc., 446 U.S. 578, 589, 100 S.Ct. 1889, 64 L.Ed.2d 525 (1980) ). "It is a fundamental principle of statutory interpretation that 'absent provision[s] cannot be supplied by the courts.' " Rotkiske, 589 U. S., at ----, 140 S.Ct., at 360-361 (quoting A. Scalia & B. Garner, Reading Law: The Interpretation of Legal Texts 94 (2012)); Nichols v. United States, 578 U. S. ----, ----, 136 S.Ct. 1113, 1118, 194 L.Ed.2d 324 (2016). This principle applies not only to adding terms not found in the statute, but also to imposing limits on an agency's discretion that are not supported by the text. See Watt v. Energy Action Ed. Foundation, 454 U.S. 151, 168, 102 S.Ct. 205, 70 L.Ed.2d 309 (1981). By introducing a limitation not found in the statute, respondents ask us to alter, rather than to interpret, the ACA. See Nichols, 578 U. S., at ----, 136 S.Ct., at 1118.
By its terms, the ACA leaves the Guidelines' content to the exclusive discretion of HRSA. Under a plain reading of the statute, then, we conclude that the ACA gives HRSA broad discretion to define preventive care and screenings and to create the religious and moral exemptions.
The dissent resists this conclusion, asserting that the Departments' interpretation thwarts Congress' intent to provide contraceptive coverage to the women who are interested in receiving such coverage. See post, at 2400, 2411 - 2412 (opinion of GINSBURG, J.). It also argues that the exemptions will make it significantly harder for interested women to obtain seamless access to contraception without cost sharing, post, at 2394 - 2396, which we have previously "assume[d]" is a compelling governmental interest, Hobby Lobby, 573 U.S. at 728, 134 S.Ct. 2751 ; but see post, at 2391 - 2393 (ALITO, J., concurring). The Departments dispute that women will be adversely impacted by the 2018 exemptions. 82 Fed. Reg. 47805. Though we express no view on this disagreement, it bears noting that such a policy concern cannot justify supplanting the text's plain meaning. See Gitlitz v. Commissioner, 531 U.S. 206, 220, 121 S.Ct. 701, 148 L.Ed.2d 613 (2001). "It is not for us to rewrite the statute so that it covers only what we think is necessary to achieve what we think Congress really intended." Lewis v. Chicago, 560 U.S. 205, 215, 130 S.Ct. 2191, 176 L.Ed.2d 967 (2010).
Moreover, even assuming that the dissent is correct as an empirical matter, its concerns are more properly directed at the regulatory mechanism that Congress put in place to protect this assumed governmental interest. As even the dissent recognizes, contraceptive coverage is mentioned nowhere in § 300gg-13(a)(4), and no language in the statute itself even hints that Congress intended that contraception should or must be covered. See post, at 2401 - 2402 (citing legislative history and amicus briefs). Thus, contrary to the dissent's protestations, it was Congress, not the Departments, that declined to expressly require contraceptive coverage in the ACA itself. See 83 Fed. Reg. 57540. And, it was Congress' deliberate choice to issue an extraordinarily "broad general directiv[e]" to HRSA to craft the Guidelines, without any qualifications as to the substance of the Guidelines or whether exemptions were permissible. Mistretta v. United States, 488 U.S. 361, 372, 109 S.Ct. 647, 102 L.Ed.2d 714 (1989). Thus, it is Congress, not the Departments, that has failed to provide the protection for contraceptive coverage that the dissent seeks.
No party has pressed a constitutional challenge to the breadth of the delegation involved here. Cf. Gundy v. United States, 588 U. S. ----, 139 S.Ct. 2116, 204 L.Ed.2d 522 (2019). The only question we face today is what the plain language of the statute authorizes. And the plain language of the statute clearly allows the Departments to create the preventive care standards as well as the religious and moral exemptions.
B
The Departments also contend, consistent with the reasoning in the 2017 IFR and the 2018 final rule establishing the religious exemption, that RFRA independently compelled the Departments' solution or that it at least authorized it. In light of our holding that the ACA provided a basis for both exemptions, we need not reach these arguments. We do, however, address respondents' argument that the Departments could not even consider RFRA as they formulated the religious exemption from the contraceptive mandate. Particularly in the context of these cases, it was appropriate for the Departments to consider RFRA.
As we have explained, RFRA "provide[s] very broad protection for religious liberty." Hobby Lobby, 573 U.S. at 693, 134 S.Ct. 2751. In RFRA's congressional findings, Congress stated that "governments should not substantially burden religious exercise," a right described by RFRA as "unalienable." 42 U.S.C. §§ 2000bb(a)(1), (3). To protect this right, Congress provided that the "[g]overnment shall not substantially burden a person's exercise of religion even if the burden results from a rule of general applicability" unless "it demonstrates that application of the burden... is in furtherance of a compelling governmental interest; and... is the least restrictive means of furthering that compelling governmental interest." §§ 2000bb-1(a)-(b). Placing Congress' intent beyond dispute, RFRA specifies that it "applies to all Federal law, and the implementation of that law, whether statutory or otherwise." § 2000bb-3(a). RFRA also permits Congress to exclude statutes from RFRA's protections. § 2000bb-3(b).
It is clear from the face of the statute that the contraceptive mandate is capable of violating RFRA. The ACA does not explicitly exempt RFRA, and the regulations implementing the contraceptive mandate qualify as "Federal law" or "the implementation of [Federal] law." § 2000bb-3(a) ; cf. Chrysler Corp. v. Brown, 441 U.S. 281, 297-298, 99 S.Ct. 1705, 60 L.Ed.2d 208 (1979). Additionally, we expressly stated in Hobby Lobby that the contraceptive mandate violated RFRA as applied to entities with complicity-based objections. 573 U.S. at 736, 134 S.Ct. 2751. Thus, the potential for conflict between the contraceptive mandate and RFRA is well settled. Against this backdrop, it is unsurprising that RFRA would feature prominently in the Departments' discussion of exemptions that would not pose similar legal problems.
Moreover, our decisions all but instructed the Departments to consider RFRA going forward. For instance, though we held that the mandate violated RFRA in Hobby Lobby, we left it to the Federal Government to develop and implement a solution. At the same time, we made
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer:
|
I
|
sc_issuearea
|
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Justice Marshall
delivered the opinion of the Court.
These cases present consolidated appeals from a single decision of the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit holding that 47 U. S. C. § 224 (the Pole Attachments Act) effects an unconstitutional taking of property without just compensation.
I
The Pole Attachments Act, 92 Stat. 35, as amended, 47 U. S. C. §224, was enacted by Congress as a solution to a perceived danger of anticompetitive practices by utilities in connection with cable television service. Cable television operators, in order to deliver television signals to their subscribers, must have a physical carrier for the cable; in most instances underground installation of the necessary cables is impossible or impracticable. Utility company poles provide, under such circumstances, virtually the only practical physical medium for the installation of television cables. Over the past 30 years, utility companies throughout the country have entered into arrangements for the leasing of space on poles to operators of cable television systems. These contracts have generally provided for the payment by the cable companies of a yearly rent for space on each pole to which cables were attached, the fixed costs of making modifications to the poles and of physical installation of cables being borne by the cable operators. In many States the rates charged by the utility companies for these attachments have not been subject to regulation.
In response to arguments by cable operators that utility companies were exploiting their monopoly position by engaging in widespread overcharging, Congress in the Pole Attachments Act authorized the Federal Communications Commission to fill the gap left by state systems of public utilities regulation. See S. Rep. No. 95-580, pp. 12-14 (1977). The Act provides that any cable company operating in a State which does not regulate the rates, terms, and conditions of pole attachments may seek relief from alleged overcharging before the Commission, which is empowered to “regulate the rates, terms, and conditions for pole attachments to provide that such rates, terms, and conditions are just and reasonable . . . .” 47 U. S. C. § 224(b)(1). The Act establishes a standard for the Commission’s determination of rates, providing that “a rate is just and reasonable if it assures a utility the recovery of not less than the additional costs of providing pole attachments, nor more than an amount determined by multiplying the percentage of the total usable space, or the percentage of the total duct or conduit capacity, which is occupied by the pole attachment by the sum of the operating expenses and actual capital costs of the utility attributable to the entire pole, duct, conduit, or right-of-way.” § 224(d)(1).
In 1963, appellee Florida Power Corporation (Florida Power) entered into a pole attachment agreement with appellant Cox Cablevision Corporation (Cox). Florida Power subsequently, in 1977 and 1980, contracted for similar purposes with Teleprompter Corporation and Teleprompter Southeast, Inc. (Teleprompter), and Acton CATV, Inc. (Acton), respectively. In November 1980, Teleprompter filed a complaint with the FCC, alleging that its 1980 per pole rent of $6.24 was unreasonable under the Act. In February 1981, Acton filed a complaint concerning the rate under its agreement, which was $7.15 per pole. In July 1981, the Commission’s Common Carrier Bureau issued a memorandum opinion and order finding in favor of Teleprompter and Acton, reforming the agreements to provide in both cases for yearly rents of $1.79 per pole, and ordering refunds of excess rents paid after the filing of the complaints. Florida Power filed an application for review by the FCC; during the pendency of this application Cox filed a complaint seeking revision of the rent charge under its 1963 agreement, which was at that time set at $5.50 per pole. The Common Carrier Bureau ordered reformation of Cox’s agreement to provide for rent of $1.79 per pole. In September 1984 the FCC, in a single order, approved the orders of the Common Carrier Bureau in all three cases. The Commission rejected constitutional arguments raised by Florida Power under the Takings and Due Process Clauses, and upheld the rate calculations made by the Bureau.
Florida Power then sought review of the FCC’s decision in the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit. Neither Florida Power nor any of the intervenors argued before the Eleventh Circuit that the Pole Attachments Act was unconstitutional. The Court of Appeals nonetheless held in a per curiam opinion that the Pole Attachments Act violated the Fifth Amendment. 772 F. 2d 1537 (1985). The court first concluded that the Act effected a taking of property because it authorized a permanent physical occupation of property under our decision in Loretto v. Teleprompter Manhattan CATV Corp., 458 U. S. 419 (1982). 772 F. 2d, at 1544. The court then struck down the Act under the Fifth Amendment because it authorizes the FCC to make the initial determination of the amount of compensation to be paid under legislatively prescribed standards. “By prescribing a ‘binding rule’ in regard to the ascertainment of just compensation,” the court stated, “Congress has usurped what has long been held an exclusive judicial function.” Id., at 1546.
The FCC and intervenor cable operators noticed separate appeals from this decision. We noted probable jurisdiction and consolidated the cases for argument and decision, 476 U. S. 1156 (1986). We now reverse.
I — I HH
The Court of Appeals found at the outset that the Pole Attachments Act authorizes a permanent physical occupation of property, which, under the rule we adopted in Loretto, is per se a taking for which compensation must be paid. 772 F. 2d, at 1543-1544. We disagree with this premise, for we find that Loretto has no application to the facts of this litigation.
In Loretto we reviewed a New York statute which prohibited any owner of rental property from “interfer[ing] with the installation of cable television facilities upon his property or premises,” and provided that the landlord could charge cable operators for access to his property only the amount “which the [State Commission on Cable Television] shall, by regulation, determine to be reasonable.” 458 U. S., at 423, and n. 3. The appellant in Loretto had purchased an apartment building upon the roof of which appellee had mounted cables and switching boxes for the provision of cable television service to tenants. The State Commission on Cable Television had declared that a one-time charge of $1 might be levied by landlords in return for the statutory compulsory access to property. Id., at 424-425. We found that our prior decisions interpreting the Takings Clause, along with the purposes of the Clause itself, compelled the conclusion that “a permanent physical occupation authorized by government is a taking without regard to the public interests that it may serve.” Id., at 426. We reversed the holding of the New York Court of Appeals that the challenged statute did not take property within the meaning of the Fifth Amendment, and remanded for consideration of the issue whether just compensation had been paid.
We characterized our holding in Loretto as “very narrow.” Id., at 441. The Court of Appeals in its decision in these cases broadened that narrow holding beyond the scope to which it legitimately applies. For, while the statute we considered in Loretto specifically required landlords to permit permanent occupation of their property by cable companies, nothing in the Pole Attachments Act as interpreted by the FCC in these cases gives cable companies any right to occupy space on utility poles, or prohibits utility companies from refusing to enter into attachment agreements with cable operators. The Act authorizes the FCC, in the absence of parallel state regulation, to review the rents charged by public utility landlords who have voluntarily entered into leases with cable company tenants renting space on utility poles. As we observed in Loretto, statutes regulating the economic relations of landlords and tenants are not per se takings. Id., at 440; see Bowles v. Willingham, 321 U. S. 503, 517-518 (1944); Block v. Hirsh, 256 U. S. 135, 157 (1921); see also Fresh Pond Shopping Center, Inc. v. Callahan, 464 U. S. 875 (1983) (dismissing challenge to rent control ordinance under Loretto for want of substantial federal question). “So long as these regulations do not require the landlord to suffer the physical occupation of a portion of his building by a third party, they will be analyzed under the multifactor inquiry generally applicable to nonpossessory governmental activity.” Loretto, supra, at 440 (emphasis added).
This element of required acquiescence is at the heart of the concept of occupation. As we said in Loretto:
“[Property law has long protected an owner’s expectation that he will be relatively undisturbed at least in the possession of his property. To require, as well, that the owner permit another to exercise complete dominion literally adds insult to injury. Furthermore, such an occupation is qualitatively more severe than a regulation of the use of property, even a regulation that imposes affirmative duties on the owner, since the owner may have no control over the timing, extent, or nature of the invasion.” 458 U. S., at 436 (citation omitted).
Appellees contend, in essence, that it is a taking under Loretto for a tenant invited to lease at a rent of $7.15 to remain at the regulated rent of $1.79. But it is the invitation, not the rent, that makes the difference. The line which separates these cases from Loretto is the unambiguous distinction between a commercial lessee and an interloper with a government license. We conclude that the Court of Appeals erred in applying the per se rule of Loretto to the Pole Attachments Act.
I — i I — I HH
The remaining question, whether under traditional Fifth Amendment standards the challenged FCC order effected a taking of property, is readily answered. It is of course settled beyond dispute that regulation of rates chargeable from the employment of private property devoted to public uses is constitutionally permissible. See Munn v. Illinois, 94 U. S. 113, 133-134 (1877); Permian Basin Area Bate Cases, 390 U. S. 747, 768-769 (1968). Such regulation of maximum rates or prices “may, consistently with the Constitution, limit stringently the return recovered on investment, for investors’ interests provide only one of the variables in the constitutional calculus of reasonableness.” Id., at 769. So long as the rates set are not confiscatory, the Fifth Amendment does not bar their imposition. St. Joseph Stock Yards Co. v. United States, 298 U. S. 38, 53 (1936); see Permian Basin, supra, at 770.
The Pole Attachments Act, as previously noted, provides a range of reasonableness within which the FCC may undertake ratesetting. The Act provides that the minimum reasonable rate is equal to “the additional costs of providing pole attachments,” while the maximum reasonable rate is to be calculated “by multiplying the percentage of the total usable space, or the percentage of the total duct or conduit capacity, which is occupied by the pole attachment by the sum of the operating expenses and actual capital costs of the utility attributable to the entire pole, duct, conduit, or right-of-way.” 47 U. S. C. § 224(d)(1). The minimum measure is thus equivalent to the marginal cost of attachments, while the statutory maximum measure is determined by the fully allocated cost of the construction and operation of the pole to which cable is attached.
The FCC has evidently interpreted the statute to provide that when it reduces the contract rate for pole attachments, it may only reduce to the maximum rate allowed under the statute. Tr. of Oral Arg. 10. The rate imposed by the Commission in this case was calculated according to the statutory formula for the determination of fully allocated cost. App. to Juris. Statement of FCC 23a. Appellees have not contended, nor could it seriously be argued, that a rate providing for the recovery of fully allocated cost, including the actual cost of capital, is confiscatory. Accordingly, we hold that the the FCC regulatory order challenged below does not effect a taking of property under the Fifth Amendment.
IV
Because we hold that the Pole Attachments Act does not authorize a taking of property within the meaning of the Fifth Amendment, the holding of the Court of Appeals, that the Act is void because it unconstitutionally constrains the judicial determination of just compensation for takings, necessarily falls. The decision of the Court of Appeals is
Reversed.
The Commission had previously investigated allegations of overcharging by utilities, but had concluded that it had no jurisdiction because pole attachments were not “communications by wire or radio” under the Communications Act, 48 Stat. 1064, as amended, 47 U. S. C. § 151. See California Water & Telephone Co., 64 F. C. C. 2d 753, 758 (1977).
Florida Power’s agreements with Cox and Acton were for a minimum term of one year, thereafter terminable by either party on six months’ notice. The agreement with Teleprompter provided for a minimum term of 57s years, terminable thereafter on six months’ notice.
The rate ordered by the Commission was in both instances substantially lower than the rate which the cable operators had asked the Commission to adopt. The cable operators, after review of information provided by Florida Power, had requested the imposition of annual rents of approximately $2.20 per pole.
Appellants in No. 85-1660, Group W Cable, Inc., National Cable Television Association, Inc., and Cox Cablevision Corporation, intervened before the Court of Appeals supporting the FCC. Tampa Electric Company, Alabama Power Company, Arizona Public Service Company, and Mississippi Power and Light Company, appellees in both cases, intervened before the Court of Appeals in support of Florida Power.
Florida Power’s opening brief in the Court of Appeals stated that its petition for review of the Commission’s order did not “involve a facial attack on the constitutionality of a legislative act.” See Brief for Petitioner in No. 84-3683 (CA11), p. 35.
The Court of Appeals found, and appellees contend here, that “[t]he hard reality of the matter is that if Florida Power desires to exclude the cable companies, for whatever reason, they are powerless to do so . . . because in previous cases where utilities have ordered cable companies to disconnect, the FCC has routinely intervened by issuing temporary stays which prevent the exclusion of the cable companies.” 772 F. 2d 1537,1543 (1985). According to the Solicitor General, the FCC “has not yet taken a position” on whether utilities may terminate attachment contracts for non-retaliatory reasons. Tr. of Oral Arg. 7. The language of the Act provides no explicit authority to the FCC to require pole access for cable operators, and the legislative history strongly suggests that Congress intended no such authorization. See, e. g., S. Rep. No. 95-580, p. 16 (1977) (The Act “does not vest within a CATV system operator a right to access to a utility pole, nor does the bill, as reported, require a power company to dedicate a portion of its pole plant to communications use”). We do not decide today what the application of Loretto v. Teleprompter Manhattan CATV Corp., 458 U. S. 419 (1982), would be if the FCC in a future case required utilities, over objection, to enter into, renew, or refrain from terminating pole attachment agreements.
In view of the Commission’s interpretation of the statute, and use of the fully allocated cost measure in this case, we have no occasion to consider the constitutionality of the minimum rate allowable under the statute.
Our disposition of the takings question makes it unnecessary to review on the merits the Court of Appeals’ holding that Congress may not establish standards under which the initial determination of compensation will be made by an administrative authority subject to final judicial review.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
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 Powell
delivered the opinion of the Court.
Respondent is a Negro convicted in a state court of violent crimes against a white security guard. The trial judge denied respondent’s motion that a question specifically directed to racial prejudice be asked during voir dire in addition to customary questions directed to general bias or prejudice. The narrow issue is whether, under our recent decision in Ham v. South Carolina, 409 U. S. 524 (1973), respondent was constitutionally entitled to require the asking of a question specifically directed to racial prejudice. The broader issue presented is whether Ham announced a requirement applicable whenever there may be a confrontation in a criminal trial between persons of different races or different ethnic origins. We answer both of these questions in the negative.
I
Respondent, James Ross, Jr., was tried in a Massachusetts court with two other Negroes for armed robbery, assault and battery by means of a dangerous weapon, and assault and battery with intent to murder. The victim of the alleged crimes was a white man employed by Boston University as a uniformed security guard. The voir dire of prospective jurors was to be conducted by the court, which was required, by statute to inquire generally into prejudice. See n. 3, infra. Each defendant, represented by separate counsel, made a written motion that the prospective jurors also be questioned specifically about racial prejudice. Each defendant also moved that the veniremen be asked about affiliations with law enforcement agencies.
The trial judge consulted counsel for the defendants about their motions. After tentatively indicating that he “[felt] that no purpose would be accomplished by-asking such questions in this instance/’ the judge invited the views of counsel:
“The Court: ... I thought fr.om something Mr. Donnelly [counsel for a codefendant] said, he might have wanted on the record something which was peculiar to this case, or peculiar to the circumstances which we are operating under here which perhaps he didn’t want to say in open court.
“Is there anything peculiar about it, Mr. Donnelly?
“Mr. Donnelly: No, just the fact that the victim is white, and the defendants are black.
“The Court: This, unfortunately, is a problem with us, and all we can hope and pray for is that the jurors and all of them take their oaths seriously and understand the spirit of their oath and understand the spirit of what the Court says to them— this Judge anyway — and I am sure all Judges of this Court — would take the time to impress upon them before, during, and after the trial, and before their verdict, that their oath means just what it says, that they are to decide the case on the evidence, with no extraneous considerations.
“I believe that that is the best that can be done with respect to the problems which — as I said, I regard as extremely important . . . .” App. 29-30.
Further discussion persuaded the judge that a question about law enforcement affiliations should be asked because of the victim’s status as a security guard. But he adhered to his decision not to pose a question directed specifically to racial prejudice.
The voir dire of five panels of prospective jurors then commenced. The trial judge briefly familiarized each panel with the facts of the case, omitting any reference to racial matters. He then explained to the panel that the clerk would ask a general question about impartiality and a question about affiliations with law enforcement agencies. Consistently with his announced intention to “impress upon [the jurors] . . . that they are to decide the case on the evidence, with no extraneous considerations,” the judge preceded the questioning of the panel with an extended discussion of the obligations of jurors. After these remarks the clerk posed the questions indicated to the panel. Panelists answering a question affirmatively were questioned individually at the bench by the judge, in the presence of counsel. This procedure led to the excusing of 18 veniremen for cause on grounds of prejudice, including one panelist who admitted a racial bias.
The jury eventually impaneled convicted each defendant of all counts. On direct appeal Ross contended that his federal constitutional rights were violated by the denial of his request that prospective jurors be questioned specifically about racial prejudice. This contention was rejected by the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, Commonwealth v. Ross, 361 Mass. 665, 282 N. E. 2d 70 (1972), and Ross sought a writ of certiorari. While his petition was pending, we held in Ham that a trial court’s failure on request to question veniremen specifically about racial prejudice had denied Ham due process of law. We granted Ross’ petition for certiorari and remanded for reconsideration in light of Ham, 410 U. S. 901 (1973); the Supreme Judicial Court again affirmed Ross’ conviction. Commonwealth v. Ross, 363 Mass. 665, 296 N. E. 2d 810 (1973). The court reasoned that Ham turned on the need for questions about racial prejudice presented by its facts and did not announce “a new broad constitutional principle requiring that [such] questions ... be put to prospective jurors in all State criminal trials when the defendant is black. . . .” Id., at 671, 296 N. E. 2d, at 815. Ross again sought certiorari, but the writ was denied. 414 U. S. 1080 (1973).
In the present case Ross renewed his contention on collateral attack in federal habeas corpus. Relying on Ham, the District Court granted a writ of habeas corpus, and the Court of Appeals for the First Circuit affirmed. 508 F. 2d 754 (1974). The Court of Appeals assumed that Ham turned on its facts. But it held that the facts of Ross’ case, involving “violence against a white” with “a status close to that of a police officer,” presented a need for specific questioning about racial prejudice similar to that in Ham. Id., at 756. We think the Court of Appeals read Ham too broadly.
II
The Constitution does not always entitle a defendant to have questions posed during voir dire specifically directed to matters that conceivably might prejudice veniremen against him. Ham, supra, at 527-528. Voir dire “is conducted under the supervision of the court, and a great deal must, of necessity, be left to its sound discretion.” Connors v. United States, 158 U. S. 408, 413 (1895); see Ham, supra, at 527-528; Aldridge v. United States, 283 U. S. 308, 310 (1931). This is so because the “determination of impartiality, in which demeanor plays such an important part, is particularly within the province of the trial judge.” Rideau v. Louisiana, 373 U. S. 723, 733 (1963) (Clark, J., dissenting). Thus, the State’s obligation to the defendant to impanel an impartial jury generally can be satisfied by less than an inquiry into a specific prejudice feared by the defendant. Ham, supra, at 527-528.
In Ham, however, we recognized that some cases may present circumstances in which an impermissible threat to the fair trial guaranteed by due process is posed by a trial court’s refusal to question prospective jurors specifically about racial prejudice during voir dire. Ham involved a Negro tried in South Carolina courts for possession of marihuana. He was well known in the locale of his trial as a civil rights activist, and his defense was that law enforcement officials had framed him on the narcotics charge to “get him” for those activities. Despite the circumstances, the trial judge denied Ham’s request that the court-conducted voir dire include questions specifically directed to racial prejudice. We reversed the judgment of conviction because “the essential fairness required by the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment requires that under the facts shown by this record the [defendant] be permitted to have the jurors interrogated [during voir dire] on the issue of racial bias.” 409 U. S., at 527.
By its terms Ham did not announce a requirement of universal applicability. Rather, it reflected an assessment of whether under all of the circumstances presented there was a constitutionally significant likelihood that, absent questioning about racial prejudice, the jurors would not be as “indifferent as [they stand] unsworne.” Coke on Littleton 155b (19th ed. 1832). In this approach Ham was consistent with other determinations by this Court that a State had denied a defendant due process by failing to impanel an impartial jury. See Irvin v. Dowd, 366 U. S. 717 (1961); Bideau v. Louisiana, supra; Turner v. Louisiana, 379 U. S. 466 (1965); cf. Avery v. Georgia, 345 U. S. 559 (1953).
The circumstances in Ham strongly suggested the need for voir dire to include specific questioning about racial prejudice. Ham’s defense was that he had been framed because of his civil rights activities. His prominence in the community as a civil rights.activist, if not already known to veniremen, inevitably would have been revealed to the members of the jury in the course of his presentation of that defense. Racial issues therefore were inextricably bound up with the conduct of the trial. Further, Ham’s reputation as a civil rights activist and the defense he interposed were likely to intensify any prejudice that individual members of the jury might harbor. In such circumstances we deemed a voir dire that included questioning specifically directed to racial prejudice, when sought by Ham, necessary to meet the constitutional requirement that an impartial jury be impaneled.
We do not agree with the Court of Appeals that the need to question veniremen specifically about racial prejudice also rose to constitutional dimensions in this case. The mere fact that the victim of the crimes alleged was a white man and the defendants were Negroes was less likely to distort the trial than were the special factors involved in Ham. The victim’s status as a security officer; also relied upon by the Court of Appeals, was cited by respective defense counsel primarily as a separate source of prejudice, not as an aggravating racial factor, see n. 2, supra, and the trial judge dealt with it by his question about law-enforcement affiliations. The circumstances thus did not suggest a significant likelihood that racial prejudice might infect Ross’ trial. This was made clear to the trial judge when Ross was unable to support his motion concerning voir dire by pointing to racial factors such as existed in Ham, or others of comparable significance. In these circumstances, the trial judge acted within the Constitution in determining that the demands of due process could be satisfied by his more generalized but thorough inquiry into the impartiality of the veniremen. Accordingly, the judgment is
Reversed.
Me. Justice Stevens took no part in the consideration or decision of this case.
The question proposed by Ross, who did not adopt as his own various other questions proposed by his codefendants, was: “5. Are there any of you who believe that a white person is more likely to be telling the truth than a black person?” App. 23.
“Mr. Donnelly: There is only one thing. The only reference I would make to the facts in this case — the victim[’]s being white, and that he was a security guard in uniform and acting as a policeman.
"Mr. Newman [counsel for Ross]: I think that factor might suggest the question — this was my series of questions — asking the jurors whether any of their relatives are policemen.
“The Couet: I am going to adopt Mr. Newman’s suggestion that we have a double problem here, not only the problem of skin color, but we also have the problem of someone who is a quasi policeman, so I am going to ask ... [a question] in the area of relations to police . . . .” Id., at 30-31.
The questions were, in substance, the following:
“If any of you are related to the defendants or to the victim, or if any of you have any interest in this case, or have formed an opinion or is sensible of any bias or prejudice, you should make it known to the court at this time.
“... Are you presently, or have you in the past worked for a police department or a district attorney’s office, or do you have any relative who is or was engaged in such work.” Id., at 71.
The first question was required by Mass. Gen. Laws Ann., c. 234, §28 (1959).
He addressed one panel in part as follows:
“[The Court:] ... [U]nder your oath, you have an absolute duty to render a fair and impartial verdicts [sic] based upon the evidence that you hear in the courtroom, and no extraneous factors.
“The Clerk in asking you the first question is giving you an opportunity to inform the Court, if you believe that you cannot render a fair and impartial verdict on the evidence in this case; giving you an opportunity to inform the Court if you have serious doubt as to whether you can render a fair and impartial verdict on the evidence in the case.
“Under this question, and under your oath, when this question is asked, if you believe that you cannot render a fair and impartial verdict on the evidence in this case, or if you have a doubt as to whether you can so render a fair and impartial verdict on the evidence in the case, you have a duty to inform the Court when that question is asked by standing or raising your hand.” App. 72.
At least this venireman knew that the defendants were Negroes. See id., at 42. He was a member of the first panel questioned, and the record shows that immediately before the questioning of that panel the defendants were directed to stand and were “set at the bar to be tried.” Id., at 39. It appears that this formality was pursued only before the questioning of the first panel. Cf. id., at 49-50, 73-74, 84, 97. Nothing in the record lodged in this Court indicates whether the veniremen from other panels knew that the defendants weré Negroes, although presumably the defendants remained in the courtroom throughout the questioning.
A criminal defendant in a state court is guaranteed an "impartial jury” by the Sixth Amendment as applicable to the States through the Fourteenth Amendment. Duncan v. Louisiana, 391 U. S. 145 (1968). Principles of due process also guarantee a defendant an impartial jury. See, e. g., Irvin v. Dowd, 366 U. S. 717, 722 (1961).
The questions proposed by Ham were:
“1. Would you fairly try this case on the basis of the evidence and disregarding the defendant’s race?
“2. You have no prejudice against negroes? Against black people? You would not be influenced by the use of the term ‘black’?” 409 II. S., at 525 n. 2,
In defending the judgment of the Court of Appeals Ross argues for a sweeping per se rule. At least where crimes of violence are involved, he would require defense motions for voir dire on racial prejudice to be granted in any case where the defendant was of a different race from the victim. He would require a similar result whenever any defendant sought voir dire on racial prejudice because of the race of his own or adverse witnesses. Tr. of Oral Arg. 29-34. We note that such a per se rule could not, in principle, be limited to cases involving possible racial prejudice. It would apply with equal force whenever voir dire questioning about ethnic origins was sought, and its logic could encompass questions concerning other factors, such as religious affiliation or national origin. See Aldridge v. United States, 283 U. S. 308, 313 (1931). In our heterogeneous society policy as well as constitutional considerations militate against the divisive assumption — as a per se rule — that justice in a court of law may turn upon the pigmentation of skin, the accident of birth, or the choice of religion. See Connors v. United States, 158 U. S. 408, 415 (1895).
Although we hold that voir dire questioning directed to racial prejudice was not constitutionally required, the wiser course generally is to propound appropriate questions designed to identify racial prejudice if requested by the defendant. Under our supervisory power we would have required as much of a federal court faced with the circumstances here. See Aldridge v. United States, supra; cf. United States v. Walker, 491 F. 2d 236 (CA9), cert. denied, 416 U. S. 990 (1974); United States v. Booker, 480 F. 2d 1310 (CA7 1973). The States also are free to allow or require questions not demanded by the Constitution. In fact, the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts has suggested guidelines to Massachusetts trial courts for questioning about racial prejudice on voir dire. Commonwealth v. Lumley, - Mass. -, 327 N. E. 2d 683 (1975); Commonwealth v. Ross, 363 Mass. 665, 673, 296 N. E. 2d 810, 816 (1973).
The facts here resemble in many respects those in Aldridge, supra, where the Court overturned the conviction of a Negro for the murder of a white policeman because the federal trial judge had refused the defendant’s request that the venire be questioned about racial prejudice. Ham relied in part on Aldridge in finding that the inquiry into racial prejudice on voir dire sought in Ham had “constitutional stature.” 409 U. S., at 528. While Aldridge was one factor relevant to the constitutional decision in Ham, we did not rely directly on its precedential force. Rather, we noted that Aldridge “was not expressly grounded upon any constitutional requirement.” 409 U. S., at 526. In light of our holding today, the actual result in Aldridge should be recognized as an exercise of our supervisory power over federal courts. Cf. n. 9, 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
|
sc_issuearea
|
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 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 appeal challenges a municipal income tax ordinance which excises gross salaries and wages of the employed but only net profits of the self-employed, of corporations and of business enterprises. Appellants, who are wage earners, sued in the state courts for a declaratory judgment and injunction to prevent their employer from withholding the tax and the City from collecting it. Their contention is that the discrimination between wages and profits which results from allowing certain deductions only to profits violates the Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment. It has been overruled by the state courts and is brought here for determination.
The power or jurisdiction of the City to tax these appellants on their earnings is not open to question on federal grounds. There is no issue as to extraterritorial application of the tax or as to burden upon interstate commerce. The taxpayers, the withholding employer, the taxable income earned, were all clearly within the territorial jurisdiction and power of the State and of the municipality to which its taxing authority was delegated. The sole question here is whether in levying a tax on those whom it has plenary power to tax, the City has introduced classification and discriminations so unreasonable as to deny to appellants due process or equal protection of the law.
A weakness of the appellants’ case is that its anticipatory character precludes consideration of any contentions insofar as they depend upon actual application of the tax or the regulations promulgated for its administration. This action was commenced almost immediately after the Act became effective. A portion of appellants’ wages has been withheld by their employer, but the City has not yet collected the tax. There is no evidence as to how the amount withheld from appellants compares with taxes collected from self-employed persons or businesses. The complaint attacks only the state legislative Act delegating power to the City of St. Louis and the taxing ordinance enacted by that City.
In the courts below the appellants also attempted to rely upon claims of discrimination resulting from regulations adopted by the municipal taxing authorities. But the Supreme Court of Missouri held the regulations were not before the court, declined to consider them to be a part of the ordinance, and intimated that the regulations might be held void hereafter without invalidating the ordinance. 364 Mo. -, 259 S. W. 2d 377. Missouri authorizes a petition for amendment or repeal of regulations promulgated by an administrative officer and grants a full judicial review of his final decision thereon or any other order that affects private rights. Appellants have taken no steps to procure such relief. We are uninformed either as to what the administrative practice actually is or whether it conforms with Missouri law. Of course, we will not undertake to review what the court below did not decide. The state court has not passed on any question of discrimination arising from the regulations or any question as to the interpretation or validity thereof. We have here only the very limited issue — does the statute or the ordinance on its face violate the Fourteenth Amendment?
The Act of the Missouri Legislature is simply a general enabling Act, so far as relevant, authorizing the City to levy “an earnings tax on the salaries, wages, commissions and other compensation earned by its residents; ... on the net profits of associations, businesses or other activities conducted by residents; . . . and on the net profits earned by all corporations as the result of work done or services performed or rendered and business or other activities conducted in the city.” However, it authorizes the municipality to provide “for deductions and exemptions from salaries, wages and commissions of employees . ...” It directs that net profits shall be ascertained “by deducting the necessary expenses of operation from the gross profits or earnings.” It does not limit deductions allowable to wage earners or define the necessary expenses allowable in arriving at net profits.
As to the matters complained of, the ordinance is almost as general. It imposes the same rate of tax on salaries, wages, commissions and other earned compensation of individuals as it does on the net profits of the self-employed, corporations, associations and businesses. But it does not make any express provision for deductions from earned income by wage earners such as appellants. As to those in business, it provides generally for deducting “the necessary expenses of operation from the gross profits or earnings.” It does not define necessary expenses, but it authorizes the City Collector to promulgate appropriate rules and regulations.
Appellants claim that the ordinance will allow self-employed persons and businesses to deduct such items as taxes (which appellants claim will include federal income taxes) and charitable contributions not in excess of .five percent of net income, which deductions are not allowed to those who earn wages or salaries. This may be true if the ordinance is applied as they expect. Whether this will be the application of the tax we cannot tell, for the record before us does not show its actual impact on classes of taxpayers or its methods of administration. Therefore, appellants’ basic position must be that any legislative classification which distinguishes on its face between wage earners and the self-employed is constitutionally prohibited.
On its face, the ordinance classifies incomes for taxation according to their sources, one category consisting of salary and wage income and the other of profits from self-employment or business enterprise. Classification of earned income as against profits is not uncommon, sometimes to the advantage of the wage earner and sometimes to his disadvantage. It is a classification employed extensively in federal taxation, which under appropriate circumstances allows deductions to the self-employed not allowed to employees, discriminates sharply between earned income and capital gains, and sets apart certain types of wage earnings for social security tax and for benefits. We cannot say that a difference in treatment of the taxpayers deriving income from these different sources is per se a prohibited discrimination. There is not so much similarity between them that they must be placed in precisely the same classification for tax purposes.
The assertion is made that wage earners and self-employed persons are in competition on the same level of endeavor, and reliance is placed on such cases as Quaker City Cab Co. v. Pennsylvania, 277 U. S. 389. There the Court found discrimination between identical sources of revenue depending only on the incorporated or unincorporated character of the taxpayer. But here, varying taxes are not laid upon taxpayers engaged in precisely the same form of activity. Instead, this is a broad tax on income, and the income springs from many activities carried on by many types of business entities. Here the classification rests on the State’s view that wage or salary income is relatively fixed, predictable and certain, while profits of business are fluctuating and unstable. In view of widespread taxing practices, we cannot say that this difference is insignificant or fanciful.
The power of the State to classify according to occupation for the purpose of taxation is broad. Equal protection does not require identity of treatment. It only requires that classification rest on real and not feigned differences, that the distinction have some relevance to the purpose for which the classification is made, and that the different treatments be not so disparate, relative to the difference in classification, as to be wholly arbitrary. Cf. Dominion Hotel, Inc. v. Arizona, 249 U. S. 265; Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Co. v. Grosjean, 301 U. S. 412; New York Rapid Transit Corp. v. City of New York, 303 U. S. 573; Skinner v. Oklahoma ex rel. Williamson, 316 U. S. 535. “In its discretion it may tax all, or it may tax one or some, taking care to accord to all in the same class equality of rights.” Southwestern Oil Co. v. Texas, 217 U. S. 114, 121. It may even tax wholesalers of specified articles on account of their occupation without exacting a similar tax on the occupations of wholesale dealers in. other articles. Our disapproval of the wisdom or fairness of so doing is not a ground for interference. Ibid. “When a state legislature acts within the scope of its authority it is responsible to the people, and their right to change the agents to whom they have entrusted the power is ordinarily deemed a sufficient check upon its abuse. When the constituted authority of the State undertakes to exert the taxing power, and the question of the validity of its action is brought before this court, every presumption in its favor is indulged, and only clear and demonstrated usurpation of power will authorize judicial interference with legislative action.” Green v. Frazier, 253 U. S. 233, 239.
Judgment affirmed.
Mr. Justice Douglas, with whom Mr. Justice Black joins, concurring in the result.
I am less confident than my Brethren that the Supreme-Court of Missouri did not pass on the regulations as well as the ordinance. But I bow to their reading of the record, saving for a future day the serious and substantial question under the Equal Protection Clause raised by the regulations which grant employers deductions for taxes paid the Federal Government, yet do not allow employees a deduction for the same tax.
Mo. Const., Art. 5, § 22, provides: “All final decisions, findings, rules and orders of any administrative officer or body existing under the constitution or by law, which are judicial or quasi-judicial and affect private rights, shall be subject to direct review by the courts as provided by law; and such review shall include the determination whether the same are authorized by law, and in cases in which a hearing is required by law, whether the same are supported by competent and substantial evidence upon the whole record.” This provision is supplemented by Mo. Rev. Stat. Ann., 1949, §§ 536.010-536.140.
“Any constitutional charter city in this state which now has or may hereafter acquire a population in excess of seven hundred thousand inhabitants, according to the last federal decennial census, is hereby authorized to levy and collect, by ordinance for general revenue purposes, an earnings tax on the salaries, wages, commissions and other compensation earned by its residents; on the salaries, wages, commissions and other compensation earned by nonresidents of the city for work done or services performed or rendered in the city; on the net profits of associations, businesses or other activities conducted by residents; on the net profits of associations, businesses or other activities conducted in the city by nonresidents; and on the net profits earned by all corporations as the result of work done or services performed or rendered and business or other activities conducted in the city.” Mo. Rev. Stat. Ann. (1953 Supp.), §92.110.
“The municipal assembly of any such city may provide for deductions and exemptions from salaries, wages and commissions of employees and may provide for exemptions on account of the wives, husbands and dependents of such employees.” Mo. Rev. Stat. Ann. (1953 Supp.), §92.140.
“The net profits or earnings of associations, businesses or other activities, and corporations shall be ascertained and determined by deducting the necessary expenses of operation from the gross profits or earnings.” Mo. Rev. Stat. Ann. (1953 Supp.), §92.150.
The pertinent part of the ordinance is as follows: “A tax for general revenue purposes of one-half of one per centum is hereby imposed on (a) salaries, wages, commissions and other compensation earned after August 31, 1952, by resident individuals of the City, including the entire distributive share of any member of a partnership or association, less the amount thereof, if any, which may be shown to have been taxed under the provisions hereof to said association or partnership; and on (b) salaries, wages, commissions and other compensation earned after August 31, 1952, by non-resident individuals of the City, for work done or services performed or rendered in the City; and on (c) the net profits earned after August 31, 1952, of associations, businesses, or other activities conducted by a resident or residents, and on (d) the net profits earned after August 31, 1952, of associations, businesses, or other activities conducted in the City by a non-resident or non-residents; and (e) on the net profits earned after August 31, 1952, by all corporations as a result of work done or services performed or rendered, and business or other activities conducted in the City.” City of St. Louis Ordinance 46222, § 2.
Section 1 of the ordinance defines “net profits” as used in § 2 as “The net income of any association, business or corporation remaining after deducting the necessary expenses of operation from the gross profits or earnings.”
Section 9 of the ordinance.
E. g., I. R. C., §§ 22 (n), 23 (aa).
Compare I. R. C., §22 (a), with I. R. C., §§ 117 (b), (c).
E. g., I. R. C., §§ 1400, 1426.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer:
|
H
|
sc_issuearea
|
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Justice White
delivered the opinion of the Court.
In this case, we consider the claims of school officials and schoolchildren in 23 northern Mississippi counties that they are being unlawfully denied the economic benefits of public school lands granted by the United States to the State of Mississippi well over 100 years ago. Specifically, we must determine to what extent these claims are barred by the Eleventh Amendment and, with respect to those claims that are not barred, if any, whether the complaint is sufficient to withstand a motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim.
r — i
The history of public school lands in the United States stretches back over 200 years. Even before the ratification of the Constitution, the Congress of the Confederation initiated a practice with regard to the Northwest Territory which was followed with most other public lands that eventually became States and were admitted to the Union. In particular, the Land Ordinance of 1785, which provided for the survey and sale of the Northwest Territory, “reserved the lot No. 16, of every township, for the maintenance of public schools within the said township....” 1 Laws of the United States 565 (1815). In 1802, when the eastern portion of the Northwest Territory became what is now the State of Ohio, Congress granted Ohio the lands that had been previously reserved under the 1785 Ordinance for the use of public schools in the State. 2 Stat. 175.
Following the Ohio example of reserving lands for the maintenance of public schools, “ ‘grants were made for common school purposes to each of the public-land States admitted to the Union. Between the years of 1802 and 1846 the grants were of every section sixteen, and, thereafter, of sections sixteen and thirty-six. In some instances, additional sections have been granted.’” Andrus v. Utah, 446 U. S. 500, 506-507, n. 7 (1980) (quoting United States v. Morrison, 240 U. S. 192, 198 (1916) (footnotes omitted)). Thus, the basic Ohio example has been followed with respect to all but a few of the States admitted since then. 446 U. S., at 522-523, n. 4 (Powell, J., dissenting). In addition to the school lands designated in this manner, Congress made provision for townships in which the pertinent section or sections were not available for one reason or another. Thus, Congress generally indemnified States for the missing designated sections, allowing the States to select lands in an amount equal to and in lieu of the designated but unavailable lands. See, e. g., ch. 83, 4 Stat. 179 (1826). See generally Andrus v. Utah, supra, at 507-508; Morrison, supra, at 200-202.
Although the basic pattern of school lands grants was generally consistent from State to State in terms of the reservation and grant of the lands, the specific provisions of the grants varied by State and over time. See generally B. Hib-bard, A History of the Public Land Policies 314-318 (1939). For example, in Indiana and Alabama, the school lands were expressly granted to the inhabitants of the townships directly. See 3 Stat. 290 (1816) (Indiana); 3 Stat. 491 (1819) (Alabama). In most of the other grants before 1845, the school lands were given instead to the States but were explicitly designated to be for the use of the townships in which they lay. See, e. g., 2 Stat. 233-234 (1803) (Mississippi); 3 Stat. 375 (1817) (same); 5 Stat. 58 (1836) (Arkansas). The Michigan grant in 1836, on the other hand, was simply “to the State for the use of schools.” See 5 Stat. 59. After 1845, the type of grant used in Michigan, granting the lands to the State for the use of its schools generally, became the norm. See, e. g., 9 Stat. 58 (1846) (Wisconsin); 11 Stat. 383 (1859) (Oregon). Finally, the most recent grants are phrased not as outright gifts to the States for a specific use but instead as express trusts. These grants also are stated to be to the States for the support of the schools in those States generally. In addition, though, under these grants the State is specifically designated a trustee, there are explicit restrictions on the management and disposition of the lands in trust, and the Federal Government expressly retains an ongoing oversight responsibility. See, e. g., 36 Stat. 574 (1910) (Arizona and New Mexico).
The history of the school lands grants in Mississippi generally follows the pattern thus described. In 1798, Congress created the Mississippi Territory, which included what is now about the southern third of the States of Mississippi and Alabama. 1 Stat. 549. In 180.3, Congress provided for the sale and survey of all Mississippi Territory lands to which Indian title had been extinguished but excepted “the section number sixteen, which shall be reserved in each township for the support of schools within the same.” 2 Stat. 233-234. In 1804, the Mississippi Territory was extended northward to the southern boundary of Tennessee. 2 Stat. 305. Two years later, Congress authorized the selection of lands in lieu of unavailable Sixteenth Sections in the Territory. 2 Stat. 401 (1806). Eventually, in 1817, Mississippi was admitted as a State, and a further Land Sales Act provided for the survey and sale of those lands in the northern part of the new State that had not been covered by the 1803 Act. The 1817 Act provided that these lands were to be “surveyed and divided in the manner provided by law for the surveying of the other public lands of the United States in the Mississippi territory”; thus, the Act required that “the section No. 16 in each township... shall be reserved for the support of schools therein.” 3 Stat. 375 (1817). The Sixteenth Section lands and lands selected in lieu thereof were granted to the State of Mississippi. See Lambert v. State, 211 Miss. 129, 137, 51 So. 2d 201, 203 (1951).
By their own terms, however, these Acts did not apply to the lands in northern Mississippi that were held by the Chickasaw Indian Nation, an area essentially comprising what came to be the northern 23 counties in the State. This land was held by the Chickasaws until 1832, when it was ceded to the United States by the Treaty of Pontitoc Creek. 7 Stat. 381. Although that Treaty provided that the land would be surveyed and sold “in the same manner and on the same terms and conditions as the other public lands,” id., at 382, no Sixteenth Section lands were reserved from sale. City of Corinth v. Robertson, 125 Miss. 31, 57, 87 So. 464, 465-466 (1921). In 1836, Congress attempted to remedy this oversight by providing for the reservation of lands in lieu of the Sixteenth Section lands and for the vesting of the title to these lands “in the State of Mississippi, for the use of schools within [the Chickasaw Cession] in said State.” 5 Stat. 116. These Chickasaw Cession Lieu Lands, some 174,555 acres, App. 36, were selected and given to the State. In 1856, however, with authority expressly given by Congress, 10 Stat. 6 (1852), the state legislature sold these lands and invested the proceeds, approximately $1,047,330, App. 36, in 8% loans to the State’s railroads. 1856 Miss. Laws, ch. 56. These railroads and the State’s investment in them, unfortunately, were subsequently destroyed during the Civil War and never replaced.
From these historical circumstances, the current practice in Mississippi with regard to Sixteenth Section lands has evolved directly. Under state law, these lands, which are still apparently held in large part by the State, “constitute property held in trust for the benefit of the public schools and must be treated as such.” Miss. Code Ann. §29-3-1(1) (Supp. 1985). In providing for the operation of these trusts, the legislature has retained the historical tie of these lands to particular townships in terms of both trust administration and beneficiary status. Thus, the State has delegated the management of this property to local school boards throughout the State: Where Sixteenth Section lands lie within a school district or where Lieu Lands were originally appropriated for a township that lies within a school district, the board of education of that district has “control and jurisdiction of said school trust lands and of all funds arising from any disposition thereof heretofore or hereafter made. ” Ibid. In this respect, the board of education is “under the general supervision of the state land commissioner.” Ibid. Further, the State has, by statute, set forth certain prescriptions for the management of these lands. See generally Miss. Code Ann. §§ 29-3-1 to 29-3-135 (1972 and Supp. 1985). Most important for purposes of this case, however, is Miss. Code Ann. § 29-3-109 (Supp. 1985), which provides:
“All expendable funds derived from sixteenth section or lieu lands shall be credited to the school districts of the township in which such sixteenth section lands may be located, or to which any sixteenth sections lieu lands may belong. Such funds shall not be expended except for the purpose of education of the educable children of the school district to which they belong, or as otherwise may be provided by law.”
Consequently, all proceeds from Sixteenth Section and Lieu Lands are allocated directly to the specific township in which these lands are located or to which those lands apply. With respect to the Chickasaw Cession counties, to which no lands now belong, the state legislature has for over 100 years paid “interest” on the lost principal acquired from the sale of those lands in the form of annual appropriations to the Chickasaw Cession schools. Originally, the rate was 8%, but since 1890 the rate has been 6%. See Miss. Const., Art. 8, § 212. The annual amount until 1985 was $62,191. App. 37.
The result of this dual treatment has for many years been a disparity in the level of school funds from Sixteenth Section lands that are available to the Chickasaw Cession schools as compared to the schools in the remainder of the State. In 1984, for example, the legislative appropriation for the Chickasaw Cession resulted in an estimated average per pupil income relative to the Sixteenth Section substitute appropriation of $0.63 per pupil. The average Sixteenth Section income in the rest of the State, in comparison, was estimated to be $75.34 per pupil. Id., at 44. It is this disparity which gave rise to the present action.
In 1981, the petitioners, local school officials and schoolchildren from the Chickasaw Cession, filed suit in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Mississippi against the respondents, an assortment of state officials, challenging the disparity in Sixteenth Section funds. The petitioners’ complaint traced the history of public school lands in Mississippi, characterizing as illegal several of the actions that resulted in there being now no Sixteenth Section lands in the Chickasaw Cession area. In particular, the petitioners asserted that the sale of the Chickasaw Cession school lands and unwise investment of the proceeds from that sale in the 1850’s had abrogated the State’s trust obligation to hold those lands for the benefit of Chickasaw Cession schoolchildren in perpetuity. The result of these actions, said the petitioners, was the disparity between the financial support available to the Chickasaw Cession schools and other schools in the State, which disparity in turn allegedly deprived the Chickasaw Cession schoolchildren of a minimally adequate level of education and of the equal protection of the laws.
Based on these allegations, the petitioners sought various forms of relief for breach of the trust regarding the Chickasaw Cession Sixteenth Section lands and for denial of equal protection. Specifically, the complaint sought a declaration that the state legislation purporting to implement the sale of the Chickasaw Cession school lands was void and unenforceable; the establishment by legislative appropriation or otherwise of a fund in a suitable amount to be held in perpetual trust for the benefit of plaintiffs; or in the alternative making available to plaintiffs Lieu Lands of the same value as the original Chickasaw Cession Sixteenth Section lands.
The District Court dismissed the complaint, holding the claims barred by the applicable statute of limitations and by the Eleventh Amendment to the United States Constitution. The Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit affirmed, Papasan v. United States, 756 F. 2d 1087 (1985), agreeing that the relief requested in the complaint was barred by the Eleventh Amendment. Noting that a federal court should not dismiss a constitutional complaint because it “seeks one remedy rather than another plainly appropriate one,” Holt Civic Club v. Tuscaloosa, 439 U. S. 60, 65 (1978), however, the Court of Appeals deemed the equal protection claim to assert a current, ongoing, and disparate distribution of state funds for the support of local schools, the remedy for which would not be barred by the Eleventh Amendment. Even so, it found dismissal of the complaint to be proper since such differential funding was not unconstitutional under this Court’s decision in San Antonio Independent School Dist. v. Rodriguez, 411 U. S. 1 (1973).
We granted certiorari, 474 U. S. 1004 (1985), and now vacate the judgment of the Court of Appeals and remand for further proceedings.
II
We first consider whether the Eleventh Amendment bars the petitioners’ claims and required dismissal of the complaint.
A
The Amendment provides:
“The Judicial power of the United States shall not be construed to extend to any suit in law or equity, commenced or prosecuted against one of the United States by Citizens of another State, or by Citizens or Subjects of any Foreign State.”
This language expressly encompasses only suits brought against a State by citizens of another State, but this Court long ago held that the Amendment bars suits against a State by citizens of that same State as well. See Hans v. Louisiana, 134 U. S. 1 (1890). “[I]n the absence of consent a suit in which the State or one of its agencies or departments is named as the defendant is proscribed by the Eleventh Amendment.” Pennhurst State School and Hospital v. Halderman, 465 U. S. 89, 100 (1984). This bar exists whether the relief sought is legal or equitable. Id., at 100-101.
Where the State itself or one of its agencies or departments is not named as defendant and where a state official is named instead, the Eleventh Amendment status of the suit is less straightforward. Ex parte Young, 209 U. S. 123 (1908), held that a suit to enjoin as unconstitutional a state official’s action was not barred by the Amendment. This holding was based on a determination that an unconstitutional state enactment is void and that any action by a state official that is purportedly authorized by that enactment cannot be taken in an official capacity since the state authorization for such action is a nullity. As the Court explained in Young itself:
“If the act which the state Attorney General seeks to enforce be a violation of the Federal Constitution, the officer proceeding under such enactment comes into conflict with the superior authority of that Constitution, and he is in that case stripped of his official or representative character and is subjected in his person to the consequences of his individual conduct. The State has no power to impart to him any immunity from responsibility to the supreme authority of the United States.” Id., at 159-160.
Thus, the official, although acting in his official capacity, may be sued in federal court. See also Pennhurst, supra, at 102, 105; Hutto v. Finney, 437 U. S. 678, 692 (1978).
Young, however, does not insulate from Eleventh Amendment challenge every suit in which a state official is the named defendant. In accordance with its original rationale, Young applies only where the underlying authorization upon which the named official acts is asserted to be illegal. See Cory v. White, 457 U. S. 85 (1982). And it does not foreclose an Eleventh Amendment challenge where the official action is asserted to be illegal as a matter of state law alone. See Pennhurst, supra, at 104-106. In such a case, federal supremacy is not implicated because the state official is acting contrary to state law only.
We have also described certain types of cases that formally meet the Young requirements of a state official acting inconsistently with federal law but that stretch that case too far and would upset the balance of federal and state interests that it embodies. Young's, applicability has been tailored to conform as precisely as possible to those specific situations in which it is “necessary to permit the federal courts to vindicate federal rights and hold state officials responsible to ‘the supreme authority of the United States.’” Pennhurst, supra, at 105 (quoting Young, supra, at 160). Consequently, Young has been focused on cases in which a violation of federal law by a state official is ongoing as opposed to cases in which federal law has been violated at one time or over a period of time in the past, as well as on cases in which the relief against the state official directly ends the violation of federal law as opposed to cases in which that relief is intended indirectly to encourage compliance with federal law through deterrence or directly to meet third-party interests such as compensation. As we have noted: “Remedies designed to end a continuing violation of federal law are necessary to vindicate the federal interest in assuring the supremacy of that law. But compensatory or deterrence interests are insufficient to overcome the dictates of the Eleventh Amendment.” Green v. Mansour, 474 U. S. 64, 68 (1985) (citation omitted).
Relief that in essence serves to compensate a party injured in the past by an action of a state official in his official capacity that was illegal under federal law is barred even when the state official is the named defendant. This is true if the •relief is expressly denominated as damages. See, e. g., Ford Motor Co. v. Department of Treasury of Indiana, 323 U. S. 459 (1945). It is also true if the relief is tantamount to an award of damages for a past violation of federal law, even though styled as something else. See, e. g., Green v. Mansour, supra, at 69-70; Edelman v. Jordan, 415 U. S. 651, 664-668 (1974). On the other hand, relief that serves directly to bring an end to a present violation of federal law is not barred by the Eleventh Amendment even though accompanied by a substantial ancillary effect on the state treasury. See Milliken v. Bradley, 433 U. S. 267, 289-290 (1977); Edelman, supra, at 667-668.
For Eleventh Amendment purposes, the line between permitted and prohibited suits will often be indistinct: “[T]he difference between the type of relief barred by the Eleventh Amendment and that permitted under Ex parte Young will not in many instances be that between day and night. ” Edelman, supra, at 667. Compare, e. g., Quern v. Jordan, 440 U. S. 332 (1979), with Green v. Mansour, supra. In discerning on which side of the line a particular case falls, we look to the substance rather than to the form of the relief sought, see, e. g., Edelman, supra, at 668, and will be guided by the policies underlying the decision in Ex parte Young.
B
The petitioners claim that the federal grants of school lands to the State of Mississippi created a perpetual trust, with the State as trustee, for the benefit of the public schools. Relying on Alamo Land & Cattle Co. v. Arizona, 424 U. S. 295 (1976), and Lassen v. Arizona ex rel. Arizona Highway Dept., 385 U. S. 458 (1967), the petitioners contend that “[sjchool lands trusts impose specific burdens and obligations on the states, as well as the state officials who act as trustees, which include preserving the corpus, maximizing income, and, where the corpus is lost or converted wrongfully, continuing the payment of appropriate income indefinitely.” Brief for Petitioners 13. The idea that this last obligation exists is gleaned not from any prior judicial construction of school lands grants but instead from alleged federal common-law rules that purportedly govern such trusts. The petitioners rely on this asserted continuing obligation in contending that they seek only a prospective, injunctive remedy, permissible under Ex parte Young, requiring state officials to meet that continuing federal obligation by providing the Chickasaw Cession schools with appropriate trust income.
To begin with, it is not at all clear that the school lands grants to Mississippi created a binding trust. The respondents, in fact, contend that the school lands were given to the State in fee simple absolute and that no binding federal obligation was imposed. See Alabama v. Schmidt, 232 U. S. 168 (1914); Cooper v. Roberts, 18 How. 173 (1856). But even if the petitioners’ legal characterization is accepted, their trust claims are barred by the Eleventh Amendment. The distinction between a continuing obligation on the part of the trustee and an ongoing liability for past breach of trust is essentially a formal distinction of the sort we rejected in Edelman. There, the Court of Appeals had upheld an award of “equitable restitution” against the state official, requiring the payment to the plaintiff class of “all AABD benefits wrongfully withheld.” 415 U. S., at 656. We found, to the contrary, that the “retroactive award of monetary relief... is in practical effect indistinguishable in many aspects from an award of damages against the State.” Id., at 668.
The characterization in that case of the legal wrong as the continuing withholding of accrued benefits is very similar to the petitioners’ characterization of the legal wrong here as the breach of a continuing obligation to comply with the trust obligations. We discern no substantive difference between a not-yet-extinguished liability for a past breach of trust and the continuing obligation to meet trust responsibilities asserted by the petitioners. In both cases, the trustee is required, because of the past loss of the trust corpus, to use its own resources to take the place of the corpus or the lost income from the corpus. Even if the petitioners here were seeking only the payment of an amount equal to the income from the lost corpus, such payment would be merely a substitute for the return of the trust corpus itself. That is, continuing payment of the income from the lost corpus is essentially equivalent in economic terms to a one-time restoration of the lost corpus itself: It is in substance the award, as continuing income rather than as a lump sum, of “ ‘an accrued monetary liability.’” Milliken v. Bradley, 433 U. S., at 289 (quoting Edelman, 415 U. S., at 664). Thus, we hold that the petitioners’ trust claim, like the claim we rejected in Edelman, may not be sustained.
C
The Court of Appeals held, however, that the petitioners’ equal protection claim was not barred by the Eleventh Amendment. We agree with that ruling. The complaint asserted:
“By their aforesaid past, present and future deprivations of and to Plaintiffs and the Plaintiff class of the'use and benefits of their Sixteenth Section Lands, while at the same time granting to and securing to all other school districts and school children in the State of Mississippi in perpetuity the use and benefit of their Sixteenth Section Lands, the State Defendants have deliberately, intentionally, purposefully, and with design denied to Plaintiffs and the Plaintiff class the equal protection of the laws in violation of their rights secured by the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States.” App. 20.
The petitioners also alleged that these same actions denied them “their rights to an interest in a minimally adequate level of education, or reasonable opportunity therefor,” id., at 21, while assuring such right to the other schoolchildren in the State. Thus the complaint alleged a present disparity in the distribution of the benefits from the State’s Sixteenth Section lands.
This alleged ongoing constitutional violation — the unequal distribution by the State of the benefits of the State’s school lands — is precisely the type of continuing violation for which a remedy may permissibly be fashioned under Young. It may be that the current disparity results directly from the same actions in the past that are the subject of the petitioners’ trust claims, but the essence of the equal protection allegation is the present disparity in the distribution of the benefits of state-held assets and not the past actions of the State. A remedy to eliminate this current disparity, even a remedy that might require the expenditure of state funds, would ensure “ ‘compliance in the future with a substantive federal-question determination’ ” rather than bestow an award for accrued monetary liability. Milliken, supra, at 289 (quoting Edelman, supra, at 668). This claim is, in fact, in all essential respects the same as the equal protection claim for which relief was approved in Milliken. Consequently, we agree with the Court of Appeals that the Eleventh Amendment would not bar relief necessary to correct a current violation of the Equal Protection Clause and that this claim may not properly be dismissed on this basis.
( — Í HH I — I
The question remains whether the petitioners equal protection claim, although not barred by the Eleventh Amendment, is legally insufficient and was properly dismissed for failure to state a claim. See Fed. Rule Civ. Proc. 12(b)(6). We are bound for the purposes of this review to take the well-pleaded factual allegations in the complaint as true. Miree v. DeKalb County, 438 U. S. 25 (1977); Kugler v. Helfant, 421 U. S. 117 (1975); Scheuer v. Rhodes, 416 U. S. 232 (1974); Cruz v. Beto, 405 U. S. 319 (1972); Gardner v. Toilet Goods Assn., 387 U. S. 167 (1957). Construing these facts and relevant facts obtained from the public record in the light most favorable to the petitioners, we must ascertain whether they state a claim on which relief could be granted.
A
In Rodriguez, the Court upheld against an equal protection challenge Texas’ system of financing its public schools, under which funds for the public schools were derived from two main sources. Approximately half of the funds came from the Texas Minimum Foundation School Program, a state program aimed at guaranteeing a certain level of minimum education for all children in the State. 411 U. S., at 9. Most of the remainder of the funds came from local sources — in particular local property taxes. Id., at 9, n. 21. As a result of this dual funding system, most specifically as a result of differences in amounts collected from local property taxes, “substantial interdistrict disparities in school expenditures [were] found... in varying degrees throughout the State.” Id., at 15.
In examining the equal protection status of these disparities, the Court declined to apply any heightened scrutiny based either on wealth as a suspect classification or on education as a fundamental right. As to the latter, the Court recognized the importance of public education but noted that education “is not among the rights afforded explicit protection under our Federal Constitution.” Id., at 35. The Court did not, however, foreclose the possibility “that some identifiable quantum of education is a constitutionally protected prerequisite to the meaningful exercise of either [the right to speak or the right to vote].” Id., at 36. Given the absence of such radical denial of educational opportunity, it was concluded that the State’s school financing scheme would be constitutional if it bore “some rational relationship to a legitimate state purpose.” Id., at 44.
Applying this standard, the dual Texas system was deemed reasonably structured to accommodate two separate forces:
“ ‘[T]he desire by members of society to have educational opportunity for all children, and the desire of each family to provide the best education it can afford for its own children.’
“... While assuring a basic education for every child in the State, it permits and encourages a large measure of participation in and control of each district’s schools at the local level.” Id., at 49 (quoting J. Coleman, Foreword to G. Strayer & R. Haig, The Financing of Education in the State of New York vii (1923)).
Given this rational basis, the Court concluded that the mere “happenstance” that the quality of education might vary from district to district because of varying property values within the districts did not render the system “so irrational as to be invidiously discriminatory.” 411 U. S., at 55. In particular, the Court found that “any scheme of local taxation— indeed the very existence of identifiable local governmental units — requires the establishment of jurisdictional boundaries that are inevitably arbitrary.” Id., at 53-54.
Almost 10 years later, the Court again considered the equal protection status of the administration of the Texas public schools — this time in relation to the State’s decision not to expend any state funds on the education of children who were not “legally admitted” to the United States. Plyler v. Doe, 457 U. S. 202 (1982). The Court did not, however, measurably change the approach articulated in Rodriguez. It reiterated that education is not a fundamental right and concluded that undocumented aliens were not a suspect class. 457 U. S., at 223-224. Nevertheless, it concluded that the justifications for the discrimination offered by the State were “wholly insubstantial in light of the costs involved to these children, the State, and the Nation.” Id., at 230.
B
The complaint in this case asserted not simply that the petitioners had been denied their right to a minimally adequate education but also that such a right was fundamental and that because that right had been infringed the State’s action here should be reviewed under strict scrutiny. App. 20. As Rodriguez and Plyler indicate, this Court has not yet definitively settled the questions whether a minimally adequate education is a fundamental right and whether a statute alleged to discriminatorily infringe that right should be accorded heightened equal protection review.
Nor does this case require resolution of these issues. Although for the purposes of this motion to dismiss we must take all the factual allegations in the complaint as true, we are not bound to accept as true a legal conclusion couched as a factual allegation. See, e. g., Briscoe v. LaHue, 663 F. 2d 713, 723 (CA7 1981), aff’d on other grounds, 460 U. S. 325 (1983). See generally 2A J. Moore & J. Lucas, Moore’s Federal Practice ¶12.07, p. 12-64, and n. 6 (1985). The petitioners’ allegation that, by reason of the funding disparities relating to the Sixteenth Section lands, they have been deprived of a minimally adequate education is just such an allegation. The petitioners do not allege that schoolchildren in the Chickasaw Counties are not taught to read or write; they do not allege that they receive no instruction on even the educational basics; they allege no actual facts in support of their assertion that they have been deprived of a minimally adequate education. As we see it, we are not bound to credit and may disregard the allegation that the petitioners have been denied a minimally adequate education.
Concentrating instead on the disparities in terms of Sixteenth Section lands benefits that the complaint in fact alleged and that are documented in the public record, we are persuaded that the Court of Appeals properly determined that Rodriguez dictates the applicable standard of review. The differential treatment alleged here constitutes an equal protection violation only if it is not rationally related to a legitimate state interest.
Applying this test, the Court of Appeals concluded that, historical roots aside, the essence of the petitioners’ claim was an attack on Mississippi’s system of financing public education. And it reasoned that the inevitability of disparities in income derived from real estate managed and administered locally, as in Rodriguez, supplied a rationale for the disparities alleged. To begin with, we disagree with the Court of Appeals’ apparent understanding of the crux of the petitioners’ claim. As we read their complaint, the petitioners do not challenge the overall organization of the Mississippi public school financing program. Instead, their challenge is restricted to one aspect of that program: The Sixteenth Section and Lieu Lands funding. All of the allegations in the complaint center around disparities in the distribution of these particular benefits, and no allegations concerning disparities in other public school funding programs are included.
Consequently, this is a very different claim than the claim made in Rodriguez. In Rodriguez, the contention was that the State's overall system of funding was unconstitutionally discriminatory. There, the Court examined the basic structure of that system and concluded that it was rationally related to a legitimate state purpose. In reaching that conclusion, the Court necessarily found that funding disparities resulting from differences in local taxes were acceptable because related to the state goal of allowing a measure of effective local control over school funding levels. Rodriguez did not, however, purport to validate all funding variations that might result from a State’s public school funding decisions. It held merely that the variations that resulted from allowing local control over local property tax funding of the public schools were constitutionally permissible in that case.
Here, the petitioners’ claim goes neither to the overall funding system nor to the local ad valorem component of that system. Instead, it goes solely to the Sixteenth Section and Lieu Lands portion of the State’s public school funding. And, as to this claim, we are unpersuaded that Rodriguez resolves the equal protection question in favor of the State. The allegations of the complaint are that the State is distributing the income from Sixteenth Section lands or from Lieu Lands or funds unequally among the school districts, to the detriment of the Chickasaw Cession schools and their students. The Sixteenth Section and Lieu Lands in Mississippi were granted to and held by the State itself. Under state law, these lands “constitute property held in trust for the benefit of the public schools and must be treated as such,” Miss. Code Ann. § 29-3-1(1) (Supp. 1985), but in carrying out the trust, the State has vested the management of these lands in the local school boards throughout the State, under the supervision of the Secretary of State, and has credited the income from these lands to the “school districts of the township in which such sixteenth section lands may be located, or to which any sixteenth section lieu lands may belong,” such income to be used for the purpose of educating the children of the school district or as otherwise may be provided by law. Miss. Code Ann. §29-3-109 (Supp. 1985). This case is therefore very different from Rodriguez, where the differential financing available to school districts was traceable to school district funds available from local real estate taxation, not to a state decision to divide state resources unequally among school districts. The rationality of the disparity in Rodriguez, therefore, which rested on the fact that funding disparities based on differing local wealth were a necessary adjunct of allowing meaningful
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
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.
The Department of Justice has a firmly established policy, known as the “Petite” policy, under which United States Attorneys are forbidden to prosecute any person for allegedly criminal behavior if the alleged criminality was an ingredient of a previous state prosecution against that person. An exception is made only if the federal prosecution is specifically authorized in advance by the Department itself, upon a finding that the prosecution will serve “compelling interests of federal law enforcement.”
In this case the Solicitor General has advised us that this established Department policy was violated. Accordingly, he urges the Court “to permit the effectuation of the government’s policy against successive prosecutions by granting the petition, vacating the judgment of the court of appeals, and remanding the case to the district court with instructions to grant the government’s motion to dismiss the indictment.”
In 1978, the petitioner was brought to trial in a Kentucky court on a charge of armed burglary, and was convicted by a jury of a lesser included offense. He was then prosecuted and convicted in a Federal District Court on a charge of unlawfully possessing a firearm — a charge that grew out of the same criminal transaction that had been the basis of the Kentucky prosecution. This federal conviction was affirmed by the Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, which accepted the Government’s then position that the “Petite” policy had not been violated.
The Solicitor General now concedes that the United States Attorney did not obtain the authorization required under the established Department policy before bringing the federal prosecution. Moreover, “after careful review” of whether to grant nunc pro tunc authorization, the Solicitor General has concluded that “petitioner’s prosecution for unlawfully possessing a firearm was not supported by an independent compelling federal interest not satisfied by the state prosecution for armed burglary.”
Ever since the Justice Department established the “Petite” policy in 1959, the Court has consistently responded to requests by the Government in cases such as this by granting certiorari and vacating the judgments. See, e. g., Hammons v. United States, 439 U. S. 810 (1978); Frakes v. United States, 435 U. S. 911 (1978); Rinaldi v. United States, 434 U. S. 22 (1977); Croucher v. United States, 429 U. S. 1034 (1977); Watts v. United States, 422 U. S. 1032 (1975); Ackerson v. United States, 419 U. S. 1099 (1975); Hayles v. United States, 419 U. S. 892 (1974); Thompson v. United States, 400 U. S. 17 (1970); Marakar v. United States, 370 U. S. 723 (1962); Petite v. United States, 361 U. S. 529 (1960).
This practice, which rests on the power of the Court to “afford relief which is ‘just under the circumstances' 28 U. S. C. § 2106,” Rinaldi v. United States, supra, at 25, n. 8, is not unique to violations of the “Petite” policy. The Court has also consistently vacated the judgments in other cases which the Solicitor General has represented were in violation of other Justice Department policies. See, e. g., Blucher v. United States, 439 U. S. 1061 (1979) (obscenity prosecution); Nunley v. United States, 434 U. S. 962 (1977) (prosecution for willfully making false statements concerning matters within jurisdiction of Department of Treasury); Margraf v. United States, 414 U. S. 1106 (1973) (prosecution for carrying a “concealed deadly or dangerous” weapon while boarding an aircraft); Robison v. United States, 390 U. S. 198 (1968) (addition of counts upon retrial); Redmond v. United States, 384 U. S. 264 (1966) (obscenity prosecution).
The instant case differs from this long line of decisions only in that here the Government mistakenly, and successfully, represented to the Court of Appeals that Justice Department policy had not been violated. Because of this circumstance, we do not accept the Solicitor General’s suggestion. Rather, in response to his suggestion and upon an independent examination of the record, we grant leave to proceed in forma pau-peris and certiorari, vacate the judgment, and remand the case to the Court of Appeals for reconsideration in light of the Government’s present position. This course is one that the Court has frequently taken when, as here, the Government has changed its position while a criminal case is pending on petition for certiorari. See, e. g., Garner v. United States, 430 U. S. 942 (1977).
It is so ordered.
The Chief Justice and Mr. Justice White dissent.
Mr. Justice Blackmun, with whom Mr. Justice Rehnquist joins, dissents for the reason that in this case the United States already has presented the “Petite” policy issue to the Court of Appeals and that court has passed upon the issue adversely to the Government’s present position.
Promulgated in the wake of this Court's decision in Abbate v. United States, 359 U. S. 187 (1959), the policy was first recognized by the Court in Petite v. United States, 361 U. S. 529, 531 (1960). It has since been known as the “Petite” policy.
The per curiam opinion of the Court of Appeals is unreported, but the affirmance order is reported at 601 F. 2d 591.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
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 Marshall
delivered the opinion of the Court.
We granted certiorari in this case, 452 U. S. 960 (1981), to decide whether a youth offender who is sentenced to a consecutive adult term of imprisonment while serving a sentence imposed under the Federal Youth Corrections Act (YCA), 18 U. S. C. §5005 et seq., must receive YCA treatment for the remainder of his youth sentence. The Courts of Appeals are in conflict on this issue. We conclude that the YCA does not require such treatment if the judge imposing the subsequent adult sentence determines that the youth will not benefit from further YCA treatment during the remainder of his youth sentence. Accordingly, we reverse the judgment of the Court of Appeals.
I
In 1974 respondent, who was 17 years old, pleaded guilty to a charge of second-degree murder and was sentenced to a 10-year term of imprisonment under the YCA, § 5010(c). The sentencing judge recommended that he be placed at the Kennedy Youth Center in Morgantown, W. Va.; that he not be released until he had attained at least an eighth-grade level of education and had successfully completed a trade of his own choosing; and that he participate in intensive, individual therapy on a weekly basis and undergo a complete psychological reevaluation before being returned to the community. The sentence, like all YCA sentences, contemplated that the respondent be segregated from adult offenders. See 18 U. S. C. §5011.
Respondent’s subsequent conduct has not been exemplary. In 1975, while incarcerated at the Federal Correctional Institution (FCI) at Ashland, Ky., respondent was found guilty of assaulting a federal officer by use of a dangerous weapon, in violation of 18 U. S. C. §§ 111 and 1114. The United States District Court for the Eastern District of Kentucky imposed an additional 10-year adult sentence and stated in its commitment order: “The Court finds that the defendant will not benefit any further under thé provisions of the [YCA] and declines to sentence under said act.” After receiving a presentence report, the judge reduced the sentence to 66 months, to be served consecutively to the YCA sentence. The judge also recommended that respondent be transferred from the Kentucky institution “to a facility providing greater security.”
Respondent was placed in the Federal Correctional Institution at Oxford, Wis. Subsequent disciplinary problems resulted in his transfer to the FCI at Lompoc, Cal. In 1977, while confined in that institution, respondent pleaded guilty to another charge of assaulting a federal officer. The United States District Court for the Central District of California sentenced him under 18 U. S. C. § 5010(d) to an adult sentence of one year and one day and ordered that the sentence run consecutive to and not concurrent with the sentence that respondent was then serving.
After the second adult sentence, the Bureau of Prisons classified respondent as an adult offender. Accordingly, at least since that time, respondent has not been segregated from the adult prisoners, and has not been offered the YCA rehabilitative treatment that the initial trial court recommended. The Bureau of Prisons acted pursuant to a written policy when it classified respondent as an adult. In implementing the YCA’s treatment and segregation requirements, the Bureau narrowly defines a “YCA Inmate” as “any inmate sentenced under 18 USC Section 5010(b), (c), or (e) who is not also sentenced to a concurrent or consecutive adult term, whether state or federal.” Bureau of Prisons Policy Statement No. 5215.2, p. 1 (Dec. 12, 1978) (emphasis added).
Respondent exhausted his administrative remedies and filed a petition for habeas corpus on May 25, 1978. The Magistrate recommended transfer to an institution in which respondent would be segregated from adults and would receive YCA treatment. The United States District Court for the Southern District of Illinois issued an order granting the writ, which was affirmed by the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit. 642 F. 2d 1077 (1981). The Court of Appeals held that the YCA forbids the reevaluation of a YCA sentence by a second judge, even if the second judge makes an explicit finding that further YCA treatment would not benefit the offender. The Court of Appeals also rejected petitioner’s broader argument that the YCA vests discretion in the Bureau of Prisons to modify the treatment terms of a YCA sentence when the offender has received a consecutive or concurrent adult sentence for a felony.
On January 9, 1982, respondent will be conditionally released from his YCA sentence and will begin his first adult sentence.
II
In Dorszynski v. United States, 418 U. S. 424 (1974), this Court exhaustively analyzed the history, structure, and underlying policies of the YCA. From that analysis, and from the language of the YCA, two relevant principles emerge. First, the YCA strongly endorses the discretionary power of a judge to choose among available sentencing options. Second, the YCA prescribes certain basic conditions of treatment for YCA offenders.
In Dorszynski, The Chief Justice, writing for the Court, found that the principal purpose of the YCA is to rehabilitate persons who, because of their youth, are unusually vulnerable to the danger of recidivism:
“To accomplish this objective, federal district judges were given two new alternatives to add to the array of sentencing options previously available to them... : first, they were enabled to commit an eligible offender to the custody of the Attorney General for treatment under the Act. 18 U. S. C. §§ 5010(b) and (c). Second, if they believed an offender did not need commitment, they were authorized to place him on probation under the Act. 18 U. S. C. § 5010(a). If the sentencing court chose the first alternative, the youth offender would be committed to the program of treatment created by the Act.” Id., at 438.
If a court wishes to sentence a youth to an adult sentence, it is authorized to do so under § 5010(d). In Dorszynski, a majority of this Court held that a judge must make an explicit “no benefit” finding to invoke this subsection, but need not give a statement of reasons to justify his decision. Both the majority and concurring opinions emphasized that the YCA was not intended to disturb the broad discretion traditionally available to federal judges in choosing among appropriate sentences. 418 U. S., at 436-442; id., at 450 (Marshall, J., with whom Douglas, Brennan, and Stewart, JJ., joined, concurring in judgment).
We reiterated that trial courts retain significant control over sentencing options in Durst v. United States, 434 U. S. 542 (1978), where we unanimously held that the YCA permits the court to impose a fine or require restitution when it places a youth on probation under § 5010(a). In his opinion for the Court, Justice Brennan explained the underlying purposes of the Act:
“The core concept of the YCA, like that of England’s Borstal System upon which it is modeled, is that rehabilitative treatment should be substituted for retribution as a sentencing goal. Both the Borstal System and the YCA incorporate three features thought essential to the operation of a successful rehabilitative treatment program: flexibility in choosing among a variety of treatment settings and programs tailored to individual needs; separation of youth offenders from hardened criminals; and careful and flexible control of the duration of commitment and of supervised release.” Id., at 545-546 (footnotes omitted).
A second important feature of the YCA is that it empowers, and indeed requires, a judge to prescribe certain basic conditions of YCA treatment. This prescription ensures that treatable youth offenders are segregated from adult criminals, and that they receive appropriate rehabilitative care.
The need to segregate youth from adult criminals drew special attention in the legislative history. Proponents of the statute criticized the practice of “herding youth with maturity, the novice with the sophisticate, the impressionable with the hardened, and... subjecting youth offenders to the evil influences of older criminals and their teaching of criminal techniques... H. R. Rep. No. 2979, 81st Cong., 2d Sess., 2-3 (1950); see 96 Cong. Rec. 15036 (1950). This concern was expressed in the statutory requirement that offenders receiving youth sentences be segregated from adults. 18 U. S. C. §5011. More generally, “[t]he panoply of treatment options available under the Act is but further evidence that the YCA program was intended to be sufficiently comprehensive to deal with all but the ‘incorrigible’ youth.” Dorszynski, supra, at 449 (Marshall, J., concurring in judgment) (footnote omitted).
The YCA allocates responsibility for determining essential treatment conditions in an unusual way. Under traditional sentencing statutes, prison officials exercise almost unlimited discretion in imposing the security and treatment conditions that they believe appropriate. The YCA is different. By determining that the youth offender should be sentenced under the YCA, the trial court in effect decides two essential conditions of confinement: the Bureau of Prisons must comply with both the segregation and treatment requirements of the YCA. 18 U. S. C. §5011. See Brown v. Carlson, 431 F. Supp. 755, 765 (WD Wis. 1977); Hearings on S. 1114 and S. 2609 before a Subcommittee of the Senate Committee on the Judiciary, 81st Cong., 1st Sess., 43-44 (1949) (statement of Judge Parker) (hereinafter 1949 Senate Hearings); Report to the Judicial Conference of the Committee on Punishment for Crime 8-9 (1942). The Bureau retains significant discretion in determining the conditions of confinement, see infra, at 211, but its discretion is limited by these requirements.
The history of the YCA’s passage buttresses the conclusion that correctional authorities may not exercise any of the sentencing powers established in the Act:
“The initial legislative proposal, an American Law Institute model Act, removed the power to sentence eligible offenders from the trial judges altogether and reposed that power in a correctional authority. Not surprisingly, that proposal brought swift and sharp criticism from the judges whose power was to be sharply curtailed. The next proposal, by the Judicial Conference, involved shared sentencing powers between trial judges and correctional authorities. It met with similar criticism. The 1949 proposal, which was finally enacted into law, retained sentencing power in the trial judge.” Dorszynski, 418 U. S., at 446-447 (Marshall, J., with whom Douglas, Brennan, and Stewart, JJ., joined, concurring in judgment) (footnotes omitted).
This unusual responsibility for treatment conditions demands that the sentencing judge thoroughly understand all available facts relevant to the offender’s treatment needs. Thus, the statute provides the trial court with the opportunity to obtain an extremely comprehensive presentence report, 18 U. S. C. § 5010(e). See S. Rep. No. 1180, 81st Cong., 1st Sess., 5 (1949); 1949 Senate Hearings, at 18-19 (statement of Chief Judge Laws); Hearings on H. R. 2139 and H. R. 2140 Before Subcommittee No. 3 of the House Committee on the Judiciary, 78th Cong., 1st Sess., 63-64 (1943) (statement of Judge Laws). With this framework in mind, we will review the parties’ statutory arguments.
III
Respondent asserts that the express language of the YCA prohibits any modification of the basic terms of a YCA sentence before its expiration. Respondent first points to § 5010(c), which authorizes a court to “sentence the youth offender to the custody of the Attorney General for treatment and supervision pursuant to this chapter for any further period [beyond six years] that may be authorized by law for the offense... or until discharged by the [United States Parole] Commission.” Respondent also relies on §5011, which provides that “[Committed youth offenders... shall undergo treatment in institutions... that will provide the essential varieties of treatment,” and that “[i]nsofar as practical, such institutions and agencies shall be used only for treatment of committed youth offenders, and such youth offenders shall be segregated from other offenders, and classes of committed youth offenders shall be segregated according to their needs for treatment” (emphasis added). From this language, respondent argues that the essential segregation and treatment requirements of the initial YCA sentence cannot be modified before the sentence expires.
We are not persuaded by this interpretation. Section 5010 enables the sentencing court to determine whether a youth offender would benefit from treatment under the YCA. If the original sentencing court determines that such treatment would be beneficial, it may sentence the youth offender under § 5010(a), (b), or (c), or it may request additional information under § 5010(e). Once the original sentencing court has made this determination and has sentenced the offender under the YCA, §5011 requires the Bureau of Prisons to carry out the mandate of the court with respect to the offender’s segregation and treatment needs. We do not read that language as requiring the judge to make an irrevocable determination of segregation or treatment needs, or as precluding a subsequent judge from redetermining those needs in light of intervening events.
At the other extreme, petitioner asserts that the YCA gives the Bureau of Prisons independent statutory authority to determine that a YCA offender will not benefit from YCA treatment. Petitioner believes that the Bureau can make such a determination at any time, whether or not an offender has committed a subsequent offense. We reject this extraordinarily broad interpretation, and any interpretation that would grant the Bureau independent authority to deny an offender the treatment and segregation from adults that a sentencing court mandates.
Prison officials do have a significant degree of discretionary authority under the YCA relevant to the treatment of youth offenders. The Bureau is responsible for studying the treatment needs of committed youth offenders, 18 U. S. C. § 5014, and for confining offenders and affording treatment “under such conditions as [the Director of the Bureau] believes best designed for the protection of the public.” 18 U. S. C. § 5015(a)(3). It may commit or transfer offenders to any appropriate agency or institution, 18 U. S. C. §§ 5015(a)(2) and (b), and may provide treatment in a wide variety of institutional settings. 18 U. S. C. §5011. Moreover, it has authority to recommend conditional release and otherwise to consult with the United States Parole Commission in the implementation of the YCA. 18 U. S. C. §§5014, 5015(a)(1), 5016, 5017.
However, the statute does not give the Bureau any discretion to modify the basic terms of treatment that a judge imposes under §§5010 and 5011. When a judge imposes a youth sentence under the YCA, the sentence commits the youth to the custody of the Attorney General “for treatment and supervision pursuant to this chapter.” 18 U. S. C. §§ 5010(b) and (c). Section 5011 provides two elements of mandatory treatment: first, youths must undergo treatment in an appropriate institution that will “provide the essential varieties of treatment”; second, “[ijnsofar as practical, such institutions and agencies shall be used only for treatment of committed youth offenders, and such youth offenders shall be segregated from other offenders, and classes of committed youth offenders shall be segregated according to their needs for treatment.” These two elements of the program are statutorily mandated, and the discretion of the Bureau is limited to the flexible discharge of its responsibilities within these two broad constraints.
Even if the Bureau asserted only the right to treat YCA offenders as adults in accordance with its Policy Statement, see swpra, at 205, this assertion of power is much too broad. The policy would treat any youth offender with an adult consecutive sentence as an adult — even if 15 years of his YCA sentence remained and the adult sentence were only for 1 year. It is unreasonable, indeed callous, to assume that such an offender could not receive any further benefit from YCA treatment. This example underscores the importance of leaving such decisions to the sound discretion of a federal sentencing judge, rather than to prison officials. The fatal defect in petitioner’s argument is that it permits prison officials to make a determination — whether a YCA offender will benefit from YCA treatment — that the statute commits to the sentencing judge.
IV
No provision of the YCA explicitly governs the issue before us. The statute describes the sentencing options available to a judge after conviction but does not elucidate what options would be available after the defendant has been convicted of a second crime while serving his initial sentence. The purposes of the statute, however, revealed in its structure and legislative history, compel the conclusion that a court faced with a choice of sentences for a youth offender still serving a YCA term is not deprived of the option of finding no further benefit in YCA treatment for the remainder of the term.
Under § 5010(d), a court sentencing an offender who is serving a youth term may make a “no benefit” finding and then “sentence the youth offender under any other applicable penalty provision.” A judge is thus authorized to impose a consecutive adult term, as the second judge did in this case. However, the court also has before it the question whether the offender will benefit from YCA treatment during the remainder of the YCA term. Although § 5010(d) does not expressly authorize a second judge to make a “no benefit” finding with respect to the remainder of an unexpired YCA sentence, we believe that it implicitly authorizes such a determination, as well as the determination that YCA treatment during the consecutive sentence would not be beneficial. It assuredly does not authorize prison officials to make either determination.
Our review of the legislative history reveals no explicit discussion of the trial court’s options in sentencing a youth who commits a crime while serving a YCA sentence; Congress apparently did not consider this specific problem. But Congress did understand that the original treatment imposed by the sentencing judge might fail, and that protective as well as rehabilitative purposes might justify a lengthy confinement under § 5010(c). In commenting on that section, the House Report states: “This affords opportunity for the sentencing court to avail itself of the provisions of this bill and at the same time insure protection of the public if efforts at rehabilitation fail.” H. R. Rep. No. 2979, 81st Cong., 2d Sess., 4 (1950).
The history and structure of the YCA discussed above, supra, at 206-210, demonstrate Congress’ intent that a court — but not prison officials — may require a youth offender to serve the remainder of a YCA sentence as an adult after the offender has received a consecutive adult term. First, the YCA prescribes certain basic elements of treatment, segregation from adults and individualized, rehabilitative programs, as part of a YCA sentence. Second, sponsors of the Act repeatedly stated that its purpose was to prevent youths from becoming recidivists, and to insulate them from the insidious influence of more experienced adult criminals. Housing incorrigible youths with youths who show promise of rehabilitation would not serve this purpose. Third, the decision whether to employ the unique treatment methods of the YCA is exclusively committed to the discretion of the sentencing judge, rather than to prison officials. If segregation of a particular class of youths from adults would be futile, that is a decision to be made by a court, not by prison authorities.
Finally, in light of the above, we do not believe that when Congress withdrew from prison officials some of their traditional authority to adjust the conditions of confinement over time, Congress intended that no one exercise that authority. The result would be an inflexible rule requiring, in many cases, the continuation of futile YCA treatment. The only reasonable conclusion is that Congress reposed that authority in the court, the institution that the YCA explicitly invests with the discretion to make the original decision about basic treatment conditions.
We find further support for this conclusion from the fact that, in several circumstances, the YCA permits a youth offender initially sentenced under the YCA to be treated as an adult for what would otherwise be the remainder of the YCA sentence. For example, the statute permits a court to sentence a defendant to an adult term if he commits an adult offense after receiving a suspended sentence and probation under § 5010(a). If respondent had been sentenced initially to probation under § 5010(a) and had been subsequently convicted of criminal assault, the court could have imposed an adult sentence for the original crime, for the assault, or for both, to begin immediately. In fact, respondent committed his second crime while incarcerated. It hardly seems logical to prohibit an immediate modification of respondent’s treatment conditions simply because he originally received the harsher sentence of YCA incarceration.
Moreover, respondent concedes that the statute permits a judge to impose a concurrent adult sentence on an offender who is serving a YCA term. Such an adult sentence would commence at the time that it was imposed and would modify the YCA treatment that the offender would otherwise receive for the remainder of his term. Finally, every offender sentenced under the YCA must be released conditionally two years prior to the termination of his sentence. 18 U. S. C. § 5017. However, if the offender violates the terms of this conditional release by committing a crime, the conditional release may be revoked and an adult sentence may immediately be imposed, notwithstanding the fact that the youth sentence has not yet expired. Respondent concedes as much, since he does not challenge the commencement of his adult term in January 1982, even though two years of his youth sentence will still remain.
We therefore conclude that a judge who sentences a youth offender to a consecutive adult term may require that the offender also serve the remainder of his youth sentence as an adult. Only this interpretation can give meaning to both the language and the underlying purposes of the YCA. “[W]e cannot, in the absence of an unmistakable directive, construe the Act in a manner which runs counter to the broad goals which Congress intended it to effectuate.” FTC v. Fred Meyer, Inc., 390 U. S. 341, 349 (1968). Accordingly, we hold that a judge may modify the essential terms of treatment of a continuing YCA sentence if he finds that such treatment would not benefit the offender further.
V
The standards that a district judge should apply in determining whether an offender will obtain any further benefit from YCA treatment are no different from the standards applied in imposing a sentence originally. Of course, the judge should consider the fact that the offender has been convicted of another crime. In light of all relevant factors, the court can exercise its sound discretion in determining whether the offender should receive youth or adult treatment for the remainder of his term. The court need not adopt a rigid rule of the type urged by petitioner. Rather, it should make a judgment informed by both the rehabilitative purposes of the YCA and the realistic circumstances of the offender.
Applying these principles to the facts before us, we conclude that the second sentencing judge made a sufficient finding that respondent would not benefit from YCA treatment during the remainder of his youth term. The judge found that respondent would not benefit “further” under the YCA, and he declined to impose a youth sentence under that Act, imposing instead a consecutive adult sentence. In the future, we expect that judges will eliminate interpretive difficulties by making an explicit “no benefit” finding with respect to the remainder of the YCA sentence.
In conclusion, we are convinced that Congress did not intend that a person who commits serious crimes while serving a YCA sentence should automatically receive treatment that has proved futile. On the other hand, Congress carefully designed this statute to require a sentencing judge, rather than the Bureau of Prisons, to evaluate whether the basic elements of treatment — segregation from adults and individualized programs — are appropriate and consistent with YCA policies over time. Our interpretation comports with the overriding legislative purpose that “once a person [is] committed for treatment under the Act, the execution of sentence [is] to fit the person, not the crime.” Dorszynski, 418 U. S., at 434.
We reverse the judgment of the Court of Appeals and remand the case for proceedings consistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
In this case, the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit gave an affirmative answer to the question presented. See 642 F. 2d 1077 (1981). The United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, Thompson v. Carlson, 624 F. 2d 415 (1980), gave a negative answer, holding that a judge’s determination that the offender would not benefit from YCA treatment warrants treating him immediately as an adult. The United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, Outing v. Bell, 632 F. 2d 1144 (1980), cert. denied sub nom. Outing v. Smith, 450 U. S. 1001 (1981), also gave a negative answer, holding that the policy of prison officials warrants treating him as an adult.
Respondent asserts that he has never been segregated from non-YCA prisoners nor received special YCA treatment. Although petitioner disputes this assertion, the record of frequent transfers lends some credence to respondent’s claim. Given our disposition of this case, we need not address this issue.
Under § 5010(b) and § 5017(c), a court is authorized to sentence an offender to an indeterminate YCA term of six years, even if the adult maximum sentence would be a lesser term. Under § 5010(c) and § 5017(d), if a court finds that the offender may not be able to derive maximum benefit from YCA treatment within six years, it may impose a YCA term of any length authorized by law for the crimes of which the offender is convicted. Respondent was initially sentenced under the latter provisions to a 10-year term; the maximum adult penalty for his crime (second-degree murder) was life imprisonment.
Section 5011 provides in full:
“Committed youth offenders not conditionally released shall undergo treatment in institutions of maximum security, medium security, or minimum security types, including training schools, hospitals, farms, forestry and other camps, and other agencies that will provide the essential varieties of treatment. The Director shall from time to time designate, set aside, and adapt institutions and agencies under the control of the Department of Justice for treatment. Insofar as practical, such institutions and agencies shall be used only for treatment of committed youth offenders, and such youth offenders shall be segregated from other offenders, and classes of committed youth offenders shall be segregated according to their needs for treatment.”
Although the Courts of Appeals consistently have rejected the argument that the Bureau of Prisons may ignore the obligations under § 5011, they have not agreed on the degree of the flexibility the Bureau possesses in complying with the segregation requirement. This conflict arises from the requirement in § 5011 that certain obligations be discharged “[i]nsofar as practical.” See n. 4, supra. See, e. g., Watts v. Hadden, 651 F. 2d 1354 (CA10 1981); Outing v. Bell, 632 F. 2d 1144 (CA4 1980), cert. denied sub nom. Outing v. Smith, 450 U. S. 1001 (1981); United States ex rel. Dancy v. Arnold, 572 F. 2d 107 (CA3 1978); Harvin v. United States, 144 U. S. App. D. C. 199, 445 F. 2d 675 (en banc), cert. denied, 404 U. S. 943 (1971); Brown v. Carlson, 431 F. Supp. 755 (WD Wis. 1977); Johnson v. Bell, 487 F. Supp. 977 (ED Mich. 1980).
We need not address the issue of the scope of the practicality exception in this case because petitioner’s reliance on it is misplaced. Petitioner argues that because some “hardened” youths may be serving YCA sentences, it is “impractical” to segregate them from adults. The sentencing courts, however, determined that these “hardened” youths would benefit from YCA treatment and consequently should be segregated from adults and integrated with other youth offenders. Petitioner really questions the wisdom, not the practicality, of that determination.
The same explanation was offered at the Senate hearings by the Chairman of the Committee that drafted the bill. 1949 Senate Hearings, at 62 (statement of Chief Judge Phillips). See also id., at 13 (statement of Chief Judge Laws) (section is to be used “if the judge feels that a youth offender convicted of an offense calling for a long term under existing statutes might not respond to treatment within 6 years or that so short a term might have an adverse effect on enforcement of the law...”).
In other circumstances, the YCA contemplates reevaluation of the initial sentence — a judge may reduce the severity of the terms of commitment in light of changed circumstances. The YCA does not disturb “the power of any court to suspend the imposition or execution of any sentence and place a youth offender on probation.” 18 U. S. C. § 5023. The YCA also permits a court to unconditionally discharge a youth on probation prior to the expiration of the probationary period and to issue a certificate to that effect. 18 U. S. C. § 5021. See Thompson v. Carlson, 624 F. 2d, at 421.
By virtue of § 5023(a), the YCA incorporates 18 U. S. C. § 3653. Under the latter section, if a court has suspended the imposition of sentence and placed an offender on probation, the court, after revoking probation, may impose any sentence that it might have imposed originally. See generally Durst v. United States, 434 U. S. 542, 551 (1978) (§ 5023(a) “pre-servéis] to sentencing judges their powers under the general probation statute when sentencing youth offenders to probation under § 5010(a)”). Section 5010(a) also authorizes the court to impose a YCA sentence but suspend its execution. If such an offender commits a crime while on probation, the court may require him to begin serving the YCA sentence immediately, or the court may impose an adult sentence for the second crime.
We have no doubt that the second sentencing judge could have modified respondent’s YCA treatment terms by imposing a concurrent sentence. The judge did not, however, avail himself of that option.
It would be anomalous to permit a concurrent sentence to modify the terms of the remainder of a YCA sentence but not to permit a consecutive term to have that effect, since a concurrent sentence is traditionally imposed as a less severe sanction than a consecutive sentence. See National Advisory Commission on Criminal Standards and Goals, Sentencing Standard 5.6 (1973); A. Campbell, Law of Sentencing § 76 (1978). Moreover, a consecutive sentence may be the preferable form of sentence for an offense committed while serving a sentence for a prior offense. See U. S. Dept, of Justice, Uniform Law Commissioners’ Model Sentencing and Corrections Act §3-107(c) (1979).
We see no relevant difference in the fact that concurrent sentences traditionally take effect immediately. As we hold today, a judge imposing a consecutive adult sentence may find that continued YCA treatment during the unexpired term would be futile, and his finding may take effect immediately. In either case, the YCA permits a judge to effectuate his finding with respect to whether future YCA treatment would be beneficial. Of course, a concurrent sentence of a given length will result in a shorter ultimate sentence than a consecutive sentence of that length; but a judge wishing to impose a longer ultimate sentence may simply increase the length of the concurrent sentence accordingly.
The unusual characteristics of a YCA sentence answer respondent’s complaint that a second judge cannot “revoke” the original sentence. To be sure, a judge’s sentence is traditionally left undisturbed, even when subsequent events indicate that the original sentence was unduly lenient. Such a sentence cannot be “revoked,” i. e., a second judge cannot increase its length. On the other hand, tradition has vested wide discretion in prison officials to tailor conditions of confinement to the security requirements and treatment needs of the offender. A prison official’s modification of such conditions because of an offender’s misconduct would not be considered a “revocation” of the initial sentence. It is simply an appropriate recognition of the offender’s changed circumstances. We think that a judge’s modification is no different as a matter of policy. For the same reasons, we do not think that the second judge’s modification of the conditions of the YCA sentence in light of the offender’s changed circumstances is an impermissible review of the first judge’s discretionary decision.
The dissenting opinion asserts that our interpretation of congressional intent is inconsistent with the common-law rule that “‘a punishment already partly suffered be not increased.’ ” Post, at 223. That common-law rule simply does not apply when Congress has provided a court with the power to modify a sentence in light of changed circumstances. For example, a court may impose a suspended sentence and probation, under the general probation statute or under the YCA. 18 U. S. C. §3651 et seq., § 5010. If the defendant violates the terms of his probation, the court may “increase” the punishment by requiring him to serve the initial sentence. Here, the statute permits a judge to modify the conditions of a YCA sentence if the offender is convicted of a subsequent adult crime and if further YCA treatment would be futile. In each case, the sentencing statute invests the court with the power to modify conditions in light of the subsequent offense.
The dissent reviews selective portions of the legislative history but never addresses a critical point. When Congress decided to invest the court with unusual authority over treatment conditions and to deny such authority to prison officials, it did not intend that no institution would have the authority to modify treatment conditions which become futile over time. Justice Stevens candidly admits that the interpretation he recommends may not “serve any useful purpose for this particular offender.” Post, at 233-234. We do not believe that Congress was so shortsighted. In examining the sentencing options that the YCA grants to federal judges, we refuse to close our eyes to Congress’ unmistakable rehabilitative intent.
Apparently, the Court of Appeals believed that a rehabilitative purpose may have existed here. However, given the facts of this ease, any such belief is sheer speculation. After all, the second judge found that respondent would not benefit “further” from YCA treatment. In future cases, we emphasize, the sentencing judge has the responsibility for determining whether an offender would derive any rehabilitative benefit from receiving continued YCA treatment prior to serving an adult sentence.
The judge’s recommendation that respondent be transferred “to a facility providing greater security” is additional evidence that the judge did not believe that respondent would derive further benefit from YCA treatment.
We need not address the question whether a judge may modify the basic treatment terms of a youth sentence whose length exceeds the maximum penalty authorized by law for an adult, since respondent’s YCA sentence was imposed under § 5010(c), not § 5010(b). We recognize that if the basic treatment elements of a YCA sentence under § 5010(b) are modified at such a time that a youth effectively serves an adult sentence of greater length than an adult could receive, there would be a serious issue whether such a sentence is authorized by any statute and, if so, whether it violates the Equal Protection Clause. Cf. Carter v. United States, 113 U. S. App. D. C. 123, 125, 306 F. 2d 283, 285 (1962) (longer term under YCA constitutional, “essentially because such confinement cannot be equated with incarceration in an ordinary prison
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
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.
Justice Rehnquist
delivered the opinion of the Court.
Respondents represent a class of Medicaid patients challenging decisions by the nursing homes in which they reside to discharge or transfer patients without notice or an opportunity for a hearing. The question is whether the State may be held responsible for those decisions so as to subject them to the strictures of the Fourteenth Amendment.
I
Congress established the Medicaid program m 1965 as Title XIX of the Social Security Act, 42 U. S. C. §1396 et seq. (1976 ed. and Supp. IV), to provide federal financial assist-anee to States that choose to reimburse certain medical costs incurred by the poor. As a participating State, New York provides Medicaid assistance to eligible persons who receive care in private nursing homes, which are designated as either “skilled nursing facilities” (SNF’s) or “health related facilities” (HRF’s). The latter provide less extensive, and generally less expensive, medical care than the former. Nursing homes chosen by Medicaid patients are directly reimbursed by the State for the reasonable cost of health care services, N. Y. Soc. Serv. Law §367-a.l (McKinney Supp. 1981).
An individual must meet two conditions to obtain Medicaid assistance. He must satisfy eligibility standards defined in terms of income or resources and he must seek medically necessary services. See 42 U. S. C. § 1396. To assure that the latter condition is satisfied, federal regulations require each nursing home to establish a utilization review committee (URC) of physicians whose functions include periodically assessing whether each patient is receiving the appropriate level of care, and thus whether the patient’s continued stay in the facility is justified. 42 CFR §§ 456.305, 456.406 (1981). If the URC determines that the patient should be discharged or transferred to a different level of care, either more or less intensive, it must notify the state agency responsible for administering Medicaid assistance. 42 CFR §§ 456.337(c), 456.437(d) (1981); 10 NYCRR §§ 416.9(f)(2), (3), 421.13(f)(2), (3) (1980).
At the time their complaint was filed, respondents Yaret-sky and Cuevas were patients in the American Nursing Home, an SNF located in New York City. Both were recipients of assistance under the Medicaid program. In December 1975 the nursing home’s URC decided that respondents did not need the care they were receiving and should be transferred to a lower level of care in an HRF. New York City officials, who were then responsible for administering the Medicaid program in the city, were notified of this decision and prepared to reduce or terminate payments to the nursing home for respondents’ care. Following administrative hearings, state social service officials affirmed the decision to discontinue benefits unless respondents accepted a transfer to an HRF providing a reduced level of care.
Respondents then commenced this suit, acting individually and on behalf of a class of Medicaid-eligible residents of New York nursing homes. Named as defendants were the Commissioners of the New York Department of Social Services and the Department of Health. Respondents alleged in part that the defendants had not afforded them adequate notice either of URC decisions and the reasons supporting them or of their right to an administrative hearing to challenge those decisions. Respondents maintained that these actions violated their rights under state and federal law and under the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. They sought injunctive relief and damages.
In January 1978 the District Court certified a class and issued a preliminary injunction, restraining the defendants from reducing or terminating Medicaid benefits without timely written notice to the patients, provided by state or local officials, of the reasons for the URC decision, the defendants’ proposed action,, and the patients’ right to an evi-dentiary hearing and continued benefits pending administrative resolution of the claim. App. 100-101, ¶2. The court’s accompanying opinion relied primarily on existing federal and state regulations. Id., at 112-115.
In March 1979 the District Court issued a pretrial order that identified a new claim raised by respondents that a panoply of procedural safeguards should apply to URC decisions transferring a patient to a higher, i. e., more intensive, level of medical care, as well as to decisions recommending transfers to a lower level of care. In addition, respondents claimed that such safeguards were required prior to transfers of any kind initiated by the nursing homes themselves or by the patients’ attending physicians. Id., at 157, 1II(J); 166-167, ¶ II(J). Respondents asserted that all of these transfers deprived patients of interests protected by the Fourteenth Amendment and were the product of “state action.”. Id., at 167, 1iII(J).
In October 1979 the District Court approved a consent judgment incorporating the relief previously awarded by the preliminary injunction and establishing additional substantive and procedural rights applicable to URC-initiated transfers to lower levels of care. Id., at 227-239. The consent judgment left several issues of law to be decided by the District Court. The most important, for our purposes, was “whether there is state action and a constitutional right to a pre-transfer evidentiary hearing in a patient transfer to a higher level of care and/or a patient transfer initiated by the facility or its agents.” Id., at 234-235, ¶VIII(A)(1). Ultimately, the District Court answered’ that question in respondents’ favor, although without elaborating its reasons. Id., at 240. The court permanently enjoined petitioners, as well as all SNF’s and 'HRF’s in the State, from permitting or ordering the discharge of class members, or their transfer to a different level of care, without providing advance written notice and an evidentiary hearing on “the validity and appropriateness of the proposed action.” Id., at 242-243.
The Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit affirmed that portion of the District Court’s judgment we have described above. 629 F. 2d 817 (1980). The court held that URC-initiated transfers from a lower level of care to a higher one, and all discharges and transfers initiated by the nursing homes or attending physicians, “involve state action affecting constitutionally protected property and liberty interests.” Id., at 820. The court premised its identification of state action on the fact that state authorities “responded” to the challenged transfers by adjusting the patients’ Medicaid benefits. Ibid. Citing our opinion in Jackson v. Metropolitan Edison Co., 419 U. S. 345, 351 (1974), the court viewed this response as establishing a sufficiently close, “nexus” between the State and either the nursing homes or the URC’s to justify treating their actions as those of the State itself.
We granted certiorari to consider the Court of Appeals’ conclusions about the nature of state action. 454 U. S. 815 (1981). We now reverse its judgment.
t-H
We first address a question raised by petitioners regarding our jurisdiction under Art. III. They contend that respondents, who were threatened with URC-initiated transfers to lower levels of care, are without standing to object either to URC-initiated transfers to higher levels of care or to transfers of any kind initiated by nursing homes or attending physicians. According to petitioners, respondents obtained complete relief in the consent judgment approved by the District Court in October 1979, which afforded substantive and procedural rights to patients who are the subject of URC-initiated transfers to lower levels of care. Since they have not been threatened with transfers of any other kind, they have no standing to object, and the District Court consequently was without Art. Ill jurisdiction to enter its judgment.
It is axiomatic that the judicial power conferred by Art. Ill may not be exercised unless the plaintiff shows “that he personally has suffered some actual or threatened injury as a result of the putatively illegal conduct of the defendant.” Gladstone, Realtors v. Village of Bellwood, 441 U. S. 91, 99 (1979). It is not enough that the conduct of which the plaintiff complains will injure someone. The complaining party must also show that he is within the class of persons who will be concretely affected. Nor does a plaintiff who has been subject to injurious conduct of one kind possess by virtue of that injury the necessary stake in litigating conduct of another kind, although similar, to which he has not been subject. See Moose Lodge No. 107 v. Irvis, 407 U. S. 163, 166-167 (1972).
Respondents appear to recognize these principles, but contend that although the October 1979 consent judgment halted the implementation of adverse URC decisions recommending discharge or transfer to lower levels of care, the URC determinations themselves were left undisturbed. These determinations reflected the judgment of physicians, chosen by the nursing homes, that respondents’ continued stay in their facilities was not medically necessary. Consequently, respondents maintain that they are subject to the serious threat that the nursing home administrators will reach similar conclusions and will themselves initiate patient discharges or transfers without adequate notice or hearings. Petitioners belittle this suggestion, noting that the consent judgment permanently enjoined all New York nursing homes, as well as petitioners, from implementing URC transfers to lower levels of care; this injunction bars the nursing homes from adopting the URC decisions as their own. Petitioners concede, however, that the consent judgment permits the nursing homes and respondents’ attending physicians to decide independently to initiate transfers.
We conclude that the threat of facility-initiated discharges or transfers to lower levels of care is sufficiently substantial that respondents have standing to challenge their procedural adequacy. In reaching this conclusion, we are mindful of “the primary conception that federal judicial power is to be exercised... only at the instance of one who is himself immediately harmed, or immediately threatened with harm, by the challenged action.” Poe v. Ullman, 367 U. S. 497, 504 (1961). Of course, “[o]ne does not have to await the consummation of threatened injury to obtain preventive relief.” Pennsylvania v. West Virginia, 262 U. S. 553, 593 (1923), quoted in Babbitt v. Farm Workers, 442 U. S. 289, 298 (1979). “[T]he question becomes whether any perceived threat to respondents is sufficiently real and immediate to show an existing controversy....” O'Shea v. Littleton, 414 U. S. 488, 496 (1974). Even accepting petitioners’ characterization of the scope of the permanent injunction embodied in the consent judgment, the nursing homes in which respondents reside remain free to determine independently that respondents’ continued stay at current levels of care is not medically necessary. The possibility that they will do so is not “imaginary or speculative.” Younger v. Harris, 401 U. S. 37, 42 (1971). In light of similar determinations already made by the committee of physicians chosen by the facilities to make such assessments, the threat is quite realistic. See O’Shea v. Littleton, supra, at 496 (“past wrongs are evidence bearing on whether there is real and immediate threat of repeated injury”).
We cannot conclude, however, that the threat of transfers to higher levels of care, whether initiated by the URC’s, the nursing homes, or attending physicians, is “of sufficient immediacy and reality,” Golden v. Zwickler, 394 U. S. 103, 108 (1969), that respondents have standing to seek an adjudication of the procedures attending such transfers. Nothing in the record available to this Court suggests that any of the individual respondents have been either transferred to more intensive care or threatened with such transfers. It is not inconceivable that respondents will one day confront this eventuality, but assessing the possibility now would “tak[e] us into the area of speculation and conjecture.” O’Shea v. Littleton, supra, at 497.
Moreover, the conditions under which such transfers occur are sufficiently different from those which respondents do have standing to challenge that any judicial assessment of their procedural adequacy would be wholly gratuitous and advisory. Transfers to higher levels of care are recommended when the patient’s medical needs cannot be satisfied by the facility in which he or she currently resides. Although respondents contend that all transfers threaten elderly patients with physical or psychological trauma, one may infer that refusal to accept a transfer to a higher level of care could itself be a decision with potentially traumatic consequences. The same cannot be said of discharges or transfers to less intensive care. In addition, transfers to more intensive care typically result in an increase in Medicaid benefits to match the increased cost of medically necessary care. Respondents’ constitutional attack on discharges or transfers to a lower level of care presupposes a deprivation of protected property interests. Finally, since July 1978, petitioners have adhered to a policy permitting Medicaid patients to refuse URC-recommended transfers to higher levels of care without jeopardizing their Medicaid benefits. App. 180, ¶56. No similar policy was in force with respect $o other transfers until the District Court mandated its adoption.
We conclude, therefore, that although respondents have standing to challenge facility-initiated discharges and transfers to lower levels of care, the District Court exceeded its authority in adjudicating the procedures governing transfers to higher levels of care. We turn now to the “state action” question presented by petitioners.
I — i > — l
The Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution provides in part that “[n]o State shall... deprive any person of life, liberty, or property without due process of law.” Since this Court’s decision in the Civil Rights Cases, 109 U. S. 3 (1883), “the principle has become firmly embedded in our constitutional law that the action inhibited by the first section of the Fourteenth Amendment is only such action as may fairly be said to be that of the States.” Shelley v. Kraemer, 334 U. S. 1, 13 (1948). “That Amendment erects no shield against merely private conduct, however discriminatory or wrongful.” Ibid. See Jackson v. Metropolitan Edison Co., 419 U. S. 345 (1974); Adickes v. S. H. Kress & Co., 398 U. S. 144 (1970).
Faithful adherence to the “state action” requirement of the Fourteenth Amendment requires careful attention to the gravamen of the plaintiff’s complaint. In this case, respondents objected to the involuntary discharge or transfer of Medicaid patients by their nursing homes without certain procedural safeguards. They have named as defendants state officials responsible for administering the Medicaid program in New York. These officials are also responsible for regulating nursing homes in the State, including those in which respondents were receiving care. But respondents are not challenging particular state regulations or procedures, and their arguments concede that the decision to discharge or transfer a patient originates not with state officials, but with nursing homes that are privately owned and operated. Their lawsuit, therefore, seeks to hold state officials liable for the actions of private parties, and the injunctive relief they have obtained requires the State to adopt regulations that will prohibit the private conduct of which they complain.
A
This case is obviously different from those cases in which the defendant is a private party and the question is whether his conduct has sufficiently received the imprimatur of the State so as to make it “state” action for purposes of the Fourteenth Amendment. See, e. g., Flagg Bros., Inc. v. Brooks, 436 U. S. 149 (1978); Jackson v. Metropolitan Edison Co., supra; Moose Lodge No. 107 v. Irvis, 407 U. S. 163 (1972); Adickes v. S. H. Kress & Co., supra. It also differs from other “state action” cases in which the challenged conduct consists of enforcement of state laws or regulations by state officials who are themselves parties in the lawsuit; in such cases the question typically is whether the private motives which triggered the enforcement of those laws can fairly be attributed to the State. See, e. g., Peterson v. City of Greenville, 373 U. S. 244 (1963). But both these types of cases shed light upon the analysis necessary to resolve the present case.
First, although it is apparent that nursing homes in New York are extensively regulated, “[t]he mere fact that a business is subject to state regulation does not by itself convert its action into that of the State for purposes of the Fourteenth Amendment.” Jackson v. Metropolitan Edison Co., 419 U. S., at 350. The complaining party must also show that “there is a sufficiently close nexus between the State and the challenged action of the regulated entity so that the action of the latter may be fairly treated as that of the State itself.” Id., at 351. The purpose of this requirement is to assure that constitutional standards are invoked only when it can be said that the State is responsible for the specific conduct of which the plaintiff complains. The importance of this assurance is evident when, as in this case, the complaining party seeks to hold the State liable for the actions of private parties.
Second, although the factual setting of each case will be significant, our precedents indicate that a State normally can be held responsible for a private decision only when it has exercised coercive power or has provided such significant encouragement, either overt or covert, that the choice must in daw be deemed to be that of the State. Flagg Bros., Inc. v. Brooks, supra, at 166; Jackson v. Metropolitan Edison Co., supra, at 357; Moose Lodge No. 107 v. Irvis, supra, at 173; Adickes v. S. H. Kress & Co., supra, at 170. Mere approval of or acquiescence in the initiatives of a private party is not sufficient to justify holding the State responsible for those initiatives under the terms of the Fourteenth Amendment. See Flagg Bros., supra, at 164-165; Jackson v. Metropolitan Edison Co., supra, at 357.
Third, the required nexus may be present if the private entity has exercised powers that are “traditionally the exclusive prerogative of the State.” Jackson v. Metropolitan Edison Co., supra, at 353; see Flagg Bros., Inc. v. Brooks, supra, at 157-161.
B
Analyzed in the light of these principles, the Court of Appeals’ finding of state action cannot stand. The court reasoned that state action was present in the discharge or transfer decisions implemented by the nursing homes because the State responded to those decisions by adjusting the patient’s Medicaid benefits. Respondents, however, do not challenge the adjustment of benefits, but the discharge or transfer of patients to lower levels of care without adequate notice or hearings. That the State responds to such actions by adjusting benefits does not render it responsible for those actions. The decisions about which respondents complain are made by physicians and nursing home administrators, all of whom are concededly private parties. There is no suggestion that those decisions were influenced in any degree by the State’s obligation to adjust benefits in conformity with changes in the cost of medically necessary care.
Respondents do not rest on the Court of Appeals’ rationale, however. They argue that the State “affiraiatively commands” the summary discharge or transfer of Medicaid patients who are thought to be inappropriately placed in their nursing facilities. Were this characterization accurate, we would have a different question before us. However, our review of the statutes and regulations identified by respondents does not support respondents’ characterization of them.
As our earlier summary of the Medicaid program explained, a patient must meet two essehtial conditions in order to obtain financial assistance. He must satisfy eligibility criteria defined in terms of income and resources and he must seek medically necessary services. 42 U. S. C. § 1396. To assure that nursing home services are medically necessary, federal law requires that a physician so certify at the time the Medicaid patient is admitted and periodically thereafter. 42 U. S. C. § 1396b(g)(l) (1976 ed. and Supp. IV). New York requires that the physician complete a “long term care placement form” devised by the Department of Health, called the DMS-1. 10 NYCRR §§415.1(a), 420.1(b) (1980). A completed form provides, inter alia, a numerical score corresponding to the physician’s assessment of the patient’s mental and physical health. As petitioners note, however, the physicians, and not the forms, make the decision about whether the patient’s care is medically necessary. A physician can authorize a patient’s admission to a nursing facility despite a “low” score on the form. See 10 NYCRR §§415.1(a)(2), 420.1(b)(2) (1978). We cannot say that the State, by requiring completion of a form, is responsible for the physician’s decision.
In any case, respondents’ complaint is about nursing home decisions to discharge or transfer, not to admit, Medicaid patients. But we are not satisfied that the State is responsible for those decisions either. The regulations cited by respondents réquire SNF’s and HRF’s “to make all efforts possible to transfer patients to the appropriate level of care or home as indicated by the patient’s medical condition or needs,” 10 NYCRR §§416.9(d)(1), 421.13(d)(1) (1980). The nursing homes are required to complete patient care assessment forms designed by the State and “provide the receiving facility or provider with a current copy of same at the time of discharge to an alternate level of care facility or home.” 10 NYCRR §§416.9(d)(4), 421.13(d)(4) (1980).
These regulations do not require the nursing homes to rely on the forms in making discharge or transfer decisions, nor do they demonstrate that the State is responsible for the decision to discharge or transfer particular patients. Those decisions ultimately turn on medical judgments made by private parties according to professional standards that are not established by the State. This case, therefore, is not unlike Polk County v. Dodson, 454 U. S. 312 (1981), in which the question was whether a public defender acts “under color of” state law within the meaning of 42 U. S. C. § 1983 when representing an indigent defendant in a state criminal proceeding. Although the public defender was employed by the State and appointed by the State to represent the respondent, we concluded that “[tjhis assignment entailed functions and obligations in no way dependent on state authority.” Id., at 318. The decisions made by the public defender in the course of representing his client were framed in accordance with professional canons of ethics, rather than dictated by any rule of conduct imposed by the State. The same is true of nursing home decisions to discharge or transfer particular patients because the care they are receiving is medically inappropriate.
Respondents next point to regulations which, they say, impose a range of penalties on nursing homes that fail to discharge or transfer patients whose continued stay is inappropriate. One regulation excludes from participation in the Medicaid program health care providers who “[fjumished items or services that are substantially in excess of the beneficiary’s needs.” 42 CFR §420.101(a)(2) (1981). The State is also authorized to fine health care providers who violate applicable regulations. 10 NYCRR §414.18 (1978). As we have previously concluded, however, those regulations themselves do not dictate the decision to discharge or transfer in a particular case. Consequently, penalties imposed for violating the regulations add nothing to respondents’ claim of state action.
As an alternative position, respondents argue that even if the State does not command the transfers at issue, it reviews and either approves or rejects them on the merits. The regulations cited by respondents will not bear this construction. Although the State requires the nursing homes to complete patient care assessment forms and file them with state Medicaid officials, 10 NYCRR §§415.1(a), 420.1(b) (1978), and although federal law requires that state officials review these assessments, 42 CFR §§456.271, 456.372 (1981), nothing in the regulations authorizes the officials to approve or disapprove decisions either to retain or discharge particular patients, and petitioners specifically disclaim any such responsibility. Instead, the State is obliged to approve or disapprove continued payment of Medicaid benefits after a change in the patient’s need for services. See 42 CFR §435.916 (1981). Adjustments in benefit levels in response to a decision to discharge or transfer a patient does not constitute approval or enforcement of that decision. As we have already concluded, this degree of involvement is too slim a basis on which to predicate a finding of state action in the decision itself.
Finally, respondents advance the rather vague generalization that such a relationship exists between the State and the nursing homes it regulates that the State may be considered a joint participant in the homes’ discharge and transfer of Medicaid patients. For this proposition they rely upon Burton v. Wilmington Parking Authority, 365 U. S. 715 (1961). Respondents argue that state subsidization of the operating and capital costs of the facilities, payment of the medical expenses of more than 90% of the patients in the facilities, and the licensing of the facilities by the State, taken together convert the action of the homes into “state” action. But accepting all of these assertions as true, we are nonetheless unable to agree that the State is responsible for the decisions challenged by respondents. As we have previously held, privately owned enterprises providing services that the State would not necessarily provide, even though they are extensively regulated, do not fall within the ambit of Burton. Jackson v. Metropolitan Edison Co., 419 U. S., at 357-358. That programs undertaken by the State result in substantial funding of the activities of a private entity is no more persuasive than the fact of regulation of such an entity in demonstrating that the State is responsible for decisions made by the entity in the course of its business.
We are also unable to conclude that the nursing homes perform a function that has been “traditionally the exclusive prerogative of the State.” Jackson v. Metropolitan Edison Co., supra, at 353. Respondents’ argument in this regard is premised on their assertion that both the Medicaid statute and the New York Constitution make the State responsible for providing every Medicaid patient with nursing home services. The state constitutional provisions cited by respondents, however, do no more than authorize the legislature to provide funds for the care of the needy. See N. Y. Const., Art. XVII, §§ 1, 3. They do not mandate the provision of any particular care, much less long-term nursing care. Similarly, the Medicaid statute requires that the States provide funding for skilled nursing services as a condition to the receipt of federal moneys. 42 U. S. C. §§ 1396a(a)(13)(B), 1396d(a)(4)(A) (1976 ed. and Supp. IV). It does not require that the States provide the services themselves. Even if respondents’ characterization of the State’s duties were correct, however, it would not follow that decisions made in the day-to-day administration of a nursing home are the kind of decisions traditionally and exclusively made by the sovereign for and on behalf of the public. Indeed, respondents make no such claim, nor could they.
IV
We conclude that respondents have failed to establish “state action” in the nursing homes’ decisions to discharge or transfer Medicaid patients to lower levels of care. Consequently, they have failed to prove that petitioners have violated rights secured by the Fourteenth Amendment. The contrary judgment of the Court of Appeals is accordingly
Reversed.
[For opinion of Justice White concurring in the judgment, see ante, p. 843.]
N. Y. Soc. Serv. Law § 365-a.2(b) (McKinney Supp. 1982). Title XIX requires as a condition to the receipt of federal funds that participating States provide financial assistance to eligible persons in need of “skilled nursing facility services.” 42 U. S. C. §§ 1396a(a)(13)(B), 1396d(a)(4)(A) (1976 ed. and Supp. IV). Federal assistance is also available to States that choose to reimburse the cost of “intermediate care facility services.” § 1396d(a)(15). See §§ 1396d(c), (f). New York regulations refer to facilities that provide the latter type of care as HRF’s. 10 NYCRR § 414.1(a) (1981).
Compare 10 NYCRR §§416.1-416.2 with §§421.1-421.2 (1978). The parties have stipulated that Medicaid reimbursement rates for HRF’s are generally lower than those for SNF’s. See App. 169, ¶ 12.
Congress has provided that federal funds supplied to assist in reimbursing nursing home costs will be reduced unless the participating State provides for the periodic review of patient care “to safeguard against unnecessary utilization of such care and services and to assure that payments... are not in excess of reasonable charges consistent with efficiency, economy, and quality of care.” 42 U. S. C. § 1396a(a)(30). See §§ 1896b(g)(l)(C), 1396b(i)(4), 1395x00.
These committees must be composed of private physicians who are not directly responsible for the patient whose care is being reviewed. 42 CFR §§456.306, 456.406 (1981). Under New York law, the committee members may not be employed by the SNF or HRF and may not have a financial interest in any residential care facility. 10 NYCRR §§ 416.9(b)(2), 421.13(b)(2) (1980).
If the committee determines that a discharge or transfer is called for, it must afford the patient’s attending physician an opportunity to present his views, although the committee’s decision ultimately is final. 42 CFR §§ 456.336(f), (h), 456.436(f), (i) (1981). See 10 NYCRR §§ 731.11, 741.14 (1980).
The class was defined to include patients “who have been, are or will be threatened or forced to leave their nursing homes and have their Medicaid benefits reduced or terminated as a result of ‘Utilization Review’ committee findings alleging that they are not eligible for the level of nursing home care they receive.” App. 19, ¶ 1. The complaint also named as a plaintiff the New York chapter of the Gray Panthers, an organization that “has among its objectives the development of a health care system for the elderly which provides quality health care to all persons.” Id., at 21, ¶ 5.
The complaint also alleged that URC transfers to lower levels of care and corresponding reductions in Medicaid benefits were arbitrary and were caused by improperly constituted URC’s that acted without adequate written criteria and failed to afford adequate notice either to the patients or their attending physicians.
Ten individuals, who are also respondents in this Court, later intervened in the suit. Each intervenor was a resident of either an SNF or an HRF and had been the subject of a URC decision recommending transfer to a lower level of care. The intervenors all were afforded administrative hearings resulting in affirmance of petitioners’ decisions to reduce or terminate Medicaid benefits if the intervenors did not follow URC recommendations.
The class was defined to include “all persons who are residents in skilled nursing or intermediate care facilities in the State of New York and who, following utilization review recommendations and/or fair hearings, are determined by defendants to be ineligible to receive the level of care at the facilities in which they reside and to be subject to reduction or termination of their Medicaid benefits.” Id., at 45.
The court also required the defendants to afford class members access to all pertinent case files and medical records. Id., at 101-102. The Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit upheld portions of the injunction challenged by petitioners. Yaretsky v. Blum, 592 F. 2d 65 (1979).
The pretrial order also redefined the class to include “all residents of skilled nursing and health related nursing facilities in New York State who are recipients of Medicaid benefits.” App. 151.
The court modified the injunction by relieving petitioners of obligations that, in the opinion of federal authorities, would render the State ineligible for M.edicaid funding. 629 F. 2d, at 822. The court also reversed the District Court’s holding that state administrators were precluded by due process or state law from rejecting a hearing officer’s recommendation favorable to a patient without reading a verbatim transcript of the hearing and the exhibits. Id., at 822-825. This holding is not before us.
Respondents suggest that members of the class they represent have been transferred to higher levels of care as a result of URC decisions. Respondents, however, “must allege and show that they personally have been injured, not that injury has been suffered by other, unidentified members of the class to which they belong and which they purport to represent.” Warth v. Seldin, 422 U. S. 490, 502 (1975). Unless these individuals “can thus demonstrate the requisite case or controversy between themselves personally and [petitioners], ‘none may seek relief on behalf of himself or any other member of the class.’ O’Shea v. Littleton, 414 U. S. 488, 494 (1974).” Ibid.
“From the beginning of this lawsuit the respondents’ challenge has been to the involuntary discharge or transfer of Medicaid patients from and by their nursing facilities without adequate safeguards.... Thus, the claim before this Court is whether state action attaches to a nursing facility’s summary discharge or transfer of the patient....” Brief for Respondents 21-22 (emphasis in original).
A completed DMS-1 form provides a summary of the patient’s medical condition. Five of the eleven questions devoted to this subject require the assignment of numerical values. See 10 NYCRR App. C-l (1978). A range of numerical values to be used in completing these questions are set forth in a second form, called the DMS-9. See ibid,. The dissent’s discussion of the DMS-9 suggests that completion of the DMS-1 form is a purely mechanical exercise that does not require the exercise of independent medical judgment. The dissent’s discussion is incomplete. The other six questions on the DMS-1 ask the physician such questions as whether the patient requires daily supervision by a registered nurse, whether complications would arise without skilled nursing care, whether a program of therapy is necessary, and if so what kind, whether the patient should be considered for different levels of care, and whether the patient is medically qualified for the level of care he or she is receiving. The physician brings to bear his own medical judgment in answering these questions; their placement on the form would be inexplicable if the numerical scores were dispositive.
The dissent belittles this fact by noting that the decision to depart from the form in admitting a patient is made by a physician member of the nursing home’s URC, and that such persons are “part and parcel of the statutory cost control process.” Post, at 1022. This signifies nothing more than the fact, disputed by no one, that the State requires utilization review in order to reduce unnecessary Medicaid expenditures. It remains true that physician members of the URC’s are not employed by the State and, more important, render medical judgments concerning the patient’s health needs that the State does not prescribe and for which it is not responsible; We must also emphasize, of course, that we are ultimately concerned with decisions to transfer patients who have already been admitted.
Apropos of this relevant issue, the dissent observes, post, at 1023, that once a patient has been admitted, the State requires, as a condition to the disbursement of Medicaid funds, that within five days after admission the nursing home operator assess the patient’s status according to standards contained in the DMS-1 and DMS-9 forms. As the dissent is also aware, post, at 1023, n. 10, a physician member of the URC has the power to determine that the patient needs the level of care he is receiving despite an adverse score on
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
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 Burton
delivered the opinion of the Court.
The Renegotiation Act, in time of crisis, presented to this nation a new legislative solution of a major phase of the problem of national defense against world-wide aggression. Through its contribution to our production program it sought to enable us to take the leading part in winning World War II on an unprecedented scale of total global warfare without abandoning our traditional faith in and reliance upon private enterprise and individual initiative devoted to the public welfare.
In each of the three cases before us the principal issue is the constitutionality, on its face, of the Renegotiation Act insofar as it is authority for the recovery of the excessive profits sought to be recovered by the United States from the respective petitioners. In each case the secondary issue is whether the failure of the respective petitioners to petition the Tax Court for a redetermination of the amount, if any, of their excessive profits excludes from consideration here the coverage of the Act, the amount of the profits and other comparable issues which could have been presented to the Tax Court. In each of these cases the District Court has held that the Act was constitutional and that, by failure to petition the Tax Court for their redetermination, the existing orders have become final as claimed by the Government. Each Circuit Court of Appeals has affirmed, unanimously, the judgment appealed to it. We agree with the courts below.
In each of these cases the United States obtained a judgment for a sum alleged to be owed to it pursuant to a determination of excessive profits under the Renegotiation Act. The determinations of excessive profits in the respective cases were made by the Under Secretary of War or by the War Contracts Price Adjustment Board after the Revenue Act of 1943 had been approved, February 25, 1944. That Act contained, in its Title VII, the so-called Second Renegotiation Act which included provisions for the filing with the Tax Court of petitions for the redeterminations of excess profits. None of these petitioners, however, filed such a petition with the Tax Court. On the other hand, the respective petitioners have relied upon their claims that, as a matter of law, the Renegotiation Act is unconstitutional on its face insofar as it purports to authorize the judgments which have been taken against the respective petitioners. The petitioners contend also that their failures to file petitions with the Tax Court have not foreclosed their respective rights to contest here the coverage of the Act, the amount of the excess profits found against them and other comparable issues which they might have presented to the Tax Court.
NO. 105 (THE LICHTER CASE).
In May, 1945, the United States filed its complaint in the District Court of the United States for the Southern District of Ohio against the petitioners, Jacob Lichter and Jennie L. Lichter, engaged in the construction business in Cincinnati, Ohio, under the name of the Southern Fireproofing Company, a copartnership. The complaint was founded upon the determination by the Under Secretary of War, dated October 20, 1944, that $70,000 of the profits realized by petitioners during the calendar year 1942- from nine subcontracts, executed in 1942 for a total price of $710,224.16, were, under the Renegotiation Act, excessive profits. The complaint showed that the petitioners were entitled to a tax credit of $42,980.61 against such excessive profits. It alleged, moreover, that the petitioners had not, within the required period, petitioned the Tax Court for a redetermination of the order in question and had not paid or otherwise eliminated the amount of $27,019.39 thus due to the United States.
The petitioners admitted that the Under Secretary had made the determination as alleged; that if his order were valid the petitioners were entitled to the tax credit specified; and that they had not paid the sum demanded nor had they filed a petition with the Tax Court for a rede-termination of the excessive profits, if any. They put in issue, on specifically stated grounds, the constitutionality of the Renegotiation Act insofar as it might be authority for the recovery of the profits sought to be recovered, and they put in issue the applicability to them of any requirement that they seek in the Tax Court a redetermination of the profits which they had been ordered to repay to the United States. They alleged also that: of the nine subcontracts which were made the basis of renegotiation, all were executed during the calendar year 1942; four were executed before April 28, 1942, the date of the original Renegotiation Act; none contained clauses permitting or requiring their renegotiation; only two of them were for amounts in excess of $100,000 each; these two were among those which had been executed before April 28, 1942; and no excessive profits had been in fact earned by the petitioners during 1942. Finally they alleged that the several contracts referred to were subcontracts entered into under prime contracts which had been awarded by a department of the Government as the result of competitive bidding for the construction of buildings and facilities and the subcontracts themselves had been obtained by petitioners after further competitive bidding. For these and other reasons stated in the answer the contracts were claimed to be exempt from renegotiation.
The United States moved for judgment on the pleadings and, in the alternative, for summary judgment. Affidavits were filed in' support of those motions. These included particularly the comprehensive affidavits of Robert P. Patterson, then Under Secretary of War, and of H. Struve Hensel, then Assistant Secretary of the Navy. These affidavits set forth the general background of the Renegotiation Act and the basis for- claiming that the renegotiation of war contracts was necessary in order to sustain this nation’s share of the burden of winning World War II. Counterparts of these two affidavits were filed in each of the other cases before us. The petitioners, on the other hand, moved to dismiss the complaint on the grounds that it failed to state a claim upon which relief could be granted and that the profits in question were exempt from the Act.
The District Court made findings of fact substantially as stated in the complaint and admitted in the answer. It concluded that there was no genuine issue as to any material fact and that the United States was entitled to judgment as a matter of law for $27,019.39, with interest at six percent per annum from November 6,1944. 68 F. Supp. 19. The Circuit Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit affirmed the judgment. It held expressly that the Renegotiation Act was valid on its face and that the petitioners, by reason of their failure to petition the Tax Court for a redetermination of the amount of the excessive profits, if any, were barred from making their other attacks on the Secretary’s determination of such excessive profits. 160 F. 2d 329. Because of the basic significance of the constitutional questions involved we granted certiorari. 331 U. S. 802.
NO. 74 (THE POWNALL CASE).
In September, 1945, the United States filed its complaint in the District Court of the United States for the Southern District of California against the petitioners, A. V. Pownall, Grace M. Pownall, and Henes-Morgan Machinery Company, Limited, a California corporation, all three doing business in Los Angeles, California, as co-partners under the name of General Products Company. The record indicates that they were there engaged in the production of precision parts, machinery and tools for use by war contractors. The complaint was founded upon a determination made by the Under Secretary of War, on behalf of the War Contracts Price Adjustment Board, dated December 27, 1944, to the effect that $628,373.14 of the profits realized by petitioners during the calendar year 1943 on their contracts and subcontracts, subject to renegotiation pursuant to the Renegotiation Act, were excessive profits. The complaint showed that the petitioners were entitled to a tax credit of $514,663.95 against such profits. It alleged, moreover, that the petitioners had not, within the required period, petitioned the Tax Court for a redetermination of the order in question and had not paid the sum of $113,709.19 thus claimed by the United States. The petitioners admitted that the Under Secretary had made the determination as alleged; that the Board had adopted his order; that the appropriate tax credit was as alleged; that no petition for redetermination had been filed with the Tax Court; that the time for filing had expired; and that no payment of the amount claimed had been made. The petitioners alleged, however, that the Renegotiation Act was invalid on its face on numerous specifically stated constitutional grounds; that the Under Secretary’s order was invalid in that it was based on undisclosed data and contained no findings; and that no single contract under consideration exceeded in amount the sum of $99,000.
The United States moved for judgment on the pleadings and, in the alternative, for summary judgment. The petitioners did the same. Under the stipulations of the parties there were no disputed issues of fact and the only questions left for decision were those as to the constitutional validity of the Act and as to its interpretation if found to be valid.
The District Court denied the motions of both parties. However, ruling on the merits of the cause thus before it, it found the facts to be substantially as alleged in the complaint and as stipulated. It held the Act to be valid on its face and held the unappealed determination of excessive profits to be final. It rendered judgment for the United States for $121,043.39, evidently representing $113,709.19, with interest at six percent per annum from March 13, 1945. 65 F. Supp. 147, and see findings of fact, conclusions of law and judgment of the court. The Circuit Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit affirmed the judgment. It followed its earlier decision in Spaulding v. Douglas Aircraft Co., 154 F. 2d 419, in upholding the constitutionality of the Act and expressly holding that the petitioners, by not having petitioned the Tax Court for relief, had failed to exhaust their administrative remedies. Accordingly, it held that the District Court was without jurisdiction to consider the petitioners’ contentions as to the coverage of the Act. 159 F. 2d 73. We granted certiorari. 331 U. S. 802.
NO. 9 5 (THE ALEXANDER CASE).
In August, 1945, the United States filed its complaint in the District Court of the United States for the District of Massachusetts against the petitioner, Alexander Wool Combing Company, a Massachusetts corporation doing business at Lowell, Massachusetts, and there engaged in the business of scouring wool and combing it into tops and noils for commissions paid to it by the owners of the wool. The complaint was founded upon two determinations by the Under Secretary of War, both dated September 6, 1944. One determined that $22,500 of the profits realized by the petitioner during its fiscal year ended June 30, 1942, and the other that $45,000 of the profits realized by the petitioner during its fiscal year ended June 30, 1943, under its contracts and subcontracts which were alleged to be subject to the provisions of the Renegotiation Act, were excessive. The complaint showed that the petitioner was entitled to a tax credit of $15,020.80 against such excessive profits for the fiscal year ended June 30, 1942, and of $36,596.42 against those for the fiscal year ended June 30, 1943. The complaint alleged, moreover, that the petitioner had not, within the required periods, petitioned the Tax Court for a redeter-mination of either of the orders in question; that the respective periods for filing such petitions had expired; and that the petitioner had not paid, or otherwise eliminated, the amount of $15,882.78 thus due to the United States. The petitioner admitted the factual allegations of the complaint but denied that any amount was owing to the United States. It claimed that the determinations made by the Under Secretary were void because made without due process of law and were unenforcible as to the petitioner because, as applied to it, they were unconstitutional for several specifically stated reasons.
The United States moved for judgment on the pleadings or, in the alternative, for summary judgment. In support of these motions the above-mentioned affidavits of Robert P. Patterson, Under Secretary of War, and of H. Struve Hensel, Assistant Secretary of the Navy, and several others were filed. Evidence both oral and in affidavit form was submitted in opposition. The District Court stated in its opinion, 66 F. Supp. 389, 391, that the petitioner “had no direct contracts with any department or agency of the United States. It combed wool for different private companies. It knew that some of the wool it combed for the companies was destined for use in government contracts, but it was and is ignorant as to the destination of other wool.” That court, nevertheless, rendered judgment in favor of the United States, for $15,882.78, with interest at six percent per annum from September 6, 1944. It held that the war powers of Congress were sufficient to enable it to authorize the recapture of excessive profits such as these; that the standard of “excessive profits” was sufficient to satisfy the constitutional limitations on the power of Congress to delegate authority; that any defects in the departmental proceedings were immaterial in view of the opportunity afforded the petitioner for a trial de novo and for a redetermination of excessive profits, if any, in the Tax Court; and that petitioner’s defenses on the ground of lack of coverage or of retroactivity of the application of the Renegotiation Act to the petitioner were lost to it by its failure to seek relief from the Tax Court. The Circuit Court of Appeals for the First Circuit said, per curiam: “We think the court below adequately covered all the issues in this case and we affirm its judgment upon the grounds and for the reasons set forth in its opinion....” 160 F. 2d 103. We granted certiorari. 331U. S.802.
THE BACKGROUND.
We have two main issues before us: (1) the constitutionality of the Renegotiation Act on its face and (2) the finality of the determination of the excessive profits made under it in the absence of a petition, filed with the Tax Court within the required time, seeking a redetermination of those profits. In the Lichter case we have issues as to profits made in the calendar year 1942, in the Pownall case as to profits made in the calendar year 1943, and in the Alexander case as to certain profits made in the fiscal year ended June 30, 1942, and as to other profits made in the fiscal year ended June 30, 1943. In each case we uphold the constitutionality of the Act as providing the necessary authorization for the judgments rendered. We also accept the finality given by the courts below to the administrative determinations made of the excessive profits, although the statutory situation as a basis for the finality of such determinations is not precisely the same in each case. By reason of the finality thus attached to the determinations made as to excessive profits in these cases, we do not pass upon the issues attempted to be raised here as to the coverage of the Act, the amount of the profits, or other matters which the petitioners might have presented to the Tax Court but did not.
In procedure which affects property rights as directly and substantially as that authorized by the Renegotiation Act, the governmental action authorized, although resting on valid constitutional grounds, is capable of gross abuse. The very finality of the administrative determinations here upheld emphasizes the seriousness of the injustices which can result from the abuse of the large powers vested in the administrative officials. We do not minimize the seriousness of complaints which thus may be cut off without relief in the name of the necessities of war and for the sake of the defense of the nation when its survival is at stake. We re-emphasize that, under these conditions, there is great need both for adequate channels of procedural due process and for careful conformity to those channels. In total war it is necessary that a civilian make sacrifices of his property and profits with at least the same fortitude as that with which a drafted soldier makes his traditional sacrifices of comfort, security and life itself. Within procedure thus authorized by the Constitution, the Congress and the Administration, and here affirmed, resulting injustices can and should be carefully examined and as far as possible relieved. In war both the raising and the support of the armed forces are essential. Both require mobilization and control under the authority of Congress. Both are entitled also to such postwar relief as may be authorized by Congress.
The Renegotiation Act was developed as a major wartime policy of Congress comparable to that of the Selective Service Act. The authority of Congress to authorize each of them sprang from its war powers. Each was a part of a national policy adopted in time of crisis in the conduct of total global warfare by a nation dedicated to the preservation, practice and development of the maximum measure of individual freedom consistent with the unity of effort essential to success.
With the advent of such warfare, mobilized property in the form of equipment and supplies became as essential as mobilized manpower. Mobilization of effort extended not only to the uniformed armed services but to the entire population. Both Acts were a form of mobilization. The language of the Constitution authorizing such measures is broad rather than restrictive. It says “The Congress shall have Power... To raise and support Armies, but no appropriation of Money to that Use shall be for a longer Term than two Years;... Art. I, § 8, Cl. 12. This places emphasis upon the supporting as well as upon the raising of armies. The power of Congress as to both is inescapably express, not merely implied. The conscription of manpower is a more vital interference with the life, liberty and property of the individual than is the conscription of his property or his profits or any substitute for such conscription of them. For his hazardous, full-time service in the armed forces a soldier is paid whatever the Government deems to be a fair but modest compensation. Comparatively speaking, the manufacturer of war goods undergoes no such hazard to his personal safety as does a front-line soldier and yet the Renegotiation Act gives him far better assurance of a reasonable return for his wartime services than the Selective Service Act and all its related legislation give to the men in the armed forces. The constitutionality of the conscription of manpower for military service is beyond question. The constitutional power of Congress to support the armed forces with equipment and supplies is no less clear and sweeping. It is valid, a fortiori.
In view of this power “To raise and support Armies,...” and the power granted in the same Article of the Constitution “To make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers,...” the only question remaining is whether the Renegotiation Act was a law “necessary and proper for carrying into Execution” the war powers of Congress and especially its power to support armies.
It is impossible here to picture adequately all that might have been “necessary and proper” in 1942-1944 to meet the unprecedented responsibility facing Congress in this field. We do, however, catch a glimpse of it in authoritative, contemporaneous descriptions of the situation. Accordingly, we have set forth in the margin excerpts from the message of the President to the Congress upon the State of the Union, January 6, 1942, from a report of the Special Committee of the Senate Investigating the National Defense Program under the chairmanship of Senator Harry S. Truman, of Missouri, March 30, 1943, and from the affidavit of Robert P. Patterson, Under Secretary of War, dated August 3, 1945, in the form filed in each of the three cases before us.
The above-mentioned excerpts describe a demand for production of war supplies in proportions previously unimagined. They call for production in a volume never before approximated and at an undreamed of speed. The results amply demonstrated the infinite value of that production in winning the war. It proved to be a sine qua non condition of the survival of the nation. Not only was it “necessary and proper” for Congress to provide for such production in the successful conduct of the war, but it was well within the outer limits of the constitutional discretion of Congress and the President to do so under the terms of the Renegotiation Act. Accordingly, the question before us as to the constitutionality of the Renegotiation Act is not that of the power of the government to renegotiate and recapture war profits. The only questions are whether the particular method of renegotiation and the administrative procedure prescribed conformed to the constitutional limitations under which Congress was permitted to exercise its basic powers.
Our first question relates to the method of adjusting net compensation for war services through the compulsory “renegotiation” of profits under existing contracts between private parties, including recourse to unilateral orders for payments into the Treasury of the United States of such portions of those profits as were determined by the administrative officials of that Government to be “excessive profits.” There were added the limitations that the contracts were for war goods in time of war, the ultimate payment for which -was, in any event, to come from the Government and that, at the time of this impingement of the Renegotiation Act upon them, the contracts must not have been completed to the extent that final payments had been made on them.
One approach to the question of the constitutional power of Congress over the profits on these contracts is to recognize that Congress, in time of war, unquestionably has the fundamental power, previously discussed, to conscript men and to requisition the properties necessary and proper to enable it to raise and support its Armies. Congress furthermore has a primary obligation to bring about whatever production of war equipment and supplies shall be necessary to win a war. Given this mission, Congress then had to choose between possible alternatives for its performance. In the light of the compelling necessity for the immediate production of vast quantities of war goods, the first alternative, all too clearly evident to the world, was that which Congress did not choose, namely, that of mobilizing the productive capacity of the nation into a governmental unit on the totalitarian model. This would have meant the conscription of property and of workmen. It would have meant the raising of supplies for the Armies in much the same manner as that in which Congress raised the manpower for such Armies. Already the nation had some units of production of military supplies in the form of arsenals, navy yards, and in the increasing number of governmentally owned, if not operated, war material plants. The production of the atomic bombs was one example of a war industry owned and operated exclusively by the Government. Faced with this ironical alternative of converting the nation in effect into a totalitarian state in order to preserve itself from totalitarian domination, that alternative was steadfastly rejected. The plan for Renegotiation of Profits which was chosen in its place by Congress appears in its true light as the very symbol of a free people united in reaching unequalled productive capacity and yet retaining the maximum of individual freedom consistent with a general mobilization of effort.
Somewhat crude in its initial statutory simplicity, the Renegotiation Act developed rapidly as the demand for war production increased beyond precedent. First approved April 28, 1942, less than five months after our declaration of war, the Act was adjusted and strengthened in its effectiveness and fairness by the numerous amendments made to it. The nation previously had experienced different, but fundamentally comparable, federal regulation of civilian liberty and property in proportion to the increasing demands of modern warfare.
The demands for war equipment and supplies were so great in volume, were for such new types of products, were subject to so many changes in specifications and were subject to such pressing demands for delivery that accurate advance estimates of cost were out of the question. Laying aside as undesirable the complete governmental ownership and operation of the production of war goods of all kinds, many alternative solutions were attempted. Often these called for capital expenditures by the Government in building new plant facilities. Adhering, however, to the policy of private operation of these facilities, Congress and the Administration sought to promote a policy of wide distribution of prime contracts and subcontracts, even to comparatively high cost marginal producers of unfamiliar products. Congress sought to do everything possible to retain and encourage individual initiative in the world-wide race for the largest and quickest production of the best equipment and supplies. It clung to its faith in private enterprise. The problem was to find a fair means of compensation for the services rendered and the goods purchased. Contracts were awarded by negotiation wherever competitive bidding no longer was practicable. Contracts were let at cost-plus-a-fixed-fee. Escalator clauses were inserted. Price ceilings were established. A flat percentage limit on the profits in certain lines of production was tried. Excess profits taxes were imposed. Appeals were made for voluntary refunds of excessive profits. However, experience with these alternatives convinced the Government that contracts at fixed initial prices still provided the best incentive to production.
On February 16, 1942, this Court in United States v. Bethlehem Steel Corp., 315 U. S. 289, pointed to the possibility of legislative relief. It said (p. 309):
“The problem of war profits is not new. In this country, every war we have engaged in has provided opportunities for profiteering and they have been too often scandalously seized. See Hearings before the House Committee on Military Affairs on H. R. 3 and H. R. 5293, 74th Cong., 1st Sess., 590-598. To meet this recurrent evil, Congress has at times taken various measures. It has authorized price fixing. It has placed a fixed limit on profits, or has recaptured high profits through taxation. It has expressly reserved for the Government the right to cancel contracts after they have been made. Pursuant to Congressional authority, the Government has requisitioned existing production facilities or itself built and operated new ones to provide needed war materials. It may be that one or some or all of these measures should be utilized more comprehensively, or that still other measures must be devised. But if the Executive is in need of additional laws by which to protect the nation against war profiteering, the Constitution has given to Congress, not to this Court, the power to make them.”
Finally the compulsory renegotiation of contracts was authorized. The procedure outlined in the Original Renegotiation Act, April 28, 1942, was rapidly perfected. As it developed it required advance consents to such renegotiation to be written into the respective contracts and subcontracts for war goods prior to their award and finally it made express provision for a redetermination of the excessive profits, in a proceeding de novo before the Tax Court, wherever a war goods contractor or subcontractor was aggrieved by the administrative order. Throughout these developments extended congressional and public consideration was given to the issues presented.
The plan proved itself readily adaptable to the needs of the time. It called for initial contract estimates based upon the best available information at the time of entering into the contracts. Production proceeded at once on the basis of those estimates. Many factors were incapable of exact advance determination. The final net compensation, however, resulted from a renegotiation made after both parties had had the benefit of actual experience under the contract. This determination of the allowable profit was guided by many relevant factors. A list of commonly relevant factors was presented in an early administrative directive. Later such a list was enacted into the statute. Each administrative determination was made subject to a redetermination in a proceeding de novo in the Tax Court provided a timely petition for it was filed by the aggrieved contractor or subcontractor. The Act always has been limited in duration to a period during and shortly following the war. In most instances the Act has resulted in a disposition of cases by agreements reached between the parties. The controversies which have survived to this day are, in large measure, not those dealing with the constitutionality of the general effect of the plan or even with the finality of redetermination under the prescribed administrative procedure, but are those arising out of an alleged abuse of discretion in its administration.
THE RENEGOTIATION ACT.
While there have been six legislative steps in the development of the Renegotiation Act, the portions of it that are especially material here consist of certain language in the so-called Original Renegotiation Act contained in § 403 of the Sixth Supplemental Defense Appropriations Act, approved April 28, 1942; in the amendments made by the Revenue Act of 1942, October 21, 1942; and its further amendment and substantial expansion by § 701 (b) of the Revenue Act of 1943, February 25, 1944. In that form it is sometimes called the Second Renegotiation Act, but the entire § 403, both in its original and amended forms may be properly cited as the “Renegotiation Act.” In the proceedings leading up to the enactment of the Original Renegotiation Act, an alternative in the form of a rigid limitation of profits was rejected in favor of the more flexible definition embodied in the term “excessive profits.” The War Department Directive of August 10, 1942, entitled “Principles, Policy and Procedure to be Followed in Renegotiation” promptly stated the factors to be stressed in determining excessive profits. This directive was introduced in the hearings held by the Finance Committee of the Senate in September and thus was before the Senate at the time of thé passage of the above-mentioned Revenue Act of 1942, October 21, 1942, which made important amendments in the Renegotiation Act.
The “Joint Statement by the War, Navy, and Treasury Departments and the Maritime Commission — Purposes, Principles, Policies, and Interpretations” dealing with the Renegotiation Act was issued March 31, 1943. This was considered at the Hearings before the House Committee on Naval Affairs, 78th Cong., 1st Sess., Vol. 2, pp. 469, et seq., 1025-1039, especially 1028-1029 (1943). Finally the above-mentioned Revenue Act of 1943, 58 Stat. 21, on February 25, 1944, largely incorporated these views in § 403 (a) (4) (A), thus indicating congressional approval of this administrative practice and further assuring continuity of it during the balance of the life of the Act.
DELEGATION OP AUTHORITY UNDER THE RENEGOTIATION ACT.
The petitioners contend that the Renegotiation Act unconstitutionally attempted to delegate legislative power to administrative officials. The United States does not contest the right of the courts to decide the issues as to the validity of the Act on its face in the present cases, each of which was instituted after the petitioners’ respective rights to a Tax Court redetermination had been forfeited. We find no reason for not reaching here the constitutionality of the Act. Cf. Aircraft & Diesel Corp. v. Hirsch, 331 U. S. 752; Wade v. Stimson, 331 U. S. 793; Macauley v. Waterman S. S. Corp., 327 U. S. 540; Yakus v. United States, 321 U. S. 414.
The constitutional argument is based upon the claim that the delegation of authority contained in the Act carried with it too slight a definition of legislative policy and standards. Accordingly, it is contended that the resulting determination of excessive profits which were claimed by the United States amounted to an unconstitutional exercise of legislative power by an administrative official instead of a mere exercise of administrative discretion under valid legislative authority. We hold that the authorization was constitutional. Certainly as spelled out in § 403 (a) (4) (A) of the Second Renegotiation Act with respect to fiscal years ending after June 30, 1943, there can be no objection on this ground. This question, therefore, relates to the delegation of authority as made by the Act before the effective date of the Second Renegotiation Act. The argument on this question is limited to the Lichter and Alexander cases, inasmuch as the excessive profits determined to exist in the Pownall case were so found by the War Contracts Price Adjustment Board under the Second Renegotiation Act.
1. The Statutory Language.
The Original Renegotiation Act, approved April 28, 1942, provided in § 403 (b), (c), (d) and (e) for the renegotiation of all contracts and subcontracts thereafter made and also of all contracts and subcontracts theretofore made by the War Department, the Navy Department or the Maritime Commission, whether or not such contracts or subcontracts contained a renegotiation or recapture clause, provided the final payment pursuant thereto had not been made prior to April 28,1942. The renegotiation was to be done by the Secretary of the Department concerned. For this purpose the Chairman of the Maritime Commission was included in the term “Secretary.” The services of the Bureau of Internal Revenue were made available upon the request of each Secretary, subject to the consent of the Secretary of the Treasury, for the purposes of making examinations and determinations with respect to profits under the Section. The Secretary of each Department was authorized and directed, whenever in his opinion excessive profits had been realized or were likely to be realized from any contract with such Department or from any subcontract thereunder, to require the contractor or subcontractor to renegotiate the contract price. In case any amount of the contract price was found as a result of such renegotiation to represent “excessive profits” which had been paid to the contractor or subcontractor, the Secretary was authorized to recover them.
There was no express definition of the term “excessive profits” in the Original Renegotiation Act. However, in its § 403 (b), there was a relevant statement in connection with the renegotiation clauses required to be inserted in future contracts and subcontracts for an amount in excess of $100,000 each. The Secretary was required to insert in such contracts, thereafter made by his Department, “a provision for the renegotiation of the contract price at a period or periods when, in the judgment of the Secretary, the profits can be determined with reasonable certainty;....” Contractors were also to be required to insert a like provision in their subcontracts. This statement indicated a relationship between current “excessive profits” and those which later might be determined with “reasonable certainty.”
Also, in § 403 (d) it was provided that, in renegotiating a contract price or determining excessive profits, the Secretaries of the respective Departments should not make allowances “for any salaries, bonuses, or other compensation paid by a contractor to its officers or employees in excess of a reasonable amount,...” nor “for any excessive reserves set up by the contractor or for any costs incurred by the contractor which are excessive and unreasonable.”
The amendments made to this Section by the Revenue Act of 1942, approved October 21, 1942, were made effective as of April 28, 1942. At the time they were approved, Congress had knowledge of the War Department Directive of August 10, 1942, which had been put into effect stressing certain factors which the Secretary emphasized in determining excessive profits. While Congress then made several amendments to § 403, those amendments did not alter the effect of such directive in this particular. Among the amendments that were then added there was the following purported definition of “excessive profits”: “The term 'excessive profits’ means any amount of a contract or subcontract price which is found as a result of renegotiation to represent excessive profits.” In the light of the existing administrative practices this at least expressed a congressional satisfaction with the existing specificity of the Act. The amendment made to § 403 (c) (3) required the recognition of exclusions and deductions of the character afforded by certain provisions of the Internal Revenue Code. The amendment to § 403 (c) (5) provided also that the Secretaries, by joint regulation, might prescribe the form and detail in which certain data might be filed by contractors and subcontractors bearing upon their profits under their contracts. This material concerned “statements of actual costs of production” and “other financial statements for any prior fiscal year or years.” Under some circumstances, in the absence of a notice from the Secretary and in the absence of
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer:
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D
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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 Ginsburg
delivered the opinion of the Court.
To petition a federal court for habeas corpus relief from a state-court conviction, the applicant must be “in custody in violation of the Constitution or laws or treaties of the United States.” 28 U. S. C. § 2254(a); see also 28 U. S. C. § 2241(c)(3). In Peyton v. Rowe, 391 U. S. 54 (1968), we held that the governing federal prescription permits prisoners incarcerated under consecutive state-court sentences to apply for federal habeas relief from sentences they had not yet begun to serve. We said in Peyton that, for purposes of habeas relief, consecutive sentences should be treated as a continuous series; a prisoner is “in custody in violation of the Constitution,” we explained, “if any consecutive sentence [the prisoner is] scheduled to serve was imposed as the result of a deprivation of constitutional rights.” Id., at 64-65.
The case before us is appropriately described as Peyton’s complement, or Peyton in reverse. Like the habeas petitioners in Peyton, petitioner Harvey Garlotte is incarcerated under consecutive sentences. Unlike the Peyton petitioners, however, Garlotte does not challenge a conviction underlying a sentence yet to be served. Instead, Garlotte seeks to attack a conviction underlying the sentence that ran first in a consecutive seríes, a sentence already served, but one that nonetheless persists to postpone Garlotte’s eligibility for parole. Following Peyton, we do not disaggregate Gar-lotte’s sentences, but comprehend them as composing a continuous stream. We therefore hold that Garlotte remains “in custody” under all of his sentences until all are served, and now may attack the conviction underlying the sentence scheduled to run first in the series.
I
On September 16,1985, at a plea hearing held m a Mississippi trial court, Harvey Garlotte entered simultaneous guilty pleas to one count of possession with intent to distribute marijuana and two counts of murder. Pursuant to a plea agreement, the State recommended that Garlotte be sentenced to a prison term of three years on the marijuana count, to run consecutively with two concurrent life sentences on the murder counts. App. 43. State law required Garlotte to serve at least ten months on the marijuana count, Miss. Code Ann. § 47—7—3(1)(c)(ii) (Supp. 1994), and at least ten years on the concurrent life sentences. § 47-7-3(1).
At the plea hearing, the trial judge inquired whether the State wanted Garlotte to serve the life sentences before the three-year sentence: “[A] three year sentence [on the marijuana possession count] to run consecutive to th[e] two life sentences?” the judge asked. The prosecutor expressed indifference about the order in which the sentences would run: “Either that way, your Honor or allow the three years to run first. In other words, we’re just talking, about a total of three years and then life or life and then three years.” App. 43. The judge next asked Garlotte’s counsel about his understanding of the State’s recommendation. Defense counsel replied, without elaboration: “[I]t’s my understanding that the possession case is to run first and then the two life sentences.” Id., at 44. The court saw “no reason not to go along with the recommendation of the State.” Id., at 50. Without further explanation, the court imposed the sentences in this order: the three-year sentence first, then, consecutively, the concurrent life sentences. Ibid.
Garlotte wrote to the trial court seven months after the September 16, 1985 hearing, asking for permission to withdraw his guilty plea on the marijuana count. The court’s reply notified Garlotte of the Mississippi statute under which he could pursue postconviction collateral relief. Id., at 51. Garlotte unsuccessfully moved for such relief. Nearly two years after the denial of Garlotte’s motion, the Mississippi Supreme Court rejected his appeal. Garlotte v. State, 530 So. 2d 693 (1988). On January 18, 1989, the Mississippi Supreme Court denied further postconviction motions filed by Garlotte. By this time, Garlotte had completed the period of incarceration set for the marijuana offense, and had commenced serving the life sentences.
On October 6,1989, Garlotte filed a habeas corpus petition in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Mississippi, naming as respondent Kirk Fordice, the Governor of Mississippi. Adopting the recommendation of a Federal Magistrate Judge, the District Court denied Gar-lotte’s petition on the merits. App. 18.
Before the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, the State argued for the first time that the District Court lacked jurisdiction over Garlotte’s petition. 29 F. 3d 216, 217 (1994). The State asserted that Garlotte, prior to the District Court filing, had already served out the prison time imposed for the marijuana conviction; therefore, the State maintained, Garlotte was no longer “in custody” under that conviction within the meaning of the federal habeas statute. Ibid. Garlotte countered that he remained “in custody” until all sentences were served, emphasizing that the marijuana conviction continued to postpone the date on which he would be eligible for parole. Id., at 218.
Adopting the State’s position, the Fifth Circuit dismissed Garlotte’s habeas petition for want of jurisdiction. Ibid. The Courts of Appeals have divided over the question whether a person incarcerated under consecutive sentences remains “in custody” under a sentence that (1) has been completed in terms of prison time served, but (2) continues to postpone the prisoner’s date of potential release. We granted certiorari to resolve this conflict, 513 U. S. 1123 (1995), and now reverse.
II
The federal habeas statute authorizes United States district courts to entertain petitions for habeas relief from state-court judgments only when the petitioner is “in custody in violation of the Constitution or laws or treaties of the United States.” 28 U. S. C. § 2254(a); see also 28 U. S. C. § 2241(c)(3). In Peyton v. Rowe, 391 U. S. 54 (1968), we held that the statute authorized the exercise of habeas jurisdiction over the petitions of two State of Virginia prisoners, Robert Rowe and Clyde Thacker. Rowe and Thacker were incarcerated under consecutive sentences; both sought to challenge sentences slated to run in the future. Virginia, relying on McNally v. Hill, 293 U. S. 131 (1934), argued that the habeas petitions were premature. Overruling McNally, we explained:
“[I]n common understanding ‘custody’ comprehends respondents’ status for the entire duration of their imprisonment. Practically speaking, Rowe is in custody for 50 years, or for the aggregate of his 30- and 20-year sentences. For purposes of parole eligibility, under Virginia law he is incarcerated for 50 years. Nothing on the face of §2241 militates against an interpretation which views Rowe and Thacker as being ‘in custody’ under the aggregate of the consecutive sentences imposed on them. Under that interpretation, they are ‘in custody in violation of the Constitution’ if any consecutive sentence they are scheduled to serve was imposed as the result of a deprivation of constitutional rights.” 391 U. S., at 64-65 (citations omitted).
The habeas petitioners in Peyton sought to present challenges that, if successful, would advance their release dates. That was enough, we concluded, to permit them to invoke the Great Writ. Id., at 66-67.
Had the Mississippi trial court ordered that Garlotte’s life sentences run before his marijuana sentence — an option about which the prosecutor expressed indifference — Peyton unquestionably would have instructed the District Court to entertain Garlotte’s present habeas petition. Because the marijuana term came first, and Garlotte filed his habeas petition (following state-court proceedings) after prison time had run on the marijuana sentence, Mississippi urges that Ma-leng v. Cook, 490 U. S. 488 (1989) (per curiam), rather than Peyton, controls.
The question presented in Maleng was “whether a habeas petitioner remains ‘in custody’ under a conviction after the sentence imposed for it has fully expired, merely because of the possibility that the prior conviction will be used to enhance the sentences imposed for any subsequent crimes of which he is convicted.” 490 U. S., at 492. We held that the potential use of a conviction to enhance a sentence for subsequent offenses did not suffice to render a person “in custody” within the meaning of the habeas statute. Ibid.
Maleng recognized that we had “very liberally construed the ‘in custody’ requirement for purposes of federal habeas,” but stressed that the Court had “never extended it to the situation where a habeas petitioner suffers no present restraint from a conviction.” Ibid. “[A]lmost all States have habitual offender statutes, and many States provide ... for specific enhancement of subsequent sentences on the basis of prior convictions,” ibid.; hence, the construction of “in custody” urged by the habeas petitioner in Maleng would have left nearly all convictions perpetually open to collateral attack. The Maleng petitioner’s interpretation, we therefore commented, “would read the ‘in custody’ requirement out of the statute.” Ibid.
Unlike the habeas petitioner in Maleng, Garlotte is serving consecutive sentences. In Peyton, we held that “a prisoner serving consecutive sentences is ‘in custody’ under any one of them” for purposes of the habeas statute. 391 U. S., at 67. Having construed the statutory term “in custody” to require that consecutive sentences be viewed in the aggregate, we will not now adopt a different construction simply because the sentence imposed under the challenged conviction lies in the past rather than in the future.
Mississippi urges, as a prime reason for its construction of the “in custody” requirement, that allowing a habeas attack on a sentence nominally completed would “encourage and reward delay in the assertion of habeas challenges.” Brief for Respondent 28. As Mississippi observes, in Peyton we rejected the prematurity rule of McNally in part because of “the harshness of a rule which may delay determination of federal claims for decades.” Peyton, 391 U. S., at 61. Mississippi argues that Garlotte’s reading of the words “in custody” would undermine the expeditious adjudication rationale of Peyton. Brief for Respondent 6-7, 27-28.
Our holding today, however, is unlikely to encourage delay. A prisoner naturally prefers release sooner to release later. Further, because the habeas petitioner generally bears the burden of proof, delay is apt to disadvantage the petitioner more than the State. Nothing in this record, we note, suggests that Garlotte has been dilatory in challenging his marijuana conviction. Finally, under Habeas Corpus Rule 9(a), a district court may dismiss a habeas petition if the State “has been prejudiced in its ability to respond to the petition by [inexcusable] delay in its filing.”
* * *
Under Peyton, we view consecutive sentences in the aggregate, not as discrete segments. Invalidation of Gar-lotte’s marijuana conviction would advance the date of his eligibility for release from present incarceration. Garlotte’s challenge, which will shorten his term of incarceration if he proves unconstitutionality, implicates the core purpose of habeas review. We therefore hold that Garlotte was “in custody” under his marijuana conviction when he filed his federal habeas petition. Accordingly, the judgment of the Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit is reversed, and the case is remanded for proceedings consistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
Garlotte asserted that he was entitled to relief because his guilty plea was not knowing, intelligent, and voluntary, he did not receive effective assistance of trial counsel, he was subjected to double jeopardy, and his sentence was unusual and disproportionate. App. 6.
Compare Fawcett v. Bablitch, 962 F. 2d 617, 618 (CA7 1992) (“in custody”); Bernard v. Garraghty, 934 F. 2d 62, 65 (CA4 1991) (same); and Fox v. Kelso, 911 F. 2d 563, 568 (CA11 1990) (same), with Allen v. Dowd, 964 F. 2d 745, 746 (CA8) (not “in custody”), cert. denied, 506 U. S. 920 (1992).
Garlotte, who proceeded pro se in the courts below, filed along with his petition for certiorari a motion for appointment of counsel. After we granted certiorari, we appointed Brian D. Boyle, of Washington, D. C., to represent Garlotte. 513 U. S. 1125 (1996).
We left open the possibility, however, that the conviction underlying the expired sentence might be subject to challenge in a collateral attack upon the subsequent sentence that the expired sentence was used to enhance. Maleng, 490 U. S., at 494.
That Mississippi itself views consecutive sentences in the aggregate for various penological purposes reveals the difficulties courts and prisoners would face trying to determine when one sentence ends and a consecutive sentence begins. For example, Mississippi aggregates consecutive sentences for the purpose of determining parole eligibility, see Miss. Code Ann. § 47-7-3(1) (Supp. 1994) (“Every prisoner ... who has served not less than one-fourth (1/4) of the total of such term or terms for which such prisoner was sentenced ... may be released on parole as hereinafter provided . . . ”) (emphasis added), and for the purpose of determining commutation of sentences for meritorious earned-time credit. See Miss. Code Ann. §47-5-139(3) (1981) (“An offender under two (2) or more consecutive sentences shall be allowed commutation based upon the total term of the sentences.”) (emphasis added).
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
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
announced the judgment of the Court and delivered the opinion of the Court with respect to Part IV, and an opinion with respect to Parts I, II, and III, in which The Chief Justice joins.
Petitioner was convicted of possessing 672 grams of cocaine and sentenced to a mandatory term of life in prison without possibility of parole. The Michigan Court of Appeals initially reversed his conviction because evidence supporting it had been obtained in violation of the Michigan Constitution. 176 Mich. App. 524, 440 N. W. 2d 75 (1989). On petition for rehearing, the Court of Appeals vacated its prior decision and affirmed petitioner’s sentence, rejecting his argument that the sentence was “cruel and unusual” within the meaning of the Eighth Amendment. Id., at 535, 440 N. W. 2d, at 80. The Michigan Supreme Court denied leave to appeal, 434 Mich. 863 (1990), and we granted certiorari. 495 U. S. 956 (1990).
Petitioner claims that his sentence is unconstitutionally “cruel and unusual” for two reasons: first, because it is “significantly disproportionate” to the crime he committed; second, because the sentencing judge was statutorily required to impose it, without taking into account the particularized circumstances of the crime and of the criminal.
I
A
The Eighth Amendment, which applies against the States by virtue of the Fourteenth Amendment, see Robinson v. California, 370 U. S. 660 (1962), provides: “Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.” In Rummel v. Estelle, 445 U. S. 263 (1980), we held that it did not constitute “cruel and unusual punishment” to impose a life sentence, under a recidivist statute, upon a defendant who had been convicted, successively, of fraudulent use of a credit card to obtain $80 worth of goods or services, passing a forged check in the amount of $28.36, and obtaining $120.75 by false pretenses. We said that “one could argue without fear of contradiction by any decision of this Court that for crimes concededly classified and classifiable as felonies, that is, as punishable by significant terms of imprisonment in a state penitentiary, the length of the sentence actually imposed is purely a matter of legislative prerogative.” Id., at 274. We specifically rejected the proposition asserted by the dissent, id., at 295 (opinion of Powell, J.), that unconstitutional disproportionality could be established by weighing three factors: (1) gravity of the offense compared to severity of the penalty, (2) penalties imposed within the same jurisdiction for similar crimes, and (3) penalties imposed in other jurisdictions for the same offense. Id., at 281-282, and n. 27. A footnote in the opinion, however, said: “This is not to say that a proportionality principle would not come into play in the extreme example mentioned by the dissent,... if a legislature made overtime parking a felony punishable by life imprisonment.” Id., at 274, n. 11.
Two years later, in Hutto v. Davis, 454 U. S. 370 (1982), we similarly rejected an Eighth Amendment challenge to a prison term of 40 years and fine of $20,000 for possession and distribution of approximately nine ounces of marijuana. We thought that result so clear in light of Rummel that our per curiam opinion said the Fourth Circuit, in sustaining the constitutional challenge, “could be viewed as having ignored, consciously or unconsciously, the hierarchy of the federal court system,” which could not be tolerated “unless we wish anarchy to prevail,” 454 U. S., at 374-375. And we again explicitly rejected application of the three factors discussed in the Rummel dissent. See 454 U. S., at 373-374, and n. 2. However, whereas in Rummel we had said that successful proportionality challenges outside the context of capital punishment “have been exceedingly rare,” 445 U. S., at 272 (discussing as the solitary example Weems v. United States, 217 U. S. 349 (1910), which we explained as involving punishment of a “unique nature,” 445 U. S., at 274), in Davis we misdescribed Rummel as having said that “‘successful challenges...’ should be ‘exceedingly rare,’” 454 U. S., at 374 (emphasis added), and at that point inserted a reference to, and description of, the Rummel “overtime parking” footnote, 454 U. S., at 374, n. 3. The content of that footnote was imperceptibly (but, in the event, ominously) expanded: Rummel’s “not [saying] that a proportionality principle would not come into play” in the fanciful parking example, 445 U. S., at 274, n. 11, became “not[ing]... that there could be situations in which the proportionality principle would come into play, such as” the fanciful parking example, Davis, supra, at 374, n. 3 (emphasis added). This combination of expanded text plus expanded footnote permitted the inference that gross disproportionality was an example of the “exceedingly rare” situations in which Eighth Amendment challenges “should be” successful. Indeed, one might say that it positively invited that inference, were that not incompatible with the sharp per curiam reversal of the Fourth Circuit’s finding that 40 years for possession and distribution of nine ounces of marijuana was grossly disproportionate and therefore unconstitutional.
A year and a half after Davis we uttered what has been our last word on this subject to date. Solem v. Helm, 463 U. S. 277 (1983), set aside under the Eighth Amendment, because it was disproportionate, a sentence of life imprisonment without possibility of parole, imposed under a South Dakota recividist statute for successive offenses that included three convictions of third-degree burglary, one of obtaining money by false pretenses, one of grand larceny, one of third-offense driving while intoxicated, and one of writing a “no account” check with intent to defraud. In the Solem account, Weems no longer involved punishment of a “unique nature,” Rum-mel, supra, at 274, but was the “leading case,” Solem, 463 U. S., at 287, exemplifying the “general principle of proportionality,” id., at 288, which was “déeply rooted and frequently repeated in common-law jurisprudence,” id., at 284, had been embodied in the English Bill of Rights “in language that was later adopted in the Eighth Amendment,” id., at 285, and had been “recognized explicitly in this Court for almost a century,” id., at 286. The most recent of those “recognitions” were the “overtime parking” footnotes in Rummel and Davis, 463 U. S., at 288. As for the statement in Rummel that “one could argue without fear of contradiction by any decision of this Court that for crimes concededly classified and classifiable as felonies... the length of the sentence actually imposed is purely a matter of legislative prerogative,” Rummel, supra, at 274: according to Solem, the really important words in that passage were “ ‘one could argue,’” 463 U. S., at 288, n. 14 (emphasis added in Solem). “The Court [in Rummel]... merely recognized that the argument was possible. To the extent that the State... makes this argument here, we find it meritless.” Id., at 289, n. 14. (Of course Rummel had not said merely “one could argue,” but “one could argue without fear of contradiction by any decision of this Court.” (Emphasis added.)) Having decreed that a general principle of disproportionality exists, the Court used as the criterion for its application the three-factor test that had been explicitly rejected in both Rummel and Davis. 463 U. S., at 291-292. Those cases, the Court said, merely “indicated [that] no one factor will be dispositive in a given case,” id., at 291, n. 17 — though Davis had expressly, approvingly, and quite correctly described Rummel as having “disapproved each o/[the] objective factors,” 454 U. S., at 373 (emphasis added). See Rummel, 445 U. S., at 281-282, and n. 27.
It should be apparent from the above discussion that our 5-to-4 decision eight years ago in Solem was scarcely the expression of clear and well accepted constitutional law. We have long recognized, of course, that the doctrine of stare decisis is less rigid in its application to constitutional precedents, see Payne v. Tennessee, ante, at 828; Smith v. Allwright, 321 U. S. 649, 665, and n. 10 (1944); Mitchell v. W. T. Grant Co., 416 U. S. 600, 627-628 (1974) (Powell, J., concurring); Burnet v. Coronado Oil & Gas Co., 285 U. S. 393, 406-408 (1932) (Brandeis, J., dissenting), and we think that to be especially true of a constitutional precedent that is both recent and in apparent tension with other decisions. Accordingly, we have addressed anew, and in greater detail, the question whether the Eighth Amendment contains a proportionality guarantee — with particular attention to the background of the Eighth Amendment (which Solem discussed in only two pages, see 463 U. S., at 284-286) and to the understanding of the Eighth Amendment before the end of the 19th century (which Solem discussed not at all). We conclude from this examination that Solem was simply wrong; the Eighth Amendment contains no proportionality guarantee.
B
Solem based its conclusion principally upon the proposition that a right to be free from disproportionate punishments was embodied within the “cruell and unusuall Punishments” provision of the English Declaration of Rights of 1689, and was incorporated, with that language, in the Eighth Amendment. There is no doubt that the Declaration of Rights is the antecedent of our constitutional text. (This document was promulgated in February 1689 and was enacted into law as the Bill of Rights, 1 Wm. & Mary, Sess. 2, ch. 2, in December 1689. See Sources of Our Liberties 222-223 (R. Perry & J. Cooper eds. 1959); L. Schwoerer, Declaration of Rights, 1689, pp. 279, 295-298 (1981).) In 1791, five State Constitutions prohibited “cruel or unusual punishments,” see Del. Declaration of Rights, § 16 (1776); Md. Declaration of Rights, § XXII (1776); Mass. Declaration of Rights, Art. XXVI (1780); N. C. Declaration of Rights, § X (1776); N. H. Bill of Rights, Art. XXXIII (1784), and two prohibited “cruel” punishments, Pa. Const., Art. IX, § 13 (1790); S. C. Const., Art. IX, § 4 (1790). The new Federal Bill of Rights, however, tracked Virginia’s prohibition of “cruel and unusual punishments,” see Va. Declaration of Rights, §9 (1776), which most closely followed the English provision. In fact, the entire text of the Eighth Amendment is taken almost verbatim from the English Declaration of Rights, which provided “[t]hat excessive Baile ought not to be required nor excessive Fines imposed nor cruell and unusuall Punishments inflicted.”
Perhaps the Americans of 1791 understood the Declaration’s language precisely as the Englishmen of 1689 did— though as we shall discuss later, that seems unlikely. Or perhaps the colonists meant to incorporate the content of that antecedent by reference, whatever the content might have been. Solem suggested something like this, arguing that since Americans claimed “all the rights of English subjects,” “their use of the language of the English Bill of Rights is convincing proof that they intended to provide at least the same protection,” 463 U. S., at 286. Thus, not only is the original meaning of the 1689 Declaration of Rights relevant, but also the circumstances of its enactment, insofar as they display the particular “rights of English subjects” it was designed to vindicate.
As Solem observed, 463 U. S., at 284-285, the principle of proportionality was familiar to English law at the time the Declaration of Rights was drafted. The Magna Carta provided that “[a] free man shall not be fined for a small offence, except in proportion to the measure of the offense; and for a great offence he shall be fined in proportion to the magnitude of the offence, saving his freehold....” Art. 20 (translated in Sources of Our Liberties, swpra, at 15). When imprisonment supplemented fines as a method of punishment, courts apparently applied the proportionality principle while sentencing. Hodges v. Humkin, 2 Bulst. 139, 140, 80 Eng. Rep. 1015, 1016 (K. B. 1615) (Croke, J.) (“[I]mprisonment ought always to be according to the quality of the offence”). Despite this familiarity, the drafters of the Declaration of Rights did not explicitly prohibit “disproportionate” or “excessive” punishments. Instead, they prohibited punishments that were “cruell and unusuall.” The Solem Court simply assumed, with no analysis, that the one included the other. 463 U. S., at 285. As a textual matter, of course, it does not: a disproportionate punishment can perhaps always be considered “cruel,” but it will not always be (as the text also requires) “unusual.” The error of Solem’s assumption is confirmed by the historical context and contemporaneous understanding of the English guarantee.
Most historians agree that the “cruell and unusuall Punishments” provision of the English Declaration of Rights was prompted by the abuses attributed to the infamous Lord Chief Justice Jeffreys of the King’s Bench during the Stuart reign of James II. See, e. g., Schwoerer, supra, at 93; 4 W. Blackstone, Commentaries *372. They do not agree, however, on which abuses. See Ingraham v. Wright, 430 U. S. 651, 664-665 (1977); Furman v. Georgia, 408 U. S. 238, 317-319 (1972) (Marshall, J., concurring). Jeffreys is best known for presiding over the “Bloody Assizes” following the Duke of Monmouth’s abortive rebellion in 1685; a special commission led by Jeffreys tried, convicted, and executed hundreds of suspected insurgents. Some have attributed the Declaration of Rights provision to popular outrage against those proceedings. E. g., Sources of Our Liberties, supra, at 236, n. 103; Note, What Is Cruel and Unusual Punishment, 24 Harv. L. Rev. 54, 55, n. 2 (1910); see also 3 J. Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States § 1896 (1833).
But the vicious punishments for treason decreed in the Bloody Assizes (drawing and quartering, burning of women felons, beheading, disembowling, etc.) were common in that period — indeed, they were specifically authorized by law and remained so for many years afterwards. See Granucci, “Nor Cruel and Unusual Punishments Inflicted:” The Original Meaning, 57 Calif. L. Rev. 839, 855-856 (1969); 4 Blackstone, supra, at *369-*370. Thus, recently historians have argued, and the best historical evidence suggests, that it was not Jef-freys’ management of the Bloody Assizes that led to the Declaration of Rights provision, but rather the arbitrary sentencing power he had exercised in administering justice from the King’s Bench, particularly when punishing a notorious perjurer. See Granucci, supra, at 855-860; Schwoerer, supra, at 92-93. Accord, 1 J. Stephen, A History of the Criminal Law of England 490 (1883); 1 J. Chitty, Criminal Law 712 (5th Am. ed. 1847) (hereinafter Chitty). Jeffreys was widely accused of “inventing” special penalties for the King’s enemies, penalties that were not authorized by common-law precedent or statute. Letter to a Gentleman at Brussels, giving an account of the people’s revolt (Windsor, Dec. 2, 1688), cited in L. Schwoerer, The Declaration of Rights, 1689, p. 93, n. 207 (1981).
The preamble to the Declaration of Rights, a sort of indictment of James II that calls to mind the preface to our own Declaration of Independence, specifically referred to illegal sentences and King’s Bench proceedings.
“Whereas the late King James the Second, by the Assistance of diverse evill Councellors Judges and Ministers imployed by him did endeavour to subvert and extirpate the Protestant Religion, and the Lawes and Liberties of this Kingdome.
“By Prosecutions in the Court of Kings Bench for Matters and Causes cognizable onely in Parlyament and by diverse other Arbitrary and Illegall Courses.
“[Ejxcessive Baile hath beene required of Persons committed in Criminall Cases to elude the Benefit of the Lawes made for the Liberty of the Subjects.
“And excessive Fines have been imposed.
“And illegall and cruell Punishments inflicted.
“All which are utterly and directly contrary to the knowne Lawes and Statutes and Freedome of this Realme.” 1 Wm. & Mary, Sess. 2, ch. 2 (1689).
The only recorded contemporaneous interpretation of the “cruell and unusuall Punishments” clause confirms the focus upon Jeffreys’ King’s Bench activities, and upon the illegality, rather than the disproportionality, of his sentences. In 1685 Titus Oates, a Protestant cleric whose false accusations had caused the execution of 15 prominent Catholics for allegedly organizing a “Popish Plot” to overthrow King Charles II in 1679, was tried and convicted before the King’s Bench for perjury. Oates’ crime, “bearing false witness against another, with an express premeditated design to take away his life, so as the innocent person be condemned and executed,” had, at one time, been treated as a species of murder, and punished with death. 4 Blackstone, supra, at *196. At sentencing, Jeffreys complained that death was no longer available as a penalty and lamented that “a proportionable punishment of that crime can scarce by our law, as it now stands, be inflicted upon him.” Second Trial of Titus Oates, 10 How. St. Tr. 1227, 1314 (K. B. 1685). The law would not stand in the way, however. The judges met, and, according to Jef-freys, were in unanimous agreement that “crimes of this nature are left to be punished according to the discretion of this court, so far as that the judgment extend not to life or member.” Ibid. Another justice taunted Oates that “we have taken special care of you,” id., at 1316. The court then decreed that he should pay a fine of “1000 marks upon each Indictment,” that he should be “stript of [his] Canonical Habits,” that he should stand in the pillory annually at certain specified times and places, that on May 20 he should be whipped by “the common hangman” “from Aldgate to New-gate,” that he should be similarly whipped on May 22 “from Newgate to Tyburn,” and that he should be imprisoned for life. Ibid.
“The judges, as they believed, sentenced Oates to be scourged to death.” 2 T. Macaulay, History of England 204 (1899) (hereinafter Macaulay). Accord, D. Ogg, England In The Reigns of James II and William III, pp. 154-155 (1984). Oates would not die, however. Four years later, and several months after the Declaration of Rights, he petitioned the House of Lords to set aside his sentence as illegal. 6 Macaulay 138-141. “Not a single peer ventured to affirm that the judgment was legal: but much was said about the odious character of the appellant,” and the Lords affirmed the judgment. 6 id., at 140-141. A minority of the Lords dissented, however, and their statement sheds light on the meaning of the “cruell and unusuall Punishments” clause:
“1st, [T]he King’s Bench, being a Temporal Court, made it a Part of the Judgment, That Titus Oates, being a Clerk, should, for his said Perjuries, be divested of his canonical and priestly Habit... ; which is a Matter wholly out of their Power, belonging to the Ecclesiastical Courts only.
“2dly, [S]aid Judgments are barbarous, inhuman, and unchristian; and there is no Precedent to warrant the Punishments of whipping and committing to Prison for Life, for the Crime of Perjury; which yet were but Part of the Punishments inflicted upon him.
“4thly, [T]his will be an Encouragement and Allowance for giving the like cruel, barbarous and illegal Judgments hereafter, unless this Judgment be reversed.
“5thly,... [T]hat the said Judgments were contrary to Law and ancient Practice, and therefore erroneous, and ought to be reversed.
“6thly, Because it is contrary to the Declaration, on the Twelfth of February last,... that excessive Bail ought not to be required, nor excessive Fines imposed, nor cruel nor unusual Punishments afflicted.” 1 Journals of the House of Lords 367 (May 31, 1689), quoted in Second Trial of Titus Oates, supra, at 1325.
Oates’ cause then aroused support in the House of Commons, whose members proceeded to pass a bill to annul the sentence. A “free conference” was ultimately convened in which representatives of the House of Commons attempted to persuade the Lords to reverse their position. See 6 Macaulay 143-145. Though this attempt was not successful, the Commons’ report of the conference confirms that the “cruell and unusuall Punishments” clause was directed at the Oates case (among others) in particular, and at illegality, rather than disproportionality, of punishment in general.
“[T]he Commons had hoped, That, after the Declaration [of Rights] presented to their Majesties upon their accepting the Crown (wherein their Lordships had joined with the Commons in complaining of the cruel and illegal Punishments of the last Reign; and in asserting it to be the ancient Right of the People of England that they should not be subjected to cruel and unusual Punishments; and that no Judgments to the Prejudice of the People in that kind ought in any wise to be drawn into Consequence, or Example); and after this Declaration had been so lately renewed in that Part of the Bill of Rights which the Lords have agreed to; they should not have seen Judgments of this Nature affirmed, and been put under a Necessity of sending up a Bill for reversing them; since those Declarations will not only be useless, but of pernicious Consequence to the People, if, so soon after, such Judgments as these stand affirmed, and be not taken to be cruel and illegal within the Meaning of those Declarations.
“That the Commons had a particular Regard to these Judgments, amongst others, when that Declaration was first made; and must insist upon it, That they are erroneous, cruel, illegal, and of ill Example to future Ages....
“That it seemed no less plain, That the Judgments were cruel, and of ill Example to future Ages.
“That it was surely of ill Example for a Temporal Court to give Judgment, ‘That a Clerk be divested of his Canonical Habits; and continue so divested during his Life.’
“That it was of ill Example, and illegal, That a Judgment of perpetual Imprisonment should be given in a Case, where there is no express Law to warrant it.
“It was of ill Example, and unusual, That an Englishman should be exposed upon a Pillory, so many times a Year, during his Life.
“That it was illegal, cruel, and of dangerous Example, That a Freeman should be whipped in such a barbarous manner, as, in Probability, would determine in Death.
“That this was avowed, when these Judgments was [sic] given by the then Lord Chief Justice of the King’s Bench; who declared; ‘That all the Judges had met; and unanimously agreed, That where the Subject was prosecuted at Common Law for a Misdemeanor, it was in the Discretion of the Court, to inflict what Punishment they pleased, not extending to Life, or Member.’
“That as soon as they had set up this Pretence to a discretionary Power, it was observable how they put it in Practice, not only in this, but in other Cases, and for other Offences, by inflicting such cruel and ignominious Punishments, as will be agreed to be far worse than Death itself to any Man who has a sense of Honour or Shame....” 10 Journal of the House of Commons 247 (Aug. 2, 1689) (emphasis added).
In all these contemporaneous discussions, as in the prologue of the Declaration, a punishment is not considered objectionable because it is disproportionate, but because it is “out of [the Judges’] Power,” “contrary to Law and ancient practice,” without “Precedents” or “express Law to warrant,” “unusual,” “illegal,” or imposed by “Pretence to a discretionary Power.” Accord, 2 Macaulay 204 (observing that Oates’ punishment, while deserved, was unjustified by law). Moreover, the phrase “cruell and unusuall” is treated as interchangeable with “cruel and illegal.” In other words, the “illegall and cruell Punishments” of the Declaration’s prologue, see supra, at 969, are the same thing as the “cruell and unusuall Punishments” of its body. (Justice Marshall’s concurrence in Furman v. Georgia, 408 U. S., at 318, observes that an earlier draft of the body prohibited “illegal” punishments, and that the change “appears to be inadvertent.” See also 1 Chitty 712 (describing Declaration of Rights as prohibiting “cruel and illegal” punishments).) In the legal world of the time, and in the context of restricting punishment determined by the Crown (or the Crown’s judges), “illegall” and “unusuall” were identical for practical purposes. Not all punishments were specified by statute; many were determined by the common law. Departures from the common law were lawful only if authorized by statute. See 1 J. Stephen, A History of the Criminal Law of England 489-490 (1883); 1 Chitty 710. A requirement that punishment not be “unusuall” — that is, not contrary to “usage” (Lat. “usus”) or “precedent” — was primarily a requirement that judges pronouncing sentence remain within the bounds of common-law tradition. 1 id., at 710-712; Ingraham v. Wright, 430 U. S., at 665 (English provision aimed at “judges acting beyond their lawful authority”); Granucci, 57 Calif. L. Rev., at 859; cf. 4 W. Blackstone, Commentaries *371-*373.
In sum, we think it most unlikely that the English Cruell and Unusuall Punishments Clause was meant to forbid “disproportionate” punishments. There is even less likelihood that proportionality of punishment was one of the traditional “rights and privileges of Englishmen” apart from the Declaration of Rights, which happened to be included in the Eighth Amendment. Indeed, even those scholars who believe the principle to have been included within the Declaration of Rights do not contend that such a prohibition was reflected in English practice — nor could they. See Granucci, supra, at 847. For, as we observed in Woodson v. North Carolina, 428 U. S. 280, 289 (1976), in 1791, England punished over 200 crimes with death. See also 1 Stephen, supra, at 458, 471-472 (until 1826, all felonies, except mayhem and petty larceny, were punishable by death). By 1830 the class of offenses punishable by death was narrowed to include “only” murder; attempts to murder by poisoning, stabbing, shooting, etc.; administering poison to procure abortion; sodomy; rape; statutory rape; and certain classes of forgery. See 1 Stephen, supra, at 473-474. It is notable that, during his discussion of English capital punishment reform, Stephen does not once mention the Cruell and Unusuall Punishments Clause, though he was certainly aware of it. See 1 Stephen, supra, at 489-490. Likewise, in his discussion of the suitability of punishments, Blackstone does not mention the Declaration. See 4 Blackstone, supra, at *9-*19.
C
Unless one accepts the notion of a blind incorporation, however, the ultimate question is not what “cruell and unusuall punishments” meant in the Declaration of Rights, but what its meaning was to the Americans who adopted the Eighth Amendment. Even if one assumes that the Founders knew the precise meaning of that English antecedent, but see Granucci, supra, at 860-865, a direct transplant of the English meaning to the soil of American constitutionalism would in any case have been impossible. There were no common-law punishments in the federal system, see United States v. Hudson, 7 Cranch 32 (1812), so that the provision must have been meant as a check not upon judges but upon the Legislature. See, e. g., In re Kemmler, 136 U. S. 436, 446-447 (1890).
Wrenched out of its common-law context, and applied to the actions of a legislature, the word “unusual” could hardly mean “contrary to law.” But it continued to mean (as it continues to mean today) “such as [does not] occu[r] in ordinary practice,” Webster’s American Dictionary (1828), “[s]uch as is [not] in common use,” Webster’s Second International Dictionary 2807 (1954). According to its terms, then, by forbidding “cruel and unusual punishments,” see Stanford v. Kentucky, 492 U. S. 361, 378 (1989) (plurality opinion); In re Kemmler, supra, at 446-447, the Clause disables the Legislature from authorizing particular forms or “modes” of punishment — specifically, cruel methods of punishment that are not regularly or customarily employed. E. g., Louisiana ex rel. Francis v. Resweber, 329 U. S. 459, 464 (1947) (plurality opinion); In re Kemmler, supra, at 446-447. See also United States v. Collins, 25 F. Cas. 545 (No. 14,836) (CC R. I. 1854) (Curtis, J.).
The language bears the construction, however — and here we come to the point crucial to resolution of the present case — that “cruelty and unusualness” are to be determined not solely with reference to the punishment at issue (“Is life imprisonment a cruel and unusual punishment?”) but with reference to the crime for which it is imposed as well (“Is life imprisonment cruel and unusual punishment for possession of unlawful drugs?”). The latter interpretation would make the provision a form of proportionality guarantee. The arguments against it, however, seem to us conclusive.
First of all, to use the phrase “cruel and unusual punishment” to describe a requirement of proportionality would have been an exceedingly vague and oblique way of saying what Americans were well accustomed to saying more directly. The notion of “proportionality” was not a novelty (though then as now there was little agreement over what it entailed). In 1778, for example, the Virginia Legislature narrowly rejected a comprehensive “Bill for Proportioning Punishments” introduced by Thomas Jefferson. See 4 W. Blackstone, Commentaries 18 (H. Tucker ed. 1803) (discussing efforts at reform); 1 Writings of Thomas Jefferson 218-239 (A. Lipscomb ed. 1903). Proportionality provisions had been included in several State Constitutions. See, e. g., Pa. Const., §38 (1776) (punishments should be “in general more proportionate to the crimes”); S. C. Const., Art. XL (1778) (same); N. H. Bill of Rights, Art. XVIII (1784) (“[A]ll penalties ought to be proportioned to the nature of the of-fence”). There is little doubt that those who framed, proposed, and ratified the Bill of Rights were aware of such provisions, yet chose not to replicate them. Both the New Hampshire Constitution, adopted 8 years before ratification of the Eighth Amendment, and the Ohio Constitution, adopted 12 years after, contain, in separate provisions, a prohibition of “cruel and unusual punishments” (“cruel or unusual,” in New Hampshire’s case) and a requirement that “all penalties ought to be proportioned to the nature of the offence.” N. H. Bill of Rights, Arts. XVIII, XXXIII (1784). Ohio Const., Art. VIII, §§ 18, 14 (1802).
Secondly, it would seem quite peculiar to refer to cruelty and unusualness for the offense in question, in a provision having application only to a new government that had never before defined offenses, and that would be defining new and peculiarly national ones. Finally, and most conclusively, as we proceed to discuss, the fact that what was “cruel and unusual” under the Eighth Amendment was to be determined without reference to the particular offense is confirmed by all available evidence of contemporary understanding.
The Eighth Amendment received little attention during the proposal and adoption of the Federal Bill of Rights. However, what evidence exists from debates at the state ratifying conventions that prompted the Bill of Rights as well as the floor debates in the First Congress which proposed it “confirm [s] the view that the cruel and unusual punishments clause was directed at prohibiting certain methods of punishment.” Granucci, 57 Calif. L. Rev., at 842 (emphasis added). See Schwartz, Eighth Amendment Proportionality Analysis and the Compelling Case of William Rummel, 71 J. Crim. L. & Criminology 378, 378-382 (1980); Welling & Hipfner, Cruel
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
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 Clark
delivered the opinion of the Court.
This case involves, primarily, the coverage of the agriculture exemption of the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938, 52 Stat. 1060, as amended, 29 U. S. C. § 201 et seq. The petitioners are 31 employees of respondent corporation, which is engaged in the growing, harvesting and processing of sugar cane at its plantation in the Territory of Hawaii. Respondent seeks a declaratory judgment that its operations are exempt from the overtime provisions of the Act, while the petitioners, through a counterclaim under § 16 (b) of the Act, seek to recover unpaid overtime compensation. The action pertains only to work performed between November 20, 1946, and September 14, 1947.
Waialua owns and operates what might be called the agricultural analogue of the modern industrial assembly line. On its plantation, consisting of some ten thousand acres of land, it cultivates sugar cane which it processes into raw sugar and molasses. It utilizes the year-round growing season to produce a steady supply of cane and employs in its operations over a thousand persons, many at specialized tasks. Some move from field to field preparing the soil, fertilizing, planting seed or cultivating. Others attend to the irrigation of the fields. As the cane crop matures, crews of employees move in with mechanical cane harvesters that cut and throw the cane into railroad cars. The cane is then taken over portable tracks laid into the growing fields to Waialua’s mainline railroad, which runs throughout the plantation, and from there skilled railroad workers transport the cane to the processing plant. Freshly cut sugar cane is extremely perishable and must be processed within a few days of harvesting or serious spoilage will result. The processing plant is typical of such modern industrial facilities and is manned by employees specially trained in its operation. It has all of the equipment needed to receive the freshly cut cane from the railroad cars and process it into raw sugar and molasses. Adjacent to the processing plant are warehouses where the raw sugar and molasses are stored preparatory to shipment to the United States.
A tremendous variety of work must be done to keep this enterprise going, and Waialua employs persons versed in each operation. In addition to those employed as indicated above, about a hundred more work in repair shops as mechanics, electricians, welders, carpenters, plumbers and painters. They keep Waialua’s highly mechanized enterprise operating, making not only emergency repairs but complete overhauls of the railroad, milling, harvesting and other equipment. Waialua also maintains a plant for the manufacture of concrete products (paving blocks and flumes for irrigation ditches), an electric generating plant in the same building as the mill, and a laboratory for the testing of its soil, water, cane and raw sugar.
In addition to all this, Waialua owns a village where the great majority of its employees live. Known as Waia-lua Village, it was originally built when housing for the employees was inadequate, and is located on plantation property within the limits of the City of Honolulu. Within the town are several hundred houses and business establishments, all occupied on a rental basis, together with recreational areas and other town facilities. The respondent furnishes all the maintenance work for its village, employing street cleaners, road graders and janitors.
Proceedings Below.
The trial judge found that all the employees were outside of the agriculture exemption save those engaged directly in agricultural work in the fields, in loading the freshly cut cane into cane cars, and in hauling the loaded cars to the mainline railroad. Those employees working in the sugar mill were found to be under the special processing provisions of § 7 (c) of the Act. As to the other employees, the court entered judgment for overtime as well as liquidated damages and attorney’s fees. 97 F. Supp. 198. The Court of Appeals reversed, believing that “the entire cause was tainted by apparent collusion” because stipulations covered the commerce features of the case. It thought that “agriculture is not commerce, interstate or foreign,” and that “[fjederal regulation of agriculture invades the reserved rights of the states. United States v. Butler, 297 U. S. 1 . . . . But cf., Wickard v. Filburn, 317 U. S. 111.” It indicated, further, that even if the suit were not collusive, the workers would not be entitled to the relief claimed because all of them came within the agriculture exemption of the Act. 216 F. 2d 466 (1954). Despite this reasoning, the Court of Appeals refused to dismiss petitioners’ counterclaim but remanded it to the trial court “for proceedings in accordance with this opinion.” We granted certiorari, believing that the proper administration of the Act requires a resolution of the questions presented. 348 U. S. 870.
We are in full agreement with the parties that the first ground relied upon by the Court of Appeals is incorrect. It is not necessary now to consider the vitality of United States v. Butler, supra, for that decision expressly reserved the question of whether the regulation of agriculture was within the commerce power, and Wickard v. Filburn, supra, decided the question in favor of the congressional power. In view of the fact that Waialua exports virtually its entire output for sale throughout the United States, we find ourselves unable to say that the stipulation with respect to the power of Congress was collusive.
The Scope of the Agriculture Exemption.
Congress exempted agriculture from the terms of the FLSA in broad, inclusive terms:
Sec. 3. “(f) 'Agriculture’ includes farming in all its branches and among other things includes the cultivation and tillage of the soil, dairying, the production, cultivation, growing, and harvesting of any agricultural or horticultural commodities (including commodities defined as agricultural commodities in section 15 (g) of the Agricultural Marketing Act, as amended), the raising of livestock, bees, fur-bearing animals, or poultry, and any practices (including any forestry or lumbering operations) performed by a farmer or on a farm as an incident to or in conjunction with such farming operations, including preparation for market, delivery to storage or to market or to carriers for transportation to market.”
The exemption was meant to embrace the whole field of agriculture, and sponsors of the legislation so stated, 81 Cong. Rec. 7648, 7658. This Court also has had occasion to comment on its broad coverage. See Addison v. Holly Hill Co., 322 U. S. 607, 612 (1944). Nevertheless, no matter how broad the exemption, it was meant to apply only to agriculture and we are left with the problem of what is and what is not properly included within that term.
From the very beginning of the legislative consideration of the Act, a comprehensive exemption of agricultural labor was a primary consideration of the Congress. Nevertheless, before its final language developed, the agriculture exemption ran the gamut of extensive debates and amendments, each of the latter invariably broadening its scope. Exempting “any person employed in agriculture,” its first comprehensive definition declared “farming in all its branches” to be exempt, including “any practices ordinarily performed by a farmer as an incident to such farming operations.” S. 2475, Calendar No. 905, 75th Cong., 1st Sess. 51. Although this language was described by those in charge of the bill in the Senate as “perhaps, the most comprehensive definition of agriculture which has been included in any one legislative proposal,” 81 Cong. Rec. 7648, its coverage was broadened until it became coterminous with the sum of those activities necessary in the cultivation of crops, their harvesting, and their “preparation for market, delivery to storage or to market or to carriers for transportation to market.” Our main problem is to determine which activities of Waialua come within this definition, thus exempting the persons so employed from the provisions of the Act.
The Railroad Workers.
Waialua’s railroad workers not only haul cane from the fields to the processing plant but also transport farming implements and field laborers on the narrow-gauge railway extending throughout the plantation. For numerous reasons, we feel that these employees fall within the comprehensive wording of the agriculture exemption. Nowhere in the Act was any attempt made to draw a distinction between large and small farms or between mechanized and nonmechanized agriculture. In fact, the very opposite appears, since Congress in 1949 specifically refused to draw a distinction between large and small farms similar to the distinctions drawn in the size of newspapers or telephone companies. See H. R. Rep. No. 267, 81st Cong., 1st Sess., p. 24. Compare FLSA, as amended, §§ 13 (a)(8), 13 (a)(11), 13 (a)(15).
In view of this, we cannot hold that merely because Waialua uses a method ordinarily not associated with agriculture — a railroad — to transport the cane from the fields to the mill, it has forfeited its agriculture exemption. Where a farmer thus uses extraordinary methods, we must look to the function performed. Certainly no one would argue that the agriculture exemption did not apply to farm laborers who took the cane to the plant in wheelbarrows. There is no reason to construe the FLSA so as to discourage modernization in performing this same function.
Furthermore, had Waialua not owned a mill, its transportation activities from field to mill would come squarely within the agriculture exemptions covering “delivery to storage or to market or to carriers for transportation to market.” We do not believe the Congress intended to deprive farmers having their own mills of the exemption it afforded farmers who do not. In the debate on the amendment extending exemption to “delivery to market,” its sponsor made clear that auxiliary activity of the kind here involved would be included within that term. 81 Cong. Rec.^7888.
Similarly, the exemption clearly covers the transportation of farm implements, supplies and field workers to and from the fields. Being performed “on a farm as an incident to or in conjunction with such farming operations,” this activity is a necessary part of the agricultural enterprise.
Although the original administrative interpretation squarely supports our conclusion in regard to such hauling activity, it is insisted that the administrative practice has been to the contrary since Bowie v. Gonzalez, 117 F. 2d 11 (1941). We have examined the press release relied on and find that it stated only that the exemption “does not apply to sugar mill employees, even if the only cane ground in such a mill is cane grown by the sugar mill owner in his own fields,” and made no reference to employees engaged in transporting the cane to the mill. Subsequent statements by the Administrator merely make the coverage of this activity a question of fact to be determined on an ad hoc basis. We see no basis for the assertion, therefore, that the administrative practice since 1941 has been to exclude from the exemption the transportation of cane from field to mill. Moreover, Bowie itself established no such rule, save with regard to the transportation of sugar cane of independent growers. The judgment left all employees transporting sugar cane grown by the mill company in the exempt status. In the subsequent case of Calaf v. Gonzalez, 127 F. 2d 934 (1942), the same Court of Appeals warned that a different problem would be present if the heart of the transportation system and the situs of the employment of workers were located at the plantation. We do not believe that either Bowie or Calaf is apposite. The factual situation here is that Waialua’s transportation system is all either in or contiguous to its fields, save the necessary trackage at the mill to accommodate cane cars arriving from various sections of the plantation. The railroad is used exclusively for the effectuation of the agricultural function of transporting exempt agricultural workers to the fields, together with their equipment and supplies, and hauling freshly cut cane to the processing plant. Without it or some other “haul,” the land could not be cultivated and the cane, after harvest, would spoil in the fields and be lost. We believe that under the facts here presented the administrative practice also requires that the railroad employees be classified as within the agriculture exemption.
The Workers Employed in the Repair Shops.
By a parity of reasoning, those employees who repair the mechanical implements used in farming are also included within the agriculture exemption. Every farmer, big or little, must keep his farming equipment in proper repair, and the fact that Waialua’s size has permitted it to achieve an extraordinary degree of specialization should not deprive it of this exemption. Here, the relatively small number of employees assigned to the repair activities — working only on Waialua’s machinery and equipment — indicates that, far from being a farmer who conducts a repair business on the side, Waialua is merely performing a subordinate and necessary task incident to its agricultural operations. Indeed, the very necessity of integrating these tasks with Waialua’s main operation— without which the entire farming operation would soon become hopelessly stalled — is strong reason to consider the repairmen within the exemption. This reasoning, of course, applies only to those employees engaged in the repair of equipment used in performing agricultural functions : tractors, cane loaders, cane cars, and so forth. The repair work on mill equipment is considered under the processing exemption, infra.
The Employees in Waialua’s Sugar Processing Plant.
The legislative history of the FLSA indicates that the mill employees present a borderline case. Indeed, this very question, i. e., whether the grinding of one’s own sugar cane comes within the exemption, was posed and left unresolved in the debates, 81 Cong. Rec. 7657-7658. The sponsors of the Act made clear, however, that “a farmer erecting on his farm a factory and manufacturing anything you please, whether something he grows or not, who employs many people to manufacture it, and then ships it in interstate commerce . . . would not make the manufacturing ... a farming operation.” 81 Cong. Rec. 7658. Erom this and from discussions of other borderline cases, it is clear that we must look to all the facts surrounding a given process or operation to determine whether it is incident to or in conjunction with farming.
In making such a particularized determination, we may consider first the criteria set forth by the Wage-Hour Administrator in 1949, 35 WHM 371, 373. He proposed the following as relevant factors:
(a) The size of the ordinary farming operations. There can be no question here that such operations are substantial, and that Waialua’s sugar-raising activities are no mere facade for an otherwise industrial venture.
(b) The type of product resulting from the operation in question. Here the products are raw sugar and molasses. There is some ground for considering these as strictly agricultural commodities, since the unmilled sugar cane is highly perishable and unmarketable as such. On the other hand, the milling operation transforms sugar cane from its raw and natural state, and there is support in the Senate debates for the view that a process resulting in such a change is more akin to manufacturing than to agriculture. See 81 Cong. Rec. 7659-7660, 7877-7878.
(c) The investment in the processing operation as opposed to the ordinary farming activities. Here the mill accounts for 29% of Waialua’s total investment in the plantation.
(d) The time spent in processing and in ordinary farming. Waialua’s mill operations account for 23% of the man-hours worked during the year.
(e) The extent to which ordinary farmworkers do processing. There is but slight interchange of workmen. The over-all picture discloses essentially separate working-forces for mill operations and for farming.
(f) The degree of separation by the employer between the various operations. The plantation organization calls for separate departments to handle the processing activities and field work.
(g) The degree of industrialization. The mill workers here, as observed in the Bowie case, are typical factory workers, and from its external characteristics the milling operation is certainly an industrial venture.
But in making the factual determination, we must keep in mind that the question here presented is a limited one: is the milling operation part of the agricultural venture? If it is agriculture, albeit industrialized and involving highly specialized mechanical tasks, we must hold it to be within the agriculture exemption. Thus we must add to the factors above some consideration of what is ordinarily done by farmers with regard to this type of operation. It is true that the word “ordinarily” appeared in an earlier version of the exemption and was subsequently stricken, but the inquiry is nonetheless a pertinent one. It has a very direct bearing in determining whether the milling operation is really incident to farming.
Our major domestic sugar-producing areas are in Louisiana, Puerto Rico and Hawaii. Statistics for 1948 reveal that the 5,957 sugar farms in Louisiana have their sugar processed in 47 independent mills and in 12 co-operatives. Marketing Sugarcane in Louisiana (U. S. Dept. Agric. 1949) 1, 23; Agricultural, Manufacturing and Income Statistics for the Domestic Sugar Areas (U. S. Dept. Agric. 1954) 84. While the independent mills own 40% of the cane-producing acreage, there is no indication that these customarily process only the sugar cane grown on their own lands. For the same year, Puerto Rican sugar from 14,772 farms was processed in 35 “centrals.” The Marketing of Sugarcane in Puerto Rico (U. S. Dept. Agric. 1950) 2; Agricultural, Manufacturing and Income Statistics for the Domestic Sugar Areas, supra, at 121. Again the practice is not for the individual farmer to grind his own sugar. The statistics for Hawaii disclose only 34 and 30 farms for 1947 and 1948 respectively. But these low figures resulted from a classification which counted only the “plantations.” When smaller independent farms were included in the 1951 figures, the number of Hawaiian sugar farms jumped to 786. Agricultural, Manufacturing and Income Statistics for the Domestic Sugar Areas, supra, at 137. In addition, there are some 1,500 or 1,800 small “adherent planters” producing sugar cane in Hawaii. See Hearings before the House Committee on Education and Labor on H. R. 2033, 81st Cong., 1st Sess., p. 1173. According to information furnished by the Sugar Division of the United States Department of Agriculture, there are about twenty-six sugar mills in Hawaii processing cane produced by all these farmers. Ten of these, like Waialua, are engaged exclusively in the processing of their own cane; the remaining sixteen process cane grown by others as well as their own. The pertinent ratio, however, is not the proportion of millers who grow their own cane but the percentage of farmers who engage in milling. Thus, while sugar milling by farmers is more prevalent in Hawaii than in the other sugar-producing areas, it is very doubtful that these milling operations can be considered a normal incident to the cultivation of sugar cane, even in the context of the Hawaiian sugar industry.
From a consideration of all the relevant factors, the question would be an extremely close one in gauging whether this milling operation is farming or manufacturing. But we do not stop here. The status under the FLSA of farmers milling their own sugar is influenced by a number of extraneous legislative factors — their position vis-á-vis the agriculture exemption may well be sui generis. Some time after the inconclusive floor debate on sugar processing, there was included in § 7 (c) a total exemption of this activity from the overtime provisions of the Act. This may well have been considered a satisfactory answer to the difficult problems posed in determining whether sugar processing came within the agriculture exemption. But we cannot be sure of this, because § 7 (c) includes similar exemptions for operations like cotton ginning, which also come within the agriculture exemption if performed by the farmer on his own crops. More significant is the omission of sugar milling from the exemption provided by §13 (a) (10) for various processing operations performed within the area of production.
This exemption was designed to meet the protests of many legislators who argued that the broad agriculture exemption permitted large farming units to process their own products without subjecting themselves to the terms of the Act, while the small farmer, who did not have the equipment necessary for such processing, had to bear the cost of operations covered by the Act. Section 13 (a) (10) exempted employees “within the area of production . . . engaged in handling, packing, storing, ginning, compressing, pasteurizing, drying, preparing in their raw or natural state, or canning of agricultural or horticultural commodities for market.” Thus, for example, the cotton farmer without a gin was placed on an equal footing with farmers who ginned their own cotton, since each could have their cotton ginned by employees who were covered by neither the wage nor the hour provisions of the Act. But sugar milling is not included within the “area of production” exemption, since in the course of this processing the sugar cane is changed from its “raw or natural state.” See 35 WHM 365. Senator Schwellenbach, one of the most ardent advocates of equalization in the status of large and small farmers, considered this change in the product as marking the dividing line between processing as an agricultural function and processing as a manufacturing operation. See 81 Cong. Rec. 7659-7660, 7877-7879. The “area of production” exemption reflects this dichotomy. Thus all other forms of quasi-industrial processing — ginning, canning, packing, etc. — which might be used as analogies for including sugar milling within the agriculture exemption are repeated in § 13 (a) (10). Congress would not have omitted sugar milling from the “area of production” exemption if it had not concluded that it also fell outside the agriculture exemption. We think that adherence to the congressional scheme requires us to hold that sugar milling is outside the agriculture exemption and that its exemption from the hours provision by virtue of § 7 (c) marks the outer limit of congressional concession to this type of processing. By so holding, we not only equalize the status of all sugar farmers with regard to FLSA coverage of milling operations on their product, but we equalize the impact of the Act on all sugar mills, those which grind their own cane and those grinding their neighbors’ as well.
We note, further, that such an interpretation closes a gap that would otherwise exist in the federal wage regulation of persons engaged in producing sugar for interstate commerce. The FLSA clearly reaches those engaged in refining sugar, cf. FLSA § 7 (c), and the Sugar Act provides for reasonable wages for those engaged in the “production, cultivation, or harvesting” of sugar cane. 50 Stat. 909, 61 Stat. 930, 7 U. S. C. § 1131. The latter terminology has been construed to extend to the mainline railroad workers, e. g., 7 CFR, 1941 Supp., § 802.34d, leaving unregulated only the wages of sugar-mill employees — unless, as we hold here, these factory workers are beyond the terms of the agriculture exemption.
Waialua makes much of the fact that the Administrator originally construed the agriculture exemption as covering the grinding of the farmer’s own sugar cane. Interpretative Bulletin No. 14, supra. The Administrator revised his construction in 1941 to accord with his interpretation of several cases in the First Circuit dealing with the Puerto Rican sugar industry, and from that time he has maintained that sugar milling is not exempt, even if the farmer is engaged exclusively in the milling of his own cane. See Press Release, supra, at note 5. The revised construction of the Administrator — and the fact that farmers milling their own sugar cane were covered only by § 7 (c) — were reported to the congressional committees considering amendments to the FLSA. See Hearings before a Subcommittee of the Senate Committee on Education and Labor on S. 1349, 79th Cong., 1st Sess., pp. 1049-1050; Hearings before a Subcommittee of the Senate Committee on Labor and Public Welfare on S. 49 et al., 80th Cong., 2d Sess., p. 318; Hearings before a Subcommittee of the Senate Committee on Labor and Public Welfare on S. 58 et al., 81st Cong., 1st Sess., pp. 973-974; Hearings before the House Committee on Education and Labor on H. R. 2033, 81st Cong., 1st Sess., p. 1166. But when the Act was amended in 1949 Congress did not overrule this interpretation. It provided instead that any “order, regulation, or interpretation of the Administrator” in effect on the effective date of the 1949 amendments “shall remain in effect . . . except to the extent that any such order, regulation, interpretation . . . may be inconsistent with the provisions of this Act . . . .” 63 Stat. 920. We relied on this section in Alstate Construction Co. v. Durkin, 345 U. S. 13, in upholding a regulation of the Administrator which similarly had been changed, reported to Congress in its revised form, and left unaltered by the 1949 Act. We come to the same conclusion in this case, and hold the Administrator’s interpretation unimpaired by the 1949 Amendments. It therefore follows that the employees working in the processing plant are not within the agriculture exemption.
The Processing Exemption.
Although the mill workers are not within the agriculture exemption, they are nevertheless exempt from the overtime provisions of the Act. Section 7 (c) specifically provides that the overtime provisions of the Act shall not apply to “an employer engaged in the . . . processing of . . . sugarcane . . . into sugar (but not refined sugar),” and this exemption extends to “employees in any place of employment [where the processing is carried on].” This, we feel, covers the workmen during the processing season while making emergency repairs in the mill, cleaning the equipment during the week-end shutdown, and performing other tasks closely and intimately connected with the processing operation. Repair work on the mill equipment in Waialua’s shops in the mill area is also within the exemption. See 35 WHM 360-361. During the three-month off-season, however, a complete overhaul and reconditioning is given the entire mill equipment and no processing work is performed. Since § 7 (c) on its face covers only those employees who work in the place of employment where the processor is so engaged, we cannot extend its coverage to include within the overtime exemption permanent repairs, overhaul and reconditioning during this three-month off-season. See Heaburg v. Independent Oil Mill, 46 F. Supp. 751; Abram v. San Joaquin Cotton Oil Co., 49 F. Supp. 393. Cf. Mitchell v. Stinson, 217 F. 2d 210, 217 (C. A. 1st Cir.).
The Waialua Village Workers.
We now come to those workers employed in the maintenance of Waialua Village. This village seems to be an ordinary town, except for the fact that Waialua performs the usual civic functions. It rents its dwelling houses to employees and others on a purely voluntary basis. In fact, the adjacent Haleiwa Village, not owned by Waialua, houses some of the employees. Under the 1949 Amendments to the Act, the work of the employees in maintaining the town clearly is not covered. 63 Stat. 911, 29 U. S. C. § 203 (j). The question presented in this case, therefore, is of small import in itself. Even so, to come within the coverage of the Act prior to this amendment, the activity of such employees must have a “close and immediate tie with the process of production.” Kirschbaum Co. v. Walling, 316 U. S. 517, 525. We do not believe such a tenuous relation as here established is sufficient. This activity is sufficiently regulated by the requirements of Hawaiian law. Revised Laws of Hawaii, 1945, Title 9, Ch. 75, §§ 4351-4366. Congress made it clear that it intended to “leave local business to the protection of the states,” Walling v. Jacksonville Paper Co., 317 U. S. 564, 570, and “did not see fit . . . to exhaust its constitutional power over commerce,” 10 East 40th St. Bldg. v. Callus, 325 U. S. 578, 579. For these reasons, we believe that the employees working in the maintenance of the village and the repair of the respondent’s dwelling houses are not covered by the provisions of the Act.
In view of the state of the record, we are unable to determine the rights of the remaining employees involved in this litigation. We do not have sufficient data to decide whether the employees in the laboratory, the cement products plant and the power plant are within the agriculture or sugar-processing exemption. On remand, the problems arising in those operations — small though they be in the over-all picture — may be decided in the light of the considerations set down in this opinion. Likewise, the trial court may make any necessary reassessment in overtime compensation due employees. The judgment of the Court of Appeals, accordingly, is reversed and the cause is remanded to the District Court for proceedings consistent with this opinion.
Reversed and remanded.
“Sec. 13 (a). The provisions . . . shall not apply with respect to . . . (6) any employee employed in agriculture.”
Forty-two employees were originally involved, but 11 sustained adverse decisions in the District Court and did not appeal.
“. . . the Government does not attempt to uphold the validity of the act on the basis of the commerce clause, which, for the purpose of the present case, may be put aside as irrelevant.” 297 U. S., at 64.
“If a company has sugar cane fields and also a mill, the transportation of its own sugar cane to the mill seems an incidental practice which is included [within the exemption].” U. S. Dept. of Labor, Wage and Hour Division, Interpretative Bulletin No. 14, p. 9, 35 WHM 351, 356.
Press Release, Wage and Hour Division, Sept. 15, 1941, reported at 35 WHM 355.
Findings and Opinion of Administrator, May 20, 1943, Waialua’s brief, pp. 51-52, in proceedings incident to Wage Order, Part 635, for the Sugar and Related Products Industry, 8 Fed. Reg. 7098.
See letter of April 28, 1955, to Stuart Rothman, Solicitor, Department of Labor, from Lawrence Myers, Director, Sugar Division of the Department of Agriculture, as corrected by letter of May 13, 1955, to Stuart Rothman, Solicitor, Department of Labor, from Thomas H. Allen, Acting Director, Sugar Division of the Department of Agriculture. See also Supplemental Brief of the Secretary of Labor, p. 11,
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer:
|
G
|
sc_issuearea
|
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Per Curiam.
The petitioner brought this suit under the Federal Employers’ Liability Act in an Alabama state court. As permitted by the practice in that state, all the facts which the petitioner expected to prove to establish her cause of action were set forth in the complaint so that any objections to a verdict in her favor based on evidence of those facts could be disposed of prior to trial. The respondent demurred to the complaint on the ground that the facts as thus set forth did not constitute a cause of action. The demurrer was sustained by the trial court and its action was affirmed by the Supreme Court of Alabama. We granted certiorari.
It appears from the complaint that the petitioner’s husband was a brakeman whose duties customarily required him to cross between cars on moving freight trains. On one such crossing he fell and was killed. This crossing occurred as part of a required journey from the caboose to a car from which a signal was to be given. The signal ordinarily would have been given from the sixth car from the caboose. The complaint charged, however, that because the railroad had negligently allowed canes to grow alongside the roadbed the deceased could not safely signal from the sixth car and so had to cross to the seventh in order to give the required signal. On this additional crossing he was killed. The complaint also charged that the deceased would not have had to make this particular journey at all if the railroad had provided a competent assistant brakeman. Neither the journey nor the crossing on which the accident occurred was alleged to be any more hazardous than that usually undertaken by railroad brakemen.
The Alabama Supreme Court conceded that the complaint adequately charged negligence in the failure to remove the canes and in the failure to provide a competent fellow servant. It held, however, that the facts alleged did not show that the accident resulted proximately, in whole or in part, from that negligence. We cannot say that the Supreme Court of Alabama erred.
Affirmed.
Mr. Justice Frankfurter
is of opinion that this is also a case in which the petition for certiorari should not have been granted. See Wilkerson v. McCarthy, 336 U. S. 53, 64 (concurring opinion). However, inasmuch as the case does not call for an independent examination of the record in order to appraise conflicting testimony, but merely turns on the facts presented in the pleadings, he joins in the Court’s disposition of it.
Mr. Justice Black, Mr. Justice Douglas, Mr. Justice Murphy and Mr. Justice Rutledge dissent. See Lillie v. Thompson, 332 U. S. 459; Anderson v. Atchison, T. & S. F. R. Co., 333 U. S. 821.
251 Ala. 27, 36 So. 2d 102 (1948).
335 U. S. 852 (1948).
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer:
|
H
|
sc_issuearea
|
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Justice Powell
delivered the opinion of the Court.
This case involves a facial challenge to the constitutionality of the Texas residency requirement governing minors who wish to attend public free schools while living apart from their parents or guardians.
I
Roberto Morales was born in 1969 in McAllen, Texas, and is thus a United States citizen by birth. His parents are Mexican citizens who reside in Reynosa, Mexico. He left Reynosa in 1977 and returned to McAllen to live with his sister, petitioner Oralia Martinez, for the primary purpose of attending school in the McAllen Independent School District. Although Martinez is now his custodian, she is not — and does not desire to become — his guardian. As a result, Morales is not entitled to tuition-free admission to the McAllen schools. Sections 21.031(b) and (c) of the Texas Education Code would require the local school authorities to admit him if he or “his parent, guardian, or the person having lawful control of him” resided in the school district, Tex. Educ. Code Ann. §§ 21.031(b) and (c) (Supp. 1982), but § 21.031(d) denies tuition-free admission for a minor who lives apart from a “parent, guardian, or other person having lawful control of him under an order of a court” if his presence in the school district is “for the primary purpose of attending the public free schools.” Respondent McAllen Independent School District therefore denied Morales’ application for admission in the fall of 1977.
In December 1977 Martinez, as next friend of Morales, and four other adult custodians of school-age children instituted the present action in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Texas against the Texas Commissioner of Education, the Texas Education Agency, four local School Districts, and various local school officials in those Districts. Plaintiffs initially alleged that § 21.031(d), both on its face and as applied by defendants, violated certain provisions of the Constitution, including the Equal Protection Clause, the Due Process Clause, and the Privileges and Immunities Clause. Plaintiffs also sought preliminary and permanent injunctive relief.
The District Court denied a preliminary injunction in August 1978. It found “that the school boards . . . have been more than liberal in finding that certain children are not living away from parents and residing in the school district for the sole purpose of attending school.” App. 20a. The evidence “conclusively” showed “that children living within the school districts with someone other than their parents or legal guardians will be admitted to school if any reason exists for such situation other than that of attending school only.” Ibid, (emphasis in original).
Plaintiffs subsequently amended the complaint to narrow their claims. They now seek only “a declaration that . . . § 21.031(d) is unconstitutional on its face,” id., at 3a, an injunction prohibiting defendants from denying the children admission to school pursuant to § 21.031(d), restitution of certain tuition payments, costs, and attorney’s fees. App. 3a, 7a. After a hearing on the merits, the District Court granted judgment for the defendants. Arredondo v. Brockette, 482 F. Supp. 212 (1979). The court concluded that § 21.031(d) was justified by the State’s “legitimate interest in protecting and preserving the quality of its educational system and the right of its own bona fide residents to attend state schools on a preferred tuition basis.” 482 F. Supp., at 222. In an appeal by two plaintiffs, the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit affirmed. 648 F. 2d 425 (1981). In view of the importance of the issue, we granted certiorari. 457 U. S. 1131 (1982). We now affirm.
HH
This Court frequently has considered constitutional challenges to residence requirements. On several occasions the Court has invalidated requirements that condition receipt of a benefit on a minimum period of residence within a jurisdiction, but it always has been careful to distinguish such dura-tional residence requirements from bona fide residence requirements. In Shapiro v. Thompson, 394 U. S. 618 (1969), for example, the Court invalidated one-year durational residence requirements that applicants for public assistance benefits were required to satisfy despite the fact that they otherwise had “met the test for residence in their jurisdictions,” id., at 627. Justice Brennan, writing for the Court, stressed that “[t]he residence requirement and the one-year waiting-period requirement are distinct and independent prerequisites for assistance,” id., at 636, and carefully “implied] no view of the validity of waiting-period or residence requirements determining eligibility to vote, eligibility for tuition-free education, to obtain a license to practice a profession, to hunt or fish, and so forth,” id., at 638, n. 21. In Dunn v. Blumstein, 405 U. S. 330 (1972), the Court similarly invalidated Tennessee laws requiring a prospective voter to have been a state resident for one year and a county resident for three months, but it explicitly distinguished these durational residence requirements from bona fide residence requirements, id., at 334, 337, n. 7, 338, 343, 350, n. 20, 351-352. This was not an empty distinction. Justice Marshall, writing for the Court, again emphasized that “States have the power to require that voters be bona fide residents of the relevant political subdivision.” Id., at 343. See also Memorial Hospital v. Maricopa County, 415 U. S. 250, 255, 267 (1974) (invalidating one-year durational residence requirement before an applicant became eligible for public medical assistance, but recognizing validity of appropriately defined and uniformly applied bona fide residence requirements).
We specifically have approved bona fide residence requirements in the field of public education. The Connecticut statute before us in Vlandis v. Kline, 412 U. S. 441 (1973), for example, was unconstitutional because it created an irrebut-table presumption of nonresidency for state university students whose legal addresses were outside of the State before they applied for admission. The statute violated the Due Process Clause because it in effect classified some bona fide state residents as nonresidents for tuition purposes. But we “fully recognize[d] that a State has a legitimate interest in protecting and preserving . . . the right of its own bona fide residents to attend [its colleges and universities] on a preferential tuition basis.” Id., at 452-453. This “legitimate interest” permits a “State [to] establish such reasonable criteria for in-state status as to make virtually certain that students who are not, in fact, bona fide residents of the State, but who have come there solely for educational purposes, cannot take advantage of the in-state rates.” Id., at 453-454. Last Term, in Plyler v. Doe, 457 U. S. 202 (1982), we reviewed an aspect of Tex. Educ. Code Ann. §21.031 — the statute at issue in this case. Although we invalidated the portion of the statute that excluded undocumented alien children from the public free schools, we recognized the school districts’ right “to apply . . . established criteria for determining residence.” Id., at 229, n. 22. See id., at 240, n. 4 (Powell, J., concurring) (“Of course a school district may require that illegal alien children, like any other children, actually reside in the school district before admitting them to the schools. A requirement of de facto residency, uniformly applied, would not violate any principle of equal protection”).
A bona fide residence requirement, appropriately defined and uniformly applied, furthers the substantial state interest in assuring that services provided for its residents are enjoyed only by residents. Such a requirement with respect to attendance in public free schools does not violate the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. It does not burden or penalize the constitutional right of interstate travel, for any person is free to move to a State and to establish residence there. A bona fide residence requirement simply requires that the person does establish residence before demanding the services that are restricted to residents.
There is a further, independent justification for local residence requirements in the public-school context. As we explained in Milliken v. Bradley, 418 U. S. 717 (1974):
“No single tradition in public education is more deeply rooted than local control over the operation of schools; local autonomy has long been thought essential both to the maintenance of community concern and support for public schools and to quality of the educational process. . . . [L]ocal control over the educational process affords citizens an opportunity to participate in decision-making, permits the structuring of school programs to fit local needs, and encourages ‘experimentation, innovation, and a healthy competition for educational excellence.’” Id., at 741-742 (quoting San Antonio Independent School District v. Rodriguez, 411 U. S. 1, 50 (1973)).
The provision of primary and secondary education, of course, is one of the most important functions of local government. Absent residence requirements, there can be little doubt that the proper planning and operation of the schools would suffer significantly. The State thus has a substantial interest in imposing bona fide residence requirements to maintain the quality of local public schools.
III
The central question we must decide here is whether § 21.031(d) is a bona fide residence requirement. Although the meaning may vary according to context, “residence” generally requires both physical presence and an intention to remain. As the Supreme Court of Maine explained over a century ago:
“When... a person voluntarily takes up his abode in a given place, with intention to remain permanently, or for an indefinite period of time; or, to speak more accurately, when a person takes up his abode in a given place, without any present intention to remove therefrom, such place of abode becomes his residence. . . .” Inhabitants of Warren v. Inhabitants of Thomaston, 43 Me. 406, 418 (1857).
This classic two-part definition of residence has been recognized as a minimum standard in a wide range of contexts time and time again.
In Vlandis v. Kline, we approved a more rigorous domicile test as a “reasonable standard for determining the residential status of a student.” 412 U. S., at 454. That standard was described as follows: “ ‘In reviewing a claim of in-state status, the issue becomes essentially one of domicile. In general, the domicile of an individual is his true, fixed and permanent home and place of habitation. It is the place to which, whenever he is absent, he has the intention of returning.’” Ibid. (quoting Opinion of the Attorney General of the State of Connecticut Regarding Non-Resident Tuition, Sept. 6, 1972); cf. n. 6, supra. This standard could not be applied to school-age children in the same way that it was applied to college students. But at the very least, a school district generally would be justified in requiring school-age children or their parents to satisfy the traditional, basic residence criteria— i. e., to live in the district with a bona fide intention of remaining there — before it treated them as residents.
Section 21.031 is far more generous than this traditional standard. It compels a school district to permit a child such as Morales to attend school without paying tuition if he has a bona fide intention to remain in the school district indefinitely, for he then would have a reason for being there other than his desire to attend school: his intention to make his home in the district. Thus §21.031 grants the benefits of residency to all who satisfy the traditional requirements. The statute goes further and extends these benefits to many children even if they (or their families) do not intend to remain in the district indefinitely. As long as the child is not living in the district for the sole purpose of attending school, he satisfies the statutory test. For example, if a person comes to Texas to work for a year, his children will be eligible for tuition-free admission to the public schools. See Tr. of Oral Arg. 37. Or if a child comes to Texas for six months for health reasons, he would qualify for tuition-free education. See id., at 31. In short, §21.031 grants the benefits of residency to everyone who satisfies the traditional residence definition and to some who legitimately could be classified as nonresidents. Since there is no indication that this extension of the traditional definition has any impermissible basis, we certainly cannot say that § 21.031(d) violates the Constitution.
IV
The Constitution permits a State to restrict eligibility for tuition-free education to its bona fide residents. We hold that §21.031 is a bona fide residence requirement that satisfies constitutional standards. The judgment of the Court of Appeals accordingly is
Affirmed.
Section 51.02(4) of the Texas Family Code defines “custodian” as “the adult with whom the child resides.” Tex. Fam. Code Ann. §51.02(4) (1975). “Guardian” is defined as “the person who, under court order, is the guardian of the person of the child or the public or private agency with whom the child has been placed by a court.” § 51.02(3).
Section 21.031 provides, in relevant part:
“(b) Every child in this state . . . who is over the age of five years and not over the age of 21 years on the first day of September of the year in which admission is sought shall be permitted to attend the public free schools of the district in which he resides or in which his parent, guardian, or the person having lawful control of him resides at the time he applies for admission.
“(c) The board of trustees of any public free school district of this state shall admit into the public free schools of the district free of tuition all persons . . . who are over five and not over 21 years of age at the beginning of the scholastic year if such person or his parent, guardian or person having lawful control resides within the school district.
“(d) In order for a person under the age of 18 years to establish a residence for the purpose of attending the public free schools separate and apart from his parent, guardian, or other person having lawful control of him under an order of a court, it must be established that his presence in the school district is not for the primary purpose of attending the public free schools. The board of trustees shall be responsible for determining whether an applicant for admission is a resident of the school district for purposes of attending the public schools.”
Although the “special purpose” test was not codified in § 21.031(d) until 1977, it had been a feature of Texas common law since at least 1905. See, e. g., De Leon v. Harlingen Consolidated Independent School District, 552 S. W. 2d 922, 924-925 (Tex. Civ. App. 1977); Tex. Atty. Gen. Op. No. H-63, pp. 2-3 (July 12,1973); Tex. Atty. Gen. Op. No. 0-586, pp. 3-4 (May 25, 1939); 1906-1908 Tex. Atty. Gen. Op. 245, 248 (1905). Before 1905, courts in several States had ruled that a child could not acquire residence for school purposes if his presence in the school district was for the sole purpose of attending school. See, e. g., Yale v. West Middle School District, 59 Conn. 489, 491, 22 A. 295, 296 (1890); State ex rel. School District Board v. Thayer, 74 Wis. 48, 58-59, 41 N. W. 1014, 1017 (1889); Wheeler v. Burrow, 18 Ind. 14, 17 (1862); School District No. 1 v. Bragdon, 23 N. H. 507, 510, 516 (1851).
Morales attended school in the McAllen School District during the fall, 1978 semester when Texas Rural Legal Aid, Inc., paid his tuition. Bond has been posted to cover subsequent tuition payments.
The vast majority of the States have some residence requirements governing entitlement to tuition-free public schooling. Many States have statutes substantially similar to § 21.031(d). See, e. g., Ind. Code § 20-8.1-6.1-1 (c) (1982); Me. Rev. Stat. Ann., Tit. 20, § 859(3)(B)(2) (Supp. 1982); Mass. Gen. Laws Ann., ch. 76, § 6 (West 1982); Mich. Comp. Laws § 380.1148 (Supp. 1981); Ore. Rev. Stat. §332.595(5) (1981).
In McCarthy v. Philadelphia Civil Service Comm’n, 424 U. S. 645 (1976) (per curiam), the Court upheld a bona fide continuing-residence requirement. Again, we carefully distinguished this from a durational residence requirement. Id., at 646-647.
Two years before Vlandis, the Court upheld a domicile requirement for resident tuition rates at the University of Minnesota. Starns v. Malkerson, 401 U. S. 985 (1971), summarily aff’g 326 F. Supp. 234 (Minn. 1970) (three-judge court). The governing regulations declared: “No student is eligible for resident classification in the University . . . unless he has been a bona fide domiciliary of the state for at least a year immediately prior thereto. . . . For University purposes, a student does not acquire a domicile in Minnesota until he has been here for at least a year primarily as a permanent resident and not merely as a student; this involves the probability of his remaining in Minnesota beyond his completion of school.” 326 F. Supp., at 235-236.
Shortly after Vlandis, we upheld a domicile requirement for resident tuition rates at the University of Washington. Sturgis v. Washington, 414 U. S. 1057, summarily aff’g 368 F. Supp. 38 (WD Wash. 1973) (three-judge court). The relevant statute declared: “The term ‘resident student’ shall mean a student who has had a domicile in the state of Washington for . . . one year . . . and has in fact established a bona fide domicile in this state for other than educational purposes. . . .” 368 F. Supp., at 39, n. 1. “Domicile” was defined as “a person’s true, fixed and permanent home and place of habitation. It is the place where he intends to remain, and to which he expects to return when he leaves without intending to establish a new domicile elsewhere.” Ibid.
In Memorial Hospital v. Maricopa County, 415 U. S. 250 (1974), we recognized that a one-year residence requirement was consistent with Shapiro v. Thompson, 394 U. S. 618 (1969), and Dunn v. Blumstein, 405 U. S. 330 (1972), in the context of higher education — despite its durational aspect. 415 U. S., at 259-260, and nn. 12 and 15.
A bona fide residence requirement implicates no “suspect” classification, and therefore is not subject to strict scrutiny. Indeed, there is nothing invidiously discriminatory about a bona fide residence requirement if it is uniformly applied. Thus the question is simply whether there is a rational basis for it.
This view assumes, of course, that the “service” that the State would deny to nonresidents is not a fundamental right protected by the Constitution. A State, for example, may not refuse to provide counsel to an indigent nonresident defendant at a criminal trial where a deprivation of liberty occurs. See Argersinger v. Hamlin, 407 U. S. 25 (1972). As we previously have recognized, however, “[p]ublic education is not a ‘right’ granted to individuals by the Constitution.” Plyler v. Doe, 457 U. S. 202, 221 (1982) (citing San Antonio Independent School District v. Rodriguez, 411 U. S. 1, 35 (1973)).
The courts below construed § 21.031(d) to apply to children entering a Texas school district not only from other States or countries, but also from other school districts within Texas. 648 F. 2d, at 428; 482 F. Supp., at 222. Thus there are applications of the statute that do not even involve interstate travel, let alone burden or penalize it.
The Court of Appeals accepted the District Court’s findings on the adverse impact that invalidating § 21.031(d) would have on the quality of education in Texas. 648 F. 2d, at 428-429. The District Court explicitly found:
“28. Declaring the statute unconstitutional would cause substantial numbers of int[er]-district transfers, which would . . . cause school populations to fluctuate. . . .
“29. Fluctuating school populations would make it impossible to predict enrollment figures — even on a semester-by-semester basis, causing over- or-under-estimates on teachers, supplies, materials, etc.
“30. The increased enrollment of students would cause overcrowded classrooms and related facilities; over-large teacher-pupil ratios; expansion of bilingual programs; the purchase of books, equipment, supplies and other customary items of support; all of which would require a substantial increase in the budget of the school districts.” 482 F. Supp., at 215.
We do not suggest that findings of this degree of specificity are necessary in every case. But they do illustrate the problems that prompt States to adopt regulations such as §21.031.
We need not decide whether § 21.031(d) is unconstitutional as applied, for plaintiffs limited their complaint to a facial challenge of this statute. See supra, at 325.
We reject the argument that § 21.031(d) violates the Due Process Clause because it creates an irrebuttable presumption of nonresidence. Brief for Petitioner 46-49; see Vlandis v. Kline, 412 U. S. 441, 446 (1973). Morales easily could rebut any “presumption” of nonresidence if he were, in fact, a resident. See infra, at 332, and n. 15; App. 20a.
We also find no merit to the argument that § 21.031(d) constitutes an impermissible burden on children who choose to adopt a nontraditional family-living arrangement. Brief for Petitioner 23-24; see Moore v. East Cleveland, 431 U. S. 494, 506 (1977) (plurality opinion). Unlike the housing ordinance we invalidated in Moore v. East Cleveland, the statute before us imposes residence requirements that are justified by substantial state interests on children who live apart from their parents, § 21.031(d), and on children who live with their parents, §§ 21.031(b) and (c); see Mills v. Bartlett, 377 S. W. 2d 636, 637 (Tex. 1964); Snyder v. Pitts, 150 Tex. 407,412-417, 241 S. W. 2d 136, 139-141 (1951); Whitney v. State, 472 S. W. 2d 524, 525-526 (Tex. Crim. App. 1971); Harrison v. Chesshir, 316 S. W. 2d 909, 915 (Tex. Civ. App. 1958), rev’d on other grounds, 159 Tex. 359, 320 S. W. 2d 814 (1959) (per curiam); Prince v. Inman, 280 S. W. 2d 779, 782 (Tex. Civ. App. 1955).
Contrary to the suggestion in the dissent, post, at 337-341, we have said nothing about domicile. The Texas statute, like many similar ones, speaks only in terms of residence. We hold simply that a State may impose bona fide residence requirements for tuition-free admission to its public schools. Our conclusion is supported by the fact that several States have recognized the “intention to remain” requirement in this context. See, e. g., Conn. Gen. Stat. § 10-253(d) (Supp. 1981); Colo. Rev. Stat. § 22-1-102(2)(g) (1973); Op. No. 76-94,1975-1976 Biennial Report of the Atty. Gen. of S. D. 660, 662 (1976); Op. No. 2825,1969-1970 Annual Report & Official Opinions of the Atty. Gen. of S. C. 39, 40 (1970); Op. No. 59-146, 1915-1971 Ariz. Atty. Gen. Reports & Opinions 218, 220 (1959); In re VanCurran, 18 Ed. Dept. Rep. 523, 524 (N. Y. Comm’r Educ. 1979). Cf. n. 13, infra.
See, e. g., Kiehne v. Atwood, 93 N. M. 657, 662, 604 P. 2d 123, 128 (1979); Bullfrog Marina, Inc. v. Lentz, 28 Utah 2d 261, 269-270, 501 P. 2d 266, 272 (1972); Estate of Schoof v. Schoof, 193 Kan. 611, 614, 396 P. 2d 329, 331-332 (1964); Hughes v. Illinois Public Aid Comm’n, 2 Ill. 2d 374, 380,118 N. E. 2d 14,17 (1954); Spratt v. Spratt, 210 La. 370, 371, 27 So. 2d 154,154 (1946); Appeal of Lawrence County in re Forman, 71 S. D. 49, 51, 21 N. W. 2d 57, 58 (1945); Jenkins v. North Shore Dye House, Inc., 277 Mass. 440, 444, 178 N. E. 644, 646 (1931); Thomas v. Warner, 83 Md. 14, 20, 34 A. 830, 831 (1896); Pfoutz v. Comford, 36 Pa. 420, 422 (1860).
Of course, the “intention to remain” component of the traditional residency standard does not imply an intention never to leave. Given the mobility of people and families in this country, changing a place of residence is commonplace. The standard accommodates that possibility as long as there is a bona fide present intention to remain. See n. 11, supra.
In most cases, of course, it is the intention of the parent or guardian on behalf of the child that is relevant. See Deterly v. Wells, 53 S. W. 2d 847, 848 (Tex. Civ. App. 1932) (minor presumed to lack capacity to form requisite intention necessary to establish separate domicile). But for convenience we speak of the child’s intention.
Respondents have conceded that “the statute permits any child to attend school in a district in which he is present for the purpose of ‘establishing a home.’” Brief for Respondents 25. But even if §21.031(d) could be read to exclude a child who moves to a school district with the intent of making his home there when the desire to make the new home is motivated solely by the desire to attend school, Martinez does not have standing to raise such a claim. The record shows that Morales does not intend to make his home in McAllen: the District Court found as a fact that “Morales only intends to reside in the McAllen Independent School District until he completes his education.” 482 F. Supp., at 214. He thus fails to satisfy even this most basic criterion of residence.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer:
|
B
|
sc_issuearea
|
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Mr. Justice Brennan
delivered the opinion of the Court.
We are required in this case to determine for the first time the extent to which the constitutional protections for speech and press limit a State’s power to award damages in a libel action brought by a public official against critics of his official conduct.
Respondent L. B. Sullivan is one of the three elected Commissioners of the City of Montgomery, Alabama. He testified that he was “Commissioner of Public Affairs and the duties are supervision of the Police Department, Fire Department, Department of Cemetery and Department of Scales.” He brought this civil libel action against the four individual petitioners, who are Negroes and Alabama clergymen, and against petitioner the New York Times Company, a New York corporation which publishes the New York Times, a daily newspaper. A jury in the Circuit Court of Montgomery County awarded him damages of $500,000, the full amount claimed, against all the petitioners, and the Supreme Court of Alabama affirmed. 273 Ala. 656, 144 So. 2d 25.
Respondent’s complaint alleged that he had been libeled by statements in a full-page advertisement that was carried in the New York Times on March 29, I960. Entitled “Heed Their Rising Voices,” the advertisement began by stating that “As the whole world knows by now, thousands of Southern Negro students are engaged in widespread non-violent demonstrations in positive affirmation of the right to live in human dignity as guaranteed by the U. S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights.” It went on to charge that “in their efforts to uphold these guarantees, they are being met by an unprecedented wave of terror by those who would deny and negate that document which the whole world looks upon as setting the pattern for modern freedom....” Succeeding paragraphs purported to illustrate the “wave of terror” by describing certain alleged events. The text concluded with an appeal for funds for three purposes: support of the student movement, “the struggle for the right-to-vote,” and the legal defense of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., leader of the movement, against a perjury indictment then pending in Montgomery.
The text appeared over the names of 64 persons, many widely known for their activities in public affairs, religion, trade unions, and the performing arts. Below these names, and under a line reading “We in the south who are struggling daily for dignity and freedom warmly endorse this appeal,” appeared the names of the four individual petitioners and of 16 other persons, all but two of whom were identified as clergymen in various Southern cities. The advertisement was signed at the bottom of the page by the “Committee to Defend Martin Luther King and the Struggle for Freedom in the South,” and the officers of the Committee were listed.
Of the 10 paragraphs of text in the advertisement, the third and a portion of the sixth were the basis of respondent’s claim of libel. They read as follows:
Third paragraph:
“In Montgomery, Alabama, after students sang ‘My Country, ’Tis of Thee’ on the State Capitol steps, their leaders were expelled from school, and truckloads of police armed with shotguns and tear-gas ringed the Alabama State College Campus. When the entire student body protested to state authorities by refusing to re-register, their dining hall was padlocked in an attempt to starve them into submission.”
Sixth paragraph:
“Again and again the Southern violators have answered Dr. King’s peaceful protests with intimidation and violence. They have bombed his home almost killing his wife and child. They have assaulted his person. They have arrested him seven times — for ‘speeding,’ ‘loitering’ and similar ‘offenses.’ And now they have charged him with ‘perjury’ — a felony under which they could imprison him for ten years....”
Although neither of these statements mentions respondent by name, he contended that the word “police” in the third paragraph referred to him as the Montgomery Commissioner who supervised the Police Department, so that he was being accused of “ringing” the campus with police. He further claimed that the paragraph would be read as imputing to the police, and hence to him, the padlocking of the dining hall in order to starve the students into submission. As to the sixth paragraph, he contended that since arrests are ordinarily made by the police, the statement “They have arrested [Dr. King] seven times” would be read as referring to him; he further contended that the “They” who did the arresting would be equated with the “They” who committed the other described acts and with the “Southern violators.” Thus, he argued, the paragraph would be read as accusing the Montgomery police, and hence him, of answering Dr. King’s protests with “intimidation and violence,” bombing his home, assaulting his person, and charging him with perjury. Respondent and six other Montgomery residents testified that they read some or all of the statements as referring to him in his capacity as Commissioner.
It is uncontroverted that some of the statements contained in the two paragraphs were not accurate descriptions of events which occurred in Montgomery. Although Negro students staged a demonstration on the State Capitol steps, they sang the National Anthem and not “My Country, ’Tis of Thee.” Although nine students were expelled by the State Board of Education, this was not for leading the demonstration at the Capitol, but for demanding service at a lunch counter in the Montgomery County Courthouse on another day. Not the entire student body, but most of it, had protested the expulsion, not by refusing to register, but by boycotting classes on a single day; virtually all the students did register for the ensuing semester. The campus dining hall was not padlocked on any occasion, and the only students who may have been barred from eating there were the few who had neither signed a preregistration application nor requested temporary meal tickets. Although the police were deployed near the campus in large numbers on three occasions, they did not at any time “ring” the campus, and they were not called to the campus in connection with the demonstration on the State Capitol steps, as the third paragraph implied. Dr. King had not been arrested seven times, but only four; and although he claimed to have been assaulted some years earlier in connection with his arrest for loitering outside a courtroom, one of the officers who made the arrest denied that there was such an assault.
On the premise that the charges in the sixth paragraph could be read as referring to him, respondent was allowed to prove that he had not participated in the events described. Although Dr. King’s home had in fact been bombed twice when his wife and child were there, both of these occasions antedated respondent’s tenure as Commissioner, and the police were not only not implicated in the bombings, but had made every effort to apprehend those who were. Three of Dr. King’s four arrests took place before respondent became Commissioner. Although Dr. King had in fact been indicted (he was subsequently acquitted) on two counts of perjury, each of which carried a possible five-year sentence, respondent had nothing to do with procuring the indictment.
Respondent made no effort to prove that he suffered actual pecuniary loss as a result of the alleged libel. One of his witnesses, a former employer, testified that if he had believed the statements, he doubted whether he “would want to be associated with anybody who would be a party to such things that are stated in that ad,” and that he would not re-employ respondent if he believed “that he allowed the Police Department to do the things that the paper say he did.” But neither this witness nor any of the others testified that he had actually believed the statements in their supposed reference to respondent.
The cost of the advertisement was approximately $4800, and it was published by the Times upon an order from a New York advertising agency acting for the signatory Committee. The agency submitted the advertisement with a letter from A. Philip Randolph, Chairman of the Committee, certifying that the persons whose names appeared on the advertisement had given their permission. Mr. Randolph was known to the Times’ Advertising Acceptability Department as a responsible person, and in accepting the letter as sufficient proof of authorization it followed its established practice. There was testimony that the copy of the advertisement which accompanied the letter listed only the 64 names appearing under the text, and that the statement, “We in the south... warmly endorse this appeal,” and the list of names thereunder, which included those of the individual petitioners, were subsequently added when the first proof of the advertisement was received. Each of the individual petitioners testified that he had not authorized the use of his name, and that he had been unaware of its use until receipt of respondent’s demand for a retraction. The manager of the Advertising Acceptability Department testified that he had approved the advertisement for publication because he knew nothing to cause him to believe that anything in it was false, and because it bore the endorsement of “a number of people who are well known and whose reputation” he “had no reason to question.” Neither he nor anyone else at the Times made an effort to confirm the accuracy of the advertisement, either by checking it against recent Times news stories relating to some of the described events or by any other means.
Alabama law denies a public officer recovery of punitive damages in a libel action brought on account of a publication concerning his official conduct unless he first makes a written demand for a public retraction and the defendant fails or refuses to comply. Alabama Code, Tit. 7, § 914. Respondent served such a demand upon each of the petitioners. None of the individual petitioners responded to the demand, primarily because each took the position that he had not authorized the use of his name on the advertisement and therefore had not published the statements that respondent alleged had libeled him. The Times did not publish a retraction in response to the demand, but wrote respondent a letter stating, among other things, that “we... are somewhat puzzled as to how you think the statements in any way reflect on you,” and “you might, if you desire, let us know in what respect you claim that the statements in the advertisement reflect on you.” Respondent filed this suit a few days later without answering the letter. The Times did, however, subsequently publish a retraction of the advertisement upon the demand of Governor John Patterson of Alabama, who asserted that the publication charged him with “grave misconduct and... improper actions and omissions as Governor of Alabama and Ex-Officio Chairman of the State Board of Education of Alabama.” When asked to explain why there had been a retraction for the Governor but not for respondent, the Secretary of the Times testified: “We did that because we didn’t want anything that was published by The Times to be a reflection on the State of Alabama and the Governor was, as far as we could see, the embodiment of the State of Alabama and the proper representative of the State and, furthermore, we had by that time learned more of the actual facts which the ad purported to recite and, finally, the ad did refer to the action of the State authorities and the Board of Education presumably of which the Governor is the ex-officio chairman....” On the other hand, he testified that he did not think that “any of the language in there referred to Mr. Sullivan.”
The trial judge submitted the case to the jury under instructions that the statements in the advertisement were “libelous per se” and were not privileged, so that petitioners might be held liable if the jury found that they had published the advertisement and that the statements were made “of and concerning” respondent. The jury was instructed that, because the statements were libelous per se, “the law... implies legal injury from the bare fact of publication itself,” “falsity and malice are presumed,” “general damages need not be alleged or proved but are presumed,” and “punitive damages may be awarded by the jury even though the amount of actual damages is neither found nor shown.” An award of punitive damages — as distinguished from “general” damages, which are compensatory in nature — -apparently requires proof of actual malice under Alabama law, and the judge charged that “mere negligence or carelessness is not evidence of actual malice or malice in fact, and does not justify an award of exemplary or punitive damages.” He refused to charge, however, that the jury must be “convinced” of malice, in the sense of “actual intent” to harm or “gross negligence and recklessness,” to make such an award, and he also refused to require that a verdict for respondent differentiate between compensatory and punitive damages. The judge rejected petitioners’ contention that his rulings abridged the freedoms of speech and of the press that are guaranteed by the First and Fourteenth Amendments.
In affirming the judgment, the Supreme Court of Alabama sustained the trial judge’s rulings and instructions in all respects. 273 Ala. 656, 144 So. 2d 25. It held that “where the words published tend to injure a person libeled by them in his reputation, profession, trade or business, or charge him with an indictable offense, or tend to bring the individual into public contempt,” they are “libelous per se”; that “the matter complained of is, under the above doctrine, libelous per se, if it was published of and concerning the plaintiff”; and that it was actionable without “proof of pecuniary injury..., such injury being implied.” Id., at 673, 676, 144 So. 2d, at 37, 41. It approved the trial court’s ruling that the jury could find the statements to have been made “of and concerning” respondent, stating: “We think it common knowledge that the average person knows that municipal agents, such as police and firemen, and others, are under the control and direction of the city governing body, and more particularly under the direction and control of a single commissioner. In measuring the performance or deficiencies of such groups, praise or criticism is usually attached to the official in complete control of the body.” Id., at 674-675, 144 So. 2d, at 39. In sustaining the trial court’s determination that the verdict was not excessive, the court said that malice could be inferred from the Times’ “irresponsibility” in printing the advertisement while “the Times in its own files had articles already published which would have demonstrated the falsity of the allegations in the advertisement”; from the Times’ failure to retract for respondent while retracting for the Governor, whereas the falsity of some of the allegations was then known to the Times and “the matter contained in the advertisement was equally false as to both parties” ; and from the testimony of the Times’ Secretary that, apart from the statement that the dining hall was padlocked, he thought the two paragraphs were “substantially correct.” Id., at 686-687, 144 So. 2d, at 50-51. The court reaffirmed a statement in an earlier opinion that “There is no legal measure of damages in cases of this character.” Id., at 686, 144 So. 2d, at 50. It rejected petitioners’ constitutional contentions with the brief statements that “The First Amendment of the U. S. Constitution does not protect libelous publications” and “The Fourteenth Amendment is directed against State action and not private action.” Id., at 676, 144 So. 2d, at 40.
Because of the importance of the constitutional issues involved, we granted the separate petitions for certiorari of the individual petitioners and of the Times. 371 U. S. 946. We reverse the judgment. We hold that the rule of law applied by the Alabama courts is constitutionally deficient for failure to provide the safeguards for freedom of speech and of the press that are required by the First and Fourteenth Amendments in a libel action brought by a public official against critics of his official conduct. We further hold that under the proper safeguards the evidence presented in this case is constitutionally insufficient to support the judgment for respondent.
I.
We may dispose at the outset of two grounds asserted to insulate the judgment of the Alabama courts from constitutional scrutiny. The first is the proposition relied on by the State Supreme Court — that “The Fourteenth Amendment is directed against State action and not private action.” That proposition has no application to this case. Although this is a civil lawsuit between private parties, the Alabama courts have applied a state rule of law which petitioners claim to impose invalid restrictions on their constitutional freedoms of speech and press. It matters not that that law has been applied in a civil action and that it is common law only, though supplemented by statute. See, e. g., Alabama Code, Tit. 7, §§ 908-917. The test is not the form in which state power has been applied but, whatever the form, whether such power has in fact been exercised. See Ex parte Virginia, 100 U. S. 339, 346-347; American Federation of Labor v. Swing, 312 U. S. 321.
The second contention is that the constitutional guarantees of freedom of speech and of the press are inapplicable here, at least so far as the Times is concerned, because the allegedly libelous statements were published as part of a paid, “commercial” advertisement. The argument relies on Valentine v. Chrestensen, 316 U. S. 52, where the Court held that a city ordinance forbidding street distribution of commercial and business advertising matter did not abridge the First Amendment freedoms, even as applied to a handbill having a commercial message on one side but a protest against certain official action on the other. The reliance is wholly misplaced. The Court in Chrestensen reaffirmed the constitutional protection for “the freedom of communicating information and disseminating opinion”; its holding was based upon the factual conclusions that the handbill was “purely commercial advertising” and that the protest against official action had been added only to evade the ordinance.
The publication here was not a “commercial” advertisement in the sense in which the word was used in Chrestensen. It communicated information, expressed opinion, recited grievances, protested claimed abuses, and sought financial support on behalf of a movement whose existence and objectives are matters of the highest public interest and concern. See N. A. A. C. P. v. Button, 371 U. S. 416, 435. That the Times was paid for publishing the advertisement is as immaterial in this connection as is the fact that newspapers and books are sold. Smith v. California, 361 U. S. 147, 150; cf. Bantam Books, Inc., v. Sullivan, 372 U. S. 58, 64, n. 6. Any other conclusion would discourage newspapers from carrying “editorial advertisements” of this type, and so might shut off an important outlet for the promulgation of information and ideas by persons who do not themselves have access to publishing facilities — who wish to exercise their freedom of speech even though they are not members of the press. Cf. Lovell v. Griffin, 303 U. S. 444, 452; Schneider v. State, 308 U. S. 147, 164. The effect would be to shackle the First Amendment in its attempt to secure “the widest possible dissemination of information from diverse and antagonistic sources.” Associated Press v. United States, 326 U. S. 1, 20. To avoid placing such a handicap upon the freedoms of expression, we hold that if the allegedly libelous statements would otherwise be constitutionally protected from the present judgment, they do not forfeit that protection because they were published in the form of a paid advertisement.
II.
Under Alabama law as applied in this case, a publication is “libelous per se” if the words “tend to injure a person... in his reputation” or to “bring [him] into public contempt”; the trial court stated that the standard was met if the words are such as to “injure him in his public office, or impute misconduct to him in his office, or want of official integrity, or want of fidelity to a public trust....” The jury must find that the words were published “of and concerning” the plaintiff, but where the plaintiff is a public official his place in the governmental hierarchy is sufficient evidence to support a finding that his reputation has been affected by statements that reflect upon the agency of which he is in charge. Once “libel per se” has been established, the defendant has no defense as to stated facts unless he can persuade the jury that they were true in all their particulars. Alabama Ride Co. v. Vance, 235 Ala. 263, 178 So. 438 (1938); Johnson Publishing Co. v. Davis, 271 Ala. 474, 494-495, 124 So. 2d 441, 457-458 (1960). His privilege of “fair comment” for expressions of opinion depends on the truth of the facts upon which the comment is based. Parsons v. Age-Herald Publishing Co., 181 Ala. 439, 450, 61 So. 345, 350 (1913). Unless he can discharge the burden of proving truth, general damages are presumed, and may be awarded without proof of pecuniary injury. A showing of actual malice is apparently a prerequisite to recovery of punitive damages, and the defendant may in any event forestall a punitive award by a retraction meeting the statutory requirements. Good motives and belief in truth do not negate an inference of malice, but are relevant only in mitigation of punitive damages if the jury chooses to accord them weight. Johnson Publishing Co. v. Davis, supra, 271 Ala., at 495, 124 So. 2d, at 458.
The question before us is whether this rule of liability, as applied to an action brought by a public official against critics of his official conduct, abridges the freedom of speech and of the press that is guaranteed by the First and Fourteenth Amendments.
Respondent relies heavily, as did the Alabama courts, on statements of this Court to the effect that the Constitution does not protect libelous publications. Those statements do not foreclose our inquiry here. None of the cases sustained the use of libel laws to impose sanctions upon expression critical of the official conduct of public officials. The dictum in Pennekamp v. Florida, 328 U. S. 331, 348-349, that “when the statements amount to defamation,-a judge has such remedy in damages for libel as do other public servants,” implied no view as to what remedy might constitutionally be afforded to public officials. In Beauharnais v. Illinois, 343 U. S. 250, the Court sustained an Illinois criminal libel statute as applied to a publication held to be both defamatory of a racial group and “liable to cause violence and disorder.” But the Court was careful to note that it “retains and exercises authority to nullify action which encroaches on freedom of utterance under the guise of punishing libel” ; for “public men, are, as it were, public property,” and “discussion cannot be denied and the right, as well as the duty, of criticism must not be stifled.” Id., at 263-264, and n. 18. In the only previous case that did present the question of constitutional limitations upon the power to award damages for libel of a public official, the Court was equally divided and the question was not decided. Schenectady Union Pub. Co. v. Sweeney, 316 U. S. 642. In deciding the question now, we are compelled by neither precedent nor policy to give any more weight to the epithet “libel” than we have to other “mere labels” of state law. N. A. A. C. P. v. Button, 371 U. S. 415, 429. Like insurrection, contempt, advocacy of unlawful acts, breach of the peace, obscenity, solicitation of legal business, and the various other formulae for the repression of expression that have been challenged in this Court, libel can claim no talismanic immunity from constitutional limitations. It must be measured by standards that satisfy the First Amendment.
The general proposition that freedom of expression upon public questions is secured by the First Amendment has long been settled by our decisions. The constitutional safeguard, we have said, “was fashioned to assure unfettered interchange of ideas for the bringing about of political and social changes desired by the people.” Both v. United States, 354 U. S. 476, 484. “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.” Stromberg v. California, 283 U. S. 359, 369. “[I]t is a prized American privilege to speak one’s mind, although not always with perfect good taste, on all public institutions,” Bridges v. California, 314 U. S. 252, 270, and this opportunity is to be afforded for “vigorous advocacy” no less than “abstract discussion.” N. A. A. C. P. v. Button, 371 U. S. 415, 429. The First Amendment, said Judge Learned Hand, “presupposes that right conclusions are more likely to be gathered out of a multitude of tongues, than through any kind of authoritative selection. To many this is, and always will be, folly; but we have staked upon it our all.” United States v. Associated Press, 52 F. Supp. 362, 372 (D. C. S. D. N. Y. 1943). Mr. Justice Brandéis, in his concurring opinion in Whitney v. California, 274 U. S. 357, 375-376, gave the principle its classic formulation:
“Those who won our independence believed... that public discussion is a political duty; and that this should be a fundamental principle of the American government. They recognized the risks to which all human institutions are subject. But they knew that order cannot be secured merely through fear of punishment for its infraction; that it is hazardous to discourage thought, hope and imagination; that fear breeds repression; that repression breeds hate; that hate menaces stable government; that the path of safety lies in the opportunity to discuss freely supposed grievances and proposed remedies; and that the fitting remedy for evil counsels is good ones. Believing in the power of reason as applied through public discussion, they eschewed silence coerced by law — the argument of force in its worst form. Recognizing the occasional tyrannies of governing majorities, they amended the Constitution so that free speech and assembly should be guaranteed.”
Thus we consider this case against the background of a profound national commitment to the principle that debate on public issues should be uninhibited, robust, and wide-open, and that it may well include vehement, caustic, and sometimes unpleasantly sharp attacks on government and public officials. See Terminiello v. Chicago, 337 U. S. 1, 4; De Jonge v. Oregon, 299 U. S. 353, 365. The present advertisement, as an expression of grievance and protest on one of the major public issues of our time, would seem clearly to qualify for the constitutional protection. The question is whether it forfeits that protection by the falsity of some of its factual statements and by its alleged defamation of respondent.
Authoritative interpretations of the First Amendment guarantees have consistently refused to recognize an exception for any test of truth — whether administered by judges, juries, or administrative officials — and especially one that puts the burden of proving truth on the speaker. Cf. Speiser v. Randall, 357 U. S. 513, 525-526. The constitutional protection does not turn upon “the truth, popularity, or social utility of the ideas and beliefs which are offered.” N. A. A. C. P. v. Button, 371 U. S. 415, 445. As Madison said, “Some degree of abuse is inseparable from the proper use of every thing; and in no instance is this more true than in that of the press.” 4 Elliot’s Debates on the Federal Constitution (1876), p. 571. In Cantwell v. Connecticut, 310 U. S. 296, 310, the Court declared:
“In the realm of religious faith, and in that of political belief, sharp differences arise. In both fields the tenets of one man may seem the rankest error to his neighbor. To persuade others to his own point of view, the pleader, as we know, at times, resorts to exaggeration, to vilification of men who have been, or are, prominent in church or state, and even to false statement. But the people of this nation have ordained in the light of history, that, in spite of the probability of excesses and abuses, these liberties are, in the long view, essential to enlightened opinion and right conduct on the part of the citizens of a democracy.”
That erroneous statement is inevitable in free debate, and that it must be protected if the freedoms of expression are to have the “breathing space” that they “need... to survive,” N. A. A. C. P. v. Button, 371 U. S. 415, 433, was also recognized by the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit in Sweeney v. Patterson, 76 U. S. App. D. C. 23, 24, 128 F. 2d 457, 458 (1942), cert. denied, 317 U. S. 678. Judge Edgerton spoke for a unanimous court which affirmed the dismissal of a Congressman’s libel suit based upon a newspaper article charging him with anti-Semitism in opposing a judicial appointment. He said:
“Cases which impose liability for erroneous reports of the political conduct of officials reflect the obsolete doctrine that the governed must not criticize their governors.... The interest of the public here outweighs the interest of appellant or any other individual. The protection of the public requires not merely discussion, but information. Political conduct and views which some respectable people approve, and others condemn, are constantly imputed to Congressmen. Errors of fact, particularly in regard to a man’s mental states and processes, are inevitable.... Whatever is added to the field of libel is taken from the field of free debate.”
Injury to official reputation affords no more warrant for repressing speech that would otherwise be free than does factual error-. Where judicial officers are involved, this Court has held that concern for the dignity and reputation of the courts does not justify the punishment as criminal contempt of criticism of the judge or his decision. Bridges v. California, 314 U. S. 252. This is true even though the utterance contains “half-truths” and “misinformation.” Pennekamp v. Florida, 328 U. S. 331, 342, 343, n. 5, 345. Such repression can be justified, if at all, only by a clear and present danger of the obstruction of justice. See also Craig v. Harney, 331 U. S. 367; Wood v. Georgia, 370 U. S. 375. If judges are to be treated as “men of fortitude, able to thrive in a hardy climate,” Craig v. Harney, supra, 331 U. S., at 376, surely the same must be true of other government officials, such as elected city commissioners. Criticism of their official conduct does not lose its constitutional protection merely because it is effective criticism and hence diminishes their official reputations.
If neither factual error nor defamatory content suffices to remove the constitutional shield from criticism of official conduct, the combination of the two elements is no less inadequate. This is the lesson to be drawn from the great controversy over the Sedition Act of 1798, 1 Stat. 596, which first crystallized a national awareness of the central meaning of the First Amendment. See Levy, Legacy of Suppression (1960), at 258 et seq.; Smith, Freedom’s Fetters (1956), at 426, 431, and passim. That statute made it a crime, punishable by a $5,000 fine and five years in prison, “if any person shall write, print, utter or publish... any false, scandalous and malicious writing or writings against the government of the United States, or either house of the Congress..., or the President..., with intent to defame... or to bring them, or either of them, into contempt or disrepute; or to excite against them, or either or any of them, the hatred of the good people of the United States.” The Act allowed the defendant the defense of truth, and provided that the jury were to be judges both of the law and the facts. Despite these qualifications, the Act was vigorously condemned as unconstitutional in an attack joined in by Jefferson and Madison. In the famous Virginia Resolutions of 1798, the General Assembly of Virginia resolved that it
“doth particularly protest against the palpable and alarming infractions of the Constitution, in the two late cases of the 'Alien and Sedition Acts/ passed at the last session of Congress.... [The Sedition Act] exercises... a power not delegated by the Constitution, but, on the contrary, expressly and positively forbidden by one of the amendments thereto — a power which, more than any other, ought to produce universal alarm, because it is levelled against the right of freely examining public characters and measures, and of free communication among the people thereon, which has ever been justly deemed the only effectual guardian of every other right.” 4 Elliot’s Debates, supra, pp. 553-554.
Madison prepared the Report in support of the protest. His premise was that the Constitution created a form of government under which “The people, not the government, possess the absolute sovereignty.” The structure of the government dispersed power in reflection of the people’s distrust of concentrated power, and of power itself at all levels. This form of government was “altogether different” from the British form, under which the Crown was sovereign and the people were subjects. “Is it not natural and necessary, under such different circumstances,” he asked, “that a different degree of freedom in the use of the press should be contemplated?” Id., pp. 569-570. Earlier, in a debate in the House of Representatives, Madison had said: “If we advert to the nature of Republican Government, we shall find that the censorial power is in the people over the Government, and not in the Government over the people.” 4 Annals of Congress, p. 934 (1794). Of the exercise of that power by the press, his Report said: “In every state, probably, in the Union, the press has exerted a freedom in canvassing the merits and measures of public men, of every description, which has not been confined to the strict limits of the common law. On this footing the freedom of the press has stood; on this foundation it yet stands....” 4 Elliot’s Debates, supra, p. 570. The right of free public discussion of the stewardship of public officials was thus, in Madison’s view, a fundamental principle of the American form of government.
Although the Sedition Act was never tested in this Court, the attack upon its validity has carried the day in the court of history. Fines levied in its prosecution were repaid by Act of Congress on the ground that it was unconstitutional. See, e. g., Act of July 4, 1840, e. 45, 6 Stat. 802, accompanied by H. R. Rep. No. 86, 26th Cong., 1st Sess. (1840). Calhoun, reporting to the Senate on February 4, 1836, assumed that its invalidity was a matter “which no one now doubts.” Report with Senate bill No. 122, 24th Cong., 1st Sess., p. 3. Jefferson, as President, pardoned those who had been convicted and sentenced under the Act and remitted their fines, stating:
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
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 Frankfurter
delivered the opinion of the Court.
On February 18, 1943, the United States filed a petition in the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts to condemn certain land and buildings in Springfield, Massachusetts, for use by the Army for a term initially ending June 30, 1943, with a right to renew for additional yearly periods during the existing national emergency, at the election of the Secretary of War. On the same day the District Court authorized the United States to take immediate possession. The respondent, Westinghouse Electric and Manufacturing Company, was lessee of a portion of the condemned property, using it as a warehouse, under a lease dated January 19, 1942, for a term expiring on October 31, 1944. Respondent, in order to comply with the District Court’s order of immediate possession, incurred expenses for the removal of its personal property. Subsequently, the Secretary of War exercised his right of renewal and extended the Government’s occupancy for two additional yearly periods ending on June 30, 1945. Thus, although the occupancy taken by the United States was initially for a period less than the remainder of respondent’s term, the renewals eventually exhausted respondent’s leasehold.
At the time of the initial taking as well as upon each yearly extension, sums were deposited into the District Court as estimated just compensation. It was stipulated that these sums represented the fair market value of the bare, unheated warehouse space taken, leaving open the question whether, as a matter of law, the removal costs incurred by the respondent were to be taken into account in computing just compensation for what was condemned. It was further stipulated that the removal expenses were both reasonable and necessary, and that, taking such removal costs into account, the market rental value of the premises was $25,600 greater on a sublease given by respondent to a temporary occupier than as bare unheated warehouse space.
The District Court ruled that removal expenses should be included in the measure of just compensation, and awarded to respondent the stipulated amount. 71 F. Supp. 1001. The Court of Appeals affirmed, Chief Judge Magruder dissenting. 170 F. 2d 752. The disagreement was due not to differences of independent views but to conflicting meanings drawn from the decisions of this Court in United States v. General Motors Corp., 323 U. S. 373, and United States v. Petty Motor Co., 327 U. S. 372. The need for clarification led us to bring the case here. 336 U. S. 950.
The General Motors and Petty Motor cases concerned themselves with the situation in which the Government does not take the whole of a man’s interest but desires merely temporary occupancy of premises under lease. General Motors held that when such occupancy is for a period less than an outstanding term, removal costs may be considered in the award of “just compensation” to the temporarily ejected tenant — not as an independent item of damage, but as bearing on the rental value such premises would have on a voluntary sublease by a long-term tenant to a temporary occupier.
In this holding of what is just, within the requirements of the Fifth Amendment, the Court was scrupulously careful not to depart from the settled rule against allowance for “consequential losses” in federal condemnation proceedings. 323 U. S. at 379 et seq. When there is an entire taking of a condemnee’s property, whether that property represents the interest in a leasehold or a fee, the expenses of removal or of relocation are not to be included in valuing what is taken. That rule was found inapplicable to the new situation presented by the General Motors case — inapplicable, that is, where what was to be valued was “a right of temporary occupancy of a building equipped for the condemnee’s business, filled with his commodities, and presumably to be reoccupied and used, as before, to the end of the lease term on the termination of the Government’s use.” 323 U. S. at 380.
Petty Motor made clear that the taking of the whole of a tenant’s lease does not fall within the General Motors doctrine. The reason for the distinction between the two situations was made explicit in Petty Motor:
“There is a fundamental difference between the taking of a part of a lease and the taking of the whole lease. That difference is that the lessee must return to the leasehold at the end of the Government’s use or at least the responsibility for the period of the lease which is not taken rests upon the lessee. This was brought out in the General Motors decision. Because of that continuing obligation in all takings of temporary occupancy of leaseholds, the value of the rights of the lessees which are taken may be affected by evidence of the cost of temporary removal.” 327 U. S. at 379-80.
While it is true that in both the General Motors and Petty Motor cases the Government had retained an option to vary the duration of its occupancy — in the former case it could extend, and in the latter it could shorten— the legal significance of such an option with respect to removal costs was not squarely in issue. It is now. Where the Government initially takes an occupancy for less than the outstanding term of a lease but then exercises its renewal option so as to exhaust the entire lease, shall this be treated merely as a temporary occupancy during part of an outstanding lease and thus within the General Motors doctrine, or as a taking of the whole lease and hence within Petty Motor?
Here, as in General Motors, the Government initially took over only part of an outstanding lease. But here the Secretary of War in fact continued the Army’s occupancy of the premises beyond the expiration of Westinghouse’s lease. Judged by the event, therefore, this case was unlike General Motors in that what the Government took was the whole of the lease. It was thus like Petty Motor. The formal difference between this case and Petty Motor was that in this case the Government began with an occupancy shorter than the outstanding lease with a contingent reservation for its extension, while in Petty Motor there was a contingent reservation to shorten an occupancy that nominally exhausted the lease.
To make a distinction between taking a part of a lease with notice that the period of occupancy may be extended for the rest of the leasehold, and formally taking a whole leasehold with the right to occupy only a portion of it and throw up the rest, is to make the constitutional requirement for just compensation turn on a wholly barren formality. It is barren because a taking of a contingent occupancy by the Government could be cast in either form by those in charge of its condemnation proceedings without the slightest difference to the Government’s interest. The reason for condemnation for a period shorter than a tenant’s outstanding term with notice that extensions may absorb the balance of the term (i. e., the form in this case), or for condemnation formally for the whole of an unexpired leasehold with notice that the Government’s occupancy may be terminated before the outstanding term has expired (i. e., the form in Petty Motor), is precisely the same. It is a recognition of the contingencies which may determine the duration of the emergency during which the Government seeks temporary occupancy of leased premises. And so it takes a flexible term, casting the burden of the contingency upon the ousted tenant.
Under either type of condemnation the United States may in fact move out before the ousted leaseholder’s term has expired, thus imposing upon him the duty to return to the premises or make some other burdensome adjustment. In that event, he is placed in precisely the same boat as was the General Motors Corporation, and the cost of removal is therefore admissible in evidence “as bearing on the market rental value of the temporary occupancy taken.” 323 U. S. at 383. Contrariwise, under either type of condemnation the Government may continue its occupancy throughout the tenant’s term. In that event, the situation is governed by Petty Motor and removal costs may not be taken into account. The final severance of a lessee’s occupancy as against a temporary interruption of an outstanding leasehold, even though not definitively fixed at the outset, is a difference in degree wide enough to justify a difference in result.
The test of the outcome — is the Government merely a temporary occupier of an unexpired leasehold or has it absorbed the term of the lease? — has actuality behind it. Until events have made it clear, we cannot know whether the tenant will have to move back into his leased premises or make some other adjustment, and thus we cannot know whether the reason for the General Motors doctrine operates.
Condemnation for indefinite periods of occupancy was a practical response to the uncertainties of the Government’s needs in wartime. Law has sufficient flexibility to accommodate itself to these uncertainties by making what is a relatively minor item await the event. To do so does not keep the litigation open longer than it has to be kept open, because the total award for the Government’s occupancy cannot be determined until its duration is known. The usual rule for ascertaining value at the time of taking is not disrespected if one item is made a function of the future because only then can it be known whether that item forms a part of what has been “taken.” The alternative is to require a forecast of the possibility that the tenant will have to move back into the premises. The factors on which such a forecast must be based are too contingent, too unique for guidance by experience, to permit rational assessment. This is a situation where the law should express “a judgment from experience as against a judgment from speculation.” Tanner v. Little, 240 U. S. 369, 386. Or, as it was put by Mr. Justice Cardozo for the Court in a relevant situation: “Experience is then available to correct uncertain prophecy. Here is a book of wisdom that courts may not neglect. We find no rule of law that sets a clasp upon its pages, and forbids us to look within.” Sinclair Refining Co. v. Jenkins Petroleum Process Co., 289 U. S. 689, 698.
An award based on removal costs will of course be delayed until it is known whether the Government’s occupancy has exhausted the tenant’s leasehold. But this presents no real administrative difficulties. That the essential facts here became known before the time for judicial determination hardly makes this case atypical. Even in the cases where the event is still open, the cost of moving out, insofar as it is to be reflected in just compensation, may be treated as a segregated item. Thus, its amount may be ascertained at an early stage of the judicial proceedings, but the judgment made conditional upon the outcome of the Government’s occupancy. And rental payments due from the Government need not be postponed. So long as the duration of the Government’s occupancy is undetermined, the District Court must necessarily retain the case for the periodic determination and payment of rental compensation. This is so in the absence of any problem arising out of removal costs. No unfairness or embarrassment to the displaced tenant is thus involved by leaving liability based on removal to await the event.
In the case before us, it was known at the time of trial in the District Court that respondent’s term had been exhausted by the Government’s occupancy. Accordingly, the judgment is reversed insofar as it awards $25,600 to respondent.
Reversed.
Mr. Justice Douglas took no part in the consideration or decision of this case.
The petition was filed under § 201 of Title II of the Second War Powers Act of 1942, 56 Stat. 176, 177, 50 U. S. C. App. § 632. This section authorized certain officials “to acquire by condemnation, any real property, temporary use thereof, or other interest therein,” for purposes related to the war. Plainly it conferred power to condemn interests in realty normally purchased by private persons, including, of course, options to renew.
This holding in the General Motors ease was the Court’s determination, without any congressional action, of what constituted “just compensation” under the Fifth Amendment.
Problems relating to the valuation of renewal options are not before us on this record. It need hardly be said that provision for renewal does not necessitate the same rental for the renewed period as for the initial period. Whether a rental for each renewed period was initially fixed in this case is not disclosed by the stipulated facts.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
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.
Opinion of the Court by
Mr. Justice White,
announced by Mr. Justice Blackmun.
These cases arise out of the investigation by a federal grand jury into possible criminal conduct with respect to the release and publication of a classified Defense Department study entitled History of the United States Decision-Making Process on Viet Nam Policy. This document, popularly known as the Pentagon Papers, bore a Defense security classification of Top Secret-Sensitive. The crimes being investigated included the retention of public property or records with intent to convert (18 U. S. C. § 641), the gathering and transmitting of national defense information (18 U. S. C. § 793), the concealment or removal of public records or documents (18 U. S. C. § 2071), and conspiracy to commit such offenses and to defraud the United States (18 U. S. C. §371).
Among the witnesses subpoenaed were Leonard S. Rodberg, an assistant to Senator Mike Gravel of Alaska and a resident fellow at the Institute of Policy Studies, and Howard Webber, Director of M. I. T. Press. Senator Gravel, as intervenor, filed motions to quash the subpoenas and to require the Government to specify the particular questions to be addressed to Rodberg. He asserted that requiring these witnesses to appear and testify would violate his privilege under the Speech or Debate Clause of the United States Constitution, Art. I, § 6, cl. 1.
It appeared that on the night of June 29, 1971, Senator Gravel, as Chairman of the Subcommittee on Buildings and Grounds of the Senate Public Works Committee, convened a meeting of the subcommittee and there read extensively from a copy of the Pentagon Papers. He then placed the entire 47 volumes of the study in the public record. Rodberg had been added to the Senator’s staff earlier in the day and assisted Gravel in preparing for and conducting the hearing. Some weeks later there were press reports that Gravel had arranged for the papers to be published by Beacon Press and that members of Gravel’s staff had talked with Webber as editor of M. I. T. Press.
The District Court overruled the motions to quash and to specify questions but entered an order proscribing certain categories of questions. United States v. Doe, 332 F. Supp. 930 (Mass. 1971). The Government’s contention that for purposes of applying the Speech or Debate Clause the courts were free to inquire into the regularity of the subcommittee meeting was rejected. Because the Clause protected all legislative acts, it was held to shield from inquiry anything the Senator did at the subcommittee meeting and “certain acts done in preparation therefor.” Id., at 935. The Senator’s privilege also prohibited “inquiry into things done by Dr. Rodberg as the Senator’s agent or assistant which would have been legislative acts, and therefore privileged, if performed by the Senator personally.” Id., at 937-938. The trial court, however, held the private publication of the documents was not privileged by the Speech or Debate Clause. Id., at 936.
The Court of Appeals affirmed the denial of the motions to quash but modified the protective order to reflect its own views of the scope of the congressional privilege. United States v. Doe, 455 F. 2d 753 (CA1 1972). Agreeing that Senator and aide were one for the purposes of the Speech or Debate Clause and that the Clause foreclosed inquiry of both Senator and aide with respect to legislative acts, the Court of Appeals also viewed the privilege as barring direct inquiry of the Senator or his aide, but not of third parties, as to the sources of the Senator’s information used in performing legislative duties. Although it did not consider private publication by the Senator or Beacon Press to be protected by the Constitution, the Court of Appeals apparently held that neither Senator nor aide could be questioned about it because of a common-law privilege akin to the judicially created immunity of executive officers from liability for libel contained in a news release issued in the course of their normal duties. See Barr v. Matteo, 360 U. S. 564 (1959). This privilege, fashioned by the Court of Appeals, would not protect third parties from similar inquiries before the grand jury. As modified by the Court of Appeals, the protective order to be observed by prosecution and grand jury was:
“(1) No witness before the grand jury currently investigating the release of the Pentagon Papers may be questioned about Senator Mike Gravel’s conduct at a meeting of the Subcommittee on Public Buildings and Grounds on June 29, 1971, nor, if the questions are directed to the motives or purposes behind the Senator’s conduct at that meeting, about any communications with him or with his aides regarding the activities of the Senator or his aides during the period of their employment, in preparation for and related to said meeting.
“(2) Dr. Leonard S. Rodberg may not be questioned about his own actions in the broadest sense, including observations and communications, oral or written, by or to him or coming to his attention while being interviewed for, or after having been engaged as a member of Senator Gravel’s personal staff to the extent that they were in the course of his employment.”
The United States petitioned for certiorari challenging the ruling that aides and other persons may not be questioned with respect to legislative acts and that an aide to a Member of Congress has a common-law privilege not to testify before a grand jury with respect to private publication of materials introduced into a subcommittee record. Senator Gravel also petitioned for certiorari seeking reversal of the Court of Appeals insofar as it held private publication unprotected by the Speech or Debate Clause and asserting that the protective order of the Court of Appeals too narrowly protected against inquiries that a grand jury could direct to third parties. We granted both petitions. 405 U. S. 916 (1972).
I
Because the claim is that a Member’s aide shares the Member’s constitutional privilege, we consider first whether and to what extent Senator Gravel himself is exempt from process or inquiry by a grand jury investigating the commission of a crime. Our frame of reference is Art. I, § 6, cl. 1, of the Constitution:
“The Senators and Representatives shall receive a Compensation for their Services, to be ascertained by Law, and paid out of the Treasury of the United States. They shall in all Cases, except Treason, Felony and Breach of the Peace, be privileged from Arrest during their Attendance at the Session of their respective Houses, and in going to and returning from the same; and for any Speech or Debate in either House, they shall not be questioned in any other Place.”
The last sentence of the Clause provides Members of Congress with two distinct privileges. Except in cases of “Treason, Felony and Breach of the Peace,” the Clause shields Members from arrest while attending or traveling to and from a session of their House. History reveals, and prior cases so hold, that this part of the Clause exempts Members from arrest in civil cases only. “When the Constitution was adopted, arrests in civil suits were still common in America. It is only to such arrests that the provision applies.” Long v. Ansell, 293 U. S. 76, 83 (1934) (footnote omitted). “Since... the terms treason, felony and breach of the peace, as used in the constitutional provision relied upon, excepts from the operation of the privilege all criminal offenses, the conclusion results that the claim of privilege of exemption from arrest and sentence was without merit....” Williamson v. United States, 207 U. S. 425, 446 (1908). Nor does freedom from arrest confer immunity on a Member from service of process as a defendant in civil matters, Long v. Ansell, supra, at 82-83, or as a witness in a criminal case. “The constitution givés to every man, charged with an offence, the benefit of compulsory process, to secure the attendance of his witnesses. I do not know of any privilege to exempt members of congress from the service, or the obligations, of a subpoena, in such cases.” United States v. Cooper, 4 Dall. 341 (1800) (Chase, J., sitting on Circuit). It is, therefore, sufficiently plain that the constitutional freedom from arrest does not exempt Members of Congress from the operation of the ordinary criminal laws, even though imprisonment may prevent or interfere with the performance of their duties as Members. Williamson v. United States, supra; cf. Burton v. United States, 202 U. S. 344 (1906). Indeed, implicit in the narrow scope of the privilege of freedom from arrest is, as Jefferson noted, the judgment that legislators ought not to stand above the law they create but ought generally to be bound by it as are ordinary persons. T. Jefferson, Manual of Parliamentary Practice, S. Doc. No. 92-1, p. 437 (1971).
In recognition, no doubt, of the force of this part of § 6, Senator Gravel disavows any assertion of general immunity from the criminal law. But he points out that the last portion of § 6 affords Members of Congress another vital privilege — they may not be questioned in any other place for any speech or debate in either House. The claim is not that while one part of § 6 generally permits prosecutions for treason, felony, and breach of the peace, another part nevertheless broadly forbids them. Rather, his insistence is that the Speech or Debate Clause at the very least protects him from criminal or civil liability and from questioning elsewhere than in the Senate, with respect to the events occurring at the subcommittee hearing at which the Pentagon Papers were introduced into the public record. To us this claim is incontrovertible. The Speech or Debate Clause was designed to assure a co-equal branch of the government wide freedom of speech, debate, and deliberation without intimidation or threats from the Executive Branch. It thus protects Members against prosecutions that directly impinge upon or threaten the legislative process. We have no doubt that Senator Gravel may not be made to answer — either in terms of questions or in terms of defending himself from prosecution — for the events that occurred at the subcommittee meeting. Our decision is made easier by the fact that the United States appears to have abandoned whatever position it took to the contrary in the lower courts.
Even so, the United States strongly urges that because the Speech or Debate Clause confers a privilege only upon “Senators and Representatives,” Rodberg himself has no valid claim to constitutional immunity from grand jury inquiry. In our view, both courts below correctly rejected this position. We agree with the Court of Appeals that for the purpose of construing the privilege a Member and his aide are to be “treated as one,” United States v. Doe, 455 F. 2d, at 761; or, as the District Court put it: the “Speech or Debate Clause prohibits inquiry into things done by Dr. Rodberg as the Senator’s agent or assistant which would have been legislative acts, and therefore privileged, if performed by the Senator personally.” United States v. Doe, 332 F. Supp., at 937-938. Both courts recognized what the Senate of the United States urgently presses here: that it is literally impossible, in view of the complexities of the modern legislative process, with Congress almost constantly in session and matters of legislative concern constantly proliferating, for Members of Congress to perform their legislative tasks without the help of aides and assistants; that the day-to-day work of such aides is so critical to the Members’ performance that they must be treated as the latter’s alter egos; and that if they are not so recognized, the central role of the Speech or Debate Clause — to prevent intimidation of legislators by the Executive and accountability before a possibly hostile judiciary, United States v. Johnson, 383 U. S. 169, 181 (1966) — will inevitably be diminished and frustrated.
The Court has already embraced similar views in Barr v. Matteo, 360 U. S. 564 (1959), where, in immunizing the Acting Director of the Office of Rent Stabilization from liability for an alleged libel contained in a press release, the Court held that the executive privilege recognized in prior cases could not be restricted to those of cabinet rank. As stated by Mr. Justice Harlan, the “privilege is not a badge or emolument of exalted office, but an expression of a policy designed to aid in the effective functioning of government. The complexities and magnitude of governmental activity have become so great that there must of necessity be a delegation and re-delegation of authority as to many functions, and we cannot say that these functions become less important simply because they are exercised by officers of lower rank in the executive hierarchy.” Id., at 572-573 (footnote omitted).
It is true that the Clause itself mentions only “Senators and Representatives,” but prior cases have plainly not taken a literalistic approach in applying the privilege. The Clause also speaks only of “Speech or Debate,” but the Court’s consistent approach has been that to confine the protection of the Speech or Debate Clause to words spoken in debate would be an unacceptably narrow view. Committee reports, resolutions, and the act of voting are equally covered; “[i]n short,... things generally done in a session of the House by one of its members in relation to the business before it.” Kilbourn v. Thompson, 103 U. S. 168, 204 (1881), quoted with approval in United States v. Johnson, 383 U. S., at 179. Rather than giving the Clause a cramped construction, the Court has sought to implement its fundamental purpose of freeing the legislator from executive and judicial oversight that realistically threatens to control his conduct as a legislator. We have little doubt that we are neither exceeding our judicial powers nor mistakenly construing the Constitution by holding that the Speech or Debate Clause applies not only to a Member but also to his aides insofar as the conduct of the latter would be a protected legislative act if performed by the Member himself.
Nor can we agree with the United States that our conclusion is foreclosed by Kilbourn v. Thompson, supra, Dombrowski v. Eastland, 387 U. S. 82 (1967), and Powell v. McCormack, 395 U. S. 486 (1969), where the speech or debate privilege was held unavailable to certain House and committee employees. Those cases do not hold that persons other than Members of Congress are beyond the protection of the Clause when they perform or aid in the performance of legislative acts. In Kilbourn, the Speech or Debate Clause protected House Members who had adopted a resolution authorizing Kilbourn’s arrest; that act was clearly legislative in nature. But the resolution was subject to judicial review insofar as its execution impinged on a citizen’s rights as it did there. That the House could with impunity order an unconstitutional arrest afforded no protection for those who made the arrest. The Court quoted with approval from Stockdale v. Hansard, 9 Ad. & E. 1, 112 Eng. Rep. 1112 (K. B. 1839): “ 'So if the speaker by authority of the House order an illegal act, though that authority shall exempt him from question, his order shall no more justify the person who executed it than King Charles’s warrant for levying ship-money could justify his revenue officer/ ” 103 U. S., at 202. The Speech or Debate Clause could not be construed to immunize an illegal arrest even though directed by an immune legislative act. The Court was careful to point out that the Members themselves were not implicated in the actual arrest, id., at 200, and, significantly enough, reserved the question whether there might be circumstances in which “there may... be things done, in the one House or the other, of an extraordinary character, for which the members who take part in the act may be held legally responsible.” 103 U. S., at 204 (emphasis added).
Dombrowski v. Eastland, supra, is little different in principle. The Speech or Debate Clause there protected a Senator, who was also a subcommittee chairman, but not the subcommittee counsel. The record contained no evidence of the Senator’s involvement in any activity that could result in liability, 387 U. S., at 84, whereas the committee counsel was charged with conspiring with state officials to carry out an illegal seizure of records that the committee sought for its own proceedings. Ibid. The committee counsel was deemed protected to some extent by legislative privilege, but it did not shield him from answering as yet unproved charges of conspiring to violate the constitutional rights of private parties. Unlawful conduct of this kind the Speech or Debate Clause simply did not immunize.
Powell v. McCormack reasserted judicial power to determine the validity of legislative actions impinging on individual rights — there the illegal exclusion of a representative-elect — and to afford relief against House aides seeking to implement the invalid resolutions. The Members themselves were dismissed from the case because shielded by the Speech or Debate Clause both from liability for their illegal legislative act and from having to defend themselves with respect to it. As in Kilbourn, the Court did not reach the question “whether under the Speech or Debate Clause petitioners would be entitled to maintain this action solely against the members of Congress where no agents participated in the challenged action and no other remedy was available.” 395 U. S., at 506 n. 26.
None of these three cases adopted the simple proposition that immunity was unavailable to congressional or committee employees because they were not Representatives or Senators; rather, immunity was unavailable because they engaged in illegal conduct that was not entitled to Speech or Debate Clause protection. The three cases reflect a decidedly jaundiced view towards extending the Clause so as to privilege illegal or unconstitutional conduct beyond that essential to foreclose executive control of legislative speech or debate and associated matters such as voting and committee reports and proceedings. In Kilbourn, the Sergeant-at-Arms was executing a legislative order, the issuance of which fell within the Speech or Debate Clause; in Eastland, the committee counsel was gathering information for a hearing; and in Powell, the Clerk and Doorkeeper were merely carrying out directions that were protected by the Speech or Debate Clause. In each case, protecting the rights of others may have to some extent frustrated a planned or completed legislative act; but relief could be afforded without proof of a legislative act or the motives or purposes underlying such an act. No threat to legislative independence was posed, and Speech or Debate Clause protection did not attach.
None of this, as we see it, involves distinguishing between a Senator and his personal aides with respect to legislative immunity. In Kilbourn-type situations, both aide and Member should be immune with respect to committee and House action leading to the illegal resolution. So, too, in Eastland, as in this litigation, senatorial aides should enjoy immunity for helping a Member conduct committee hearings. On the other hand, no prior case has held that Members of Congress would be immune if they executed an invalid resolution by themselves carrying out an illegal arrest, or if, in order to secure information for a hearing, themselves seized the property or invaded the privacy of a citizen. Neither they nor their aides should be immune from liability or questioning in such circumstances. Such acts are no more essential to legislating than the conduct held unprotected in United States v. Johnson, 383 U. S. 169 (1966).
The United States fears the abuses that history reveals have occurred when legislators are invested with the power to relieve others from the operation of otherwise valid civil and criminal laws. But these abuses, it seems to us, are for the most part obviated if the privilege applicable to the aide is viewed, as it must be, as the privilege of the Senator, and invocable only by the Senator or by the aide on the Senator’s behalf, and if in all events the privilege available to the aide is confined to those services that would be immune legislative conduct if performed by the Senator himself. This view places beyond the Speech or Debate Clause a variety of services characteristically performed by aides for Members of Congress, even though within the scope of their employment. It likewise provides no protection for criminal conduct threatening the security of the person or property of others, whether performed at the direction of the Senator in preparation for or in execution of a legislative act or done without his knowledge or direction. Neither does it immunize Senator or aide from testifying at trials or grand jury proceedings involving third-party crimes where the questions do not require testimony about or impugn a legislative act. Thus our refusal to distinguish between Senator and aide in applying the Speech or Debate Clause does not mean that Rodberg is for all purposes exempt from grand jury questioning.
II
We are convinced also that the Court of Appeals correctly determined that Senator Gravel’s alleged arrangement with Beacon Press to publish the Pentagon Papers was not protected speech or debate within the meaning of Art. I, § 6, cl. 1, of the Constitution.
Historically, the English legislative privilege was not viewed as protecting republication of an otherwise immune libel on the floor of the House. Stockdale v. Hansard, 9 Ad. & E., at 114, 112 Eng. Rep., at 1156, recognized that “[f]or speeches made in Parliament by a member to the prejudice of any other person, or hazardous to the public peace, that member enjoys complete impunity.” But it was clearly stated that “if the calumnious or inflammatory speeches should be reported and published, the law will attach responsibility on the publisher.” This was accepted in Kilbourn v. Thompson as a “sound statement of the legal effect of the Bill of Rights and of the parliamentary law of England” and as a reasonable basis for inferring “that the framers of the Constitution meant the same thing by the use of language borrowed from that source.” 103 U. S., at 202.
Prior cases have read the Speech or Debate Clause “broadly to effectuate its purposes,” United States v. Johnson, 383 U. S., at 180, and have included within its reach anything “generally done in a session of the House by one of its members in relation to the business before it.” Kilbourn v. Thompson, 103 U. S., at 204; United States v. Johnson, 383 U. S., at 179. Thus, voting by Members and committee reports are protected; and we recognize today — as the Court has recognized before, Kilbourn v. Thompson, 103 U. S., at 204; Tenney v. Brandhove, 341 U. S. 367, 377-378 (1951) — that a Member’s conduct at legislative committee hearings, although subject to judicial review in various circumstances, as is legislation itself, may not be made the basis for a civil or criminal judgment against a Member because that conduct is within the “sphere of legitimate legislative activity.” Id., at 376.
But the Clause has not been extended beyond the legislative sphere. That Senators generally perform certain acts in their official capacity as Senators does not necessarily make all such acts legislative in nature. Members of Congress are constantly in touch with the Executive Branch of the Government and with administrative agencies — they may cajole, and exhort with respect to the administration of a federal statute — but such conduct, though generally done, is not protected legislative activity. United States v. Johnson decided at least this much. “No argument is made, nor do we think that it could be successfully contended, that the Speech or Debate Clause reaches conduct, such as was involved in the attempt to influence the Department of Justice, that is in no wise related to the due functioning of the legislative process.” 383 U. S., at 172. Cf. Burton v. United States, 202 U. S., at 367-368.
Legislative acts are not all-encompassing. The heart of the Clause is speech or debate in either House. Insofar as the Clause is construed to reach other matters, they must be an integral part of the deliberative and communicative processes by which Members participate in committee and House proceedings with respect to the consideration and passage or rejection of proposed legislation or with respect to other matters which the Constitution places within the jurisdiction of either House. As the Court of Appeals put it, the courts have extended the privilege to matters beyond pure speech or debate in either House, but “only when necessary to prevent indirect impairment of such deliberations.” United States v. Doe, 455 F. 2d, at 760.
Here, private publication by Senator Gravel through the cooperation of Beacon Press was in no way essential to the deliberations of the Senate; nor does questioning as to private publication threaten the integrity or independence of the Senate by impermissibly' exposing its deliberations to executive influence. The Senator had conducted his hearings; the record and any report that was forthcoming were available both to his committee and the Senate. Insofar as we are advised, neither Congress nor the full committee ordered or authorized the publication. We cannot but conclude that the Senator’s arrangements with Beacon Press were not part and parcel of the legislative process.
There are additional considerations. Article I, § 6, cl. 1, as we have emphasized, does not purport to confer a general exemption upon Members of Congress from liability or process in criminal cases. Quite the contrary is true. While the Speech or Debate Clause recognizes speech, voting, and other legislative acts as exempt from liability that might otherwise attach, it does not privilege either Senator or aide to violate an otherwise valid criminal law in preparing for or implementing legislative acts. If republication of these classified papers would be a crime under an Act of Congress, it would not be entitled to immunity under the Speech or Debate Clause. It also appears that the grand jury was pursuing this very subject in the normal course of a valid investigation. The Speech or Debate Clause does not in our view extend immunity to Rodberg, as a Senator’s aide, from testifying before the grand jury about the arrangement between Senator Gravel and Beacon Press or about his own participation, if any, in the alleged transaction, so long as legislative acts of the Senator are not impugned.
HH I — I Í-H
Similar considerations lead us to disagree with the Court of Appeals insofar as it fashioned, tentatively at least, a nonconstitutional testimonial privilege protecting Rodberg from any questioning by the grand jury concerning the matter of republication of the Pentagon Papers. This privilege, thought to be similar to that protecting executive officials from liability for libel, see Barr v. Matteo, 360 U. S. 564 (1959), was considered advisable “[t]o the extent that a congressman has responsibility to inform his constituents... 455 F. 2d, at 760. But we cannot carry a judicially fashioned privilege so far as to immunize criminal conduct proscribed by an Act of Congress or to frustrate the grand jury’s inquiry into whether publication of these classified documents violated a federal criminal statute. The so-called executive privilege has never been applied to shield executive officers from prosecution for crime, the Court of Appeals was quite sure that third parties were neither immune from liability nor from testifying about the republication matter, and we perceive no basis for conferring a testimonial privilege on Rodberg as the Court of Appeals seemed to do.
IV
We must finally consider, in the light of the foregoing, whether the protective order entered by the Court of Appeals is an appropriate regulation of the pending grand jury proceedings.
Focusing first on paragraph two of the order, we think the injunction against interrogating Rodberg with respect to any act, “in the broadest sense,” performed by him within the scope of his employment, overly restricts the scope of grand jury inquiry. Rodberg’s immunity, testimonial or otherwise, extends only to legislative acts as to which the Senator himself would be immune. The grand jury, therefore, if relevant to its investigation into the possible violations of the criminal law, and absent Fifth Amendment objections, may require from Rodberg answers to questions relating to his or the Senator’s arrangements, if any, with respect to republication or with respect to third-party conduct under valid investigation by the grand jury, as long as the questions do not implicate legislative action of the Senator. Neither do we perceive any constitutional or other privilege that shields Rodberg, any more than any other witness, from grand jury questions relevant to tracing the source of obviously highly classified documents that came into the Senator’s possession and are the basic subject matter of inquiry in this case, as long as no legislative act is implicated by the questions.
Because the Speech or Debate Clause privilege applies both to Senator and aide, it appears to us that paragraph one of the order, alone, would afford ample protection for the privilege if it forbade questioning any witness, including Rodberg: (1) concerning the Senator’s conduct, or the conduct of his aides, at the June 29, 1971, meeting of the subcommittee; (2) concerning the motives and purposes behind the Senator’s conduct, or that of his aides, at that meeting; (3) concerning communications between the Senator and his aides during the term of their employment and related to said meeting or any other legislative act of the Senator; (4) except as it proves relevant to investigating possible third-party crime, concerning any act, in itself not criminal, performed by the Senator, or by his aides in the course of their employment, in preparation for the subcommittee hearing. We leave the final form of such an order to the Court of Appeals in the first instance, or, if that court prefers, to the District Court.
The judgment of the Court of Appeals is vacated and the cases are remanded to that court for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
So ordered.
The District Court permitted Senator Gravel to intervene in the proceeding on Dr. Rodberg’s motion to quash the subpoena ordering his appearance before the grand jury and accepted motions from Gravel to quash the subpoena and to specify the exact nature of the questions to be asked Rodberg. The Government contested Gravel’s standing to appeal the trial court’s disposition of these motions on the ground that, had the subpoena been directed to the Senator, he could not have appealed from a denial of a motion to quash without first refusing to comply with the subpoena and being held in contempt. United States v. Ryan, 402 U. S. 530 (1971); Cobbledick v. United States, 309 U. S. 323 (1940). The Court of Appeals, United States v. Doe, 455 F. 2d 753, 756-757 (CA1 1972), held that because the subpoena was directed to third parties, who could not be counted on to risk contempt to protect intervenor’s rights, Gravel might be “powerless to avert the mischief of the order” if not permitted to appeal, citing Perlman v. United States, 247 U. S. 7, 13 (1918). The United States does not here challenge the propriety of the appeal.
Dr. Rodberg, who filed his own motion to quash the subpoena directing his appearance and testimony, appeared as amicus curiae both in the Court of Appeals and this Court. Technically, Rodberg states, he is a party to No. 71-1026, insofar as the Government appeals from the protective order entered by the District Court. However, since Gravel intervened, Rodberg does not press the point. Brief of Leonard S. Rodberg as Amicus Curiae 2 n. 2.
The District Court found “that 'as personal assistant to movant [Gravel], Dr. Rodberg assisted movant in preparing for disclosure and subsequently disclosing to movant’s colleagues and constituents, at a hearing of the Senate Subcommittee on Public Buildings and Grounds, the contents of the so-called “Pentagon Papers,” which were critical of the Executive’s conduct in the field of foreign relations.’ ” United States v. Doe, 332 F. Supp. 930, 932 (Mass. 1971).
Beacon Press is a division of the Unitarian Universalist Association, which appeared here as amicus curiae in support of the position taken by Senator Gravel.
Gravel so alleged in his motion to intervene in the Webber matter and to quash the subpoena ordering Webber to appear and testify. App. 15-18.
The Government maintained that Congress does not enjoy unlimited power to conduct business and that judicial review has often been exercised to curb extra-legislative incursions by legislative committees, citing Watkins v. United States, 354 U. S. 178 (1957); McGrain v. Daugherty, 273 U. S. 135 (1927); Hentoff v. Ichord, 318 F. Supp. 1175 (DC 1970), at least where such incursions are unrelated to a legitimate legislative purpose. It was alleged that Gravel had “convened a special, unauthorized, and untimely meeting of the Senate Subcommittee on Public Works (at midnight on June 29, 1971), for the purpose of reading the documents and thereafter placed all unread portions in the subcommittee record, with Dr. Rodberg soliciting publication following the meeting.” App. 9. The District Court rejected the contention: “Senator Gravel has suggested that the availability of funds for the construction and improvement of public buildings and grounds has been affected by the necessary costs of the war in Vietnam and that therefore the development and conduct of the war is properly within the concern of his subcommittee. The court rejects the Government’s argument without detailed consideration of the merits of the Senator’s position, on the basis of the general rule restricting judicial inquiry into matters of legislative purpose and operations.” United States v. Doe, 332 F. Supp., at 935. Cases such as Watkins, supra, were distinguished on the ground that they concerned the power of Congress under the Constitution: “It has not been suggested by the Government that the Subcommittee itself is unauthorized, nor that the war in Vietnam is an issue beyond the purview of congressional debate and action. Also, the individual rights at stake in these proceedings are not those of a witness before a congressional committee or of a subject of a committee’s investigation, but only those of a congressman and member of his personal staff who claim ‘intimidation by the executive.’ ” 332 F. Supp., at 936.
The District Court thought that Rodberg could be questioned concerning his own conduct prior to joining the Senator’s staff and concerning the activities of third parties with whom Rodberg and Gravel dealt. Id., at 934.
The protective order entered by the District Court provided as follows:
“(1) No witness before the grand jury currently investigating the release of the Pentagon Papers may be questioned about Senator Mike Gravel’s conduct at a meeting of the Subcommittee on Public Buildings and Grounds on June 29, 1971 nor about things done by the Senator in preparation for and intimately related to said meeting.
“(2) Dr. Leonard S. Rodberg may not be questioned about his own actions on June 29, 1971 after having been engaged as a member of Senator Gravel’s personal staff to the extent that they were taken at the Senator’s direction either at a meeting of the Subcommittee on Public Buildings and Grounds or in preparation for and intimately related to said meeting.” Id., at 938.
The Court of Appeals thought third parties could be questioned as to their own conduct regarding the Pentagon Papers, “including their dealing with intervenor or his aides.” United States v. Doe, 455 F. 2d, at 761. The court found no merit in the claim that such parties should be shielded from questioning under the Speech or Debate Clause concerning their own wrongful acts, even if such questioning may bring the Senator’s conduct into question. Id., at 758 n. 2.
Williamson, United States Congressman, had been found guilty of conspiring to commit subornation of perjury in connection with proceedings for the purchase of public land. He objected to the court’s passing sentence upon him and particularly protested that any imprisonment would deprive him of his constitutional right to “go to, attend at and return from the ensuing session of Congress.” Williamson v. United States, 207 U. S. 425, 433 (1908). The Court rejected the contention that the Speech or Debate Clause freed legislators from accountability for criminal conduct.
In Kilbourn v. Thompson, 103 U. S. 168, 198 (1881), the Court noted a second example, used by Mr. Justice Coleridge in Stockdale v. Hansard
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer:
|
C
|
sc_issuearea
|
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Mr. Justice Black
delivered the opinion of the Court.
The District Court dismissed a criminal information filed against the respondent, James C. Petrillo, on the ground that the statute on which the information was founded was unconstitutional. 68 F. Supp. 845. The case is here on direct appeal by the Government as authorized by the Criminal Appeals Act. 18 U. S. C. (Supp. V, 1946) § 682. The information charged a violation of the Communications Act of 1934, 48 Stat. 1064, 1102, as amended by an Act of April 16, 1946. 60 Stat. 89. The specific provisions of the Amendment charged to have been violated read:
“Sec. 506. (a) It shall be unlawful, by the use or express or implied threat of the use of force, violence, intimidation, or duress, or by the use or express or implied threat of the use of other means, to coerce, compel or constrain or attempt to coerce, compel, or constrain a licensee—
“(1) to employ or agree to employ, in connection with the conduct of the broadcasting business of such licensee, any person or persons in excess of the number of employees needed by such licensee to perform actual services; or
“(d) Whoever willfully violates any provision of subsection (a) or (b) of this section shall, upon conviction thereof, be punished by imprisonment for not more than one year or by a fine of not more than $1,000, or both.” 60 Stat. 89.
The information alleged that a radio broadcasting company, holding a federal license, had, for several years immediately preceding, employed “certain persons who were sufficient and adequate in number to perform all of the actual services needed ... in connection with the conduct of its broadcasting business.” The information further charged that the respondent, Petrillo, “wilfully, by the use of force, intimidation, duress and by the use of other means, did attempt to coerce, compel and constrain said licensee to employ and agree to employ, in connection with the conduct of its radio broadcasting business, three additional persons not needed by said licensee to perform actual services . . . .”
The coercion was allegedly accomplished in the following manner:
“(1) By directing and causing three musicians, members of the Chicago Federation of Musicians, theretofore employed by the said licensee in connection with the conduct of its broadcasting business, to discontinue their employment with said licensee;
“(2) By directing and causing said three employees and other persons, members of the Chicago Federation of Musicians, not to accept employment by said licensee; and,
“(3) By placing and causing to be placed a person as a picket in front of the place of business of said licensee.”
The only challenge to the information was a motion to dismiss on the ground that the Act on which the information was based (a) abridges freedom of speech in contravention of the First Amendment; (b) is repugnant to the Fifth Amendment because it defines a crime in terms that are excessively vague, and denies equal protection of the law and liberty of contract; (c) imposes involuntary servitude in violation of the Thirteenth Amendment. The District Court dismissed the information, holding that the 1946 Amendment on which it was based violates the First, Fifth, and Thirteenth Amendments.
Two general principles which concern our disposition of appeals involving constitutional questions have special application to this case: We have consistently refrained from passing on the constitutionality of a statute until a case involving it has reached a stage where the decision of a precise constitutional issue is a necessity. The reasons underlying this principle and illustrations of the strictness with which it has been applied appear in the opinion of the Court in Rescue Army v. Municipal Court, 331 U. S. 549, 568, and cases there collected. And in reviewing a direct appeal from a District Court under the Criminal Appeals Act, supra, our review is limited to the validity or construction of the contested statute. For “The Government’s appeal does not open the whole case.” United States v. Borden Co., 308 U. S. 188, 193.
First. One holding of the District Court was that, as contended here, the statute is repugnant to the due process clause of the Fifth Amendment because its words, “number of employees needed by such licensee,” are so vague, indefinite and uncertain that “persons of ordinary intelligence cannot in advance tell whether a certain action or course of conduct would be within its prohibition . . . .” The information here, up to the place where it specifically charges the particular means used to coerce the licensee, substantially employs this statutory language. And the motion to dismiss on the ground of vagueness and indefiniteness squarely raises the question of whether the section invoked in the indictment is void in toto, barring all further actions under it, in this, and every other case. Cf. United States v. Thompson, 251 U. S. 407, 412. Many questions of a statute’s constitutionality as applied can best await the refinement of the issues by pleading, construction of the challenged statute and pleadings, and, sometimes, proof. Rescue Army v. Municipal Court, supra; Watson v. Buck, 313 U. S. 387, 402. Borden’s Company v. Baldwin, 293 U. S. 194, 204, 210, and concurring opinion at p. 213. But no refinement or clarification of issues which we can reasonably anticipate would bring into better focus the question of whether the contested section is written so vaguely and indefinitely that one whose conduct it affected could only guess what it meant. Consequently, since this phase of the appeal raises a question of validity of a statute within our jurisdiction under the Criminal Appeals Act, supra, and is ripe for our decision, we turn to the merits of the contention.
We could not sustain this provision of the Act if we agreed with the contention that persons of ordinary intelligence would be unable to know when their compulsive actions would force a person against his will to hire employees he did not need. Connally v. General Construction Co., 269 U. S. 385, 391; Lanzetta v. New Jersey, 306 U. S. 451. But we do not agree. Of course, as respondent points out, there are many factors that might be considered in determining how many employees are needed on a job. But the same thing may be said about most questions which must be submitted to a fact-finding tribunal in order to enforce statutes. Certainly, an employer’s statements as to the number of employees “needed” is not conclusive as to that question. It, like the alleged wilfullness of a defendant, must be decided in the light of all the evidence.
Clearer and more precise language might have been framed by Congress to express what it meant by “number of employees needed.” But none occurs to us, nor has any better language been suggested, effectively to carry out what appears to have been the Congressional purpose. The argument really seems to be that it is impossible for a jury or court ever to determine how many employees a business needs, and that, therefore, no statutory language could meet the problem Congress had in mind. If this argument should be accepted, the result would be that no legislature could make it an offense for a person to compel another to hire employees, no matter how unnecessary they were, and however desirable a legislature might consider suppression of the practice to be.
The Constitution presents no such insuperable obstacle to legislation. We think that the language Congress used provides an adequate warning as to what conduct falls under its ban, and marks boundaries sufficiently distinct for judges and juries fairly to administer the law in accordance with the will of Congress. That there may be marginal cases in which it is difficult to determine the side of the line on which a particular fact situation falls is no sufficient reason to hold the language too ambiguous to define a criminal offense. Robinson v. United States, 324 U. S. 282, 285-286. It would strain the requirement for certainty in criminal law standards too near the breaking point to say that it was impossible judicially to determine whether a person knew when he was wilfully attempting to compel another to hire unneeded employees. See Screws v. United States, 325 U. S. 91; United States v. Ragen, 314 U. S. 513, 522, 524, 525. The Constitution has erected procedural safeguards to protect against conviction for crime except for violation of laws which have clearly defined conduct thereafter to be punished; but the Constitution does not require impossible standards. The language here challenged conveys sufficiently definite warning as to the proscribed conduct when measured by common understanding and practices. The Constitution requires no more.
Second. It is contended that the statute denies equal protection of the laws to radio-broadcasting employees as a class, and, for this reason, violates the due process clause of the Fifth Amendment. This contention, raised by the motion to dismiss, and sustained by the District Court as a ground for holding the statute unconstitutional as written, is properly before us, and we reach this equal protection ground, for the same reason that we decided the question of whether the section was unconstitutionally vague and indefinite.
In support of this contention it is first argued that if Congress concluded that employment by broadcasting companies of unneeded workers was detrimental to interstate commerce, in order to be consistent, it should have provided for the punishment of employers, as well as employees, who violate that policy. Secondly, it is argued, the Act violates due process because it singles out broadcasting employees for regulation while leaving other classes of employees free to engage in the very practices forbidden to radio workers. But it is not within our province to say that, because Congress has prohibited some practices within its power to prohibit, it must prohibit all within its power. Consequently, if Congress believes that there are employee practices in the radio industry which injuriously affect interstate commerce, and directs its prohibitions against those practices, we could not set aside its legislation even if we were persuaded that employer practices also required regulation. See Labor Board v. Jones & Laughlin Steel Corp., 301 U. S. 1, 46. Nor could we strike down such legislation, even if we believed that as a matter of policy it would have been wiser not to enact the legislation or to extend the prohibitions over a wider or narrower area. Here Congress aimed its law directly against one practice — compelling a broadcasting company to hire unneeded workers. There is nothing novel about laws to prohibit some persons from compelling other persons to act contrary to their desires. Whatever may be the limits of the power of Congress that do not apply equally to all classes, groups, and persons, see Steward Machine Co. v. Davis, 301 U. S. 548, 584, we are satisfied that Congress has not transgressed those limits in the provisions of this statute which are here attacked.
Third. Respondent contends here, and the District Court has held, that the statute abridges freedom of speech by making peaceful picketing a crime. It is important to note that the statute does not mention picketing, peaceful or violent. The proposed application of the statute to picketing, therefore, does not derive from any specific prohibition written into the statute against peaceful picketing. Rather it comes from the information’s charge that respondent attempted to compel the licensee to hire unneeded employees by placing “a picket in front of the place of business of [the] . . . licensee.” Yet the respondent’s motion to dismiss was made only on the ground that the statute, as written, contravenes the First Amendment. In ruling on this motion, the District Court assumed that because “there [was] in this case no charge of violence . . . the placing of a picket must be regarded ... as peaceful picketing.” From this assumption, it concluded that “the application [of the statute] here sought to be made violates the First Amendment by its restriction upon freedom of speech by peaceful picketing.” Thus, rather than holding the statute as written to be an unconstitutional violation of the First Amendment, the District Court ruled on the statute as it was proposed to be applied by the information as it then read.
We consider it inappropriate to reach the merits of this constitutional question now. As we have pointed out, we have consistently said that we would refrain from passing on the constitutionality of statutes in advance of the necessity to do so. And the provisions for direct appeal from District Courts of certain criminal cases do not require us to pass on constitutional questions prematurely decided by a district court’s dismissal of an information.
The information here, up to the place where it alleges the use of particular coercive means, charges in substantially the language of the statute that respondent coerced the licensee. The information’s charges up to this point constitute a sufficient basis for a challenge to the statute on the ground that it contravenes the Constitution. Whether this part of the information, or the information as a whole, was adequate definitely to inform the respondent of the nature of the charge against him is another question. See United States v. Lepowitch, 318 U. S. 702, 704; Potter v. United States, 155 U. S. 438; cf. United States v. Hess, 124 U. S. 483. Had the District Court postponed ruling on the First Amendment question raised by the motion to dismiss, or had it denied the motion, respondent could have sought a bill of particulars, apart from attacking the constitutionality of the Act. See Husty v. United States, 282 U. S. 694, 702; Bartell v. United States, 227 U. S. 427, 433-434; Dunbar v. United States, 156 U. S. 185, 192. So also, if the additional allegations describing the means used to accomplish the proscribed purpose were not definite enough for the court to determine whether they were sufficient in law to charge an offense, and if such allegations were not mere surplusage, see United States v. Socony-Vacuum Oil Company, 310 U. S. 150, 222, a challenge could have been made to the information, see United States v. Hess, supra, at 487-488, as distinguished from a challenge to the statute on which it rested. In that event, and upon a holding of insufficiency of the information, appeal by the United States would have properly gone, under the Criminal Appeals Act, supra, to the Circuit Court of Appeals, and if inappropriately brought here, that Act, as amended, 56 Stat. 271, would have required us to transfer the cause to the Circuit Court of Appeals. But no such challenge was made to the information.
We therefore have a situation in which we are urged to strike down a statute as violative of the constitutional guarantees of free speech when the statute has not been, and might never be, applied in such manner as to raise the question respondent asks us to decide. For the gist of the offense here charged in the statute and in the information is that respondent “wilfully, by the use of force, intimidation, duress and by the use of other means, did attempt to coerce, compel and constrain” the licensee to hire unneeded employees. If the allegations that this prohibited result was attempted to be accomplished by picketing are so broad as to include action which either is not coercive, compelling or constraining, within the statute’s meaning, or could not be constitutionally held to be, the trial court would be free, on motion of the respondent, to strike the particular allegations if they are surplusage. Rules of Criminal Procedure, § 7 (d). Or the Government might amend the information “at any time before verdict or finding if no additional or different offense is charged and if substantial rights of the defendant are not prejudiced.” Ibid. § 7 (e).
The foregoing analysis shows that we are asked to rule on constitutional questions that are not yet precisely in issue. The question as it was decided by the District Court was not the question raised by the motion to dismiss — whether the statute is invalid on its face — but whether it is invalid as it is proposed to be applied. And even if our decision could be evoked upon a showing that the statute certainly, but for our intervention, would have punished respondent for peaceful picketing, there is no such certainty here. No final issue had been drawn. The information was still subject to amendment to fit, within the permissible area of amendments, the type of coercive means developed by further pleading or proof. See Borden’s Co. v. Baldwin, supra, at 213. Further pleadings and proof might well draw the issues into sharper focus making it unnecessary for us to decide questions not relevant to determination of the constitutionality of the statute as actually applied. Thus this case had not reached a stage where the decision of a precise constitutional issue was a necessity. Consequently, we refrain from considering any constitutional questions except those concerning the Act as written. We do not decide whether the allegations of the information, whatever shape they might eventually take, would constitute an application of the statute in such manner as to contravene the First Amendment. We only pass on the statute on its face; it is not in conflict with the First Amendment.
Fourth. The District Court held, and it is argued here, that the statute, as sought to be applied in the information, violates the Thirteenth Amendment which prohibits slavery and involuntary servitude. This contention is also rooted in that part of the information which particularizes the means by which respondent attempted to compel action by the licensee, i. e., by causing three musicians to discontinue, and three musicians not to accept, employment. The argument is that employees have a constitutional right to leave employment singly, see Pollock v. Williams, 322 U. S. 4, 17, 18, or in concert, and consequently that respondent cannot be guilty of a crime for directing or causing them to do so. For the reasons given with reference to the picketing specification, therefore, we consider the Thirteenth Amendment question only with reference to the statute on its ■ face. Thus considered, it plainly does not violate the Thirteenth Amendment. Whether some possible attempted application of it to particular persons in particular sets of circumstances would violate the Thirteenth Amendment is a question we shall not pass upon until it is appropriately presented.
Reversed and remanded.
Mr. Justice Douglas took no part in the consideration or decision of this case.
Another ground, not argued here, was that the Act represents an exercise of power by Congress not delegated to the United States.
The Act does not prohibit radio broadcasters from voluntarily hiring more employees than they need.
Italics supplied.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer:
|
C
|
sc_issuearea
|
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Mr. Justice Reed
delivered the opinion of the Court.
The United States instituted this suit on August 15, 1940, in the District Court of the United States for the District of Columbia against United States Gypsum Company, five other corporate defendants, and seven individual defendants, as a civil proceeding under the Sherman Act. The complaint charged that the appellees had violated both §§ 1 and 2 of the Sherman Act by conspiring to fix prices on patented gypsum board and unpatented gypsum products, to standardize gypsum board and its method of production for the purpose of eliminating competition, and to regulate the distribution of gypsum board by eliminating jobbers and fixing resale prices of manufacturing distributors.
The Attorney General filed an expediting certificate on December 16, 1941, and on September 17, 1942, a three-judge court was constituted to hear the case. By amendment to the complaint the government charged that the article claims of five patents owned by United States Gypsum were invalid and void. The appellees moved to strike the amendment to the complaint or in the alternative for partial judgment dismissing the amendment. On November 15, 1943, the court granted appellees’ motion for partial judgment on the ground that the government had no standing to attack the validity of the patents in an antitrust proceeding. The case thereupon went to trial and upon conclusion of the government’s case on April 20, 1944, the appellees moved to dismiss the complaint under Rule 41 (b) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure upon the ground that on the facts and the law the government had shown no right to relief. On June 15, 1946, the court filed an opinion holding that the motion should be granted, and on August 5, 1946, the court filed findings of fact and conclusions of law and entered judgment dismissing the complaint. The government appealed directly to this Court, 32 Stat. 823, and probable jurisdiction was noted on December 16, 1946. The decisions below are reported as United States v. United States Gypsum Co., 53 F. Supp. 889 and 67 F. Supp. 397. United States v. Line Material Co., decided today, ante, p. 287, will be of value to the reader in considering this opinion.
I.
The appellees are engaged in the production of gypsum and the manufacture of gypsum products, including gypsum plasterboard, gypsum lath, gypsum wallboard, and gypsum plaster. At the time of the alleged conspiracy, appellees sold nearly all of the first three products which were marketed in states east of the Rocky Mountains, and a substantial portion of the plaster sold in the same area. Gypsum products are widely used in the construction industry. In 1939, the sales value of gypsum products was approximately $42,000,000, of which $23,000,000 was accounted for by gypsum board (plasterboard, lath, and wallboard), $17,000,000 by gypsum plaster and the remainder by gypsum block and tile and other products. Over 90% of all plaster used in building construction in the United States is made with gypsum.
Gypsum is found in numerous deposits throughout the country. Gypsum board is made by taking the crushed and calcined mineral, adding water, and spreading the gypsum slurry between two paper liners. When the gypsum hardens, the mineral adheres to the paper and the resulting product is used in construction. Plasterboard and lath have a rough surface and are used as a wall and ceiling base for plaster; wallboard has a finished surface and does not require the addition of plaster.
Since its organization in 1901, United States Gypsum has been the dominant concern in the gypsum industry. In 1939, it sold 55% of all gypsum board in the eastern area. By development and purchase it has acquired the most significant patents covering the manufacture of gypsum board, and beginning in 1926, United States Gypsum offered licenses under its patents to other concerns in the industry, all licenses containing a provision that United States Gypsum should fix the minimum price at which the licensee sold gypsum products embodying the patents.. Since 1929, United States Gypsum has fixed prices at which the other defendants have sold gypsum board.
The other corporate appellees are National Gypsum Co., Certain-teed Products Corp., Celotex Corp., Ebsary Gypsum Co., and Newark Plaster Co. Appellee Gloyd is the owner of an unincorporated business trading under the name of Texas Cement Plaster Co. National produced 23% of all gypsum board sold in the eastern area in 1939, Certain-teed 11%, and the other four companies correspondingly smaller amounts. Seven companies which were active when the licensing plan was evolved in 1929 and before have been acquired by other companies, and defendant Celotex entered the industry in 1939 when the licensing plan was fully in effect by acquiring the assets and licenses of American Gypsum Company. The seven individual defendants are presidents of the corporate defendants. The tabulation on the next page lists the corporate and individual defendants, and shows the corporate changes which have taken place.
Prior to 1912, gypsum board was manufactured with an open edge, leaving the gypsum core exposed on all four sides. In 1912, United States Gypsum received as assignee a patent issued to one Utzman, No. 1,034,746, covering both process and product claims on board with closed side edges, the lower paper liner being folded over the exposed gypsum core. Closed-edge board was superior in quality to open-edge board, as it was cheaper to produce, did not break so easily in shipment, and was less subject to crumbling at the edges when nailed in place. United States Gypsum also acquired a number of other patents relating to the process of making closed-edge board. In 1917, United States Gypsum sued a competitor claiming infringement of the Utzman patent and in 1921 the Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed a judgment holding that the Utzman patent was valid and infringed. United States Gypsum settled with an in-fringer, Beaver Products Co., in 1926, by granting Beaver a license to practice the closed-edge board patent with a provision that United States Gypsum should fix the price at which Beaver sold patented board. Shortly before the settlement with Beaver, United States Gypsum instituted suits against American Gypsum Co., Universal Gypsum and Lime Co., and gave notice of infringement to Niagara Gypsum Co. Universal did not contest the suit but accepted a license with price-fixing provisions, and two other small companies followed suit in 1927. American and Niagara would not settle, and in 1928 judgment was entered against American holding that American’s partially closed-edge board infringed one of United States Gypsum’s patents. United States Gypsum also instituted suits for infringement against National Gypsum Co. in 1926 and 1928 which were settled by the execution of a license and payment of damages as part of the industry-wide settlement with all other defendants in 1929. In that year, two sets of license agreements were signed in which United States Gypsum licensed all but two companies manufacturing gypsum board in substantially identical terms and from that date United States Gypsum has maintained rigid control over the price and terms of sale of virtually all gypsum board. Since 1937 the control has been complete.
Up to this point there is no dispute as to the facts. The government charged that the defendants acted in concert in entering into the licensing agreements, that United States Gypsum granted licenses and the other defendants accepted licenses with the knowledge that all other concerns in the industry would accept similar licenses, and that as a result of such concert of action, competition was eliminated by fixing the price of patented board, eliminating the production of unpatented board, and regulating the distribution of patented board. To support its allegations, the government introduced in evidence the license agreements, more than 600 documentary exhibits consisting of letters and memoranda written by officers of the corporate defendants, and examined 28 witnesses, most of whom were officers of the corporate defendants. Since the appellees’ motion to dismiss when the government had finished its case was sustained, the appellees introduced no evidence. They did cross-examine the government’s witnesses. The documentary exhibits present a full picture of the circumstances surrounding the negotiation of the patent license agreements, and are chiefly relied on by the government to prove its case.
Although the industry-wide network of patent licenses was not achieved until 1929, the government claims that the documentary exhibits show that the process of formulation of the plan began in 1925. On December 12, 1925, Augustus S. Blagden, president of Beaver, sent a memorandum to Sewell Avery, president of United States Gypsum. Beaver had been adjudged an infringer of the Utzman patent, and Blagden and Avery had negotiated terms for settling the suit. Blagden testified that Avery had offered to settle with Beaver by granting Beaver a license with a price-fixing limitation and provision that Beaver should pay damages for past infringement and acknowledge the validity of United States Gypsum’s patents. In the memorandum Blagden analyzed in detail the consequences that would flow from five possible decisions of the Circuit Court of Appeals if the decree adjudging Beaver an infringer were appealed. Blagden noted that whether the court upheld or denied United States Gypsum’s claim, United States Gypsum “would lose, perhaps irrevocably, its present opportunity to organize the industry and stabilize prices.” The memorandum further pointed out that if the suit were settled on the terms offered by Avery, the result would be more favorable to United States Gypsum than any possible decision by the Court of Appeals. Beaver would accept a license and “would agree to use its best endeavors” to induce other manufacturers to accept similar licenses; if Beaver were successful in persuading other manufacturers to execute licenses, United States Gypsum could “maintain a lawful price control and avoid the necessity of a reduction by plaintiff [United States Gypsum] of current prices to meet competition.” Under such circumstances, United States Gypsum “would be able to take a dominating position in the industry with an opportunity to control or at least to participate in the control of prices through legitimate means of patent licenses.”
Although there is no proof that Avery approved Blag-den’s memorandum, Blagden did accept a license on the terms offered by Avery in July, 1926, and Blagden testified that he talked to a number of representatives from other companies and urged them to accept licenses from United States Gypsum. Frank J. Griswold, general manager of American Gypsum Company, also was active in promoting a scheme of industry-wide licensing. On May 12, 1926, Griswold wrote a letter to the president of American, stating that he had talked to Blagden, and added that “This matter will be discussed by all independent wall board manufacturers at a meeting in Chicago next Wednesday afternoon.” Griswold concluded the letter with the statement: “According to the plans we have we figure that there is a possibility of us holding the price steady on wall board for the next fourteen or fifteen years which means much to the industry.”
Blagden and Griswold did not succeed in persuading other manufacturers to accept licenses in 1926. Universal accepted a license in September, 1926, but there is no evidence that Blagden and Griswold played any part in negotiating the settlement. Griswold suggested to Avery that United States Gypsum offer a shorter term license, but Avery was unwilling to make such a concession. During 1927 Griswold and Blagden continued their negotiations. Griswold and Samuel M. Gloyd, owner of the Texas Cement Plaster Co., corresponded with each other in regard to the licensing proposal. When Griswold informed Gloyd that Atlantic Gypsum Co. had signed a long-term license with United States Gypsum, Gloyd replied that he would apply for a license right away. Previously Gloyd had been trying to secure a shorter term license. Gloyd and Atlantic both signed licenses similar to the original license granted to Beaver.
In January 1928 Certain-teed Products Corp. purchased the assets of Beaver. Certain-teed had previously been making open-edge board and selling it at lower prices than the closed-edge board manufactured by United States Gypsum and its licensees. Certain-teed refused to accept the license agreement of Beaver and United States Gypsum filed suit to compel Certain-teed to accept the license. Certain-teed posted a million dollar bond and commenced to make open-edge board at all Beaver plants. George M. Brown, president of Certain-teed, and Avery had several conferences at which they attempted to compose their differences, but without result. The government introduced in evidence a memorandum written by Brown, dated March 1, 1928, in which Brown expressed confidence that he could make open-edge board and sell it in competition with United States Gypsum, and that he was afraid to sign up a license with price-fixing provisions because his competitors would grant secret rebates. Brown concluded that Certain-teed should answer the suit of United States Gypsum to enforce the Beaver license by claiming that the suit was filed not in the interest of royalties but for the sole purpose of trade domination and monopoly and price control. Brown concluded with the statement that United States Gypsum’s “determination to gather in a monopoly, if possible, leads them to risk everything for such domination because of the big rewards possible, if they can succeed.” Certain-teed did file an answer to the suit couched in those terms. Griswold testified that in a conversation with Brown in the following month Brown stated that he might possibly consider taking out a license if “all of the other manufacturers, or certain ones of them” took out a license. Griswold also wrote the president of American that he had had a conference with Brown at which Brown had said that “they were willing at that time to enter into a license agreement without any particular changes in it providing all of the manufacturers, including Ebsary, would enter into it and make it one hundred percent.”
No settlement was reached between United States Gypsum and Certain-teed in 1928, and no other license agreements were signed. A meeting of representatives of the principal non-licensee manufacturers took place in October, and in November the board of directors of National adopted a resolution authorizing the officials of the company to enter into a license agreement. Besides Certain-teed and National, American, Ebsary, Niagara, and Kelley Plasterboard Company manufactured gypsum board but did not hold licenses from United States Gypsum.
The patent licenses in force at the beginning of 1929 provided that United States Gypsum could fix prices only during the term of the principal Utzman patent, which was scheduled to expire on August 6, 1929, although the remaining features of the agreements were to remain in force until the expiration of the last patent included under the license, which was in 1937. In negotiations in 1929, various defendants expressed concern over the possibility of an effective plan of price fixing in view of the imminent expiration of the Utzman patent. In a letter dated January 9, J. F. Haggerty, president of National, wrote Eugene Holland, president of Universal, asking his views as to possibility of continuing price control after the expiration of the Utzman patent. Holland in reply wrote as follows:
“You will remember that Mr. Avery made it very clear to us that if this plan could not be worked out on the Utzman patent that there were other patents available and we were all agreed that the fact that the Utzman patent expires next August is not a practical reason for continuing the conflict.”
Holland also stated: “I am quite sure that Mr. Avery would not be interested in negotiating settlements unless everyone involved was included.” In point of fact, Holland’s interpretation of Avery’s views was incorrect; several months later licenses were granted to four unlicensed manufacturers but not to American or Kelley. Other exhibits suggest that the prospective licensees were interested in accepting licenses at the same time. In his letter of January 9, Haggerty wrote as follows:
“The question now in my mind is whether or not the other four board makers, who are outside the license agreement, feel that it would be advantageous to go in without the American Gypsum Company. It would seem to me that the chief value in a meeting would be to discuss that point.”
On May 14, 1929, the board of directors of National held a meeting “for the purpose of discussing the license agreement submitted to all the manufacturers of gypsum products in the United States east of the Rocky Mountains by the United States Gypsum Co.” The minutes of the meeting further quoted the chairman as saying that “he had been definitely informed that all other manufacturers of gypsum products east of the Rocky Mountains, except the American Gypsum Company, had agreed to sign the license contract in substantially the form as submitted to this Board.” The board of directors authorized the execution of the proposed license contract.
Two days later National signed the license agreement. On the following day National sent a telegram to Avery as follows:
“Our contract signed and in mail Reeb [of Niagara] ready Stop We are working with Ebsary with hope of everybody being set by Saturday to justify your calling meeting all board makers Monday if you like.”
On May 18 Avery dispatched identical telegrams to United States Gypsum’s licensees, and to Certain-teed and Ebsary, as follows:
“Mr. Kling [of American] has sent in a contract with material changes and declares he will not attend meeting unless these changes are accepted by us Stop We cannot accept them and regret that the Tuesday meeting will be futile unless other companies wish to proceed as outlined without American license.”
On May 20 Avery wrote Gloyd of Texas Cement Plaster, a licensee since 1927, stating that although American was unwilling to accept a license, officers of Certain-teed, Niagara, Ebsary, and National had expressed themselves favorably “to this adjustment” and “it is not improbable that the matter may be closed at the meeting tomorrow or soon thereafter.”
On the following day, a meeting of representatives of all but one of the licensed manufacturers, and all unlicensed manufacturers except American and Kelley, took place in Chicago. The three unlicensed manufacturers who were present — Certain-teed, Ebsary and Niagara— signed license agreements.
At the same meeting, Avery explained to the licensees that United States Gypsum had acquired applications for a patent covering so-called “bubble board” and suggested that the licensees take out licenses under these applications. The applications covered a process for making gypsum board by introducing a soap foam in the gypsum slurry which would result in a lighter and cheaper board. Avery subsequently mailed proposed license agreements under the “bubble board” applications to the licensees. George M. Brown of Certain-teed on June 4th acknowledged receipt of the license proposal in a noncommittal reply, but composed a memorandum for his own files in which he commented that the savings resulting from taking a license would be doubtful, and then added:
“They would have a price control of our business, which might be to our advantage and might be to our disadvantage in future. They should be just as anxious to have us use this as we should be to get it if there are to be the benefits that they anticipate in stabilizing the whole industry by making a uniform product and get away from the fierce war-fares between different products like we have recently had. The saving is too slight to cause us very great worry even if never permitted to use it and the door will certainly be open later for its use if it has the merit that they believe it has. Under a contract sufficiently liberal, we would proceed at once.”
On June 6th the licensees met again in Chicago to discuss the question of accepting a license under the “bubble board” patents. Shortly thereafter Certain-teed agreed to take out a license. National also agreed to accept a license; the minutes of the meeting of the board of directors on July 23 read in part as follows:
“The President stated that the United States Gypsum Company has been working on a plan to stabilize the Gypsum Industry and has offered to license the entire Industry under the new method of manufacturing gypsum wall board known as the ‘Bubble System.’ The license agreements submitted to each of the wall board manufacturers contain price fixing clauses and under the agreements submitted the prices of wall board would be fixed for the whole Industry for the term of approximately seventeen years.”
The board passed a resolution authorizing the executive committee to negotiate a license agreement, “provided that the United States Gypsum Company, by virtue of the agreement with this Corporation and with other manufacturers of gypsum wall board, shall control the price of wall board sold in the United States and its possessions.”
Two days later another conference of licensees was held in Chicago. C. 0. Brown, vice-president of Certain-teed, prepared a memorandum for George M. Brown, president of Certain-teed, describing what happened at that meeting. According to the memorandum, National and Universal were unwilling to accept “bubble board” licenses until they had settled their litigation over National’s infringement of Universal’s starch patent. That patent included process and product claims on wallboard made with starch. Brown noted that United States Gypsum was working on a proposal to combine the starch and “bubble board” processes; although such a combination would have technological advantages, Brown commented on the fact that the starch patent had already been issued “so a combination of the two systems would give a patent to work under in the manufacture and sale of Gypsum Wallboard immediately, whereas under only the Bubble process there would be an-interim between August 6th and the date of issuance of the Bubble Patent where there would be no Patent control. There is, of course, considerable benefit to having Patent control continue without a break.” Brown further noted that Avery was trying to work out a proposition with Holland to buy the starch patent or to license the industry under both processes.
Another meeting of licensees was held in Chicago on August 6, the day on which the Utzman patent expired. In a memorandum summarizing what happened at the meeting, C. O. Brown said that it had been agreed that Universal would assign the starch patent to United States Gypsum, and the latter company would issue a single license contract covering all patents and patent applications. Brown further reported that “All of the Independent Gypsum Companies are willing to sign on this basis” and that “The Attorneys feel that such a contract would be exceptionally strong and price control could be maintained for the life of the Contract without difficulty.” On August 27 the board of directors of National held a meeting at which the president was authorized to sign a license with United States Gypsum covering the “bubble board” and starch patents “provided that all the present licensees of the United States Gypsum Company enter into a similar license and provided further that in the judgment of the President such action will result in legal stabilization of the markets.”
Soon thereafter, National, Certain-teed, Ebsary, Niagara and Atlantic executed licenses with United States Gypsum, to become effective on the date when Universal’s receiver transferred the starch patents to United States Gypsum. On November 5 the starch patents were assigned to United States Gypsum, and on the same date Universal also accepted a license. On November 25'American settled its litigation with United States Gypsum and accepted a license. All manufacturers of gypsum board were now licensed by United States Gypsum, except Kelley Plasterboard Co., and that concern accepted a license in April of the following year. Texas Cement Plaster, a licensee under the Utzman patent, did not accept a license under the starch and “bubble board” patents until 1937 when the original license expired. Texas was thus free to sell board at any price from 1929 to 1937.
The contracts which became effective in November 1929 were in substantially identical terms. The license with Universal contained preferential royalty terms which were granted as consideration for the transfer of the starch patents; every other license (except that of Texas) provided that if the licensor should subsequently grant more favorable terms to any licensee (except Universal), the same more favorable terms would be granted to the first licensee. Each licensee agreed to pay as royalty a stipulated percentage on the selling price of “all plaster board and gypsum wallboard of every kind” whether or not made by patented processes or embodying product claims. The contract covered fifty patents and seven patent applications, including the starch patent and the “bubble board” applications; the contract was to run until the most junior patent expired. As two “bubble board” patents were issued in 1937, the licenses ran until 1954. The licensees agreed not to sell patented wallboard to manufacturing distributors unless United States Gypsum gave its consent as to each prospective purchaser. As in the previous contracts, United States Gypsum reserved the right to fix the minimum price at which each licensee sold wallboard embodying the licensor’s patents, the licensor agreeing that such minimum price would be not greater than the price at which the licensor itself offered to sell. The more important provisions of the license to this litigation are set forth in an appendix to this opinion, post, p. 404. Nothing has been omitted that appears to be significant on the issues considered.
In 1934 and 1935 United States Gypsum offered supplemental licenses to practice a patent covering metallized board, which was accepted by almost all licensees, and in 1936 United States Gypsum offered licenses under its perforated lath patent which were also accepted by most licensees. These supplemental licenses contained provisions allowing United States Gypsum to fix the minimum price on board made according to the patents which were licensed.
The government charged that the execution of the license agreements in May and November 1929 marked a turning point in the gypsum industry. The government introduced evidence tending to show that the price of first quality wallboard was raised, that United States Gypsum standardized the type of board sold by requiring its licensees to sell No. 2 wallboard and seconds at the same price as standard wallboard, and standardized the methods of sale so that no licensee could offer more favorable terms to a customer than any other licensee.
Although the license contracts gave the licensor the right only to fix the minimum price at which the licensee should sell, United States Gypsum issued a series of bulletins which defined in minute detail both the prices and terms of sale for patented gypsum board. They are printed on nearly a thousand pages of the record. The bulletins adopted a basing point system of pricing, according to which each licensee was required to quote a price determined by taking the mill price at the nearest basing point and adding the all rail freight from the basing point to the destination. The freight was to be computed on specified uniform billing weights, in order to prevent variations in freight arising from the differences in weight of board made by different manufacturers, and each licensee was directed to charge exactly the same switching, cartage, and extra delivery charges. Specified board sizes and minimum quantities were prescribed, licensees were forbidden to employ commission salesmen without the written consent of the licensor, regulations were prescribed as to the size, quantity and markings of gypsum board used for packing shipments, granting of long-term credit was prohibited, sales on consignment were enjoined and licensees were forbidden to deliver board directly to a building site.
It is not practicable to quote one of the hundreds of comprehensive bulletins on prices and terms. The industry accepted directions for distribution of product as corollary to price control, so that prices would not be infringed by variations of seller contracts. The detail of directives is well illustrated by the directive for computation of freight to be added to the mill price and the provision against subtle price reduction. The excerpts below are from the Board License Bulletin of June 10, 1939.
In order to insure compliance with the price bulletins, United States Gypsum established a wholly owned subsidiary in 1932 named Board Survey, Inc. Licensees were invited to send in complaints as to violations of pricing bulletins to Board Survey and that organization forwarded the complaints to the alleged delinquent licensees. Board Survey was authorized to make a thorough check-up of all reported violations and to take such action as it might deem necessary or proper to protect United States Gypsum’s rights under the license agreements and patents. Although the record discloses no instance in which Board Survey took or even threatened to take legal action against any licensee, there are many instances in which Board Survey sent letters to licensees requesting an explanation as to alleged violations. Meetings of licensees were held at which doubtful provisions of the price bulletins were explained. The trial court found that “in the main” licensees complied with the bulletin conditions.
The government further charged that the defendants had discontinued the production of unpatented open-edge board, eliminated jobbers by requiring jobbers to purchase board at the same price as board sold to dealers, induced manufacturing distributors to observe bulletin prices upon resale of board purchased from licensees, and stabilized the price of gypsum plaster and other unpat-ented products.
It is undisputed that after 1929 the defendants ceased to manufacture open-edge board; the government claims that production of the unpatented board was discontinued in order to protect the patented board from competition. Prior to 1929 open-edge board had sold at lower prices than closed-edge board, and the government’s exhibits show that the officers of the corporate defendants realized that there could be no effective stabilization of prices on closed-edge board as long as open-edge board was sold without price control. The license agreements provided that royalties should be paid on the sales of all board sold, patented or unpatented, a provision which would tend to discourage the production of higher cost unpatented board. Although the government produced no evidence of any agreement between the defendants to eliminate production of open-edge board, corporate officers of the licensees testified that they anticipated that one result of industry-wide licensing would be the elimination of open-edge board.
The May 1929 licenses required licensees to obtain the consent of the licensor before selling board to manufacturing distributors or to jobbers and a price bulletin issued under those licenses allowed licensees to grant a 10% discount to both classes. The November 1929 licenses, however, eliminated the consent requirement with respect to jobbers, although it was retained with respect to manufacturing distributors.
The jobbers’ discount was continued in bulletins issued under the later licenses until August 8,1930, when United States Gypsum ordered that the discount be eliminated. Although jobbers could still buy board if they so desired, jobbers could remain in business only by selling to dealers at an advance over the bulletin prices. The court below found that some jobbers were able to remain in business by selling board in odd lots to dealers who did not wish to buy the minimum lot required in the price bulletins. The government points to the definition of “jobber” in the license agreements as “those who do not manufacture but buy and sell plasterboard or gypsum wallboard in straight cars or in mixed cars with other building material and who do not sell at retail,” and points to uncontradicted testimony that jobbers as so defined were eliminated.
We do not stop to set forth the evidence upon which the government relied to support its charge that the defendants fixed prices at which manufacturing distributors sold gypsum board which they had purchased from United States Gypsum or its licensees, as that issue is not necessary for a decision of the case. To support the charge of stabilizing the price of unpatented plaster, the government cited letters written by officers of the corporate defendants showing that they anticipated that price stabilization in patented board would be accompanied with stabilization of all gypsum products. The trial court found that the price of plaster and miscellaneous gypsum products in fact did increase after 1929. The government charged that plaster prices were stabilized by requiring licensees who sold plaster together with patented board to sell plaster at prevailing prices. Board and plaster were usually sold together and the defendants claim that cutting of prices on plaster, in sales of the two together, operated in effect as a rebate on the price of board, and hence was legally subject to control. The government introduced in evidence a large number of complaints to Board Survey by licensees as to their competitors’ failure to maintain prevailing prices on plaster. A bulletin provision forbidding rebates and allowances stated that a sale of board at posted prices would be in violation of the license if the licensee reduced the price of other products, and Board Survey in summarizing violations of bulletin terms revealed through audit of the licensees’ books listed “Price concessions on other material in connection with Board Sales.”
II.
Appellees admit that in the absence of whatever protection is afforded by valid patents the licensing arrangements described would be in violation of the Sherman Act. Accordingly, the government sought to amend its complaint to allege that the “bubble board” patents were not valid. The trial court held that the government was estopped to attack the validity of the patents in the present proceeding, on the ground that such attack would constitute a review of action by the Commissioner of Patents, which was not authorized by statute. The trial court thought that the issue was controlled by United States v. Bell Telephone Co., 167 U. S. 224, in which the United States was held without standing to bring a suit in equity to cancel a patent on the ground of invalidity.
While this issue need not be decided to dispose of this case, it seems inadvisable to leave the decision as a precedent. Hurn v. Oursler, 289 U. S. 238, 240. We cannot agree with the conclusion of the trial court. The United States does not claim that the patents are invalid because they have been employed in violation of the Sherman Act and that a decree should issue canceling the patents; rather the government charges that the defendants have violated the Sherman Act because they granted licenses under patents which in fact were invalid. If the government were to succeed in showing that the patents were in fact invalid, such a finding would not in itself result in a judgment for cancellation of the patents.
In an antitrust suit instituted by a licensee against his licensor we have repeatedly held that the licensee may attack the validity of the patent under which he was licensed, because of the public interest in free competition, even though the licensee has agreed in his license not to do so. Sola Electric Co. v. Jefferson Electric Co., 317 U. S. 173; Katzinger Co. v. Chicago Mfg. Co., 329 U. S. 394; MacGregor v. Westinghouse Co., 329 U. S. 402. In a suit to vindicate the public interest by enjoining violations of the Sherman Act, the United States should have the same opportunity to show that the asserted shield of patentability does not exist. Of course, this appeal must be considered on a record that assumes the validity of all the patents involved.
III.
The trial court ruled that, on motion to dismiss pursuant to Rule 41 (b), the court should weigh the evidence and grant the motion if the government failed to establish its case by a preponderance of the evidence, and the court further ruled that the government had the burden of proving both the charge of conspiracy and the charge that the licensing agreements were not within the protection of the patent grant. We do not stop to consider those rulings. They are not of importance in this case as we think the preponderance of evidence at the conclusion of the government’s case indicated a violation of the Sherman Act.
We are unable to accept, however, the ruling of the court that declarations of each defendant were admissible only against the defendant making the declaration. A consideration of that point really involves the heart of the case since the treatment of the declarations may vitally affect the outcome. Some may have doubts as to whether the agreements and bulletins alone are sufficient to establish a conspiracy but the admission of the separate declarations against all greatly strengthens the government’s position. We think that the industry-wide license agreements, entered into with knowledge on the part of licensor and licensees of the adherence of others, with the control over prices and methods of distribution through the agreements and the bulletins, were sufficient to establish a prima jade case of conspiracy. Each licensee, as is shown by the uncontradicted references to the meetings and discussion that were preliminary to the execution of the licenses, could not have failed to be aware of the intention of United States Gypsum and the other licensees to make the arrangements for licenses industry-wide. The license agreements themselves, on their face, showed this purpose. The licensor was to fix minimum prices binding both on itself and its licensees; the royalty was to be measured by a percentage of the value of all gypsum products, patented or unpatented; the license could not be transferred without the licensor’s consent; the licensee opened its books of accounts to the licensor; the licensee was
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
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 Thomas
delivered the opinion of the Court.
The State of Missouri imposes a uniform, statewide use tax on all goods purchased outside the State and stored, used, or consumed within the State. Although the tax is purportedly designed to “compensate” for sales taxes imposed by local jurisdictions on sales of goods in the State, local sales tax rates vary widely, and in many jurisdictions the use tax exceeds the sales tax. Petitioners contend that this system discriminates against interstate commerce in violation of the Commerce Clause, even though the local sales taxes across the State may, in the aggregate, place a greater burden on intrastate trade than the uniform use tax places on interstate trade. We agree that, in localities where the use tax exceeds the sales tax, the system is impermissibly discriminatory, and we therefore reverse the judgment of the Supreme Court of Missouri.
I
Missouri has a multitiered system of sales and use taxes. The State imposes by statute a tax of 4% on all sales of personal property in the State, Mo. Rev. Stat. §144.020 (1986), and, through provisions in the State Constitution, provides for additional sales taxes of one-eighth of one percent and one-tenth of one percent on the same transactions. Mo. Const., Art. IV, §§ 43(a), 47(a). These levies are exactly paralleled by statutory and state constitutional provisions providing for use taxes of 4%, one-eighth of one percent, and one-tenth of one percent, respectively, on the “privilege of storing, using or consuming” within the State any article of personal property purchased outside the State. Mo. Rev. Stat. §144.610(1) (1986); Mo. Const., Art. IV, §§ 43(a), 47(a). Thus, under these various provisions, the State imposes a statewide sales tax of 4.225% on sales of goods within the State and a statewide use tax of 4.225% on goods brought into the State after being purchased elsewhere. These taxes are not challenged here.
The State also imposes an “additional use tax” of 1.5% on the privilege of storing, using, or consuming within the State any article of personal property purchased outside the State. Mo. Rev. Stat. §144.748 (Supp. 1993). This use tax is not paired with any sales tax at the state level. The State, however, authorizes political subdivisions, including counties and incorporated municipalities, to impose a local sales tax. Over 1,000 localities have used that authority to enact sales taxes ranging from 0.5% to 3.5%, while at least one county has no local sales tax at all.
Petitioner Associated Industries of Missouri is a trade association representing businesses that operate in Missouri and businesses that sell to customers in Missouri. Out-of-state members of the organization must collect the additional use tax on sales made into the State. Petitioner Alumax Foils, Inc., is a manufacturing firm in Missouri that pays the additional use tax on goods purchased from outside the State. Petitioners brought this action in state court contending that the use tax impermissibly discriminates against interstate commerce in violation of the Commerce Clause. The State Circuit Court rejected petitioners’ claims and granted respondents’ motion for summary judgment.
The Supreme Court of Missouri affirmed. 857 S. W. 2d 182 (1993). The court noted that the 1.5% use tax had been imposed to equalize taxes on in-state and out-of-state goods. Previously, political subdivisions of the State had imposed local sales tax burdens that were not paralleled by any use tax. Because the tax was designed to even exactions on intrastate and interstate trade, the court reasoned that the scheme should be analyzed under the “compensatory tax” doctrine, which the court summarized as permitting States to “impose ... equivalent burden[s]” on transactions in local and interstate commerce. Id., at 187.
The court acknowledged that, in 53.5% of local taxing jurisdictions, the 1.5% use tax exceeded the local sales tax. See id., at 185, n. 3. But the court emphasized that 1990 sales figures from the stipulated record showed that over 93% of the dollar volume of sales in the State occurred in jurisdictions where the local sales tax exceeded the use tax. See id., at 185. Calculating from similar figures, the court determined that, had a flat local sales tax of 1.5% — exactly equivalent to the use tax — been imposed in 1990, it would have reduced the sales tax burden on in-state sales by $100 million. Ibid. In short, the court concluded that given the high average rate of local sales taxes, the overall effect of the use tax scheme across the State was to place a lighter aggregate tax burden on interstate commerce than on intrastate commerce.
After rehearsing these facts, the court stated the issue before it as being whether “a state use tax may impose a greater burden than the various sales taxes in specific localities, if on a statewide basis the use tax imposes a lesser overall burden than do all the various sales taxes.” Id., at 186. Relying on this Court’s decision in General American Tank Car Corp. v. Day, 270 U. S. 367 (1926), the court answered that question in the affirmative. The court reasoned that whether the tax scheme discriminated against interstate commerce should be determined on the basis of a comparison of the overall effects of the use tax and the local sales taxes on interstate commerce statewide. Because the figures outlined above suggested that, in the aggregate, the tax scheme imposed greater burdens on intrastate than on interstate commerce, the court concluded that the tax avoided discrimination on a statewide basis and thus did not violate the dictates of the Commerce Clause. 857 S. W. 2d, at 187-192.
In dissent, then-Chief Justice Robertson criticized the court’s focus on averaging effects across the State to determine whether there was discrimination and suggested that the majority’s method was tantamount to basing constitutional analysis on a conclusion that the use tax scheme was “‘close enough for government work.’” Id., at 195. Chief Justice Robertson concluded that this Court’s cases contained a strict rule of equality that demanded equal treatment of local and interstate commerce in each local jurisdiction, not merely in the overall result for the State. Id., at 199.
We granted certiorari, 510 U. S. 1009 (1993), to consider the validity of the 1.5% use tax.
II
Although the Commerce Clause is phrased merely as a grant of authority to Congress to “regulate Commerce . . . among the several States,” Art. I, § 8, cl. 3, it is well established that the Clause also embodies a negative command forbidding the States to discriminate against interstate trade. See, e. g., Oregon Waste Systems, Inc. v. Department of Environmental Quality of Ore., ante, at 98; New Energy Co. of Ind. v. Limbach, 486 U. S. 269, 273 (1988). The Clause prohibits economic protectionism — that is, “regulatory measures designed to benefit in-state economic interests by burdening out-of-state competitors.” Id., at 273-274. Thus, we have characterized the fundamental command of the Clause as being that “a State may not tax a transaction or incident more heavily when it crosses state lines than when it occurs entirely within the State,” Armco Inc. v. Hardesty, 467 U. S. 638, 642 (1984), and have applied a “virtually per se rule of invalidity” to provisions that patently discriminate against interstate trade, Philadelphia v. New Jersey, 437 U. S. 617, 624 (1978).
A
By its terms, the additional use tax at issue in this case appears to violate the Commerce Clause’s cardinal rule of nondiscrimination, for it exempts from its scope all sales of goods occurring within the State. See n. 2, supra. Nevertheless, our cases establish that such a levy may be saved from constitutional infirmity if it is a valid “compensatory tax” designed simply to make interstate commerce bear a burden already borne by intrastate commerce. Under the compensatory tax doctrine, a facially discriminatory tax that imposes on interstate commerce the equivalent of an “identifiable and substantially similar tax on intrastate commerce does not offend the negative Commerce Clause.” Oregon Waste, ante, at 103 (internal quotation marks omitted). To ensure that the State is indeed merely imposing countervailing burdens on comparable transactions, we have required that the taxes on interstate and intrastate commerce be imposed on “substantially equivalent event[s].” Maryland v. Louisiana, 451 U. S. 725, 759 (1981). See also Armco, supra, at 643. The end result under the theory of the compensatory tax is that, “[w]hen the account is made up, the stranger from afar is subject to no greater burdens ... than the dweller within the gates. The one pays upon one activity or incident, and the other upon another, but the sum is the same when the reckoning is closed.” Henneford v. Silas Mason Co., 300 U. S. 577, 584 (1937).
To justify any levy as a compensatory tax, “a State must, as a threshold matter, ‘identify] ... the [intrastate tax] burden for which the State is attempting to compensate.’” Oregon Waste, ante, at 103 (quoting Maryland, supra, at 758). Respondents urge that the local sales taxes imposed by over a thousand political subdivisions within the State provide the burden on intrastate commerce that Missouri seeks to counterbalance through the use tax in this case. There is no dispute that sales taxes and use taxes such as those at issue here are imposed on “substantially equivalent event[s].” Maryland, supra, at 759. Silas Mason itself approved a system of sales and use taxes, and we have recognized that “[a] use tax is generally perceived as a necessary complement to [a] sales tax.” Williams v. Vermont, 472 U. S. 14, 24 (1985). Cf. Halliburton Oil Well Cementing Co. v. Reily, 373 U. S. 64, 66 (1963) (“[T]he purpose of such a sales-use tax scheme is to make all tangible property used or consumed in the State subject to a uniform tax burden irrespective of whether it is acquired within the State ... or from without the State”).
Missouri’s use tax scheme, however, runs afoul of the basic requirement that, for a tax system to be “compensatory,” the burdens imposed on interstate and intrastate commerce must be equal. As we observed in Maryland v. Louisiana, the “common thread running through the cases upholding compensatory taxes is the equality of treatment between local and interstate commerce.” 451 U. S., at 759. See also Halliburton, supra, at 70 (“[E]qual treatment for in-state and out-of-state taxpayers similarly situated is the condition precedent for a valid use tax on goods imported from out-of-state”). Where a State imposes equivalent sales and use taxes, we have upheld the system under the Commerce Clause. See Silas Mason, supra, at 584-587. But in Missouri, whether the 1.5% use tax is equal to (or lower than) the local sales tax is a matter of fortuity, depending entirely upon the locality in which the Missouri purchaser happens to reside. Where the use tax exceeds the sales tax, the discrepancy imposes a discriminatory burden on interstate commerce. Out-of-state goods brought into such a jurisdiction are subjected to a higher levy than are goods sold locally. The resulting disparity is incompatible with what we have termed the “strict rule of equality adopted in Silas Mason.” Halliburton, supra, at 73.
Respondents contend that the foregoing analysis is too myopic — that in reckoning the balance of accounts alluded to in Silas Mason we should focus, not on each political subdivision in which a disparity between the two taxes may result in discrimination against interstate commerce, but rather on the overall impact of the use tax and the various sales taxes on interstate commerce across the State as a whole. Respondents’ theory assumes that discrimination in some parts of a state tax system may be permissible under the Commerce Clause as long as it is of a sufficiently limited magnitude to be offset by preferential treatment for interstate trade in other portions of the tax scheme. There is no question that, within a locality where the use tax exceeds the sales tax, the tax structure discriminates against interstate trade. Respondents merely argue that the local jurisdiction provides too narrow a framework for proper constitutional analysis.
We have never suggested, however, that patent discrimination in part of the operation of a tax scheme, not directly justified under any theory such as the compensatory tax doctrine, can be rendered inconsequential for Commerce Clause purposes by advantages given to interstate commerce in other facets of a tax plan or in other regions of a State. On the contrary, as a general matter we have rejected reliance on any calculus that requires a quantification of discrimination as a preliminary step to determining whether the discrimination is valid. Under our cases, unless one of several narrow bases of justification is shown, see Oregon Waste, ante, at 100-101, actual discrimination, wherever it is found, is impermissible, and the magnitude and scope of the discrimination have no bearing on the determinative question whether discrimination has occurred. See Wyoming v. Oklahoma, 502 U. S. 437, 454-455 (1992); New Energy Co., 486 U. S., at 276; Maryland, supra, at 760.
Moreover, two Terms ago we implicitly rejected any theory that would require aggregating the burdens on commerce across an entire State to determine the constitutionality of a burden on interstate trade imposed by a particular political subdivision of the State. We concluded that proper analysis of the practice of one county that discriminated against interstate trade was “unaffected by the fact that some other counties [in the State] ha[d] adopted a different policy.” Fort Gratiot Sanitary Landfill, Inc. v. Michigan Dept. of Natural Resources, 504 U. S. 353, 363 (1992). Contrary to respondents’ suggestions, our reasoning indicates that discrimination is appropriately assessed with reference to the specific subdivision in which applicable laws reveal differential treatment.
Any other approach would frustrate the Commerce Clause’s central objective of securing a national “‘area of free trade among the several States.’” Boston Stock Exchange v. State Tax Comm’n, 429 U. S. 318, 328 (1977) (quoting McLeod v. J. E. Dilworth Co., 322 U. S. 327, 330 (1944)). Under respondents’ view, the Commerce Clause would interpose no bar to the systematic subdivision of the national market through discriminatory taxes as long as the taxes were imposed by counties, rather than by States — and provided, of course, that on balance each State as a whole did not discriminate against interstate trade. Such a rule “would invite a multiplication of preferential trade areas destructive of the very purpose of the Commerce Clause.” Dean Milk Co. v. Madison, 340 U. S. 349, 356 (1951). We have never suggested that the Commerce Clause will tolerate such discrimination. Rather, “our prior cases teach that a State (or one of its political subdivisions) may not avoid the strictures of the Commerce Clause by curtailing the movement of articles of commerce through subdivisions of the State, rather than through the State itself.” Fort Gratiot, supra, at 361.
Respondents contend that their proposed method of assessing discrimination on a statewide basis also finds support in our cases and, following the Supreme Court of Missouri, rely on our decision in General American Tank Car Corp. v. Day, 270 U. S. 367 (1926). General American involved a challenge to a Louisiana property tax scheme under which nondomiciliaries of the State were taxed at a rate of 25 mills on the dollar, while domiciliaries were taxed at a rate determined by their parish of domicile. See id., at 370-371. Even though some parish tax rates were less than 25 mills on the dollar, the Court did not strike down the tax. The decision, however, does not provide controlling Commerce Clause analysis for this case.
Although General American involved both Commerce Clause and Equal Protection Clause challenges, it was only in analyzing the tax in question under the Equal Protection Clause that we engaged in the aggregating analysis respondents urge on us under the Commerce Clause today. Noting that, considered together, the parish taxes “average[d] approximately twenty-five mills,” we concluded that “in substance” the scheme did not discriminate against nondomiciliaries and that it was not “invalid merely because equality in its operation as compared with local taxation has not been attained with mathematical exactness.” Id., at 373. We reasoned that, “[i]n determining whether there is a denial of equal protection of the laws by such taxation, we must look to the fairness and reasonableness of its purposes and practical operation, rather than to minute differences between its application in practice and the application of the taxing statute or statutes to which it is complementary.” Ibid.
It might be argued that the assessment of equal treatment in General American was a final step in the Court’s Commerce Clause analysis as well, for the discussion followed upon the conclusion that the Louisiana scheme survived Commerce Clause scrutiny “unless it operate[d] to discriminate in some substantial way between” domiciliaries and nondomiciliaries. Id., at 372. But even if that were so, the General American approach to averaging burdens on interstate and intrastate commerce, which Chief Justice Robertson aptly characterized as a rule of “ ‘close enough for government work,’ ” 857 S. W. 2d, at 195, never took root in our Commerce Clause jurisprudence. To the extent that General American’s Equal Protection Clause discussion ever could have been read as suggesting appropriate Commerce Clause analysis, it has been bypassed by later decisions, and particularly by the “strict rule of equality adopted in Silas Mason,” Halliburton, 373 U. S., at 73, a rule that has controlled compensatory tax cases for over half a century. In Silas Mason, Justice Cardozo was explicit in explaining for the Court that the compensatory tax doctrine requires precision to ensure that, upon the “reckoning” of “account[s],” the “sum” on the interstate side of the ledger is “the same” as that on the intrastate side. 300 U. S., at 584. More recently, we have reiterated that strict parity is demanded by the compensatory tax doctrine as we have explained that a compensatory tax leaves a consumer free to make choices “without regard to the tax consequences”; if he purchases within the State he may pay a tax, but if he purchases from outside the State he will pay a “tax of the same amount.” Boston Stock Exchange, supra, at 332 (emphasis added).
Respondents’ final defense of the use tax is an appeal to Missouri’s pure motives: that is, its lack of any intent to discriminate. As the product of a decentralized decision-making process that relies on the independent judgment of hundreds of local jurisdictions, the use tax scheme, in respondents’ view, cannot reveal any overall design on the part of the State or any other governmental entity to disfavor interstate trade. In fact, respondents urge that holding this scheme unconstitutional would effectively eliminate the State’s ability to delegate taxing authority to local jurisdictions. But a court need not inquire into the purpose or motivation behind a law to determine that in actuality it impermissibly discriminates against interstate commerce. See, e. g., Philadelphia, 437 U. S., at 626 (describing “legislative purpose” as “not . . . relevant to the constitutional issue to be decided”); Hunt v. Washington State Apple Advertising Comrrin, 432 U. S. 333, 352-353 (1977). See also Chemical Waste Management, Inc. v. Hunt, 504 U. S. 334, 340-342 (1992).
It should be apparent that in holding this scheme unconstitutional we impose no new restrictions on the State’s power to delegate its taxing authority as it sees fit. What a State may not do is appeal to decentralized decisionmaking to augment its powers: It may not grant its political subdivisions a power to discriminate against interstate commerce that the State lacked in the first instance.
The State remains free to authorize political subdivisions to impose sales or use taxes, as long as discriminatory treatment of interstate commerce does not result. Other States apparently have had little difficulty in combining some local autonomy with the commands of the Commerce Clause. As the parties stipulated, App. 35, 28 States that provide political subdivisions some authority to impose use taxes have devised systems to ensure that use taxes are not higher than sales taxes within the same taxing jurisdiction. See, e. g., Ga. Code Ann. §48-8-110 (Supp. 1994) (requiring the enactment of a local use tax to be coupled with the adoption of an equivalent sales tax).
B
As our discussion above makes clear, Missouri’s use tax scheme impermissibly discriminates against interstate commerce only in those localities where the local sales tax is less than 1.5%. Apparently hoping to obtain a refund for all moneys paid under the use tax, however, petitioners seek to have the tax struck down in its entirety. They urge us to hold that the tax is facially invalid in every jurisdiction because there is no countervailing statewide sales tax and no legislation ensuring that local sales taxes will always equal or exceed the use tax. The evil of the system, under this view, is not merely the actual discrimination that results in some localities, but the potential for discrimination in every locality. Indeed, the logic of petitioners’ theory suggests that the potential for abuse would make Missouri’s use tax scheme impermissibly discriminatory even if every political subdivision had chosen to impose a sales tax of greater than 1.5%.
But we have never deemed a hypothetical possibility of favoritism to constitute discrimination that transgresses constitutional commands. On the contrary, we repeatedly have focused our Commerce Clause analysis on whether a challenged scheme is discriminatory in “effect,” see, e. g., Bacchus Imports, Ltd. v. Dias, 468 U. S. 263, 270 (1984), and we have emphasized that “equality for the purposes of . . . the flow of commerce is measured in dollars and cents, not legal abstractions.” Halliburton, 373 U. S., at 70. See also Gregg Dyeing Co. v. Query, 286 U. S. 472, 481 (1932) (“Discrimination, like interstate commerce itself, is a practical conception. We must deal in this matter, as in others, with substantial distinctions and real injuries”). A purely nominal distinction in a State’s statutes between the methods of regulating intrastate and interstate commerce, as long as it is not translated into any difference in the substance of regulations imposed, cannot be said to provide “benefit[s]” to intrastate commerce or to impose discriminatory “burden[s]” on interstate trade. New Energy, 486 U. S., at 273. Thus, it would not violate the Commerce Clause.
For similar reasons, the mere fact that determining the compensatory character of the use tax in this case requires consideration of the sales taxes levied by hundreds of local jurisdictions does not mean that the use tax should be rejected in toto as facially discriminatory. A compensatory tax and the tax for which it compensates need not be promulgated in the same provision of state law, or even through the same governmental entity, to survive Commerce Clause scrutiny. Such matters of form do not determine in substance whether the tax merely requires interstate commerce to “pay its way,” Complete Auto Transit, Inc. v. Brady, 430 U. S. 274, 281 (1977) (internal quotation marks omitted), or discriminates against interstate trade. “The question of constitutional validity is not to be determined by artificial standards. What is required is that state action, whether through one agency or another, or through one enactment or more than one, shall be consistent with the restrictions of the Federal Constitution. There is no demand in that Constitution that the State shall put its requirements in any one statute. It may distribute them as it sees fit,, if the result, taken in its totality, is within the State’s constitutional power.” Gregg Dyeing, supra,, at 480. See also Maryland, 451 U. S., at 756; Halliburton, supra, at 69. If a State may place the provisions perfecting a compensatory tax scheme in two or more statutes passed by the state legislature, there is no logical reason to think that a State’s decision to implement its sales/use tax scheme through provisions promulgated at different levels of government within the State makes the system invalid.
C
That we have declared the tax scheme impermissibly discriminatory in some localities does not in itself dictate the relief that the State must provide. As we noted in McKesson Corp. v. Division of Alcoholic Beverages and Tobacco, Fla. Dept. of Business Regulation, 496 U. S. 18,39-40 (1990), a “State found to have imposed an impermissibly discriminatory tax retains flexibility in responding to this determination.” We have suggested that the provision of a “meaningful opportunity for taxpayers to withhold contested tax assessments and to challenge their validity in a predeprivation hearing” is itself sufficient to satisfy constitutional concerns. Id., at 38, n. 21. Because the parties have not addressed the procedures that were available in Missouri to contest the tax, any effect Missouri’s procedures might have on the appropriate remedy in this case is best left for consideration on remand. Even if no such predeprivation procedure existed, the Due Process Clause would demand only that, “to cure the illegality of the tax as originally imposed, the State must ultimately collect a tax for the contested tax period that in no respect impermissibly discriminates against interstate commerce.” Id., at 44, n. 27. The methods best adapted to achieving equal treatment in this case, whether partial or complete refunds or other measures, are similarly matters properly left for determination on remand.
III
For the foregoing reasons, the judgment of the Supreme Court of Missouri is reversed, and the ease is remanded for further proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
Justice Blackmun concurs in the judgment.
Although the use taxes literally apply to all products to be used, stored, or consumed in the State, § 144.615(2) provides an exemption for all goods subject to the Missouri sales tax — that is, goods purchased within the State — and the constitutional provisions incorporate by reference the same exemption. See Mo. Const., Art. IV, §§ 43(a), 47(a).
Section 144.748(2) incorporates by reference the same exemption contained in § 144.615(2). See n. 1, swpra. Because only the 1.5% additional use tax imposed by § 144.748, not the 4.225% use tax described above, is at issue in this case, references below to the “use tax” should be understood to refer to the 1.5% additional use tax.
See, e. g., Mo. Rev. Stat. §§66.600-66.630; 67.500-67.545; 92.400-92.420; 94.500-94.510; 94.600-94.655; 94.700-94.745 (1986 and Supp. 1993).
Of course, in focusing on equality, our cases have addressed the limit of permissible state regulation of interstate commerce. In setting the limit at equality, we have not suggested that lesser burdens on interstate trade are impermissible; that is, we have not demanded equality and nothing but equality in compensatory tax cases.
Of course, this is not to suggest that courts should “plunge . . . into the morass of weighing comparative tax burdens,” American Trucking Assns., Inc. v. Scheiner, 483 U. S. 266, 289 (1987) (internal quotation marks omitted). But as far as the compensatory tax doctrine is concerned, a court that is confined to examining the rates specified in statutes, ordinances, or regulations for taxes assessed on “substantially equivalent event[s],” Maryland v. Louisiana, 451 U. S. 725, 759 (1981) — even if the inquiry requires examination of hundreds of provisions for political units within the State — avoids being drawn into an amorphous inquiry that involves balancing incommensurate burdens imposed on disparate activities throughout the complex structure of a State’s tax system.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
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 Brennan
delivered the opinion of the Court.
Respondent Mary Carter Paint Company manufactures and sells paint and related products. The Federal Trade Commission ordered respondent to cease and desist from the use of certain representations found by the Commission to be deceptive and in violation of § 5 of the Federal Trade Commission Act, 38 Stat. 719, as amended, 52 Stat. 111. 15 U. S. C. § 45 (1964 ed.). 60 F. T. C. 1830, 1845. The representations appeared in advertisements which stated in various ways that for every can of respondent’s paint purchased by a buyer, the respondent would give the buyer a “free” can of equal quality and quantity. The Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit set aside the Commission’s order. 333 F. 2d 654. We granted certiorari, 379 U. S. 957. We reverse.
Although there is some ambiguity in the Commission’s opinion, we cannot say that its holding constituted a departure from Commission policy regarding the use of the commercially exploitable word “free.” Initial efforts to define the term in decisions were followed by “Guides Against Deceptive Pricing.” These informed businessmen that they might advertise an article as “free,” even though purchase of another article was required, so long as the terms of the offer were clearly stated, the price of the article required to be purchased was not increased, and its quality and quantity were not diminished. With specific reference to two-for-the-price-of-one offers, the Guides required that either the sales price for the two be “the advertiser’s usual and customary retail price for the single article in the recent, regular course of his business,” or where the advertiser has not previously sold the article, the price for two be the “usual and customary” price for one in the relevant trade areas. These, of course, were guides, not fixed rules as such, and were designed to inform businessmen of the factors which would guide Commission decision. Although Mary Carter seems to have attempted to tailor its offer to come within their terms, the Commission found that it failed; the offer complied in appearance only.
The gist of the Commission’s reasoning is in the hearing examiner’s finding, which it adopted, that
“the usual and customary retail price of each can of Mary Carter paint was not, and is not now, the price designated in the advertisement [$6.98] but was, and is now, substantially less than such price. The second can of paint was not, and is not now, ‘free,’ that is, was not, and is not now, given as a gift or gratuity. The offer is, on the contrary, an offer of two cans of paint for the price advertised as ór purporting to be the list price or customary and usual price of one can.” 60 F. T. C., at 1844.
In sum, the Commission found that Mary Carter had no history of selling single cans of paint; it was marketing twins, and in allocating what is in fact the price of two cans to one can, yet calling one “free,” Mary Carter misrepresented. It is true that respondent was not permitted to show that the quality of its paint matched those paints which usually and customarily sell in the $6.98 range, or that purchasers of paint estimate quality by the price they are charged. If both claims were established, it is arguable that any deception was limited to a representation that Mary Carter has a usual and customary price for single cans of paint, when it has no such price. However, it is not for courts to say whether this violates the Act. “[T]he Commission is often in a better position than are courts to determine when a practice is ‘deceptive’ within the meaning of the Act.” Federal Trade Comm’n v. Colgate-Palmolive Co., 380 U. S. 374, 385. There was substantial evidence in the record to support the Commission’s finding; its determination that the practice here was deceptive was neither arbitrary nor clearly wrong. The Court of Appeals should have sustained it. Federal Trade Comm’n v. Colgate-Palmolive Co., supra; Carter Products, Inc. v. Federal Trade Comm’n, 323 F. 2d 523, 528.
The Commission advises us in its brief that it believes it would be appropriate here “to remand the case to it for clarification of its order.” The judgment of the Court of Appeals is therefore reversed and the case is remanded to that court with directions to remand to the Commission for clarification of its order.
It is so ordered.
Mr. Justice Stewart took no part in the decision of this case.
Hereinafter Mary Carter or respondent.
Book-of-the-Month Club, Inc., 48 F. T. C. 1297 (1952); Walter J. Black, Inc., 50 F. T. C. 225 (1953); Puro Co., 50 F. T. C. 454 (1953); Book-of-the-Month Club, Inc., 50 F. T. C. 778 (1954); Ray S. Kalwajtys, 52 F. T. C. 721, enforced, 237 F. 2d 654 (1956).
Guides Against Deceptive Pricing, Guide V, adopted October 2, 1958, 23 Fed. Reg. 7965; see also policy statement, December 3, 1953, 4 CCH Trade Reg. Rep. ¶ 40,210. For the current guide, Guide IV, effective January 8, 1964, see 29 Fed. Reg. 180.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
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 Goldberg
delivered the opinion of the Court.
The critical question in this case is whether, under the circumstances, .the refusal by the police to honor petitioner’s request to consult with his lawyer during the course of an interrogation constitutes a denial of “the Assistance of Counsel” in violation of the Sixth Amendment to the Constitution as “made obligatory upon the States by the Fourteenth Amendment,” Gideon v. Wainwright, 372 U. S. 335, 342, and thereby renders inadmissible in a state criminal trial any incriminating statement elicited by the police during the interrogation.
On the night of January 19, 1960, petitioner’s brother-in-law was fatally shot. In the early hours of the next morning, at 2:30 a. m., petitioner was arrested without a warrant and interrogated. Petitioner made no statement to the police and was released at 5 that afternoon pursuant to a state court writ of habeas corpus obtained by Mr. Warren Wolfson, a lawyer who had been retained by petitioner.
On January 30, Benedict DiGerlando, who was then in police custody and who was later indicted for the murder along with petitioner, told the police that petitioner had fired the fatal shots. Between 8 and 9 that evening, petitioner and his sister, the widow of the deceased, were arrested and taken to police headquarters. En route to the police station, the police “had handcuffed the defendant behind his back,” and “one of the arresting officers told defendant that DiGerlando had named him as the one who shot” the deceased. Petitioner testified, without contradiction, that the “detectives said they had us pretty well, up pretty tight, and we might as well admit to this crime,” and that he replied, “I am sorry but I would like to have advice from my lawyer.” A police officer testified that although petitioner was not formally charged “he was in custody” and “couldn’t walk out the door.”
Shortly after petitioner reached police headquarters, his retained lawyer arrived. The lawyer described the ensuing events in the following terms:
“On that day I received a phone call [from “the mother of another defendant”] and pursuant to that phone call I went to the Detective Bureau at 11th and State. The first person I talked to was the Sergeant on duty at the Bureau Desk, Sergeant Pidgeon. I asked Sergeant Pidgeon for permission to speak to my client, Danny Escobedo. . . . Sergeant Pidgeon made a call to the Bureau lockup and informed me that the boy had been taken from the lockup to the Homicide Bureau. This was between 9:30 and 10:00 in the evening. Before I went anywhere, he called the Homicide Bureau and told them there was an attorney waiting to see Escobedo. He told me I could not see him. Then I went upstairs to the Homicide Bureau. There were several Homicide Detectives around and I talked to them. I identified myself as Escobedo’s attorney and asked permission to see him. They said I could not. . . . The police officer told me to see Chief Flynn who was on duty. I identified myself to Chief Flynn and asked permission to see my client. He said I could not. . . . I think it was approximately 11:00 o’clock. He said I couldn’t' see him because they hadn’t completed questioning. . . . [F]or a second or two I spotted him in an office in the Homicide Bureau. The door was open and I could see through the office. ... I waved to him and. he waved back and then the door was closed, by one of the officers at Homicide. There were four or five officers milling around the Homicide Detail that night. As to whether I talked to Captain Flynn any later that day, I waited around for another hour or two and went back again and renewed by [sic] request to see my client. He again told me I could not. . . . I filed an oficial complaint with Commissioner Phelan of the Chicago Police Department. I had a conversation with every police officer I could find. I was told at Homicide that I couldn’t see him and I would have to get a writ of habeas corpus. I left the Homicide Bureau and from the Detective Bureau at 11th and State at approximately 1:00 A. M. [Sunday morning] I had no opportunity to talk to my client that night. I quoted to Captain Flynn the Section of the Criminal Code which allows an attorney the right to see his client.”
Petitioner testified that during the course of the interrogation he repeatedly asked to speak to his lawyer and that the police said that his lawyer “didn’t want to see” him. The testimony of the police officers confirmed these accounts in substantial detail.
Notwithstanding repeated requests by each, petitioner and his retained lawyer were afforded no opportunity to consult during the course of the entire interrogation. At one point, as previously noted, petitioner and his attorney came into each other’s view for a few moments but the attorney was quickly ushered away. Petitioner testified “that he heard a detective telling the attorney the latter would not be allowed to talk to [him] ‘until they were done’ ” and that he heard the attorney being refused permission to remain in the adjoining room. A police officer testified that he had told the lawyer that he could not see petitioner until “we were through interrogating” him.
There is testimony by the police that during the interrogation, petitioner, a 22-year-old of Mexican extraction with no record of previous experience with the police, “was handcuffed” in a standing position and that he “was nervous, he had circles under his eyes and he was upset” and was “agitated” because “he had not slept well in over a week.”
It is undisputed that during the course of the interrogation Officer Montejano, who “grew up” in petitioner’s neighborhood, who knew his family, and who uses “Spanish language in [his] police work,” conferred alone with petitioner “for about a quarter of an hour. . . .” Petitioner testified that the officer said to him “in Spanish that my sister and I could go home if I pinned it on Benedict DiGerlando,” that “he would see to it that we would go home and be held only as witnesses, if anything, if we had made a statement against DiGerlando . . . , that we would be able to go home that night.” Petitioner testified that he made the statement in issue because of this assurance. Officer Montejano denied offering any such assurance.
A police officer testified that during the interrogation the following occurred:
“I informed him of what DiGerlando told me and when I did, he told me that DiGerlando was [lying] and I said, ‘Would you care to tell DiGer-lando that?’ and he said, ‘Yes, I will.’ So, I brought . . . Escobedo in and he confronted DiGer-lando and he told him that he was lying and said, 'I didn’t shoot Manuel, you did it.’ ”
In this way, petitioner, for the first time, admitted to some knowledge of the crime. After that he made additional statements further implicating himself in the murder plot. At this point an Assistant State’s Attorney, Theodore J. Cooper, was summoned “to take” a statement. Mr. Cooper, an experienced lawyer who was assigned to the Homicide Division to take “statements from some defendants and some prisoners that they had in custody,” “took” petitioner’s statement by asking carefully framed questions apparently designed to assure the admissibility into evidence of the resulting answers. Mr. Cooper testified that he did not advise petitioner of his constitutional rights, and it is undisputed that no one during the course of the interrogation so advised him.
Petitioner moved both before and during trial to suppress the incriminating statement, but the motions were denied. Petitioner was convicted of murder and he appealed the conviction.
The Supreme Court of Illinois, in its original opinion of February 1, 1963, held the statement inadmissible and reversed the conviction. The court said:
“[I]t seems manifest to us, from the undisputed evidence and the circumstances surrounding defendant at the time of his statement and shortly prior thereto, that the defendant understood he would be permitted to go home if he gave the statement and would be granted an immunity from prosecution.”
Compare Lynumn v. Illinois, 372 U. S. 528.
The State petitioned for, and the court granted, rehearing. The court then affirmed the conviction. It said: “[T]he officer denied making the promise and the trier of fact believed him. We find no reason for disturbing the trial court’s finding that the confession was voluntary.” 28 Ill. 2d 41, 45-46, 190 N. E. 2d 825, 827. The court also held, on the authority of this Court’s decisions in Crooker v. California, 357 U. S. 433, and Cicenia v. Lagay, 357 U. S. 504, that the confession was admissible even though “it was obtained after he had requested the assistance of counsel, which request was denied.” 28 Ill. 2d, at 46, 190 N. E. 2d, at 827. We granted a writ of certiorari to consider whether the petitioner’s statement was constitutionally admissible at his trial. 375 U. S. 902. We conclude, for the reasons stated below, that it was not and, accordingly, we reverse the judgment of conviction.
In Massiah v. United States, 377 U. S. 201, this Court observed that “a Constitution which guarantees a defendant the aid of counsel at . . . trial could surely vouchsafe no less to an indicted defendant under interrogation by the police in a completely extrajudicial proceeding. Anything less . . . might deny a defendant 'effective representation by counsel at the only stage when legal aid and advice would help him.’ ” Id., at 204, quoting Douglas, J., concurring in Spano v. New York, 360 U. S. 315, 326.
The interrogation here was conducted before petitioner was formally indicted. But in the context of this case, that fact should make no difference. When petitioner requested, and was denied, an opportunity to consult with his lawyer, the investigation had ceased to be a general investigation of “an unsolved crime.” Spano v. New York, 360 U. S. 315, 327 (Stewart, J., concurring). Petitioner had become the accused, and the purpose of the interrogation was to “get him” to confess his guilt despite his constitutional right not to do so. At the time of. his arrest and throughout the course of the interrogation, the police told petitioner that they had convincing evidence that he had fired the fatal shots. Without informing him of his absolute right to remain silent in the face of this accusation, the police urged him to make a statement. As this Court observed many years ago:
“It cannot be doubted that, placed in the position in which the accused was when the statement was made to him that the other suspected person had charged him with crime, the result was to produce upon his mind the fear that if he remained silent it would be considered an admission of guilt, and therefore render certain his being committed for trial as the guilty person, and it cannot be conceived that the converse impression would not also have naturally arisen, that by denying there was hope of removing the suspicion from himself.” Bram v. United States, 168 U. S. 532, 562.
Petitioner, a layman, was undoubtedly unaware that under Illinois law an admission of “mere” complicity in the murder plot was legally as damaging as an admission of firing of the fatal shots. Illinois v. Escobedo, 28 Ill. 2d 41, 190 N. E. 2d 825. The “guiding hand of counsel” was essential to advise petitioner of his rights in this delicate situation. Powell v. Alabama, 287 U. S. 45, 69. This was the “stage when legal aid and advice” were most critical to petitioner. Massiah v. United States, supra, at 204. It was a stage surely as critical as was the arraignment in Hamilton v. Alabama, 368 U. S. 52, and the preliminary hearing in White v. Maryland, 373 U. S. 59. What happened at this interrogation could certainly “affect the whole trial,” Hamilton v. Alabama, supra, at 54, since rights “may be as irretrievably lost, if not then and there asserted, as they are when an accused represented by counsel waives a right for strategic purposes.” Ibid. It would exalt form over substance to make the right to counsel, under these circumstances, depend on whether at the time of the interrogation, the ¿uthorities had secured a formal indictment. Petitioner had, for all practical purposes, already been charged with murder.
The New York Court of Appeals, whose decisions this Court cited with approval in Massiah, 377 U. S. 201, at 205, has recently recognized that, under circumstances such as those here, no meaningful distinction can be drawn between interrogation of an accused before and after formal indictment. In People v. Donovan, 13 N. Y. 2d 148, 193 N. E. 2d 628, that court, in an opinion by Judge Fuld, held that a “confession taken from a defendant, during a period of detention [prior to indictment], after his attorney had requested and been denied access to him” could not be used against him in a criminal trial. Id., at 151, 193 N. E. 2d, at 629. The court observed that it “would be highly incongruous if our system of justice permitted the district attorney, the lawyer representing the State, to extract a confession from the accused while his own lawyer, seeking to speak with him, was kept from him by the police.” Id., at 152, 193 N. E. 2d, at 629.
In Gideon v. Wainwright, 372 U. S. 335, we held that every person accused of a crime, whether state or federal, is entitled to a lawyer at trial. The rule sought by the State here, however, would make the trial no more than an appeal from the interrogation; and the “right to use counsel at the formal trial [would be] a very hollow thing [if], for all practical purposes, the conviction is already assured by pretrial examination.” In re Groban, 352 U. S. 330, 344 (Black, J., dissenting). “One can imagine a cynical prosecutor saying: 'Let them have the most illustrious counsel, now. They can’t escape the noose. There is nothing that counsel can do for them at the trial.’ ” Ex parte Sullivan, 107 F. Supp. 514, 517-518.
It is argued that if the right to counsel is afforded prior to indictment, the number of confessions obtained by the police will diminish significantly, because most confessions are obtained during the period between arrest and indictment, and “any lawyer worth his salt will tell the suspect in no uncertain terms to make no statement to police under any circumstances.” Watts v. Indiana, 338 U. S. 49, 59 (Jackson, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part). This argument, of course, cuts two ways. The fact that many confessions are obtained during this period points up its critical nature as a “stage when legal aid and advice” are surely needed. Massiah v. United States, supra, at 204; Hamilton v. Alabama, supra; White v. Maryland, supra. The right to counsel would indeed be hollow if it began at a period when few confessions were obtained. There is necessarily a direct relationship between the importance of a stage to the police in their quest for a confession and the criticalness of that stage to the accused in his need for legal advice. Our Constitution, unlike some others, strikes the balance in favor of the right of the accused to be advised by his lawyer of his privilege against self-incrimination. See Note, 73 Yale L. J. 1000, 1048-1051 (1964).
We have learned the lesson of history, ancient and modern, that a system of criminal law enforcement which comes to depend on the “confession” will, in the long run, be less reliable and more subject to abuses than a system, which depends on extrinsic evidence independently secured through skillful investigation. As Dean Wigmore so wisely said:
“[A]ny system of administration which permits the prosecution to trust habitually to compulsory self-disclosure as a source of proof must itself suffer morally thereby. The inclination develops to rely mainly upon such evidence, and to be satisfied with an incomplete investigation of the other sources. The exercise of the power to extract answers begets a forgetfulness of the just limitations of that power. The simple and peaceful process of questioning breeds a readiness to resort to bullying and to physical force and torture. If there is a right to an answer, there soon seems to be a right to the expected answer,— that is, to a confession of guilt. Thus the legitimate use grows into the unjust abuse; ultimately, the innocent are jeopardized by the encroachments of a bad system. Such seems to have been the course of experience in those legal systems where the privilege was not recognized.” 8 Wigmore, Evidence (3d ed. 1940), 309. (Emphasis in original.)
This Court also has recognized that “history amply shows that confessions have often been extorted to save law enforcement officials the trouble and effort of obtaining valid and independent evidence . . . .” Haynes v. Washington, 373 U. S. 503, 519.
We have also learned the companion lesson of history that no system of criminal justice can, or should, survive if it comes to depend for its continued effectiveness on the citizens' abdication through unawareness of their constitutional rights. No system worth preserving should have to fear that if an accused is permitted to consult with a lawyer, he will become aware of, and exercise, these rights. If the exercise of constitutional rights will thwart the effectiveness of a system of law enforcement, then there is something very wrong with that system.
We hold, therefore, that where, as here, the investigation is no longer a general inquiry into an unsolved crime but has begun to focus on a particular suspect, the suspect has been taken into police custody, the police carry out a process of interrogations that lends itself to eliciting incriminating statements, the suspect has requested and been denied an opportunity to consult with his lawyer, and the police have not effectively warned him of his absolute constitutional right to remain silent, the accused has been denied “the Assistance of Counsel” in violation of the Sixth Amendment to the Constitution as “made obligatory upon the States by the Fourteenth Amendment,” Gideon v. Wainwright, 372 U. S., at 342, and that no statement elicited by the police during the interrogation may be used against him at a criminal trial.
Crooker v. California, 357 U. S. 433, does not compel a contrary result. In that case the Court merely rejected the absolute rule sought by petitioner, that “every state denial of a request to contact counsel [is] an infringement of the constitutional right without regard to the circumstances of the case.” Id., at 440. (Emphasis in original.) In its place, the following rule was announced:
“[S]tate refusal of a request to engage counsel violates due process not only if the accused is deprived of counsel at trial on the merits, . . . but also if he is deprived of counsel for any part of the pretrial proceedings, provided that he is so prejudiced thereby as to infect his subsequent trial with an absence of 'that fundamental fairness essential to the very concept of justice. . . .’ The latter determination necessarily depends upon all the circumstances of the case.” 357 U. S., at 439-440. (Emphasis added.)
The Court, applying “these principles” to “the sum total of the circumstances [there] during the time petitioner was without counsel,” id., at 440, concluded that he had not been fundamentally prejudiced by the denial of his request for counsel. Among the critical circumstances which distinguish that case from this one are that the petitioner there, but not here, was explicitly advised by the police of his constitutional right to remain silent and not to “say anything” in response to the questions, id., at 437, and that petitioner there, but not here, was a well-educated man who had studied criminal law while attending law school for a year. The Court’s opinion in Cicenia v. Lagay, 357 U. S. 504, decided the same day, merely said that the “contention that petitioner had a constitutional right to confer with counsel is disposed of by Crooker v. California . . . That case adds nothing, therefore, to Crooker. In any event, to the extent that Cicenia or Crooker may be inconsistent with the principles announced today, they are not to be regarded as controlling.
Nothing we have said today affects the powers of the police to investigate “an unsolved crime,” Spano v. New York, 360 U. S. 315, 327 (Stewart, J., concurring), by gathering information from witnesses and by other “proper investigative efforts.” Haynes v. Washington, 373 U. S. 503, 519. We hold only that when the process shifts from investigatory to accusatory — when its focus is on the accused and its purpose is to elicit a confession— our adversary system begins to operate, and, under the circumstances here, the accused must be permitted to consult with his lawyer.
The judgment of the Illinois Supreme Court is reversed and the case remanded for proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion.
Reversed and remanded.
Petitioner testified that this ambiguous gesture “could have meant most anything,” but that he “took it upon [his] own to think that [the lawyer was telling him] not to say anything,” and that the lawyer “wanted to talk” to him.
The statute then in effect provided in pertinent part that: “All public officers . . . having the custody of any person . . . restrained of his liberty for any alleged cause whatever, shall, except in cases of imminent danger of escape, admit any practicing attorney . . . whom such person . . . may desire to see or consult . . . Ill. Rev. Stat. (1959), c. 38, §477. Repealed as of Jan. 1, 1964, by Act approved Aug. 14, 1963, H. B. No. 851.
The trial judge justified the handcuffing on the ground that it “is ordinary police procedure.”
Compare Haynes v. Washington, 373 U. S. 503, 515 (decided on the same day as the decision of the Illinois Supreme Court here), where we said:
“Our conclusion is in no way foreclosed, as the State contends, by the fact that the state trial judge or the jury may have reached a different result on this issue.
“It is well settled that the duty of constitutional adjudication resting upon this Court requires that the question whether the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment has been violated by admission into evidence of a coerced confession be the subject of an independent determination here, see, e. g., Ashcraft v. Tennessee, 322 U. S. 143, 147-148; ‘we cannot escape the responsibility of making our own examination of the record, Spano v. New York, 360 U. S. 315, 316.” (Emphasis in original.)
Although there is testimony in the record that petitioner and his lawyer had previously discussed what petitioner should do in the event of interrogation, there is no evidence that they discussed what petitioner should, or could, do in the face of a false accusation that he had fired the fatal bullets.
The English Judges’ Rules also recognize that a functional rather than a formal test must be applied and that, under circumstances such as those here, no special significance should be attached to formal indictment. The applicable Rule does not permit the police to question an accused, except in certain extremely limited situations not relevant here, at any time after the defendant “has been charged or informed that he may be 'prosecuted.” [1964] Crim. L. Rev. 166-170 (emphasis supplied). Although voluntary statements obtained in violation of these rules are not automatically excluded from evidence the judge may, in the exercise of his discretion, exclude them. “Recent eases suggest that perhaps the judges have been tightening up [and almost] inevitably, the effect of the new Rules will be to stimulate this tendency.” Id., at 182.
Canon 9 of the American Bar Association’s Canon of Professional Ethics provides that:
“A lawyer should not in any way communicate upon the subject of controversy with a party represented by counsel; much less should he undertake to negotiate or compromise the matter with him, but should deal only with his counsel. It is incumbent upon the lawyer most particularly to avoid everything that may tend to mislead a party not represented by counsel, and he should not undertake to advise him as to the law.” See Broeder, Wong Sun v. United States: A Study in Faith and Hope, 42 Neb. L. Rev. 483, 599-604.
Twenty-two States, including Illinois, urged us so to hold.
The Soviet criminal code does not permit a lawyer to be present during the investigation. The Soviet trial has thus been aptly described as “an appeal from the pretrial investigation.” Feifer, Justice in Moscow (1964), 86.
See Barrett, Police Practices and the Law — From Arrest to Release or Charge, 50 Cal. L. Rev. 11, 43 (1962).
See Committee Print, Subcommittee to Investigate Administration of the Internal Security Act, Senate Committee on the Judiciary, 85th Cong., 1st Sess., reporting and analyzing the proceedings at the XXth Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, February 25, 1956, exposing the false confessions obtained during the Stalin purges of the 1930’s. See also Miller v. United States, 320 F. 2d 767, 772-773 (opinion of Chief Judge Bazelon); Lifton, Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism (1961); Rogge, Why Men Confess (1959); Schein, Coercive Persuasion (1961).
See Stephen, History of the Criminal Law, quoted in 8 Wigmore, Evidence (3d ed. 1940), 312; Report and Recommendations of the Commissioners’ Committee on Police Arrests for Investigation, District of Columbia (1962).
Cf. Report of Attorney General’s Committee on Poverty and the Administration of Federal Criminal Justice (1963), 10-11: “The survival of our system of criminal justice and the values which it advances depends upon a constant, searching, and creative questioning of official decisions and assertions of authority at all stages of the process. . . . Persons [denied access to counsel] are incapable of providing the challenges that are indispensable to satisfactory operation of the system. The loss to the interests of accused, individuals, occasioned by these failures, are great and apparent. It' is also clear that a situation in which persons are required to contest a serious accusation but are denied access to the tools of contest is offensive to fairness and equity. Beyond these considerations, however, is the fact that [this situation is] detrimental to the proper functioning of the system of justice and that the loss in vitality of the adversary system, thereby occasioned, significantly endangers the basic interests of a free community.”
The accused may, of course, intelligently and knowingly waive his privilege against self-incrimination and his right to counsel either at a pretrial stage or at the trial. See Johnson v. Zerbst, 304 U. S. 458. But no knowing and intelligent waiver of any constitutional right can be said to have occurred under the circumstances of this case.
The authority of Cicenia v. Lagay, 357 U. S. 504, and Crooker v. California, 357 U. S. 433, was weakened by the subsequent decisions of this Court in Hamilton v. Alabama, 368 U. S. 52, White v. Maryland, 373 U. S. 59, and Massiah v. United States, 377 U. S. 201 (as the dissenting opinion in the last-cited case recognized).
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
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 Stevens
delivered the opinion of the Court.
We granted certiorari, 500 U. S. 951 (1991), to resolve a conflict in the Circuits over the question whether an affirmative act of inducement by a public official, such as a demand, is an element of the offense of extortion “under color of official right” prohibited by the Hobbs Act, 18 U. S. C. § 1951. We agree with the Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit that it is not, and therefore affirm the judgment of the court below.
I
Petitioner was an elected member of the Board of Commissioners of DeKalb County, Georgia. During the period between March 1985 and October 1986, as part of an effort by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to investigate allegations of public corruption in the Atlanta area, particularly in the area of rezonings of property, an FBI agent posing as a real estate developer talked on the telephone and met with petitioner on a number of occasions. Virtually all, if not all, of those conversations were initiated by the agent and most were recorded on tape or video. In those conversations, the agent sought petitioner’s assistance in an effort to rezone a 25-acre tract of land for high-density residential use. On July 25, 1986, the agent handed petitioner cash totaling $7,000 and a check, payable to petitioner’s campaign, for $1,000. Petitioner reported the check, but not the cash, on his state campaign-financing disclosure form; he also did not report the $7,000 on his 1986 federal income tax return. Viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the Government, as we must in light of the verdict, see Glasser v. United States, 315 U. S. 60, 80 (1942), we assume that the jury found that petitioner accepted the cash knowing that it was intended to ensure that he would vote in favor of the rezoning application and that he would try to persuade his fellow commissioners to do likewise. Thus, although petitioner did not initiate the transaction, his acceptance of the bribe constituted an implicit promise to use his official position to serve the interests of the bribegiver.
In a two-count indictment, petitioner was charged with extortion in violation of 18 U. S. C. § 1951 and with failure to report income in violation of 26 U. S. C. § 7206(1). He was convicted by a jury on both counts. With respect to the extortion count, the trial judge gave the following instruction:
“The defendant contends that the $8,000 he received from agent Cormany was a campaign contribution. The solicitation of campaign contributions from any person is a necessary and permissible form of political activity on the part of persons who seek political office and persons who have been elected to political office. Thus, the acceptance by an elected official of a campaign contribution does not, in itself, constitute a violation of the Hobbs Act even though the donor has business pending before the official.
“However, if a public official demands or accepts money in exchange for [a] specific requested exercise of his or her official power, such a demand or acceptance does constitute a violation of the Hobbs Act regardless of whether the payment is made in the form of a campaign contribution.” App. 16-17.
In affirming petitioner’s conviction, the Court of Appeals noted that the instruction did not require the jury to find that petitioner had demanded or requested the money, or that he had conditioned the performance of any official act upon its receipt. 910 F. 2d 790, 796 (CA11 1990). The Court of Appeals held, however, that “passive acceptance of a benefit by a public official is sufficient to form the basis of a Hobbs Act violation if the official knows that he is being offered the payment in exchange for a specific requested exercise of his official power. The official need not take any specific action to induce the offering of the benefit.” Ibid. (emphasis in original).
This statement of the law by the Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit is consistent with holdings in eight other Circuits. Two Circuits, however, have held that an affirmative act of inducement by the public official is required to support a conviction of extortion under color of official right. United States v. O’Grady, 742 F. 2d 682, 687 (CA2 1984) (en banc) (“Although receipt of benefits by a public official is a necessary element of the crime, there must also be proof that the public official did something, under color of his public office, to cause the giving of benefits”); United States v. Aguon, 851 F. 2d 1158, 1166 (CA9 1988) (en banc) (“We find ourselves in accord with the Second Circuit’s conclusion that inducement is an element required for conviction under the Hobbs Act”). Because the majority view is consistent with the common-law definition of extortion, which we believe Congress intended to adopt, we endorse that position.
II
It is a familiar “maxim that a statutory term is generally presumed to have its common-law meaning.” Taylor v. United States, 495 U. S. 575, 592 (1990). As we have explained: “[W]here Congress borrows terms of art in which are accumulated the legal tradition and meaning of centuries of practice, it presumably knows and adopts the cluster of ideas that were attached to each borrowed word in the body of learning from which it was taken and the meaning its use will convey to the judicial mind unless otherwise instructed. In such case, absence of contrary direction may be taken as satisfaction with widely accepted definitions, not as a departure from them.” Morissette v. United States, 342 U. S. 246, 263 (1952).
At common law, extortion was an offense committed by a public official who took “by colour of his office” money that was not due to him for the performance of his official duties. A demand, or request, by the public official was not an element of the offense. Extortion by the public official was the rough equivalent of what we would now describe as “taking a bribe.” It is clear that petitioner committed that offense. The question is whether the federal statute, insofar as it applies to official extortion, has narrowed the common-law definition.
Congress has unquestionably expanded the common-law definition of extortion to include acts by private individuals pursuant to which property is obtained by means of force, fear, or threats. It did so by implication in the Travel Act, 18 U. S. C. § 1952, see United States v. Nardello, 393 U. S. 286, 289-296 (1969), and expressly in the Hobbs Act. The portion of the Hobbs Act that is relevant to our decision today provides:
“(a) Whoever in any way or degree obstructs, delays, or affects commerce or the movement of any article or commodity in commerce, by robbery or extortion or attempts or conspires so to do, or commits or threatens physical violence to any person or property in furtherance of a plan or purpose to do anything in violation of this section shall be fined not more than $10,000 or imprisoned not more than twenty years, or both.
“(b) As used in this section—
“(2) The term ‘extortion’ means the obtaining of property from another, with his consent, induced by wrongful use of actual or threatened force, violence, or fear, or under color of official right.” 18 U. S. C. § 1951.
The present form of the statute is a codification of a 1946 enactment, the Hobbs Act, which amended the federal Anti-Racketeering Act. In crafting the 1934 Act, Congress was careful not to interfere with legitimate activities between employers and employees. See H. R. Rep. No. 1833, 73d Cong., 2d Sess., 2 (1934). The 1946 amendment was intended to encompass the conduct held to be beyond the reach of the 1934 Act by our decision in United States v. Teamsters, 315 U. S. 521 (1942). The amendment did not make any significant change in the section referring to obtaining property “under color of official right” that had been prohibited by the 1934 Act. Rather, Congress intended to broaden the scope of the Anti-Racketeering Act and was concerned primarily with distinguishing between “legitimate” labor activity and labor “racketeering,” so as to prohibit the latter while permitting the former. See 91 Cong. Rec. 11899-11922 (1945).
Many of those who supported the amendment argued that its purpose was to end the robbery and extortion that some union members had engaged in, to the detriment of all labor and the American citizenry. They urged that the amendment was not, as their opponents charged, an antilabor measure, but rather, it was a necessary measure in the wake of this Court’s decision in United States v. Teamsters. In their view, the Supreme Court had mistakenly exempted labor from laws prohibiting robbery and extortion, whereas Congress had intended to extend such laws to all American citizens. See, e.g., 91 Cong. Rec. 11910 (1945) (remarks of Rep. Springer) (“To my mind this is a bill that protects the honest laboring people in our country. There is nothing contained in this bill that relates to labor. This measure, if passed, will relate to every American citizen”); id., at 11912 (remarks of Rep. Jennings) (“The bill is one to protect the right of citizens of this country to market their products without any interference from lawless bandits”).
Although the present statutory text is much broader than the common-law definition of extortion because it encompasses conduct by a private individual as well as conduct by a public official, the portion of the statute that refers to official misconduct continues to mirror the common-law definition. There is nothing in either the statutory text or the legislative history that could fairly be described as a “contrary direction,” Morissette v. United States, 342 U. S., at 263, from Congress to narrow the scope of the offense.
The legislative history is sparse and unilluminating with respect to the offense of extortion. There is a reference to the fact that the terms “robbery and extortion” had been construed many times by the courts and to the fact that the definitions of those terms were “based on the New York law.” 89 Cong. Rec. 3227 (1943) (statement of Rep. Hobbs); see 91 Cong. Rec. 11906 (1945) (statement of Rep. Robsion). In view of the fact that the New York statute applied to a public officer “who asks, or receives, or agrees to receive” unauthorized compensation, N. Y. Penal Code §557 (1881), the reference to New York law is consistent with an intent to apply the common-law definition. The language of the New York statute quoted above makes clear that extortion could be committed by one who merely received an unauthorized payment. This was the statute that was in force in New York when the Hobbs Act was enacted.
The two courts that have disagreed with the decision to apply the common-law definition have interpreted the word “induced” as requiring a wrongful use of official power that “begins with the public official, not with the gratuitous actions of another.” United States v. O’Grady, 742 F. 2d, at 691; see United States v. Aguon, 851 F. 2d, at 1166 (“‘inducement’ can be in the overt form of a ‘demand,’ or in a more subtle form such as ‘custom’ or ‘expectation’”). If we had no common-law history to guide our interpretation of the statutory text, that reading would be plausible. For two reasons, however, we are convinced that it is incorrect.
First, we think the word “induced” is a part of the definition of the offense by the private individual, but not the offense by the public official. In the case of the private individual, the victim’s consent must be “induced by wrongful use of actual or threatened force, violence or fear.” In the case of the public official, however, there is no such requirement. The statute merely requires of the public official that he obtain “property from another, with his consent,... under color of official right.” The use of the word “or” before “under color of official right” supports this reading.
Second, even if the statute were parsed so that the word “induced” applied to the public officeholder, we do not believe the word “induced” necessarily indicates that the transaction must be initiated by the recipient of the bribe. Many of the cases applying the majority rule have concluded that the wrongful acceptance of a bribe establishes all the inducement that the statute requires. They conclude that the coercive element is provided by the public office itself. And even the two courts that have adopted an inducement requirement for extortion under color of official right do not require proof that the inducement took the form of a threat or demand. See United States v. O’Grady, 742 F. 2d, at 687; United States v. Aguon, 851 F. 2d, at 1166.
Petitioner argues that the jury charge with respect to extortion, see supra, at 257-258, allowed the jury to convict him on the basis of the “passive acceptance of a contribution.” Brief for Petitioner 24. He contends that the instruction did not require the jury to find “an element of duress such as a demand/’ id., at 22, and it did not properly describe the quid pro quo requirement for conviction if the jury found that the payment was a campaign contribution.
We reject petitioner’s criticism of the instruction, and conclude that it satisfies the quid pro quo requirement of McCormick v. United States, 500 U. S. 257 (1991), because the offense is completed at the time when the public official receives a payment in return for his agreement to perform specific official acts; fulfillment of the quid pro quo is not an element of the offense. We also reject petitioner’s contention that an affirmative step is an element of the offense of extortion “under color of official right” and need be included in the instruction. As we explained above, our construction of the statute is informed by the common-law tradition from which the term of art was drawn and understood. We hold today that the Government need only show that a public official has obtained a payment to which he was not entitled, knowing that the payment was made in return for official acts.
Our conclusion is buttressed by the fact that so many other courts that have considered the issue over the last 20 years have interpreted the statute in the same way. Moreover, given the number of appellate court decisions, together with the fact that many of them have involved prosecutions of important officials well known in the political community, it is obvious that Congress is aware of the prevailing view that common-law extortion is proscribed by the Hobbs Act. The silence of the body that is empowered to give us a “contrary direction” if it does not want the common-law rule to survive is consistent with an application of the normal presumption identified in Taylor and Morissette.
II
An argument not raised by petitioner is now advanced by the dissent. It contends that common-law extortion was limited to wrongful takings under a false pretense of official right. Post, at 279-280; see post, at 281 (offense of extortion “was understood... [as] a wrongful taking under a false pretense of official right”) (emphasis in original); post, at 282. It is perfectly clear, however, that although extortion accomplished by fraud was a well-recognized type of extortion, there were other types as well. As the court explained in Commonwealth v. Wilson, 30 Pa. Super. 26 (1906), an extortion case involving a payment by a would-be brothel owner to a police captain to ensure the opening of her house:
“The form of extortion most commonly dealt with in the decisions is the corrupt taking by a person in office of a fee for services which should be rendered gratuitously; or when compensation is permissible, of a larger fee than the law justifies, or a fee not yet due; but this is not a complete definition of the offense, by which I mean that it does not include every form of common-law extortion.” Id., at 30.
See also Commonwealth v. Brown, 23 Pa. Super. 470, 488-489 (1903) (defendants charged with and convicted of conspiracy to extort because they accepted pay for obtaining and procuring the election of certain persons to the position of schoolteachers); State v. Sweeney, 180 Minn. 450, 456, 231 N. W. 225, 228 (1930) (alderman’s acceptance of money for the erection of a barn, the running of a gambling house, and the opening of a filling station would constitute extortion) (dicta); State v. Barts, 132 N. J. L. 74, 76, 83, 38 A. 2d 838, 841, 844 (Sup. Ct. 1944) (police officer, who received $1,000 for not arresting someone who had stolen money, was properly convicted of extortion because “generically extortion is an abuse of public justice and a misuse by oppression of the power with which the law clothes a public officer”); White v. State, 56 Ga. 385, 389 (1876) (If a ministerial officer used his position “for the purpose of awing or seducing” a person to pay him a bribe that would be extortion).
The dissent’s theory notwithstanding, not one of the cases it cites, see post, at 281-282, and n. 3, holds that the public official is innocent unless he has deceived the payor by representing that the payment was proper. Indeed, none makes any reference to the state of mind of the payor, and none states that a “false pretense” is an element of the offense. Instead, those cases merely support the proposition that the services for which the fee is paid must be official and that the official must not be entitled to the fee that he collected— both elements of the offense that are clearly satisfied in this case. The complete absence of support for the dissent’s thesis presumably explains why it was not advanced by petitioner in the District Court or the Court of Appeals, is not recognized by any Court of Appeals, and is not advanced in any scholarly commentary.
The judgment is affirmed.
It is so ordered.
The Court of Appeals explained its conclusion as follows:
“[T]he requirement of inducement is automatically satisfied by the power connected with the public office. Therefore, once the defendant has shown that a public official has accepted money in return for a requested exercise of official power, no additional inducement need be shown. ‘The coercive nature of the official office provides all the inducement necessary.’” 910 F. 2d, at 796-797 (footnote omitted).
See United States v. Garner, 837 F. 2d 1404, 1423 (CA7 1987), cert. denied, 486 U. S. 1035 (1988); United States v. Spitler, 800 F. 2d 1267, 1274-1275 (CA4 1986); United States v. Jannotti, 673 F. 2d 578, 594-596 (CA3) (en banc), cert. denied, 457 U. S. 1106 (1982); United States v. French, 628 F. 2d 1069, 1074 (CA8), cert. denied, 449 U. S. 956 (1980); United States v. Williams, 621 F. 2d 123, 123-124 (CA5 1980), cert. denied, 450 U. S. 919 (1981); United States v. Butler, 618 F. 2d 411, 417-420 (CA6), cert. denied, 447 U. S. 927 (1980); United States v. Hall, 536 F. 2d 313, 320-321 (CA10), cert. denied, 429 U. S. 919 (1976); United States v. Hathaway, 534 F. 2d 386, 393-394 (CA1), cert. denied, 429 U. S. 819 (1976).
Or, as Justice Frankfurter advised, “if a word is obviously transplanted from another legal source, whether the common law or other legislation, it brings the old soil with it.” Frankfurter, Some Reflections on the Reading of Statutes, 47 Colum. L. Rev. 527, 537 (1947).
Blackstone described extortion as “an abuse of public justice, which consists in an officer’s unlawfully taking, by colour of his office, from any man, any money or thing of value, that is not due to him, or more than is due, or before it is due.” 4 W. Blackstone, Commentaries *141 (emphasis added). He used the phrase “by colour of his office,” rather than the phrase “under color of official right,” which appears in the Hobbs Act. Petitioner does not argue that there is any difference in the phrases. Hawkins’ definition of extortion is probably the source for the official right language used in the Hobbs Act. See Lindgren, The Elusive Distinction Between Bribery and Extortion: From the Common Law to the Hobbs Act, 35 UCLA L. Rev. 816, 864 (1988) (hereinafter Lindgren). Hawkins defined extortion as follows:
“[I]t is said, That extortion in a large sense signifies any oppression under colour of right; but that in a strict sense, it signifies the taking of money by any officer, by colour of his office, either where none at all is due, or not so much is due, or where it is not yet due.” 1 W. Hawkins, Pleas of the Crown 316 (6th ed. 1787).
See Lindgren 882-889. The dissent says that we assume that “common-law extortion encompassed any taking by a public official of something of value that he was not ‘due.’ ” Post, at 279. That statement, of course, is incorrect because, as stated in the text above, the payment must be “for the performance of his official duties.”
Lindgren 884-886.
Petitioner argued to the jury, at least with respect to the extortion count, that he had been entrapped, see App. 20; however, in light of the jury’s verdict on that issue, we must assume that he was predisposed to commit the crime.
The 1946 enactment provides:
“The term ‘extortion’ means the obtaining of property from another, with his consent, induced by wrongful use of actual or threatened force, violence, or fear, or under color of official right.’ ” Act of July 3, 1946, ch. 537, § 1(c), 60 Stat. 420.
Section 2(b) of the 1934 Act read as follows:
“Sec. 2. Any person who, in connection with or in relation to any act in any way or in any degree affecting trade or commerce or any article or commodity moving or about to move in trade or commerce—
“(b) Obtains the property of another, with his consent, induced by wrongful use of force or fear, or under color of official right.” Act of June 18, 1934, ch. 569, §2, 48 Stat. 979-980.
One of the models for the statute was the New York statute:
“Extortion is the obtaining of property from another, or the obtaining the [sic] property of a corporation from an officer, agent or employee thereof, with his consent, induced by a wrongful use of force or fear, or under color of official right.” Penal Law of 1909, §850, as amended, 1917 N. Y. Laws, ch. 518, codified in N. Y. Penal Law §850 (McKinney Supp. 1965).
The other model was the Field Code, a 19th-century model code:
“Extortion is the obtaining of property from another, with his consent, induced by a wrongful use of force or fear, or under color of official right.” Commissioners of the Code, Proposed Penal Code of the State of New York §613 (1865) (Field Code).
Lindgren points out that according to the Field Code, coercive extortion and extortion by official right extortion are separate offenses, and the New York courts recognized this difference when, in 1891, they said the Field Code treats “extortion by force and fear as one thing, and extortion by official action as another.” People v. Barondess, 61 Hun. 571, 576, 16 N. Y. S. 436, 438 (App. Div. 1891). The judgment in this case was later reversed without opinion. See 133 N. Y. 649, 31 N. E. 240 (1892). Lind-gren identifies early English statutes and cases to support his contention that official extortion did not require a coercive taking, nor did it under the early American statutes, including the later New York statute. See Lindgren 869, 908.
In United States v. Teamsters, the Court construed the exemption for “ ‘the payment of wages by a bona-fide employer to a bona-fide employee’ ” that was contained in the 1934 Act but is no longer a part of the statute. 315 U. S., at 527.
In fact, the House Report sets out the text of United States v. Teamsters in full, to make clear that the amendment to the Anti-Racketeering Act was in direct response to the Supreme Court decision. See H. R. Rep. No. 238, 79th Cong., 1st Sess., 1-10 (1945).
This Court recognized the broad scope of the Hobbs Act in Stirone v. United States, 361 U. S. 212, 215 (1960):
“That Act speaks in broad language, manifesting a purpose to use all the constitutional power Congress has to punish interference with interstate commerce by extortion, robbery or physical violence. The Act outlaws such interference ‘in any way or degree.’ ”
Several States had already defined the offense of extortion broadly enough to include the conduct of the private individual as well as the conduct of the public official. See, e. g., United States v. Nardello, 393 U. S. 286, 289 (1969) (“In many States... the crime of extortion has been statutorily expanded to include acts by private individuals under which property is obtained by means of force, fear, or threats”); Bush v. State, 19 Ariz. 195, 198, 168 P. 508, 509-510 (1917) (recognizing that the state Penal Code “has enlarged the scope of this offense so as not to confine the commission of it to those persons who act under color of official right”); People v. Peck, 43 Cal. App. 638, 643, 185 P. 881, 882-883 (1919) (In some States “the statutory definitions have extended the scope of the offense beyond that of the common law so as to include the unlawful taking of money or thing of value of another by any person, whether a public officer or a private individual, and this is so in California...”).
At least one commentator has argued that, at common law, extortion under color of official right could also be committed by a private individual. See Lindgren 875.
Many of the treatise writers explained that, at common law, extortion was defined as the corrupt taking or receipt of an unlawful fee by a public officer under color of office. They did not allude to any requirements of “inducement” or “demand” by a public officer. See, e. g., W. LaFave & A. Scott, Handbook on Criminal Law §95, p. 704 (1972); R. Perkins & R. Boyce, Criminal Law 448 (1982); 4 C. Torcia, Wharton’s Criminal Law §695, p. 481, §698, p. 484 (14th ed. 1981).
This meaning would, of course, have been completely clear if Congress had inserted the word “either” before its description of the private offense because the word “or” already precedes the description of the public offense. The definition would then read: “The term ‘extortion’ means the obtaining of property from another, with his consent, either induced by wrongful use of actual or threatened force, violence, or fear, or under color of official right.”
See, e. g., United States v. Holzer, 816 F. 2d 304, 311 (CA7), vacated on other grounds, 484 U. S. 807 (1987), aff’d in part on remand, 840 F. 2d 1343 (CA7), cert. denied, 486 U. S. 1035 (1988); United States v. Paschall, 772 F. 2d 68, 72-74 (CA4 1985); United States v. Williams, 621 F. 2d, at 124; United States v. Butler, 618 F. 2d, at 418.
Moreover, we note that while the statute does not require that affirmative inducement be proven as a distinct element of the Hobbs Act, there is evidence in the record establishing that petitioner received the money with the understanding that he would use his office to aid the bribe-giver. Petitioner and the agent had several exchanges in which they tried to clarify their understanding with each other. For example, petitioner said to the agent: “I understand both of us are groping... for what we need to say to each other.... I’m gonna work. Let m[e] tell you I’m gonna work, if you didn’t give me but three [thousand dollars], on this, I’ve promised to help you. I’m gonna work to do that. You understand what I mean.... If you gave me six, I’ll do exactly what I said I was gonna do for you. If you gave me one, I’ll do exactly what I said I was gonna do for you. I wanna’ make sure you’re clear on that part. So it doesn’t really matter. If I promised to help, that’s what I’m gonna do.” App. 36-37.
Petitioner instructed the agent on the form of the payment (“What you do, is make me out one, ahh, for a thousand.... And, and that means we gonna record it and report it and then the rest would be cash”), and agreed with the agent that the payment was being made, not because it was an election year, but because there was a budget to support petitioner’s actions, and that there would be a budget either way (“Either way, yep. Oh, I understand that. I understand”). Id., at 38.
Petitioner also makes the point that “[t]he evidence at trial against [petitioner] is more conducive to a charge of bribery than one of extortion.” Brief for Petitioner 40. Although the evidence in this case may have supported a charge of bribery, it is not a defense to a charge of extortion under color of official right that the defendant could also have been convicted of bribery. Courts addressing extortion by force or fear have occasionally said that extortion and bribery are mutually exclusive, see, e. g., People v. Feld, 262 App. Div. 909, 28 N. Y. S. 2d 796, 797 (1941); while that may be correct when the victim was intimidated into making a payment (extortion by force or fear), and did not offer it voluntarily (bribery), that does not lead to the conclusion that extortion under color of official right and bribery are mutually exclusive under either common law or the Hobbs Act. See, e. g., Stern, Prosecutions of Local Political Corruption Under the Hobbs Act: The Unnecessary Distinction Between Bribery and Extortion, 3 Seton Hall L. Rev. 1, 14 (1971) (“If the [Hobbs] Act is read in full, the distinction between bribery and extortion becomes unnecessary where public officials are involved”).
Another commentator has argued that bribery and extortion were overlapping crimes, see Lindgren 905, 908, and has located an early New York case in which the defendant was convicted of both bribery and extortion under color of official right, see People v. Hansen, 241 N. Y. 532, 150 N. E. 542 (1925), aff’g, 211 App. Div. 861, 207 N. Y. S. 894 (1924). He also makes the point that the cases usually cited for the proposition that extortion and bribery are mutually exclusive crimes are cases involving extortion by fear and bribery, see, e. g., People v. Feld, supra; People v. Dioguardi, 8 N. Y. 2d 260, 263, 271-273, 168 N. E. 2d 683, 685, 690-692 (1960), and we note that the latter case was decided after the Hobbs Act, so it could not have been a case on which Congress relied. We agree with the Seventh Circuit in United States v. Braasch, 505 F. 2d 139, 151, n. 7 (1974), cert. denied, 421 U. S. 910 (1975), that “ ‘the modern trend of the federal courts is to hold that bribery and extortion as used in the Hobbs Ac[t] are not mutually exclusive. United States v. Kahn, 472 F. 2d 272, 278 (2d Cir. 1973), cert. den., 411 U. S. 982.’”
We do not reach petitioner’s second claim pertaining to the tax fraud count because, as petitioner conceded at oral argument, we would only have to reach that claim in the event that petitioner succeeded on his Hobbs Act claim. See Tr. of Oral Arg. 3-4, 27.
The dissent states that we have “simply made up,” post, at 286, the requirement that the payment must be given in return for official acts. On the contrary, that requirement is derived from the statutory language “under color of official right,” which has a well-recognized common-law heritage that distinguished between payments for private services and payments for public services. See, e. g., Collier v. State, 55 Ala. 125 (1877), which the dissent describes as a “typical case." Post, at 281.
See, e. g., United States v. Swift, 732 F. 2d 878, 880 (CA11 1984), cert. denied, 469 U. S. 1158 (1985); United States v. Jannotti, 673 F. 2d, at 594-596; United States v. French, 628 F. 2d, at 1074; United States v. Williams, 621 F. 2d, at 123-124; United States v. Butler, 618 F. 2d, at 417-418; United States v. Hall, 536 F. 2d,
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
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 Chickasaw Nation owns and operates the Chickasaw Motor Inn in Sulphur, Oklahoma. At the inn, the Tribe conducts bingo games and sells cigarettes. Oklahoma filed a complaint against the Chickasaw Tribe and Jan Graham, who managed the enterprise for the Tribe, to collect unpaid state excise taxes on the sale of cigarettes and taxes on the receipts from the bingo games. The Chickasaw Nation, asserting federal-question jurisdiction under 28 U. S. C. § 1381, removed the action from the State District Court in Murray County to the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Oklahoma. The State moved to remand the case, arguing in part that the complaint alleged on its face only state statutory violations and state tax liabilities. The District Court, however, denied the motion. It noted that the complaint sought to apply Oklahoma law to an Indian Tribe and so implicated the federal question of tribal immunity. App. to Pet. for Cert. A25-A26. Shortly thereafter the District Court dismissed the State’s suit, finding it barred by tribal sovereign immunity. Id., at A27-A30.
A divided panel of the Tenth Circuit affirmed. Oklahoma ex rel. Oklahoma Tax Comm’n v. Graham, 822 F. 2d 951 (1987). The majority concluded that removal had been proper because the State’s complaint, although facially based on state law, contained the “implicit federal question” of tribal immunity. It noted that, as a prerequisite to stating jurisdiction over a recognized Indian tribe, it had held in other cases that “an alleged waiver or consent to suit is a necessary element of the well-pleaded complaint.” Id., at 954. Judge Tacha dissented on the ground that a case could not be removed on the basis of a federal defense and that “[i]t is not disputed that the face of the state’s complaint in this case raises only state tax questions.” Id., at 958.
We vacated the Tenth Circuit’s decision and remanded for reconsideration in light of our discussion of removal jurisdiction and the well-pleaded complaint rule in Caterpillar Inc. v. Williams, 482 U. S. 386 (1987). Oklahoma Tax Comm’n v. Graham, 484 U. S. 973 (1987). On reconsideration, the panel of the Tenth Circuit adhered to its previous disposition that removal was proper. Oklahoma ex rel. Oklahoma Tax Comm’n v. Graham, 846 F. 2d 1258 (1988). The court read Caterpillar as holding that, to support federal-question removability, a complaint must on its face present a federal claim. But that rule did not apply to Oklahoma’s complaint, thought the panel, because, although “nothing within the literal language of the pleading even suggests implication of a federal question,” “such a question is inherent within the complaint because of the parties subject to the action.” 846 F. 2d, at 1260. Again, Judge Tacha dissented. We granted certiorari, 488 U. S. 816 (1988).
We think the decision of the Court of Appeals is plainly inconsistent with Caterpillar and reverse it. “Except as otherwise expressly provided by Act of Congress,” a case is not properly removed to federal court unless it might have been brought there originally. 28 U. S. C. § 1441(a). In the present case, the sole alleged basis of original federal jurisdiction is 28 U. S. C. § 1331, giving district courts “original jurisdiction of all civil actions arising under the Constitution, laws, or treaties of the United States.” The presence or absence of federal-question jurisdiction is governed by the “well-pleaded complaint” rule. “[Wjhether a case is one arising under [federal law], in the sense of the jurisdictional statute, . . . must be determined from what necessarily appears in the plaintiff’s statement of his own claim in the bill or declaration, unaided by anything alleged in anticipation of avoidance of defenses which it is thought the defendant may interpose.” Taylor v. Anderson, 234 U. S. 74, 75-76 (1914); Louisville & Nashville R. Co. v. Mottley, 211 U. S. 149 (1908).
In Caterpillar, we ruled that the application of the well-pleaded complaint rule defeated federal-question jurisdiction, and therefore removability, in a case in which employees sued on personal, state-law employment contracts. We refused to characterize these state-law claims as arising under federal law even though an interpretation of the collective-bargaining agreement might ultimately provide the employer a complete defense to the individual claims, and even though employee claims on the collective-bargaining agreement would have been the subject of original federal jurisdiction. Caterpillar, supra, at 396-398. The state-law tax claims in the present case must be analyzed in the same manner. Tribal immunity may provide a federal defense to Oklahoma’s claims. See Puyallup Tribe, Inc. v. Washington Game Dept., 433 U. S. 165 (1977). But it has long been settled that the existence of a federal immunity to the claims asserted does not convert a suit otherwise arising under state law into one which, in the statutory sense, arises under federal law. Gully v. First National Bank, 299 U. S. 109 (1936). The possible existence of a tribal immunity defense, then, did not convert Oklahoma tax claims into federal questions, and there was no independent basis for original federal jurisdiction to support removal.
The jurisdictional question in this case is not affected by the fact that tribal immunity is governed by federal law. As the dissent below observed, Congress has expressly provided by statute for removal when it desired federal courts to adjudicate defenses based on federal immunities. See Willingham v. Morgan, 395 U. S. 402, 406-407 (1969) (removal provision of 28 U. S. C. § 1442(a)(1) for federal officers acting “under color” of federal office sufficient to allow removal of actions in which official immunity could be asserted); Verlinden B. V. v. Central Bank of Nigeria, 461 U. S. 480, 493, n. 20 (1983) (original federal jurisdiction under 28 U. S. C. § 1330(a) over claims against a foreign sovereign which allege an exception to immunity). Neither the parties nor the courts below have suggested that Congress has statutorily provided for federal-court adjudication of tribal immunity notwithstanding the well-pleaded complaint rule.
As this case was improperly removed from the Oklahoma courts, the merits of the claims of tribal immunity were not properly before the federal courts, and we express no opinion on that question.
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:
|
J
|
sc_issuearea
|
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Per Curiam.
The Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002 (BCRA), § 203, as amended, 116 Stat. 91, prohibits corporations from using their general treasury funds to pay for any “electioneering communications.” 2 U. S. C. §441b(b)(2) (2000 ed., Supp. III). BCRA §201 defines “electioneering communications” as any broadcast, cable, or satellite communication that refers to a candidate for federal office and that is broadcast within 30 days of a federal primary election or 60 days of a federal general election in the jurisdiction in which that candidate is running for office. 2 U. S. C. § 434(f)(3) (2000 ed., Supp. III). Appellant Wisconsin Right to Life, Inc. (WRTL), brought this action against the Federal Election Commission (FEC), seeking a judgment declaring BCRA unconstitutional as applied to several broadcast advertisements that it intended to run during the 2004 election. WRTL also sought a preliminary injunction barring the FEC from enforcing BCRA against those advertisements. WRTL does not dispute that its advertisements are covered by BCRA’s definition of prohibited electioneering communications. Instead, it contends that BCRA cannot be constitutionally applied to its particular communications because they constitute “grassroots lobbying advertisements.” Brief for Ap-pellee 35 (internal quotation marks omitted). Although the FEC has statutory authority to exempt by regulation certain communications from BCRA’s prohibition on electioneering communications, § 434(f)(3)(B)(iv), at this point, it has not done so for the types of advertisements at issue here.
The three-judge District Court denied the motion for a preliminary injunction and subsequently dismissed WRTL’s complaint in an unpublished opinion. We noted probable jurisdiction, 545 U. S. 1164 (2005). Appellant asks us to reverse the judgment of the District Court because that court incorrectly read a footnote in our opinion in McConnell v. Federal Election Comm’n, 540 U. S. 93 (2003), as foreclosing any “as-applied” challenges to the prohibition on electioneering communications. We agree with WRTL that the District Court misinterpreted the relevance of our “uphold[ing] all applications of the primary definition” of electioneering communications. Id., at 190, n. 73. Contrary to the understanding of the District Court, that footnote merely notes that because we found BCRA’s primary definition of “electioneering communication” facially valid when used with regard to BCRA’s disclosure and funding requirements, it was unnecessary to consider the constitutionality of the backup definition Congress provided. Ibid. In upholding §203 against a facial challenge, we did not purport to resolve future as-applied challenges.
The FEC argues that the District Court also rested its decision on the alternative ground that the facts of this case “suggest that WRTL’s advertisements may fit the very type of activity McConnell found Congress had a compelling interest in regulating.” No. 04-1260 (DC, Aug. 17,2004), App. to Juris. Statement 8a. It is not clear to us, however, that the District Court intended its opinion to rest on this ground. For one thing, the court used the word “may.” For another, its separate opinion dismissing WRTL’s challenge with prejudice characterized its previous opinion as holding that “WRTL’s ‘as-applied’ challenge to BCRA is foreclosed by the Supreme Court’s decision in McConnell.” Id., at 3a. Given this ambiguity, we cannot say with certainty that the District Court’s dismissal was based on this alternative ground.
We therefore vacate the judgment and remand the case for the District Court to consider the merits of WRTL’s as-applied challenge in the first instance.
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:
|
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.
Chief Justice Burger
delivered the opinion of the Court.
We granted certiorari to resolve a conflict in the Circuits over whether misrepresentation or nondisclosure is a necessary element of a violation of § 14(e) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, 15 U. S. C. § 78n(e).
I
On December 21, 1982, Burlington Northern, Inc., made a hostile tender offer for El Paso Gas Co. Through a wholly owned subsidiary, Burlington proposed to purchase 25.1 million El Paso shares at $24 per share. Burlington reserved the right to terminate the offer if any of several specified events occurred. El Paso management initially opposed the takeover, but its shareholders responded favorably, fully subscribing the offer by the December 30, 1982, deadline.
Burlington did not accept those tendered shares; instead, after negotiations with El Paso management, Burlington announced on January 10, 1983, the terms of a new and friendly takeover agreement. Pursuant to the new agreement, Burlington undertook, inter alia, to (1) rescind the December tender offer, (2) purchase 4,166,667 shares from El Paso at $24 per share, (3) substitute a new tender offer for only 21 million shares at $24 per share, (4) provide procedural protections against a squeeze-out merger of the remaining El Paso shareholders, and (5) recognize “golden parachute” contracts between El Paso and four of its senior officers. By-February 8, more than 40 million shares were tendered in response to Burlington’s January offer, and the takeover was completed.
The rescission of the first tender offer caused a diminished payment to those shareholders who had tendered during the first offer. The January offer was greatly oversubscribed and consequently those shareholders who retendered were subject to substantial proration. Petitioner Barbara Schreiber filed suit on behalf of herself and similarly situated shareholders, alleging that Burlington, El Paso, and members of El Paso’s board of directors violated § 14(e)’s prohibition of “fraudulent, deceptive, or manipulative acts or practices ... in connection with any tender offer.” 15 U. S. C. §78n(e). She claimed that Burlington’s withdrawal of the December tender offer coupled with the substitution of the January tender offer was a “manipulative” distortion of the market for El Paso stock. Schreiber also alleged that Burlington violated § 14(e) by failing in the January offer to disclose the “golden parachutes” offered to four of El Paso’s managers. She claims that this January nondisclosure was a deceptive act forbidden by § 14(e).
The District Court dismissed the suit for failure to state a claim. 568 F. Supp. 197 (Del. 1983). The District Court reasoned that the alleged manipulation did not involve a misrepresentation, and so did not violate § 14(e). The District Court relied on the fact that in cases involving alleged violations of § 10(b) of the Securities Exchange Act, 15 U. S. C. §78j(b), this Court has required misrepresentation for there to be a “manipulative” violation of the section. 568 F. Supp., at 202.
The Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit affirmed. 731 F. 2d 163 (1984). The Court of Appeals held that the acts alleged did not violate the Williams Act, because “§ 14(e) was not intended to create a federal cause of action for all harms suffered because of the proffering or the withdrawal of tender offers.” Id., at 165. The Court of Appeals reasoned that § 14(e) was “enacted principally as a disclosure statute, designed to insure that fully-informed investors could intelligently decide how to respond to a tender offer.” Id., at 165-166. It concluded that the “arguable breach of contract” alleged by petitioner was not a “manipulative act” under § 14(e).
We granted certiorari to resolve the conflict, 469 U. S. 815 (1984). We affirm.
II
A
We are asked in this case to interpret § 14(e) of the Securities Exchange Act, 82 Stat. 457, as amended, 15 U. S. C. § 78n(e). The starting point is the language of the statute. Section 14(e) provides:
“It shall be unlawful for any person to make any untrue statement of a material fact or omit to state any material fact necessary in order to make the statements made, in the light of the circumstances under which they are made, not misleading, or to engage in any fraudulent, deceptive, or manipulative acts or practices, in connection with any tender offer or request or invitation for tenders, or any solicitation of security holders in opposition to or in favor of any such offer, request, or invitation. The Commission shall, for the purposes of this subsection, by rules and regulations define, and prescribe means reasonably designed to prevent, such acts and practices as are fraudulent, deceptive, or manipulative.”
Petitioner relies on a construction of the phrase, “fraudulent, deceptive, or manipulative acts or practices.” Petitioner reads the phrase “fraudulent, deceptive, or manipulative acts or practices” to include acts which, although fully disclosed, “artificially” affect the price of the takeover target’s stock. Petitioner’s interpretation relies on the belief that § 14(e) is directed at purposes broader than providing full and true information to investors.
Petitioner’s reading of the term “manipulative” conflicts with the normal meaning of the term. We have held in the context of an alleged violation of § 10(b) of the Securities Exchange Act:
“Use of the word ‘manipulative’ is especially significant. It is and was virtually a term of art when used in connection with the securities markets. It connotes intentional or willful conduct designed to deceive or defraud investors by controlling or artificially affecting the price of securities.” Ernst & Ernst v. Hochfelder, 425 U. S. 185, 199 (1976) (emphasis added).
Other cases interpreting the term reflect its use as a general term comprising a range of misleading practices:
“The term refers generally to practices, such as wash sales, matched orders, or rigged prices, that are intended to mislead investors by artificially affecting market activity. . . . Section 10(b)’s general prohibition of practices deemed by the SEC to be ‘manipulative’ — in this technical sense of artificially affecting market activity in order to mislead investors — is fully consistent with the fundamental purpose of the 1934 Act ‘ “to substitute a philosophy of full disclosure for the philosophy of caveat emptor ... Indeed, nondisclosure is usually essential to the success of a manipulative scheme. ... No doubt Congress meant to prohibit the full range of ingenious devices that might be used to manipulate securities prices. But we do not think it would have chosen this ‘term of art’ if it had meant to bring within the scope of § 10(b) instances of corporate mismanagement such as this, in which the essence of the complaint is that shareholders were treated unfairly by a fiduciary.” Santa Fe Industries, Inc. v. Green, 430 U. S. 462, 476-477 (1977).
The meaning the Court has given the term “manipulative” is consistent with the use of the term at common law, and with its traditional dictionary definition.
She argues, however, that the term “manipulative” takes on a meaning in § 14(e) that is different from the meaning it has in § 10(b). Petitioner claims that the use of the disjunctive “or” in § 14(e) implies that acts need not be deceptive or fraudulent to be manipulative. But Congress used the phrase “manipulative or deceptive” in § 10(b) as well, and we have interpreted “manipulative” in that context to require misrepresentation. Moreover, it is a “‘familiar principle of statutory construction that words grouped in a list should be given related meaning.’” Securities Industry Assn. v. Board of Governors, FRS, 468 U. S. 207, 218 (1984). All three species of misconduct, i. e., “fraudulent, deceptive, or manipulative,” listed by Congress are directed at failures to disclose. The use of the term “manipulative” provides emphasis and guidance to those who must determine which types of acts are reached by the statute; it does not suggest a deviation from the section’s facial and primary concern with disclosure or congressional concern with disclosure which is the core of the Act.
B
Our conclusion that “manipulative” acts under § 14(e) require misrepresentation or nondisclosure is buttressed by the purpose and legislative history of the provision. Section 14(e) was originally added to the Securities Exchange Act as part of the Williams Act, 82 Stat. 457. “The purpose of the Williams Act is to insure that public shareholders who are confronted by a cash tender offer for their stock will not be required to respond without adequate information.” Rondeau v. Mosinee Paper Corp., 422 U. S. 49, 58 (1975).
It is clear that Congress relied primarily on disclosure to implement the purpose of the Williams Act. Senator Williams, the bill’s Senate sponsor, stated in the debate:
“Today, the public shareholder in deciding whether to accept or reject a tender offer possesses limited information. No matter what he does, he acts without adequate knowledge to enable him to decide rationally what is the best course of action. This is precisely the dilemma which our securities laws are designed to prevent.” CO t-H t-H Cong. Rec. 24664 (1967).
The expressed legislative intent was to preserve a neutral setting in which the contenders could fully present their arguments. The Senate sponsor went on to say:
“We have taken extreme care to avoid tipping the scales either in favor of management or in favor of the person making the takeover bids. S. 510 is designed solely to require full and fair disclosure for the benefit of investors. The bill will at the same time provide the offeror and management equal opportunity to present their case.” Ibid.
To implement this objective, the Williams Act added §§ 13(d), 13(e), 14(d), 14(e), and 14(f) to the Securities Exchange Act. Some relate to disclosure; §§ 13(d), 14(d), and 14(f) all add specific registration and disclosure provisions. Others — §§ 13(e) and 14(d) — require or prohibit certain acts so that investors will possess additional time within which to take advantage of the disclosed information.
Section 14(e) adds a “broad antifraud prohibition,” Piper v. Chris-Craft Industries, Inc., 430 U. S. 1, 24 (1977), modeled on the antifraud provisions of § 10(b) of the Act and Rule 10b-5, 17 CFR §240.10b-5 (1984). It supplements the more precise disclosure provisions found elsewhere in the Williams Act, while requiring disclosure more explicitly addressed to the tender offer context than that required by § 10(b).
While legislative history specifically concerning § 14(e) is sparse, the House and Senate Reports discuss the role of § 14(e). Describing § 14(e) as regulating “fraudulent transactions,” and stating the thrust of the section:
“This provision would affirm the fact that persons engaged in making or opposing tender offers or otherwise seeking to influence the decision of investors or the outcome of the tender offer are under an obligation to make full disclosure of material information to those with whom they deal.” H. R. Rep. No. 1711, 90th Cong., 2d Sess., 11 (1968) (emphasis added); S. Rep. No. 550, 90th Cong., 1st Sess., 11 (1967) (emphasis added).
Nowhere in the legislative history is there the slightest suggestion that § 14(e) serves any purpose other than disclosure, or that the term “manipulative” should be read as an invitation to the courts to oversee the substantive fairness of tender offers; the quality of any offer is a matter for the marketplace.
To adopt the reading of the term “manipulative” urged by petitioner would not only be unwarranted in light of the legislative purpose but would be at odds with it. Inviting judges to read the term “manipulative” with their own sense of what constitutes “unfair” or “artificial” conduct would inject uncertainty into the tender offer process. An essential piece of information — whether the court would deem the fully disclosed actions of one side or the other to be “manipulative” — would not be available until after the tender offer had closed. This uncertainty would directly contradict the expressed congressional desire to give investors full information.
Congress’ consistent emphasis on disclosure persuades us that it intended takeover contests to be addressed to shareholders. In pursuit of this goal, Congress, consistent with the core mechanism of the Securities Exchange Act, created sweeping disclosure requirements and narrow substantive safeguards. The same Congress that placed such emphasis on shareholder choice would not at the same time have required judges to oversee tender offers for substantive fairness. It is even less likely that a Congress implementing that intention would express it only through the use of a single word placed in the middle of a provision otherwise devoted to disclosure.
C
We hold that the term “manipulative” as used in § 14(e) requires misrepresentation or nondisclosure. It connotes “conduct designed to deceive or defraud investors by controlling or artificially affecting the price of securities.” Ernst & Ernst v. Hochfelder, 425 U. S., at 199. Without misrepresentation or nondisclosure, § 14(e) has not been violated.
Applying that definition to this case, we hold that the actions of respondents were not manipulative. The amended complaint fails to allege that the cancellation of the first tender offer was accompanied by any misrepresentation, nondisclosure, or deception. The District Court correctly found: “All activity of the defendants that could have conceivably affected the price of El Paso shares was done openly.” 568 F. Supp., at 203.
Petitioner also alleges that El Paso management and Burlington entered into certain undisclosed and deceptive agreements during the making of the second tender offer. The substance of the allegations is that, in return for certain undisclosed benefits, El Paso managers agreed to support the second tender offer. But both courts noted that petitioner’s complaint seeks only redress for injuries related to the cancellation of the first tender offer. Since the deceptive and misleading acts alleged by petitioner all occurred with reference to the making of the second tender offer — when the injuries suffered by petitioner had already been sustained— these acts bear no possible causal relationship to petitioner’s alleged injuries. The Court of Appeals dealt correctly with this claim.
Ill
The judgment of the Court of Appeals is
Affirmed.
Justice Powell took no part in the decision of this case.
Justice O’Connor took no part in the consideration or decision of this case.
A “squeeze-out” merger occurs when Corporation A, which holds a controlling interest in Corporation B, uses its control to merge B into itself or into a wholly owned subsidiary. The minority shareholders in Corporation B are, in effect, forced to sell their stock. The procedural protection provided in the agreement between El Paso and Burlington required the approval of non-Burlington members of El Paso’s board of directors before a squeeze-out merger could proceed. Burlington eventually purchased all the remaining shares of El Paso for $12 cash and one-quarter share of Burlington preferred stock per share. The parties dispute whether this consideration was equal to that paid to those tendering during the January tender offer.
Petitioner alleged in her complaint that respondent Burlington failed to disclose that four officers of El Paso had entered into “golden parachute” agreements with El Paso for “extended employment benefits in the event El Paso should be taken over, which benefits would give them millions of dollars of extra compensation.” The term “golden parachute” refers generally to agreements between a corporation and its top officers which guarantee those officers continued employment, payment of a lump sum, or other benefits in the event of a change of corporate ownership. As described in the Schedule 14D-9 filed by El Paso with the Securities and Exchange Commission on January 12,1983, El Paso entered into “employment agreements” with two of its officers for a period of not less than five years, and with two other officers for a period of three years. The Schedule 14D-9 also disclosed that El Paso’s Deferred Compensation Plan had been amended “to provide that for the purposes of such Plan a participant shall be deemed to have retired at the instance of the Company if his duties as a director, officer or employee of the Company have been diminished or curtailed by the Company in any material respect.”
The Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit has held that manipulation does not always require an element of misrepresentation or nondisclosure. Mobil Corp. v. Marathon Oil Co., 669 F. 2d 366 (1981), cert. denied, 455 U. S. 982 (1982). The Court of Appeals for the Second and Eighth Circuits have applied an analysis consistent with the one we apply today. Feldbaum v. Avon Products, Inc., 741 F. 2d 234 (CA8 1984); Buffalo Forge Co. v. Ogden Corp., 717 F. 2d 757 (CA2), cert. denied, 464 U. S. 1018 (1983); Data Probe Acquisition Corp. v. Datatab, Inc., 722 F. 2d 1 (CA2 1983), cert. denied, 465 U. S. 1052 (1984).
See generally L. Loss, Securities Regulation 984-989 (3d ed. 1983). For example, the seminal English case of Scott v. Brown, Doering, McNab & Co., [1892] 2 Q. B. 724 (C. A.), which broke new ground in recognizing that manipulation could occur without the dissemination of false statements, nonetheless placed emphasis on the presence of deception. As Lord Lopes stated in that case, “I can see no substantial distinction between false rumours and false and fictitious acts.” Id., at 730. See also United States v. Brown, 5 F. Supp. 81, 85 (SDNY 1933) (“[E]ven a speculator is entitled not to have any present fact involving the subject matter of his speculative purchase or the price thereof misrepresented by word or act”).
See Webster’s Third New International Dictionary 1376 (1971) (Manipulation is “management with use of unfair, scheming, or underhanded methods”).
Santa Fe Industries, Inc. v. Green, 430 U. S. 462, 476-477 (1977); Piper v. Chris-Craft Industries, Inc., 430 U. S. 1, 43 (1977); Ernst & Ernst v. Hochfelder, 425 U. S. 185, 199 (1976).
For a more thorough discussion of the legislative history of the Williams Act, see Piper v. Chris-Craft Industries, Inc., supra, at 24-37.
The process through which Congress developed the Williams Act also suggests a calculated reliance on disclosure, rather than court-imposed principles of “fairness” or “artificiality,” as the preferred method of market regulation. For example, as the bill progressed through hearings, both Houses of Congress became concerned that corporate stock repurchases could be used to distort the market for corporate control. Congress addressed this problem with § 13(e), which imposes specific disclosure duties on corporations purchasing stock and grants broad regulatory power to the Securities and Exchange Commission to regulate such repurchases. Congress stopped short, however, of imposing specific substantive requirements forbidding corporations to trade in their own stock for the purpose of maintaining its price. The specific regulatory scheme set forth in § 13(e) would be unnecessary if Congress at the same time had endowed the term “manipulative” in § 14(e) with broad substantive significance.
Section 13(d) requires those acquiring a certain threshold percentage of a company’s stock to file reports disclosing such information as the purchaser’s background and identity, the source of the funds to be used in making the purchase, the purpose of the purchase, and the extent of the purchaser’s holdings in the target company. 15 U. S. C. §78m(d). Section 13(e) imposes restrictions on certain repurchases of stock by corporate issuers. 15 U. S. C. §78m(e). Section 14(d) imposes specific disclosure requirements on those making a tender offer. 15 U. S. C. § 78n(d)(1). Section 14(d) also imposes specific substantive requirements on those making a tender offer. These requirements include allowing shareholders to withdraw tendered shares at certain times during the bidding process, 15 U. S. C. §78n(d)(5), the proration of share purchases when the number of shares tendered exceeds the number of shares sought, 15 U. S. C. § 78n(d)(6), and the payment of the same price to all those whose shares are purchased, 15 U. S. C. §78n(d)(7). Section 14(f) imposes disclosure requirements when new corporate directors are chosen as the result of a tender offer.
Section 10(b) provides:
“It shall be unlawful for any person, directly or indirectly, . . .
“(b) To use or employ, in connection with the purchase or sale of any security registered on a national securities exchange or any security not so registered, any manipulative or deceptive device or contrivance in contravention of such rules and regulations as the Commission may prescribe as necessary or appropriate in the public interest or for the protection of investors.” 15 U. S. C. §78j(b).
Rule 10b-5 provides:
“It shall be unlawful for any person, directly or indirectly, by the use of any means or instrumentality of interstate commerce, or of the mails or of any facility of any national securities exchange,
“(a) To employ any device, scheme, or artifice to defraud,
“(b) To make any untrue statement of a material fact or to omit to state a fact necessary in order to make the statements made, in the light of the circumstances under which they were made, not misleading, or
“(c) To engage in any act, practice or course of business which operates or would operate as a fraud or deceit upon any person, in connection with the purchase or sale of any security.” 17 CFR § 240.10b-5 (1984).
Because of the textual similarities, it is often assumed that § 14(e) was modeled on § 10(b) and Rule 10b-5. See, e. g., Panter v. Marshall Field & Co., 646 F. 2d 271, 283 (CA7), cert. denied, 454 U. S. 1092 (1981). For the purpose of interpreting the term “manipulative,” the most significant changes from the language of § 10(b) were the addition of the term “fraudulent,” and the reference to “acts” rather than “devices.” Neither change bears in any obvious way on the meaning to be given to “manipulative.”
Similar terminology is also found in § 15(c) of the Securities Exchange Act, 15 U. S. C. § 78o(c), § 17(a)'of the Securities Act of 1933, 15 U. S. C. §77q(a), and §206 of the Investment Advisers Act of 1940, 15 U. S. C. § 80b-6.
The Act was amended in 1970, and Congress added to § 14(e) the sentence, “The Commission shall, for the purposes of this subsection, by rules and regulations define, and prescribe means reasonably designed to prevent, such acts and practices as are fraudulent, deceptive, or manipulative.” Petitioner argues that this phrase would be pointless if § 14(e) was concerned with disclosure only.
We disagree. In adding the 1970 amendment, Congress simply provided a mechanism for defining and guarding against those acts and practices which involve material misrepresentation or nondisclosure. The amendment gives the Securities and Exchange Commission latitude to regulate nondeceptive activities as a “reasonably designed” means of preventing manipulative acts, without suggesting any change in the meaning of the term “manipulative” itself.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
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.
Under Florida law, after a defendant is found guilty of capital murder, a separate jury proceeding is held as the first of two steps in deciding whether his sentence should be life imprisonment or death. Fla. Stat. §921.141(1) (1991). At the close of such aggravating and mitigating evidence as the prosecution and the defense may introduce, the trial judge charges the jurors to weigh whatever aggravating and mitigating circumstances or factors they may find, and to reach an advisory verdict by majority vote. §921.141(2). The jury does not report specific findings of aggravating and mitigating circumstances, but if, at the second sentencing step, the judge decides upon death, he must issue a written statement of the circumstances he finds. §921.141(3). A death sentence is then subject to automatic review by the Supreme Court of Florida. §921.141(4).
A Florida trial court sentenced petitioner to death after a jury so recommended, and the Supreme Court of Florida affirmed. We must determine whether, as petitioner claims, the sentencer in his case weighed either of two aggravating factors that he claims were invalid, and if so, whether the State Supreme Court cured the error by holding it harmless. We answer yes to the first question and no to the second, and therefore vacate the judgment of the Supreme Court of Florida and remand.
I
On New Year’s Eve 1981, petitioner Dennis Sochor met a woman in a bar in Broward County, Florida. Sochor tried to rape her after they had left together, and her resistance angered him to the point of choking her to death. He was indicted for first-degree murder and kidnaping and, after a jury trial, was found guilty of each offense.
At the penalty hearing, aggravating and mitigating evidence was offered, and the jury was instructed on the possibility of finding four aggravating circumstances, two of which were that
“the crime for which the defendant is to be sentenced was especially wicked, evil, atrocious or cruel, and [that] the crime for which the defendant is to be sentenced was committed in a cold, calculated and premeditated manner, without any pretense of moral or legal justification.” App. 326-327.
The judge then explained to the jury that it could find certain statutory and any nonstatutory mitigating circumstances, which were to be weighed against any aggravating ones. By a vote of 10 to 2, the jury recommended the death penalty for the murder. The trial court adopted the jury’s recommendation, finding all four aggravating circumstances as defined in the jury instructions and no circumstances in mitigation.
The Supreme Court of Florida affirmed. 580 So. 2d 595 (1991). It declined to reverse for unconstitutional vagueness in the trial judge’s instruction that the jury could find as an aggravating factor that “the crime for which the defendant is to be sentenced was especially wicked, evil, atrocious or cruel” (hereinafter, for brevity, the heinousness factor, after the statute’s words “heinous, atrocious, or cruel,” Fla. Stat. § 921.141(5)(h) (1991)). The court held the issue waived for failure to object and the claim lacking merit in any event. 580 So. 2d, at 602-603, and n. 10. The court also rejected Sochor’s claim of insufficient evidence to support the trial judge’s finding of the heinousness factor, citing evidence of the victim’s extreme anxiety and fear before she died. The State Supreme Court did agree with Sochor, however, that the evidence failed to support the trial judge’s finding that “the crime . . . was committed in a cold, calculated, and premeditated manner without any pretense of moral or legal justification” (hereinafter the coldness factor), holding this factor to require a “heightened” degree of premeditation not shown in this case. Id., at 603. The State Supreme Court affirmed the death sentence notwithstanding the error, saying that:
“[1] We... disagree with Sochor’s claim that his death sentence is disproportionate. [2] The trial court carefully weighed the aggravating factors against the lack of any mitigating factors and concluded that death was warranted. [3] Even after removing the aggravating factor of cold, calculated, and premeditated there still remain three aggravating factors to be weighed against no mitigating circumstances. [4] Striking one aggravating factor when there are no mitigating circumstances does not necessarily require resentencing. Robinson v. State, 574 So. 2d 108 (Fla. 1991); Holton v. State, 573 So. 2d 284 (Fla. 1990); James v. State, 453 So. 2d 786 (Fla.), cert. denied, 469 U. S. 1098 ... (1984); Francois v. State, 407 So. 2d 885 (Fla. 1981), cert. denied, 458 U. S. 1122 ... (1982). [5] Under the circumstances of this case, and in comparison with other death cases, we find Sochor’s sentence of death proportionate to his crime. E. g., Hitchcock v. State, 578 So. 2d 685 (Fla. 1990); Tompkins[ v. State, 502 So. 2d 415 (Fla. 1986), cert. denied, 483 U. S. 1033 (1987)]; Doyle[ v. State, 460 So. 2d 353 (Fla. 1984)].” Id., at 604.
Sochor petitioned for a writ of certiorari, raising four questions. We granted review limited to the following two: (1) “Did the application of Florida’s [heinousness factor] violate the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments?” and (2) “Did the Florida Supreme Court’s review of petitioner’s death sentence violate the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments where that court upheld the sentence even though the trial court had instructed the jury on, and had applied, an improper aggravating circumstance, [in that] the Florida Supreme Court did not reweigh the evidence or conduct a harmless error analysis as to the effect of improper use of the circumstance on the jury’s penalty verdict?” Pet. for Cert. ii; see 502 U. S. 967 (1991).
II
In a weighing State like Florida, there is Eighth Amendment error when the sentencer weighs an “invalid” aggravating circumstance in reaching the ultimate decision to impose a death sentence. See Clemons v. Mississippi, 494 U. S. 738, 752 (1990). Employing an invalid aggravating factor in the weighing process “creates the possibility ... of randomness,” Stringer v. Black, 503 U. S. 222, 236 (1992), by placing a “thumb [on] death’s side of the scale,” id., at 232, thus “creating] the risk [of] treating] the defendant as more deserving of the death penalty,” id., at 235. Even when other valid aggravating factors exist, merely affirming a sentence reached by weighing an invalid aggravating factor deprives a defendant of “the individualized treatment that would result from actual reweighing of the mix of mitigating factors and aggravating circumstances.” Clemons, supra, at 752 (citing Lockett v. Ohio, 438 U. S. 586 (1978), and Eddings v. Oklahoma, 455 U. S. 104 (1982)); see Parker v. Dugger, 498 U. S. 308, 321 (1991). While federal law does not require the state appellate court to remand for resentencing, it must, short of remand, either itself reweigh without the invalid aggravating factor or determine that weighing the invalid factor was harmless error. Id., at 320.
A
Florida’s capital sentencing statute allows application of the heinousness factor if “[t]he capital felony was especially heinous, atrocious, or cruel.” Fla. Stat. §921.141(5)(h) (1991). Sochor first argues that the. jury instruction on the heinousness factor was invalid in that the statutory definition is unconstitutionally vague, see Maynard v. Cartwright, 486 U. S. 356 (1988); Godfrey v. Georgia, 446 U. S. 420 (1980), and the instruction failed to narrow the meaning enough to cure the defect. This error goes to the ultimate sentence, Sochor claims, because a Florida jury is “the sentencer” for Clemons purposes, or at the least one of “the sentencer’s” constituent elements. This is so because the trial judge does not render wholly independent judgment, but must accord deference to the jury’s recommendation. See Tedder v. State, 322 So. 2d 908, 910 (Fla. 1975) (life verdict); Grossman v. State, 525 So. 2d 833, 839, n. 1 (Fla. 1988) (death verdict), cert. denied, 489 U. S. 1071 (1989). Hence, the argument runs, error at the jury stage taints a death sentence, even if the trial judge’s decision is otherwise error free. Cf. Baldwin v. Alabama, 472 U. S. 372, 382 (1985). While Sochor concedes that the general advisory jury verdict does not reveal whether the jury did find and weigh the heinousness factor, he seems to argue that the possibility that the jury weighed an invalid factor is enough to require cure.
This argument faces a hurdle, however, in the rule that this Court lacks jurisdiction to review a state court’s resolution of an issue of federal law if the state court’s decision rests on an adequate and independent state ground, see Herb v. Pitcairn, 324 U. S. 117, 125-126 (1945), as it will if the state court’s opinion “indicates clearly and expressly” that the state ground is an alternative holding, see Michigan v. Long, 463 U. S. 1032, 1041 (1983); see also Harris v. Reed, 489 U. S. 255, 264, n. 10 (1989); Fox Film Corp. v. Muller, 296 U. S. 207, 210 (1935).
The Supreme Court of Florida said this about petitioner’s claim that the trial judge’s instruction on the heinousness factor was unconstitutional:
“Sochor’s next claim, regarding alleged errors in the penalty jury instructions, likewise must fail. None of the complained-of jury instructions were objected to at trial, and, thus, they are not preserved for appeal. Vaught v. State, 410 So. 2d 147 (Fla. 1982). In any event, Sochor’s claims here have no merit.
580 So. 2d, at 602-603, and n. 10.
The quoted passage indicates with requisite clarity that the rejection of Sochor’s claim was based on the alternative state ground that the claim was “not preserved for appeal,” and Sochor has said nothing in this Court to persuade us that this state ground is either not adequate or not independent. Hence, we hold ourselves to be without authority to address Sochor’s claim based on the jury instruction about the heinousness factor.
B
Sochor maintains that the same Eighth Amendment violation occurred again when the trial judge, who both parties agree is at least a constituent part of “the sentencer,” weighed the heinousness factor himself. To be sure, Sochor acknowledges the rule in Walton v. Arizona, 497 U. S. 639 (1990), where we held it was no error for a trial judge to weigh an aggravating factor defined by statute with impermissible vagueness, when the State Supreme Court had construed the statutory language narrowly in a prior case. Id., at 653. We presumed that the trial judge had been familiar with the authoritative construction, which gave significant guidance. Ibid. Sochor nonetheless argues that Walton is no help to the State, because Florida’s heinousness factor has not been subjected to the limitation of a narrow construction from the State Supreme Court.
In State v. Dixon, 283 So. 2d 1 (1973), cert. denied, 416 U. S. 943 (1974), the Supreme Court of Florida construed the statutory definition of the heinousness factor:
“It is our interpretation that heinous means extremely wicked or shockingly evil; that atrocious means outrageously wicked and vile; and, that cruel means designed to inflict a high degree of pain with utter indifference to, or even enjoyment of, the suffering of others. What is intended to be included are those capital crimes where the actual commission of the capital felony was accompanied by such additional acts as to set the crime apart from the norm of capital felonies — the conscienceless or pitiless crime which is unnecessarily torturous to the victim.” 283 So. 2d, at 9.
Understanding the factor, as defined in Dixon, to apply only to a “conscienceless or pitiless crime which is unnecessarily torturous to the victim,” we held in Proffitt v. Florida, 428 U. S. 242 (1976), that the sentencer had adequate guidance. See id., at 255-256 (opinion of Stewart, Powell, and Stevens, JJ.).
Sochor contends, however, that the State Supreme Court’s post-Proffitt cases have not adhered to Dixon’s limitation as stated in Proffitt, but instead evince inconsistent and over-broad constructions that leave a trial court without sufficient guidance. And we may well agree with him that the Supreme Court of Florida has not confined its discussions on the matter to the Dixon language we approved in Proffitt, but has on occasion continued to invoke the entire Dixon statement quoted above, perhaps thinking that Proffitt approved it all. See, e. g., Porter v. State, 564 So. 2d 1060 (1990), cert. denied, 498 U. S. 1110 (1991); Cherry v. State, 544 So. 2d 184, 187 (1989), cert. denied, 494 U. S. 1090 (1990); Lucas v. State, 376 So. 2d 1149, 1153 (1979).
But however much that may be troubling in the abstract, it need not trouble us here, for our review of Florida law indicates that the State Supreme Court has consistently held that heinousness is properly found if the defendant strangled a conscious victim. See Hitchcock v. State, 578 So. 2d 685, 692-693 (1990), cert. denied, 502 U. S. 912 (1991); Holton v. State, 573 So. 2d 284, 292 (1990); Tompkins v. State, 502 So. 2d 415, 421 (1986); Johnson v. State, 465 So. 2d 499, 507, cert. denied, 474 U. S. 865 (1985); Adams v. State, 412 So. 2d 850, cert. denied, 459 U. S. 882 (1982). Cf. Rhodes v. State, 547 So. 2d 1201, 1208 (1989) (strangulation of semiconscious victim not heinous); Herzog v. State, 439 So. 2d 1372 (1983) (same). We must presume the trial judge to have been familiar with this body of case law, see Walton, 497 U. S., at 653, which, at a minimum, gave the trial judge “[some] guidance,” id., at 654. Since the Eighth Amendment requires no more, we infer no error merely from the fact that the trial judge weighed the heinousness factor. While Sochor responds that the State Supreme Court’s interpretation of the heinousness factor has left Florida trial judges without sufficient guidance in other factual situations, we fail to see how that supports the conclusion that the trial judge was without sufficient guidance in the case at hand. See generally Maynard v. Cartwright, 486 U. S., at 361-364.
III
Sochor also claims that when “the sentenced weighed the coldness factor there was Eighth Amendment error that went uncorrected in the State Supreme Court.
A
First, Sochor complains of consideration of the coldness factor by the jury, the first step in his argument being that the coldness factor was “invalid” in that it was unsupported by the evidence; the second step, that the jury in the instant case “weighed” the coldness factor; and the third and last step, that in Florida the jury is at least a constituent part of “the sentencer” for Clemons purposes. The argument fails, however, for the second step is fatally flawed. Because the jury in Florida does not reveal the aggravating factors on which it relies, we cannot know whether this jury actually relied on the coldness factor. If it did not, there was no Eighth Amendment violation. Thus, Sochor implicitly suggests that, if the jury was allowed to rely on any of two or more independent grounds, one of which is infirm, we should presume that the resulting general verdict rested on the infirm ground and must be set aside. See Mills v. Maryland, 486 U. S. 367, 376-377 (1988); cf. Stromberg v. California, 283 U. S. 359, 368 (1931). Just this Term, however, we held it was no violation of due process that a trial court instructed a jury on two different legal theories, one supported by the evidence, the other not. See Griffin v. United States, 502 U. S. 46 (1991). We reasoned that although a jury is unlikely to disregard a theory flawed in law, it is indeed likely to disregard an option simply unsupported by evidence. Id., at 59-60. We see no occasion for different reasoning here, and accordingly decline to presume jury error.
B
Sochor next complains that Eighth Amendment error in the trial judge’s weighing of the coldness factor was left uncured by the State Supreme Court.
1
We can start from some points of agreement. The parties agree that, in Florida, the trial judge is at least a constituent part of “the sentencer” for Clemons purposes, and there is, of course, no doubt that the trial judge “weighed” the coldness factor, as he said in his sentencing order. Nor is there any question that the coldness factor was “invalid” for Clemons purposes, since Parker applied the Clemons rule where a trial judge had weighed two aggravating circumstances that were invalid in the sense that the Supreme Court of Florida had found them to be unsupported by the evidence. See 498 U. S., at 311. It follows that Eighth Amendment error did occur when the trial judge weighed the coldness factor in the instant case. What is in issue is the adequacy of the State Supreme Court’s effort to cure the error under the rule announced in Clemons, that a sentence so tainted requires appellate reweighing or review for harmlessness.
2
We noted in Parker that the Supreme Court of Florida will generally not reweigh evidence independently, 498 U. S., at 319 (citing Hudson v. State, 538 So. 2d 829, 831 (per curiam), cert. denied, 493 U. S. 875 (1989); Brown v. Wainwright, 392 So. 2d 1327, 1331-1332 (1981) (per curiam)), and the parties agree that, to this extent at least, our perception of Florida law was correct. The State argues, nonetheless, that, in this case, the State Supreme Court did support the death verdict adequately by performing harmless-error analysis. It relies on the excerpt from the state court’s opinion quoted above, and particularly on the second through fourth sentences, as “declaring] a belief that” the trial judge’s weighing of the coldness factor “was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt” in that it “did not contribute to the [sentence] obtained.” Chapman v. California, 386 U. S. 18, 24 (1967). This, however, is far from apparent. Not only does the State Supreme Court’s opinion fail so much as to mention “harmless error,’’ see Yates v. Evatt, 500 U. S. 391, 406 (1991), but the quoted sentences numbered one and five expressly refer to the quite different enquiry whether Sochor’s sentence was proportional.
The State tries to counter this deficiency by arguing that the four cases cited following the fourth sentence of the quoted passage were harmless-error cases, citation to which was a shorthand signal that the court had reviewed this record for harmless error as well. But the citations come up short. Only one of the four cases contains language giving an explicit indication that the State Supreme Court had performed harmless-error analysis. See Holton v. State, 573 So. 2d 284, 293 (1990) (“We find the error was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt”). The other three simply do not, and the result is ambiguity.
Although we do not mean here to require a particular formulaic indication by state courts before their review for harmless federal error will pass federal scrutiny, a plain statement that the judgment survives on such an enquiry is clearly preferable to allusions by citation. In any event, when the citations stop as far short of clarity as these do, they cannot even arguably substitute for explicit language signifying that the State Supreme Court reviewed for harmless error.
IV
In sum, Eighth Amendment error occurred when the trial judge weighed the coldness factor. Since the Supreme Court of Florida did not explain or even “declare a belief that” this error “was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt” in that “it did not contribute to the [sentence] obtained,” Chapman, supra, at 24, the error cannot be taken as cured by the State Supreme Court’s consideration of the case. It follows that Sochor’s sentence cannot stand on the existing record of appellate review. We vacate the judgment of the Supreme Court of Florida and remand the case for proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
“10. .... We reject without discussion Sochor’s ... claims ... that the instructions as to the aggravating factors of heinous, atrocious, or cruel and cold, calculated, and premeditated were improper ....”
Justice Stevens’s dissenting conclusion that we do have jurisdiction, post, at 547-549, is mistaken. First, the suggestion'that Soehor’s pretrial motion objecting to the vagueness of Florida’s heinousness factor preserved his objection to the heinousness instruction to the jury, post, at 547, ignores the settled rule of Florida procedure that, in order to preserve an objection, a party must object after the trial judge has instructed the jury. See, e. g., Harris v. State, 438 So. 2d 787, 795 (Fla. 1983), cert. denied, 466 U. S. 963 (1984); Vazquez v. State, 518 So. 2d 1348, 1350 (Fla. App. 1987); Walker v. State, 473 So. 2d 694, 697-698 (Fla. App. 1985). While the rule is subject to a limited exception for an advance request for a specific jury instruction that is explicitly denied, see, e. g., State v. Heathcoat, 442 So. 2d 955, 957 (Fla. 1983); Buford v. Wainwright, 428 So. 2d 1389, 1390 (Fla.), cert. denied, 464 U. S. 956 (1983); De Parias v. State, 562 So. 2d 434, 435 (Fla. App. 1990), Sochor gets no benefit from this exception, because he never asked for a specific instruction.
Second, Justice Stevens states that “the Florida Supreme Court, far from providing us with a plain statement that petitioner’s claim was procedurally barred, has merely said that the claim was not preserved for appeal, and has given even further indication that petitioner’s claim was not procedurally barred by proceeding to the merits, albeit in the alternative.” Post, at 547-548 (citations and internal quotation marks omitted). It is difficult to comprehend why the State Supreme Court’s statement that “the claim was not preserved for appeal” would not amount to “a plain statement that petitioner’s claim was procedurally barred,” especially since there is no reason to believe that error of the kind Sochor alleged cannot be waived under Florida law, see this note, infra. It is even more difficult to comprehend why the fact that the State Supreme Court rested upon this state ground merely in the alternative would somehow save our jurisdiction. See supra, at 533.
Third, Justice Stevens suggests that, in holding Sochor’s claim waived, the Supreme Court of Florida implied that the claim did not implicate “fundamental error,” and that this in turn implied a rejection of So-chor’s claim of “error,” presumably because all federal constitutional error (or at least the kind claimed by Sochor) would automatically be “fundamental.” Post, at 548-549. To say that this is “the most reasonable explanation,” Michigan v. Long, 463 U. S. 1032, 1041 (1983), of the court’s summary statement that Sochor’s claim was “not preserved for appeal,” see 580 So. 2d, at 602-603, is an Olympic stretch, see Harris v. Reed, 489 U. S. 255, 274-276 (1989) (Kennedy, J., dissenting). In any event, we know of no Florida authority supporting Justice Stevens’s suggestion that all federal constitutional error (or even the kind claimed by Sochor) would be automatically “fundamental.” Indeed, where, as here, valid aggravating factors would remain, instructional error involving another factor is not “fundamental.” See Occhicone v. State, 570 So. 2d 902, 906 (Fla. 1990), cert. denied, 500 U. S. 938 (1991).
Finally, Justice Stevens’s suggestion that the State waived its independent-state-ground defense, post, at 548-549, forgets that this defense goes to our jurisdiction and therefore cannot be waived. See supra, at 533.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer:
|
A
|
sc_issuearea
|
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Mr. Justice White
delivered the opinion of the Court.
On September 28, 1956, petitioners, a partnership engaged in wholesale distribution of refined petroleum products and one of the partners, filed in the Southern District of California a treble-damage action charging violations of §§ 1 and 2 of the Sherman Act, 26 Stat. 209, as amended, 15 U. S. C. §§ 1, 2 (1964 ed.), against seven companies engaged in producing, refining, and marketing gasoline and other hydrocarbon substances in interstate commerce. Defendants contended that the action was barred by the California one-year statute of limitations applicable to suits for statutory penalties or forfeitures, Cal. Code Civ. Proc. §340 (1). Plaintiffs conceded that their cause of action accrued no later than February 1954, and that the four-year limitation provision added to the Clayton Act in 1955, Clayton Act § 4B, 69 Stat. 283, 15 U. S. C. § 15b (1964 ed.), was not applicable to a right of action accruing in 1954. But plaintiffs contended that the governing provision was the California three-year statute of limitations respecting actions on a statutory Lability other than a penalty, Cal. Code Civ. Proc. § 338 (1), and that in any event the running of the statute of limitations was tolled by § 5 (b) of the Clayton Act, 38 Stat. 731, as amended, 15 U. S. C. § 16 (b) (1964 ed.), because of a civil antitrust proceeding that was commenced by the United States in 1950 and was still pending when plaintiffs filed their complaint. Section 5 (b) provides that during the pendency of a civil or criminal proceeding instituted by the United States to prevent, restrain, or punish violations of any of the antitrust laws, the running of the statute of limitations shall be suspended in respect of every private right of action “based in whole or in part on any matter complained of in said proceeding.” The lower courts upheld the defense of limitations and dismissed the complaint, holding that the one-year statute governed and that plaintiffs were not entitled to the benefit of § 5 (b). 208 F. Supp. 289 (D. C. S. D. Cal. 1962), aff’d, 330 F. 2d 288 (C. A. 9th Cir. 1964). We granted certiorari limited to the question of the applicability of § 5 (b), 379 U. S. 877, because of an apparent conflict between this case and Union Carbide & Carbon Corp. v. Nisley, 300 F. 2d 561 (C. A. 10th Cir. 1962), dismissed under Rule 60 sub nom. Wade v. Union Carbide & Carbon Corp., 371 U. S. 801, concerning interpretation of the statutory requirement that the private action for which the benefit of the tolling provision is sought be “based in whole or in part on any matter complained of” in the government proceeding. We conclude that the lower courts misapplied § 5 (b), and we reverse the judgment below.
Prior to the present case, the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit had declared a restrictive interpretation of § 5 (b). In Steiner v. 20th Century-Fox Film Corp., 232 F. 2d 190 (1956), that court ruled that the scope of § 5 (b).was determined by the-principles of collateral estoppel applicable under § 5 (a) of the Clayton Act, as amended, 69 Stat. 283, 15 U. S. C. § 16 (a) (1964 ed.), which provides that a final judgment or decree rendered in a suit by the United States and holding a defendant in violation of the antitrust laws shall be prima facie evidence in a private antitrust action against such defendant “as to all. matters respecting which said judgment or decree would be an estoppel as between the parties thereto.” Accordingly, the court declared in Steiner that “[a] greater similarity is needed than that the same conspiracies are alleged. The same means must be used to achieve the same objectives of the same conspiracies by the same defendants.” 232 F. 2d, at 196. In the present case the Court of Appeals purported to follow Steiner and concluded that the running of the statute of limitations was not suspended because here, in the court’s opinion, “there were not only different overt acts charged, but different conspiracies, occurring at different times, between different parties.” 330 F. 2d, at 301; see also 208 F. Supp., at 294 — 295. Conflicting with Steiner and the present case is Union Carbide & Carbon Corp. v. Nisley, supra, which held that the evidentiary rules of estoppel are not determinative and that the running of the period of limitations is tolled by § 5 (b) if there is “substantial identity of subject matter.” 300 F. 2d, at 570.
Minnesota Mining & Mfg. Co. v. New Jersey Wood Finishing Co., 381 U. S. 311, which was decided in the interim between the granting of certiorari and oral argument in the present case, establishes certain basic principles for the construction of § 5 (b) that are to be followed here. The questions presented for decision in Minnesota Mining were whether proceedings by the Federal Trade Commission under § 7 of the Clayton Act, 38 Stat. 731, as amended, 15 U. S. C. § 18 (1964 ed.), activate § 5 (b) to the same extent as judicial proceedings and, if so, whether the claim of New Jersey Wood, the private plaintiff, was based on “any matter complained of” in the Commission action. One of the arguments advanced with respect to the first question was that Commission proceedings did not suspend the running of limitations because, it was asserted, any Commission order that might issue would not be admissible under § 5 (a). We rejected this contention that § 5 (a) and § 5 (b) were coextensive.
“It may be . . . that when it was enacted the tolling provision was a logical backstop for the prima facie evidence clause of § 5 (a). But even though § 5 (b) complements § 5 (a) in this respect by permitting a litigant to await the outcome of government proceedings and use any judgment or decree rendered therein ... it is certainly not restricted to that effect. As we have pointed out, the textual distinctions as well as the policy basis of § 5 (b) indicate that it was to serve a more comprehensive function in the congressional scheme of things. The Government’s initial action may aid the private litigant in a number of other ways. The pleadings, transcripts of testimony, exhibits and documents are available to him in most instances. . . . Moreover, difficult questions of law may be tested and definitively resolved before the private litigant enters the fray. The greater resources and expertise of the Commission and its staff render the private suitor a tremendous benefit aside from any value he may derive from a judgment or decree. Indeed, so useful is this service that government proceedings are recognized as a major source of evidence for private parties.” 381 U. S., at 319.
Minnesota Mining sweeps away much of the foundation for the Steiner view of the scope of § 5 (b). The private plaintiff is not required to allege that the same means were used to achieve the same objectives of the same conspiracies by the same defendants. Rather, effect must be given to the broad terms of the statute itself — “based in whole or in part on any matter complained of” (emphasis added) — read in light of Congress’ “belief that private antitrust litigation is one of the surest weapons for effective enforcement of the antitrust laws.” 381 U. S., at 318. Doubtlessly, care must be exercised to insure that reliance upon the government proceeding is not mere sham and that the matters complained of in the government suit bear a real relation to the private plaintiff’s claim for relief. But the courts must not allow a legitimate concern that invocation of § 5 (b) be made in good faith to lead them into a niggardly construction of the statutory language here in question. With those matters in mind we now turn to a comparison of plaintiffs’ complaint with the complaint in the government proceeding on which plaintiffs rely, United States v. Standard Oil Co. of California, Civil No. 11584-C, D. C. S. D. Cal.
The complaint of the United States charged that seven petroleum companies and the Conservation Committee of California Oil Producers had conspired together to restrain and to monopolize interstate commerce in the Pacific States area in violation of §§ 1 and 2 of the Sherman Act, beginning in or about the year 1936, and continuing up to and including the date suit was filed in 1950. The complaint divided the conspiracy into two principal branches: (1) agreement by the defendants to eliminate competition among themselves in the Pacific States area and (2) agreement by the defendants to utilize their control of the production, transportation, refining, and marketing of crude oil and refined petroleum products to restrict and to eliminate the competition of independent producers, refiners and marketers in the Pacific States area. In furtherance of the first branch of the conspiracy, the complaint further charged, defendants had conspired to do and had actually accomplished the following things, among others: sharing wholesale and retail markets with each other by selling gasoline and other refined petroleum products at identical prices, thus confining effective competition among themselves to the advertising of brand names and to the offering of free services in their retail outlets; fixing and maintaining uniform and noncompetitive prices for the sale of gasoline and other refined petroleum products at wholesale and at retail; refusing to sell their petroleum products to any wholesale or retail distributor who failed or refused to follow the prices fixed by them; and refusing to sell their petroleum products to any wholesale distributor, jobber, or retail dealer except on a “full-requirements” or “exclusive-dealer” basis. Among acts and agreements charged as having been accomplished in furtherance of the second branch of the conspiracy were the following: coercing independent producers into limiting production of crude oil through production quotas established by the defendant Conservation Committee; limiting the supply of crude oil available to independent refiners and refusing to sell crude oil to such refiners; acquiring control of independent refiners; inducing independent refiners to shut down their productive capacity or to dismantle their refining facilities in return for an agreement to furnish such independent refiners with their full requirements of gasoline and other refined petroleum products; foreclosing independent wholesale and retail markets otherwise available to the independent refiners by requiring independent jobbers, wholesalers, and retailers to handle exclusively the refined petroleum products of defendants.
Plaintiffs’ amended complaint in the present case also charged a conspiracy to violate §§ 1 and 2 of the Sherman Act. The period of the conspiracy of which plaintiffs complained varied somewhat from that charged in the government action, plaintiffs alleging that the conspiracy herein commenced in or about the year 1948 (the year in which plaintiffs commenced business) and continued until the date of the filing of the complaint in 1956. The defendants were the same as those in the government proceeding, except that Shell Oil Company and the Conservation Committee of California Oil Producers were named as defendants in the government suit and were not defendants here, and Olympic Oil Company was named as a defendant here and was not a defendant in the government proceeding. The complaint charged that defendants had agreed to restrain and to monopolize the wholesale and retail distribution of refined gasoline throughout the southern California area by excluding independent jobbers from such distribution and by eliminating the jobbers’ customers, i. e., retail outlets, and preventing those customers from competing with retail outlets owned and operated by defendants. In particular, defendants were alleged to have accomplished their unlawful purposes by the following acts: controlling the sale and distribution of refined gasoline in the southern California area; denying independent jobbers access to a source of supply of refined gasoline; preventing independent jobbers from obtaining refined gasoline from other sources; preventing the customers of independent jobbers from obtaining gasoline with which to compete with retail service stations and outlets operated or controlled by defendants; maintaining fixed, artificial, and noncompetitive prices for the wholesale and retail sale of refined gasoline in the southern California area and fixing the price at which gasoline would be sold, if at all, to independent dealers and jobbers; and generally controlling the sources of refined gasoline in the southern California area and preventing and precluding independent jobbers from obtaining a source of supply. Plaintiffs claimed injury to their independent jobber business through a loss of profits resulting from price-fixing and from the destruction of their business because of the termination of their source of supply.
The lower courts found that plaintiffs’ complaint was not based in whole or in part on any matter complained of in the government proceeding principally because of the differences in the defendants named in the two suits and in the period of the conspiracies alleged. See 330 F. 2d, at 301; 208 F. Supp., at 294-295. We cannot agree that these differences bar resort to the tolling provision in this case.
Here too we may find guidance in Minnesota Mining. In that case, the plaintiff, a manufacturer of electrical insulation materials, brought suit against Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing Company and the Essex Wire Corporation, the complaint alleging violations of § 7 of the Clayton Act and §§ 1 and 2 of the Sherman Act. The substance of the complaint concerned the acquisition by Minnesota Mining from Essex of Insulation and Wires, Inc., which thereafter ceased to distribute plaintiff’s products, and an alleged conspiracy between Minnesota Mining and Essex to restrain trade in electrical insulation products. The action upon which plaintiff relied as suspending the running. of limitations was a Federal Trade Commission proceeding under § 7 against Minnesota Mining but not against Essex. Essex was not a party to the interlocutory appeal in the private action and no contention was made here that the difference in parties prevented tolling of limitations as to Minnesota Mining. Minnesota Mining did argue that because of the greater burden of proof under the Sherman Act, plaintiff’s Sherman Act claims could not be held to be based in part on any matter complained of in the Clayton Act proceeding before the Commission. This Court found that “both suits set up substantially the same claims,” 381 U. S., at 323, and rejected Minnesota Mining’s argument.
Just as in Minnesota Mining the differences between Sherman Act and Clayton Act proceedings were held not to require the conclusion that the private action under the Sherman Act was not based in part on any matter complained of in the Government’s § 7 suit, so here we cannot conclude that a private claimant may invoke § 5 (b) only if the conspiracy of which he complains has the same breadth and scope in time and participants as the conspiracy described in the government action on which he relies. Here there is substantial identity of parties, six of the seven defendants in this case being defendants in the government suit as well. In suits of this kind, the absence of complete identity of defendants may be explained on several grounds unrelated to the question of whether the private claimant’s suit is based on matters of which the Government complained. In the interim between the filing of the two actions it may have become apparent that a party named as a defendant by the Government was in fact not a party to the antitrust violation alleged. Or the private plaintiff may prefer to limit his suit to the defendants named by the Government whose activities contributed most directly to the injury of which he complains. On the other hand, some of the conspirators whose activities injured the private claimant may have been too low in the conspiracy to be selected as named defendants or co-conspirators in the Government’s necessarily broader net. The overlap in the time periods of the two conspiracies is less complete, but this disparity is equally without significance. That plaintiffs alleged a conspiracy corresponding in time to the period during which they were in business obviously does not mean that this conspiracy is not based in part on matters complained of by the Government. Nor can that conclusion be drawn from the fact that plaintiffs focus on the southern California area, which is only a part of the Pacific States area with which the Government was concerned.
It is obvious from a comparison of the two complaints that plaintiffs’ suit is based in part on matters of which the Government complained. The Government charged that defendants had conspired to eliminate the competition of independent marketers; plaintiffs charged a conspiracy to eliminate independent jobbers and retailers. Both the plaintiffs and the Government alleged that defendants had fixed prices at wholesale and at retail. The Government alleged that defendants had conspired to eliminate the competition of independent refiners by acquiring such refiners, limiting the supply of crude oil available to them, and inducing them to shut down their refining facilities; plaintiffs complained that defendants had denied them a source of supply and prevented them from obtaining gasoline from other sources. To require more detailed duplication of claims would be to resurrect the collateral estoppel approach declared in Steiner and rejected by this Court in Minnesota Mining.
Defendants contend, however, that during the extensive discovery proceedings that preceded the ruling on the motion to dismiss, plaintiffs made certain concessions establishing that, whatever the complaint may allege, plaintiffs’ claim in fact is not based at all on any matter complained of by the Government in Standard Oil. Plaintiffs’ real claim, defendants say, is that they had an arrangement with Olympic Refining Company under which they were to be supplied with gasoline as long as Olympic was in turn supplied by defendant General Petroleum Corporation, that defendant Standard Oil Company of California replaced General Petroleum Corporation as Olympic’s supplier in February 1954, and that plaintiffs’ supply was thereby terminated. The attorney for plaintiffs stated in a hearing before the trial court that General Petroleum Corporation had the absolute right to terminate its supply to Olympic at any time and that if General had in this case done so unilaterally plaintiffs would not be in court. But plaintiffs contended that defendants conspired together to effect the termination of General’s supplier relationship with Olympic. Defendants argue that this conspiracy to terminate a particular supply contract is far removed from the matters with which the government complaint was concerned.
In general, consideration of the applicability of § 5 (b) must be limited to a comparison of the two complaints on their face. Obviously suspension of the running of the statute of limitations pending resolution of the government action may not be made to turn on whether the United States is successful in proving the allegations of its complaint. Minnesota Mining & Mfg. Co. v. New Jersey Wood Finishing Co., 381 U. S. 311, 316. Equally, the availability of § 5 (b) to the private claimant may not be made dependent on his ability to prove his case, however fatal failure may prove to his hopes of success on the merits.
Moreover, defendants’ argument contains a basic flaw in that it does not take account of all that plaintiffs’ counsel said. The relationship between plaintiffs and General was one of subdistributorship, and there were accordingly two levels in the chain of distribution between General and the ultimate retail outlet. Plaintiffs claimed, counsel said, that pressure was exerted to terminate the relationship between General and Olympic, and thereby between Olympic and plaintiffs, as the result of an industry commitment to do away with subdistribu-torship operations “because the sub-distributorship could not be controlled. The gasoline could be controlled, obviously, when General Petroleum sold it directly at retail. The gasoline could be controlled if you had a good company as opposed to a bad company, which was acting as a distributor. But the gasoline could not be controlled when it went to the sub-distributorship level.” Clearly this is a claim that in order to obtain and to maintain control of distribution and retail marketing, including the control and fixing of uniform wholesale and retail prices of which the government action complained, defendants agreed to tighten control of the chain of distribution through elimination of independent jobbers acting as subdistributors. Counsel’s statements simply filled out the details of the general allegations of the complaint.
As we have concluded that the running of the statute of limitations was suspended, the judgment must be
Reversed.
Mr. Justice Harlan and Mr. Justice Fortas took no part in the consideration or decision of this case.
Section 5 (b), 15 U. S. C. § 16 (b), provides:
“(b) 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 of every private 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 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 5 (a), 15 U. S. C. § 16 (a), provides:
“(a) A final judgment or decree heretofore or hereafter rendered in any civil or criminal 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.”
See generally Emich Motors Corp. v. General Motors Corp., 340 U. S. 558.
The case has since been terminated by consent judgments entered into by all defendants except the Conservation Committee of California Oil Producers and Texaco, Inc., as to each of which the case was dismissed. See 1958 CCH Trade Cases, ¶ 69,212; 1959 CCH Trade Cases, If 69,240; 1959 CCH Trade Cases, ¶ 69,399.
Olympic was dismissed from the case prior to the ruling on defendants’ statute of limitations defense.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
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 Black
delivered the opinion of the Court. The Confrontation Clause of the Sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution provides that: “In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right ... to be confronted with the witnesses against him We have held that the Fourteenth Amendment makes the guarantees of this clause obligatory upon the States. Pointer v. Texas, 380 U. S. 400 (1965). One of the most basic of the rights guaranteed by the Confrontation Clause is the accused’s right to be present in the courtroom at every stage of his trial. Lewis v. United States, 146 U. S. 370 (1892). The question presented in this case is whether an accused can claim the benefit of this constitutional right to remain in the courtroom while at the same time he engages in speech and conduct which is so noisy, disorderly, and disruptive that it is exceedingly difficult or wholly impossible to carry on the trial.
The issue arose in the following way. The respondent, Allen, was convicted by an Illinois jury of armed robbery and was sentenced to serve 10 to 30 years in the Illinois State Penitentiary. The evidence against him showed that on August 12, 1956, he entered a tavern in Illinois and, after ordering a drink, took $200 from the bartender at gunpoint. The Supreme Court of Illinois affirmed his conviction, People v. Allen, 37 Ill. 2d 167, 226 N. E. 2d 1 (1967), and this Court denied certiorari. 389 U. S. 907 (1967). Later Allen filed a petition for a writ of habeas corpus in federal court alleging that he had been wrongfully deprived by the Illinois trial judge of his constitutional right to remain present throughout his trial. Finding no constitutional violation, the District Court declined to issue the writ. The Court of Appeals reversed, 413 F. 2d 232 (1969), Judge Hastings dissenting.
The facts surrounding Allen’s expulsion from the courtroom are set out in the Court of Appeals’ opinion sustaining Allen’s contention:
“After his indictment and during the pretrial stage, the petitioner [Allen] refused court-appointed counsel and indicated to the trial court on several occasions that he wished to conduct his own defense. After considerable argument by the petitioner, the trial judge told him, Til let you be your own lawyer, but I’ll ask Mr. Kelly [court-appointed counsel] [to] sit in and protect the record for you, insofar as possible.’
“The trial began on September 9, 1957. After the State’s Attorney had accepted the first four jurors following their voir dire examination, the petitioner began examining the first juror and continued at great length. Finally, the trial judge interrupted the petitioner, requesting him to confine his questions solely to matters relating to the prospective juror’s qualifications. At that point, the petitioner started to argue with the judge in a most abusive and disrespectful manner. At last, and seemingly in desperation, the judge asked appointed counsel to proceed with the examination of the jurors. The petitioner continued to talk, proclaiming that the appointed attorney was not going to act as his lawyer. He terminated his remarks by saying, 'When I go out for lunchtime, you’re [the judge] going to be a corpse here.’ At that point he tore the file which his attorney had and threw the papers on the floor. The trial judge thereupon stated to the petitioner, 'One more outbreak of that sort and I’ll remove you from the courtroom.’ This warning had no effect on the petitioner. He continued to talk back to the judge, saying, ‘There’s not going to be no trial, either. I’m going to sit here and you’re going to talk and you can bring your shackles out and straight jacket and put them on me and tape my mouth, but it will do no good because there’s not going to be no trial.’ After more abusive remarks by the petitioner, the trial judge ordered the trial to proceed in the petitioner’s absence. The petitioner was removed from the courtroom. The voir dire examination then continued and the jury was selected in the absence of the petitioner.
“After a noon recess and before the jury was brought into the courtroom, the petitioner, appearing before the judge, complained about the fairness of the trial and his appointed attorney. He also said he wanted to be present in the court during his trial. In reply, the judge said that the petitioner would be permitted to remain in the court-^xroom if he ‘behaved [himself] and [did] not interfere with the introduction of the case.’ The jury was brought in and seated. Counsel for the petitioner then moved to exclude the witnesses from the courtroom. The [petitioner] protested this effort on the part of his attorney, saying: ‘There is going to be no proceeding. I’m going to start talking and I’m going to keep on talking all through the trial. There’s not going to be no trial like this. I want my sister and my friends here in court to testify for me.’ The trial judge thereupon ordered the petitioner removed from the courtroom.” 413 F. 2d, at 233-234.
After this second removal, Allen remained out of the courtroom during the presentation of the State’s case-in-chief, except that he was brought in on several occasions for purposes of identification. During one of these latter appearances, Allen responded to one of the judge’s questions with vile and abusive language. After the prosecution’s case had been presented, the trial judge reiterated his promise to Allen that he could return to the courtroom whenever he agreed to conduct himself properly. Allen gave some assurances of proper conduct and was permitted to be present through the remainder of the trial, principally his defense, which was conducted by his appointed counsel.
The Court of Appeals went on to hold that the Supreme Court of Illinois was wrong in ruling that Allen had by his conduct relinquished his constitutional right to be present, declaring that:
“No conditions may be imposed on the absolute right of a criminal defendant to be present at all stages of the proceeding. The insistence of a defendant that he exercise this right under unreasonable conditions does not amount to a waiver. Such conditions, if insisted upon, should and must be dealt with in a manner that does not compel the relinquishment of his right.
“In light of the decision in Hopt v. Utah, 110 U. S. 574 . . . (1884) and Shields v. United States, 273 U. S. 583 . . . (1927), as well as the constitutional mandate of the sixth amendment, we are of the view that the defendant should not have been excluded from the courtroom during his trial despite his disruptive and disrespectful conduct. The proper course for the trial judge was to have restrained the defendant by whatever means necessary, even if those means included his being shackled and gagged.” 413 F. 2d, at 235.
The Court of Appeals felt that the defendant’s Sixth Amendment right to be present at his own trial was so “absolute” that, no matter how unruly or disruptive the defendant’s conduct might be, he could never be held to have lost that right so long as he continued to insist upon it, as Allen clearly did. Therefore the Court of Appeals concluded that a trial judge could never expel a defendant from his own trial and that the judge’s ultimate remedy when faced with an obstreperous defendant like Allen who determines to make his trial impossible is to bind and gag him. We cannot agree that the Sixth Amendment, the cases upon which the Court of Appeals relied, or any other cases of this Court so handicap a trial judge in conducting a criminal trial. The broad dicta in Hopt v. Utah, supra, and Lewis v. United States, 146 U. S. 370 (1892), that a trial can never continue in the defendant’s absence have been expressly rejected. Diaz v. United States, 223 U. S. 442 (1912). We accept instead the statement of Mr. Justice Cardozo who, speaking for the Court in Snyder v. Massachusetts, 291 U. S. 97, 106 (1934), said: “No doubt the privilege [of personally confronting witnesses] may be lost by consent or at times even by misconduct.” Although mindful that courts must indulge every reasonable presumption against the loss of constitutional rights, Johnson v. Zerbst, 304 U. S. 458, 464 (1938), we explicitly hold today that a defendant can lose his right to be present at trial if, after he has been warned by the judge that he will be removed if he continues his disruptive behavior, he nevertheless insists on conducting himself in a manner so disorderly, disruptive, and disrespectful of the court that his trial cannot be carried on with him in the courtroom. Once lost, the right to be present can, of course, be reclaimed as soon as the defendant is willing to conduct himself consistently with the decorum and respectInherent in the concept of courts and judicial proceedings.
It is essential to the proper administration of criminal justice that dignity, order, and decorum be the hallmarks of all court proceedings in our . country. The flagrant disregard in the courtroom of elementary standards of proper conduct should not and cannot be tolerated. We believe trial judges confronted with disruptive, contumacious, stubbornly defiant defendants must be given sufficient discretion to meet the circumstances of each case. No one formula for maintaining the appropriate courtroom atmosphere will be best in all situations. We think there are at least three constitutionally permissible ways for a trial judge to handle an obstreperous defendant like Allen: (1) bind and gag him, thereby-keeping him present; (2) cite him for contempt; (3) take him out of the courtroom until he promises to conduct himself properly.
I
Trying a defendant for a crime while he sits bound and gagged before the judge and jury would to an extent comply with that part of the Sixth Amendment’s purposes that accords the defendant an opportunity to confront the witnesses at the trial. But even to contemplate such a technique, much less see it, arouses a feeling that no person should be tried while shackled and gagged except as a- last resort. Not only is it possible that the sight of shackles and gags might have a significant effect on the jury’s feelings about the defendant, but the use of this technique is itself something of an affront to the very dignity and decorum of judicial proceedings that the judge is seeking to uphold. Moreover, one of the defendant’s primary advantages of being present at the trial, his ability to communicate with his counsel, is greatly reduced when the defendant is in a condition of total physical restraint. It is in part because of these inherent disadvantages and limitations in this method of dealing with disorderly defendants that we decline to hold with the Court of Appeals that a defendant cannot under any possible circumstances be deprived of his right to be present at trial. However, in some situations which we need not attempt to foresee, binding and gagging might possibly be the fairest and most reasonable way to handle a defendant who acts as Allen did here.
II
In a footnote the Court of Appeals suggested the possible availability of contempt of court as a remedy to make Allen behave in his robbery trial, and it is true that citing or threatening to cite a contumacious defendant for criminal contempt might in itself be sufficient to make a defendant stop interrupting a trial. If so, the problem would be solved easily, and the defendant could remain in the courtroom. Of course, if the defendant is determined to prevent any trial, then a court in attempting to try the defendant for contempt is still confronted with the identical dilemma that the Illinois court faced in this case. And criminal contempt has obvious limitations as a sanction when the defendant is charged with a crime so serious that a very severe sentence such as death or life imprisonment is likely to be imposed. In such a case the defendant might not be affected by a mere contempt sentence when he ultimately faces a far more serious sanction. Nevertheless, the contempt remedy should be borne in mind by a judge in the circumstances of this case.
Another aspect of the contempt remedy is the judge's power, when exercised consistently with state and federal law, to imprison an unruly defendant such as Allen for civil contempt and discontinue the trial until such time as the defendant promises to behave himself. This procedure is consistent with the defendant’s right to be present at trial, and yet it avoids the serious shortcomings of the use of shackles and gags. It must be recognized, however, that a defendant might conceivably, as a matter of calculated strategy, elect to spend a prolonged period in confinement for contempt in the hope that adverse witnesses might be unavailable after a lapse of time. A court must guard against allowing a defendant to profit from his own wrong in this way.
Ill
The trial court in this case decided under the circumstances to remove the defendant from the courtroom and to continue his trial in his absence until and unless he promised to conduct himself in a manner befitting an American courtroom. As we said earlier, we find nothing unconstitutional about this procedure. Allen’s behavior was clearly of such an extreme and aggravated nature as to justify either his removal from the courtroom or his total physical restraint. Prior to his removal he was repeatedly warned by the trial judge that he would be removed from the courtroom if he persisted in his unruly conduct, and, as Judge Hastings observed in his dissenting opinion, the record demonstrates that Allen would not have been at all dissuaded by the trial judge’s use of his criminal contempt powers. Allen was constantly informed that he could return to the trial when he would agree to conduct himself in an orderly manner. Under these circumstances we hold that Allen lost his right guaranteed by the Sixth and Fourteenth Amendments to be present throughout his trial.
IV
It is not pleasant to hold that the respondent Allen was properly banished from the court for a part of his own trial. But our courts, palladiums of liberty as they are, cannot be treated disrespectfully with impunity. Nor can the accused be permitted by his disruptive conduct indefinitely to avoid being tried on the charges brought against him. It would degrade our country | and our judicial system to permit our courts to be i bullied, insulted, and humiliated and their orderly < progress thwarted and obstructed by defendants brought,.J before them charged with crimes. As guardians of the public welfare, our state and federal judicial systems strive to administer equal justice to the rich and the poor, the good and the bad, the native and foreign born of every race, nationality, and religion. Being manned by humans, the courts are not perfect and are bound to make some errors. But, if our courts are to remain what the Founders intended, the citadels of justice, their proceedings cannot and must not be infected with the sort of scurrilous, abusive language and conduct paraded before the Illinois trial judge in this case. The record shows that the Illinois judge at all times conducted himself with that dignity, decorum, and patience that befit a judge. Even in holding that the trial judge had erred, the Court of Appeals praised his “commendable patience under severe provocation.”
We do not hold that removing this defendant from his own trial was the only way the Illinois judge could have constitutionally solved the problem he had. We do hold, however, that there is nothing whatever in this record to show that the judge did not act completely within his discretion. Deplorable as it is to remove a man from his own trial, even for a short time, we hold that the judge did not commit legal error in doing what he did.
The judgment of the Court of Appeals is
Reversed.
In a footnote the Court of Appeals also referred to the trial judge’s contempt power. This subject is discussed in Part II of this opinion. Infra, at 344-345.
Rule 43 of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure provides that “[i]n prosecutions for offenses not punishable by death, the defendant’s voluntary absence after the trial has been commenced in his presence shall not prevent continuing the trial to and including the return of the verdict.”
See Murray, The Power to Expel a Criminal Defendant From His Own Trial: A Comparative View, 36 U. Colo. L. Rev. 171-175 (1964); Goldin, Presence of the Defendant at Rendition of the Verdict in Felony Cases, 16 Col. L. Rev. 18-31 (1916).
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
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.
Justice GINSBURG delivered the opinion of the Court.
Under the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction (Hague Convention or Convention), Oct. 25, 1980, T. I. A. S. No. 11670, S. Treaty Doc. No. 99-11 (Treaty Doc.), a child wrongfully removed from her country of "habitual residence" ordinarily must be returned to that country. This case concerns the standard for determining a child's "habitual residence" and the standard for reviewing that determination on appeal. The petitioner, Michelle Monasky, is a U.S. citizen who brought her infant daughter, A.M.T., to the United States from Italy after her Italian husband, Domenico Taglieri, became abusive to Monasky. Taglieri successfully petitioned the District Court for A.M.T.'s return to Italy under the Convention, and the Court of Appeals affirmed the District Court's order.
Monasky assails the District Court's determination that Italy was A.M.T.'s habitual residence. First of the questions presented: Could Italy qualify as A.M.T.'s "habitual residence" in the absence of an actual agreement by her parents to raise her there? The second question: Should the Court of Appeals have reviewed the District Court's habitual-residence determination independently rather than deferentially? In accord with decisions of the courts of other countries party to the Convention, we hold that a child's habitual residence depends on the totality of the circumstances specific to the case. An actual agreement between the parents is not necessary to establish an infant's habitual residence. We further hold that a first-instance habitual-residence determination is subject to deferential appellate review for clear error.
I
A
The Hague Conference on Private International Law adopted the Hague Convention in 1980 "[t]o address the problem of international child abductions during domestic disputes." Lozano v. Montoya Alvarez, 572 U.S. 1, 4, 134 S.Ct. 1224, 188 L.Ed.2d 200 (2014) (internal quotation marks omitted). One hundred one countries, including the United States and Italy, are Convention signatories. Hague Conference on Private Int'l Law, Convention of 25 Oct. 1980 on the Civil Aspects of Int'l Child Abduction, Status Table, https://www.hcch.net/en/instruments/conventions/status-table/?cid=24. The International Child Abduction Remedies Act (ICARA), 102 Stat. 437, as amended, 22 U.S.C. § 9001 et seq., implements our Nation's obligations under the Convention. It is the Convention's core premise that "the interests of children... in matters relating to their custody" are best served when custody decisions are made in the child's country of "habitual residence." Convention Preamble, Treaty Doc., at 7; see Abbott v. Abbott, 560 U.S. 1, 20, 130 S.Ct. 1983, 176 L.Ed.2d 789 (2010).
To that end, the Convention ordinarily requires the prompt return of a child wrongfully removed or retained away from the country in which she habitually resides. Art. 12, Treaty Doc., at 9 (cross-referencing Art. 3, id., at 7). The removal or retention is wrongful if done in violation of the custody laws of the child's habitual residence. Art. 3, ibid. The Convention recognizes certain exceptions to the return obligation. Prime among them, a child's return is not in order if the return would place her at a "grave risk" of harm or otherwise in "an intolerable situation." Art. 13(b ), id., at 10.
The Convention's return requirement is a "provisional" remedy that fixes the forum for custody proceedings. Silberman, Interpreting the Hague Abduction Convention: In Search of a Global Jurisprudence, 38 U. C. D. L. Rev. 1049, 1054 (2005). Upon the child's return, the custody adjudication will proceed in that forum.
See ibid. To avoid delaying the custody proceeding, the Convention instructs contracting states to "use the most expeditious procedures available" to return the child to her habitual residence. Art. 2, Treaty Doc., at 7. See also Art. 11, id., at 9 (prescribing six weeks as normal time for return-order decisions).
B
In 2011, Monasky and Taglieri were married in the United States. Two years later, they relocated to Italy, where they both found work. Neither then had definite plans to return to the United States. During their first year in Italy, Monasky and Taglieri lived together in Milan. But the marriage soon deteriorated. Taglieri became physically abusive, Monasky asserts, and "forced himself upon [her] multiple times." 907 F.3d 404, 406 (CA6 2018) (en banc).
About a year after their move to Italy, in May 2014, Monasky became pregnant. Taglieri thereafter took up new employment in the town of Lugo, while Monasky, who did not speak Italian, remained about three hours away in Milan. The long-distance separation and a difficult pregnancy further strained their marriage. Monasky looked into returning to the United States. She applied for jobs there, asked about U.S. divorce lawyers, and obtained cost information from moving companies. At the same time, though, she and Taglieri made preparations to care for their expected child in Italy. They inquired about childcare options there, made purchases needed for their baby to live in Italy, and found a larger apartment in a Milan suburb.
Their daughter, A.M.T., was born in February 2015. Shortly thereafter, Monasky told Taglieri that she wanted to divorce him, a matter they had previously broached, and that she anticipated returning to the United States. Later, however, she agreed to join Taglieri, together with A.M.T., in Lugo. The parties dispute whether they reconciled while together in that town.
On March 31, 2015, after yet another heated argument, Monasky fled with her daughter to the Italian police and sought shelter in a safe house. In a written statement to the police, Monasky alleged that Taglieri had abused her and that she feared for her life. Two weeks later, in April 2015, Monasky and two-month-old A.M.T. left Italy for Ohio, where they moved in with Monasky's parents.
Taglieri sought recourse in the courts. With Monasky absent from the proceedings, an Italian court granted Taglieri's request to terminate Monasky's parental rights, discrediting her statement to the Italian police. App. 183. In the United States, on May 15, 2015, Taglieri petitioned the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Ohio for the return of A.M.T. to Italy under the Hague Convention, pursuant to 22 U.S.C. § 9003(b), on the ground that Italy was her habitual residence.
The District Court granted Taglieri's petition after a four-day bench trial. Sixth Circuit precedent at the time, the District Court observed, instructed courts that a child habitually resides where the child has become "acclimatiz[ed]" to her surroundings. App. to Pet. for Cert. 85a (quoting Robert v. Tesson, 507 F.3d 981, 993 (CA6 2007) ). An infant, however, is "too young" to acclimate to her surroundings. App. to Pet. for Cert. 87a. The District Court therefore proceeded on the assumption that "the shared intent of the [parents] is relevant in determining the habitual residence of an infant," though "particular facts and circumstances... might necessitate the consideration [of] other factors." Id., at 97a. The shared intention of A.M.T.'s parents, the District Court found, was for their daughter to live in Italy, where the parents had established a marital home "with no definitive plan to return to the United States." Ibid. Even if Monasky could change A.M.T.'s habitual residence unilaterally by making plans to raise A.M.T. away from Italy, the District Court added, the evidence on that score indicated that, until the day she fled her husband, Monasky had "no definitive plans" to raise A.M.T. in the United States. Id., at 98a. In line with its findings, the District Court ordered A.M.T.'s prompt return to Italy.
The Sixth Circuit and this Court denied Monasky's requests for a stay of the return order pending appeal. 907 F.3d at 407. In December 2016, A.M.T., nearly two years old, was returned to Italy and placed in her father's care.
In the United States, Monasky's appeal of the District Court's return order proceeded. See Chafin v. Chafin, 568 U.S. 165, 180, 133 S.Ct. 1017, 185 L.Ed.2d 1 (2013) (the return of a child under the Hague Convention does not moot an appeal of the return order). A divided three-judge panel of the Sixth Circuit affirmed the District Court's order, and a divided en banc court adhered to that disposition.
The en banc majority noted first that, after the District Court's decision, a precedential Sixth Circuit opinion, Ahmed v. Ahmed, 867 F.3d 682 (2017), established that, as the District Court had assumed, an infant's habitual residence depends on "shared parental intent." 907 F.3d at 408 (quoting Ahmed, 867 F.3d at 690 ). The en banc majority then reviewed the District Court's habitual-residence determination for clear error and found none. Sustaining the District Court's determination that A.M.T.'s habitual residence was Italy, the majority rejected Monasky's argument that the District Court erred because "she and Taglieri never had a'meeting of the minds' about their child's future home." 907 F.3d at 410.
No member of the en banc court disagreed with the majority's rejection of Monasky's proposed actual-agreement requirement. Nor did any judge maintain that Italy was not A.M.T.'s habitual residence. Judge Boggs wrote a concurring opinion adhering to the reasoning of his three-judge panel majority opinion: "[A]bsent unusual circumstances, where a child has resided exclusively in a single country, especially with both parents, that country is the child's habitual residence." Id., at 411. The dissenters urged two discrete objections. Some would have reviewed the District Court's habitual-residence determination de novo. See id., at 419 (opinion of Moore, J.). All would have remanded for the District Court to reconsider A.M.T.'s habitual residence in light of the Sixth Circuit's Ahmed precedent. See 907 F.3d at 419-420 ; id., at 421-422 (opinion of Gibbons, J.); id., at 423 (opinion of Stranch, J.).
We granted certiorari to clarify the standard for habitual residence, an important question of federal and international law, in view of differences in emphasis among the Courts of Appeals. 587 U.S. ----, 139 S.Ct. 2691, 204 L.Ed.2d 1089 (2019). Compare, e.g., 907 F.3d at 407 (case below) (describing inquiry into the child's acclimatization as the "primary" approach), with, e.g., Mozes v. Mozes, 239 F.3d 1067, 1073-1081 (CA9 2001) (placing greater weight on the shared intentions of the parents), with, e.g., Redmond v. Redmond, 724 F.3d 729, 746 (CA7 2013) (rejecting "rigid rules, formulas, or presumptions"). Certiorari was further warranted to resolve a division in Courts of Appeals over the appropriate standard of appellate review. Compare, e.g., 907 F.3d at 408-409 (case below) (clear error), with, e.g., Mozes, 239 F.3d at 1073 (de novo ).
II
The first question presented concerns the standard for habitual residence: Is an actual agreement between the parents on where to raise their child categorically necessary to establish an infant's habitual residence? We hold that the determination of habitual residence does not turn on the existence of an actual agreement.
A
We begin with "the text of the treaty and the context in which the written words are used." Air France v. Saks, 470 U.S. 392, 397, 105 S.Ct. 1338, 84 L.Ed.2d 289 (1985). The Hague Convention does not define the term "habitual residence." A child "resides" where she lives. See Black's Law Dictionary 1176 (5th ed. 1979). Her residence in a particular country can be deemed "habitual," however, only when her residence there is more than transitory. "Habitual" implies "[c]ustomary, usual, of the nature of a habit." Id., at 640. The Hague Convention's text alone does not definitively tell us what makes a child's residence sufficiently enduring to be deemed "habitual." It surely does not say that habitual residence depends on an actual agreement between a child's parents. But the term "habitual" does suggest a fact-sensitive inquiry, not a categorical one.
The Convention's explanatory report confirms what the Convention's text suggests. The report informs that habitual residence is a concept "well-established... in the Hague Conference." 1980 Conférence de La Haye de droit international privé, Enlèvement d'enfants, E. Pérez-Vera, Explanatory Report in 3 Actes et documents de la Quatorzième session, p. 445, ¶66 (1982) (Pérez-Vera). The report refers to a child's habitual residence in fact-focused terms: "the family and social environment in which [the child's] life has developed." Id., at 428, ¶11. What makes a child's residence "habitual" is therefore "some degree of integration by the child in a social and family environment." OL v. PQ, 2017 E. C. R. No. C-111/17, ¶42 (Judgt. of June 8); accord Office of the Children's Lawyer v. Balev, [2018] 1 S. C.R. 398, 421, ¶43, 424 D. L. R. (4th) 391, 410, ¶43 (Can.); A v. A, [2014] A. C., ¶54 (2013) (U.K.). Accordingly, while Federal Courts of Appeals have diverged, if only in emphasis, in the standards they use to locate a child's habitual residence, see supra, at 725 - 726, they share a "common" understanding: The place where a child is at home, at the time of removal or retention, ranks as the child's habitual residence.
Karkkainen v. Kovalchuk, 445 F.3d 280, 291 (CA3 2006).
Because locating a child's home is a fact-driven inquiry, courts must be "sensitive to the unique circumstances of the case and informed by common sense." Redmond, 724 F.3d at 744. For older children capable of acclimating to their surroundings, courts have long recognized, facts indicating acclimatization will be highly relevant. Because children, especially those too young or otherwise unable to acclimate, depend on their parents as caregivers, the intentions and circumstances of caregiving parents are relevant considerations. No single fact, however, is dispositive across all cases. Common sense suggests that some cases will be straightforward: Where a child has lived in one place with her family indefinitely, that place is likely to be her habitual residence. But suppose, for instance, that an infant lived in a country only because a caregiving parent had been coerced into remaining there. Those circumstances should figure in the calculus. See Karkkainen, 445 F.3d at 291 ("The inquiry into a child's habitual residence is a fact-intensive determination that cannot be reduced to a predetermined formula and necessarily varies with the circumstances of each case.").
The treaty's "negotiation and drafting history" corroborates that a child's habitual residence depends on the specific circumstances of the particular case. Medellín v. Texas, 552 U.S. 491, 507, 128 S.Ct. 1346, 170 L.Ed.2d 190 (2008) (noting that such history may aid treaty interpretation). The Convention's explanatory report states that the Hague Conference regarded habitual residence as "a question of pure fact, differing in that respect from domicile." Pérez-Vera 445, ¶66. The Conference deliberately chose "habitual residence" for its factual character, making it the foundation for the Convention's return remedy in lieu of formal legal concepts like domicile and nationality. See Anton, The Hague Convention on International Child Abduction, 30 Int'l & Comp. L. Q. 537, 544 (1981) (history of the Convention authored by the drafting commission's chairman). That choice is instructive. The signatory nations sought to afford courts charged with determining a child's habitual residence "maximum flexibility" to respond to the particular circumstances of each case. P. Beaumont & P. McEleavy, The Hague Convention on International Child Abduction 89-90 (1999) (Beaumont & McEleavy). The aim: to ensure that custody is adjudicated in what is presumptively the most appropriate forum-the country where the child is at home.
Our conclusion that a child's habitual residence depends on the particular circumstances of each case is bolstered by the views of our treaty partners. ICARA expressly recognizes "the need for uniform international interpretation of the Convention." 22 U.S.C. § 9001(b)(3)(B). See Lozano, 572 U.S. at 13, 134 S.Ct. 1224 ; Abbott, 560 U.S. at 16, 130 S.Ct. 1983. The understanding that the opinions of our sister signatories to a treaty are due "considerable weight," this Court has said, has "special force" in Hague Convention cases. Ibid. (quoting El Al Israel Airlines, Ltd. v. Tsui Yuan Tseng, 525 U.S. 155, 176, 119 S.Ct. 662, 142 L.Ed.2d 576 (1999), in turn quoting Air France, 470 U.S. at 404, 105 S.Ct. 1338 ). The "clear trend" among our treaty partners is to treat the determination of habitual residence as a fact-driven inquiry into the particular circumstances of the case. Balev, [2018] 1 S. C. R., at 423, ¶50, 424 D. L. R. (4th), at 411, ¶50.
Lady Hale wrote for the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom: A child's habitual residence "depends on numerous factors... with the purposes and intentions of the parents being merely one of the relevant factors.... The essentially factual and individual nature of the inquiry should not be glossed with legal concepts." A, [2014] A. C., at ¶54. The Court of Justice of the European Union, the Supreme Court of Canada, and the High Court of Australia agree. See OL, 2017 E. C. R. No. C-111/17, ¶42 (the habitual residence of a child "must be established... taking account of all the circumstances of fact specific to each individual case"); Balev, [2018] 1 S. C. R., at 421, 423-430, ¶¶43, 48-71, 424 D. L. R. (4th), at 410-417, ¶¶43, 48-71 (adopting an approach to habitual residence under which "[t]he judge considers all relevant links and circumstances"); LK v. Director-General, Dept. of Community Servs., [2009] 237 C. L. R. 582, 596, ¶35 (Austl.) ("to seek to identify a set list of criteria that bear upon where a child is habitually resident... would deny the simple observation that the question of habitual residence will fall for decision in a very wide range of circumstances"). Intermediate appellate courts in Hong Kong and New Zealand have similarly stated what "habitual residence" imports. See LCYP v. JEK, [2015] 4 H. K. L. R. D. 798, 809-810, ¶7.7 (H. K.); Punter v. Secretary for Justice, [2007] 1 N. Z. L. R. 40, 71, ¶130 (N. Z.). Tellingly, Monasky has not identified a single treaty partner that has adopted her actual-agreement proposal. See Tr. of Oral Arg. 9.
The bottom line: There are no categorical requirements for establishing a child's habitual residence-least of all an actual-agreement requirement for infants. Monasky's proposed actual-agreement requirement is not only unsupported by the Convention's text and inconsistent with the leeway and international harmony the Convention demands; her proposal would thwart the Convention's "objects and purposes." Abbott, 560 U.S. at 20, 130 S.Ct. 1983. An actual-agreement requirement would enable a parent, by withholding agreement, unilaterally to block any finding of habitual residence for an infant. If adopted, the requirement would undermine the Convention's aim to stop unilateral decisions to remove children across international borders. Moreover, when parents' relations are acrimonious, as is often the case in controversies arising under the Convention, agreement can hardly be expected. In short, as the Court of Appeals observed below, "Monasky's approach would create a presumption of no habitual residence for infants, leaving the population most vulnerable to abduction the least protected." 907 F.3d at 410.
B
Monasky counters that an actual-agreement requirement is necessary to ensure "that an infant's mere physical presence in a country has a sufficiently settled quality to be deemed 'habitual.' " Brief for Petitioner 32. An infant's "mere physical presence," we agree, is not a dispositive indicator of an infant's habitual residence. But a wide range of facts other than an actual agreement, including facts indicating that the parents have made their home in a particular place, can enable a trier to determine whether an infant's residence in that place has the quality of being "habitual."
Monasky also argues that a bright-line rule like her proposed actual-agreement requirement would promote prompt returns of abducted children and deter would-be abductors from "tak[ing] their chances" in the first place. Id., at 35, 38. Adjudicating a winner-takes-all evidentiary dispute over whether an agreement existed, however, is scarcely more expeditious than providing courts with leeway to make "a quick impression gained on a panoramic view of the evidence." Beaumont & McEleavy 103 (internal quotation marks omitted). When all the circumstances are in play, would-be abductors should find it more, not less, difficult to manipulate the reality on the ground, thus impeding them from forging "artificial jurisdictional links... with a view to obtaining custody of a child." Pérez-Vera 428, ¶11.
Finally, Monasky and amici curiae raise a troublesome matter: An actual-agreement requirement, they say, is necessary to protect children born into domestic violence. Brief for Petitioner 42-44; Brief for Sanctuary for Families et al. as Amici Curiae 11-20. Domestic violence poses an "intractable" problem in Hague Convention cases involving caregiving parents fleeing with their children from abuse. Hale, Taking Flight-Domestic Violence and Child Abduction, 70 Current Legal Prob. 3, 11 (2017). We doubt, however, that imposing a categorical actual-agreement requirement is an appropriate solution, for it would leave many infants without a habitual residence, and therefore outside the Convention's domain. See supra, at 728 - 729. Settling the forum for adjudication of a dispute over a child's custody, of course, does not dispose of the merits of the controversy over custody. Domestic violence should be an issue fully explored in the custody adjudication upon the child's return.
The Hague Convention, we add, has a mechanism for guarding children from the harms of domestic violence: Article 13(b). See Hale, 70 Current Legal Prob., at 10-16 (on Hague Conference working group to develop a bestpractices guide to the interpretation and application of Article 13(b) in cases involving domestic violence). Article 13(b), as noted supra, at 723 - 724, allows a court to refrain from ordering a child's return to her habitual residence if "there is a grave risk that [the child's] return would expose the child to physical or psychological harm or otherwise place the child in an intolerable situation." Art. 13(b ), Treaty Doc., at 10. Monasky raised below an Article 13(b) defense to Taglieri's return petition. In response, the District Court credited Monasky's "deeply troubl[ing]" allegations of her exposure to Taglieri's physical abuse. App. to Pet. for Cert. 105a. But the District Court found "no evidence" that Taglieri ever abused A.M.T. or otherwise disregarded her well-being. Id., at 103a, 105a. That court also followed Circuit precedent disallowing consideration of psychological harm A.M.T. might experience due to separation from her mother. Id., at 102a. Monasky does not challenge those dispositions in this Court.
III
Turning to the second question presented: What is the appropriate standard of appellate review of an initial adjudicator's habitual-residence determination? Neither the Convention nor ICARA prescribes modes of appellate review, other than the directive to act "expeditiously." Art. 11, Treaty Doc., at 9; see Federal Judicial Center, J. Garbolino, The 1980 Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction: A Guide for Judges 162 (2d ed. 2015) (the Convention's "emphasis on prompt disposition applies to appellate proceedings").
Absent a treaty or statutory prescription, the appropriate level of deference to a trial court's habitual-residence determination depends on whether that determination resolves a question of law, a question of fact, or a mixed question of law and fact. Generally, questions of law are reviewed de novo and questions of fact, for clear error, while the appropriate standard of appellate review for a mixed question "depends... on whether answering it entails primarily legal or factual work." U.S. Bank N. A. v. Village at Lakeridge, LLC, 583 U.S. ----, ---- - ----, 138 S.Ct. 960, 967, 200 L.Ed.2d 218 (2018).
A child's habitual residence presents what U.S. law types a "mixed question" of law and fact-albeit barely so. Id., at ----, 138 S.Ct., at 967. The inquiry begins with a legal question: What is the appropriate standard for habitual residence? Once the trial court correctly identifies the governing totality-of-the-circumstances standard, however, what remains for the court to do in applying that standard, as we explained supra, at 726 - 728, is to answer a factual question: Was the child at home in the particular country at issue? The habitual-residence determination thus presents a task for factfinding courts, not appellate courts, and should be judged on appeal by a clear-error review standard deferential to the factfinding court.
In selecting standards of appellate review, the Court has also asked whether there is "a long history of appellate practice" indicating the appropriate standard, for arriving at the standard from first principles can prove "uncommonly difficult." Pierce v. Underwood, 487 U.S. 552, 558, 108 S.Ct. 2541, 101 L.Ed.2d 490 (1988). Although some Federal Courts of Appeals have reviewed habitual-residence determinations de novo, there has been no uniform, reasoned practice in this regard, nothing resembling "a historical tradition." Ibid. See also supra, at 725 - 726 (noting a Circuit split). Moreover, when a mixed question has a factual foundation as evident as the habitual-residence inquiry here does, there is scant cause to default to historical practice.
Clear-error review has a particular virtue in Hague Convention cases. As a deferential standard of review, clear-error review speeds up appeals and thus serves the Convention's premium on expedition. See Arts. 2, 11, Treaty Doc., at 7, 9. Notably, courts of our treaty partners review first-instance habitual-residence determinations deferentially. See, e.g., Balev, [2018] 1 S. C. R., at 419, ¶38, 424 D. L. R. (4th), at 408, ¶38; Punter, [2007] 1 N. Z. L.
R., at 88, ¶204; AR v. RN, [2015] UKSC 35, ¶18.
IV
Although agreeing with the manner in which the Court has resolved the two questions presented, the United States, as an amicus curiae supporting neither party, suggests remanding to the Court of Appeals rather than affirming that court's judgment. Brief for United States as Amicus Curiae 28. Ordinarily, we might take that course, giving the lower courts an opportunity to apply the governing totality-of-the-circumstances standard in the first instance.
Under the circumstances of this case, however, we decline to disturb the judgment below. True, the lower courts viewed A.M.T.'s situation through the lens of her parents' shared intentions. But, after a four-day bench trial, the District Court had before it all the facts relevant to the dispute. Asked at oral argument to identify any additional fact the District Court did not digest, counsel for the United States offered none. Tr. of Oral Arg. 38. Monasky and Taglieri agree that their dispute "requires no 'further factual development,' " and neither party asks for a remand. Reply Brief 22 (quoting Brief for Respondent 54).
Monasky does urge the Court to reverse if it rests A.M.T.'s habitual residence on all relevant circumstances. She points to her "absence of settled ties to Italy" and the "unsettled and unstable conditions in which A.M.T. resided in Italy." Reply Brief 19 (internal quotation marks and alteration omitted). The District Court considered the competing facts bearing on those assertions, however, including the fraught circumstances in which the parties' marriage unraveled. That court nevertheless found that Monasky had sufficient ties to Italy such that "[a]rguably, [she] was a habitual resident of Italy." App. to Pet. for Cert. 91a. And, despite the rocky state of the marriage, the District Court found beyond question that A.M.T. was born into "a marital home in Italy," one that her parents established "with no definitive plan to return to the United States." Id., at 97a. Nothing in the record suggests that the District Court would appraise the facts differently on remand.
A remand would consume time when swift resolution is the Convention's objective. The instant return-order proceedings began a few months after A.M.T.'s birth. She is now five years old. The more than four-and-a-half-year duration of this litigation dwarfs the six-week target time for resolving a return-order petition. See Art. 11, Treaty Doc., at 9. Taglieri represents that custody of A.M.T. has so far been resolved only "on an interim basis," Brief for Respondent 56, n. 13, and that custody proceedings, including the matter of Monasky's parental rights, remain pending in Italy. Tr. of Oral Arg. 60-61. Given the exhaustive record before the District Court, the absence of any reason to anticipate that the District Court's judgment would change on a remand that neither party seeks, and the protraction of proceedings thus far, final judgment on A.M.T.'s return is in order.
* * *
For the reasons stated, the judgment of the Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit is
Affirmed.
Justice THOMAS, concurring in part and concurring in the judgment.
The Court correctly concludes that an actual agreement between parents is not necessary to establish the habitual residence of an infant who is too young to acclimatize. I also agree with the Court's conclusion that the habitual-residence inquiry is intensely fact driven, requiring courts to take account of the unique circumstances of each case. I write separately, however, because I would decide this case principally on the plain meaning of the treaty's text.
I
This case requires us to interpret the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction, Oct. 25, 1980, T. I. A. S. No. 11670, S. Treaty Doc. No. 99-11, as implemented by the International Child Abduction Remedies Act (ICARA), as amended, 22 U.S.C. § 9001 et seq. Article 3 of the Convention provides that the "removal or the retention of a child is to be considered wrongful" when "it is in breach of rights of custody attributed to a person... under the law of the State in which the child was habitually resident immediately before the removal or retention" and "at the time of removal or retention those rights were actually exercised." S. Treaty Doc. No. 99-11, at 7. Under ICARA, a parent may petition a federal or state court to return an abducted child to the child's country of habitual residence. § 9003(b). ICARA does not define habitual residence; it merely states that the petitioning parent must "establish by a preponderance of the evidence... that the child has been wrongfully removed or retained within the meaning of the Convention." § 9003(e)(1)(A). The Convention also does not define the phrase.
" 'The interpretation of a treaty, like the interpretation of a statute, begins with its text.' " Abbott v. Abbott, 560 U.S. 1, 10, 130 S.Ct. 1983, 176 L.Ed.2d 789 (2010) (quoting Medellín v. Texas, 552 U.S. 491, 506, 128 S.Ct. 1346, 170 L.Ed.2d 190 (2008) ). The Court recognizes this fact, but it concludes that the text only "suggests" that habitual residence is a fact-driven inquiry, and ultimately relies on atextual sources to "confir[m] what the Convention's text suggests." Ante, at 726. In my view, the ordinary meaning of the relevant language at the time of the treaty's enactment provides strong evidence that the habitual-residence inquiry is inherently fact driven. See Schindler Elevator Corp. v. United States ex rel. Kirk, 563 U
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer:
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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 Rehnquist
delivered the opinion of the Court.
Appellee Taxation With Representation of Washington (TWR) is a nonprofit corporation organized to promote what it conceives to be the “public interest” in the area of federal taxation. It proposes to advocate its point of view before Congress, the Executive Branch, and the Judiciary. This case began when TWR applied for tax-exempt status under § 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code, 26 U. S. C. § 501(c)(3). The Internal Revenue Service denied the application because it appeared that a substantial part of TWR’s activities would consist of attempting to influence legislation, which is not permitted by § 501(c)(3).
TWR then brought this suit in District Court against the appellants, the Commissioner of Internal Revenue, the Secretary of the Treasury, and the United States, seeking a declaratory judgment that it qualifies for the exemption granted by § 501(c)(3). It claimed the prohibition against substantial lobbying is unconstitutional under the First Amendment and the equal protection component of the Fifth Amendment’s Due Process Clause. The District Court granted summary judgment for appellants. On appeal, the en banc Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit reversed, holding that § 501(c)(3) does not violate the First Amendment but does violate the Fifth Amendment. 219 U. S. App. D. C. 117, 676 F. 2d 715 (1982). Appellants appealed pursuant to 28 U. S. C. §1252, and TWR cross-appealed. We noted probable jurisdiction of the appeal, 459 U. S. 819 (1982).
TWR was formed to take over the operations of two other nonprofit corporations. One, Taxation With Representation Fund, was organized to promote TWR’s goals by publishing a journal and engaging in litigation; it had tax-exempt status under § 501(c)(3). The other, Taxation With Representation, attempted to promote the same goals by influencing legislation; it liad tax-exempt status under § 501(c)(4). Neither predecessor organization was required to pay federal income taxes. For purposes of our analysis, there are two principal differences between § 501(c)(3) organizations and § 501(c)(4) organizations. Taxpayers who contribute to § 501(c)(3) organizations are permitted by § 170(c)(2) to deduct the amount of their contributions on their federal income tax returns, while contributions to § 501(c)(4) organizations are not deductible. Section 501(c)(4) organizations, but not § 501(c)(3) organizations, are permitted to engage in substantial lobbying to advance their exempt purposes.
In these cases, TWR is attacking the prohibition against substantial lobbying in § 501(c)(3) because it wants to use tax-deductible contributions to support substantial lobbying activities. To evaluate TWR’s claims, it is necessary to understand the effect of the tax-exemption system enacted by Congress.
Both tax exemptions and tax deductibility are a form of subsidy that is administered through the tax system. A tax exemption has much the same effect as a cash grant to the organization of the amount of tax it would have to pay on its income. Deductible contributions are similar to cash grants of the amount of a portion of the individual’s contributions. The system Congress has enacted provides this kind of subsidy to nonprofit civic welfare organizations generally, and an additional subsidy to those charitable organizations that do not engage in substantial lobbying. In short, Congress chose not to subsidize lobbying as extensively as it chose to subsidize other activities that nonprofit organizations undertake to promote the public welfare.
It appears that TWR could still qualify for a tax exemption under § 501(c)(4). It also appears that TWR can obtain tax-deductible contributions for its nonlobbying activity by returning to the dual structure it used in the past, with a § 501(c)(3) organization for nonlobbying activities and a § 501(c)(4) organization for lobbying. TWR would, of course, have to ensure that the § 501(c)(3) organization did not subsidize the § 501(c)(4) organization; otherwise, public funds might be spent on an activity Congress chose not to subsidize.
TWR contends that Congress’ decision not to subsidize its lobbying violates the First Amendment. It claims, relying on Speiser v. Randall, 357 U. S. 513 (1958), that the prohibition against substantial lobbying by § 501(c)(3) organizations imposes an “unconstitutional condition” on the receipt of tax-deductible contributions. In Speiser, California established a rule requiring anyone who sought to take advantage of a property tax exemption to sign a declaration stating that he did not advocate the forcible overthrow of the Government of the United States. This Court stated that “[t]o deny an exemption to claimants who engage in certain forms of speech is in effect to penalize them for such speech.” Id., at 518.
TWR is certainly correct when it states that we have held that the government may not deny a benefit to a person because he exercises a constitutional right. See Perry v. Sindermann, 408 U. S. 593, 597 (1972). But TWR is just as certainly incorrect when it claims that this case fits the Speiser-Perry model. The Code does not deny TWR the right to receive deductible contributions to support its non-lobbying activity, nor does it deny TWR any independent benefit on account of its intention to lobby. Congress has merely refused to pay for the lobbying out of public moneys. This Court has never held that Congress must grant a benefit such as TWR claims here to a person who wishes to exercise a constitutional right.
This aspect of these cases is controlled by Cammarano v. United States, 358 U. S. 498 (1959), in which we upheld a Treasury Regulation that denied business expense deductions for lobbying activities. We held that Congress is not required by the First Amendment to subsidize lobbying. Id., at 513. In these cases, as in Cammarano, Congress has not infringed any First Amendment rights or regulated any First Amendment activity. Congress has simply chosen not to pay for TWR’s lobbying. We again reject the “notion that First Amendment rights are somehow not fully realized unless they are subsidized by the State.” Id., at 515 (Douglas, J., concurring).
TWR also contends that the equal protection component of the Fifth Amendment renders the prohibition against substantial lobbying invalid. TWR points out that § 170(c)(3) permits taxpayers to deduct contributions to veterans’ organizations that qualify for tax exemption under §501(c)(19). Qualifying veterans’ organizations are permitted to lobby as much as they want in furtherance of their exempt purposes. TWR argues that because Congress has chosen to subsidize the substantial lobbying activities of veterans’ organizations, it must also subsidize the lobbying of § 501(c)(3) organizations.
Generally, statutory classifications are valid if they bear a rational relation to a legitimate governmental purpose. Statutes are subjected to a higher level of scrutiny if they interfere with the exercise of a fundamental right, such as freedom of speech, or employ a suspect classification, such as race. E. g., Harris v. McRae, 448 U. S. 297, 322 (1980). Legislatures have especially broad latitude in creating classifications and distinctions in tax statutes. More than 40 years ago we addressed these comments to an equal protection challenge to tax legislation:
“The broad discretion as to classification possessed by a legislature in the field of taxation has long been recognized .... [T]he passage of time has only served to underscore the wisdom of that recognition of the large area of discretion which is needed by a legislature in formulating sound tax policies. Traditionally classification has been a device for fitting tax programs to local needs and usages in order to achieve an equitable distribution of the tax burden. It has, because of this, been pointed out that in taxation, even more than in other fields, legislatures possess the greatest freedom.in classification. Since the members of a legislature necessarily enjoy a familiarity with local conditions which this Court cannot have, the presumption of constitutionality can be overcome only by the most explicit demonstration that a classification is a hostile and oppressive discrimination against particular persons and classes. The burden is on the one attacking the legislative arrangement to negative every conceivable basis which might support it.” Madden v. Kentucky, 309 U. S. 83, 87-88 (1940) (footnotes omitted).
See also San Antonio Independent School District v. Rodriguez, 411 U. S. 1, 40-41 (1973); Lehnhausen v. Lake Shore Auto Parts Co., 410 U. S. 356, 359-360 (1973).
We have already explained why we conclude that Congress has not violated TWR’s First Amendment rights by declining to subsidize its First Amendment activities. The case would be different if Congress were to discriminate invidiously in its subsidies in such a way as to “ ‘ai[m] at the suppression of dangerous ideas.’” Cammarano, supra, at 513, quoting Speiser, 357 U. S., at 519. But the veterans’ organizations that qualify under §501(c)(19) are entitled to receive tax-deductible contributions regardless of the content of any speech they may use, including lobbying. We find no indication that the statute was intended to suppress any ideas or any demonstration that it has had that effect. The sections of the Internal Revenue Code here at issue do not employ any suspect classification. The distinction between veterans’ organizations and other charitable organizations is not at all like distinctions based on race or national origin.
The Court of Appeals nonetheless held that “strict scrutiny” is required because the statute “affect[s] First Amendment rights on a discriminatory basis.” 219 U. S. App. D. C., at 130, 676 F. 2d, at 728 (emphasis supplied). Its opinion suggests that strict scrutiny applies whenever Congress subsidizes some speech, but not all speech. This is not the law. Congress could, for example, grant funds to an organization dedicated to combating teenage drug abuse, but condition the grant by providing that none of the money received from Congress should be used to lobby state legislatures. Under Cammarano, such a statute would be valid. Congress might also enact a statute providing public money for an organization dedicated to combating teenage alcohol abuse, and impose no condition against using funds obtained from Congress for lobbying. The existence of the second statute would not make the first statute subject to strict scrutiny.
Congressional selection of particular entities or persons for entitlement to this sort of largesse “is obviously a matter of policy and discretion not open to judicial review unless in circumstances which here we are not able to find. United States v. Realty Co., [163 U. S. 427,] 444 [(1896)].” Cincinnati Soap Co. v. United States, 301 U. S. 308, 317 (1937). See also, id., at 313; Alabama v. Texas, 347 U. S. 272 (1954). For the purposes of these cases appropriations are comparable to tax exemptions and deductions, which are also “a matter of grace [that] Congress can, of course, disallow . . . as it chooses.” Commissioner v. Sullivan, 356 U. S. 27, 28 (1958).
These are scarcely novel principles. We have held in several contexts that a legislature’s decision not to subsidize the exercise of a fundamental right does not infringe the right, and thus is not subject to strict scrutiny. Buckley v. Valeo, 424 U. S. 1 (1976), upheld a statute that provides federal funds for candidates for public office who enter primary campaigns, but does not provide funds for candidates who do not run in party primaries. We rejected First Amendment and equal protection challenges to this provision without applying strict scrutiny. Id., at 93-108. Harris v. McRae, supra, and Maher v. Roe, 432 U. S. 464 (1977), considered legislative decisions not to subsidize abortions, even though other medical procedures were subsidized. We declined to apply strict scrutiny and rejected equal protection challenges to the statutes.
The reasoning of these decisions is simple: “although government may not place obstacles in the path of a [person’s] exercise of. . . freedom of [speech], it need not remove those not of its own creation.” Harris, 448 U. S., at 316. Although TWR does not have as much money as it wants, and thus cannot exercise its freedom of speech as much as it would like, the Constitution “does not confer an entitlement to such funds as may be necessary to realize all the advantages of that freedom.” Id., at 318. As we said in Maher, “[constitutional concerns are greatest when the State attempts to impose its will by force of law . . . .” 432 U. S., at 476. Where governmental provision of subsidies is not “ ‘aimed at the suppression of dangerous ideas,’ ” Cammarano, 358 U. S., at 513, its “power to encourage actions deemed to be in the public interest is necessarily far broader.” Maher, supra, at 476.
We have no doubt but that this statute is within Congress’ broad power in this area. TWR contends that § 501(c)(3) organizations could better advance their charitable purposes if they were permitted to engage in substantial lobbying. This may well be true. But Congress — not TWR or this Court — has the authority to determine whether the advantage the public would receive from additional lobbying by charities is worth the money the public would pay to subsidize that lobbying, and other disadvantages that might accompany that lobbying. It appears that Congress was concerned that exempt organizations might use tax-deductible contributions to lobby to promote the private interests of their members. See 78 Cong. Rec. 5861 (1934) (remarks of Sen. Reed); id., at 5959 (remarks of Sen. La Follette). It is not irrational for Congress to decide that tax-exempt charities such as TWR should not further benefit at the expense of taxpayers at large by obtaining a further subsidy for lobbying.
It is also not irrational for Congress to decide that, even though it will not subsidize substantial lobbying by charities generally, it -will subsidize lobbying by veterans’ organizations. Veterans have “been obliged to drop their own affairs to take up the burdens of the nation,” Boone v. Lightner, 319 U. S. 561, 575 (1943), “‘subjecting themselves to the mental and physical hazards as well as the economic and family detriments which are peculiar to military service and which do not exist in normal civil life.’” Johnson v. Robison, 415 U. S. 361, 380 (1974) (emphasis deleted). Our country has a longstanding policy of compensating veterans for their past contributions by providing them with numerous advantages. This policy has “always been deemed to be legitimate.” Personnel Administrator of Mass. v. Feeney, 442 U. S. 256, 279, n. 25 (1979).
The issue in these cases is not whether TWR must be permitted to lobby, but whether Congress is required to provide it with public money with which to lobby. For the reasons stated above, we hold that it is not. Accordingly, the judgment of the Court of Appeals is
Reversed.
Section § 501(c)(3) grants exemption to:
“Corporations, and any community chest, fund, or foundation, organized and operated exclusively for religious, charitable, scientific, testing for public safety, literary, or educational purposes, or to foster national or international amateur sports competition ... , or for the prevention of cruelty to children or animals, no part of the net earnings of which inures to the benefit of any private shareholder or individual, no substantial part of the activities of which is carrying on propaganda, or otherwise attempting to influence legislation (except as otherwise provided in subsection (h)), and which does not participate in, or intervene in (including the publishing or distributing of statements), any political campaign on behalf of any candidate for public office” (emphasis supplied).
The Due Process Clause imposes on the Federal Government requirements comparable to those that the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment imposes on the States. E. g., Schweiker v. Wilson, 450 U. S. 221, 226, n. 6 (1981).
Appellants contend that we lack jurisdiction of the cross-appeal because 28 U. S. C. § 1252 refers only to appeals, and this Court’s Rule 12.4 only establishes a procedure for taking a cross-appeal. Section 1252 provides:
“Any party may appeal to the Supreme Court from an interlocutory or final judgment, decree or order of any court of the United States . . . holding an Act of Congress unconstitutional in any civil action ... to which the United States or any of its agencies ... is a party” (emphasis supplied). This language is broad enough to encompass appellee’s cross-appeal. We hold that it does. Therefore, we deny the appellants’ motion to dismiss, and decide the cross-appeal together with the appeal.
Unless otherwise indicated, all citations to statutes in this opinion refer to the Internal Revenue Code, 26 U. S. C.
Section 501(c)(4) grants exemption to:
“Civic leagues or organizations not organized for profit but operated exclusively for the promotion of social welfare, . . . and the net earnings of which are devoted exclusively to charitable, educational, or recreational purposes.”
In stating that exemptions and deductions, on the one hand, are like cash subsidies, on the other, we of course do not mean to assert that they are in all respects identical. See, e. g., Walz v. Tax Comm’n, 397 U. S. 664, 674-676 (1970); id., at 690-691 (BRENNAN, J., concurring); id., at 699 (opinion of Harlan, J.).
TWR and some amici are concerned that the IRS may impose stringent requirements that are unrelated to the congressional purpose of ensuring that no tax-deductible contributions are used to pay for substantial lobbying, and effectively make it impossible for a § 501(c)(3) organization to establish a § 501(e)(4) lobbying affiliate. No such requirement in the Code or regulations has been called to our attention, nor have we been able to discover one. The IRS apparently requires only that the two groups be separately incorporated and keep records adequate to show that tax-deductible contributions are not used to pay for lobbying. This is not unduly burdensome.
We also note that TWR did not bring this suit because it was unable to operate with the dual structure and seeks a less stringent set of bookkeeping requirements. Rather, TWR seeks to force Congress to subsidize its lobbying activity. See Tr. of Oral Arg. 37-39.
Citizens Against Rent Control/Coalition for Fair Housing v. City of Berkeley, 454 U. S. 290 (1981), upon which TWR relies, is not to the contrary. In that case the challenged ordinance regulated First Amendment activity by limiting individuals’ expenditures of their own money on political speech.
TWR contends that Congress has overruled Cammarano by enacting § 162(e), which permits businesses to deduct certain lobbying expenses that are “ordinary and necessary [business] expenses.” See Brief for Ap-pellee 13. It is elementary that Congress’ decision to permit deductions does not affect this Court’s holding that refusing to permit them does not violate the Constitution.
The rules governing deductibility of contributions to veterans’ organizations are not the same as the analogous rules for § 501(c)(3) organizations. For example, an individual may generally deduct up to 50% of his adjusted gross income in contributions to § 501(c)(3) organizations, but only 20% in contributions to veterans’ organizations. Compare § 170(b)(1)(A) with § 170(b)(1)(B). Taxpayers are permitted to carry over excess contributions to § 501(c)(3) organizations, but not veterans’ organizations, to the next year. § 170(d). There are other differences. If it were entitled to equal treatment with veterans’ organizations, TWR would, of course, be entitled only to the benefits they receive, not to more.
See, e. g., Personnel Administrator of Mass. v. Feeney, 442 U. S. 256 (1979) (veterans’ preference in civil service employment); Johnson v. Robison, 415 U. S. 361 (1974) (educational benefits).
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
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 Clark
delivered the opinion of the Court.
This proceeding in criminal contempt was commenced by the United States upon the specific order, sua sponte, of the Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. Ross R. Barnett, Governor of the State' of Mississippi at the time this action arose, and Paul B. Johnson, Jr., Lieutenant Governor, stand charged with willfully disobeying certain restraining orders issued, or directed to be entered, by that court. Governor Barnett and Lieutenant Governor Johnson moved to dismiss, demanded a trial by jury and filed motions to sever and to strike various charges. The Court of Appeals, being evenly divided on the question of right to jury trial, has certified the question to this Court under the authority of 28 U. S. C. § 1254 (3). 330 F. 2d 369. We pass only on the jury issue and decide that the alleged contemners are not entitled to a jury as a matter of right.
The proceeding is the aftermath of the efforts of James Meredith, a Negro, to attend the University of Mississippi. Meredith sought admission in 1961 and, upon refusal, filed suit in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Mississippi. That court denied relief, but the Court of Appeals reversed and directed the District Court to grant the relief prayed for. Meredith v. Fair, 305 F. 2d 343. The mandate was stayed by direction of a single judge of the Court of Appeals, whereupon, on July 27, the Court of Appeals set aside the stay, recalled the mandate, amended and reissued it, including its own injunctive order “enjoining and compelling” the Board of Trustees, officials of the University and all persons having knowledge of the decree to admit Meredith to the school. On the following day the Court of Appeals entered a separate and supplemental “injunctive order” directing the same parties to admit Meredith and to refrain from any act of discrimination relating to his admission or continued attendance. By its terms, this order was to remain in effect “until such time as there has been full and actual compliance in good faith with each and all of said orders by the actual admission of [Meredith]....” After a series of further delays, the District Court entered its injunction on September 13, 1962, directing the members of the Board of Trustees and the officials of the University to register Meredith.
When it became apparent that the decrees might not be honored, the United States applied to the Court of Appeals on September 18 for permission to appear in the Court of Appeals in the case. This application was granted in the following terms:
“IT IS ORDERED that the United States be designated and authorized to appear and participate as amicus curiae in all proceedings in this action before this Court and by reason of the mandates and orders of this Court of July 27, 28, 1962, and subsequently thereto, also before the District Court for the Southern District of Mississippi to accord each court the benefit of its views and recommendations, with the right to submit pleadings, evidence, arguments and briefs and to initiate such further proceedings, including proceedings for injunctive relief and proceedings for contempt of court, as may be appropriate in order to maintain and preserve the due administration of justice and the integrity of the judicial processes of the United States.”
Meanwhile, the Mississippi Legislature had adopted an emergency measure in an attempt to prevent Meredith from attending the University, but on September 20, upon the Government’s application, the enforcement of this Act was enjoined, along with two state court decrees barring Meredith’s registration. On the same day Meredith was rebuffed in his efforts to gain admission. Both he and the United States filed motions in contempt in the District Court citing the Chancellor, the Registrar and the Dean of the College of Liberal Arts. After a hearing they were acquitted on the ground that the Board of Trustees had stripped them of all powers to act on Meredith’s application and that such powers were in Governor Barnett, as agent of the Board.
The United States then moved in the Court of Appeals for a show-cause order in contempt against the Board of Trustees, based on the order of that court dated July 28. An en banc hearing was held at which the Board indicated that it was ready to admit Meredith, and on September 24 the court entered an order requiring the Board to revoke its action appointing Governor Barnett to act as its agent. The order also required the Registrar, Robert B. Ellis, to be available on September 25 to admit Meredith.
On the evening of September 24, the United States filed an ancillary action to the Meredith v. Fair litigation seeking a temporary restraining order against the State of Mississippi, Governor Barnett, the Attorney General of Mississippi, the Commissioner of Public Safety and various lesser officials. This application specifically alleged that the Governor had implemented the State’s policy of massive resistance to the court’s orders, by personal action, as well as by use of the State’s various agencies, to frustrate and destroy the same; that the Governor’s action would result in immediate and irreparable injury to the United States, consisting of impairment of the integrity of its judicial processes, obstruction of the administration of justice and deprivation of Meredith’s declared rights under the Constitution and laws of the United States. On the basis of such allegations and at the specific instance of the United States as the sole moving party and on its own behalf, the Court of Appeals issued a temporary restraining order at 8:30 a. m. on the 25th against each of these parties restraining them from performing specific acts set out therein and from interfering with or obstructing by any means its order of July 28 and that of the District Court of September 13. Thereafter the United States filed a verified application showing that on the afternoon of the 25th Governor Barnett, “having actual knowledge of... [the temporary restraining order], deliberately prevented James H. Meredith from entering the office of the Board of Trustees... at a time when James H. Meredith was seeking to appear before Robert B. Ellis in order to register... and that by such conduct Ross R. Barnett did wilfully interfere with and obstruct James H. Meredith in the enjoyment of his rights under this Court’s order of July 28, 1962... all in violation of the terms of the temporary restraining order entered by the Court this day.” The court then entered a show-cause order in contempt against Governor Barnett requiring him to appear on September 28. On September 26, a similar order was issued against Lieutenant Governor Johnson requiring him to appear on September 29. On September 28, the Court of Appeals, en banc and after a hearing, found the Governor in civil contempt and directed that he be placed in the custody of the Attorney General and pay a fine of $10,000 for each day of his recalcitrance, unless he purged himself by October 2. On the next day Lieutenant Governor Johnson was found in contempt by a panel of the court and a similar order was entered with a fine of $5,000 a day.
On September 30, President Kennedy issued a proclamation commanding all persons engaged in the obstruction of the laws and the orders of the courts to “cease and desist therefrom and to disperse and retire peaceably forthwith.” 76 Stat. 1506. The President also issued an Executive Order dispatching a force of United States Marshals and a detachment of the armed forces to enforce the court’s orders. On September 30, Meredith, accompanied by the Marshals, was moved into a dormitory on the University campus and was registered the next day. Although rioting broke out, order was soon restored, with some casualties, and Meredith carried on his studies under continuous guard until his graduation.
On November 15, 1962, the Court of Appeals, sua sponte, appointed the Attorney General or his designated assistants to prosecute this criminal contempt proceeding against the Governor and Lieutenant Governor pursuant to Rule 42 (b) of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure. On application of the Attorney General, the Court of Appeals issued a show-cause order in criminal contempt based on the Court of Appeals’ temporary restraining order of September 25, its injunctive order of July 28, and the District Court’s order of September 13. It is out of this proceeding that the certified question arises.
As we have said, the sole issue before us is whether the alleged contemners are entitled as a matter of right to a jury trial on the charges. We consider this issue without prejudice to any other contentions that have been interposed in the case and without any indication as to their merits.
I.
The First Congress in the Judiciary Act of 1789 conferred on federal courts the power “to punish by fine or imprisonment, at the discretion of said courts, all con-tempts of authority in any cause or hearing before the same....” 1 Stat. 83. It is undisputed that this Act gave federal courts the discretionary power to punish for contempt as that power was known to the common law. In re Savin, 131 U. S. 267, 275-276 (1889). In 1831, after the unsuccessful impeachment proceedings against Judge Peck, the Congress restricted the power of federal courts to inflict summary punishment for contempt to misbehavior “in the presence of the said courts, or so near thereto as to obstruct the administration of justice,” mis-, behavior of court officers in official matters, and disobedience or resistance by any person to any lawful writ, process, order, rule, decree, or command of the courts. Act of March 2, 1831, c. 99, 4 Stat. 487, 488. These provisions are now codified in 18 U. S. C. § 401 without material difference. The Court of Appeals proceeded in this case under the authority of this section.
The alleged contemners claim, however, that the powers granted federal courts under § 401 were limited by the Congress in 1914 by the provisions of §§21, 22 and 24 of the Clayton Act, 38 Stat. 738-740, now codified as 18 U. S. C. §§ 402 and 3691. These sections guarantee the right to a jury trial in contempt proceedings arising out of disobedience to orders “of any district court of the United States or any court of the District of Columbia,” provided that the conduct complained of also constitutes a criminal offense under the laws of the United States or of any State. But the Clayton Act further provides that the requirement of a jury does not apply to “contempts committed in disobedience of any lawful writ, process, order, rule, decree, or command entered in any suit or action brought or prosecuted in the name of, or on behalf of, the United States, but the same, and all other cases of contempt not specifically embraced in this section may be punished in conformity to the prevailing usages at law.” 18 U. S. C. § 402. Rule 42 (b) of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure thereafter set down the procedural requirements for all contempt actions, providing that “[t]he defendant is entitled to a trial by jury in any case in which an act of Congress so provides.”
We now proceed to a consideration of the claim of a right to trial by jury under these statutes and under the Constitution of the United States.
II.
Governor Barnett and Lieutenant Governor Johnson first contend that the record clearly shows that the United States invoked the proceedings taken by the Court of Appeals and sought that court out as a source of orders, duplicating the orders obtained by the real party in interest in the District Court, solely for the purpose of by-passing the District Court and depriving them of their right to a jury. We find no evidence of this. Indeed, the Court of Appeals granted injunctive relief only after it had jurisdiction over Meredith’s appeal, after it had acted upon that appeal and after its order was being frustrated.
Next it is contended that the Court of Appeals had no jurisdiction in the matter since its mandate had been issued and the case had been remanded to the District Court. On a certificate we do not pass on alleged irregularities in the proceedings in the court below, as such contentions are clearly premature.
The alleged contemners next assert that § 402 is applicable. They urge that since § 402 gives a jury trial to those charged with contempt in “any court of the District of Columbia,” this would include the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. They argue from this that the section must be construed to apply to all other Courts of Appeals to avoid manifest discrimination which the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment prohibits and to comply with the Privileges and Immunities Clause of Art. IV, § 2 of the Constitution. We are not persuaded. At the time that the Clayton Act was adopted, the trial court of general jurisdiction in the District of Columbia was known as the “Supreme Court of the District of Columbia” rather than the United States District Court. Moreover, there were also inferior courts there known as the municipal and police courts and now called the “District of Columbia Court of General Sessions.” Since none of these trial courts of the District would have been included in the designation “any district court of the United States,” the insertion of “any court of the District of Columbia” was necessary to adapt the bill to the judicial nomenclature of the District of Columbia. It is hardly possible to suppose that the House, where this phrase was inserted without explanation, was somehow by this language reversing the decision to exclude appellate courts from the jury requirements. This is shown by the legislative history of the bill when discussed in the Senate, 51 Cong. Rec. 14414, where it was made explicit that the bill “applies... only to orders of the district courts; contempts of orders of all other courts must be had as now.”
Nor can we conclude from the record here that the show-cause order directed by the Court of Appeals to the alleged contemners must be construed as being founded upon violations of the District Court’s injunction of September 13, entered upon the specific order of the Court of Appeals. The show-cause order specifies that three injunctions were violated, i. e., the original one of the Court of Appeals of July 28 directing Meredith’s admission; the District Court’s aforesaid order of September 13 which generally embodied the same terms; and the injunction of September 25 directed at the alleged contemners. The claim is, first, that the District Court’s order of September 13 superseded the earlier Court of Appeals order of July 28, and that the September 25 order of the Court of Appeals was without significance since it added nothing to the earlier orders except to specifically name the alleged contemners. But it can hardly be said that there was a supersession, since the July 28 order specifically retained jurisdiction. Nor is the September 25 order of no significance, as it is the principal order upon which the alleged contemners’ contemptuous conduct is predicated. Moreover, it may be that on trial the Court of Appeals will limit the charge to its own orders. Secondly, it is said that, since the contempt motion includes an order of the District Court, the requirements of §§ 402 and 3691 make a jury necessary. It would be anomalous for a Court of Appeals to have the power to punish contempt of its own orders without a jury, but to be rendered impotent to do so when the offensive behavior happens to be in contempt of a District Court order as well. We are unable to attribute to Congress an intent to award favored treatment to a person who is contemptuous of two or three orders instead of only one.
III.
Finally, it is urged that those charged with criminal contempt have a constitutional right to a jury trial. This claim has been made and rejected here again and again. Only six years ago we held a full review of the issue in Green v. United States, 356 U. S. 165 (1958). We held there that “[t]he statements of this Court in a long and unbroken line of decisions involving contempts ranging from misbehavior in court to disobedience of court orders establish beyond peradventure that criminal contempts are not subject to jury trial as a matter of constitutional right.” At 183. Nor can it be said with accuracy that these cases were based upon historical error. It has always been the law of the land, both state and federal, that the courts — except where specifically precluded by statute — have the power to proceed summarily in contempt matters. There were, of course, statutes enacted by some of the Colonies which provided trivial punishment in specific, but limited, instances. Some statutes concerned the contempt powers of only certain courts or minor judicial officers. Others concerned specific offenses such as swearing in the presence of officials or the failure of a witness or juror to answer a summons.
But it cannot be said that these statutes set a standard permitting exercise of the summary contempt power only for offenses classified as trivial. Indeed, the short answer to this contention is the Judiciary Act of 1789 which provided that the courts of the United States shall have power to “punish by fine or imprisonment, at the discretion of said courts, all contempts of authority in any cause or hearing before the same.” It will be remembered that this legislation was enacted by men familiar with the new Constitution. Madison urged passage of the act in the House and five of the eight members of the Senate Committee which recommended adoption, were also delegates to the Constitutional Convention of 1787. 1 Annals of Congress 18, 812-813. It is also asserted that a limitation upon the summary contempt power is to be inferred from.the fact that subsequent statutes of some of the States had limitation provisions on punishment for contempts. But our inquiry concerns the standard prevailing at the time of the adoption of the Constitution, not a score or more years later. Finally, early cases have been ferreted out, but not one federal case has been found to support the theory that courts, in the exercise of their summary contempt powers, were limited to trivial offenses. On the contrary, an 1801 opinion in the case of United States v. Duane, 25 Fed. Cas. 920, No. 14,997, had this significant language:
“But though the court have power to punish at discretion, it is far from their inclination to crush you, by an oppressive fine, or lasting imprisonment. [Emphasis supplied.] They hope and believe of-fences of this kind will be prevented in future by a general conviction of their destructive tendency, and by an assurance that the court possess both the power and the resolution to punish them.” At 922.
Following this holding we have at least 50 cases of this Court that support summary disposition of contempts, without reference to any distinction based on the seriousness of the offense. We list these in the margin. It does appear true that since 1957 the penalties imposed in cases reaching this Court have increased appreciably. But those cases did not settle any constitutional questions as to the punishment imposed.
And with reference to state cases, it is interesting to note that the State of Mississippi has recognized and enforced summary punishment for contempt for over 100 years under the authority of Watson v. Williams, 36 Miss. 331 (1858), a celebrated case that has been cited with approval in many state jurisdictions as well as in cases of this Court. See Ex parte Terry, 128 U. S. 289, 303 (1888), and In re Debs, 158 U. S. 564, 595 (1895). And just one year before we decided Green, supra, Mississippi specifically approved, in Young v. State, 230 Miss. 525, 528 (1957), its previous holding that the “overwhelming weight of authority is that in such cases [contempt] they [the defendants] were not entitled to a jury trial.” O’Flynn v. State, 89 Miss. 850, 862.
We will make specific reference to only a few of the federal cases. As early as 1812 this Court held that “[c]ertain implied powers must necessarily result to our Courts of justice from the nature of their institution.... To fine for contempt — imprison for contumacy — inforce the observance of order....” Mr. Justice Johnson in United States v. Hudson & Goodwin, 7 Cranch 32, 34. In the case of In re Savin, supra, at 276, the first Mr. Justice Harlan writing for the Court said: “[W]e do not doubt that the power to proceed summarily, for contempt, in those eases [in presence of court, in official transactions and in resistance to lawful process], remains, as under the act of 1831.... It was, in effect, so adjudged in Ex parte Terry [supra, at 304].” And in Eilenbecker v. District Court, 134 U. S. 31 (1890), a contempt was based on the violation of a court order. Mr. Justice Miller said:
“If it has ever been understood that proceedings according to the common law for contempt of court have been subject to the right of trial by jury, we have been unable to find any instance of it. It has always been one of the attributes — one of the powers necessarily incident to a court of justice — that it should have this power of vindicating its dignity, of enforcing its orders, of protecting itself from insult, without the necessity of calling upon a jury to assist it in the exercise of this power.” At 36. ■
And in 1895 Mr. Justice Brewer in In re Debs, 158 U. S. 564, a leading authority in this Court, wrote:
“Nor is there... any invasion of the constitutional right of trial by jury.... [T]he power of a court to make an order carries with it the equal power to punish for a disobedience of that order, and the inquiry as to the question of disobedience has been, from time immemorial, the special function of the court. And this is no technical rule. In order that a court may compel obedience to its orders it must have the right to inquire whether there has been any disobedience thereof. To submit the question of disobedience to another tribunal, be it a jury or another court, would operate to deprive the proceeding of half its efficiency.” At 594-595.
Mr. Justice Holmes in an equally well known and authoritative decision for this Court, United States v. Shipp, 203 U. S. 563 (1906), upheld the power of this Court, without a jury, to punish disobedience to its orders. “The first question,” he said, “naturally, is that of the jurisdiction of this court. The jurisdiction to punish for a contempt is not denied as a general abstract proposition, as, of course, it could not be with success. Ex parte Robinson, 19 Wall. 505, 510; Ex parte Terry, 128 U. S. 289, 302, 303.” At 572. He also emphasized that “[t]he court is not a party. There is nothing that affects the judges in their own persons. Their concern is only that the law should be obeyed and enforced, and their interest is no other than that they represent in every case.” At 574. Since Shipp was a case of original jurisdiction in this Court, testimony was then taken before a commissioner, not a jury, 214 U. S. 386, 471. After argument this Court adjudged the defendants guilty, 214 U. S. 386, and sentenced some of them to prison, 215 U. S. 580.
Mr. Justice Holmes also wrote another leading case in the contempt field in 1914, Gompers v. United States, 233 U. S. 604, in which he made explicit what he left implicit in Shipp, supra:
“It is urged in the first place that contempts cannot be crimes, because, although punishable by imprisonment and therefore, if crimes, infamous, they are not within the protection of the Constitution and the amendments giving a right to trial by jury.... It does not follow that contempts of the class under consideration are not crimes, or rather,... offenses, because trial by jury as it has been gradually worked out and fought out has been thought not to extend to them as a matter of constitutional right.” At 610.
In 1919 Chief Justice White in Ex parte Hudgings, 249 U. S. 378, restated the same principle in these words:
“Existing within the limits of and sanctioned by the Constitution, the power to punish for contempt committed in the presence of the court is not controlled by the limitations of the Constitution as to modes of accusation and methods of trial generally safeguarding the rights of the citizen.... [The] only purpose is to secure judicial authority from obstruction in the performance of its duties to the end that means appropriate for the preservation and enforcement of the Constitution may be secured.” At 383.
Finally, Mr. Justice Sutherland in Michaelson v. United States, 266 U. S. 42 (1924), in upholding the constitutionality of the sections of the Clayton Act contained in 18 U. S. C. §§ 402 and 3691, said that these provisions were of
“... narrow scope, dealing with the single class where the act or thing constituting the contempt is also a crime in the ordinary sense. It does not interfere with the power to deal summarily with con-tempts committed in the presence of the court or so near thereto as to obstruct the administration of justice, and is in express terms carefully limited to the cases of contempt specifically defined. Neither do we think it purports to reach cases of failure or refusal to comply affirmatively with a decree — that is to do something which a decree commands.... If the reach of the statute had extended to the cases which are excluded a different and more serious question would arise.” At 66. (Emphasis supplied.)
It is true that adherence to prior decisions in constitutional adjudication is not a blind or inflexible rule. This Court has shown a readiness to correct its errors even though of long standing. Still, where so many cases in both federal and state jurisdictions by such a constellation of eminent jurists over a century and a half’s span teach us a principle which is without contradiction in our case law, we cannot overrule it. The statement of the High Court of Errors and Appeals of Mississippi 105 years ago in Watson v. Williams, supra, is as true and perhaps even more urgent today:
“The power to fine and imprison for contempt, from the earliest history of jurisprudence, has been regarded as a necessary incident and attribute of a court, without which it could no more exist than without a judge. It is a power inherent in all courts of record, and coexisting with them by the wise provisions of the common law. A court without the power effectually to protect itself against the assaults of the lawless, or to enforce its orders, judgments, or decrees against the recusant parties before it, would be a disgrace to the legislation, and a stigma upon the age which invented it. In this country, all courts derive their authority from the people, and hold it in trust for their security and benefit. In this State, all judges are elected by the people, and hold their authority, in a double sense, directly from them; the power they exercise is but the authority of the people themselves, exercised through courts as their agents. It is the authority and laws emanating from the people, which the judges sit to exercise and enforce. Contempts against these courts, in the administration of their laws, are insults offered to the authority of the people themselves, and not to the humble agents of the law, whom they employ in the conduct of their government. The power to compel the lawless offender, against decency and propriety, to respect the laws of his country, and submit to their authority (a duty to which the good citizen yields hearty obedience, without compulsion) must exist, or courts and laws operate at last as a restraint upon the upright, who need no restraint, and a license to the offenders, whom they are made to subdue.” At 341-342.
The question certified to the Court is therefore answered in the negative.
APPENDIX TO OPINION OF THE COURT.
This Appendix contains statutes and cases relevant to the punishments for contempt imposed by colonial courts. Although the authority cited here is extensive, it does not purport to be exhaustive. Research in this period of history is hampered by the fact that complete reports of appellate decisions in most jurisdictions were not available until the nineteenth century. Reports of the colonial trial courts are even more sparse, and this has particular importance in our study, since contempt citations were usually either not appealable or not appealed.
Numerous observations could be made concerning what is set forth here. For our present purposes, however, we need only note that we find no basis for a determination that, at the time the Constitution was adopted, contempt was generally regarded as not extending to cases of serious misconduct. Rather, it appears that the limitations which did exist were quite narrow in scope, being applicable only to a specific contempt or to a particular type of court.
Connecticut.
The Code of 1650, a compilation of the earliest laws and orders of the General Court of Connecticut, provided “that whosoever doth dissorderly speake privately, during the sitting of the courte, with his neighbour” should pay 12 pence fine, “if the courte so thinke meett,” and that whosoever revealed secrets of the General Court should forfeit 10 pounds “and bee otherwise dealt withall, at the discretion of the courte....” Code of 1650 (1822 ed.), at 40. The same Code also decreed “[t]hat whosoever shall... defame any courte of justice, or the sentences and proceedings of the same, or any of the magistrates or judges of any such courte, in respect of any act or sentence therein passed, and being thereof lawfully convicted in any generall courte, or courte of magistrates, shall bee punnished for the same, by fyne, imprisonment,, disfranchisement, or bannishment, as the quality and measure of the offence shall deserve.” Id., at 69. This provision was carried forward through the time of the adoption of the Constitution. See Conn. Laws of 1673 (1865 ed.), at 41, and Conn. Acts and Laws (1796 ed.), at 142.
An “Act concerning Delinquents” provided that “if any Person or Persons upon his or their Examination or Trial for Delinquency, or any other Person not under Examination or Trial as aforesaid, in the Presence of any Court, shall either in Words or Actions behave contemptuously or disorderly, it shall be in the power of the Court, Assistant, or Justice to inflict such Punishment upon him or them as they shall judge most suitable to the Nature of the Offence. Provided, That no single Minister of Justice [justice of the peace, whose criminal jurisdiction was limited to cases in which “the Penalty does not exceed the Sum of Seven Dollars”] shall inflict any other Punishment upon such Offenders than Imprisonment, binding to the Peace or good Behaviour to the next County Court, putting them in the Stocks, there to sit not exceeding two Hours, or imposing a Fine, not exceeding Five Dollars.” Conn. Acts and Laws (1796 ed.), at 143.
The first Connecticut statute we have been able to find which limited the power of all courts to inflict punishment summarily is cited in an 1824 edition of Connecticut statutes: “If any person, in the presence of any court, shall, either by words or actions, behave contemptuously or disorderly, it shall be in the power of the court to inflict such punishment upon him, by fine or imprisonment, as shall be judged reasonable: Provided, however, that no single minister of justice shall inflict a greater fine than seven dollars, nor a longer term of imprisonment than one month; and no other court shall inflict a greater fine than one hundred dollars, nor a longer term of imprisonment than six months.” Conn. Pub. Stat. Laws, 1821 (1824 ed.), at 118-119. This statute applied only to acts of contempt committed in the presence of the court and left “all other cases of contempt to be ascertained and punished according to the course of the common law.” Huntington v. McMahon, 48 Conn. 174, 196 (May Term, 1880). Accord, Rogers Mfg. Co. v. Rogers, 38 Conn. 121, 123 (February Term, 1871).
The same laws also made it a contempt, punishable summarily by commitment and fine of $200, to refuse to perform or accept service of a writ of habeas corpus. Conn. Pub. Stat. Laws, 1821 (1824 ed.), at 219-220.
Records of cases in the Particular Court between 1639 and 1663 reveal several summary contempt proceedings: In 1639, Thomas Gridley was “Censured to be whipt att Hartford and bound to his good behavior” for, inter alia, using “contempteous words against the orders of Court....” Records of the Particular Court of the Colony of Connecticut, 1639-1663, at 5. Enoch Buck was fined 10 shillings “for irregular speeches in Courte” in 1648. Id., at 60. In 1654, Will Taylor was committed to prison for an unspecified length of time for his “Contemtuous Carriage in the Courte....” Id., at 128. John Sadler was ordered imprisoned for a day and fined 40 shillings in 1655 for “Contemptuous Car-rage against the Courte and Magistrates....” Id., at 152. In 1657, both parties in a case were fined 10 shillings for disorderly carriage in court. Id., at 187. In 1663, for, inter alia, “defameing the sentenc of the Court and one of the members thereof,” Edward Bart-let was ordered to prison for about 10 days and made to give 10 pounds security for his good behavior. Id., at 269. Connecticut Colony Particular Court records also indicate various fines and forfeitures, from two shillings, six pence, to four pounds, imposed on non-appearing parties and jurors between 1647 and 1654. (E. g., Thomas Sherwood fined 40 shillings “for his con-tempte in not appeareing att Court uppon summons,” id., at 47.)
In 1796, Zephaniah Swift, chief justice of the Connecticut Superior Court, wrote of contempt: “But tho all courts but assistants and justices of the peace, have an unlimitted discretionary power [emphasis supplied], yet this cannot be deemed to authorize them to inflict capital punishment. It can be supposed to extend only to fine, imprisonment, or such corporal punishment as may be suited to the nature of the offence, and according to the principles of the common law.” II Swift, A System of the Laws of Connecticut (1796), at 374.
In 1823, Swift added: “When courts punish for con-tempts, committed in their presence, they must inflict a definite fine, or imprison for a certain time in the manner prescribed by the statute: but where they punish for con-tempts at common law, or not committed in their presence they may imprison till the further order of the court... (Emphasis supplied.) II Swift, A Digest of the Laws of Connecticut (1823), at 359.
Delaware.
We were unable to find any Delaware colonial statutes dealing generally with contempt. Two statutes, apparently passed during the early part of the eighteenth century, provided maximum penalties for certain types of offenses: Jurors who refused to attend could be summarily fined up to 20 shillings; and one who spoke in derogation of a court’s judgment or committed any rudeness or misdemeanor in a court while the court was in session could be fined up to five pounds. 1 Del. Laws (1797 ed.), at 117,120. A 1739 or 1740 “Act against drunkenness, [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:
|
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.
Per Curiam.
Under the Puerto Rico Rules of Criminal Procedure, an accused felon is entitled to a hearing to determine if he shall be held for trial. P. R. Laws Ann., Tit. 34, App. II, Rule 23 (1991). A neutral magistrate presides over the hearing, People v. Opio Opio, 104 P. R. R. (4 Official Translations 231, 239) (1975), for which the defendant has the rights to appear and to counsel, Rules 23(a), (b). Both the prosecution and the defendant may introduce evidence and cross-examine witnesses, Rule 23(c), and the defendant may present certain affirmative defenses, People v. Lebrón Lebrón, 116 P. R. R. (16 Official Translations 1052, 1058) (1986). The magistrate must determine whether there is probable cause to believe that the defendant committed the offense charged. Rule 23(c) provides that the hearing “shall be held privately” unless the defendant requests otherwise.
Petitioner José Purcell is a reporter for petitioner El Vocero de Puerto Rico, the largest newspaper in the Commonwealth. By written request to respondent District Judges, he sought to attend preliminary hearings over which they were to preside. In the alternative, he sought access to recordings of the hearings. After these requests were denied, petitioners brought this action in Puerto Rico Superior Court seeking a declaration that the privacy provision of Rule 23(c) violates the First Amendment, applicable to the Commonwealth through the Fourteenth Amendment, and an injunction against its enforcement. Petitioners based their claim on Press-Enterprise Co. v. Superior Court of Cal., County of Riverside, 478 U. S. 1 (1986), which addressed a California law that allowed magistrates to close preliminary hearings quite similar in form and function to those held under Rule 23 if it was reasonably likely that the defendant’s ability to obtain a fair hearing would be prejudiced. Id., at 12, 14. Applying the “tests of experience and logic,” id., at 9, of Globe Newspaper Co. v. Superior Court of County of Norfolk, 457 U. S. 596 (1982), Press-Enterprise struck down the California privacy law on the grounds that preliminary criminal hearings have traditionally been public, and because the hearings at issue were “sufficiently like a trial,” 478 U. S., at 12, that public access was “essential to the[ir] proper functioning,” ibid.
In affirming the dismissal of petitioners’ suit, a divided Supreme Court of Puerto Rico found that Press-Enterprise did not control the outcome because of several differences between Rule 23 hearings and the California hearings at issue there. App. to Pet. for Cert. 129. It thus proceeded to determine the constitutionality of Rule 23 hearings by application anew of the Globe Newspaper tests. The court concluded that closed hearings are compatible with the unique history and traditions of the Commonwealth, which display a special concern for the honor and reputation of the citizenry, and that open hearings would prejudice defendants’ ability to obtain fair trials because of Puerto Rico’s small size and dense population.
The decision below is irreconcilable with Press-Enterprise: for precisely the reasons stated in that decision, the privacy provision of Rule 23(c) is unconstitutional. The distinctions drawn by the court below are insubstantial. In fact, each of the features cited by Press-Enterprise in support of the finding that California’s preliminary hearings were “sufficiently like a trial” to require public access is present here. Rule 23 hearings are held before a neutral magistrate; the accused is afforded the rights to counsel, to cross-examination, to present testimony, and, at least in some instances, to suppress illegally seized evidence; the accused is bound over for trial only upon the magistrate’s finding probable cause; in a substantial portion of criminal eases, the hearing provides the only occasion for public observation of the criminal justice system; and no jury is present. Cf. 478 U. S., at 12-13.
Nor are these commonalities coincidental: As the majority noted, the Rule’s drafters relied on the California law at issue in Press-Enterprise as one source of Rule 23. App. to Pet. for Cert. 93, n. 26. At best, the distinctive features of Puerto Rico’s preliminary hearing render it a subspecies of the provision this Court found to be infirm seven years ago. Beyond this, however, the privacy provision of Rule 23(c) is more clearly suspect. California law allowed magistrates to close hearings only upon a determination that there was a substantial likelihood of prejudice to the defendant, yet the Press-Enterprise Court found this standard insufficiently exacting to protect public aecess. 478 U. S., at 14-15. By contrast, Rule 23 provides no standard, allowing hearings to be closed upon the request of the defendant, without more.
The Puerto Rico Supreme Court’s reliance on Puerto Rican tradition is also misplaced. As the Court of Appeals for the First Circuit has correctly stated, the “experience” test of Globe Newspaper does not look to the particular practice of any one jurisdiction, but instead “to the experience in that type or kind of hearing throughout the United States----” Rivera-Puig v. Garcia-Rosario, 983 F. 2d 311, 323 (1992) (emphasis in original). The established and widespread tradition of open preliminary hearings among the States was canvassed in Press-Enterprise and is controlling here. 478 U. S., at 10-11, and nn. 3-4.
The concern of the majority below that publicity will prejudice defendants’ fair trial rights is, of course, legitimate. But this concern can and must be addressed on a case-by-ease basis:
“If the interest asserted is the right of the accused to a fair trial, the preliminary hearing shall be closed only if specific findings are made demonstrating that, first, there is a substantial probability that the defendant’s right to a fair trial will be prejudiced by publicity that closure would prevent and, second, reasonable alternatives to closure cannot adequately protect the defendant’s fair trial rights.” Id., at 14.
The petition for certiorari is granted and the judgment of the Supreme Court of Puerto Rico is
Reversed.
The Free Speech Clause of the First Amendment fully applies to Puerto Rico. Posadas de Puerto Rico Associates v. Tourism Co. of Puerto Rico, 478 U. S. 328, 831, n. 1 (1986).
Specifically, the court addressed the Commonwealth’s burden of proof, the rules governing the parties’ access to, and presentation of, certain evidence, the fact that an indictment follows, rather than precedes, the preliminary hearing, and the ability of the prosecution to present the matter de novo before a higher court in cases where the magistrate finds no probable cause. App. to Pet. for Cert. 112-129.
The Court of Appeals for the First Circuit has since found this provision unconstitutional. See Rivera-Puig v. Garcia-Rosario, 983 F. 2d 311 (1992).
The admissibility of illegally seized evidence apparently is an open question in Puerto Rico law. See App. to Pet. for Cert. 107.
See id., at 204-205 (Hernández Denton, J., dissenting).
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
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
|
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Mr. Chief Justice Warren
delivered the opinion of the Court.
The principal question presented on this appeal is whether the appellee Interstate Commerce Commission properly declined to impose certain restrictions upon motor carrier permits it issued to a trucking company which is a subsidiary of a railroad.
The permits in question are designed to allow appellee Pacific Motor Trucking Company, a wholly owned subsidiary of Southern Pacific Company, to perform a particular type of transportation service for appellee General Motors Corporation. Prior to issuance of these permits, Pacific Motor already had been authorized to conduct certain trucking activities in a number of States into which Southern Pacific’s extensive railway system penetrates. Without adverting to immaterial details, that authority may be described as follows: Pacific Motor held common carrier certificates from the Commission for the transportation of commodities, by way of service auxiliary to and supplemental of Southern Pacific rail service, over routes paralleling Southern Pacific lines in Oregon, California, Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas. It also held contract carrier authority from the State of California for intrastate transportation of trucks and automobiles. Finally, it had been granted contract carrier permits by the Commission for the transportation of automobiles, trucks, and buses from certain points in California to three nonrail points in Nevada, to two points on the Mexican border, to certain points in Los Angeles Harbor, and to points in Nevada located on the Southern Pacific line. These latter contract carrier permits did not contain restrictions designed to make the service auxiliary to and supplemental of Southern Pacific rail service. Pacific Motor’s only contract carrier shipper has been General Motors.
By the four applications which gave rise to the present controversy, Pacific Motor sought to extend the scope of its contract carrier service for General Motors.. It requested authorization from the Commission for the transportation of new automotive equipment from plants of General Motors at Oakland, Raymer, and South Gate, California, to various interstate destinations not included within its prior permits. Generally speaking, the first application, designated Sub 84, covered contract carrier service from the Oakland plants to points on the Southern Pacific line in Oregon; the second, Sub 35, covered similar service to three Nevada nonrail points; the third, Sub 36, covered transportation from the Raymer plant to points in Arizona which are stations on the Southern Pacific line; and the last — and broadest — application, Sub 87, covered transportation from the Oakland, Raymer, and South Gate plants to points in seven States, whether or not on the Southern Pacific line.
The Commission proceedings resulted in the grant of some, but not all, of the requested authority. On May 8, 1957, the Commission acted favorably on the Sub 84 application. 71 M. C. C. 561. However, the Commission thereafter consolidated the four applications and heard oral argument. On September 9, 1958, the Commission issued its final report, 77 M. C. C. 605, which may be described specifically enough for our purposes as authorizing transportation by Pacific Motor to the three additional Nevada nonrail points and to points on the Southern Pacific line in Nevada, Utah, Arizona, Oregon, and New Mexico. Otherwise, the applications were denied. There were certain other conditions imposed by the Commission, which we will detail later, but the major restriction was the limitation of points of destination to points on the Southern Pacific line.
Appellants — American Trucking Associations, Inc., its Contract Carrier Conference, the National Automobile Transporters Association, and six motor carriers — brought suit in Federal District Court to set aside the Commission’s order. See 28 U. S. C. § 1336. Appellees Pacific Motor and General Motors intervened in support of the order. The United States was named a party defendant, together with the Interstate Commerce Commission, but did not either participate in or oppose the defense. See 28 U. S. C. § 2323. A three-judge court, which was convened pursuant to 28 U. S. C. §§ 2325 and 2284, denied relief. 170 F. Supp. 38. Our appellate jurisdiction was invoked under 28 U. S. C. § 1253, and we noted probable jurisdiction. 361 U. S. 806. In this Court, the Commission opposes and the United States supports the appellants.
There is a preliminary challenge by Pacific Motor and General Motors to appellants’ standing, a challenge which was sustained by two members of the lower court. We disagree with this holding. Since the basis for our view on the problem of standing will be more readily appreciated after the merits of the case have been fully treated, we postpone our discussion of this matter.
The critical issue raised by appellants is whether the Commission exceeded its statutory authority by granting the permits in question to a railroad subsidiary without imposing more stringent limitations than it did. On this question, the lower court unanimously ruled against appellants. This judgment must be evaluated in the light of this Court’s previous decisions, set against the background of Commission practice.
Both the Commission and this Court have recognized that Congress has expressed a strong general policy against railroad invasion of the motor carrier field. This policy is evinced in a general way in the preamble to the 1940 amendments to the Interstate Commerce Act — the National Transportation Policy, 54 Stat. 899 — which articulates the congressional purpose that the Act be “so administered as to recognize and preserve the inherent advantages” of “all modes of transportation.” More particularly, Congress’ attitude is reflected by a proviso to § 5 (2) (b) of the Act, which enjoins the Commission to withhold approval of an acquisition by a railroad of a motor carrier “unless it finds that the transaction proposed will be consistent with the public interest and will enable such carrier to use service by motor vehicle to public advantage in its operations and will not unduly restrain competition.”
The Commission long ago concluded that the policy of the transportation legislation requires that the standards of § 5 (2) (b) — then § 213 (a) of the Motor Carrier Act of 1935, 49 Stat. 555 — be followed as a general rule in other situations, notably in applications for common carrier certificates of convenience and necessity under § 207. Kansas City Southern Transport Co., Common Carrier Application, 10 M. C. C. 221 (1938). And this Court has confirmed the correctness of the Commission’s conception of its responsibilities under both § 5 (2) (b) and § 207. See United States v. Rock Island Motor Transit Co., 340 U. S. 419; United States v. Texas & Pacific Motor Transport Co., 340 U. S. 450; Interstate Commerce Comm’n v. Parker, 326 U. S. 60. The Court has also taken cognizance of the congressional confirmation of the Commission’s policy by the 1940 re-enactment in § 5 (2) (b) of the provisions of § 213 (a), after some of the pertinent Commission decisions had been specifically called to Congress’ attention. See United States v. Rock Island Motor Transit Co., supra, at 432. And although the instant proceeding involves contract carrier applications and hence falls under § 209, the Commission in its opinion recognized that, for purposes of the relevance of the § 5 (2) (b) standards, there is no distinction between this type of case and proceedings arising under § 207. 77 M. C. C. 621-622. Nor can we discern any grounds for differentiation.
Thus it is evident that the policy of opposition to railroad incursions into the field of motor carrier service has become firmly entrenched as a part of our transportation law. Moreover, this general policy fortunately has not been implemented merely by way of a more or less unguided suspicion of railroad subsidiaries, but rather has evolved through a series of Commission decisions from embryonic form into a set of reasonably firm, concrete standards. The Commission’s opinion in the case at bar describes these standards as follows:
“The restrictions usually imposed in common-carrier certificates issued to rail carriers or their affiliates in order to insure that the service rendered thereunder shall be no more than that which is auxiliary to or supplemental of train service are: (1) the service by motor vehicle to be performed by rail carrier or by a rail-controlled motor subsidiary should be limited to service which is auxiliary to or supplemental of rail service, (2) applicant shall not serve any point not a station on the railroad, (3) a key-point requirement or a requirement that shipments transported by motor shall be limited to those which it receives from or delivers to the railroad under a through bill of lading at rail rates covering, in addition to the movement by applicant, a prior or subsequent movement by rail, (4) all contracts between the rail carrier and the motor carrier shall be reported to the Commission and shall be subject to revision if and as the Commission finds it to be necessary in order that such arrangements shall be fair and equitable to the parties, and (5) such further specific conditions as the Commission, in the future, may-find it necessary to impose in order to insure that the service shall be auxiliary to, or supplemental of, train service. . .
The key phrase in this summary is obviously “auxiliary to or supplemental of train service.” If a trucking service can fairly be so characterized, it is clear enough that there is compliance with the mandate of § 5 (2) (b) that the carrier should be able “to use service by motor vehicle to public advantage in its operations.” But if, on the other hand, the motor transportation is essentially unrelated to rail service, the railroad parent is invading the field of trucking, and, under normal circumstances, the National Transportation Policy is thereby offended.
It is this “auxiliary to or supplemental of” verbalization of the policy of § 5 (2) (b), as applied to § 207, that has found favor in this Court. See American Trucking Assns. v. United States, 355 U. S. 141; United States v. Rock Island Motor Transit Co., supra; United States v. Texas & Pacific Motor Transport Co., supra; Interstate Commerce Comm’n v. Parker, supra. Moreover, while the Court has not specified the more particularized restrictions which it might regard as essential constituents of the “auxiliary to or supplemental of” concept, it is significant that the Court in Rock Island apparently accepted the Commission’s view that the phrase implies a limitation of function, i. e., type of trucking service, and not merely a geographical limitation, i. e., place where the service is performed. 340 U. S., at 436-444.
But while the judicial and administrative current has run strongly in favor of auxiliary and supplemental restrictions on motor carrier subsidiaries of railroads, the Commission has determined, and this Court has agreed, that the public interest may sometimes be promoted by not imposing such limitations. A prime example is American Trucking Assns. v. United States, supra, where the trucking service was not being performed adequately by independent motor concerns. We there observed that the mandatory provisions of § 5 (2) (b) do not appear in § 207, and approved the Commission’s policy of not attaching auxiliary and supplemental restrictions where “special circumstances” prevail. We concluded:
“We repeat . . . that the underlying policy of § 5 (2) (b) must not be divorced from proceedings for new certificates under § 207. Indeed, the Commission must take ‘cognizance’ of the National Transportation Policy and apply the Act ‘as a whole.’ But ... we do not believe that the Commission acts beyond its statutory authority when in the public interest it occasionally departs from the auxiliary and supplementary limitations in a § 207 proceeding.” 355 U. S., at 151-152.
These, then, are the guiding principles which have been established by what has gone before and which mark the range of our inquiry in this case. Since, as we have indicated, the Commission believes, and we agree, that there is no relevant difference between a § 207 proceeding and a § 209 proceeding so far as the problem here involved is concerned, the decisive questions are: (1) Did the Commission impose conditions upon the permits issued to Pacific Motor under which the service to be rendered would be truly auxiliary to and supplemental of Southern Pacific’s rail service? (2) If not, was the Commission’s waiver of such restrictions justified by “special circumstances”?
The first question need not detain us long. The principal permits were qualified only by the following conditions: (1) the service was to be restricted to points which are stations on the Southern Pacific line; (2) “there may from time to time in the future be attached to the permits . . . such reasonable terms, conditions, and limitations as the public interest and national transportation policy may require”; and (3) Pacific Motor was to request the imposition of restrictions upon its outstanding certificates with respect to the transportation of automobiles and trucks.
The last restriction was designed to obviate any dual operation problem under § 210, and is not pertinent to the auxiliary and supplemental standard. See 77 M. C. C., at 624. The second condition obviously is no restriction at all on present operations, and hence can hardly be said to limit the trucking to an auxiliary or supplemental service. We so recognized in American Trucking Associations, where the certificates contained a similar restriction. 355 U. S., at 154. And the first limitation, upon which appellees principally rely, is but a geographical, not a functional, restriction. As we have noted, Rock Island gives strong support to the view there expressed by the Commission that the essence of auxiliary and supplemental limitation is functional control. While it may be true, as appellees argue, that such a geographical limitation is a necessary ingredient of an auxiliary and supplemental restriction, it does not by any means follow that this ingredient makes the whole. Moreover, we have the strongest evidence that the Commission did not believe that it did, since the Commission specifically refrained from imposing the most general, but obviously the most significant, restriction — that “the service by motor vehicle . . . should be limited to service which is auxiliary to or supplemental of rail service.” 77 M. C. C., at 622-623. The conclusion seems inescapable that the conditions imposed upon the permits to Pacific Motor, though undoubtedly “restrictions” in a general sense, were not limitations sufficient to hold Pacific Motor to a truly auxiliary and supplemental service.
Appellees urge that nonetheless there were “special circumstances” within the meaning of American Trucking Associations. Appellees point to various findings of fact by the Commission, such as the need of General Motors for a service of the type here involved, Pacific Motor’s experience and qualifications, and the unlikelihood that a significant amount of traffic would be diverted from rail to motor transportation even if the permits were granted. The difficulty with appellees’ argument is that the Commission did not find that considerations of this nature constituted “special circumstances” under the American Trucking Associations rule, but rather viewed them simply as supporting the basic determinations which it was required to make under § 209 (b) in order to issue a contract carrier permit to any applicant. And naturally we should not substitute our judgment for the Commission’s on a matter like this, for “[t]he grounds upon which an administrative order must be judged are those upon which the record discloses that its action was based.” Securities & Exchange Comm’n v. Chenery Corp., 318 U. S. 80, 87.
The Commission assigned but a single reason for not imposing the normal restrictions upon the Pacific Motor permits: to do so would compel Pacific Motor to conduct a common carrier service. Appellees support this decision upon the ground that the Commission is without authority under § 209 (b) to impose such character-destroying conditions upon a contract carrier permit. We need not determine whether the Commission possesses the power to attach such limitations, or, in the alternative, to award a common carrier certificate, since we believe that, in any event, the Commission’s reason is insufficient justification for its action. Assuming that the restrictions which would limit Pacific Motor’s operations to an auxiliary and supplemental service would also be incompatible with a contract carrier operation, and that the Commission was consequently powerless to impose those restrictions, this alone does not, in our view, meet the “special circumstances” test. There is, for example, no finding that independent contract carriers were unable or unwilling to perform the same type of service as Pacific Motor. In such a situation we do not believe that the policy of the Act allows the Commission to authorize service by Pacific Motor, limited only to points on the Southern Pacific line, simply because General Motors wants a contract carrier operation. If that desire of General Motors, in combination with the policy of the Act, disables a railroad subsidiary from obtaining the business, that is simply the result of the National Transportation Policy. This consequence, we believe, does not meet the compelling public interest standard established by American Trucking Associations. A contrary conclusion would open the door to approval of over-the-road contract trucking by railroad subsidiaries to most, if not virtually all, major destinations, and hence would greatly attenuate the safeguards which have been painstakingly erected to prevent railroad domination of trucking. Appellees say that these safeguards are no longer needed, because independent trucking is no longer an “infant industry.” This is an immaterial argument in this forum. We do not condemn the wisdom of the Commission's action. We simply say that the transportation legislation does, and that the pardoning power in this case belongs to Congress.
Thus the decision of the District Court must be reversed, because we conclude that the Commission fell into error of law. The question then arises whether there should be a remand which permits further proceedings. Appellants argue that there should not be, .because the Commission, according to appellants, found that there were no special circumstances aside from the alleged impossibility of imposing the usual restrictions upon a contract carrier. It is true that the Commission based the rail-point restriction upon “the absence of any showing of unusual conditions.” 77 M. C. C., at 623. But we cannot be certain that the Commission thereby intended to say that there were no special circumstances within the meaning of the American Trucking Associations principle. As we have pointed out, the rail-point restriction, standing alone, is different in kind from limitations which impose an auxiliary and supplemental service. Consequently, we cannot be sure that the Commission believes the same sort of circumstances determine the applicability of both types of restrictions. Moreover, the Commission’s discussion of this point is open to the interpretation that it was repeating some of its conclusions with respect to the § 209 (b) standards, e. g., “the effect which granting the permit would have upon the services of the protesting carriers.” See note 9, supra. Under these circumstances, we would be warranted in precluding further proceedings only if, by an independent search of the record, we were able to conclude that, as a matter of law, there are no factors present which the Commission could have regarded as special circumstances. Although the findings of the Commission which are reflected in its opinion do not seem to us to comply with the American Trucking Associations standard, as the silence of the Commission seems to imply, we are unwilling in a complicated proceeding of this nature to deal with this problem ab initio or to say that the Commission could not have made additional findings on the basis of the evidence had it been aware that the ground its decision rested upon was insuffi-eient. Consequently, under the particular circumstances of this case, we believe that it should be remanded to the Commission so that it can apply what we hold to be the applicable principles in such further proceedings as it may find to be consistent with this opinion.
The reversal and remand, however, will not include one aspect of the Commission’s action — the grant of authority to provide a service to three nonrail points in Nevada— which is not governed by the rationale of our opinion. This small segment of the controversy has been submerged in the dispute over the much broader permit covering transportation to rail points in various States. It is obvious, of course, that “special circumstances” would have to be present to justify this Nevada award. Ap-pellees maintain that there was such justification, and appellants have not established that it was lacking. Nor do we perceive any other reason to upset this award. Consequently, we affirm with respect to this particular permit.
There remains only the question of standing. Although the three-judge court concluded that the Commission had not exceeded its authority in this case, two members of the court also believed that “there was no showing of actual or anticipated direct injury such as would entitle [the appellants] to institute this action.” 170 F. Supp., at 48. In support of this conclusion, appellees rely principally upon Atchison, T. & S. F. R. Co. v. United States, 130 F. Supp. 76, aff’d per curiam, 350 U. S. 892. That decision held that certain railroads had no standing to challenge a Commission order authorizing acquisition by one motor carrier of others. Since the lower court in Atchison stressed the fact that the Commission there had not created any additional motor carrier service, the decision clearly is not in point. In the instant case, not only has the Commission created new operating rights, but they are rights in which appellants have a stake. And surely the statement by General Motors that it would not in any event give the business to any appellant cannot deprive appellants of standing. The interests of these independents cannot be placed in the hands of a shipper to do with as it sees fit through predictions as to whom its business will or will not go. The decision we believe to be controlling is not Atchison, but rather Alton R. Co. v. United States, 315 U. S. 15, where the Court confirmed the standing of a railroad to contest the award of a certificate to a competing trucker. We conclude, then, that appellants had standing to maintain their action to set aside the Commission’s order under the “party in interest” criterion of § 205 (g) of the Interstate Commerce Act, 49 Stat. 550, 49 U. S. C. § 305 (g), and under the “person suffering legal wrong ... or adversely affected or .aggrieved” criterion of § 10 (a) of the Administrative Procedure Act, 60 Stat. 243, 5 U. S. C. § 1009 (a).
Our disposition of the case makes it unnecessary to consider the other issues raised by appellants.
We have no desire to hamper the Commission in the discharge of its heavy responsibilities, and we have always recognized that the Commission has been given a wide discretion by Congress. But that discretion has limits; our decision in favor of the Commission in American Trucking Associations established the limits relevant to this case; and we conclude that those limits have been transgressed. Of course, in remanding the case we do not intend to circumscribe the Commission in determining whether appropriate “special circumstances” do exist in this instance which would take the case out of the otherwise conventional standards.
The judgment of the District Court is reversed and the case is remanded to that court with directions to remand to the Commission for such further proceedings, not inconsistent with this opinion, as may be appropriate.
It is so ordered.
With respect to the transportation from Oakland and Raymer, the States were Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Nevada, Utah, Arizona, and New Mexico. The proposed transportation from South Gate was to be to the same States, excluding New Mexico but adding Montana.
One Commissioner who concurred said that he would give broader authority; three Commissioners dissented from the grant; and of the three Commissioners who did not participate, one said that he would have joined the dissenters.
54 Stat. 906, as amended, 49 U. S. C. § 5 (2) (b).
49 Stat. 551, 49 U. S. C. §307.
49 Stat. 552, as amended, 49 U. S. C. § 309.
The first major Commission decision was rendered the year after enactment of the Motor Carrier Act of 1935. Pennsylvania Truck Lines, Inc., Acquisition of Control of Barker Motor Freight, Inc., 1 M. C. C. 101. In refusing approval of an acquisition unless certain conditions were met, a division of the Commission stated:
“. . . [W] e are not convinced that the way to maintain for the future healthful competition between rail and truck service is to give the railroads free opportunity to go into the kind of truck service which is strictly competitive with, rather than auxiliary to, their rail operations. The language of section 213 ... is evidence that Congress was not convinced that this should be done. Truck service would not, in our judgment, have developed to the extraordinary extent to which it has developed if it had been under railroad control. Improvement in the particular service now furnished by the partnership might flow from control by the railroad, but the question involved is broader than that and concerns the future of truck service generally. The financial and soliciting resources of the railroads could easily be so used in this field that the development of independent service would be greatly hampered and restricted, and with ultimate disadvantage to the public.” Id., at 111-112.
The development of Commission policy is traced in detail in Rock Island Motor Transit Co. — Purchase—White Line Motor Freight Co., 40 M. C. C. 457. See also the similar and lengthy discussion in United States v. Rock Island Co., supra, passim.
“The Commission asserts that the meaning of ‘auxiliary and supplemental’ . . . was not geographical. . . .
“What was in the Commission’s mind as to the meaning of auxiliary and supplemental at the time it issued its certificate, we cannot be sure. At present a motor service is auxiliary and supplemental to rail service, in the Commission’s view, when the railroad-affiliated motor carrier in a subordinate capacity aids the railroad in its rail operations by enabling the railroad to give better service or operate more cheaply rather than independently competing with other motor carriers. . . . The Commission has continually evidenced ... its intention to have rail-owned motor carriers serve in auxiliary and supplemental capacity to the railroads.
“The Commission has expressed its policy ... by the phrase, perhaps too summary, auxiliary and supplemental. Though the phrase is difficult to define precisely, its general content is set out in Texas & Pacific Motor Transport Co. Application, 41 M. C. C. 721, 726 [establishing generally the same conditions set forth in the text, supra, pp. 7-9] .... While the practice of the Commission has varied in the conditions imposed, the purpose to have rail-connected motor carriers act in coordination with train service has not. . . .” 340 U. S., at 439, 442-443.
See the detailed discussion in Rock Island Motor Transit Co. — Purchase — White Line Motor Freight Co., 40 M. C. C. 457. (“[T]here ... appears to have developed a tendency in rail-motor acquisition proceedings to treat the Barker case restrictions as geographical or territorial only in their intent rather than as substantive limitations upon the character of the service which might be rendered by a railroad or its affiliate under any acquired right.” Id., at 470.) See also Texas & Pacific Motor Transport Co. Common Carrier Application, supra, at 726. (“Since petitioner’s certificates limit the service to be performed to that which is auxiliary to or supplemental of the rail service of the railway, it is without authority to engage in operations unconnected with the rail service .... To the extent petitioner is performing or participating in all-motor movements on the bills of lading of a motor carrier and at all-motor rates, it is performing a motor service in competition with the rail service and the service of existing motor carriers; and, to the extent it is substituting rail service for motor-vehicle service, the rail service is auxiliary to or supplemental of the motor-vehicle service rather than the motor-vehicle service being auxiliary to or supplemental of rail service.”)
49 Stat. 554, as amended, 49 U. S. C. § 310.
Section 209 (b) provides in pertinent part:
“Subject to section 310 of this title, a permit shall be issued to any qualified applicant therefor authorizing in whole or in part the operations covered by the application, if it appears from the applications or from any hearing held thereon, that the applicant is fit, willing, and able properly to perform the service of a contract carrier by motor vehicle, and to conform to the provisions of this- chapter and the lawful requirements, rules, and regulations of the Commission thereunder, and that the proposed operation, to the extent authorized by the permit, will be consistent with the public interest and the national transportation policy declared in the Interstate Commerce Act; otherwise such application shall be denied. In determining whether issuance of a permit will be consistent with the public interest and the national transportation policy declared in the Interstate Commerce Act, the Commission shall consider the number of shippers to be served by the applicant, the nature of the service proposed, the effect which granting the permit would have upon the services of the protesting carriers and the effect which denying the permit would have upon the applicant and/or its shipper and the changing character of that shipper’s requirements. . . (Emphasis added.)
The italicized portion was added by an amendment of August 22, 1957, 71 Stat. 411, well before the Commission’s decision of September 9, 1958. Consequently, the Commission was required to apply the new standards. Ziffrin, Inc. v. United States, 318 U. S. 73, 78.
Section 209 (b) provides in part that the Commission “shall attach to [the permit] . . . such reasonable terms, conditions, and limitations, consistent with the character of the holder as a contract carrier ... as may be necessary to assure that the business is that of a contract carrier and within the scope of the permit, and to carry out . . . the requirements established by the Commission under section 304 (a) (2) and (6) of this title . . . .”
“Such restrictions hamper railroad companies in the use of their physical facilities — stations, terminals, warehouses — their personnel and their capital in the development of their transportation enterprises to encompass all or as much of motor transportation as the roads may desire. The announced transportation policy of Congress did not permit such development.” United States v. Rock Island Motor Transit Co., supra, at 443-444.
The rail-point limitation appears to have been designed primarily to prevent encroachment upon the business of competing rail carriers. Various railroads opposed the grant of authority before the Commission, but did not join in the federal court action.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
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 Burton
delivered the opinion of the Court.
This proceeding was instituted by the United States to cojidemn land as a site for a post office and customhouse in the City of Cape Girardeau, Missouri, in reliance upon several federal statutes, including the general Condemnation Act of August 1,1888, and the Public Buildings Act of May 25, 1926. The City and site were selected by the Federal Works Administrator and the Postmaster General acting jointly under the Public Buildings Act. The principal issue is: Was the Federal Works Administrator authorized by the foregoing statutes to acquire by condemnation land held in trust and used by the City for such public purposes as those of a local park, courthouse, city hall and public library?
In 1941, the United States petitioned the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri to condemn as a site for a United States post office and customhouse about one and one-half acres, near the center of the City of Cape Girardeau, together with the improvements thereon except a public library building. This site was part of a four-acre public park and the improvements to be condemned included a building used as the county courthouse and city hall, a memorial fountain, a small memorial monument and a portion of a bandstand. The library building apparently was to be removed by its owners on 30 days’ notice from the United States.
The petition included as parties defendant the City and County, numerous officials and all known and unknown heirs or others who might claim an interest in this site especially through those who conveyed it, in trust, in 1807 to the Commissioners of the District or, in trust, in.1820 to the inhabitants of the Town of Cape Girardeau. Respondent was the only defendant to file an answer. Finding that she had no interest permitting her to maintain the defenses she asserted, the District Court entered a preliminary decree in favor of the United States. On respondent’s appeal the Circuit Court of Appeals remanded the cause for further proceedings consistent with its opinion holding that the respondent had a special interest entitling her to object to the property being taken for a purpose destructive of the public use to which it had been dedicated by her ancestors. Carmack v. United States, 135 F. 2d 196.
In 1944, on retrial before a different judge, the District Court recognized the respondent as entitled to contest the condemnation and, at the direction of the Circuit Court of Appeals, heard evidence as to whether or not the officials of the United States acted capriciously and arbitrarily in selecting this site. It held that “the selection of the site described in the petition, under all the facts referred to, amounts in law to an arbitrary and unnecessary act” and dismissed the petition. United States v. Certain Land, Etc., 55 F. Supp. 555, 564. The Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the judgment on the ground that the Federal Works Administrator and the Postmaster General did not have sufficient statutory authority “to take the particular land sought to be condemned.” It then expressly found it unnecessary to consider whether or not the federal officials had acted “capriciously and arbitrarily.” United States v. Carmack, 151 F. 2d 881, 882. Because of the importance of the construction of the statutes authorizing the condemnation of land for federal uses, we granted certiorari. 327 U. S. 775.
Both the general Condemnation Act and the Public Buildings Act expressly authorized the acquisition of land by the United States by condemnation as a site for a United States post office, customhouse or courthouse. Neither Act expressly named the City or designated the site to be condemned in this case. Neither expressly stated whether or not sites already in use for conflicting federal, state or local public purposes were subject to condemnation. The Condemnation Act supplemented the federal right “to procure real estate for the erection of a public building or for other public uses,” by adding to it a general federal power of condemnation under judicial process to be exercised by an officer of the Government “whenever in his opinion it is necessary or advantageous to the Government to do so.” The Public Buildings Act, as an incident to an original $150,000,000 program, gave authority and direction to the Secretary of the Treasury (later substituting the Federal Works Administrator) “to acquire, by purchase, condemnation, or otherwise, such sites... as he may deem necessary,....” It specified that as to “buildings to be used in whole or in part for post-office purposes, the Federal Works Administrator, under regulations to be prescribed by him, shall act jointly with the Postmaster General in the selection of towns or cities in which buildings are to be constructed and the selection of sites therein:....” These Acts were natural means for Congress to adopt in putting its constitutional powers into use on a scale commensurate with the size of the nation and the need of the time. Neither Act imposed expressly any limitations upon the authority of the officials designated by Congress to exercise its power of condemnation in procuring sites for public buildings deemed necessary by such officials to enable the Government to perform certain specified functions. Far removed from the time and circumstances that led to the enactment of these statutes in 1888 and 1926, this Court must be slow to read into them today unexpressed limitations restricting the authority of the very officials named in the Acts as the ones upon whom Congress chose to rely.
The power of eminent domain is essential to a sovereign government. If the United States has determined its need for certain land for a public use that is within its federal sovereign powers, it must have the right to appropriate that land. Otherwise, the owner of the land, by refusing to sell it or by consenting to do so only at an unreasonably high price, is enabled to subordinate the constitutional powers of Congress to his personal will. The Fifth Amendment, in turn, provides him with important protection against abuse of the power of eminent domain by the Federal Government.
While in its early days the Federal Government filed its condemnation cases in the state courts, this Court, in Kohl v. United States, 91 U. S. 367, disposed of the idea that this was necessary. In that case, which has become the leading case on the federal power of eminent domain, Mr. Justice Strong also said:
“It has not been seriously contended during the argument that the United States government' is without power to appropriate lands or other property within the States for its own uses, and to enable it to perform its proper functions. Such an authority is essential to its independent existence and perpetuity. These cannot be preserved if the obstinacy of a private person, or if any other authority, can prevent the acquisition of the means or instruments by which alone governmental functions can be performed. The powers vested by the Constitution in the general government demand for their exercise the acquisition of lands in all the States. These are needed for forts, armories, and arsenals, for navy-yards and lighthouses, for custom-houses, post-offices, and courthouses, and for other public uses. If the right to acquire property for such uses may be made a barren right by the unwillingness of property-holders to sell, or by the action of a State prohibiting a sale to the Federal government, the constitutional grants of power may be rendered nugatory, and the government is dependent for its practical existence upon the will of a State, or even upon that of a private citizen. This cannot be. No one doubts the existence in the State governments of the right of eminent domain, — a right distinct from and paramount to the right of ultimate ownership. It grows out of the necessities of their being, not out of the tenure by which lands are held. It may be exercised, though the lands are not held by grant from the government, either medi-ately or immediately, and independent of the consideration whether they would escheat to the government in case of a failure of heirs. The right is the offspring of political necessity; and it is inseparable from sovereignty, unless denied to it by its fundamental law.... But it is no more necessary for the exercise of the powers of a State government than it is for the exercise of the conceded powers of the Federal government. That government is as sovereign within its sphere as the States are within theirs. True, its sphere is limited. Certain subjects only are committed to it; but its power over those subjects is as full and complete as is the power of the States over the subjects to which their sovereignty extends....
“If the United States have the power, it must be complete in itself. It can neither be enlarged nor diminished by a State. Nor can any State prescribe the manner in which it must be exercised. The consent of a State can never be a condition precedent to its enjoyment.” (Italics supplied.) Kohl v. United States, supra, 371-372, 374.
The Kohl case approved the condemnation of privately owned land, then subject to a perpetual leasehold, for a post office site in Cincinnati, Ohio, under an Act of Congress expressly naming that City but not expressly naming the site. The respondent here seeks, by judicial interpretation of the general Condemnation Act and the Public Buildings Act, to exclude from condemnation a particular site in Cape Girardeau selected for a post office by the appropriate federal officials. She depends upon the fact that the site already is being used by a governmental subdivision of Missouri for other public purposes impressed upon it by its private owners over a century ago. The principle of federal supremacy, so well expressed in the Kohl case, argues against such a subordination of the decisions of federal representatives to those of individual grantors or local officials as to the means of carrying out an admittedly federal governmental function.
It makes little difference that the site here sought to be condemned is held by the City in trust instead of in fee. The city government is not resisting the condemnation. The Federal Government can obtain, by voluntary conveyance, whatever title the City can convey. The weakness in the City’s right to sell or exchange this site arises from restrictions in the conveyance to it. Through the inclusion, as defendants, of all claimants who might rely upon such restrictions or might claim an interest through the grantors of this site, a decree of condemnation will dispose of the suggested defects. By giving notice to all claimants to a disputed title, condemnation proceedings provide a judicial process for securing better title against all the world than may be obtained by voluntary conveyance.
Both in themselves and from the relation of these Acts to the Constitution, we find substantial reason for making their broad language effective to its full constitutional limit. While the federal power of eminent domain is limited to taking property for federal public uses, the question of the existence of a federal public use presents no difficulty here because the constitutional power of Congress to establish post offices is express.
The considerations that made it appropriate for the Constitution to declare that the Constitution of the United States, and the laws of the United States made in pursuance thereof, shall be the supreme law of the land make it appropriate to recognize that the power of eminent domain, when exercised by Congress within its constitutional powers, is equally supreme. Mr. Justice- Bradley stated this principle clearly, while on circuit, in Stockton v. Baltimore & N. Y. R. Co., 32 P. 9, 19:
“The argument based upon the doctrine that the states have the eminent domain or highest dominion in the lands comprised within their limits, and that the United States have no dominion in such lands, cannot avail to frustrate the supremacy given by the constitution to the government of the United States in all matters within the scope of its sovereignty. This is not a matter of words, but of things. If it is necessary that the United States government should have an eminent domain still higher than that of the state, in order that it may fully carry out the objects and purposes of the constitution, then it has it. Whatever may be the necessities or conclusions of theoretical law as to eminent domain or anything else, it must be received as a postulate of the constitution that the government of the United States is invested with full and complete power to execute and carry out its purposes.”
The Fifth Amendment, to the Constitution says “nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.” This is a tacit recognition of a preexisting power to take private property for public use, rather than a grant of new power. It imposes on the Federal Government the obligation tó pay just compensation when it takes another’s property for public use in accordance with the federal sovereign power to appropriate it. Accordingly, when the Federal Government thus takes for a federal public use the independently held and controlled property of a state or of a local subdivision, the Federal Government recognizes its obligation to pay just compensation for it and it is conceded in this case that the Federal Government must pay just compensation for the land condemned.
The foregoing establishes the principle of the supremacy of a federal public use over all other uses in a clearly designated field such as that of establishing post offices. The Government here contends that the officials designated by Congress have been authorized by Congress to use their best judgment in selecting post office sites. It contends also that if the officials so designated have used such judgment, in good faith, in selecting the proposed park site in spite of its conflicting local public uses, the Federal Works Administrator has express authority to direct the condemnation of that site. We agree with those contentions. We find in the broad terms of the Public Buildings Act authority for the designated officials to select the site they did. We find, in both Acts, authority for them to acquire by condemnation the site thus lawfully selected. The judgment exercised by the designated officials in selecting this site out of 22 sites suggested, and out of two closely balanced alternatives, constituted an administrative and legislative decision not subject to judicial review on its merits. It was within the legislative power of Congress to choose or reject this site by direct action. It would have been within its legislative power to exclude from the consideration of its representatives this or other sites, the selection of which might interfere with local governmental functions. Such an exclusion would have been an act of legislative policy. We find no such express or necessarily implied exclusion in the broad language of these Acts.
In this case, it is unnecessary to determine whether or not this selection could have been set aside by the courts as unauthorized by Congress if the designated officials had acted in bad faith or so “capriciously and arbitrarily” that their action was without adequate determining principle or was unreasoned. The record presents no such issue here. The procedure followed in making the selection of the site showed extraordinary effort to arrive at a fair and reasoned conclusion. The site inspector, in his original report, recommended the park site as his second choice and demonstrated the reasonableness of a choice, by his superiors, of either of his first two selections. His estimate of divided community sentiment, with apparent community preference for the park site, indicates the absence of capriciousness and arbitrariness in the Government’s final selection of the park site. The popular referendum vote of 1612 to 1344 in favor of the transfer of the park site by the City to the Federal Government, in exchange for the Government’s transfer of its present post office site to the City, confirms his estimate. These federal officials had the right, if not the obligation, to consider at this time the necessity of disposing of the present post office site and of the single-purpose governmental building thereon. That issue inevitably would confront the Government at some time if a new site were chosen. The opportunity to exchange or sell the present site to the City in connection with the acquisition of the park site for a new post office was, therefore, a reasonable rather than a capricious consideration.
On the present record, the petitioner was entitled to a preliminary judgment of condemnation. The finding of the District Court on the second trial that the selection of the park site “amounts in law to an arbitrary and unnecessary act” appears, from the context, to have been a finding largely of the comparative undesirability and lack of necessity for the selection of that site and not to have been - a finding that the selection had been made without adequate determining principle and without reason. The comparative desirability and necessity for the site were matters for legislative or administrative determination rather than for a judicial finding. Even if the word “arbitrary,” as used by the District Court, was intended by it to have the ordinary meaning which that word has when used alone, we are unable to conclude on the record before us that the selection of the park site for a post office in Cape Girardeau was, as a matter of law, capricious and arbitrary in any sense that, under any construction of the Acts before us, would invalidate the selection here made.
The judgment of the Circuit Court of Appeals, therefore, is reversed and the cause remanded to the District Court for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
Reversed.
“... in every case in which the Secretary of the Treasury or any other officer of the Government has been, or hereafter shall be, authorized to procure real estate for the erection of a public building or for other public uses he shall be, and hereby is, authorized to acquire the same for the United States by condemnation, under judicial process, whenever in his opinion it is necessary or advantageous to the Government to do so,....” See. 1, Condemnation Act of August 1, 1888, 25 Stat. 357, 40 ü. S. C. § 257.
“To enable the Federal Works Administrator to provide suitable accommodations... for courthouses, post offices, immigration stations, customhouses, marine hospitals, quarantine stations, and other public buildings of the classes under the control of the Federal Works Agency in the States, Territories, and possessions of the United States, he is hereby authorized and directed to acquire, by purchase, condemnation, or otherwise, such sites and additions to sites as he may deem necessary,... Provided, That... insofar as relates to buildings to be used in whole or in part for post-office purposes, the Federal Works Administrator, under regulations to be prescribed by him, shall act jointly with the Postmaster General in the selection of towns or cities in which buildings are to be constructed and the selection of sites therein:....” 40 U. S. C. § 341. This is codified from § 1 of the Public Buildings Act of May 25,1926, 44 Stat. 630-631, as modified by Reorganization Plan I, §§ 301-303, 53 Stat. 1426-1427, 5 U. S. C. following § 133t. See also, 40 U. S. C. §§ 342-350 and the balance of the original Act.
The petition likewise relied upon the Declaration of Taking Act of February 26, 1931, 46 Stat. 1421, 40 U. S. C. §§ 258a-258e; Third Deficiency Appropriation Act, fiscal year 1937, 50 Stat. 755, 773; Federal Public Buildings Appropriation Act of 1938, 52 Stat. 818; and the Reorganization Act of 1939, 53 Stat. 561, 5 U. S. C. § 133, et seq., under which Reorganization Plan I was submitted to Congress and made effective July 1,1939,53 Stat. 813,5 U. S. C. § 133s.
The right of the respondent to contest the condemnation turns upon the effect of the deeds, executed by certain of her ancestors in 1807 and 1820, pursuant to which this site long has been put to local public use. Her interest, turning largely on Missouri law, was upheld by the Circuit Court of Appeals, following the first trial, Carmack v. United States, 135 F. 2d 196, and, as we do not have to question that interest in order to reach our decision, we do not reexamine it. Bd. of Regents, Normal School Dist. No. 3 v. Painter, 102 Mo. 464, 14 S. W. 938; Mott v. Morris, 249 Mo. 137, 155 S. W. 434; and 25 Stat. 357, 40 U. S. C. § 258. The proceeding to condemn the land being in. rem, the jurisdiction of the court does not turn upon her participation in the case. Cf. United States v. Dunnington, 146 U. S. 338, 352; In re Condemnation Suits by United States, 234 F. 443, 445.
See note 1, supra.
For the three foregoing quotations, see note 1, supra.
Nothing has been found in the legislative history of these Acts to indicate that Congress intended to give its agents less than the fullest possible authority of Congress in selecting cities and sites. See H. R. Rep. No. 132, 69th Cong., 1st Sess., especially minority views at pp. 6-7, 10, and H. R. Rep. No. 1223, 69th Cong., 1st Sess.; S. Rep. No. 197, 69th Cong., 1st Sess.; 67 Cong. Rec. 4023-4028, 8356-8357, 8359, 8494, 8567.
“No person shall... be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.” U. S. Const., Amend. V.
See also, Hanson Co. v. United States, 261 U. S. 581, 587, for emphasis on the all-inclusiveness of the general Condemnation Act of August 1,1888.
U. S. Const., Art. I, § 8, Cls. 7 and 18.
U. S. Const., Art. VI.
An appeal in Stockton v. Baltimore & N. Y. R. Co., supra, was dismissed in this Court, 140 Ü. S. 699, and, in the meantime, Mr. Justice Bradley’s statement was quoted with approval in Cherokee Nation v. Kansas Ry. Co., 135 U. S. 641, 656. See also, United States v. Gettysburg Electric Ry., 160 U. S. 668, 681; Luxton v. North River Bridge Co., 153 U. S. 525, 529-530.
When Congress has wished to subordinate its selection of state lands to state approval it has done so by express provision. In the Weeks Forestry Act of March 1, 1911, 36 Stat. 961, 962; 43 Stat. 1215; 45 Stat. 1010; 48 Stat. 955; 16 U. S. C. § 516, and the Migratory Bird Conservation Act of February 18,1929,45 Stat. 1222,1223; 16 U. S. C. § 715f, the consent of the state legislature to the federal acquisition of land is made an express condition of the acceptance of such land. Such consent does not deprive the state of civil or criminal jurisdiction over the land. 36 Stat. 963,16 U. S. C. § 480, and 45 Stat. 1224,16 U. S. C. § 715g. See also, The Upper Mississippi River Wild Life and Fish Refuge Act of June 7, 1924, 43 Stat. 650, 16 U. S. C. § 724.
The acquisition of federal legislative jurisdiction, as distinguished from federal title to the land, is a different matter. If the Federal Government desires exclusive legislative jurisdiction over land acquired by it, the Constitution indicates that the consent of the state in which the land is located is necessary. Art. I, § 8, Cl. 17, provides that “The Congress shall have Power... To exercise exclusive Legislation... over all Places purchased by the Consent of the Legislature of the State in which the Same shall be, for the Erection of Forts, Magazines, Arsenals, dock-Yards, and other needful Buildings;....” See Stockton v. Baltimore & N. Y. R. Co., 32 F. 9, 18, appeal dismissed, 140 U. S. 699. See also, Joint Resolution of September 11, 1841, 5 Stat. 468, and Rev. Stat. § 355, which formerly required the consent of state legislatures to federal purchases of certain sites as a condition of expending federal funds to pay for them. Since February 1, 1940, such consent has not been required except where the United States has sought “exclusive or partial” legislative jurisdiction. Unless and until the United States accepts such jurisdiction over lands acquired since February 1,1940, it is presumed conclusively that no such jurisdiction has been accepted. 54 Stat. 19; 54 Stat. 1083; 40 U. S. C. § 255. The exercise of exclusive legislative jurisdiction is not an issue in this case and, in any event, Missouri has consented to it. “The consent of the State of Missouri is hereby given in accordance with the seventeenth clause, eighth section of the first article of the Constitution of the United States to the acquisition by the United States by purchase or grant of any land in this State which has been or may hereafter be acquired, for the purpose of establishing and maintaining postoffices,....” Mo. Rev. Stat. Ann. (1939), § 12691.
See United States v. Cooper, 20 D. C. 104, 116, affirmed sub nom., Shoemaker v. United States, 147 U. S. 282; In re Rugheimer, 36 F. 369, 371.
When, however, a sovereign state transfers its own public property from one governmental use to another, or when the Federal Government takes property from state ownership merely so as to put it to a federal public use for which the state already holds it in trust, a like obligation does not arise to pay just compensation for it. See In re Certain Land in Lawrence, 119 F. 453; Stockton v. Baltimore & N. Y. R. Co., 32 F. 9, 19, appeal dismissed, 140 U. S. 699.
In the instant case, we deal with broad language employed to authorize officials to exercise the sovereign’s power of eminent domain on behalf of the sovereign itself. This is a general authorization which carries with it the sovereign’s full powers except such as are excluded expressly or by necessary implication. A distinction exists, however, in the case of statutes which grant to others, such as public utilities, a right to exercise the power of eminent domain on behalf of themselves. These are, in their very nature, grants of limited powers. They do not include sovereign powers greater than those expressed or necessarily implied, especially against others exercising equal or greater public powers. In such cases the absence of an express grant of superiority over conflicting public uses reflects an absence of such superiority. See United States v. Jotham Bixby Co., 55 F. 2d 317, 319, affirmed sub nom., C. M. Patten & Co. v. United States, 61 F. 2d 970, decree vacated as moot, 289 U. S. 705; In re Condemnations for Improvement of Rouge River, 266 F. 105; United States v. City of Tiffin, 190 F. 279, 281.
“Arbitrary” is defined by Funk & Wagnalls New Standard Dictionary of the English Language (1944), as “1....; without adequate determining principle;...” and by Webster’s New International Dictionary, 2d Ed. (1945), as “2. Fixed or arrived at through an exercise of will or by caprice, without consideration or adjustment with reference to principles, circumstances, or significance,... decisive but unreasoned;....”
“Capricious” is defined by Webster’s New International Dictionary, 2d Ed. (1945), as “2....; apt to change suddenly; freakish; whimsical; humorsome.” Cf. Fox Film Corp. v. Trumbull, 7 F. 2d 715, 727; Puget Sound Power & L. Co. v. Public Utility Dist. No. 1, 123 F. 2d 286, 290, cert. denied, 315 U. S. 814; United States v. Eighty Acres of Land, 26 F. Supp. 315, 319.
See also, United States v. Certain Parcels of Land, 30 F. Supp. 372, 379; United States v. Parcel of Land, 32 F. Supp. 718, 721.
It apparently followed regulations of the Federal Works Agency and Post Office Department as authorized by 5 U. S. C. §§ 22, 369; 40 U. S. C. §§ 341, 347. Among its principal steps were the following: June 12, 1940, approval of the general project for Cape Girardeau by Federal Works Administrator and Acting Postmaster General based upon the recommendation of the Commissioner of Public Buildings and the Fourth Assistant Postmaster General; July 23-26, 29-31, 1940, Post Office Inspector and Site Agent visited Cape Girardeau; August 20,1940, he submitted his recommendations, showing that he inspected 22 proposals, eliminated all but 6 on general grounds, carefully considered the remainder and submitted full report on 3. His first choice was to enlarge the present post office site; his second, to acquire the site here in controversy; his third, to acquire a site between the two. Further studies were made in Cape Girardeau or in Washington by the Associate Architect for the Federal Works Agency, the Fiscal Manager of 'the Public Buildings Administration and the Superintendent of the Division of Post Office Quarters in the Post Office Department. All wishing to be heard were heard. February 11,1941, the City Council passed an ordinance proposing an exchange of the park site for the present post office site and submitting this proposal to a special election. March 4, 1941, a majority of those voting in 8 of the 10 wards approved the exchange, the city-wide vote being 1612 to 1344. May 26, 1941, the Acting Commissioner of Public Buildings notified the Mayor of the Government’s acceptance of the proposed exchange. September 25, 1941, the Acting Administrator of the Federal Works Agency advised the Attorney General that, under authority of the Public Buildings Act, the Agency had contracted for the exchange. After referring to his failure to secure title by voluntary conveyance from the City in spite of the willingness of the City officials to make the exchange if they had legal authority to do so, he asked the Attorney General to file this condemnation proceeding. It was done November 22, 1941. In accordance with the opinion of the Circuit Court of Appeals after the first trial, the Government, on June 10, 1943, secured evidence of a formal joint action, signed personally by the Federal Works Administrator and the Postmaster General, expressly selecting the site in suit. This was included in the record of the second trial. The actions of June 12, 1940, and June 10,1943, refer to the project as one for a post office and courthouse, whereas the petition for condemnation refers to it as one for a post office and customhouse. This variation was not pressed in the litigation and is not material to the main issue of statutory construction.
The foregoing narration of the steps taken in this instance is not intended as an indication that all or any of them are essential to the exercise of the statutory authority to select sites in other cases. They are set forth to help demonstrate that, in the face of them, the selection here cannot be classed as “capricious and arbitrary,” under any appropriate definition of those words.
“Por First Choice I recommend that the present government-owned site be retained and that the adjoining property, Site 2 offered by H. Bermermann be purchased for $15,000, and that a counter offer be made to the owner of Site 3, Ella M. Drum to purchase this site for $600.
“This recommendation is made because it is believed that the present location is the most outstanding site in this city, and because of the numerous limitations on all of the other competing sites which would prevent an advantageous or desirable transaction.
“For Second Choice I have selected Site No. 1, the city-owned park, which could be developed into an attractive setting for the new building, and which could no doubt be secured in an exchange resulting in mutual benefit to the city and Government. The bid submitted by the City is not intended to be a final offer, and it is expected that after a review of the facts by the Site Committee a counter-offer could be made with respect to a definite area of about 175' x 215' within the park grounds and with respect to improvements in surrounding approaches, removal of trees and fountain, and demolition of present city building. The mayor and city council verbally agreed to favor any reasonable counter-offer to be made by the Government. It is my opinion that the government-owned site is valued at approximately $225 per front foot, whereas the park site has a value of about $100 per front foot, and this must be taken into consideration in submitting a counter-offer. The question of the City Council’s authority to make an exchange of this property is in dispute, but this could no doubt be settled by friendly condemnation proceedings, as the city officials are willing and desirous for the trade.”
“... the city park property, is actively favored by the City Council, and almost unanimously favored by the business men on Main Street....
“Because of the divergence of opinion, the Chamber of Commerce in a recent meeting decided not to make any official comment as to a certain location....
“The postmaster, who has no financial or personal interest in any of the locations, but who is conscientiously interested in civic development, regards the government-owned site as an outstanding location but recommends the city park as first choice because this trade would allow the city to retain a good improvement and allow the Federal Government to secure a site with attractive surroundings.”
The District Court said:
“The right of plaintiff to condemn the land must stand or fall on the determination by this court of the question, Did the Acting Administrator of Federal Works Agency and the Postmaster General, under the circumstances here presented, act arbitrarily and capriciously in selecting the site — was the act necessary ¶ The term 'arbitrarily and capriciously’ has been defined to mean an act done 'without adequate determining principle; not founded in the nature of things; not done or acting according to reason or judgment’; an unnecessary act.
“That this action was taken by the Joint Committee, with information in their possession with respect to availability of other sites which shows unquestionably that the action of the plaintiff is unnecessary and the site selected is not now, nor was it when selected, the most desirable and available.” (Italics supplied.) United States v. Certain Land, Etc., 55 F. Supp. 555, 557, 563.
United States ex rel. T. V. A. v. Welch, 327 U. S. 546; Rindge Co. v. Los Angeles, 262 U. S. 700, 708-710; Joslin Co. v. Providence, 262 U. S. 668, 678; Bragg v. Weaver, 251 U. S. 57, 58; Sears v. City of Akron, 246 U. S. 242, 251; Adirondack Ry. v. New York State, 176 U. S. 335, 349; Shoemaker v. United States, 147 U. S. 282, 298; Boom Co. v. Patterson, 98 U. S. 403, 406. See also: “The federal statute... does
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
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
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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 writ of certiorari is dismissed as improvidently granted.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer:
|
A
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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 antitrust complaint at issue in this case alleges that a group health plan’s practice of refusing to reimburse subscribers for psychotherapy performed by psychologists, while providing reimbursement for comparable treatment by psychiatrists, was in furtherance of an unlawful conspiracy to restrain competition in the psychotherapy market. The question presented is whether a subscriber who employed the services of a psychologist has standing to maintain an action under § 4 of the Clayton Act based upon the plan’s failure to provide reimbursement for the costs of that treatment.
HH
From September 1975 until January 1978, respondent Carol MeCready was an employee of Prince William County, Va. As part of her compensation, the county provided her with coverage under a prepaid group health plan purchased from petitioner Blue Shield of Virginia (Blue Shield). The plan specifically provided reimbursement for a portion of the cost incurred by subscribers with respect to outpatient treatment for mental and nervous disorders, including psychotherapy. Pursuant to this provision, Blue Shield reimbursed subscribers for psychotherapy provided by psychiatrists. But Blue Shield did not provide reimbursement for the services of psychologists unless the treatment was supervised by and billed through a physician. While a subscriber to the plan, McCready was treated by a clinical psychologist. She submitted claims to Blue Shield for the costs of that treatment, but those claims were routinely denied because they had not been billed through a physician.
In 1978, McCready brought this class action in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, on behalf of all Blue Shield subscribers who had incurred costs for psychological services since 1973 but who had not been reimbursed. The complaint alleged that Blue Shield and petitioner Neuropsychiatric Society of Virginia, Inc., had engaged in an unlawful conspiracy in violation of § 1 of the Sherman Act, 26 Stat. 209, as amended, 15 U. S. C. § l, “to exclude and boycott clinical psychologists from receiving compensation under” the Blue Shield plans. App. 55. McCready further alleged that Blue Shield’s failure to reimburse had been in furtherance of the alleged conspiracy, and had caused injury to her business or property for which she was entitled to treble damages and attorney’s fees under § 4 of the Clayton Act, 38 Stat. 731, 15 U. S. C. §15.
The District Court granted petitioners’ motion to dismiss, holding that McCready had no standing under § 4 to maintain her suit. In the District Court’s view, McCready’s standing to maintain a § 4 action turned on whether she had suffered injury “within the sector of the economy competitively endangered by the defendants’ alleged violations of the antitrust laws.” App. 17. Noting that the goal of the alleged boycott was to exclude clinical psychologists from a segment of the psychotherapy market, the court concluded that the “sector of the economy competitively endangered” by the charged violation extended “no further than that area occupied by the psychologists.” Id., at 18 (emphasis in original). Thus, while McCready clearly had suffered an injury by being denied reimbursement, this injury was “too indirect and remote to be considered ‘antitrust injury.’” Ibid.
A divided panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit reversed, holding that McCready had alleged an injury within the meaning of § 4 of the Clayton Act and had standing to maintain the suit. 649 F. 2d 228 (1981). The court recognized that the goal of the alleged conspiracy was the exclusion of clinical psychologists from some segment of the psychotherapy market. But it held that the § 4 remedy was available to any person “whose property loss is directly or proximately caused by” a violation of the antitrust laws, and that McCready’s loss was not “too remote or indirect to be covered by the Act.” Id., at 231. The court thus remanded the case to the District Court for further proceedings. We granted certiorari. 454 U. S. 962 (1981).
W I — t
Section 4 of the Clayton Act, 38 Stat. 731, provides a treble-damages remedy to “[ajny person who shall be injured in his business or property by reason of anything forbidden in the antitrust laws,” 15 U. S. C. §15 (emphasis added). As we noted in Reiter v. Sonotone Corp., 442 U. S. 330, 337 (1979), “[o]n its face, § 4 contains little in the way of restrictive language.” And the lack of restrictive language reflects Congress’ “expansive remedial purpose” in enacting § 4: Congress sought to create a private enforcement mechanism that would deter violators and deprive them of the fruits of their illegal actions, and would provide ample compensation to the victims of antitrust violations. Pfizer Inc. v. India, 434 U. S. 308, 313-314 (1978). See Brunswick Corp. v. Pueblo Bowl-O-Mat, Inc., 429 U. S. 477, 485-486, and n. 10, (1977); Perma Mufflers, Inc. v. International Parts Corp., 392 U. S. 134, 139 (1968); American Society of Mechanical Engineers v. Hydrolevel Corp., 456 U. S. 556, 572-573, and n. 10 (1982). As we have recognized, “[t]he statute does not confine its protection to consumers, or to purchasers, or to competitors, or to sellers.... The Act is comprehensive in its terms and coverage, protecting all who are made victims of the forbidden practices by whomever they may be perpetrated.” Mandeville Island Farms, Inc. v. American Crystal Sugar Co., 334 U. S. 219, 236 (1948).
Consistent with the congressional purpose, we have refused to engraft artificial limitations on the §4 remedy. Two recent cases illustrate the point. Pfizer Inc. v. India, supra, afforded the statutory phrase “any person” its “naturally broad and inclusive meaning,” id., at 312, and held that it extends even to an action brought by a foreign sovereign. Similarly, Reiter v. Sonotone Corp., supra, rejected the argument that the § 4 remedy is available only to redress injury to commercial interests. In that case we afforded the statutory term “property” its “naturally broad and inclusive meaning,” and held that a consumer has standing to seek a § 4 remedy reflecting the increase in the purchase price of goods that was attributable to a price-fixing conspiracy. 442 U. S., at 338. In sum, in the absence of some articulable consideration of statutory policy suggesting a contrary conclusion in a particular factual setting, we have applied § 4 in accordance with its plain language and its broad remedial and deterrent objectives. But drawing on statutory policy, our cases have acknowledged two types of limitation on the availability of the § 4 remedy to particular classes of persons and for redress of particular forms of injury. We treat these limitations in turn.
A
In Hawaii v. Standard Oil Co., 405 U. S. 251 (1972), we held that § 4 did not authorize a State to sue in its parens pa-triae capacity for damages to its “general economy.” Noting that a “large and ultimately indeterminable part of the injury to the.‘general economy’... is no more than a reflection of injuries to the ‘business or property’ of consumers, for which they may recover themselves under §4,” we concluded that “[e]ven the most lengthy and expensive trial could not... cope with the problems of double recovery inherent in allowing damages” for injury to the State’s quasi-sovereign interests. Id., at 264. See Reiter v. Sonotone Corp., supra, at 342.
In Illinois Brick Co. v. Illinois, 431 U. S. 720 (1977), similar concerns prevailed. Hanover Shoe, Inc. v. United Shoe Machinery Corp., 392 U. S. 481 (1968), had held that an antitrust defendant could not relieve itself of its obligation to pay damages resulting from overcharges to a direct-purchaser plaintiff by showing that the plaintiff had passed the amount of the overcharge on to its own customers. Illinois Brick was an action by an indirect purchaser claiming damages from the antitrust violator measured by the amount that had been passed on to it. Relying in part on Hawaii v. Standard Oil Co., supra, the Court found unacceptable the risk of du-plicative recovery engendered by allowing both direct and indirect purchasers to claim damages resulting from a single overcharge by the antitrust defendant. Illinois Brick, supra, at 730-731. The Court found that the splintered recoveries and litigative burdens that would result from a rule requiring that the impact of an overcharge be apportioned between direct and indirect purchasers could undermine the active enforcement of the antitrust laws by private actions. 431 U. S., 745-747. The Court concluded that direct purchasers rather than indirect purchasers were the injured parties who as a group were most likely to press their claims with the vigor that the §4 treble-damages remedy was intended to promote. Id., at 735.
The policies identified in Hawaii and Illinois Brick plainly offer no support for petitioners here. Both cases focused on the risk of duplicative recovery engendered by allowing every person along a chain of distribution to claim damages arising from a single transaction that violated the antitrust laws. But permitting respondent to proceed in the circumstances of this case offers not the slightest possibility of a du-plicative exaction from petitioners. McCready has paid her psychologist’s bills; her injury consists of Blue Shield’s failure to pay her. Her psychologist can link no claim of injury to himself arising from his treatment of McCready; he has been fully paid for his service and has not been injured by Blue Shield’s refusal to reimburse her for the cost of his services. And whatever the adverse effect of Blue Shield’s actions on McCready’s employer, who purchased the plan, it is not the employer as purchaser, but its employees as subscribers, who are out of pocket as a consequence of the plan’s failure to pay benefits.
B
Analytically distinct from the restrictions on the § 4 remedy recognized in Hawaii and Illinois Brick, there is the conceptually more difficult question “of which persons have sustained injuries too remote [from an antitrust violation] to give them standing to sue for damages under § 4.” Illinois Brick Co. v. Illinois, 431 U. S., at 728, n. 7 (emphasis added). An antitrust violation may be expected to cause ripples of harm to flow through the Nation’s economy; but “despite the broad wording of § 4 there is a point beyond which the wrongdoer should not be held liable.” Id., at 760 (Brennan, J., dissenting). It is reasonable to assume that Congress did not intend to allow every person tangentially affected by an antitrust violation to maintain an action to recover threefold damages for the injury to his business or property. Of course, neither the statutory language nor the legislative history of §4 offers any focused guidance on the question of which injuries are too remote from the violation and the purposes of the antitrust laws to form the predicate for a suit under §4; indeed, the unrestrictive language of the section, and the avowed breadth of the congressional purpose, cautions us not to cabin § 4 in ways that will defeat its broad remedial objective. But the potency of the remedy implies the need for some care in its application. In the absence of direct guidance from Congress, and faced with the claim that a particular injury is too remote from the alleged violation to warrant § 4 standing, the courts are thus forced to resort to an analysis no less elusive than that employed traditionally by courts at common law with respect to the matter of “proximate cause.” See Perkins v. Standard Oil Co., 395 U. S. 642, 649 (1969); Karseal Corp. v. Richfield Oil Corp., 221 F. 2d 358, 363 (CA9 1955). In applying that elusive concept to this statutory action, we look (1) to the physical and economic nexus between the alleged violation and the harm to the plaintiff, and (2), more particularly, to the relationship of the injury alleged with those forms of injury about which Congress was likely to have been concerned in making defendant’s conduct unlawful and in providing a private remedy under §4.
(1)
It is petitioners’ position that McCready’s injury is too “fortuitous” and too “incidental” to and “remote” from the alleged violation to provide the basis for a §4 action. At the outset, petitioners argue that because the alleged conspiracy was directed by its protagonists at psychologists, and not at subscribers to group health plans, only psychologists might maintain suit. This argument may be quickly disposed of.
We do not think that because the goal of the conspirators was to halt encroachment by psychologists into a market that physicians and psychiatrists sought to preserve for themselves, McCready’s injury is rendered “remote.” The availability of the § 4 remedy to some person who claims its benefit is not a question of the specific intent of the conspirators. Here the remedy cannot reasonably be restricted to those competitors whom the conspirators hoped to eliminate from the market. McCready claims that she has been the victim of a concerted refusal to pay on the part of Blue Shield, motivated by a desire to deprive psychologists of the patronage of Blue Shield subscribers. Denying reimbursement to subscribers for the cost of treatment was the very means by which it is alleged that Blue Shield sought to achieve its illegal ends. The harm to McCready and her class was clearly foreseeable; indeed, it was a necessary step in effecting the ends of the alleged illegal conspiracy. Where the injury alleged is so integral an aspect of the conspiracy alleged, there can be no question but that the loss was precisely “ ‘the type of loss that the claimed violations... would be likely to cause.’” Brunswick Corp. v. Pueblo Bowl-O-Mat, Inc., 429 U. S., at 489, quoting Zenith Radio Corp. v. Hazeltine Research, Inc., 395 U. S. 100, 125 (1969).
Petitioners next argue that even if the § 4 remedy might be available to persons other than the competitors of the conspirators, it is not available to McCready because she was not an economic actor in the market that had been restrained. In petitioners’ view, the proximate range of the violation is limited to the sector of the economy in which a violation of the type alleged would have its most direct anticompetitive effects. Here, petitioners contend that that market, for purposes of the alleged conspiracy, is the market in group health care plans. Thus, in petitioners’ view, standing to redress the violation alleged in this case is limited to participants in that market — that is, to entities, such as McCready’s employer, who were purchasers of group health plans, but not to McCready as a beneficiary of the Blue Shield plan.
Petitioners misconstrue McCready’s complaint. Mc-Cready does not allege a restraint in the market for group health plans. Her claim of injury is premised on a concerted refusal to reimburse under a plan that was, in fact, purchased and retained by her employer for her benefit, and- that as a matter of contract construction and state law permitted reimbursement for the services of psychologists without any significant variation in the structure of the contractual relationship between her employer and Blue Shield. See n. 2, supra. As a consumer of psychotherapy services entitled to financial benefits under the Blue Shield plan, we think it clear that McCready was “within that area of the economy... endangered by [that] breakdown of competitive conditions” resulting from Blue Shield’s selective refusal to reimburse. In re Multidistrict Vehicle Air Pollution M.D.L. No. 31, 481 F. 2d 122, 129 (CA9 1973).
(2)
We turn finally to the manner in which the injury alleged reflects Congress’ core concerns in prohibiting the antitrust defendants’ course of conduct. Petitioners phrase their argument on this point in a manner that concedes McCready’s participation in the market for psychotherapy services and rests instead on the notion that McCready’s injury does not reflect the “anticompetitive” effect of the.alleged boycott. They stress that McCready did not visit a psychiatrist whose fees were artificially inflated as a result of the competitive advantage he gained by Blue Shield’s refusal to reimburse for the services of psychologists; she did not pay additional sums for the services of a physician to supervise and bill for the psychotherapy provided by her psychologist; and that there is no “claim that her psychologists’ bills are higher than they would have been had the conspiracy not existed.” In promoting this argument, petitioners rely heavily on language in Brunswick Corp. v. Pueblo Bowl-O-Mat, Inc., supra.
In Brunswick, respondents were three bowling centers who complained that petitioner’s acquisition of several financially troubled bowling centers violated § 7 of the Clayton Act by lessening competition or tending to create a monopoly. In seeking damages, “respondents attempted to show that had petitioner allowed the [acquired] centers to close, respondents’profits would have increased.” Id., at 481. The Court of Appeals endorsed the legal theory upon which respondents’ claim was based, id., at 483, holding that “any loss ‘causally linked’ to ‘the mere presence of the violator in the market’” was compensable under §4, id., at 487. We reversed, holding that the injury alleged by respondents was not of “‘the type that the statute was intended to forestall.’” Id., at 487-488, quoting Wyandotte Transportation Co. v. United States, 389 U. S. 191, 202 (1967). Indeed, the Court noted that respondents sought in damages “the profits they would have realized had competition been reduced.” 429 U. S., at 488 (emphasis added).
We can agree with petitioners’ view of Brunswick as embracing the general principle that treble-damages recoveries should be linked to the procompetition policy of the antitrust laws. But petitioners seek to take Brunswick one significant step farther. In a passage upon which petitioners place much reliance, we stated:
“[Fjor plaintiffs to recover treble damages on account of § 7 violations, they must prove more than injury causally linked to an illegal presence in the market. Plaintiffs must prove antitrust injury, which is to say injury of the type, the antitrust laws were intended to prevent, and that flows from that which makes defendants’ acts unlawful. The injury should reflect the anticompetitive effect either of the violation or of anticompetitive acts made possible by the violation. It should, in short, be ‘the type of loss that the claimed violations... would be likely to cause.’ Zenith Radio Corp. v. Hazeliine Research, 395 U. S., at 125.” Id., at 489 (emphasis in original; footnote omitted).
Relying on this language, petitioners reason that McCready can maintain no action under § 4 because her injury “did not reflect the anticompetitive effect” of the alleged violation.
Brunswick is not so limiting. Indeed, as we made clear in a footnote to the relied-upon passage, a §4 plaintiff need not “prove an actual lessening of competition in order to recover. [Cjompetitors may be able to prove antitrust injury before they actually are driven from the market and competition is thereby lessened.” Id., at 489, n. 14. Thus while an increase in price resulting from a dampening of competitive market forces is assuredly one type of injury for which § 4 potentially offers redress, see Reiter v. Sonotone Corp., 442 U. S. 330 (1979), that is not the only form of injury remediable under § 4. We think it plain that McCready’s injury was of a type that Congress sought to redress in providing a private remedy for violations of the antitrust laws.
McCready charges Blue Shield with a purposefully anti-competitive scheme. She seeks to recover as damages the sums lost to her as the consequence of Blue Shield’s attempt to pursue that scheme. She alleges that Blue Shield sought to induce its subscribers into selecting psychiatrists over psychologists for the psychotherapeutic services they required, and that the heart of its scheme was the offer of a Hobson’s choice to its subscribers. Those subscribers were compelled to choose between visiting a psychologist and forfeiting reimbursement, or receiving reimbursement by forgoing treatment by the practitioner of their choice. In the latter case, the antitrust injury would have been borne in the first instance by the competitors of the conspirators, and inevitably — though indirectly — by the customers of the competitors in the form of suppressed competition in the psychotherapy market; in the former case, as it happened, the injury was borne directly by the customers of the competitors. McCready did not yield to Blue Shield’s coercive pressure, and bore Blue Shield’s sanction in the form of an increase in the net cost of her psychologist’s services. Although McCready was not a competitor of the conspirators, the injury she suffered was inextricably intertwined with the injury the conspirators sought to inflict on psychologists and the psychotherapy market. In light of the conspiracy here alleged we think that McCready’s injury “flows from that which makes defendants’ acts unlawful” within the meaning of Brunswick, and falls squarely within the area of congressional concern.
Ill
Section 4 of the Clayton Act provides a remedy to “[a]ny person” injured “by reason of” anything prohibited in the antitrust laws. We are asked in this case to infer a limitation on the rule of recovery suggested by the plain language of §4. But having reviewed our precedents and, more importantly, the policies of the antitrust laws, we are unable to identify any persuasive rationale upon which McCready might be denied redress under §4 for the injury she claims. The judgment of the Court of Appeals is
Affirmed.
With petitioner Blue Shield of Southwestern Virginia.
Petitioners contend that the contract between the county and Blue Shield must be read to bar payments for the services of nonphysicians. Respondent counters that between 1962 and 1972 Blue Shield routinely reimbursed subscribers for psychotherapy provided by psychologists, and that, this practice was revised in 1972 as a result of the alleged conspiracy. In addition, respondent notes that in 1973 the Virginia Legislature passed a “freedom of choice” statute, Va. Code §38.1-824 (1981), that required Blue Shield to pay for services rendered by licensed psychologists. See Virginia Academy of Clinical Psychologists v. Blue Shield of Virginia, 624 F. 2d 476, 478 (CA4 1980). She argues that Blue Shield’s obligations must be read consistently with that statute, at least until that statute was held invalid as applied in Blue Cross of Virginia v. Commonwealth, 221 Va. 349, 269 S. E. 2d 827 (1980). This case arises on a motion to dismiss. We therefore assume, as McCready has alleged, that but for the alleged conspiracy to deny payment, she would have been reimbursed by Blue Shield for the cost of her psychologist’s services.
Apparently Blue Shield inadvertently paid one of McCready’s claims. After the error was discovered, Blue Shield sought to obtain a refund from McCready for the amount paid. 649 F. 2d 228, 230, n. 4 (1981).
A similar complaint was filed by the Virginia Academy of Clinical Psychologists (VACP) and its president against the same defendants. The District Court addressed the motions to dismiss filed in each of the cases in a single opinion. The court dismissed McCready’s case — thus giving rise to the appellate decision at issue in this Court — but permitted the VACP case to proceed to trial. Following trial, the District Court entered judgment for the defendants, Virginia Academy of Clinical Psychologists v. Blue Shield of Virginia, 469 F. Supp. 552 (1979), but the Court of Appeals reversed with respect to defendant Blue Shield, 624 F. 2d 476 (CA4 1980). The opinion of the Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit in the instant case states that the opinion in VACP “should be read in connection with” its own opinion. 649 F. 2d, at 230. A brief recitation of the decision in the VACP ease is thus helpful in understanding the precise nature of McCready’s claim.
In VACP, the Court of Appeals rejected the District Court’s treatment of Blue Shield as a distinct entity for purposes of determining whether a conspiracy or agreement had been shown. 624 F. 2d, at 479. The court found that “the Blue Shield Plans are combinations of physicians, operating under the direction and control of their physician members.” Ibid.
“Blue Shield Plans are not insurance companies, though they are, to a degree, insurers. Rather, they are generally characterized as prepaid health care plans, quantity purchasers of health care services. [I]n a real and legal sense, the Blue Shield Plans are agents of their member physicians.” Id., at 480 (citations and footnote omitted).
With respect to the question whether the alleged Blue Shield combination was “in restraint of trade,” the Court of Appeals agreed with the District Court that the rule of reason was applicable, but held that the District Court had erred in finding no liability. The Court of Appeals observed that psychologists and psychiatrists compete in the psychotherapy market, and that the decisions of Blue Shield “necessarily dictate, to some extent,” who will be chosen to provide psychotherapy. Id., at 485. Finding that Blue Shield’s policy of denying reimbursement for the psychotherapeutic services of psychologists unless billed through physicians, was not merely a cost-containment device or simply “good medical practice,” as claimed by Blue Shield, the court held that Blue Shield had violated the Sherman Act. Ibid.
That section provides, in pertinent part, that “[ejvery contract, combination in the form of trust or otherwise, or conspiracy, in restraint of trade or commerce among the several States, or with foreign nations, is declared to be illegal.”
That section provides, in pertinent part:
“Any person who shall be injured in his business or property by reason of anything forbidden in the antitrust laws may sue therefor in any district court... and shall recover threefold the damages by him sustained, and the cost of suit, including a reasonable attorney’s fee.”
Petitioners have argued in this Court that under § 2 of the McCarran-Ferguson Act, 15 U. S. C. § 1012, their actions were exempt from the antitrust laws as part of the “business of insurance.” In ruling on petitioners' motion to dismiss, the District Court concluded that respondent had adequately pleaded a boycott beyond the protection of the McCarran-Fergu-son Act, 15 U. S. C. § 1013(b). Respondent points out that on a full factual record the issue was resolved against the petitioners in VACP, 624 F. 2d, at 483-484. The Court of Appeals did not address this question in the present case, however, and we do not reach it here.
Addressing the “target area” limitation on antitrust standing recognized in several Courts of Appeals, see n. 14, infra, the court concluded that the policies underlying that limitation were not implicated by McCready’s claim. 649 F. 2d, at 231-232. The dissenting judge took a contrary view of the “target area” rule. He emphasized that McCready had not described her injury “as a design or goal of any antitrust violation,” but “rather as a consequence thereof.” Id., at 232. He viewed this as the determinative factor in the proper application of the “target area” test to the facts of this case:
“In determining who has standing to sue, the courts must look at who the illegal act was aimed to injure. A bystander, who is not the intended victim of the antitrust violation but who is injured nonetheless, cannot sue under the antitrust laws. His injury is too remote.” Id., at 233.
In addition, the dissent argued that McCready was not within the sector of the economy “competitively endangered” by the alleged violation, agreeing with the District Court that “she operated in a market which was unrestrained so far as she was concerned.” Id., at 234. Finally, the dissent reasoned:
“The price of psychologists’ services to her was not increased by any act of the defendants. The fact that her Blue Shield contract... would not reimburse her for those services had nothing to do with the price she paid for the services, which... were not artificially inflated by an antitrust violation....
“... There is not even a claim that her psychologists’ bills are higher than they would have been had the conspiracy not existed.” Id., at 235-236.
In a related context we commented that “[i]n the face of [the congressional antitrust] policy this Court should not add requirements to burden the private litigant beyond what is specifically set forth by Congress....” Radovich v. National Football League, 352 U. S. 445, 454 (1957). See also Radiant Burners, Inc. v. Peoples Gas Co., 364 U. S. 656, 659-660 (1961) (per curiam) (To state a claim under § 1 of the Sherman Act, “allegations adequate to show a violation and, in a private treble damage action, that plaintiff was damaged thereby are all the law requires”).
Permitting McCready to maintain this lawsuit will, of course, further certain basic objectives of the private enforcement scheme embodied in § 4. Only by requiring violators to disgorge the “fruits of their illegality” can the deterrent objectives of the antitrust laws be fully served. Hanover Shoe, Inc. v. United Shoe Machinery Corp., 392 U. S. 481, 494 (1968). See Pfizer Inc. v. India, 434 U. S. 308, 314 (1978); Illinois Brick Co. v. Illinois, 431 U. S. 720, 746 (1977). But in addition to allowing Blue Shield to retain a palpable profit as a result of its unlawful plan, denying standing to McCready and the class she represents would also result in the denial of compensation for injuries resulting from unlawful conduct.
If there is a subordinate theme to our opinions in Hawaii and Illinois Brick, it is that the feasibility and consequences of implementing particular damages theories may, in certain limited circumstances, be considered in determining who is entitled to prosecute an action brought under §4. Where consistent with the broader remedial purposes of the antitrust laws, we have sought to avoid burdening § 4 actions with damages issues giving rise to the need for “massive evidence and complicated theories,” where the consequence would be to discourage vigorous enforcement of the antitrust laws by private suits. Hanover Shoe, Inc. v. United Shoe Machinery Corp., supra, at 493. Thus we recognized that the task of disentangling overlapping damages claims is not lightly to be imposed upon potential antitrust litigants, or upon the judicial system. See Hawaii v. Standard Oil Co., 405 U. S. 251, 264 (1972); Illinois Brick Co. v. Illinois, supra, at 741-742. In addition, while “[difficulty of ascertainment [should not be] confused with right of recovery,” Bigelow v. RKO Radio Pictures, Inc., 327 U. S. 251, 265 (1946), §4 plainly focuses on tangible economic injury. It may therefore be appropriate to consider whether a claim rests at bottom on some abstract conception or speculative measure of harm. See Hawaii v. Standard Oil Co., supra, at 262-263, n. 14. But like the policy against duplicative recoveries, our cautious approach to speculative, abstract, or impractical damages theories has no application to McCready’s suit. The nature of her injury is easily stated: As the result of an unlawful boycott, Blue Shield failed to pay the cost she incurred for the services of a psychologist. Her damages were fixed by the plan contract and, as the Court of Appeals observed, they could be “ascertained to the penny.” 649 F. 2d, at 231.
We addressed two issues of “remoteness” in Perkins v. Standard Oil Co., 395 U. S. 642 (1969). That case involved an alleged violation of § 2 of the Clayton Act, as amended by the Robinson-Patman Act, 15 U. S. C. § 13. Focusing on the substantive terms of § 2, we found no warrant in its “language or purpose” to engraft an “artificial” limitation on the reach of the remedy to bar what the court below had termed a “fourth level” injury. 395 U. S., at 648. We also rejected the claim that one form of damages claimed by the defendant was not the proximate result of the alleged violation. Id., at 649.
The Courts of Appeals have developed a more substantial jurisprudence on the subject of “remoteness,” formulating various “tests” as aids in analysis. Among the tests employed by the lower courts are those that focus on the “directness” of the injury, e. g., Loeb v. Eastman Kodak Co., 183 F. 704, 709 (CA3 1910); Productive Inventions, Inc. v. Trico Products Corp., 224 F. 2d 678 (CA2 1955); Volasco Products Co. v. Lloyd A. Fry Roofing Co., 308 F. 2d 383 (CA6 1962); on its foreseeability, e. g., In re Western Liquid Asphalt Cases, 487 F. 2d 191, 199 (CA9 1973); Twentieth Century Fox Film. Corp. v. Goldwyn, 328 F. 2d 190, 220 (CA9 1964); or on whether the injury is “arguably... within the zone of interests protected by the [antitrust laws]," e. g., Malamud v. Sinclair Oil Corp., 521 F. 2d 1142, 1152 (CA6 1975). See also n. 14, infra (“target area” test). The Third Circuit has concluded that “§ 4 standing analysis is essentially a balancing test comprised of many constant and variable factors and that there is no talismanic test capable of resolving all §4 standing problems.” Bravman v. Basset Furniture Industries, Inc., 552 F. 2d 90, 99 (1977). The Third Circuit has thus rejected the definitional approach, opting instead for an analysis of the “factual matrix” presented by each case. Ibid. We have no occasion here to evaluate the relative utility of any of these possibly conflicting approaches toward the problem of remote antitrust injury.
The traditional principle of proximate cause suggests the use of words such as “remote,” “tenuous,” “fortuitous,” “incidental,” or “consequential” to describe those injuries that will find no remedy at law. See, e. g., South Carolina Council of Milk Producers, Inc. v. Newton, 360 F. 2d 414, 419 (CA4 1966). And the use of such terms only emphasizes that the principle of proximate cause is hardly a rigorous analytic tool. See, e. g., Palsgraf v. Long Island R. Co., 248 N. Y. 339, 162 N. E. 99 (1928); id., at 351-352, 162 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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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.
PER CURIAM.
The writ of certiorari is dismissed as improvidently granted.
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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What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 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.
Tried and convicted in a Federal District Court for an offense against the United States, petitioner applied for leave to appeal his conviction to the Court of Appeals in forma pauperis. His application was denied. The case presents this question: What standard is to be applied by the lower federal courts in passing upon such applications? The articulation of a usable standard has been the source of considerable recent litigation. And, while we recognize that no single word or group of words can provide a precise formula that will dispose of every case, we think it appropriate to indicate in somewhat greater detail than in the past, the approach a Court of Appeals must take toward an indigent’s application for leave to take a direct appeal from his criminal conviction in forma pauperis.
Statutory provision for litigation in forma pauperis in the federal courts is made by 28 U. S. C. § 1915, authorizing “[a]ny court of the United States” to allow indigent persons to prosecute, defend, or appeal suits without prepayment of costs. Before discussing our understanding of the proper manner in which a Court of Appeals is to exercise its authority to allow a criminal appeal in forma pauperis, we believe it would be helpful to indicate briefly the law applicable to criminal appeals generally. The provisions of § 1915 can be understood and applied in such cases only when read together with the other provisions of the Judicial Code and the Federal Rules governing criminal appeals.
Present federal law has made an appeal from a District Court’s judgment of conviction in a criminal case what is, in effect, a matter of right. That is, a defendant has a right to have his conviction reviewed by a Court of Appeals, and need not petition that court for an exercise of its discretion to allow him to bring the case before the court. The only requirements a defendant must meet for perfecting his appeal are those expressed as time limitations within which various procedural steps must be completed. First, a timely notice of appeal must be filed in the District Court to confer jurisdiction upon the Court of Appeals over the case. Subsequently, designations of the transcript, a record on appeal and briefs must be filed in the appropriate forum.
The indigent defendant will generally experience no material difficulty in filing a timely notice of appeal. But thereafter he is immediately faced with court fees for docketing his appeal in the Court of Appeals and with the cost of preparing the record, including a stenographic transcript of at least portions of the trial proceedings. If he is unable to meet either or both of these expenses, he can perfect his appeal only by applying for leave to appeal in forma pauperis. The application, to be made to the District Court in which the defendant was convicted, must conform to the requirements of 28 U. S. C. § 1915 (a) and include, in affidavit form, the defendant’s representations of poverty, a statement of the case, and his belief that he is entitled to redress. The sole statutory language by which the District Court is guided in passing upon the application provides “[a]n appeal may not be taken in forma pauperis if the trial court certifies in writing that it is not taken in good faith.” 28 U. S. C. § 1915 (a).
What meaning should be placed on the “good faith” of which the statute speaks? In the context of a criminal appeal, we do not believe it can be read to require a District Court to determine whether the would-be appellant seeks further review of his case in subjective good faith, i. e., good faith from his subjective point of view. Such a construction would deprive the legislation of sensible meaning, there probably being no convicted defendant who would not sincerely wish a Court of Appeals to review his conviction. Further, a subjective standard might suggest that only persons who, in good conscience, could insist on their innocence, are to be entitled to a review of their convictions without payment of costs. We believe this interpretation of the statute is not required by reason nor is it consistent with the sound administration of criminal justice in the federal courts. We hold, instead, that “good faith” in this context must be judged by an objective standard. We consider a defendant’s good faith in this type of case demonstrated when he seeks appellate review of any issue not frivolous. In so doing, we note that if in forma pauperis litigation is attempted for reasons that may genuinely be characterized as the litigant’s “bad faith,” express authority exists in 28 U. S. C. § 1915 (d) for dismissal of the cause as frivolous.
If the District Court finds the application is not in good faith, and therefore denies leave to appeal in forma pauperis, the defendant may seek identical relief from the Court of Appeals. In considering such an application addressed to it, the Court of Appeals will have before it what is usually the pro se pleading of a layman and the certificate of a district judge that the applicant lacks “good faith” in seeking appellate review. The District Court’s certificate is not conclusive, although it is, of course, entitled to weight. However, we have recognized that the materials before the Court of Appeals at this stage of the proceedings are generally inadequate for passing upon the defendant’s application. Nevertheless, if from the face of the papers he has filed, it is apparent that the applicant will present issues for review not clearly frivolous, the Court of Appeals should then grant leave to appeal in forma pauperis, appoint counsel to represent the appellant and proceed to consideration of the appeal on the merits in the same manner that it considers paid appeals. If, on the other hand, the claims made or the issues sought to be raised by the applicant are such that their substance cannot adequately be ascertained from the face of the defendant’s application, the Court of Appeals must provide the would-be appellant with both the assistance of counsel and a record of sufficient completeness to enable him to attempt to make a showing that the District Court’s certificate of lack of “good faith” is in error and that leave to proceed with the appeal in forma pauperis should be allowed. If, with such aid, the applicant then presents any issue for the court’s consideration not clearly frivolous, leave to proceed in forma pauperis must be allowed.
In so holding we have been impelled by considerations beyond the corners of 28 U. S. C. § 1915, considerations that it is our duty to assure to the greatest degree possible, within the statutory framework for appeals created by Congress, equal treatment for every litigant before the bar. We have expressed this view in a case comparable to the one before us here by holding that
“[u]nless the issues raised [by the indigent seeking leave to appeal in forma pauperis] are so frivolous that the appeal would be dismissed in the case of a nonindigent litigant, Fed. Rules Crim. Proc. 39 (a), the request of an indigent for leave to appeal in forma pauperis must be allowed.” Ellis v. United States, 356 U. S. 674, 675.
The point of equating the test for allowing a pauper’s appeal to the test for dismissing paid eases, is to assure equality of consideration for all litigants. The equation is intended to place the burdens of proof and persuasion in all cases on the same party — in these cases, on the Government. Since our statutes and rules make an appeal in a criminal case a matter of right, the burden of showing that that right has been abused through the prosecution of frivolous litigation should, at all times, be on the party making the suggestion of frivolity. It is not the burden of the petitioner to show that his appeal has merit, in the sense that he is bound, or even likely, to prevail ultimately. He is to be heard, as is any appellant in a criminal case, if he makes a rational argument on the law or facts. It is the burden of the Government, in opposing an attempted criminal appeal in forma pauperis, to show that the appeal is lacking in merit, indeed, that it is so lacking in merit that the court would dismiss the case on motion of the Government, had the case been docketed and a record been filed by an appellant able to afford the expense of complying with those requirements. If it were the practice of a Court of Appeals to screen the paid appeals on its docket for frivolity, without hearing oral argument, reviewing a record of the trial proceedings or considering full briefs, paupers could, of course, be bound by the same rules. But, if the practice of the Court of Appeals is to defer rulings on motions to dismiss paid appeals until the court has had the benefit of hearing argument and considering briefs and an adequate record, we hold it must no less accord the poor person the same procedural rights.
Two additional factors have relevance to our view of the proper disposition of motions for leave to perfect criminal appeals in forma pauperis. These factors are the foundation for Rule 39 (d) of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure, specifying that preference shall be given by the Courts of Appeals to criminal cases. This Rule, first, acknowledges the importance to the sovereign, to the accused and to society of a criminal prosecution. When society acts to deprive one of its . members of his life, liberty or property, it takes its most awesome steps. No general respect for, nor adherence to, the law as a whole can well be expected without judicial recognition of the paramount need for prompt, eminently fair and sober criminal law procedures. The methods we employ in the enforcement of our criminal law have aptly been called the measures by which the quality of our civilization may be judged. Second, the preference to be accorded criminal appeals recognizes the need for speedy disposition of such cases. Delay in the final judgment of conviction, including its appellate review, unquestionably erodes the efficacy of law enforcement.
Both of these considerations are particularly pertinent to criminal appeals in forma pauperis. Statistics compiled in the court below illustrate the undeniable fact that as many meritorious criminal cases come before that court through applications for leave to proceed in forma pau-peris as on the paid docket, and that no a priori justification can be found for considering them, as a class, to be more frivolous than those in which costs have been paid. Even-handed administration of the criminal law demands that these cases be given no less consideration than others on the courts’ dockets. Particularly since litigants in forma pauperis may, in the trial court, have suffered disadvantages in the defense of their cases inherent in their impecunious condition, is appellate review of their cases any less searching than that accorded paid appeals inappropriate. Indigents’ appeals from criminal convictions cannot be used as a convenient valve for reducing the pressures of work on the courts. If there are those who insist on pursuing frivolous litigation, the courts are not powerless to dismiss or otherwise discourage it. But if frivolous litigation exists, we are not persuaded that it is concentrated in this narrow, yet vital, area of judicial duty.
Similarly, statistics demonstrate the inevitable delay that surrounds a procedure in which the courts give piecemeal attention to the series of motions that indigents must make before a final adjudication of the merits of their cases is reached. Delays described in years between trial and final decision in criminal cases are the unhappy result of separate considerations of motions for the appointment of counsel, for the preparation of a transcript of the trial proceedings and, ultimately, for the leave to appeal in forma pauperis. The case before us illustrates the point. Petitioner was indicted on June 16, 1958, for offenses alleged to have been committed in early December 1957. He was first tried and convicted in December 1958. Leave to appeal in forma pauperis was granted by the District Court, and on June 23, 1959, the Court of Appeals reversed the conviction and remanded the case for a new trial. 106 U. S. App. D. C. 275, 272 F. 2d 504. In October 1959, new counsel was appointed by the District Court to represent petitioner at his second trial. Pre-trial motions were argued in the District Court in December 1959 and January 1960, and petitioner’s trial took place in the first week of March 1960. Petitioner was convicted and then sentenced on March 11, 1960. On March 22, 1960, the District Court denied an application for leave to appeal in forma 'pauperis. An application for leave to appeal in forma pauperis was then directed to the Court of Appeals, and was filed in that court on April 15, 1960. On April 20, that court appointed counsel to represent petitioner, and on June 15, 1960, counsel filed a 30-page memorandum in support of the petition for leave to appeal. The following day, the Government answered with a memorandum stating that it believed it appropriate for the court to order the preparation of a transcript at government expense before ruling on the petition for leave to appeal. Petitioner objected to this procedure on the grounds that his memorandum sufficiently indicated that non-frivolous issues were present in his case and that further delay in allowing the appeal was, therefore, unwarranted. On July 1, 1960, the Court of Appeals ordered the preparation of a transcript at the expense of the United States. The transcript became available August 15, 1960, and the Government’s opposition to petitioner’s application for leave to appeal in forma pauperis was filed, pursuant to an extension of time granted by the court, on September 2, 1960. The Government, misconceiving the issue as we understand it, claimed the points sought to be raised were “not sufficiently substantial” to warrant an appeal in forma pauperis; it did not suggest the appeal sought was “frivolous.” Petitioner filed a reply memorandum on September 8. On November 5,1960, the court, one judge dissenting, denied the petition for leave to appeal in forma pauperis. The petition for certiorari was filed in this Court on November 16,1960, and was granted on June 19, 1961. 366 U. S. 959. We heard oral argument in December 1961, and our present disposition of the case, remanding it for reconsideration by the Court of Appeals on an intermediary step, still far from the end of petitioner’s course through the courts on his original conviction, is now ordered more than four years after the commission of the offenses for which petitioner was tried and more than two years from the date of the trial and judgment petitioner seeks to have reviewed.
In the light of this delay, it is not surprising that petitioner asks us to reach the merits of his case immediately. However, delay alone, unfortunate though it is, is not sufficient cause to bypass the orderly processes of judicial review. Contrary to the Government’s assertion here that petitioner has already received what amounts to plenary review of the conviction following his second trial, we hold petitioner has not yet received the benefits of presenting either oral argument or full briefs on the merits of his claims to the court first charged with the supervision of the trial court. The memoranda prepared by counsel in support of petitioner’s application for leave to appeal in forma pauperis were not intended to be, nor are they rightly considered as, full appellate briefs. But they do serve to demonstrate that petitioner sought consideration of issues that it would be difficult for an appellate court to consider so patently frivolous as to require a dismissal of petitioner’s case without full briefing or argument. In so saying, we need not, and do not, express any opinion on whether petitioner’s conviction should ultimately be affirmed or reversed. We only hold that taken as a whole, petitioner’s various claims cannot justify the summary disposition of his case ordered below.
The first of numerous claims asserted by the petitioner is that the indictment against him was procured through the use of perjured testimony before the grand jury. This Court has not yet decided whether such a charge, if proven, would require the reversal of a criminal conviction based upon an indictment returned by a grand jury hearing the perjury. But we have granted certiorari and given full consideration to related issues in other cases. See, e. g., Costello v. United States, 350 U. S. 359 (hearsay evidence considered by grand jury); Lawn v. United States, 355 U. S. 339 (illegally seized evidence considered by grand jury); Beck v. Washington, post, p. 541 (alleged inflammatory publicity surrounding state grand jury deliberations).
Petitioner also claims that he has been unable to prove his charge that perjured testimony was presented to the grand jury because of the refusal of the courts below to permit him to examine the transcript of the grand jury’s proceedings. Again, although in the particular context of this case access to the normally secret minutes of the grand jury may ultimately be held to have been properly denied, recent volumes of the United States Reports and the Federal Reporter include a number of opinions in which the extent of the secrecy normally attached to grand jury minutes has been explored.
A number of other arguable claims were also made by petitioner to support his application for leave to appeal. But we believe those mentioned would alone have warranted the allowance of an appeal in forma pauperis. They meet the test of being sufficiently reasonable to withstand a claim that their frivolity is so manifest that they merit no further argument or consideration, and that dismissal of petitioner’s case is, therefore, in order. 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.
It is so ordered.
Mr. Justice Frankfurter took no part in the decision of this case.
Mr. Justice White took no part in the consideration or decision of this case.
During the past five Terms of the Court, we have found it necessary to vacate and remand for reconsideration 14 cases in which a Court of Appeals has applied an erroneous standard in passing on an indigent’s application for leave to appeal. Johnson v. United States, 352 U. S. 565; Farley v. United States, 354 U. S. 521; Delbridge v. United States, 354 U. S. 906; Edwards v. United States, 355 U. S. 36; Ellis v. United States, 356 U. S. 674; Hill v. United States, 356 U. S. 704; Cash v. United States, 357 U. S. 219; Hansford v. United States, 357 U. S. 578; Kitchens v. United States, 358 U. S. 42; Smith v. United States, 358 U. S. 281; Smith v. United States, 361 U. S. 13; Smith v. United States, 361 U. S. 38; McAbee v. United States, 361 U. S. 537; Lurk v. United States, 366 U. S. 712. See also Page v. United States, 359 U. S. 116; Willis v. United States, 362 U. S. 216. Cf. Simcox v. Madigan, 366 U. S. 765; Ragan v. Cox, 369 U. S. 437.
28 U. S. C. §§ 1291, 1294; Fed. Rules Crim. Proc. 37 (a). Cf. Carroll v. United States, 354 U. S. 394, 400-401.
Fed. Rules Crim. Proc. 37 (a); United States v. Robinson, 361 U. S. 220.
Fed. Rules Crim. Proc. 39 (c) (record on appeal to be docketed in Court of Appeals within 40 days of filing of notice of appeal) ; Rules of the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit 33 (b) (application for copies of stenographic transcript of trial proceedings to be made within 3 days of filing of notice of appeal, or within 10 days if appellant is incarcerated), 33 (c) (appellant’s designation of record on appeal to be filed within 20 days of filing notice of appeal), 18 (a) (appellant’s briefs due within 20 days of filing record on appeal).
Although the timely filing of a notice of appeal is a jurisdictional prerequisite for perfecting an appeal, United States v. Robinson, 361 U. S. 220, a liberal view of papers filed by indigent and incarcerated defendants, as equivalents of notices of appeal, has been used to preserve the jurisdiction of the Courts of Appeals. See, e. g., Lemke v. United States, 346 U. S. 325 (notice of appeal filed prior to judgment); O’Neal v. United States, 272 F. 2d 412 (C. A. 5th Cir.) (appeal bond filed in District Court); Tillman v. United States, 268 F. 2d 422 (C. A. 5th Cir.) (application for leave to appeal in forma pauperis filed in District Court); Belton v. United States, 104 U. S. App. D. C. 81, 259 F. 2d 811 (letter written to District Court); Williams v. United States, 88 U. S. App. D. C. 212, 188 F. 2d 41 (notice of appeal delivered to prison officials for forwarding to District Court). See also Jordan v. United States District Court, 98 U. S. App. D. C. 160, 233 F. 2d 362, vacated on other grounds sub nom. Jordan v. United States, 352 U. S. 904 (mandamus petition filed in Court of Appeals held equivalent of notice of appeal from judgment in proceeding pursuant to 28 U. S. C. § 2255); West v. United States, 94 U. S. App. D. C. 46, 222 F. 2d 774 (petition for leave to appeal in forma pauperis filed in Court of Appeals held equivalent in § 2255 ease).
Further, Fed. Rules Crim. Proc. 37 (a)(2) expressly provides:
“When a court after trial imposes sentence upon a defendant not represented by counsel, the defendant shall be advised of his right to appeal and if he so requests, the clerk shall prepare and file forthwith a notice of appeal on behalf of the defendant.”
The salutary purpose of this provision may, however, not be achieved when the defendant appears at sentencing with counsel. If neither counsel, whether retained or court appointed, nor the district judge imposing sentence, notifies the defendant of the requirement for filing a prompt notice of appeal, the right of appeal may irrevocably be lost. Cf. Hodges v. United States, 108 U. S. App. D. C. 375, 282 F. 2d 858, cert. granted, 365 U. S. 810, cert. dismissed as improvidently granted, 368 U. S. 139, 140-141 (dissent); Lewis and Simms v. United States, 107 U. S. App. D. C. 353, 278 F. 2d 33, 111 U. S. App. D. C. 13, 294 F. 2d 209.
The fee for docketing an appeal in the Court of Appeals is $25. Stenographic transcripts in the federal courts cost $0.65 per page for the first copy, and $0.30 per page for additional copies. Transcripts in excess of 100 pages are not uncommon. The cost of printing briefs, records, and appendices, as illustrated by the present charge for printing records in this Court, may be $3.80 per page or more. The printing requirements are generally waived in appeals proceeding in forma pauperis. Cf. Fed. Rules Civ. Proc. 75 (m). But if, in such cases, printing is required by the Court of Appeals, the expense is borne by the United States. 28 U. S. C. § 1915 (b).
The statute appears to contemplate an initial application to the District Court by providing “An appeal may not be taken in forma pauperis if the trial court certifies in writing that it is not taken in good faith.” 28 U. S. C. § 1915 (a). And this is the manner in which the statute has been interpreted. See, e. g., West v. United States, 94 U. S. App. D. C. 46, 222 F. 2d 774; Waterman v. McMillan, 77 U. S. App. D. C. 310, 135 F. 2d 807; Murrey v. United States, 134 F. 2d 956 (C. A. 8th Cir.); Bayless v. Johnston, 127 F. 2d 531 (C. A. 9th Cir.). And see Rules of the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit 41 (a). But cf. Jordan v. United States District Court, 98 U. S. App. D. C. 160, 163, 233 F. 2d 362, 365 note 3, vacated on other grounds sub nom. Jordan v. United States, 352 U. S. 904.
In discussing the “good faith” requirement of what is now 28 U. S. C. § 1915 (a), Senator Bacon of the Senate Judiciary Committee said:
“When a judge has heard a case and it is about to be carried to an appellate court, he ... is in a position to judge whether it is a case proceeding captiously, or viciously, or with prejudice, or from any other improper motive, or whether the litigant is proceeding in good faith.” 45 Cong. Rec. 1533 (1910).
However, he was discussing primarily civil suits. And see Jaffe v. United States, 246 F. 2d 760 (C. A. 2d Cir.) (civil case). But in criminal cases cf. Cash v. United States, 104 U. S. App. D. C. 265, 269, 261 F. 2d 731, 735, vacated, 357 U. S. 219; Parsell v. United States, 218 F. 2d 232 (C. A. 5th Cir.). See also United States v. Visconti, 261 F. 2d 215 (C. A. 2d Cir.) (proceeding under 28 U. S. C. § 2255).
And see Fed. Rules Grim. Proc. 39 (a); Fed. Rules Civ. Proc. 12 (f).
28 U. S. C. § 1915 expressly authorizes “[a]ny court of the United States” to permit a litigant to proceed in forma pauperis. Thus it is not necessary to consider the application to the Court of Appeals a separate “appeal” from the order of the District Court denying relief, to which the time requirements of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure would be applicable as they are to appeals in other ancillary post-conviction proceedings. Cf. Roberts v. United States District Court, 339 U. S. 844, 845. The court below has, by its own Rule 41 (b), required all persons seeking leave to appeal a judgment of the District Court in forma pauperis, to apply for such leave from the Court of Appeals within 30 days of the date on which their applications for such relief from the District Court have been denied. The instant petitioner has complied with this Rule.
Johnson v. United States, 352 U. S. 565, 566.
Johnson v. United States, 352 U. S. 565, 566. See also Farley v. United States, 354 U. S. 521; Ellis v. United States, 356 U. S. 674; Whitt v. United States, 104 U. S. App. D. C. 1, 259 F. 2d 158.
Cf. Griffin v. Illinois, 351 U. S. 12, in which we were presented with a state law requiring defendants in all criminal cases in that State to furnish a bill of exceptions to the appellate court in which they sought review of their convictions. The bill of exceptions was difficult, if not impossible, to prepare without a stenographic transcript of the trial proceedings. Persons sentenced to death received transcripts at the expense of the State; all others were required to purchase a transcript. We found the failure of the State to provide for appellate review for indigents in non-capital cases, when such review was available for all defendants able to purchase transcripts, an “invidious discrimination” inconsistent with the guarantees of due process and equal protection of the laws of the Fourteenth Amendment. See also Eskridge v. Washington State Board, 357 U. S. 214; Ross v. Schneckloth, 357 U. S. 575; Burns v. Ohio, 360 U. S. 252; Douglas v. Green, 363 U. S. 192; McCrary v. Indiana, 364 U. S. 277; Smith v. Bennett, 365 U. S. 708, in which comparable state rules and practices, effectively limiting the poor person’s access to courts ostensibly open to all, similarly have been found vulnerable.
See Brown v. United States, 110 U. S. App. D. C. 310, 293 F. 2d 149; United States v. Nudelman, 207 F. 2d 109 (C. A. 3d Cir.). Cf. United States v. Johnson, 327 U. S. 106; Smith v. United States, 105 U. S. App. D. C. 414, 267 F. 2d 691; Young v. United States, 105 U. S. App. D. C. 415, 267 F. 2d 692; United States v. Peltz, 246 F. 2d 537 (C. A. 2d Cir.).
Justice Schaefer of the Supreme Court of Illinois, in the 1956 Oliver Wendell Holmes Lecture at the Harvard Law School, reprinted as Federalism and State Criminal Procedure, 70 Harv. L. Rev. 1, 26 (1956).
Jones v. United States, 105 U. S. App. D. C. 326, 328, 266 F. 2d 924, 926. There, Judge Bazelon pointed out that of 86 criminal appeals considered by the Court of Appeals within a period of approximately 15 months, 18 were prepaid, while 68 were considered after either the District Court or the Court of Appeals had granted leave to appeal in forma pauperis. Of this total, 14 of the prepaid appeals resulted in a judgment affirming the conviction; a similar majority of the paupers’ appeals resulted in affirmance. However, during a comparable span between September 1, 1957, and February 28, 1959, 24 criminal appeals were decided by the Court of Appeals in which the District Court had initially denied leave to appeal in forma pauperis. In 11 of those 24 cases, reversals were ordered, and in 6 more, one of the three judges of the court’s panel dissented from the judgment affirming the conviction. During those same 18 months, the court granted 31 of 47 petitions for leave to take a direct appeal in forma pauperis from a conviction, and this Court subsequently reversed the denials of leave to appeal ordered in the cases of 6 of the 16 unsuccessful applicants in the court below.
The instant case is not unique in this regard. See, e. g., Johnson: Indicted (March 1956), tried (May 1956), appeal in forma pauperis denied, 238 F. 2d 565 (C. A. 2d Cir. 1956), vacated, 352 U. S. 565 (1957), conviction affirmed on the merits, 254 F. 2d 175, petition for certiorari dismissed per stipulation of parties, 357 U. S. 933 (June 1958); Farley: Indicted (December 1955), tried (May 1956), application for leave to appeal in forma pauperis remanded to District Court, 238 F. 2d 575 (C. A. 2d Cir. 1956), appeal in forma pauperis denied, 242 F. 2d 338, vacated, 354 U. S. 521 (1957), remanded to District Court for settling transcript (December 1960), appeal in forma pauperis granted by District Court (May 1961), conviction affirmed on the merits, 292 F. 2d 789 (1961), cert. denied, 369 U. S. 857 (April 1962); Ellis: Indicted (April 1956), tried (September 1956), appeal in forma pauperis denied, 101 U. S. App. D. C. 386, 249 F. 2d 478 (1957), vacated, 356 U. S. 674 (1958), conviction affirmed on the merits, 105 U. S. App. D. C. 86, 264 F. 2d 372, cert. denied, 359 U. S. 998 (May 1959), motion for leave to file petition for rehearing denied, 361 U. S. 945 (January 1960).
This argument was also presented by the Government, and then rejected by us, in Lurk v. United States, 366 U. S. 712.
See, e. g., Pittsburgh Plate Glass Co. v. United States, 360 U. S. 395, 399-400; De Binder v. United States, 110 U. S. App. D. C. 244, 246, 292 F. 2d 737, 739; United States v. Rose, 215 F. 2d 617, 628-630 (C. A. 3d Cir.); Parr v. United States, 265 F. 2d 894, 901-904 (C. A. 5th Cir.), reversed on other grounds, 363 U. S. 370. Cf. United States v. Procter & Gamble Co., 356 U. S. 677, 682-684. See Louisell, Criminal Discovery: Dilemma Real or Apparent? 49 Calif. L. Rev. 56, 68-71 (1961); Note, Inspection of Grand Jury Minutes by Criminal Defendants, 1961 Wash. U. L. Q. 382.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
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.
In view of ambiguities in the record as to the issues sought to be tendered, made apparent in. oral argument and the memoranda of counsel subsequently filed at the Court’s request, the writ of. certiorari is dismissed as improvidently granted.
Mr. Justice Black took no part in the consideration or. decision of this case.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer:
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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 O’Connor
delivered the opinion of the Court.
Exemption 7(D) of the Freedom of Information Act, 5 U. S. C. § 552 (FOIA), exempts from disclosure agency records “compiled for law enforcement purposes ... by criminal law enforcement authority in the course of a criminal investigation” if release of those records “could reasonably be expected to disclose” the identity of, or information provided by, a “confidential source.” § 552(b)(7)(D). This case concerns the evidentiary showing that the Government must make to establish that a source is “confidential” within the meaning of Exemption 7(D). We are asked to decide whether the Government is entitled to a presumption that all sources supplying information to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI or Bureau) in the course of a criminal investigation are confidential sources.
I
Respondent Vincent Landano was convicted in New Jersey state court for murdering Newark, New Jersey, police officer John Snow in the course of a robbery. The crime received considerable media attention. Evidence at trial showed that the robbery had been orchestrated by Victor Forni and a motorcycle gang known as “the Breed.” There was testimony that Landano, though not a Breed member, had been recruited for the job. Landano always has maintained that he did not participate in the robbery and that Forni, not he, killed Officer Snow. He contends that the prosecution withheld material exculpatory evidence in violation of Brady v. Maryland, 373 U. S. 83 (1963).
Although his efforts to obtain state posteonviction and federal habeas relief thus far have proved unsuccessful, see Landano v. Rafferty, 897 F. 2d 661 (CA3), cert. denied, 498 U. S. 811 (1990); Landano v. Rafferty, 856 F. 2d 569 (CA3 1988), cert. denied, 489 U. S. 1014 (1989); State v. Landano, 97 N. J. 620, 483 A. 2d 153 (1984), Landano apparently is currently pursuing a Brady claim in the state courts, see Landano v. Rafferty, 970 F. 2d 1230, 1233-1237 (CA3), cert. denied, 506 U. S. 955 (1992); Brief for Petitioners 3, n. 1. Seeking evidence to support that claim, Landano filed FOIA requests with the FBI for information that the Bureau had compiled in the course of its involvement in the investigation of Officer Snow’s murder. Landano sought release of the Bureau’s files on both Officer Snow and Forni. The FBI released several hundred pages of documents. The Bureau redacted some of these, however, and withheld several hundred other pages altogether.
Landano filed an action in the United States District Court for the District of New Jersey seeking disclosure of the entire contents of the requested files. In response, the Government submitted a declaration of FBI Special Agent Regina Superneau explaining the Bureau’s reasons for withholding portions of the files. The information withheld under Exemption 7(D) included information provided by five types of sources: regular FBI informants; individual witnesses who were not regular informants; state and local law enforcement agencies; other local agencies; and private financial or commercial institutions. Superneau Declaration, App. 28. Agent Superneau explained why, in the Government’s view, all sueh sources should be presumed confidential. The deleted portions of the files were coded to indicate which type of source each involved. The Bureau provided no other information about the withheld materials. Id., at 33-41.
On cross-motions for summary judgment, the District Court largely rejected the Government’s categorical explanations. See 751 F. Supp. 502 (NJ 1990), clarified on reconsideration, 758 F. Supp. 1021 (NJ 1991). There was no dispute that the undisclosed portions of the Snow and Forni files constituted records or information compiled for law enforcement purposes by criminal law enforcement authority in the course of a criminal investigation. The District Court concluded, however, that the Government had not met its burden of establishing that each withheld document reasonably could be expected to disclose the identity of, or information provided by, a “confidential source.” Although the court evidently was willing to assume that regular FBI informants were confidential sources, it held that the FBI had to articulate “ease-specific reasons for non-disclosure” of all other information withheld under Exemption 7(D). 751 F. Supp., at 508.
The Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit affirmed in relevant part. 956 F. 2d 422 (1992). Relying on legislative history, the court stated that a source is confidential within the meaning of Exemption 7(D) if the source received an explicit assurance of confidentiality or if there are circumstances “ ‘from which such an assurance could reasonably be inferred.’” Id., at 433 (quoting S. Rep. No. 93-1200, p. 13 (1974)). An “assurance of confidentiality,” the court said, is not a promise of absolute anonymity or secrecy, but “an assurance that the FBI would not directly or indirectly disclose the cooperation of the interviewee with the investigation unless such a disclosure is determined by the FBI to be important to the success of its law enforcement objective.” 956 F. 2d, at 434.
The court then addressed the Government’s argument that a presumption of confidentiality arises whenever any individual or institutional source supplies information to the Bureau during a criminal investigation. As the Court of Appeals phrased it, the issue was “whether the fact that the source supplied information to the FBI in the course of a criminal investigation is alone sufficient to support an inference that the source probably had a reasonable expectation that no unnecessary disclosure of his or her cooperation would occur.” Ibid. The court thought the question “close.” Ibid. On one hand, the Bureau tends to investigate significant criminal matters, and the targets of those investigations are likely to resent cooperating witnesses. This is especially so where, as here, the investigation concerns a highly publicized, possibly gang-related police shooting. Id., at 434, and n. 5. On the other hand, the court recognized that “there are undoubtedly many routine FBI interviews in the course of criminal investigations that are unlikely to give rise to similar apprehensions on the part of the interviewee.” Id., at 434.
The Court of Appeals recognized that a number of other courts had adopted the Government’s position. See, e.g., Nadler v. United States Dept. of Justice, 955 F. 2d 1479, 1484-1487 (CA11 1992); Schmerler v. FBI, 283 U. S. App. D. C. 349, 353, 900 F. 2d 333, 337 (1990); Donovan v. FBI, 806 F. 2d 55, 61 (CA2 1986); Johnson v. United States Dept. of Justice, 739 F. 2d 1514, 1517-1518 (CA10 1984); Ingle v. Department of Justice, 698 F. 2d 259, 269 (CA6 1983); Miller v. Bell, 661 F. 2d 623, 627 (CA7 1981) (per curiam), cert. denied, 456 U. S. 960 (1982). Considering itself bound by its previous decision in Lame v. United States Department of Justice, 654 F. 2d 917 (CA3 1981), however, the Court of Appeals took a different view. It declined to rely either on the Government’s proposed presumption or on the particular subject matter of the investigation. Instead, it determined that, to justify withholding information under Exemption 7(D), the Government had to provide “‘detailed explanations relating to each alleged confidential source.’ ” 956 F. 2d, at 435 (quoting Lame, supra, at 928).
We granted certiorari to resolve the conflict among the Courts of Appeals over the nature of the FBI’s evidentiary burden under Exemption 7(D). 506 U. S. 813 (1992).
II
A
Exemption 7(D) permits the Government to withhold
“records or information compiled for law enforcement purposes, but only to the extent that the production of such law enforcement records or information . .. could reasonably be expected to disclose the identity of a confidential source, including a State, local, or foreign agency or authority or any private institution which furnished information on a confidential basis, and, in the ease of a record or information compiled by criminal law enforcement authority in the course of a criminal investigation . . . , information furnished by a confidential source.” § 552(b)(7)(D).
The Government bears the burden of establishing that the exemption applies. § 552(a)(4)(B).
We have described the evolution of Exemption 7(D) elsewhere. See John Doe Agency v. John Doe Corp., 493 U. S. 146, 155-157 (1989); FBI v. Abramson, 456 U. S. 615, 621-622 (1982). When FOIA was enacted in 1966, Exemption 7 broadly protected “ ‘investigatory files compiled for law enforcement purposes except to the extent available by law to a private party.’ ” Id., at 621. Congress revised the statute in 1974 to provide that law enforcement records could be withheld only if the agency demonstrated one of six enumerated harms. The 1974 version of Exemption 7(D) protected
“‘investigatory records compiled for law enforcement purposes [the production of which] would . . . disclose the identity of a confidential source and, in the case of a record compiled by a criminal law enforcement authority in the course of a criminal investigation,... confidential information furnished only by the confidential source.’ ” Id., at 622.
Congress adopted the current version of Exemption 7(D) in 1986. The 1986 amendment expanded “records” to “records or information,” replaced the word “would” with the phrase “could reasonably be expected to,” deleted the word “only” from before “confidential source,” and clarified that a confidential source could be a state, local, or foreign agency or a private institution. See 5 U. S. C. § 552(b)(7)(D).
Under Exemption 7(D), the question is not whether the requested document is of the type that the agency usually treats as confidential, but whether the particular source spoke with an understanding that the communication would remain confidential. According to the Conference Report on the 1974 amendment, a source is confidential within the meaning of Exemption 7(D) if the source “provided information under an express assurance of confidentiality or in circumstances from which such an assurance could be reasonably inferred.” S. Rep. No. 93-1200, at 13. In this case, the Government has not attempted to demonstrate that the FBI made explicit promises of confidentiality to particular sources. That sort of proof apparently often is not possible: The FBI does not have a policy of discussing confidentiality with every source, and when such discussions do occur, agents do not always document them. Tr. of Oral Arg. 7-8, 47-48. The precise question before us, then, is how the Government can meet its burden of showing that a source provided information on an implied assurance of confidentiality. The parties dispute two issues: the meaning of the word “confidential,” and whether, absent specific evidence to the contrary, an implied assurance of confidentiality always can be inferred from the fact that a source cooperated with the FBI during a criminal investigation.
Opinion of the Court
B
Landano argues that the FBI’s sources in the Snow investigation could not have had a reasonable expectation of confidentiality because the Bureau might have been obliged to disclose the sources’ names or the information they provided under Brady, the Jencks Act, 18 U. S. C. § 3500, or federal discovery rules, see Fed. Rules Crim. Proc. 16, 26.2. He also points out that some FBI witnesses invariably will be called to testify publicly at trial. Landano apparently takes the position that a source is “confidential” for purposes of Exemption 7(D) only if the source can be assured, explicitly or implicitly, that the source’s cooperation with the Bureau will be disclosed to no one. We agree with the Court of Appeals that this cannot have been Congress’ intent.
FOIA does not define the word “confidential.” In common usage, confidentiality is not limited to complete anonymity or secrecy. A statement can be made “in confidence” even if the speaker knows the communication will be shared with limited others, as long as the speaker expects that the information will not be published indiscriminately. See Webster’s Third New International Dictionary 476 (1986) (defining confidential to mean “communicated, conveyed, [or] acted on ... in confidence: known only to a limited few: not publicly disseminated”). A promise of complete secrecy would mean that the FBI agent receiving the source’s information could not share it even with other FBI personnel. See Dow Jones & Co. v. Department of Justice, 286 U. S. App. D. C. 349, 357, 917 F. 2d 571, 579 (1990) (Silberman, J., concurring in denial of rehearing en bane). Such information, of course, would be of little use to the Bureau.
We assume that Congress was aware of the Government’s disclosure obligations under Brady and applicable procedural rules when it adopted Exemption 7(D). Congress also must have realized that some FBI witnesses would testify at trial. We need not reach the question whether a confidential source’s public testimony “waives” the FBI’s right to withhold information provided by that source. See, e. g., Irons v. FBI, 880 F. 2d 1446 (CA1 1989) (en banc). For present purposes, it suffices to note that, at the time an interview is conducted, neither the source nor the FBI agent ordinarily knows whether the communication will be disclosed in any of the aforementioned ways. Thus, an exemption so limited that it covered only sources who reasonably could expect total anonymity would be, as a practical matter, no exemption at all. Cf. John Doe, 493 U. S., at 152 (FOIA exemptions “are intended to have meaningful reach and application”). We therefore agree with the Court of Appeals that the word “confidential,” as used in Exemption 7(D), refers to a degree of confidentiality less than total secrecy. A source should be deemed confidential if the source furnished information with the understanding that the FBI would not divulge the communication except to the extent the Bureau thought necessary for law enforcement purposes.
C
The Government objects to the Court of Appeals’ requirement that it make an individualized showing of confidentiality with respect to each source. It argues that an assurance of confidentiality is “ ‘inherently implicit’ ” whenever a source cooperates with the FBI in a criminal investigation. Brief for Petitioners 18-20 (quoting Miller v. Bell, 661 F. 2d, at 627). The Government essentially contends that all FBI sources should be presumed confidential; the presumption could be overcome only with specific evidence that a particular source had no interest in confidentiality.
This Court previously has upheld the use of evidentiary presumptions supported by considerations of “fairness, public policy, and probability, as well as judicial economy.” Basic Inc. v. Levinson, 485 U. S. 224, 245 (1988). We also have recognized the propriety of judicially created presumptions under federal statutes that make no express provision for their use. See, e. g., ibid. But we are not persuaded that the presumption for which the Government argues in this case is warranted.
Although the Government sometimes describes its approach as “categorical,” see, e.g., Superneau Declaration, App. 33-41, the proposed rule is not so much categorical as universal, at least with respect to FBI sources. The Government would have us presume that virtually every source is confidential: the paid informant who infiltrates an underworld organization; the eyewitness to a violent crime; the telephone company that releases phone records; the state agency that furnishes an address. The only “sources” that the Government is willing to state are not presumptively confidential (though they may be exempt from disclosure under other FOIA provisions) are newspaper clippings, wiretaps, and witnesses who speak to an undercover agent and therefore do not realize they are communicating with the FBI. Although we recognize that confidentiality often will be important to the FBFs investigative efforts, we cannot say that the Government’s sweeping presumption comports with “common sense and probability.” Basic Inc., supra, at 246.
The FBI collects information from a variety of individual and institutional sources during the course of a criminal investigation. See, e. g., Superneau Declaration, App. 35-41. The Bureau’s investigations also cover a wide range of criminal matters. See 28 U. S. C. § 533 (FBI authorized to investigate “crimes against the United States” and to conduct other investigations “regarding official matters under the control of the Department of Justice and the Department of State”); § 540 (FBI authorized to investigate certain felonious killings of state and local law enforcement officers). In this case, the Bureau participated in the investigation of a state crime in part because of the need for interstate “unlawful flight” warrants to apprehend certain suspects. Brief for Petitioners 2, n. 1. The types of information the Bureau collects during an investigation also appear to be quite diverse. Although the Government emphasizes the difficulty of anticipating all the ways in which release of information ultimately may prove harmful, it does not dispute that the communications the FBI receives can range from the extremely sensitive to the routine.
The Government maintains that an assurance of confidentiality can be inferred whenever an individual source communicates with the FBI because of the risk of reprisal or other negative attention inherent in criminal investigations. See Superneau Declaration, App. 37-38. It acknowledges, however, that reprisal may not be threatened or even likely in any given case. Id., at 38. It may be true that many, or even most, individual sources will expect confidentiality. But the Government offers no explanation, other than ease of administration, why that expectation always should be presumed. The justifications offered for presuming the confidentiality of all institutional sources are less persuasive. The Government “is convinced” that the willingness of other law enforcement agencies to furnish information depends on a “traditional understanding of confidentiality.” Id., at 40. There is no argument, however, that disclosure ordinarily would affect cooperating agencies adversely or that the agencies otherwise would be deterred from providing even the most nonsensitive information. The Government does suggest that private institutions might be subject to “possible legal action or loss of business” if their cooperation with the Bureau became publicly known. Id., at 41. But the suggestion is conclusory. Given the wide variety of information that such institutions may be asked to provide, we do not think it reasonable to infer that the information is given with an implied understanding of confidentiality in all eases.
Considerations of “fairness” also counsel against the Government's rule. Basic Inc., supra, at 245. The Government acknowledges that its proposed presumption, though rebuttable in theory, is in practice all but irrebuttable. Tr. of Oral Arg. 22-23. Once the FBI asserts that information was provided by a confidential source during a criminal investigation, the requester — who has no knowledge about the particular source or the information being withheld — very rarely will be in a position to offer persuasive evidence that the source in fact had no interest in confidentiality. See Dow Jones & Co. v. Department of Justice, 286 U. S. App. D. C., at 355, 917 F. 2d, at 577.
The Government contends that its presumption is supported by the phrase “could reasonably be expected to” and by our decision in Department of Justice v. Reporters Comm. for Freedom of Press, 489 U. S. 749 (1989). In Reporters Committee we construed Exemption 7(C), which allows the Government to withhold law enforcement records or information the production of which “could reasonably be expected to constitute an unwarranted invasion of personal privacy.” 5 U.S.C. § 552(b)(7)(C). We held that certain criminal “rap sheet” information was categorically exempt from disclosure because the release of such information invariably constitutes an unwarranted invasion of privacy. 489 U. S., at 780. Our approval of a categorical approach was based in part on the phrase “could reasonably be expected to,” which Congress adopted in 1986 to ease the Government’s burden of invoking Exemption 7, see id., at 756, n. 9, and to “replace a focus on the effect of a particular disclosure ‘with a standard of reasonableness . . . based on an objective test,’” id., at 778, n. 22 (quoting S. Rep. No. 98-221, p. 24 (1983)). As explained more fully in Part III, below, we agree with the Government that when certain circumstances characteristically support an inference of confidentiality, the Government similarly should be able to claim exemption under Exemption 7(D) without detailing the circumstances surrounding a particular interview. Neither the language of Exemption 7(D) nor Reporters Committee, however, supports the proposition that the category of all FBI criminal investigative sources is exempt.
The Government relies extensively on legislative history. It is true that, when Congress debated the adoption of Exemption 7(D), several Senators recognized the importance of confidentiality to the FBI and argued that the exemption should not jeopardize the effectiveness of the Bureau’s investigations. See, e. g., 120 Cong. Rec. 17036, 17037 (May 30, 1974) (Sen. Thurmond) (“It is just such assurance [of confidentiality] that encourages individuals from all walks of life to furnish this agency information ...”). But Congress did not expressly create a blanket exemption for the FBI; the language that it adopted requires every agency to establish that a confidential source furnished the information sought to be withheld under Exemption 7(D). The Government cites testimony presented to Congress prior to passage of the 1986 amendment emphasizing that the threat of public exposure under FOIA deters potential sources from cooperating with the Bureau in criminal investigations. See, e. g., FBI Oversight: Hearings before the Subcommittee on Civil and Constitutional Rights of the House Committee on the Judiciary, 96th Cong., 2d Sess., pp. 97, 99-100, 106 (1980) (FBI Dir. William Webster); see also Freedom of Information Act: Hearings before the Subcommittee on the Constitution of the Senate Committee on the Judiciary, 97th Cong., 1st Sess., pp. 990-1040 (1981). But none of the changes made to Exemption 7(D) in 1986 squarely addressed the question presented here. In short, the Government offers no persuasive evidence that Congress intended for the Bureau to be able to satisfy its burden in every instance simply by asserting that a source communicated with the Bureau during the course of a criminal investigation. Had Congress meant to create such a rule, it could have done so much more clearly.
rH HH
Although we have determined that it is unreasonable to infer that all FBI criminal investigative sources are confidential, we expect that the Government often can point to more narrowly defined circumstances that will support the inference. For example, as the courts below recognized, and respondent concedes, see Brief for Respondent 46, it is reasonable to infer that paid informants normally expect their cooperation with the FBI to be kept confidential. The nature of the informant’s ongoing relationship with the Bureau, and the fact that the Bureau typically communicates with informante “only at locations and under conditions which assure the contact will not be noticed,” Superneau Declaration, App. 36, justify the inference.
There may well be other generic circumstances in which an implied assurance of confidentiality fairly can be inferred. The Court of Appeals suggested that the fact that the investigation in this case concerned the potentially gang-related shooting of a police officer was probative. We agree that the character of the crime at issue may be relevant to determining whether a source cooperated with the FBI with an implied assurance of confidentiality. So too may the source’s relation to the crime. Most people would think that witnesses to a gang-related murder likely would be unwilling to speak to the Bureau except on the condition of confidentiality.
The Court of Appeals below declined to rely on such circumstances. But several other Court of Appeals decisions (including some of those the Government cites favorably) have justified nondisclosure under Exemption 7(D) by examining factors such as the nature of the crime and the source’s relation to it. See, e. g., Keys v. United States Dept. of Justice, 265 U. S. App. D. C. 189, 197-198, 830 F. 2d 337, 345-346 (1987) (individuals who provided information about subject’s possible Communist sympathies, criminal activity, and murder by foreign operatives would have worried about retaliation); Donovan v. FBI, 806 F. 2d, at 60-61 (on facts of this ease, in which FBI investigated murder of American churchwomen in El Salvador, “it cannot be doubted that the FBI’s investigation would have been severely curtailed, and, perhaps, rendered ineffective if its confidential sources feared disclosure”); Parton v. United States Dept. of Justice, 727 F. 2d 774, 776-777 (CA8 1984) (prison officials who provided information about alleged attack on inmate faced “high probability of reprisal”); Miller v. Bell, 661 F. 2d, at 628 (individuals who provided information about self-proclaimed litigious subject who sought to enlist them in his “anti-government crusade” faced “strong potential for harassment”); Nix v. United States, 572 F. 2d 998, 1003-1004 (CA4 1978) (risk of reprisal faced by guards and prison inmates who informed on guards who allegedly beat another inmate supported finding of implied assurance of confidentiality).
We think this more particularized approach is consistent with Congress’ intent to provide “‘“workable” rules’” of FOIA disclosure. Reporters Committee, 489 U. S., at 779 (quoting FTC v. Grolier Inc., 462 U. S. 19, 27 (1983)); see also ERA v. Mink, 410 U. S. 73, 80 (1973). The Government does not deny that, when a document containing confidential source information is requested, it generally will be possible to establish factors such as the nature of the crime that was investigated and the source’s relation to it. Armed with this information, the requester will have a more realistic opportunity to develop an argument that the circumstances do not support an inference of confidentiality. To the extent that the Government’s proof may compromise legitimate interests, of course, the Government still can attempt to meet its burden with in camera affidavits.
The Government has argued forcefully that its ability to maintain the confidentiality of all of its sources is vital to effective law enforcement. A prophylactic rule protecting the identities of all FBI criminal investigative sources undoubtedly would serve the Government’s objectives and would be simple for the Bureau and the courts to administer. But we are not free to engraft that policy choice onto the statute that Congress passed. For the reasons we have discussed, and consistent with our obligation to construe FOIA exemptions narrowly in favor of disclosure, see, e. g., John Doe, 493 U. S., at 152; Department of Air Force v. Rose, 425 U. S. 352, 361-362 (1976), we hold that the Government is not entitled to a presumption that a source is confidential within the meaning of Exemption 7(D) whenever the source provides information to the FBI in the course of a criminal investigation.
More narrowly defined circumstances, however, can provide a basis for inferring confidentiality. For example, when circumstances such as the nature of the crime investigated and the witness’ relation to it support an inference of confidentiality, the Government is entitled to a presumption. In this case, the Court of Appeals incorrectly concluded that it lacked discretion to rely on such circumstances. Accordingly, we vacate the judgment of the Court of Appeals and remand the case 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:
|
E
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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 judgment is reversed. Russell v. United States, 369 U. S. 749. The indictment upon which the petitioner was tried was identical to those held defective in Russell. The petitioner’s timely motion to dismiss the indictment, made in accord with Fed. Rules Crim. Proc. 12 (b)(2), was erroneously denied by the District Court.
Although the trial court squarely considered and decided the issue raised by the motion to dismiss, it was apparently not presented to the Court of Appeals and was not briefed or argued in this Court. While ordinarily we do not take note of errors not called to the attention of the Court of Appeals nor properly raised here, that rule is not without exception. The Court has “the power to notice a ‘plain error’ though it is not assigned or specified,” Brotherhood of Carpenters v. United States, 330 U. S. 395, 412. “In exceptional circumstances, especially in criminal cases, appellate courts, in the public interest, may, of their own motion, notice errors to which no exception has been taken, if the errors are obvious, or if they otherwise seriously affect the fairness, integrity or public reputation of judicial proceedings.” United States v. Atkinson, 297 U. S. 157, 160. Our own rules provide that “the court, at its option, may notice a plain error not presented.” Revised Rules of the Supreme Court of the United States, Rule 40 (1) (d)(2). See also Fed. Rules Crim. Proc. 52 (b).
Mr. Justice Frankfurter took no part in the consideration or decision of this case.
Mr. Justice White took no part in the decision of this case.
Mr. Justice Clark and Mr. Justice Harlan dissent for the reasons stated in their dissenting opinions in Russell v. United States, 369 U. S. 749, 779, 781.
See Brasfield v. United States, 272 U. S. 448, 450; Mahler v. Eby, 264 U. S. 32, 45; Weems v. United States, 217 U. S. 349, 362. See also Kessler v. Strecker, 307 U. S. 22, 34.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
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
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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.
Mr. Justice White
delivered the opinion of the Court.
This case raises an important issue concerning the construction of the Supremacy Clause of the Constitution— whether Ariz. Rev. Stat. Ann. § 28-1163 (B) (1956), which is part of Arizona's Motor Vehicle Safety Responsibility Act, is invalid under that clause as being in conflict with the mandate of § 17 of the Bankruptcy Act, 11 U. S. C. § 35, providing that receipt of a discharge in bankruptcy fully discharges all but certain specified judgments. The courts below, concluding that this case was controlled by Kesler v. Department of Public Safety, 369 U. S. 153 (1962), and Reitz v. Mealey, 314 U. S. 33 (1941), two earlier opinions of this Court dealing with alleged conflicts between the Bankruptcy Act and state financial responsibility laws, ruled against the claim of conflict and upheld the Arizona statute.
On July 8, 1965, petitioner Adolfo Perez, driving a car registered in his name, was involved in an automobile accident in Tucson, Arizona. The Perez automobile was not covered by liability insurance at the time of the collision. The driver of the second ca,r was the minor daughter of Leonard Pinkerton, and in September 1966 the Pinkertons sued Mr. and Mrs. Perez in state court for personal injuries and property damage sustained in the accident. On October 31, 1967, the petitioners confessed judgment in this suit, and a judgment order was entered against them on November 8, 1967, for $2,425.98 plus court costs.
Mr. and Mrs. Perez each filed a voluntary petition in bankruptcy in Federal District Court on November 6, 1967. Each of them duly scheduled the judgment debt to the Pinkertons. The District Court entered orders on July 8, 1968, discharging both Mr. and Mrs. Perez from all debts and claims provable against their estates, including the Pinkerton judgment. 11 U. S. C. §35; Lewis v. Roberts, 267 U. S. 467 (1925).
During the pendency of the bankruptcy proceedings, the provisions of the Arizona Motor Vehicle Safety Responsibility Act came into play. Although only one provision of the Arizona Act is relevant to the issue presented by this case, it is appropriate to describe the statutory scheme in some detail. The Arizona statute is based on the Uniform Motor Vehicle Safety Responsibility Act promulgated by the National Conference on Street and Highway Safety. Articles 1 and 2 of the Act deal, respectively, with definitional matters and administration.
The substantive provisions begin in Art. 3, which requires the posting of financial security by those involved in accidents. Section 28-1141 of that article requires suspension of licenses for unlawful failure to report accidents, and § 28-1142 (Supp. 1970-1971) provides that within 60 days of the receipt of an accident report the Superintendent of the Motor Vehicle Division of the Highway Department shall suspend the driver's license of the operator and the registration of the owner of a car involved in an accident “unless such operator or owner or both shall deposit security in a sum which is sufficient in the judgment of the superintendent to satisfy any judgment or judgments for damages resulting from the accident as may be recovered against the operator or owner.” Under the same section, notice of such suspension and the amount of security required must be sent to the owner and operator not less than 10 days prior to the effective date of the suspension. This section does not apply if the owner or the operator carried liability insurance or some other covering bond at the time of the accident, or if such individual had previously qualified as a self-insurer under § 28-1222. Other exceptions to the requirement that security be posted are stated in § 28-1143. If none of these exceptions applies, the suspension continues until: (1) the person whose privileges were suspended deposits the security required under § 28-1142 (Supp. 1970-1971); (2) one year elapses from the date of the accident and the person whose privileges were suspended files proof with the Superintendent that no one has initiated an action for damages arising from the accident; (3) evidence is filed with the superintendent that a release from liability, an adjudication of nonliability, a confession of judgment, or some other written settlement agreement has been entered. As far as the record in the instant case shows, the provisions of Art. 3 were not invoked against petitioners, and the constitutional validity of these provisions is, of course, not before us for decision.
Article 4 of the Arizona Act, which includes the only provision at issue here, deals with suspension of licenses and registrations for nonpayment of judgments. Interestingly, it is only when the judgment debtor in an automobile accident lawsuit — usually an owner-operator like Mr. Perez — fails to respond to a judgment entered against him that he must overcome two hurdles in order to regain his driving privileges. Section 28-1161, the first section of Art. 4, requires the state court clerk or judge, when a judgment has remained unsatisfied for 60 days after entry, to forward a certified copy of the judgment to the superintendent. This was done in the present case, and on March 13, 1968, Mr. and Mrs. Perez were served with notice that their drivers’ licenses and registration were suspended pursuant to § 28-1162 (A). Under other provisions of Art. 4, such suspension is to continue until the judgment is paid, and § 28-1163 (B) specifically provides that “[a] discharge in bankruptcy following the rendering of any such judgment shall not relieve the judgment debtor from any of the requirements of this article.” In addition to requiring satisfaction of the judgment debt, § 28-1163 (A) provides that the license and registration “shall remain suspended and shall not be renewed, nor shall any license or registration be thereafter issued in the name of the person... until the person gives proof of financial responsibility” for a future period. Again, the validity of this limited requirement that some drivers post evidence of financial responsibility for the future in order to regain driving privileges is not questioned here. Nor is the broader issue of whether a State may require proof of financial responsibility as a precondition for granting driving privileges to anyone before us for decision. What is at issue here is the power of a State to include as part of this comprehensive enactment designed to secure compensation for automobile accident victims a section providing that a discharge in bankruptcy of the automobile accident tort judgment shall have no effect on the judgment debtor’s obligation to repay the judgment creditor, at least insofar as such repayment may be enforced by the withholding of driving privileges by the State. It was that question, among others, which petitioners raised after suspension of their licenses and registration by filing a complaint in Federal District Court seeking declaratory and injunctive relief and requesting a three-judge court. They asserted several constitutional violations, and also alleged that § 28-1163 (B) was in direct conflict with the Bankruptcy Act and was thus violative of the Supremacy Clause of the Constitution. In support of their complaint, Mr. and Mrs. Perez filed affidavits stating that the suspension of their licenses and registration worked both physical and financial hardship upon them and their children. The District Judge granted the petitioners leave to proceed in forma pauperis, but thereafter granted the respondents’ motion to dismiss the complaint for failure to state a claim upon which relief could be granted, citing Kesler and Reitz. The Court of Appeals affirmed, relying on the same two decisions. 421 F. 2d 619 (CA9 1970). We granted certiorari. 400 U. S. 818 (1970).
I
Deciding whether a state statute is in conflict with a federal statute and hence invalid under the Supremacy-Clause is essentially a two-step process of first ascertaining the construction of the two statutes and then determining the constitutional question whether they are in conflict. In the present case, both statutes have been authoritatively construed. In Schecter v. Killingsworth, 93 Ariz. 273, 380 P. 2d 136 (1963), the Supreme Court of Arizona held that "[t]he Financial Responsibility Act has for its principal purpose the protection of the public using the highways from financial hardship which may result from the use of automobiles by financially irresponsible persons.” 93 Ariz., at 280, 380 P. 2d, at 140. The Arizona court has consistently adhered to this construction of its legislation, see Camacho v. Gardner, 104 Ariz. 555, 558, 456 P. 2d 925, 928 (1969); New York Underwriters Ins. Co. v. Superior Court, 104 Ariz. 544, 456 P. 2d 914 (1969); Sandoval v. Chenoweth, 102 Ariz. 241, 243, 428 P. 2d 98, 100 (1967); Farmer v. Killingsworth, 102 Ariz. 44, 47, 424 P. 2d 172, 175 (1967); Hastings v. Thurston, 100 Ariz. 302, 306, 413 P. 2d 767, 770 (1966); Jenkins v. Mayflower Ins. Exchange, 93 Ariz. 287, 290, 380 P. 2d 145, 147 (1963), and we are bound by its rulings. See, e. g., General Trading Co. v. State Tax Comm’n, 322 U. S. 335, 337 (1944). Although the dissent seems unwilling to accept the Arizona Supreme Court's construction of the statute as expressive of the Act’s primary purpose and indeed characterizes that construction as unfortunate, post, at 667, a reading of the provisions outlined above leaves the impression that the Arizona Court’s description of the statutory purpose is not only logical but persuasive. The sole emphasis in the Act is one of providing leverage for the collection of damages from drivers who either admit that they are at fault or are adjudged negligent. The victim of another driver’s carelessness, if he so desires, can exclude the superintendent entirely from the process of “deterring” a repetition of that driver’s negligence. Further, if an accident is litigated and a special verdict that the defendant was negligent and the plaintiff contributorily negligent is entered, the result in Arizona, as in many other States, is that there is no liability for damages arising from the accident. Heimke v. Munoz, 106 Ariz. 26, 470 P. 2d 107 (1970); McDowell v. Davis, 104 Ariz. 69, 448 P. 2d 869 (1968). Under the Safety Responsibility Act, the apparent result of such a judgment is that no consequences are visited upon either driver although both have been found to have driven carelessly. See Ariz. Rev. Stat. Ann. §§ 28-1143 (A) (4), 28-1144 (3). Moreover, there are no provisions requiring drivers proved to' be careless to stay off the roads for a period of time. Nor are there provisions requiring drivers who have caused accidents to attend some kind of driver improvement course, a technique that is not unfamiliar in sentencing for traffic offenses.
Turning to the federal statute, the construction of the Bankruptcy Act is similarly clear. This Court on numerous occasions has stated that “[o]ne of the primary purposes of the bankruptcy act” is to give debtors “a new opportunity in life and a clear field for future effort, unhampered by the pressure and discouragement of preexisting debt.” Local Loan Co. v. Hunt, 292 U. S. 234, 244 (1934). Accord, e. g., Harris v. Zion’s Savings Bank & Trust Co., 317 U. S. 447, 451 (1943); Stellwagen v. Clum, 245 U. S. 605, 617 (1918); Williams v. United States Fidelity & Guaranty Co., 236 U. S. 549, 554-555 (1915). There can be no doubt, given Lewis v. Roberts, 267 U. S. 467 (1925), that Congress intended this “new opportunity” to include freedom from most kinds of pre-existing tort judgments.
II
With the construction of both statutes clearly established, we proceed immediately to the constitutional question whether a state statute that protects judgment creditors from “financially irresponsible persons” is in conflict with a federal statute that gives discharged debtors a new start “unhampered by the pressure and discouragement of preexisting debt.” As early as Gibbons v. Ogden, 9 Wheat. 1 (1824), Chief Justice Marshall stated the governing principle — that “acts of the State Legislatures... [which] interfere with, or are contrary to the laws of Congress, made in pursuance of the constitution,” are invalid under the Supremacy Clause. Id., at 211 (emphasis added). Three decades ago Mr. Justice Black, after reviewing the precedents, wrote in a similar vein that, while “[t]his Court, in considering the validity of state laws in the light of treaties or federal laws touching the same subject, ha[d] made use of the following expressions: conflicting; contrary to; occupying the field; repugnance; difference; irreconcilability; inconsistency; violation; curtailment; and interference[,]... [i]nthe final analysis,” our function is to determine whether a challenged state statute “stands as an obstacle to the accomplishment and execution of the full purposes and objectives of Congress.” Hines v. Davidowitz, 312 U. S. 52, 67 (1941). Since Hines the Court has frequently adhered to this articulation of the meaning of the Supremacy Clause. See, e. g., Nash v. Florida Industrial Comm’n, 389 U. S. 235, 240 (1967); Sears, Roebuck & Co. v. Stiffel Co., 376 U. S. 225, 229 (1964); Colorado Anti-Discrimination Comm’n v. Continental Air Lines, Inc., 372 U. S. 714, 722 (1963) (dictum); Free v. Bland, 369 U. S. 663, 666 (1962); Hill v. Florida, 325 U. S. 538, 542-543 (1945); Sola Electric Co. v. Jefferson Electric Co., 317 U. S. 173, 176 (1942). Indeed, in Florida Lime & Avocado Growers, Inc. v. Paul, 373 U. S. 132 (1963), a recent case in which the Court was closely divided, all nine Justices accepted the Hines test. Id., at 141 (opinion of the Court), 165 (dissenting opinion).
Both Kesler and Reitz, however, ignored this controlling principle. The Court in Kesler conceded that Utah’s financial responsibility law left “the bankrupt to some extent burdened by the discharged debt,” 369 U. S., at 171, made “it more probable that the debt will be paid despite the discharge,” id., at 173, and thereby made “some inroad... on the consequences of bankruptcy....” Id., at 171. Utah’s statute, in short, frustrated Congress’ policy of giving discharged debtors a new start. But the Kesler majority was not concerned by this frustration. In upholding the statute, the majority opinion did not look to the effect of the legislation but simply asserted that the statute was “not an Act for the Relief of Mulcted Creditors,” id., at 174, and was “not designed to aid collection of debts but to enforce a policy against irresponsible driving....” Id., at 169. The majority, that is, looked to the purpose of the state legislation and upheld it because the purpose was not to circumvent the Bankruptcy Act but to promote highway safety; those in dissent, however, were concerned that, whatever the purpose of the Utah Act, its “plain and inevitable effect... [was] to create a powerful weapon for collection of a debt from which [the] bankrupt [had] been released by federal law.” Id., at 183. Such a result, they argued, left “the States free... to impair... an important and historic policy of this Nation... embodied in its bankruptcy laws.” Id., at 185.
The opinion of the Court in Reitz was similarly concerned, not with the fact that New York’s financial responsibility law frustrated the operation of the Bankruptcy Act, but with the purpose of the law, which was divined as the promotion of highway safety. As the Court said:
“The penalty which § 94-b imposes for injury due to careless driving is not for the protection of the creditor merely, but to enforce a public policy that irresponsible drivers shall not, with impunity, be allowed to injure their fellows. The scheme of the legislation would be frustrated if the reckless driver were permitted to escape its provisions by the simple expedient of voluntary bankruptcy, and, accordingly, the legislature declared that a discharge in bankruptcy should not interfere with the operation of the statute. Such legislation is not in derogation of the Bankruptcy Act. Rather it is an enforcement of permissible state policy touching highway safety.” 314 U. S., at 37.
The dissenting opinion written by Mr. Justice Douglas for himself and three others noted that the New York legislation put “the bankrupt... at the creditor’s mercy,” with the results that “[i]n practical effect the bankrupt may be in as bad, or even worse, a position than if the state had made it possible for a creditor to attach his future wages” and that “[bankruptcy... [was not] the sanctuary for hapless debtors which Congress intended.” Id., at 41.
We can no longer adhere to the aberrational doctrine of Kesler and Reitz that state law may frustrate the operation of federal law as long as the state legislature in passing its law had some purpose in mind other than one of frustration. Apart from the fact that it is at odds with the approach taken in nearly all our Supremacy Clause cases, such a doctrine would enable state legislatures to nullify nearly all unwanted federal legislation by simply publishing a legislative committee report articulating some state interest or policy — other than frustration of the federal objective — that would be tapgentially furthered by the proposed state law. In view of the consequences, we certainly would not apply the Kesler doctrine in all Supremacy Clause cases. Although it is possible to argue that Kesler and Reitz are somehow confined to cases involving either bankruptcy or highway safety, analysis discloses no reason why the States should have broader power to nullify federal law in these fields than in others. Thus, we conclude that Kesler and Reitz can have no authoritative effect to the extent they are inconsistent with the controlling principle that any state legislation which frustrates the full effectiveness of federal law is rendered invalid by the Supremacy Clause. Section 28-1163 (B) thus may not stand.
III
Even accepting the Supremacy Clause analysis of Kesler and Reitz — that is, looking to the purpose rather than the effect of state laws — those decisions are not dispositive of this case. Just as Kesler went a step beyond Reitz and broadened the holding of the earlier case, 369 U. S., at 184 (dissenting opinion), so in the present case the respondents asked the courts below and this Court to expand the holdings of the two previous cases. The distinction between Kesler and Reitz and this case lies in the State’s expressed legislative purpose.
Kesler and Reitz were aberrational in their treatment of this question as well. The majority opinions in both cases assumed, without citation of state court authority or any indication that such precedent was unavailable, that the purpose of the state financial responsibility laws there under attack was not provision of relief to creditors but rather deterrence of irresponsible driving. The assumption was, in effect, that all state legislatures which had enacted prdvisions such as § 28-1163 (B) had concluded that an uninsured motorist about to embark in his car would be more careful on the road if he did not have available what the majority in Kesler cavalierly characterized as an “easy refuge in bankruptcy.” 369 U. S., at 173. Passing the question of whether the Court gave sufficient attention to binding state interpretations of state legislative purpose and conceding that it employed proper technique in divining as obvious from their face the aim of the state enactments, the present case raises doubts about whether the Court was correct even in its basic assumptions. The Arizona Supreme Court has declared that Arizona’s Safety Responsibility Act “has for its principal purpose the protection of the public... from financial hardship” resulting from involvement in traffic accidents with uninsured motorists unable to respond to a judgment. Schecter v. Killingsworth, 93 Ariz., at 280, 380 P. 2d, at 140. The Court in Kesler was able to declare, although the source of support is unclear, that the Utah statute could be upheld because it was “not an Act for the Relief of Mulcted Creditors” or a statute “designed to- aid collection of debts.” 369 U. S., at 174, 169. But here the respondents urge us to- uphold precisely the sort of statute that Kesler would have stricken down — one with a declared purpose to protect judgment creditors “from financial hardship” by giving them a powerful weapon with which to force bankrupts to pay their debts despite their discharge. Whereas the Acts in Kesler and Reitz had the effect of frustrating federal law but had, the Court said, no such purpose, the Arizona Act has both that effect and that purpose. Believing as we do that Kesler and Reitz are not in harmony with sound constitutional principle, they certainly should not be extended to cover this new and distinguishable case.
IV
One final argument merits discussion. The dissent points out that the District of Columbia Code contains an anti-discharge provision similar to that included in the Arizona Act. Motor Vehicle Safety Responsibility Act of the District of Columbia, D. C. Code Ann. § 40-464 (1967), 68 Stat. 132. In light of our decision today, the sum of the argument is to draw into question the constitutional validity of the District's anti-discharge section, for as noted in the dissent the Constitution confers upon Congress the power “[t]o establish... uniform Laws on the subject of Bankruptcies throughout the United States.” U. S. Const., Art. I, § 8, cl. 4 (emphasis added). It is asserted that “Congress must have regarded the two statutes as consistent and compatible/’ post, at 665, but such an argument assumes a modicum of legislative attention to the question of consistency. The D. C. Code section does, of course, refer specifically to discharges, but its passage may at most be viewed as evidencing an opinion of Congress on the meaning of the general discharge provision enacted by an earlier Congress and interpreted by this Court as early as 1925. See Lewis v. Roberts, supra. In fact, in passing the initial and amended version of the District of Columbia financial responsibility law, Congress gave no attention to the interaction of the anti-discharge section with the Bankruptcy Act. Moreover, the legislative history is quite clear that when Congress dealt with the subject of financial responsibility laws for the District, it based its work upon the efforts of the uniform commissioners which had won enactment in other States.
Had Congress focused on the interaction between this minor subsection of the rather lengthy financial responsibility act and the discharge provision of the Bankruptcy Act, it would have been immediately apparent to the legislators that the only constitutional method for so defining the scope and effect of a discharge in bankruptcy was by amendment of the Bankruptcy Act, which by its terms is a uniform statute applicable in the States, Territories, and the District of Columbia. 11 U. S. C. § 1 (29). To follow any other course would obviously be to legislate in such a way that a discharge in bankruptcy means one thing in the District of Columbia and something else in the States — depending on state law — a result explicitly prohibited by the uniformity requirement in the constitutional authorization to Congress to enact bankruptcy legislation.
V
From the foregoing, we think it clear that § 28-1163 (B) of the Arizona Safety Responsibility Act is constitutionally invalid. 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.
See Reviser’s Note, Ariz. Rev. Stat. Ann. § 28-1101.
Under Ariz. Rev. Stat. Ann. §28-1143 (A), the owner or operator of a ear involved in an accident need not post security as required by §28-1142 (Supp. 1970-1971): (1) if the accident caused injury or damage to no person or property other than the owner's car or the operator’s person; (2) if the car was parked when involved in the accident, unless it was parked illegally or did not carry a legally sufficient complement of lights; (3) if the car was being driven or was parked by another without the owner’s express or implied permission; (4) if prior to date for suspension the person whose license or registration would be suspended files with the superintendent a release, a final adjudication of nonliability, a confession of judgment, or some other written settlement agreement providing for payment, in installments, of an agreed amount of damages with respect to claims arising from the accident; or (5) if the driver at the time of the accident was driving a vehicle owned, operated, or leased by his employer with the employer’s permission; in that case the security and suspension provisions apply only to the owner-employer’s registration of vehicles not covered by insurance or other bond.
This section further provides that the superintendent may employ suspension a second time as a means of enforcing payment should there be a default on installment obligations arising under a confession of judgment or a written settlement agreement. Ariz. Rev. Stat. Ann §28-1144 (3).
Ariz. Rev. Stat. Ann §28-1102 (Supp. 1970-1971) defines “judgment,” for purposes of the Motor Vehicle Safety Responsibility Act, as “any judgment which has become final..., upon a cause of action arising out of the ownership, maintenance or use of a motor vehicle, for damages... or upon a cause of action on an agreement of settlement for such damages.”
Under Ariz. Rev. Stat. Ann. § 28-1161 (B), a similar notice must also be forwarded to officials in the home State of a nonresident judgment debtor.
“A. The superintendent upon receipt of a certified copy of a judgment, shall forthwith suspend the license and registration and nonresident operating privilege of a person against whom the judgment was rendered, except as otherwise provided in this section and § 28-1165.”
Ariz. Rev. Stat. Ann. §28-1163 (A). Ariz. Rev. Stat. Ann. §28-1164 (Supp. 1970-1971) defines when a judgment is “paid.” Ariz. Rev. Stat. Ann. § 28-1165 sets forth a procedure for paying judgments in installments. Ariz. Rev. Stat. Ann. § 28-1162 (B) provides that if a creditor consents in writing and the debtor furnishes proof of financial responsibility, see Ariz. Rev. Stat. Ann. § 28-1167, the debtor’s license and registration may be restored in the superintendent’s discretion. After six months, however, the creditor’s consent is revocable provided the judgment debt remains unpaid.
Sections 28-1167 through 28-1178 set forth the requirements for various forms of proof. Under § 28-1178, the judgment debtor is apparently able to regain his license and registration to operate a motor vehicle without proof of financial responsibility after three years from the date such proof was first required of him, if during that period the superintendent has not received any notice — and notice can come from other States — of a conviction or forfeiture of bail which would require or permit the suspension or revocation of the driver’s license and if the individual is not involved in litigation arising from an accident covered by the security he posted. If the driver required to post financial security does so, and is involved as an owner or operator in another accident resulting in personal injury or property damage within one year prior to the date he requests permission to cancel his security, the superintendent may not permit cancellation.
U. S. Const., Art. VI, cl. 2.
Mr. and Mrs. Perez also alleged in their complaint that certain provisions of the Arizona Act imposed involuntary servitude in violation of the Thirteenth Amendment, and denied Fourteenth Amendment due process and equal protection. They also claimed that portions of the Arizona Act operated as a bill of attainder in violation of Art. I, § 10, of the Constitution. The District Judge, in refusing to request the convening of a three-judge court, ruled that these constitutional claims were “obviously insubstantial.” The Court of Appeals agreed. 421 F. 2d 619, 625 (CA9 1970). Because of our resolution of this case, we express no opinion as to the substantiality of any of petitioners’ other constitutional claims.
As discussed below, the majorities in Kesler and Reitz also seemed unwilling to be bound by, or even to look for, state court constructions of the financial responsibility laws before them. See infra, at 652-654. It is clear, however, from even a cursory examination of decisions in other States that the conclusion of the Arizona Supreme Court as to the purpose of the financial responsibility law is by no means unusual. See, e. g., Sullivan v. Cheatham, 264 Ala. 71, 76, 84 So. 2d 374, 378 (1955) (“The purpose of the [Motor Vehicle Safety-Responsibility] Act is clearly to require and establish financial responsibility for every owner or operator of a motor vehicle ‘in any manner involved in an accident.’... The Act is designed to protect all persons having claims arising out of highway accidents.”); Escobedo v. State Dept. of Motor Vehicles, 35 Cal. 2d 870, 876, 222 P. 2d 1, 5 (1950) (“[T]he state chose to allow financially irresponsible licensed operators to drive until they became involved in an accident with the consequences described in the [financial responsibility law] and their financial irresponsibility was thus brought to the attention of the department, and then to require suspension of their licenses.”); People v. Nothaus, 147 Colo. 210, 215-216, 363 P. 2d 180, 183 (1961) (“The requirement of C. R. S. ’53, 13-7-7, that the director of revenue, '... shall suspend the license of each operator and all registrations of each owner of a motor vehicle in any manner involved in [an] accident...’ unless such persons deposit a sum ‘sufficient in the judgment of the director...’ to pay any damage which may be awarded, or otherwise show ability to indemnify the other party to the accident against financial loss, has nothing whatever to do with the protection of the public safety, health, morals or welfare. It is a device designated and intended to bring about the posting of security for the payment of a private obligation without the slightest indication that any legal obligation exists on the part of any person. The public gets no protection whatever from the deposit of such security. This is not the situation which we find in some states where the statutes require public liability insurance as a condition to be met before a driver’s license will issue. Such statute protects the public. The statute before us is entirely different. In the matters to which we have particularly directed attention, C. R. S. ’53, 13-7-7, is unconstitutional. On a matter so obviously basic and fundamental no additional citation of authority is required. We reach this conclusion notwithstanding the fact that other jurisdictions have seemingly overlooked basic constitutional guarantees which must be ignored in reaching an opposite conclusion.”); Dempsey v. Tynan, 143 Conn. 202, 208, 120 A. 2d 700, 703 (1956) (“The purpose of the legislature in enacting the financial responsibility provisions... was to keep off our highways the financially irresponsible owner or operator of an automobile who cannot respond in damages for the injuries he may inflict, and to require him, as a condition for securing or retaining a registration or an operator’s license, to furnish adequate means of satisfying possible claims against him.”); City of St. Paul v. Hoffmann, 223 Minn. 76, 77-78, 25 N. W. 2d 661, 662-663 (1946) (“The apparent objective of the safety responsibility act is to provide financial responsibility for injuries and damages suffered in motor vehicle trafile. It seeks to achieve its objective solely by the suspension of licenses. While its announced purpose is to promote safety of travel, its provisions take effect after an accident happens and subject drivers and owners of vehicles involved to suspension of their ‘licenses’ unless liability insurance coverage equivalent to that required by the act is carried by the owner or driver of the vehicle.... The purpose of the act was to effect financial responsibility to injured persons.”); Rosenblum v. Griffin, 89 N. H. 314, 318, 197 A. 701, 704 (1938) (“Two reasons were thought to avail for sustaining such a law. One was its character as a regulation of the use of public highways and the other was its capacity to secure public safety in dangerous agencies and operations. This latter reason has slight if any evidence for its factual support. Certainly, in the absence of known experience and statistics, it is doubtful whether the insured owner’s car, driven either by himself or another, may be considered to be operated more carefully than one whose owner is uninsured. But protection in securing redress for injured highway travelers is a proper subject of police regulation, as well as protection from being injured. It is a reasonable incident of the general welfare that financially irresponsible persons be denied the use of the highway with their cars, regardless of the competency of themselves or others as the drivers.”). For legislative statements to the effect that financial responsibility laws are designed to secure compensation for injured victims, see, e. g., Alaska Stat. § 28.20.010 (1970); Gillaspie v. Department of Public Safety, 152 Tex. 459, 463, 259 S. W. 2d 177, 180 (1953) (quoting emergency clause enacted by the Texas Legislature in connection with its financial responsibility law); S. Rep. No. 515, 83d Cong., 1st Sess., 2 (1953) (Report of the Senate Committee on the District of Columbia on the financial responsibility law proposed for the District).
See Reitz, 314 U. S., at 40-43 (Douglas, J., dissenting).
Under Art. 3 of the Arizona Act, dealing with the posting of security for damages arising from a particular accident, the victim may cut the superintendent out by executing a release from liability or agreeing to some other written settlement or confession of judgment providing for payment of some damages, in installments or otherwise. Ariz. Rev. Stat. Ann. § 28-1143 (A) (4) discussed in n. 2, supra. Assuming that such an agreement or confession of judgment providing for installment payments is filed with the superintendent, it prevents him from suspending driving privileges for failure to post the amount of financial security the superintendent
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
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 Stewart
delivered the opinion of the Court.
Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 prohibits a State or political subdivision subject to § 4 of the Act from enforcing “any voting qualification or prerequisite to voting, or standard, practice, or procedure with respect to voting different from that in force or effect on November 1, 1964,” unless it has obtained a declaratory-judgment from the District Court for the District of Columbia that such change “does not have the purpose and will not have the effect of denying or abridging the right to vote on account of race or color” or has submitted the proposed change to the Attorney General and the Attorney General has not objected to it. The constitutionality of this procedure was upheld in South Carolina v. Katzenbach, 383 U. S. 301, and it is now well established that § 5 is applicable when a State or political subdivision adopts a legislative reapportionment plan. Allen v. State Board of Elections, 393 U. S. 544; Georgia v. United States, 411 U. S. 526.
The city of New Orleans brought this suit under § 5 seeking a judgment declaring that a reapportionment of New Orleans’ councilmanic districts did not have the purpose or effect of denying or abridging the right to vote on account of race or color. The District Court entered a judgment of dismissal, holding that the new reapportionment plan would have the effect of abridging the voting rights of New Orleans’ Negro citizens. 374 F. Supp. 363. The city appealed the judgment to this Court, claiming that the District Court used an incorrect standard in assessing the effect of the reapportionment in this § 5 suit. We noted probable jurisdiction of the appeal. 419 U. S. 822.
I
New Orleans is a city of almost 600,000 people. Some 55% of that population is white and the remaining 45% is Negro. Some 65% of the registered voters are white, and the remaining 35% are Negro. In 1954, New Orleans adopted a mayor-council form of government. Since that time the municipal charter has provided that the city council is to consist of seven members, one to be elected from each of five councilmanic districts, and two to be elected by the voters of the city at large. The 1954 charter also requires an adjustment of the boundaries of the five single-member councilmanic districts following each decennial census to reflect population shifts among the districts.
In 1961, the city council redistricted the city based on the 1960 census figures. That reapportionment plan established four districts that stretched from the edge of Lake Pontchartrain on the north side of the city to the Mississippi River on the city’s south side. The fifth district was wedge shaped and encompassed the city’s downtown area. In one of these councilmanic districts, Negroes constituted a majority’ of the population, but only about half of the registered voters. In the other four districts white voters clearly outnumbered Negro voters. No Negro was elected to the New Orleans City Council during the decade from 1960 to 1970.
After receipt of the 1970 census figures the city council adopted a reapportionment plan (Plan I) that continued the basic north-to-south pattern of councilmanic districts combined with a wedge-shaped, downtown district. Under Plan I Negroes constituted a majority of the population in two districts, but they did not make up a majority of registered voters in any district. The largest percentage of Negro voters in a single district under Plan I was 45.2%. When the city submitted Plan I to the Attorney General pursuant to § 5, he objected to it, stating that it appeared to “dilute black voting strength by combining a number of black voters with a larger number of white voters in each of the five districts.” He also expressed the view that “the district lines [were not] drawn as they [were] because of any compelling governmental need” and that the district lines did “not reflect numeric population configurations or considerations of district compactness or regularity of shape.”
Even before the Attorney General objected to Plan I, the city authorities had commenced work on a second plan — Plan II. That plan followed the general north-to-south districting pattern common to the 1961 apportionment and Plan I. It produced Negro population majorities in two districts and a Negro voter majority (52.6%) in one district. When Plan II was submitted to the Attorney General, he posed the same objections to it that he had raised to Plan I. In addition, he noted that “the predominantly black neighborhoods in the city are located generally in an east to west progression,” and pointed out that the use of north-to-south districts in such a situation almost inevitably would have the effect of diluting the maximum potential impact of the Negro vote. Following the rejection by the Attorney General of Plan II, the city brought this declaratory judgment action in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia.
The District Court concluded that Plan II would have the effect of abridging the right to vote on account of race or color. It calculated that if Negroes could elect city councilmen in proportion to their share of the city’s registered voters, they would be able to choose 2.42 of the city’s seven councilmen, and, if in proportion to their share of the city’s population, to choose 3.15 councilmen. But under Plan II the District Court concluded that, since New Orleans’ elections had been marked by bloc voting along racial lines, Negroes would probably be able to elect only one councilman — the candidate from the one councilmanic district in which a majority of the voters were Negroes. This difference between mathematical potential and predicted, reality was such that “the burden in the case at bar was at least to demonstrate that nothing but the redistricting proposed by Plan II was feasible.” 374 F. Supp., at 393. The court concluded that “[t]he City has not made that sort of demonstration; indeed, it was conceded at trial that neither that plan nor any of its variations was the City’s sole available alternative.” Ibid.
As a separate and independent ground for rejecting Plan II, the District Court held that the failure of the plan to alter the city charter provision establishing two at-large seats had the effect in itself of “abridging the right to vote ... on account of race or color.” As the court put it: “[T]he City has not supported the choice of at-large elections by any consideration which would satisfy the standard of compelling governmental interest, or the need to demonstrate the improbability of its realization through the use of single-member districts. These evaluations compel the conclusion that the feature of the city’s electoral scheme by which two councilmen are selected at large has the effect of impermissibly minimizing the vote of its black citizens; and the further conclusion that for this additional reason the city’s redistricting plan does not pass muster.” Id., at 402. (Footnotes omitted.)
The District Court therefore refused to allow Plan II to go into effect. As a result there have been no coun-cilmanic elections in New Orleans since 1970, and the councilmen elected at that time (or their appointed successors) have remained in office ever since.
II
A
The appellants urge, and the United States on reargument of this case has conceded, that the District Court was mistaken in holding that Plan II could be rejected under § 5 solely because it did not eliminate the two at-large councilmanic seats that had existed since 1954. The appellants and the United States are correct in their interpretation of the statute in this regard.
The language of § 5 clearly provides that it applies only to proposed changes in voting procedures. “[Discriminatory practices . . . instituted prior to November 1964 . . . are not subject to the requirement of pre-clearance [under § 5].” U. S. Commission on Civil Rights, The Voting Rights Act: Ten Years After, p. 347. The ordinance that adopted Plan II made no reference to the at-large councilmanic seats. Indeed, since those seats had been established in 1954 by the city charter, an ordinance could not have altered them; any change in the charter would have required approval by the city’s voters. The at-large seats, having existed without change since 1954, were not subject to review in this proceeding under § 5.
B
The principal argument made by the appellants in this Court is that the District Court erred in concluding that the makeup of the five geographic council-manic districts under Plan II would have the effect of abridging voting rights on account of race or color. In evaluating this claim it is important to note at the outset that the question is not one of constitutional law, but of statutory construction. A determination of when a legislative reapportionment has “the effect of denying or abridging the right to vote on account of race or color,” must depend, therefore, upon the intent of Congress in enacting the Voting Rights Act and specifically § 5.
The legislative history reveals that the basic purpose of Congress in enacting the Voting Rights Act was “to rid the country of racial discrimination in voting.” South Carolina v. Katzenbach, 383 U. S., at 315. Section 5 was intended to play an important role in achieving that goal:
“Section 5 was a response to a common practice in some jurisdictions of staying one step ahead of the federal courts by passing new discriminatory voting laws as soon as the old ones had'been struck down. That practice had been possible because each new law remained in effect until the Justice Department or private plaintiffs were able to sustain the burden of proving that the new law, too, was discriminatory. . . . Congress therefore decided, as the Supreme Court held it could, ‘to shift the advantage of time and inertia from the perpetrators of the evil to its victim/ by ‘freezing election procedures in the covered areas unless the changes can be shown to be nondiscriminatory.’ ” H. R. Rep. No. 94-196, pp. 57-58. (Footnotes omitted.)
See also H. R. Rep. No. 439, 89th Cong., 1st Sess., 9-11, 26; S. Rep. No. 162, 89th Cong., 1st Sess., pt. 3, pp. 6-9, 24; H. R. Rep. No. 91-397, pp. 6-8; H. R. Rep. No. 94-196, pp. 8-11, 57-60; S. Rep. No. 94-295, pp. 15-19; South Carolina v. Katzenbach, supra, at 335.
By prohibiting the enforcement of a voting-procedure change until it has been demonstrated to the United States Department of Justice or to a three-judge federal court that the change does not have a discriminatory effect, Congress desired to prevent States from “undo-ting] or defeat [ing] the rights recently won” by Negroes. H. R. Rep. No. 91-397, p. 8. Section 5 was intended “to insure that [the gains thus far achieved in minority political participation] shall not be destroyed through new [discriminatory] procedures and techniques.” S. Rep. No. 94-295, p. 19.
When it adopted a 7-year extension of the Voting Rights Act in 1975, Congress explicitly stated that “the standard [under § 5] can only be fully satisfied by determining on the basis of the facts found by the Attorney General [or the District Court] to be true whether the ability of minority groups to participate in the political process and to elect their choices to office is augmented, diminished, or not affected by the change affecting voting . . . .” H. R. Rep. No. 94-196, p. 60 (emphasis added) , In other words the purpose of § 5 has always been to insure that no voting-procedure changes would be made that would lead to a retrogression in the position of racial minorities with respect to their effective exercise of the electoral franchise.
It is thus apparent that a legislative reapportionment that enhances the position of racial minorities with respect to their effective exercise of the electoral franchise can hardly have the “effect” of diluting or abridging the right to vote on account of race within the meaning of § 5. We conclude, therefore, that such an ameliorative new legislative apportionment cannot violate § 5 unless the new apportionment itself so discriminates on the basis of race or color as to violate the Constitution.
The application of this standard to the facts of the present case is straightforward. Under the apportionment of 1961 none of the five councilmanic districts had a clear Negro majority of registered voters, and no Negro has been elected to the New Orleans City Council while that apportionment system has been in effect. Under Plan II, by contrast, Negroes will constitute a majority of the population in two of the five districts and a clear majority of the registered voters in one of them. Thus, there is every reason to predict, upon the District Court’s hypothesis of bloc voting, that at least one and perhaps two Negroes may well be elected to the council under Plan II. It was therefore error for the District Court to conclude that Plan II “will. . . have the effect of denying or abridging the right to vote on account of race or color” within the meaning of § 5 of the Voting Rights Act.
Accordingly, the judgment of the District Court is vacated, and the case is remanded to that court for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
Mr. Justice Stevens took no part in the consideration or decision of this case.
Section 5 provides:
"Whenever a State or political subdivision with respect to which the prohibitions set forth in section 1973b (a) of this title based upon determinations made under the first sentence of section 1973b (b) of this title are in effect shall enact or seek to administer any voting qualification or prerequisite to voting, or standard, practice, or procedure with respect to voting different from that in force or effect on November 1, 1964, or whenever a State or political subdivision with respect to which the prohibitions set forth in section 1973b (a) of this title based upon determinations made under the second sentence of section 1973b (b) of this title are in effect shall enact or seek to administer any voting qualification or prerequisite to voting, or standard, practice, or procedure with respect to voting different from that in force or effect on November 1, 1968, or whenever a State or political subdivision with respect to which the prohibitions set forth in section 1973b (a) of this title based upon determinations made under the third sentence of section 1973b (b) of this title are in effect shall enact or seek to administer any voting qualification or prerequisite to voting, or standard, practice, or procedure with respect to voting different from that in force or effect on November 1, 1972, such State or subdivision may institute an action in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia for a declaratory judgment that such qualification, prerequisite, standard, practice, or procedure does not have the purpose and will not have the effect of denying or abridging the right to vote on account of race or color, or in contravention of the guarantees set forth in section 1973b (f) (2) of this title, and unless and until the court enters such judgment no person shall be denied the right to vote for failure to comply with such qualification, prerequisite, standard, practice, or procedure: Provided, That such qualification, prerequisite, standard, practice, or procedure may be enforced without such proceeding if the qualification, prerequisite, standard, practice, or procedure has been submitted by the chief legal officer or other appropriate official of such State or subdivision to the Attorney General and the Attorney General has not interposed an objection within sixty days after such submission, or upon good cause shown, to facilitate an expedited approval within sixty days after such submission, the Attorney General has affirmatively indicated that such objection will not be made. Neither an affirmative indication by the Attorney General that no objection will be made, nor the Attorney General’s failure to object, nor a declaratory judgment entered under this section shall bar a subsequent action to enjoin enforcement of such qualification, prerequisite, standard, practice, or procedure. In the event the Attorney General affirmatively indicates that no objection will be made within the sixty-day period following receipt of a submission, the Attorney General may reserve the right to reexamine the submission if additional information comes to his attention during the remainder of the sixty-day period which would otherwise require objection in accordance with this section. Any action under this section shall be heard and determined by a court of three judges in accordance with the provisions of section 2284 of Title 28 and any appeal shall lie to the Supreme Court.” 79 Stat. 439, as amended, 89 Stat. 402, 404, 42 U. S. C. § 1973c (1970 ed., Supp. V).
42 U. S. C. § 1973b (1970 ed. and Supp. V). Louisiana and its political subdivisions are subject to the provisions of §4. 30 Fed. Reg. 9897 (1965).
The action was actually brought on behalf of the city of New Orleans by six of the seven members of its city council. For convenience the appellants sometimes are referred to in this opinion as New Orleans or the city.
The defendants in the suit were the United States and the Attorney General of the United States. A group of Negro voters of New Orleans intervened on the side of the defendants in the District Court.
The difference in the two figures is due in part to the fact that proportionately more whites of voting age are registered to vote than are Negroes and in part to the fact that the age structures of the white and Negro populations of New Orleans differ significantly — 72.3% of the white population is of voting age, but only 57.1% of the Negro population is of voting age. See U. S. Civil Rights Commission, The Voting Rights Act: Ten Years After, pp. 368, 383.
The decision to draft a new plan was in large part attributable to the opposition to Plan I expressed by the residents of Algiers— that part of New Orleans located south of the Mississippi River. The residents of Algiers have a common interest in promoting the construction of an additional bridge across the river. They had always been represented by one councilman, and they opposed Plan I primarily because it divided Algiers among three council-manic districts.
The opposition to Plan I in Algiers, see n. 5, supra, was quieted in Plan II by placing all of that section of the city in one council-manic district.
The District Court did not address the question whether Plan II was adopted with such a ‘'purpose.” See n. 1, supra.
This Court has, of course, rejected the proposition that members of a minority group have a federal right to be represented in legislative bodies in proportion to their number in the general population. See Whitcomb v. Chavis, 403 U. S. 124, 149. It is worth noting, however, that had the District Court applied its mathematical calculations to the five seats that were properly subject to its scrutiny, see Part II-A of text, infra, it would have concluded on the basis of registered voter figures that Negroes in New Orleans had a theoretical potential of electing 1.7 of the five eouncilmen. A realistic prediction would seem to be that under the actual operation of Plan II at least one and perhaps two Negro eouncilmen would in fact be elected. See infra, at 142.
At various points in its 40-page opinion the District Court described its understanding of the statutory criteria in terms somewhat different from those quoted in the text above. Since, as will hereafter appear, our understanding of the meaning of § 5 does not in any event coincide with that of the District Court, no purpose would be served by isolating and separately examining the various verbalizations of the statutory criteria contained in its opinion.
In reaching this conclusion, we do not decide the question reserved in Georgia v. United States, 411 U. S. 526, 535 n. 7, whether a district in a proposed legislative reapportionment plan that is identical to a district in the previously existing apportionment may be subject to review under § 5. The at-large seats in the present case were not even part of the 1961 plan, let alone of Plan II.
This Court has not before dealt with the question of what criteria a legislative reapportionment plan must satisfy under § 5. Last Term in City of Richmond v. United States, 422 U. S. 358, the Court had to decide under what circumstances § 5 would permit a city to annex additional territory when that annexation would have the effect of changing the city’s Negro population from a majority into a minority. The Court held that the annexation should be approved under the “effect” aspect of § 5 if the system for electing councilmen would likely produce results that “fairly reflect [ed] the strength of the Negro community as it exists after the annexation.” 422 U. S., at 371. The City of Richmond case thus decided when a change with an adverse impact on previous Negro voting power met the “effect” standard of § 5. The present case, by contrast, involves a change with no such adverse impact upon the former voting power of Negroes.
Cf. MR. Justice Brennan's dissenting opinion in City of Richmond v. United States, supra, at 388: “I take to be the fundamental objective of § 5 . . . the protection of present levels of voting effectiveness for the black population.” (Emphasis in original.)
The intervenors have advised us of statistics indicating that as of 1974, the percentage of Negro registered voters in the city as a whole increased to 38.2%. Assuming the accuracy of these estimates, and that the increase has been proportionate in each council-manic district, it is quite possible that by this time not only a majority of the population but also a majority of the registered voters in two of the Plan II districts are Negroes. See Taylor v. McKeithen, 499 F. 2d 893, 896 (CA5).
It is possible that a legislative reapportionment could be a substantial improvement over its predecessor in terms of lessening racial discrimination, and yet nonetheless continue so to discriminate on the basis of race or color as to be unconstitutional. The United States has made no claim that Plan II suffers from any such disability, nor could it rationally do bo.
There is no decision in this Court holding a legislative apportionment or reapportionment violative of the Fifteenth Amendment. Cf. Wright v. Rockefeller, 376 U. S. 52. The case closest to so holding is Gomillion v. Lightfoot, 364 U. S. 339, in which the Court found that allegations of racially motivated gerrymandering of a municipality’s political boundaries stated a claim under that Amendment. The many cases in this Court involving the Fourteenth Amendment’s “one man, one vote” standard are not relevant here. See Reynolds v. Sims, 377 U. S. 533. But in at least four cases the Court has considered claims that legislative apportion-ments violated the Fourteenth Amendment rights of identifiable racial or ethnic minorities. See Fortson v. Dorsey, 379 U. S. 433, 439; Burns v. Richardson, 384 U. S. 73, 86-89; Whitcomb v. Chavis, 403 U. S. 124, 149; White v. Regester, 412 U. S. 755. Plan II does not remotely approach a violation of the constitutional standards enunciated in those cases.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer:
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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 Brennan
delivered the opinion of the Court.
After a government witness testifies on direct examination in a federal criminal prosecution the trial court is required, under the so-called Jencks Act, on motion of the defendant, to order the United States to produce, for impeachment purposes, defined pretrial statements of the witness, or parts of such statements as determined under subsection (c), which relate to the subject matter of his trial testimony and are in the possession of the United States. The conviction of the petitioners in the District Court for the District of Massachusetts for bank robbery in violation of 18 U. S. C. § 2113 was sustained by the Court of Appeals for the First Circuit. 269 F. 2d 688. During the trial the court ordered the Government to produce a document described on cross-examination by one of its witnesses in terms which satisfy the definition of a “statement” under the Act. The Government denied having possession of such a document. It did, however, admit possession of an Interview Report of an interview by an FBI agent with that witness, but contended that this report fell outside the statute. The trial judge held an inquiry without the jury present, at the conclusion of which he refused to order the United States to deliver the Interview Report to the petitioners, and also denied their motion to strike the testimony of the witness. The procedure at that inquiry raises questions important in the administration of the Jencks Act, and we granted certio-rari limited to the review of those questions. 362 U. S. 909.
The government witness was Dominic Staula, a depositor who was in the bank at the time of the robbery. On direct examination he identified the petitioner Lester as one of the robbers. When asked on cross-examination whether he made any statements to government agents before the trial, he said that an agent of the Federal Bureau of Investigation who interviewed him during the week following the robbery wrote down such a statement. His recollection of what occurred at the interview was not entirely clear, but the trial judge ruled that he had made a statement satisfying the requirements of the Jencks Act and ordered the United States to produce it. The Assistant United States Attorney presenting the Government’s case stated that he had no such paper as the witness described. He stated further that the only document in the possession of the prosecution was not a "statement” within the statute, but a typed Interview Report of FBI Special Agent Toomey prepared and transcribed after the interview at a time unknown to the Assistant. The Assistant refused to deliver the report to petitioners’ counsel but delivered it to the judge for his inspection. To the court’s question whether the Government possessed “any statement that was copied by an FBI Agent which in any way would reflect a statement that this witness made and which he substantially adopted as the statement,” the Assistant replied “No, your Honor, we don’t.” To the further question whether “the United States [has] in its possession any notes that were taken down by the FBI Agent at the time this witness was interviewed,” the Assistant answered, “I do not have them in my possession and I do not know whether they ever existed.”
The Jencks Act limits access by defendants to such government papers as fit the Act’s definition of “statements” which relate to the subject matter as to which the witness has testified, Palermo v. United States, 360 U. S. 343. However, the statute requires that the judge shall, on motion of the defendant, after a witness called by the United States has testified on direct examination, order the United States, for impeachment purposes, to produce any such “statements.” To that extent, as the legislative history makes clear, the Jencks Act “reaffirms” our holding in Jencks v. United States, 353 U. S. 657, that the defendant on trial in a federal criminal prosecution is entitled, for impeachment purposes, to relevant and competent statements of a government witness in possession of the Government touching the events or activities as to which the witness has testified at the trial.. S. Rep. No. 981, 85th Cong., 1st Sess., p. 3. And see H. R. Rep. No. 700, 85th Cong., 1st Sess., pp. 3-4. The command of the statute is thus designed to further the fair and just administration of criminal justice, a goal of which the judiciary is the special guardian.
After an overnight recess the trial judge conducted an inquiry without the jury present to take testimony and hear argument of counsel. Plainly enough this was a proper, even a required, proceeding in the circumstances. Determination of the question whether the Government should be ordered to produce government papers could not be made from a mere inspection of the Interview Report, but only with the help of extrinsic evidence. The situation was different from that governed by subsection (c), in which the Government admits that a document in its possession is a “statement” but submits the paper for the judge’s in camera inspection to delete matter which the Government contends does not relate to the subject matter of the testimony of the witness. The situation was similar to that in Palermo, where the Government also contended that a paper in its possession was not a “statement.” We there approved the procedure of taking extrinsic testimony out of the presence of the jury to assist the judge in reaching his determination whether to order production of the paper. We said, at 354-355, “It is also the function of the trial judge to decide, in light of the circumstances of each case, what, if any, evidence extrinsic to the statement itself may or must be offered to prove the nature of the statement.”
In this case the aid of extrinsic evidence was required to answer the following questions bearing on the petitioners’ motions:
Did Toomey write down what Staula told him at the interview? If so, did Toomey give Staula the paper “to read over, to make sure that it was right,” and did Staula sign it?
Was the Interview Report the paper Staula described, or a copy of that paper? In either case, as the trial judge ruled, the Interview Report would be a producible “statement” under subsection (e) (1). “Statements” under that subsection are not limited to such as the witness has himself set down on paper. They include also a statement written down by another which the witness • “signed or otherwise adopted or approved” as a statement “made by said witness.” True, the report does not bear Staula’s signature and the witness testified “I think I had to sign” the original paper. Hbwever, if the paper was otherwise adopted or approved by the witness, his signature was not essential. See Bergman v. United States, 253 F. 2d 933, 935, note 1; United States v. Tomaiolo, 280 F. 2d 411, 413.
If the Interview Report was not the original or a copy of the paper Staula described, what became of the paper?
In any event, even if the Interview Report was not the original or a copy of the paper Staula described, had Staula read over and approved the Interview Report? In such case the report would be producible under subsection (e)(1) although not related to the paper Staula described. Or was the Interview Report a substantially verbatim recital of an oral statement which the agent had recorded contemporaneously? If extrinsic evidence established this, the report would be producible under subsection (e)(2). Palermo v. United States, at 351-352.
The obvious witness to call was Special Agent Toomey who, the parties agreed, was readily available. Defense counsel suggested that the agent be called “to explain where he got the . . . [Interview Report],” and also because “Mr. Toomey could easily say what he has done with the original writing.” Defense counsel were not in a position also to appreciate the significance of Toomey’s testimony to the possible producibility of the Interview Report itself. Consistent with our admonition in Palermo, 360 U. S., at 354, that “It would indeed defeat this design [to limit defense access to government papers] to hold that the defense may see statements in order to argue whether it should be allowed to see them,” neither the Government nor the judge permitted them to inspect it. From his own inspection, however, the judge was aware of the significance which Toomey’s evidence might have on the judge’s determination whether he should order the Government to turn over the Interview Report to the defense. The Interview Report resembles the statement Staula described and the judge indicated that he would order its production if it was that statement or a copy of it, or although not the original or a copy, if Staula had read and approved it, or if it was a contemporaneously recorded substantially verbatim recital of Staula’s oral statement. Nevertheless, the judge ruled that it was for the petitioners to subpoena Toomey as “their witness” if they believed his testimony would support their motions, and that he would not of his own motion summon Toomey to testify, or require the Government to produce him. We think that this ruling was erroneous.
The inquiry being conducted by the judge was not an adversary proceeding in the nature of a trial controlled by rules governing the allocation between the parties of the burdens of proof or persuasion. The inquiry was simply a proceeding necessary to aid the judge to discharge the responsibility laid upon him to enforce the statute. The function of prosecution and defense at the inquiry was not so much a function of their adversary positions in the trial proper, as it was a function of their duty to come forward with relevant evidence which might assist the judge in the making of his determination. These considerations standing alone suggest that the emphasis on the petitioners' burden to produce the evidence was misplaced. The statute says nothing of burdens of producing evidence. Rather it implies the duty in the trial judge affirmatively to administer the statute in such way as can best secure relevant and available evidence necessary to decide between the directly opposed interests protected by the statute — the interest of the Government in safeguarding government papers from disclosure, and the interest of the accused in having the Government produce “statements” which the statute requires to be produced.
The circumstances of this case clearly required that the judge call Toomey of his own motion or require the Government to produce him. Not only did the Government have the advantage over the defense of knowing the contents of the Interview Report but it also had the advantage of having Toomey in its employ and presumably knew, or could readily ascertain from him, the facts about the interview. In addition to the consideration that the interest of the United States in a criminal prosecution “. . . is not that it shall win a case, but that justice shall be done, . . .” Berger v. United States, 295 U. S. 78, 88, the ordinary rule, based on considerations of fairness, does not place the burden upon a litigant of establishing facts peculiarly within the knowledge of his adversary. United States v. New York, N. H. & H. R. Co., 355 U. S. 253, 256, note 5. Moreover, the petitioners’ cross-examination of Staula had shown a prima jade case of their entitlement to a statement, and, at the least, the judge should have required the Government to come forward with evidence to answer that case. Cf. United States v. Costello, 145 F. Supp. 892, 894-895, note 13. Since the Interview Report was not, and under Palermo could not be, made available to the petitioners, and they thus had no way of knowing the significance of its contents to the question the judge was to determine, it saddled an unfairly severe burden on them to require them to subpoena Toomey as “their witness.” In the role of petitioners’ witness, they would be groping in the dark in questioning him, and they might be bound by his answers. As a witness called by the Government or even as the court’s witness, they would have a latitude in cross-examination to which the circumstances entitled them.
Instead of calling Toomey or having the Government call him, the trial judge fell into further error by relying upon Staula to supply the information he sought. Over the objection of government counsel that the Interview Report had not been “recorded contemporaneously with the making of such oral statement,” and over the objection of the petitioners that “If this man now reads that statement it loses its effect for purposes of impeachment,” the judge directed Staula to read the Interview Report and say whether he was familiar with it. The witness said that he had never seen the report. The judge then asked Staula “. . . is that a substantially verbatim recital of what you told Agent Toomey?” The witness replied, “That’s not written up just the way the story is.” “There are things in there turned around.” It was after this testimony was elicited from Staula that the judge ruled he would not order the delivery of the Interview Report to the petitioners, and denied their motion to strike the witness’ testimony.
Reliance upon the testimony of the witness based upon his inspection of the controverted document must be improper in almost any circumstances. The very question being determined was whether the defense should have the document for use in cross-examining the witness. Under Palermo, the trial judge was not to allow the defense to inspect the Interview Report “in order to argue whether it should be allowed to see” it, since to do so would be inconsistent with the congressional purpose to limit access to government papers. Similarly, Staula should not have been allowed to inspect the Interview Report, since there necessarily inhered in the witness’ inspection of the paper the obvious hazard that his self-interest might defeat the statutory design of requiring the Government to produce papers which are “statements” within the statute. For example, the Interview Report states that Staula was unable to give any description of one of the robbers. This is in sharp contrast to his positive identification of Lester made on direct examination. Experienced trial judges and lawyers will readily understand the value of the use of the report on cross-examination of the witness. But the petitioners were deprived of the opportunity to make use of the report by the obviously self-serving declarations of the witness that it did not accurately record what he told the agent.
Moreover, failure of the judge to call for Toomey’s testimony foreclosed a proper determination of the petitioners’ motion to strike the witness’ testimony. If the Interview Report was not the original or a copy of the paper Staula described, and that paper was destroyed, the petitioners might have been denied a statement to which they were entitled under the statute. Thus, even if the Interview Report itself were producible, a situation might have arisen calling for decision whether subsection (d) of the statute required the striking of the testimony of the witness. The parties argue whether destruction may be regarded as the equivalent of noncompliance with an order to produce under that subsection. The Government contends that only destruction for improper motives or in bad faith should be so regarded. The petitioners contend that destruction without regard to the circumstances should be so regarded. However, this record affords us no opportunity to decide this important question of the construction of subsection (d). We do not yet know that such a paper existed, and was destroyed, or the circumstances of its destruction, nor can we know without the benefit at least of Toomey’s testimony.
We conclude that because of these errors in the conduct of the inquiry the petitioners are entitled to a redeter-mination of their motion for the production of Staula’s pretrial statements, and of their motion to strike his testimony. However, we do not think that this Court should vacate their conviction and order a new trial. The petitioners’ rights can be fully protected by a remand to the trial court with direction to hold a new inquiry consistent with this opinion. See United States v. Shotwell Mfg. Co., 355 U. S. 233. The District Court will supplement the record with new findings and enter a new final judgment of conviction if the court concludes upon the new inquiry to reaffirm its former rulings. This will preserve to the petitioners the right to seek further appellate review on the augmented record. On the other hand, if the court concludes that the Government should have been required to deliver the Interview Report or other statement to the petitioners, or that it should have granted their motion to strike Staula’s testimony, the court will vacate the judgment of conviction and accord the petitioners a new trial.
The judgment of the Court of Appeals is therefore vacated and the case is remanded to the District Court for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
18 U. S. C. § 3500. Demands for production of statements and reports of witnesses.
“(a) In any criminal prosecution brought by the United States, no statement or report in the possession of the United States which was made by a Government witness or prospective Government witness (other than the defendant) to an agent of the Government shall be the subject of subpena, discovery, or inspection until said witness has testified on direct examination in the trial of the case.
“(b) After a witness called by the United 'States has testified on direct examination, the court shall, on motion of the defendant, order the United States to produce any statement (as hereinafter defined) of the witness in the possession of the United States which relates to the subject matter as to which the witness has testified. If the entire contents of any such statement relate to the subject matter of the testimony of the witness, the court shall order it to be delivered directly to the defendant for his examination and use.
“(c) If the United States claims that any statement ordered to be produced under this section contains matter which does not relate to the subject matter of the testimony of the witness, the court shall order the United States to deliver such statement for the inspection of the court in camera. Upon such delivery the court shall excise the portions of such statement which do not relate to the subject matter of the testimony of the witness. With such material excised, the court shall then direct delivery of such statement to the defendant for his use. If, pursuant to such procedure, any portion of such statement is withheld from the defendant and the defendant objects to such withholding, and the trial is continued to an adjudication of the guilt of the defendant, the entire text of such statement shall be preserved by the United States and, in the event the defendant appeals, shall be made available to the appellate court for the purpose of determining the correctness of the ruling of the trial judge. Whenever any statement is delivered to a defendant pursuant to this section, the court in its discretion, upon application of said defendant, may recess proceedings in the trial for such time as it may determine to be reasonably required for the examination of such statement by said defendant and his preparation for its use in the trial.
“ (d) If the United States elects not to comply with an order of the court under paragraph (b) or (c) hereof to deliver to the defendant any such statement, or such portion thereof as the court may direct, the court shall strike from the record the testimony of the witness, and the trial shall proceed unless the court in its discretion shall determine that the interests of justice require that a mistrial be declared.
“(e) The term ‘statement,’ as used in subsections (b), (c), and (d) of this section in relation to any witness called by the United States, means—
“(1) a written statement made by said witness and signed or otherwise adopted or approved by him; or
“(2) a stenographic, mechanical, electrical, or other recording, or a transcription thereof, which is a substantially verbatim recital of an oral statement made by said witness to an agent of the Government and recorded contemporaneously with the making of such oral statement.” Added by Pub. L. 85-269, Sept. 2, 1957, 71 Stat. 595.
The pertinent parts of his testimony are as follows:
“XQ. Now, Mr. Witness, when you said you had a conversation with the FBI some time less than a week after July 18, 1957, did they write down what you had to say to them?
“The Court: If you know.
“The Witness: Yes.
“XQ. And did they read it back to you, sir? A. Yes.
“XQ. And did they ask you if that was essentially what you had just related to them? A. Yes.
“XQ. And did you tell them yes? A. Yes.
“The Court: I will order it produced. There is a foundation laid for it.
“The Witness: ... He didn’t actually ask me questions. I mean, at first I told him the story, and then when I got through he asked me a few questions.
“The Court: Well, did he read it back to you?
“The Witness: I believe he did.
“The Court: What is your best memory of it?
“The Witness: I am pretty sure he did.
“The Court: Is your memory such as to enable you to say that what was read back to you was an accurate statement of what you told him?
“The Witness: Yes.
“The Witness: If you will excuse me, I am trying to rack my brain to think about what happened. I think they wrote down what I said, and then I think they gave it back to me to read over, to make sure that it was right. And I think I had to sign it. Now, I am not Sure. I couldn’t remember before — ”
The District Court sealed the Interview Report for the Court of Appeals. The Court of Appeals released it and it is in the record here. The full text is as follows:
“Federal Bureau of Investigation Interview Report
“Mr. Dominic Staula, home address 259 Island Street, Stoughton, Massachusetts, a customer at the victim bank, advised that he arrived at the Norfolk County Trust Company in Canton, Massachusetts, to' transact some business at approximately 10:15 A. M., July 18, 1957. Mr. Staula stated that he was driving a truck and parked it beside the Canton Depot in the parking area located between the railroad depot and the bank. He stated that he noted nothing unusual when he entered this parking area nor did he notice anything unusual in walking from where he parked his vehicle to the bank.
“It was stated by Mr. Staula that he went to the teller’s window which is served by Mr. Kennedy and while standing in line at this window, but before being waited upon by Mr. Kennedy, he heard somebody state from behind him ‘Over against the wall.’
“Mr. Staula stated that he looked around and observed a man whom he described as being a negro, wearing gray chino pants, standing in the center of the lobby and holding a gun. Staula stated that he immediately realized that the bank was being held up and at once took his deposits which consisted of cash and slid them into his side trouser pocket.
“Mr. Staula went on to state that he only observed the man standing in the center of the lobby for an instant and could give no further description of him because he turned toward the front of the bank and observed another man standing there holding a gun. Staula stated that he looked at this man for a short period of time and described him as follows: [Footnote 3 continued on p. 91.1
“Property of FBI. — This report is loaned to you by the FBI, and neither it nor its contents are to be distributed outside the agency to which loaned.
Sex . Male.
Race . Negro.
Age . Approximately 30 years.
Height . 5' 10".
Weight . 165 pounds.
Complexion . Very dark.
Build . Slender.
Face . Round.
Clothing . Dark blue suit. Blue snap brim hat. White shirt.
“Mr. Staula stated that he did not observe a third man in the bank—
“It was stated by Mr. Staula that he did not know what type of gun was carried by these two individuals whom he observed but believed that they could have been 45 caliber automatics.
“Mr. Staula stated that after taking a look at the individual wearing the blue suit he faced the wall as previously ordered and observed these individuals no further.
“He stated that after he stood with his face to the wall for approximately 10 minutes one of the robbers ordered him and the other people who were standing on either side of him to walk into the vault. He stated that he does not recall which of the robbers issued this order but that he did enter the vault as directed and observed these individuals no further.
“Mr. Staula stated that one of the robbers, closed the door of the vault he issued some order to the effect that the people locked inside should not leave and that they stayed there for 5 or 10 minutes until the vault door was opened by Sergeant Ruane of the Canton, Massachusetts, Police Department.”
“Interview with Dominic Staula, File # 91-952, on July 19, 1957, at Canton, Massachusetts, by Special Agent John F. Toomey, Jr., bjp.”
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
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 Black
delivered the opinion of the Court.
This case is properly here on appeal, 28 U. S. C. § 345, from a district court decree enjoining enforcement of a cease and desist order of the Interstate Commerce Commission. 71 F. Supp. 499. The order enjoined required the five railroad appellees to abstain from refusing to deliver interstate shipments of livestock to the sidetrack of Swift & Company’s packing plant at Cleveland, Ohio, and to establish tariffs for such deliveries. Swift’s sidetrack has only one connection with a railroad. That connection is with the main line of the New York Central by way of a spur track, known as “Spur No. 245,” operated by that railroad. One end of this spur owned by the New York Central connects with its main line; the other end of the spur, also owned by the railroad, connects with Swift’s sidetrack and with other private sidetracks. A 1619-foot middle segment of the spur, known as “Track 1619,” is owned by the Cleveland Union Stock Yards Company. Under the terms of a trackage agreement with Stock Yards, New York Central uses Track 1619 for deliveries to Swift’s sidetrack and other private sidetracks connected with Spur No. 245. Thus all interstate railroad shipments to Swift’s siding and to others similarly located can be made only over the segment of track owned by Stock Yards. Because of its interest in Track 1619, Stock Yards was made a party to the proceedings before the Commission and was included in its cease and desist order along with the railroads. So long as Stock Yards continues to own Track 1619, delivery of livestock and other freight by New York Central to Swift and others similarly located depends upon whether and to what extent Stock Yards will grant or has granted New York Central a right to operate over Track 1619. This present case involves the question of whether the railroads, and particularly New York Central, in making deliveries of livestock over Track 1619 to Swift’s sidetrack must comply with certain conditions imposed by Stock Yards in its present agreement with New York Central.
Track 1619 was constructed in 1899 on Stock Yards’ property by Stock Yards and New York Central’s predecessor in interest. A contemporaneous written agreement, cancellable on 60-days’ written notice by the railroad, gave the railroad a right to use the track for railroad purposes, provided the use did not interfere with Stock Yards’ business. In 1910, after negotiations with the railroad, Swift built its sidetrack, and the railroad extended its Spur No. 245 by a track which connected Track 1619 with Swift’s siding. The 1899 written trackage agreement was superseded by another in 1924. This one was cancellable by either party on 30-days’ written notice. It provided that the railroad should maintain the tracks at its own expense, and it granted to the railroad “the free and uninterrupted use of any and all tracks or portions thereof belonging to the Industry and located on its land.” From 1910, when Swift’s siding was constructed, to 1924, and for many years thereafter, the railroad continued to deliver all kinds of commodities to Swift and to other packers likewise served only by way of Spur No. 245 and Track 1619.
In the early 1930’s Stock Yards concluded that it was losing patronage and fees because of delivery of livestock to Swift at its siding. A large part of Stock Yards’ income comes from fees it charges for unloading and delivering interstate shipments of livestock to pens within its yard. Stock carried over Track 1619 to Swift’s siding and to other private sidings are unloaded at those sidings; as a result Stock Yards loses the fees it would receive if livestock consigned to Swift and to other packers were unloaded at the Stock Yards. With a view toward collecting unloading fees from Swift and other packers served by Spur No. 245, Stock Yards'instituted negotiations with the New York Central which in 1935 resulted in a modification of their 1924 agreement. The old 1924 agreement had unconditionally granted “Railroad, (a) the free and uninterrupted use of any and all tracks . . . .” The 1935 modified agreement also granted New York Central “the free and uninterrupted use” of Stock Yards’ tracks, but added “except for competitive traffic a charge for which use shall be the subject of a separate agreement.”
After this 1935 restrictive modification Stock Yards demanded that the railroad adopt one of two courses with regard to livestock, which the parties agreed was the “competitive traffic” the modified agreement was designed to suppress. The railroad must either stop carrying livestock over Track 1619 to Swift and other packers or pay Stock Yards, for use of Track 1619 in carrying livestock to these packers, an amount equivalent to fees Stock Yards would have collected had the livestock consigned to them been unloaded and delivered in the yard. This amount was considered exorbitant by New York Central and the other railroads for whom New York Central performed switching charges, and they therefore refused to pay it. The result was that in 1938 the railroads ceased delivering-livestock to the sidings of Swift and other packers served by Spur No. 245, although they have under agreement with Stock Yards continued to use the spur for delivery of all other kinds of commodity shipments to these sidings. Swift demanded that the railroads deliver livestock to its siding, and in 1941 filed a complaint with the Interstate Commerce Commission upon their refusal to make deliveries.
After notice and hearing the Commission concluded that the railroad’s refusal to carry livestock to Swift violated several provisions of the Interstate Commerce Act. It was found to violate § 3 (1) because of the discrimination against a single commodity, livestock, and because New York Central’s deliveries of livestock to the sidetracks of some of Swift’s nearby competitors, whose sidings were served without using Track 1619, subjected Swift to undue prejudice and gave those competitors an undue preference. The Commission also found that the failure to deliver under the circumstances shown was a violation of § 1 (6) which forbids unreasonable practices affecting the manner and method of delivering freight, and also a violation of § 1 (9) which requires railroads to operate switch connections with private side tracks without discrimination under such conditions as the Commission found to exist here.
The Commission’s findings of fact are not challenged. There can be no doubt that those facts found would constitute a violation of the sections referred to if Spur No. 245 were wholly owned by the railroad. Ownership of Track 1619 by Stock Yards and its objection to livestock deliveries is, in fact, the only reason suggested for the railroads’ failure to deliver shipments of livestock to Swift as they do to neighboring packers, and for their failure to provide switching connections for livestock shipments. From what has been said our question is this: Can the non-carrier owner of a segment of railroad track who contracts for an interstate railroad’s use of the segment as part of its line reserve a right to regulate the type of commodities that the railroad may transport over the segment, or would such a reservation be invalid under the Interstate Commerce Act?
The Interstate Commerce Act is one of the most comprehensive regulatory plans that Congress has ever undertaken. The first Act, and all amendments to it, have aimed at wiping out discriminations of all types, New York v. United States, 331 U. S. 284, 296, and language of the broadest scope has been used to accomplish all the purposes of the Act. United States v. Pennsylvania R. Co., 323 U. S. 612, 616. It would be strange had this legislation left a way open whereby carriers could engage in discriminations merely by entering into contracts for the use of trackage. In fact this Court has long recognized that the purpose of Congress to prevent certain types of discriminations and prejudicial practices could not be frustrated by contracts, even though the contracts were executed before enactment of the legislation. See Philadelphia, Balt. & Wash. R. Co. v. Schubert, 224 U. S. 603, 613-614; Louisville & Nashville R. Co. v. Mottley, 219 U. S. 467, 483, 485-86.
We think the provisions of the Interstate Commerce Act plainly empowered the Commission to enter this order against the discriminatory practices found, despite ownership of Track 1619 by Stock Yards. Section 1 (1) (a) makes the Interstate Commerce Act applicable to common carriers “wholly by railroad.” Section 1 (3) (a) defines the term “railroad” as including “all the road in use by any common carrier operating a railroad, whether owned or operated under a contract, agreement, or lease, and also all switches, spurs, tracks . . . .” As one of the many other indications that Congress did not intend its railroad regulatory provisions to depend on who had legal title to transportation instrumentalities, § 1 (3) (a) also provides that the word “transportation” as used in the Act shall broadly include “locomotives . . . and all instrumentalities and facilities of shipment or carriage, irrespective of ownership or of any contract, express or implied, for the use thereof . . . .” It is true, as appel-lees argue, that the above language of § 1 (3) (a) is definitional only. Ellis v. Interstate Commerce Comm’n, 237 U. S. 434. But it is also true that these definitions by their unambiguous language make all trackage “in use by any common carrier” subject to the regulatory provisions of the Act, even though not owned by the carrier but only used by it under a contract or agreement. Thus Track 1619, though owned by Stock Yards, was subject to the Act because of its use by the New York Central under trackage agreements.
It is just as prejudicial to shippers and the public for a railroad that uses a portion of track under lease or contract to discriminate as it is for the discrimination to be inflicted by a railroad that owns its entire track. Practically the only argument suggested to justify discriminatory practices under the circumstances here is that an owner has a right to let others use his land subject to whatsoever conditions the owner chooses to impose. It is even argued that to construe the Interstate Commerce Act as limiting that right would result in depriving an owner of his property without due process of law. But no such broad generalization can be accepted. Property can be used even by its owner only in accordance with law, and conditions its owner places on its use by another are subject to like limitations. Of course it does not deprive an owner of his property without due process of law to deny him the right to enforce conditions upon its use which conflict with the power of Congress to regulate railroads so as to secure equality of treatment of those whom the railroads serve.
Here Congress under its constitutional authority has provided that no railroad shall engage in certain types of discriminatory conduct in violation of three provisions of the Act. The Commission found that discriminatory conduct here. The excuse offered by the railroads is that the owner of Track 1619 required them to do the prohibited things. But the command of Congress against discrimination cannot be subordinated to the command of a track owner that a railroad using the track practice discrimination.
We hold that the Commission’s order was authorized by statute and that it does not deprive Stock Yards of its property without due process of law. In doing so we do not pass upon any questions in relation to the dedication of Track 1619 to railroad use. Neither do we decide what are the relative financial rights of Stock Yards and New York Central under their contracts, nor whether Stock Yards can cancel the contract with New York Central, nor what would be the duty of New York Central should Stock Yards attempt to terminate its right to use Track 1619. We only hold that Stock Yards’ ownership of Track 1619 does not vest it with power to compel the railroads to operate in a way which violates the Interstate Commerce Act.
The Commission’s order is valid and should be enforced.
Reversed.
The railroad appellees are Baltimore & Ohio Railroad Company, the Erie Railroad Company, the Wheeling & Lake Erie Railroad Company, the New York Central Railroad Company, and the Pennsylvania Railroad Company.
Appellees argue that Stock Yards was improperly made a party and that the Commission was without power to include Stock Yards in its cease and desist order. We think §2 of the Elkins Act, 32 Stat. 848, 49 U. S. C. § 42, justified the Commission’s action and find no merit to the contention that we should by interpretation restrict that section’s broad language authorizing inclusion as parties of “all persons interested in or affected by the rate, regulation, or practice under consideration” by the Commission or by a court, and which provides that decrees may be made with reference to such additional parties to the same extent as though they were carriers.
In 1938 New York Central ceased to switch livestock carloads of other carriers over Spur No. 245 to Swift’s siding, and it canceled its tariffs for this service. Since that time there has been no specific tariff authority for movement of livestock to Swift’s siding when shipped to Cleveland over lines other than the New York Central. Although New York Central has never canceled its tariff for livestock shipments to Swift’s Cleveland siding from points of origin on its own lines, it has delivered all livestock consigned to Swift’s siding to Stock Yards since 1938. Swift has been forced to pay charges to Stock Yards to obtain possession of livestock unloaded at the yards.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
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.
Certiorari, 348 U. S. 812, to the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit.
Per Curiam:
The judgment of the Court of Appeals is reversed and the ease is remanded to the District Court with instructions to reinstate its order dated July 30, 1952.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer:
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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 Stewart
delivered the opinion of the Court.
The Twenty-first Amendment to the Constitution, which repealed the Eighteenth, provides in its second section that “The transportation or importation into any State, Territory, or possession of the United States for delivery or use therein of intoxicating liquors, in viola^ tion of the laws thereof, is hereby prohibited.” This appeal requires consideration of the relationship of this provision of the Twenty-first Amendment to other provisions of the Constitution, particularly the Commerce Clause.
The appellee (Idlewild) is engaged in the business of selling bottled wines and liquors to departing international airline travelers at the John F. Kennedy Airport in New York. Its place of business is leased from the Port of New York Authority for use solely as “an office in connection with the sale ... of in-bond wines and liquors.” Idlewild accepts orders only from travelers whose tickets and boarding cards indicate their imminent departure. A customer gets nothing but a receipt at the time he gives his order and makes payment. The liquor which he orders is transferred directly to the departing aircraft on documents approved by United States Customs, and is not delivered to the customer until he arrives at his foreign destination.
The beverages sold by Idlewild are purchased by it from bonded wholesalers located outside New York State who deal in tax-free liquors for export. Merchandise ordered by Idlewild is withdrawn from bonded warehouses on approved Customs documents, copies of which are mailed by the wholesalers both to Idlewild and to the United States Customs Office at the airport. A third sealed copy of the document is given to the bonded trucker who delivers it to the Customs Office at the airport after he has transported the shipment to Idlewild’s place of business. The contents of each shipment are recorded by Idlewild, as are withdrawals from inventory whenever a sale is made, and when an entire shipment has been sold, these records are turned over to Customs officials. Idlewild’s records and its physical inventory, as well as the transfer of the liquor from the bonded trucks to Idlewild’s premises and from those premises to the departing aircraft, are at all times open to inspection by the Bureau of Customs. Before Idlewild commenced these business operations in 1960, the Bureau of Customs inspected its place of business and explicitly approved its proposed method of operations.
Idlewild commenced doing business in the spring of 1960. A few weeks later, the New York State Liquor Authority, whose members are the appellants in this case, informed Idlewild, upon the advice of the Attorney General of New York, that its business was illegal under the provisions of the New York Alcoholic Beverage Control Law, because the business was unlicensed and unlicensable under that law. Idlewild thereupon brought the present action for an injunction restraining the appellants from interfering with its business, and for a judgment declaring that the provisions of the New York statute, as applied to its business, were repugnant to the Commerce Clause of the Constitution, and, under the Supremacy-Clause, to the Tariff Act of 1930, under which the Bureau of Customs had approved Idlewild’s business operations.
After lengthy procedural delays, a three-judge District Court granted the requested relief. 212 F. Supp. 376. The court expressed doubt that the New York Alcoholic Beverage Control Law was intended to apply to a business such as that carried on by Idlewild, both because of the manifest irrelevance to such a business of many of the law’s provisions, and because the New York courts had held that the law was inapplicable to the sale of liquor in the Free Trade Zone of the Port of New York. During v. Valente, 267 App. Div. 383, 46 N. Y. S. 2d 385. See also Rosenblum v. Frankel, 279 App. Div. 66, 108 N. Y. S. 2d 6. In view of the posture of the litigation, the court declined, however, to defer deciding the merits of the controversy pending a construction of the statute by the New York courts, although recognizing that “a technical application of the doctrine of abstention” would under ordinary circumstances counsel such a course.
On the merits the court concluded, after reviewing the relevant cases, that the Commerce Clause rendered constitutionally impermissible New York’s attempt wholly to terminate Idlewild’s business operations. The court conceded that New York has broad power under the Twenty-first Amendment to supervise and regulate the transportation of liquor through its territory for the purpose of guarding against a diversion of such liquor into domestic channels, but pointed out that “the Liquor Authority has neither alleged nor proved the diversion of so much as one bottle of plaintiff’s merchandise to users within the state of New York.” 212 F. Supp., at 386. We noted probable jurisdiction, 375 U. S. 809, and for the reasons which follow, we affirm the judgment of the District Court.
We hold first that the District Court did not err in declining to defer to the state courts before deciding this controversy on its merits. The doctrine of abstention is equitable in its origins, Railroad Comm’n v. Pullman Co., 312 U. S. 496, 500-501, and this Court has held that, even though constitutional issues be involved, “reference to the state courts for construction of the statute should not automatically be made.” N. A. A. C. P. v. Bennett, 360 U. S. 471. Unlike many cases in which abstention has been held appropriate, there was here no danger that a federal decision would work a disruption of an entire legislative scheme of regulation. We therefore accept the District Court’s decision that abstention was unwarranted here, where neither party requested it and where the litigation had already been long delayed, despite the plaintiff’s efforts to expedite the proceedings.
Turning, then, to the merits of this controversy, the basic issue we face is whether the Twenty-first Amendment so far obliterates the Commerce Clause as to empower New York to prohibit absolutely the passage of liquor through its territory, under the supervision of the United States Bureau of Customs acting under federal law, for delivery to consumers in foreign countries. For it is not disputed that, if the commodity involved here were not liquor, but grain or lumber, the Commerce Clause would clearly deprive New York of any such power. Lemke v. Farmers Grain Co., 258 U. S. 50; Texas & N. O. R. Co. v. Sabine Tram Co., 227 U. S. 111; Oklahoma v. Kansas Nat. Gas Co., 221 U. S. 229.
This Court made clear in the early years following adoption of the Twenty-first Amendment that by virtue of its provisions a State is totally unconfined by traditional Commerce Clause limitations when it restricts the importation of intoxicants destined for use, distribution, or consumption within its borders. Thus, in upholding a State’s power to impose a license fee upon importers of beer, the Court pointed out that “[p]rior to the Twenty-first Amendment it would obviously have been unconstitutional to have imposed any fee for that privilege. The imposition would have been void, . . . because the fee would be a direct burden on interstate commerce; and the commerce clause confers the right to import merchandise free into any state, except as Congress may otherwise provide.” State Board v. Young’s Market Co., 299 U. S. 59, 62. In the same vein, the Court upheld a Michigan statute prohibiting Michigan dealers from selling beer manufactured in a State which discriminated against Michigan beer. Brewing Co. v. Liquor Comm’n, 305 U. S. 391. “Since the Twenty-first Amendment, . . . the right of a state to prohibit or regulate the importation of intoxicating liquor is not limited by the commerce clause . . . .” Id., at 394. See also Finch & Co. v. McKittrick, 305 U. S. 395.
This view of the scope of the Twenty-first Amendment with respect to a State’s power to restrict, regulate, or prevent the traffic and distribution of intoxicants within its borders has remained unquestioned. See California v. Washington, 358 U. S. 64. Thus, in Ziffrin, Inc., v. Reeves, 308 U. S. 132, there was involved a Kentucky statute, “a long, comprehensive measure (123 sections) designed rigidly to regulate the production and distribution of alcoholic beverages through means of licenses and otherwise. The manifest purpose is to channelize the traffic, minimize the commonly attendant evils; also to facilitate the collection of revenue. To this end manufacture, sale, transportation, and possession are permitted only under carefully prescribed conditions and subject to constant control by the State.” Id., at 134. The Court upheld a provision of that “comprehensive measure” which prohibited a domestic manufacturer of liquor from delivering his product to an unlicensed private carrier. The Court noted that “Kentucky has seen fit to permit manufacture of whiskey only upon condition that it be sold to an indicated class of customers and transported in definitely specified ways. These conditions are not unreasonable and are clearly appropriate for effectuating the policy of limiting traffic in order to minimize well-known evils, and secure payment of revenue. The statute declares whiskey removed from permitted channels contraband subject to immediate seizure. This is within the police power of the State; and property so circumstanced cannot be regarded as a proper article of commerce.” Id., at 139.
To draw a conclusion from this line of decisions that the Twenty-first Amendment has somehow operated to “repeal” the Commerce Clause wherever regulation of intoxicating liquors is concerned would, however, be an absurd oversimplification. If the Commerce Clause had been pro tanto “repealed,” then Congress would be left with no regulatory power over interstate or foreign commerce in intoxicating liquor. Such a conclusion would be patently bizarre and is demonstrably incorrect. In Jameson & Co. v. Morgenthau, 307 U. S. 171, “the Federal Alcohol Administration Act was attacked upon the ground that the Twenty-first Amendment to the Federal Constitution gives to the States complete and exclusive control over commerce in intoxicating liquors, unlimited by the commerce clause, and hence that Congress has no longer authority to control the importation of these commodities into the United States.” The Court’s response to this theory was a blunt one: “We see no substance in this contention.” Id., at 172-173. See also United States v. Frankfort Distilleries, 324 U. S. 293. (Sherman Act.)
Both the. Twenty-first Amendment and the Commerce Clause are parts of the same Constitution. Like other provisions of the Constitution, each must be considered in the light of the other, and in the context of the issues and interests at stake in any concrete case.
This principle is reflected in the Court’s decision in Collins v. Yosemite Park Co., 304 U. S. 518. There it was held that the Twenty-first Amendment did not give California power to prevent the shipment into and through her territory of liquor destined for distribution and consumption in a national park. The Court said that this trafile did not involve “transportation into California 'for delivery or use therein’ ” within the meaning of the Amendment. “The delivery and use is in the Park, and under a distinct sovereignty.” Id., at 538. This ruling was later characterized by the Court as holding “that shipment through a state is not transportation or importation into the state within the meaning of the Amendment.” Carter v. Virginia, 321 U. S. 131, 137. See also Johnson v. Yellow Cab Co., 321 U. S. 383, aff’g, 137 F. 2d 274.
We may assume that if in Collins California had sought to regulate or control the transportation of the liquor there involved from the time of its entry into the State until its delivery at the national park, in the interest of preventing unlawful diversion into her territory, California would have been constitutionally permitted to do so. But the Court held that California could not prevent completely the transportation of the liquor across the State’s territory for delivery and use in a federal enclave within it.
A like accommodation of the Twenty-first Amendment with the Commerce Clause leads to a like conclusion in the present case. Here, ultimate delivery and use is not in New York, but in a foreign country. The State has not sought to regulate or control the passage of intoxicants through her territory in the interest of preventing their unlawful diversion into the internal commerce of the State. As the District Court emphasized, this case does not involve “measures aimed at preventing unlawful diversion or use of alcoholic beverages within New York.” 212 F. Supp., at 386. Rather, the State has sought totally to prevent transactions carried on under the aegis of a law passed by Congress in the exercise of its explicit power under the Constitution to regulate commerce with foreign nations. This New York cannot constitutionally do.
Affirmed.
Mr. Justice Brennan took no part in the consideration or decision of this case.
“The Congress shall have Power ... To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes.” U. S. Const., Art. I, § 8, cl. 3.
The opinion of the New York Attorney General was based primarily upon the following provisions of the New York law:
“ ‘Sale’ means any transfer, exchange or barter in any manner or by any means whatsoever for a consideration, and includes and means all sales made by any person, whether principal, proprietor, agent, servant or employee of any alcoholic beverage and/or a warehouse receipt pertaining thereto. ‘To sell’ includes to solicit or receive an order for, to keep or expose for sale, and to keep with intent to sell and shall include the delivery of any alcoholic beverage in the state.” New York Alcoholic Beverage Control Law, § 3, Subd. 28.
“No person shall manufacture for sale or sell at wholesale or retail any alcoholic beverage within the state without obtaining the appropriate license therefor required by this chapter.” New York Alcoholic Beverage Control Law, § 100, Subd. 1.
“No premises shall be licensed to sell liquors and/or wines at retail for off premises consumption, unless said premises shall be located in a store, the entrance to which shall be from the street level and located on a public thoroughfare in premises which may be occupied, operated or conducted for business, trade or industry or on an arcade or sub-surface thoroughfare leading to a railroad terminal.” New York Alcoholic Beverage Control Law, § 105, Subd. 2.
See 19 U. S. C. § 1311. The complaint also relied on the Export-Import Clause of the Constitution, Art. I, § 10, cl. 2, but such reliance was obviously misplaced, because New York has not sought to “lay any Imposts or Duties” upon the merchandise sold by Idlewild.
The appellee’s original motion to empanel a three-judge court under 28 U. S. C. §§ 2281 and 2284 was denied by a single district judge, who retained jurisdiction pending resolution of the substantive issues by the state courts. 188 F. Supp. 434. The Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit dismissed on appeal on the ground that it was without jurisdiction, though expressing the view that a three-judge court should have been convened. 289 F. 2d 426. The appellee’s renewed request for a three-judge court was then denied by a district judge on the ground that previous District Court rulings in the litigation had established the “law of this case” and that the Court of Appeals’ statement that a three-judge court should have been convened was “dictum.” 194 F. Supp. 3. After granting certi-orari and a motion for leave to file a petition for a writ of mandamus, 368 U. S. 812, this Court, holding that a three-judge court should have been empaneled, remanded the case to the District Court “for expeditious action” to that end. 370 U. S. 713.
The court noted, for example: “The definition of sale in Section 3 (28) provides that ‘ “To sell” . . . shall include the delivery of any alcoholic beverage in the state.’ This, of course, is inapplicable to plaintiff’s sales. Whatever may be the purpose of Section 105 (2) in requiring that a retail liquor store have an entrance from the street level and be located dn a public thoroughfare, the requirements, which may be appropriate where liquor purchases are delivered directly to the customer, seem quite irrelevant to a concern which sells liquor exclusively for delivery in a foreign country.” 212 F. Supp., at 379.
Cf. Government Employees v. Windsor, 353 U. S. 364; American Federation of Labor v. Watson, 327 U. S. 582; Great Lakes Co. v. Huffman, 319 U. S. 293; Burford v. Sun Oil Co., 319 U. S. 315, 323-325; Chicago v. Fieldcrest Dairies, 316 U. S. 168.
See Louisiana P. & L. Co. v. Thibodaux City, 360 U. S. 25, 29, 31; Allegheny County v. Mashuda Co., 360 U. S. 185, 196-197.
The appellants have argued that Idlewild’s operations do not in fact conform to the various federal statutory and administrative standards under authority of which the operations are conducted. But there is no indication that the Bureau of Customs has ever questioned the regularity of Idlewild’s operations under the relevant federal law and regulations.
Likewise, in Mahoney v. Triner Corp., 304 U. S. 401, the Court held that the Equal Protection Clause is not applicable to imported intoxicating liquor. “A classification recognized by the Twenty-first Amendment cannot be deemed forbidden by the Fourteenth.” Id., at 404.
Quite independently of the Twenty-first Amendment, the Court has sustained a State’s power, within the confines of the Commerce Clause, to regulate and supervise the transportation of intoxicants through its territory. See Duckworth v. Arkansas, 314 U. S. 390; Carter v. Virginia, 321 U. S. 131. In Duckworth, Mr. Justice Jackson relied on the Twenty-first Amendment in concurring in the judgment. 314 U. S., at 397. In Carter, Mr. Justice Black, Mr. Justice Frankfurter, and Mr. Justice Jackson wrote separate concurrences, relying upon the Twenty-first Amendment. 321 U. S., at 138, 139. Cf. Gordon v. Texas, 355 U. S. 369, upholding a similar state statute in a per curiam citing both the Twenty-first Amendment and Carter v. Virginia, supra.
Prior to the Eighteenth Amendment, Congress passed laws giving the States a large degree of autonomy in regulating the importation and distribution of intoxicants. These laws, the Wilson Act and the Webb-Kenyon Act, are still in force. 27 U. S. C. §§ 121,122. In United States v. Gudger, 249 U. S. 373, the Court held that under the Reed amendment of 1917 — passed by Congress to strengthen these laws, 39 Stat. 1058, 1069 — a prohibition upon transportation “into” a State did not prohibit the “movement through one State as a mere incident of transportation to the [place] into which it is shipped.” Id., at 375.
See cases cited in note 10, 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:
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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.
OPINION OF THE COURT
[562 U.S. 64]
Justice Kagan
delivered the opinion of the Court.
Chapter 13 of the Bankruptcy Code enables an individual to obtain a discharge of his debts if he pays his creditors a portion of his monthly income in accordance with a court-approved plan. 11 U.S.C. § 1301 et seq. To determine how much income the debtor is capable of paying, Chapter 13 uses a statutory formula known as the “means test.” §§ 707(b)(2) (2006 ed. and Supp. III), 1325(b)(3)(A) (2006 ed.). The means test instructs a debtor to deduct specified expenses from his current monthly income. The result is his “disposable income”—the amount he has available to reimburse creditors. § 1325(b)(2).
This case concerns the specified expense for vehicle-ownership costs. We must determine whether a debtor like petitioner Jason Ransom who owns his car outright, and so does not make loan or lease payments, may claim an allowance for car-ownership costs (thereby reducing the amount he will repay creditors). We hold that the text, context, and purpose of the statutory provision at issue preclude this result. A debtor who does not make loan or lease payments may not take the car-ownership deduction.
I
A
“Congress enacted the Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act of 2005 (BAPCPAor Act) to correct perceived abuses of the bankruptcy system.” Milavetz, Gallop & Milavetz, P. A. v. United States, 559 U.S. 229, 231-232, 130 S. Ct. 1324, 176 L. Ed. 2d 79 (2010). In particular, Congress adopted the means test— “[t]he heart of [BAPCPA’s] consumer bankruptcy reforms,” H. R. Rep. No. 109-31, pt. 1, p. 2 (2005) (hereinafter H. R. Rep.), and the home of the statutory language at issue here—to help ensure that debtors who can pay creditors do pay them. See, e.g., ibid. (under BAPCPA, “debtors [will] repay creditors the maximum they can afford”).
[562 U.S. 65]
In Chapter 13 proceedings, the means test provides a formula to calculate a debtor’s disposable income, which the debtor must devote to reimbursing creditors under a court-approved plan generally lasting from three to five years. §§ 1325(b)(1)(B) and (b)(4). The statute defines “disposable income” as “current monthly income” less “amounts reasonably necessary to be expended” for “maintenance or support,” business expen-di tures, and certain charitable contributions. §§ 1325(b)(2)(A)(i) and (ii). For a debtor whose income is above the median for his State, the means test identifies which expenses qualify as “amounts reasonably necessary to be expended.” The test supplants the pre-BAPCPA practice of calculating debtors’ reasonable expenses on a case-by-case basis, which led to varying and often inconsistent determinations. See, e.g., In re Slusher, 359 B.R. 290, 294 (Bkrtcy. Ct. Nev. 2007).
Under the means test, a debtor calculating his “reasonably necessary” expenses is directed to claim allowances for defined living expenses, as well as for secured and priority debt. §§ 707(b)(2)(A)(ii)-(iv). As relevant here, the statute provides:
“The debtor’s monthly expenses shall be the debtor’s applicable monthly expense amounts specified under the National Standards and Local Standards, and the debtor’s actual monthly expenses for the categories specified as Other Necessary Expenses issued by the Internal
[562 U.S. 66]
Revenue Service [IRS] for the area in which the debtor resides.” § 707(b)(2)(A)(ii)(I).
These are the principal amounts that the debtor can claim as his reasonable living expenses and thereby shield from creditors.
The National and Local Standards referenced in this provision are tables that the IRS prepares listing standardized expense amounts for basic necessities. The IRS uses the Standards to help calculate taxpayers’ ability to pay overdue taxes. See 26 U.S.C. § 7122(d)(2). The IRS also prepares supplemental guidelines known as the Collection Financial Standards, which describe how to use the tables and what the amounts listed in them mean.
The Local Standards include an allowance for transportation expenses, divided into vehicle “Ownership Costs” and vehicle “Operating Costs.” At the time Ransom filed for bankruptcy, the “Ownership Costs” table appeared as follows:
Ownership Costs
App. to Brief for Respondent 5a. The Collection Financial Standards explain that these ownership costs represent “nationwide
[562 U.S. 67]
figures for monthly loan or lease payments,” id., at 2a; the numerical amounts listed are “base[d]... on the five-year average of new and used car financing data compiled by the Federal Reserve Board,” id., at 3a. The Collection Financial Standards further instruct that, in the tax-collection context, “ [i]f a taxpayer has no car payment,... only the operating costs portion of the transportation standard is used to come up with the allowable transportation expense.” Ibid.
B
Ransom filed for Chapter 13 bankruptcy relief in July 2006. App. 1, 54. Among his liabilities, Ransom itemized over $82,500 in unsecured debt, including a claim held by respondent FIA Card Services, N. A. (FIA). Id., at 41. Among his assets, Ransom listed a 2004 Toyota Camry, valued at $14,000, which he owns free of any debt. Id., at 38, 49, 52.
For purposes of the means test, Ransom reported income of $4,248.56 per month. Id., at 46. He also listed monthly expenses totaling $4,038.01. Id., at 53. In determining those expenses, Ransom claimed a car-ownership deduction of $471 for the Camry, the full amount specified in the IRS’s “Ownership Costs” table. Id., at 49. Ransom listed a separate deduction of $338 for car-operating costs. Ibid. Based on these figures, Ransom had disposable income of $210.55 per month. Id., at 53.
Ransom proposed a 5-year plan that would result in repayment of approximately 25% of his unsecured debt. Id., at 55. FIA objected to confirmation of the plan on the ground that it did not direct all of Ransom’s disposable income to unsecured creditors. Id., at 64. In particular, FIA argued that Ransom should not have claimed the car-ownership allowance because he does not make loan or lease payments on his car. Id., at 67. FIA noted that without this allowance, Ransom’s disposable income would be $681.55—the $210.55 he reported plus the $471 he deducted for vehicle ownership. Id.., at 71. The difference over the 60 months of the plan amounts to about $28,000.
[562 U.S. 68]
C
The Bankruptcy Court denied confirmation of Ransom’s plan. App. to Pet. for Cert. 48. The court held that Ransom could deduct a vehicle-ownership expense only “if he is currently making loan or lease payments on that vehicle.” Id., at 41.
Ransom appealed to the Ninth Circuit Bankruptcy Appellate Panel, which affirmed. In re Ransom, 380 B.R. 799, 808-809 (2007). The panel reasoned that an “expense [amount] becomes relevant to the debtor (i.e., appropriate or applicable to the debtor) when he or she in fact has such an expense.” Id.., at 807. “[W]hat is important,” the panel noted, “is the payments that debtors actually make, not how many cars they own, because [those] payments... are what actually affect their ability to” reimburse unsecured creditors. Ibid.
The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit affirmed. In re Ransom, 577 F.3d 1026, 1027 (2009). The plain language of the statute, the court held, “does not allow a debtor to deduct an ‘ownership cost’... that the debtor does not have.” Id., at 1030. The court observed that “[a]n ‘ownership cost’ is not an ‘expense’—either actual or applicable—if it does not exist, period.” Ibid.
We granted a writ of certiorari to resolve a split of authority over whether a debtor who does not make loan or lease payments on his car may claim the deduction for vehicle-ownership costs. 559 U.S. 1066, 130 S. Ct. 2097, 176 L. Ed. 2d 721 (2010). We now affirm the Ninth Circuit’s judgment.
[562 U.S. 69]
II
Our interpretation of the Bankruptcy Code starts “where all such inquiries must begin: with the language of the statute itself.” United States v. Ron Pair Enterprises, Inc., 489 U.S. 235, 241, 109 S. Ct. 1026, 103 L. Ed. 2d 290 (1989). As noted, the provision of the Code central to the decision of this case states:
“The debtor’s monthly expenses shall be the debtor’s applicable monthly expense amounts specified under the National Standards and Local Standards, and the debtor’s actual monthly expenses for the categories specified as Other Necessary Expenses issued by the [IRS] for the area in which the debtor resides.” § 707(b)(2)(A)(ii)(I).
The key word in this provision is “applicable”: A debtor may claim not all, but only “applicable” expense amounts listed in the Standards. Whether Ransom may claim the $471 car-ownership deduction accordingly turns on whether that expense amount is “applicable” to him.
Because the Code does not define “applicable,” we look to the ordinary meaning of the term. See, e.g., Hamilton v. Panning, 560 U.S. 505, 513, 130 S. Ct. 2464, 177 L. Ed. 2d 23 (2010). “Applicable” means “capable of being applied: having relevance” or “fit, suitable, or right to be applied: appropriate.” Webster’s Third New International Dictionary 105 (2002). See also New Oxford American Dictionary 74 (2d ed. 2005) (“relevant or appropriate”); 1 Oxford English Dictionary 575 (2d ed. 1989) (“[c]apable of being applied” or “[f]it or suitable for its purpose, appropriate”). So an expense amount is “applicable” within the plain meaning of the statute when it is appropriate, relevant, suitable, or fit.
What makes an expense amount “applicable” in this sense (appropriate, relevant, suitable, or fit) is most naturally understood to be its correspondence to an individual debtor’s financial circumstances. Rather than authorizing all debtors to take deductions in all listed categories, Congress established
[562 U.S. 70]
a filter: A debtor may claim a deduction from a National or Local Standard table (like “[Car] Ownership Costs”) if, but only if, that deduction is appropriate for him. And a deduction is so appropriate only if the debtor has costs corresponding to the category covered by the table— that is, only if the debtor will incur that kind of expense during the life of the plan. The statute underscores the necessity of making such an individualized determination by referring to “the debtor’s applicable monthly expense amounts,” § 707(b)(2)(A)(ii)(I) (emphasis added)—in other words, the expense amounts applicable (appropriate, etc.) to each particular debtor. Identifying these amounts requires looking at the financial situation of the debtor and asking whether a National or Local Standard table is relevant to him.
If Congress had not wanted to separate in this way debtors who qualify for an allowance from those who do not, it could have omitted the term “applicable” altogether. Without that word, all debtors would be eligible to claim a deduction for each category listed in the Standards. Congress presumably included “applicable” to achieve a different result. See Leocal v. Ashcroft, 543 U.S. 1, 12, 125 S. Ct. 377, 160 L. Ed. 2d 271 (2004) (“[W]e must give effect to every word of a statute wherever possible”). Interpreting the statute to require a threshold determination of eligibility ensures that the term “applicable” carries meaning, as each word in a statute should.
This reading of “applicable” also draws support from the statutory context. The Code initially defines a debtor’s disposable income as his “current monthly income... less amounts reasonably necessary to be expended.” § 1325(b)(2) (emphasis added). The statute then instructs that “[a]mounts reasonably necessary to be expended... shall be determined in accordance with” the means test. § 1325(b)(3). Because Congress intended the means test to approximate the debtor’s reasonable expenditures on essential items, a debtor should be required to qualify for a deduction by actually incurring an expense in the relevant category. If a debtor will not have a particular kind of expense
[562 U.S. 71]
during his plan, an allowance to cover that cost is not “reasonably necessary” within the meaning of the statute.
Finally, consideration of BAPCPA’s purpose strengthens our reading of the term “applicable.” Congress designed the means test to measure debtors’ disposable income and, in that way, “to ensure that [they] repay creditors the maximum they can afford.” H. R. Rep., at 2. This purpose is best achieved by interpreting the means test, consistent with the statutory text, to reflect a debtor’s ability to afford repayment. Cf. Hamilton, 560 U.S., at 520, 130 S. Ct. 2464, 177 L. Ed. 2d 23 (rejecting an interpretation of the Bankruptcy Code that “would produce [the] senseless resul[t]” of “denying] creditors payments that the debtor could easily make”). Requiring a debtor to incur the kind of expenses for which he claims a means-test deduction thus advances BAPCPA’s objectives.
Because we conclude that a person cannot claim an allowance for vehicle-ownership costs unless he has some expense falling within that category, the question in this case becomes: What expenses does the vehicle-ownership category cover? If it covers loan and lease payments alone, Ransom does not qualify, because he has no such expense. Only if that category also covers other costs associated with having a car would Ransom be entitled to this deduction.
The less inclusive understanding is the right one: The ownership category encompasses the costs of a car loan or lease and nothing more. As noted earlier, the numerical amounts listed in the “Ownership Costs” table are “base[d]... on the five-year average of new and used car financing data compiled by the Federal Reserve Board.” App. to Brief for Respondent
[562 U.S. 72]
3a. In other words, the sum $471 is the average monthly payment for loans and leases nationwide; it is not intended to estimate other conceivable expenses associated with maintaining a car. The Standards do account for those additional expenses, but in a different way: They are mainly the province of the separate deduction for vehicle “Operating Costs,” which include payments for “[v]ehicle insurance,... maintenance, fuel, state and local registration, required inspection, parking fees, tolls, [and] driver’s license.” Internal Revenue Manual §§ 5.15.1.7 and 5.15.1.9 (May 1,2004), reprinted in App. to Brief for Respondent 16a, 20a; see also IRS, Collection Financial Standards (Feb. 19, 2010), http://www.irs.gov/individuals/article/ 0„id=96543,00.html. A person who owns a car free and clear is entitled to claim the “Operating Costs” deduction for all these expenses of driving— and Ransom in fact did so, to the tune of $338. But such a person is not entitled to claim the “Ownership Costs” deduction, because that allowance is for the separate costs of a car loan or lease.
The Collection Financial Standards—the IRS’s explanatory guidelines to the National and Local Standards—explicitly recognize this distinction between ownership and operating costs, making clear that individuals who have a car but make no loan or lease payments may claim only the operating allowance. App. to Brief for Respondent 3a; see supra, at 66-67, 178 L. Ed. 2d, at 609. Although the statute does not incorporate the IRS’s guidelines, courts may consult this material in interpreting the National and Local Standards; after all, the IRS uses those tables for a similar purpose—to determine how much money a delinquent taxpayer can afford to pay the Government. The guidelines of course cannot control if they are at odds with the statutory language. But here, the Collection
[562 U.S. 73]
Financial Standards’ treatment of the car-ownership deduction reinforces our conclusion that, under the statute, a debtor seeking to claim this deduction must make some loan or lease payments.
Because Ransom owns his vehicle free and clear of any encumbrance, he incurs no expense in the “Ownership Costs” category of the Local Standards. Accordingly, the car-ownership expense amount is not “applicable” to him, and the Ninth Circuit correctly denied that deduction.
Ill
Ransom’s argument to the contrary relies on a different interpretation of the key word “applicable,” an objection to our view of the scope of the “Ownership Costs” category, and a criticism of the policy implications of our approach. We do not think these claims persuasive.
A
Ransom first offers another understanding of the term “applicable.” A debtor, he says, determines his “applicable” deductions by locating the box in each National or Local Standard table that corresponds to his geographic location, income, family size, or number of cars. Under this approach, a debtor “consult [s] the tablets] alone” to determine his appropriate expense amounts. Reply Brief for Petitioner 16. Because he has one car, Ransom argues that his “applicable” allowance is the sum listed in the first column of the “Ownership
[562 U.S. 74]
Costs” table ($471); if he had a second vehicle, the amount in the second column ($332) would also be “applicable.” On this approach, the word “applicable” serves a function wholly internal to the tables; rather than filtering out debtors for whom a deduction is not at all suitable, the term merely directs each debtor to the correct box (and associated dollar amount of deduction) within every table.
This alternative reading of “applicable” fails to comport with the statute’s text, context, or purpose. As intimated earlier, supra, at 7-8, Ransom’s interpretation would render the term “applicable” superfluous. Assume Congress had omitted that word and simply authorized a deduction of “the debtor’s monthly expense amounts” specified in the Standards. That language, most naturally read, would direct each debtor to locate the box in every table corresponding to his location, income, family size, or number of cars and to deduct the amount stated. In other words, the language would instruct the debtor to use the exact approach Ransom urges. The word “applicable” is not necessary to accomplish that result; it is necessary only for the different purpose of dividing debtors eligible to make use of the tables from those who are not. Further, Ransom’s reading of “applicable” would sever the connection between the means test and the statutory provision it is meant to implement—the authorization of an allowance for (but only for) “reasonably necessary” expenses. Expenses that are wholly fictional are not easily thought of as reasonably necessary. And finally, Ransom’s interpretation would run counter to the statute’s overall purpose of ensuring that debtors repay creditors to the extent they can—here, by shielding some $28,000 that he does not in fact need for loan or lease payments.
As against all this, Ransom argues that his reading is necessary to account for the means test’s distinction between “applicable” and “actual” expenses—more fully stated, between the phrase “applicable monthly expense
[562 U.S. 75]
amounts” specified in the Standards and the phrase “actual monthly expenses for... Other Necessary Expenses.” § 707(b)(2)(A)(ii)(I) (emphasis added). The latter phrase enables a debtor to deduct his actual expenses in particular categories that the IRS designates relating mainly to taxpayers’ health and welfare. Internal Revenue Manual §5.15.1.10(1), http ://www. irs. gov/irm/part5/ir m_05-015-001.html#d0el381. According to Ransom, “applicable” cannot mean the same thing as “actual.” Brief for Petitioner 40. He thus concludes that “an ‘applicable’ expense can be claimed [under the means test] even if no ‘actual’ expense was incurred.” Ibid.
Our interpretation of the statute, however, equally avoids conflating “applicable” with “actual” costs. Although the expense amounts in the Standards apply only if the debtor incurs the relevant expense, the debt- or’s out-of-pocket cost may well not control the amount of the deduction. If a debtor’s actual expenses exceed the amounts listed in the tables, for example, the debtor may claim an allowance only for the specified sum rather than for his real expenditures. For the Other Necessary Expense categories, by contrast, the debtor may deduct his actual expenses, no matter how high
[562 U.S. 76]
they are. Our reading of the means test thus gives full effect to “the distinction between ‘applicable’ and ‘actual’ without taking a further step to conclude that ‘applicable’ means ‘nonexistent.’ ” In re Ross-Tousey, 368 B.R. 762, 765 (Bkrtcy. Ct. ED Wis. 2007), rev’d, 549 F.3d 1148 (CA7 2008).
Finally, Ransom’s reading of “applicable” may not even answer the essential question: whether a debtor may claim a deduction. “[C]onsult-[ing] the tablets] alone” to determine a debtor’s deduction, as Ransom urges us to do, Reply Brief for Petitioner 16, often will not be sufficient because the tables are not self-defining. This case provides a prime example. The “Ownership Costs” table features two columns labeled “First Car” and “Second Car.” See supra, at 66, 178 L. Ed. 2d, at 609. Standing alone, the table does not specify whether it refers to the first and second cars owned (as Ransom avers), or the first and second cars for which the debtor incurs ownership costs (as FIA maintains)—and so the table does not resolve the issue in dispute. See In re Kimbro, 389 B.R. 518, 533
[562 U.S. 77]
(Bkrtcy. App. Panel CA6 2008) (Fulton, J., dissenting) (“[0]ne cannot really ‘just look up’ dollar amounts in the tables without either referring to IRS guidelines for using the tables or imposing pre-existing assumptions about how [they] are to be navigated” (footnote omitted)). Some amount of interpretation is necessary to decide what the deduction is for and whether it is applicable to Ransom; and so we are brought back full circle to our prior analysis.
B
Ransom next argues that viewing the car-ownership deduction as covering no more than loan and lease payments is inconsistent with a separate sentence of the means test that provides: “Notwithstanding any other provision of this clause, the monthly expenses of the debtor shall not include any payments for debts.” § 707(b)(2)(A)(ii)(I). The car-ownership deduction cannot comprise only loan and lease payments, Ransom contends, because those payments are always debts. See Brief for Petitioner 28, 44-45.
Ransom ignores that the “notwithstanding” sentence governs the full panoply of deductions under the National and Local Standards and the Other Necessary Expense categories. We hesitate to rely on that general provision to interpret the content of the car-ownership deduction because Congress did not draft the former with the latter specially in mind; any friction between the two likely reflects only a lack of attention to how an across-the-board exclusion of debt payments would correspond to a particular IRS allowance.
[562 U.S. 78]
Further, the “notwithstanding” sentence by its terms functions only to exclude, and not to authorize, deductions. It cannot establish an allowance for nonloan or nonlease ownership costs that no National or Local Standard covers. Accordingly, the “notwithstanding” sentence does nothing to alter our conclusion that the “Ownership Costs” table does not apply to a debtor whose car is not encumbered.
C
Ransom finally contends that his view of the means test is necessary to avoid senseless results not intended by Congress. At the outset, we note that the policy concerns Ransom emphasizes pale beside one his reading creates: His interpretation, as we have explained, would frustrate BAPCPA’s core purpose of ensuring that debtors devote their full disposable income to repaying creditors. See supra, at 71, 178 L. Ed. 2d, at 612. We nonetheless address each of Ransom’s policy arguments in turn.
Ransom first points out a troubling anomaly: Under our interpretation, “[d]ebtors can time their bankruptcy filing to take place while they still have a few car payments left, thus retaining an ownership deduction which they would lose if they filed just after making their last payment.” Brief for Petitioner 54. Indeed, a debtor with only a single car payment remaining, Ransom notes, is eligible to claim a monthly ownership deduction. Id., at 15, 52.
But this kind of oddity is the inevitable result of a standardized formula like the means test, even more under Ransom’s reading than under ours. Such formulas are by their nature over- and under-inclusive. In eliminating the pre-BAPCPA case-by-case adjudication of above-median-income debtors’ expenses, on the ground that it leant itself to abuse, Congress chose to tolerate the occasional peculiarity that a brighter-line test produces. And Ransom’s alternative reading of the statute would spawn its own anomalies—even placing to one side the fundamental strangeness of giving a debtor an allowance for loan or lease payments when he has
[562 U.S. 79]
not a penny of loan or lease costs. On Ransom’s view, for example, a debtor entering bankruptcy might purchase for a song a junkyard car—“an old, rusted pile of scrap metal [that would] si[t] on cinder blocks in his backyard,” In re Brown, 376 B.R. 601, 607 (Bkrtcy. Ct. SD Tex. 2007)—in order to deduct the $471 car-ownership expense and reduce his payment to creditors by that amount. We do not see why Congress would have preferred that result to the one that worries Ransom. That is especially so because creditors may well be able to remedy Ransom’s “one payment left” problem. If car payments cease during the life of the plan, just as if other financial circumstances change, an unsecured creditor may move to modify the plan to increase the amount the debtor must repay. See 11 U.S.C. § 1329(a)(1).
Ransom next contends that denying the ownership allowance to debtors in his position “sends entirely the wrong message, namely, that it is advantageous to be deeply in debt on motor vehicle loans, rather than to pay them off.” Brief for Petitioner 55. But the choice here is not between thrifty savers and profligate borrowers, as Ransom would have it. Money is fungible: The $14,000 that Ransom spent to purchase his Camry outright was money he did not devote to paying down his credit card debt, and Congress did not express a preference for one use of these funds over the other. Further, Ransom’s argument mistakes what the deductions in the means test are meant to accomplish. Rather than effecting any broad federal policy as to saving or borrowing, the deductions serve merely to ensure that debtors in bankruptcy can afford essential items. The car-ownership allowance thus safeguards a debtor’s ability to retain a car throughout the plan period. If the debtor already owns a car outright, he has no need for this protection.
Ransom finally argues that a debtor who owns his car free and clear may need to replace it during the life of the plan; “ [g] ranting the ownership cost deduction to a vehicle that is owned outright,” he states, “accords best with economic reality.” Id., at 52. In essence, Ransom seeks an emergency
[562 U.S. 80]
cushion for car owners. But nothing in the statute authorizes such a cushion, which all debtors presumably would like in the event some unexpected need arises. And a person who enters bankruptcy without any car at all may also have to buy one during the plan period; yet Ransom concedes that a person in this position cannot claim the ownership deduction. Tr. of Oral Arg. 20. The appropriate way to account for unanticipated expenses like a new vehicle purchase is not to distort the scope of a deduction, but to use the method that the Code provides for all Chapter 13 debtors (and their creditors): modification of the plan in light of changed circumstances. See § 1329(a)(1); see also supra, at 79, 178 L. Ed. 2d, at 617.
IV
Based on BAPCPA’s text, context, and purpose, we hold that the Local Standard expense amount for transportation “Ownership Costs” is not “applicable” to a debtor who will not incur any such costs during his bankruptcy plan. Because the “Ownership Costs” category covers only loan and lease payments and because Ransom owns his car free from any debt or obligation, he may not claim the allowance. In short, Ransom may not deduct loan or lease expenses when he does not have any. We therefore affirm the judgment of the Ninth Circuit.
It is so ordered.
. Chapter 13 borrows the means test from Chapter 7, where it is used as a screening mechanism to determine whether a Chapter 7 proceeding is appropriate. Individuals who file for bankruptcy relief under Chapter 7 liquidate their nonexempt assets, rather than dedicate their future income, to repay creditors. See 11 U.S.C. §§ 704(a)(1), 726. If the debtor’s Chapter 7 petition discloses that his disposable income as calculated by the means test exceeds a certain threshold, the petition is presumptively abusive. § 707(b)(2)(A)(i). If the debtor cannot rebut the presumption, the court may dismiss the case or, with the debtor’s consent, convert it into a Chapter 13 proceeding. § 707(b)(1).
. The National Standards designate allowances for six categories of expenses: (1) food; (2) housekeeping supplies; (3) apparel and services; (4) personal care products and services; (5) out-of-pocket health care costs; and (6) miscellaneous expenses. Internal Revenue Manual § 5.15.1.8 (Oct. 2, 2009), http://www.irs.gOv/irm/part5/irm_05-015-001.html#d0el012 (all Internet materials as visited Jan. 7, 2011, and available in Clerk of Court’s case file). The Local Standards authorize deductions for two kinds of expenses: (1) housing and utilities; and (2) transportation. Id., § 5.15.1.9.
. Although both components of the transportation allowance are listed in the Local Standards, only the operating-cost expense amounts vary by geography; in contrast, the IRS provides a nationwide figure for ownership costs.
. Compare In re Ransom, 577 F.3d 1026, 1027 (CA9 2009) (case below), with In re Washburn, 579 F.3d 934, 935 (CA8 2009) (permitting the allowance); In re Tate, 571 F.3d 423, 424 (CA5 2009) (same); and In re Ross-Tousey, 549 F.3d 1148, 1162 (CA7 2008) (same). The question has also divided bankruptcy courts. See, e.g., In re Canales, 377 B.R. 658, 662 (Bkrtcy. Ct. CD Cal. 2007) (citing dozens of cases reaching opposing results).
. This interpretation also avoids the anomalous result of granting preferential treatment to individuals with above-median income. Because the means test does not apply to Chapter 13 debtors whose incomes are below the median, those debtors must prove on a case-by-case basis that each claimed expense is reasonably necessary. See §§ 1325(b)(2) and (3). If a below-median-income debtor cannot take a deduction for a nonexistent expense, we doubt Congress meant to provide such an allowance to an above-median-income debtor—the very kind of debtor whose perceived abuse of the bankruptcy system inspired Congress to enact the means test.
. In addition, the IRS has categorized taxes, including those associated with car ownership, as an “Other Necessary Expens[e],’’ for which a debtor may take a deduction. See App. to Brief for Respondent 26a; Brief for United States as Amicus Curiae 16, n. 4.
. Because the dissent appears to misunderstand our use of the Collection Financial Standards, and because it may be important for future cases to be clear on this point, we emphasize again that the statute does not “incorporat[e]’’ or otherwise “impor[t]“ the IRS’s guidance. Post, at 81, 83, 178 L. Ed. 2d, at 618, 619 (opinion of Scalia, J.). The dissent questions what possible basis except incorporation could justify our consulting the IRS’s view, post, at 83, n., 178 L. Ed. 2d, at 619-620, but we think that basis obvious: The IRS creates the National and Local Standards referenced in the statute, revises them as it deems necessary, and uses them every day. The agency might, therefore, have something insightful and persuasive (albeit not controlling) to say about them.
. The parties and the Solicitor General as amicus curiae dispute the proper deduction for a debtor who has expenses that are lower than the amounts listed in the Local Standards. Ransom argues that a debtor may claim the specified expense amount in full regardless of his out-of-pocket costs. Brief for Petitioner 24-27. The Government concurs with this view, provided (as we require) that a debtor has some expense relating to the deduction. See Brief for United States as Amicus Curiae 19-21. FIA, relying on the IRS’s practice, contends to the contrary that a debtor may claim only his actual expenditures in this circumstance. Brief for Respondent 12, 45-46 (arguing that the Local Standards function as caps). We decline to resolve this issue. Because Ransom incurs no ownership expense at all, the car-ownership allowance is not applicable to him in the first instance. Ransom is therefore not entitled to a deduction under either approach.
. For the same reason, the allowance
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
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 Stewart
delivered the opinion of the Court.
The petitioners and twenty-two others were indicted and tried for conspiracy to evade and defeat the payment of the federal taxes imposed on lottery operations. The petitioners and six others were convicted. Their convictions were affirmed by the Court of Appeals. 259 F. 2d 886. Certiorari was granted to examine the scope of the conspiracy statute in the context of these provisions of the Internal Revenue Code. 358 U. S. 905.
At the trial it was established by overwhelming evidence that the petitioners had engaged with numerous others in a closely organized and large-scale operation of the numbers game in Atlanta, Georgia, during the years 1954 to 1957, the period covered by the indictment. That activity is a criminal offense under Georgia law. The evidence also established in intricate detail that the participants in this large-scale enterprise had, through a variety of carefully planned stratagems, made every effort to conceal its operation. Finally, the evidence showed that none of the petitioners had paid any of the federal taxes in question. There was no' direct evidence to show that any of the petitioners knew of these taxes.
In addition to thé conspiracy count, the indictment under which the petitioners were tried also contained two additional counts charging them with the substantive offenses of willful failure to pay the special tax imposed by § 441.1 of the- Internal Revenue Code, in violation of § 72Ó3 of the Code, and. of failure to register as required by § 4412 of the- Code, in violation of § 7272 of the Code. The trial took place subsequent to the announcement of this Court’s decision in United States v. Calamaro, 354 U. S. 351, and the district judge correctly instructed the jury that conviction of the substantive offenses would be justified only as to any defendants found to be “writers,” “bankers,” or to have “a proprietary interest in such lottery operation.” Two of the petitioners, Ingram and Jenkins, were found guilty on both substantive counts and do not question these convictions, conceding the sufficiency of the evidence to show that Ingram was the banker and that Jenkins had a proprietary interest in the enterprise. The evidence showed that the other two petitioners, Smith and Law, were relatively minor clerical functionaries at the headquarters of the operation, and they were acquitted on the substantive counts.
In sum, what this record presents then is a picture of a large-scale and profitable gambling business conducted in Atlanta over a period of several years by petitioners Ingram and Jenkins. The business involved many participants, including the petitioners Smith and Law. It was a business made criminal by the laws of Georgia, and everyone in the organization participated in trying to keep its operation secret. Ingram and Jenkins were liable for the federal taxes imposed by §§ 4401 and 4411 of the Internal Revenue Code and willfully failed to pay them. They were required by § 4412 of the Code to register with the official in charge of the Internal Revenue District, and they failed to do só. Smith and Law were not themselves subject to any of the taxes here involved. The question presented is whether this factual foundation is sufficient to support a conviction of the petitioners, or any of them, for conspiracy to attempt to evade or defeat federal taxes, “the gravest of offenses against the revenues.” Spies v. United States, 317 U. S. 492, 499. We hold that it was sufficient as to Ingram and. Jenkins, and insufficient as to Smith and Law.
As to Ingram and Jenkins, the record is clear. They were entrepreneurs in a vast and profitable gambling.business. They were clearly liable for the special taxes and registration requirements that the Federal Government has imposed upon the operators of that kind of business. United States v. Kahriger, 345 U. S. 22. Not only did they willfully fail and néglect to pay these taxes, but they conspired to conceal the operation of the business and the soúrce of .the income upon which the .tax is imposed.
In Spies v. United States this Court had occasion to consider the quantum and type of evidence required to support a conviction for the substantive offense of attempting to defeat or evade federal taxes as contrasted with the ■ lesser proof required to convict of the misdemeanor of willfully failing to file a return or to pay a tax. It was there said:
“Willful but passive neglect of the statutory duty may constitute the lesser offense, but to combine with it a willful and positive attempt to evade tax in any manner or to defeat it by any means lifts the offense to the degree o‘f felony.
“Congress did not define or limit the methods by which a willful attempt to defeat and evade might be accomplished and perhaps did not define lest its effort to do so result in some unexpected limitation. Nor would we by definition constrict the scope of the' Congressional provision that it may be accomplished 'in any manner.’ By way of illustration, and not- by way of limitation, we would think affirmative willful attempt may be inferred from conduct such as keeping a double .set of books,. making false entries or alterations, or false invoices or documents, destruction of books or records, concealment of assets or covering up sources of income, handling of one’s affairs to avoid making the records usual in transactions of the kind, and any conduct, the likely effect of which would be.to mislead or to conceal. If the tax-evasion motive plays any part in such conduct the offense may be made out even though the conduct may also serve other purposes such as concealment of other crime.” 317 U. S., at 499.
In Spies, the Court was dealing with the substantive offense, not with a conspiracy to commit it. But the evidence of agreement between Ingram and Jenkins to operate this gambling enterprise, which operation made them liable for federal taxes, and to conceal its operation and its income is clear on this record, and is virtually coni ceded by the petitioners. The evidence was sufficient-to support a conclusion that they were engaged not only in a conspiracy to operate and conceal their gambling enterprise, but that they were also parties to an agreement to attempt to defeat or evade the federal taxes imposed upon the operators of such a business.
As to Smith and Law, the case is quite a different one. While the record clearly supports a finding that Smith and Law were participants in a conspiracy to operate a lottery and to conceal that operation from local law enforcement agencies, we find no warrant for a finding that they were, like Ingram and Jenkins, parties to a conspiracy with a purpose illegal under federal law. Certainly there is nothing in the record to show that Smith and Law knew that Ingram and Jenkins had not paid the taxes, a fact obviously within the knowledge of the latter.
It is fundamental that a conviction for conspiracy under 18 U. S. C. § 371 cannot be sustained unless there is “proof ef an agreement to commit an offense against the United States.” Pereira v. United States, 347 U. S. 1, 12. There need not,, of course, be proof that the conspirators were aware of the criminality of their objective, but an essential ingredient of the proof was knowledge on the part of Smith and Law that Ingram and Jenkins were liable for federal taxes by reason of the gambling operation. “Without the knowledge, the intent cannot exist.” Direct Sales Co. v. United States, 319 U. S. 703, 711.
“[Conspiracy to commit a particular substantive offense cannot exist without at least the degree of criminal intent necessary for the substantive offense itself.” The substantive offense which Smith and Law were accused of conspiring to commit was the willful evasion of federal taxes, an offense which, even presuming knowledgé of the tax law, obviously cannot.be committed in the absence of knowledge of willfulness. Spies v. United States, supra. Cf. United States v. Falcone, 311 U. S. 205.
Indulging, as of course we must, in that view of the evidence most favorable to the Government, we. simply cannot discern adequate foundation in the present record for a finding that Smith and Law had such knowledge of Ingram’s and Jenkins’ wagering tax liability. The record is completely barren of any direct evidence of such knowledge. It was not shown, for example, that any reference had ever, been made by any of the petitioners to possible tax liability, or that they had filed a return or paid a tax in previous years. The Government relied instead upon evidence which) it asserts, circumstantially proved the requisite knowledge on the part of Smith and Law. These circumstances were simply the intimate connection of Smith and Law with the operation of the lottery itself, their cooperation in conducting it secretly, and their apparent knowledge that it was conducted at a profit. The Government points out that not only would payment of the taxes have decreased the profits to be derived from operation of the lottery, but in addition would have required registration, including the names and addresses of the bankers and writers, with the local internal revenue office and the posting of a wagering tax stamp at the place of business. 26 U. S. C. (Supp. V) §§ 4412, 6806 (c). The information contained in the registration would have been available to local law enforcement officials. 26 U. S. C. (Supp. Y) § 6107.
Yet these circumstances actually are colorless as to the vital issue of knowledge on the part of Smith and Law that their superiors owed' federal wagering taxes. Certainly the secrecy of the operation did not go to show that knowledge. This is not a case where efforts at concealment would be reasonably explainable only in terms of motivation to evade taxation. Here, the criminality of the enterprise under local law provided more than sufficient reason for the secrecy in which it was conducted. A conspiracy, to be sure, may have multiple objectives, United States v. Rabinowich, 238 U. S. 78, 86, and if one of its objectives, even a minor one, be the evasion of federal taxes, the offense is made out, though the primary objective may be concealment of another crime. See Spies v. United States, supra, at 499. But the fact that payment of the federal taxes by Ingram and Jenkins might have resulted in disclosure of the lottery and subsequent prosecution of Smith and Law by local authorities would permit an inference that concealment of the lottery was motivated by a purpose to evade payment of federal taxes only if, independently, there were proof that Smith and Law knew of the tax liability. Evidence that Smith and Law might have wanted the taxes to be evaded if they .had known of them, and that they engaged in conduct which -could have been in furtherance of a plan to evade the taxes if they had known of them, is not evidence that they did know of them.
What was said in Direct Sales Co. v. United States on behalf of a unanimous Court is of particular relevance here:
“Without the knowledge, the intent cannot exist. . . . Furthermore, to establish the intent, the evidence of knowledge must be clear, not equivocal..... This, because charges of conspiracy are not to be made out by piling inference upon inference, thus fashioning ... a dragnet to draw in all substantive crimes.” 319 U. S., at 711.
Smith and Law were not liable for the wagering tax. United States v. Calamaro, supra. They could not, therefore, have been convicted of the crime which they were charged with having conspired to commit. To sustain their conviction on this record would make of the crime of conspiracy just that “dragnet to draw in all substantive crimes” against which the Court warned in Direct Sales. Cf. Gebardi v. United States, 287 U. S. 112.
Accordingly, while affirming the convictions of Ingram and Jenkins, we hold that the motions.for acquittal of Smith and Law should have been sustained by the District Court, and that the Court of Appeals was in error in affirming their convictions.
Judgment accordingly.*
• Mr. Justice Black took no part in the consideration or decision of this case.
Section 4401 of the Internal Revenue Code of 1954 provides:
“(a) Wagers. — There shall be imposed on wagers, as defined in section 4421, an excise tax equal to 10 percent of the amount thereof.
“(c) Persons liable for tax. — Each person who is engaged in the business of accepting wagers shall be liable for and shall pay the tax under this subchapter on all wagers placed with him. Each person who conducts any wagering pool or lottery shall be liable for and shall pay the tax under this subchapter on all wagers placed in such pool or lottery.” 68A Stat. 525.
Section 4411 of the Code provides: “There shall be imposed a special tax of $50 per year to be paid by each person who is liable for tax under section 4401 or who is engar .. ■ mceiving wagers for or on behalf of any person so liable.” 68a rita 27.
Section 4421 of the Code includes.in the definition of “wager" “any wager placed in a lottery conducted for profit” and includes in the definition of “lottery” “the numbers game, policy, and similar types of wagering.” 68A Stat. 528.
Section 7201 of the Code provides: “Any person who willfully attempts in any manner to evade or defeat any tax imposed by this title or the payment thereof shall ... be guilty of a felony . . .” 68A Stat. 851.
.18 U. S. C. §371 provides: “If xwo ormore persons conspire . . . to commit any offense against the United States, . . . and one or more of such persons do any act to effect the object of the conspiracy, each shall be fined ... or imprisoned . . . .” 62 Stat. 701.
These were the links in the statutory chain under which the petitioners were indicted and convicted.
Some of the items found when the headquarters of the operation was raided in 1957 were clearly indicative of the magnitude of the enterprise. Among the items found on that occasion were some 2,400 scratch pads of the type used in numbers operations, thousands of coin wrappers, a police alarm radio, with a secret code of police calls, two high-frequency radios, and six fictitious automobile registrations with license ta’gs. Petitioner Ingram was alleged to have stated in 1955 that the “business is down to about” $3,500 per day.
Georgia Code (1953 Revision), § 26-6502.
There was extensive evidence, for example, that participants in the enterprise used false license plates on their automobiles, took evasive routes to the “check-up headquarters” of ,the operation, used false names on occasion, and attempted to bribe local, law enforcement officers.
See Note 1, supra.
This section of the Code provides: “Any person required under this title to pay any . . . tax, . . . who willfully fails to pay such . . . tax, . . . shall ... be guilty of a misdemeanor . . . .” 68A Stat. 851.
This section of the Code provides: “Each person required to pay a special tax under this subchapter shall register, with the official in charge of the internal revenue district— . . . .” 68A Stat. 527.
This section, of the Code provides: “Any person who fails to register with the Secretary or his delegate as required by this title . . . shall be liable to a penalty of $50.” 68A Stat. 866.
See “Developments in the Law — Criminal Conspiracy,” 72 Harv. L. Rev. 920, at 939, and authorities there cited.
The Court’s decisions in Grunewald v. United States, 353 U. S. 391; Lutwak v. United States, 344 U. S. 604; and Krulewitch v. United States, 336 U. S. 440, do not, as petitioners appear to contend, prevent the jury from treating this subsidiary objective as an element of the conspiracy. Those cases hold only that the life of the conspiracy cannot be extended by evidence of concealment after the conspiracy’s criminal objectives have been fully accomplished. . . [A] vital distinction must be made between acts of concealment done in furtherance of the main criminal objectives of the conspiracy, and acts of concealment done after these central objectives have been attained, for the purpose only of covering up after the crime.’.’ Grunewald v. United States, supra, at 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:
|
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 Brennan
delivered the opinion of the Court.
The question in this case is whether orders of the Kansas State Corporation Commission which require the appellant, an interstate pipeline company, to purchase gas ratably from all wells connecting with its pipeline system in each gas field within the State invalidly encroach upon the exclusive regulatory jurisdiction of the Federal Power Commission conferred by the Natural Gas Act, 15 U. S. C. §§ 717-717w.
The appellant’s pipeline system is connected to some 1,100 natural gas wells in the Kansas Hugoton Field under about 125 purchase contracts between the appellant and various producers. The contracts have been duly filed with the Federal Power Commission. Under the oldest contract, known as the Republic “A” contract, which was made in 1945 with Republic Natural Gas Company, and is still in force as modified in 1953, appellant was obligated to purchase gas from Republic up to the maximum production allowables for Republic’s Kansas wells connected to appellant’s system. Appellant’s contracts with its other producers provide that appellant’s purchase commitments thereunder are expressly subject to the agreement with Republic. Thus appellant was bound to purchase from its other producers only so much of its requirements as were not satisfied by the quantities which the Republic contract required to be taken from Republic wells.
Appellant’s requirements until 1958 were such that its purchases from its various producers were nevertheless roughly ratable, that is, in like proportion to the legally fixed allowables for each of the 1,100 wells in the Hugo-ton Field. However, after 1958 appellant’s requirements aggregated substantially less than the total allowables for the Hugoton wells. Thus the balance of the total requirements, after the contractually required purchases from Republic of the maximum allowables for the Republic wells, resulted in appellant’s purchases from appellant’s other producers of proportions substantially below the allowables for those producers’ wells. This imbalance brought about the orders of the State Commission of which appellant complains.
A Kansas statute empowers the State Commission so to “regulate the taking of natural gas from any and all . . . common sources of supply within this state as to prevent the inequitable or unfair taking from such common source of supply . . . and to prevent unreasonable discrimination ... in favor of or against any producer in any such common source of supply.” The Commission adopted in 1944, avowedly as a conservation measure, a basic proration order designed to effect ratable production and to protect correlative rights in the Hugoton Field. In 1959, in order to require appellant to take gas from Republic wells in no higher proportion to the allowables than from the wells of the other producers, the Commission entered the order specifically directing appellant to purchase gas ratably from all 1,100 Hugoton wells. That order was superseded in February 1960 by the general order, directed at all natural gas purchasers taking Kansas gas. These orders presented the appellant with the alternatives of complying with the obligations of the Republic contract and increasing its takes from the other producers’ wells — thus taking more gas from Kansas than it could currently use — or of risking liability for a breach of the Republic contract by decreasing its takes from the Republic wells below the allowables.
Appellant challenged the two orders in the Kansas courts on the ground, among others, that they unconstitutionally invaded the exclusive jurisdiction of the Federal Power Commission under the Natural Gas Act. The Kansas Supreme Court sustained the orders, 188 Kan. 351, 355, 362 P. 2d 599, 609; on rehearing, 188 Kan. 624, 364 P. 2d 668. We noted probable jurisdiction of an appeal to this Court, 370 U. S. 901. We disagree with the Kansas Supreme Court, for we hold that the State Commission’s orders did invade the exclusive jurisdiction which the Natural Gas Act has conferred upon the Federal Power Commission over the sale and transportation of natural gas in interstate commerce for resale.
I.
We consider first the ground relied upon by the Kansas Supreme Court, that the orders constitute only state regulation of the “production or gathering” of natural gas, which is exempted from the federal regulatory domain by the terms of § 1 (b) of the Natural Gas Act, 15 U. S. C. § 717 (b). These orders do not regulate “production or gathering” within that exemption. In a line of decisions beginning with Colorado Interstate Gas Co. v. Federal Power Comm’n, 324 U. S. 681, 598, and Interstate Natural Gas Co. v. Federal Power Comm’n, 331 U. S. 682, 689-693, it has been consistently held that “production” and “gathering” are terms narrowly confined to the physical acts of drawing the gas from the earth and preparing it for the first stages of distribution. See Phillips Petroleum Co. v. Wisconsin, 347 U. S. 672, 680-681; Continental Oil Co. v. Federal Power Comm’n, 266 F. 2d 208; Huber Corp. v. Federal Power Comm’n, 236 F. 2d 550. Appellant is not a producer but a purchaser of gas from producers, and none of its activities in Kansas shown upon this record involves “production and gathering, in the sense that those terms are used in § 1 (b) . ...” Phillips Petroleum Co. v. Wisconsin, supra, at 678.
II.
The Kansas Supreme Court also sustained the orders on the ground that neither order threatened any actual invasion of the regulatory domain of the Federal Power Commission since it “in no way involves the price of gas.” 188 Kan., at 624, 364 P. 2d, at 668. It is true that it was settled even before the passage of the Natural Gas Act, that direct regulation of the prices of wholesales of natural gas in interstate commerce is beyond the constitutional power of the States — whether or not framed to achieve ends, such as conservation, ordinarily within the ambit of state power. See Missouri v. Kansas Natural Gas Co., 265 U. S. 298; cf. Public Utilities Comm’n v. Attleboro Steam & Electric Co., 273 U. S. 83. But our inquiry is not at an end because the orders do not deal in terms with prices or volumes of purchases, cf. Dayton-Goose Creek R. Co. v. United States, 263 U. S. 456, 478. The Natural Gas Act precludes not merely direct regulation by the States of such contractual matters. See Illinois Natural Gas Co. v. Central Illinois Public Service Co., 314 U. S. 498, 506-509. The Congress enacted a comprehensive scheme of federal regulation of “all wholesales of natural gas in interstate commerce, whether by a pipeline company or not and whether occurring before, during, or after transmission by an interstate pipeline company.” Phillips Petroleum Co. v. Wisconsin, supra, at 682; see H. R. Rep. No. 709, 75th Cong., 1st Sess. 2.
The federal regulatory scheme leaves no room either for direct state regulation of the prices of interstate wholesales of natural gas, Natural Gas Pipeline Co. v. Panoma Corp., 349 U. S. 44, or for state regulations which would indirectly achieve the same result. These state orders necessarily deal with matters which directly affect the ability of the Federal Power Commission to regulate comprehensively and effectively the transportation and sale of natural gas, and to achieve the uniformity of regulation which was an objective of the Natural Gas Act. They therefore invalidly invade the federal agency’s exclusive domain.
The danger of interference with the federal regulatory scheme arises because these orders are unmistakably and unambiguously directed at purchasers who take gas in Kansas for resale after transportation in interstate commerce. In effect, these orders shift to the shoulders of interstate purchasers the burden of performing the complex task of balancing the output of thousands of natural gas wells within the State, cf. Miller Bros. Co. v. Maryland, 347 U. S. 340 — a task which would otherwise presumably be the State Commission’s. Moreover, any readjustment of purchasing patterns which such orders might require of purchasers who previously took unratably could seriously impair the Federal Commission’s authority to regulate the intricate relationship between the purchasers’ cost structures and eventual costs to wholesale customers who sell to consumers in other States. This relationship is a matter with respect to which Congress has given the Federal Power Commission paramount and exclusive authority. See Federal Power Comm’n v. Hope Natural Gas Co., 320 U. S. 591, 610. The prospect of interference with the federal regulatory power in this area is made even more acute by the fact that criminal sanctions imposed by state statute for noncompliance fall upon such purchasers and not upon the local producers. Therefore, although collision between the state and federal regulation may not be an inevitable consequence, there lurks such imminent possibility of collision in orders purposely directed at interstate wholesale purchasers that the orders must be declared a nullity in order to assure the effectuation of the comprehensive federal regulation ordained by Congress.
It may be true, as the State Commission urges, that accommodation on the part of the Federal Power Commission could avoid direct collision — but this argument misses the point. Not the federal but the state regulation must be subordinated, when Congress has so plainly-occupied the regulatory field. Cf. San Diego Building Trades Council v. Garmon, 359 U. S. 236. We have already said that the question to be asked under this statute is “whether state authority can practicably regulate a given area and, if we find that it cannot, then we are impelled to decide that federal authority governs.” Federal Power Comm’n v. Transcontinental Gas Pipe Line Corp., 365 U. S. 1, 19-20.
III.
Appellee’s principal contention, sustained by the Kansas Supreme Court, is that ratable taking is essential for the conservation of natural gas, and that conservation is traditionally a function of state power. There is no doubt that the States do possess power to allocate and conserve scarce natural resources upon and beneath their lands. We have recognized such power with particular respect to natural gas. Patterson v. Stanolind Oil & Gas Co., 305 U. S. 376; Bandini Petroleum Co. v. Superior Court, 284 U. S. 8; Walls v. Midland Carbon Co., 254 U. S. 300. But the problem of this case is not as to the existence or even the scope of a State’s power to conserve its natural resources; the problem is only whether the Constitution sanctions the particular means chosen by Kansas to exercise the conceded power if those means threaten effectuation of the federal regulatory scheme.
We have already held that a purpose, however legitimate, to conserve natural resources, does not warrant direct interference by the States with the prices of natural gas wholesales in interstate commerce, Cities Service Gas Co. v. State Corporation Comm’n, 355 U. S. 391; Michigan Wisconsin Pipe Line Co. v. Corporation Comm’n, 355 U. S. 425. It has been suggested that those decisions are at variance with Champlin Refining Co. v. Corporation Comm’n, 286 U. S. 210, in which we sustained a state proration order designed to further conservation, against a challenge under the Commerce Clause. We reject that suggestion. The Court in Champlin carefully limited that holding to regulations which, the Court observed precisely, “apply only to production and not to sales or transportation of crude oil or its products.” (Italics supplied.) The Court further noted, “[s]uch production is essentially a mining operation and therefore is not a part of interstate commerce . . . .” 286 U. S., at 235. (Italics supplied.) And, after enactment of the Natural Gas Act, in confirming state power to achieve conservation objectives, the Court took care to say, “[t]hese ends have been held to justify control over production even though the uses to which property may profitably be put are restricted.” Cities Service Gas Co. v. Peerless Oil <& Gas Co., supra, at 185-186. (Italics supplied.) Thus our cases have consistently recognized a significant distinction, which bears directly upon the constitutional consequences, between conservation measures aimed directly at interstate purchasers and wholesales for resale, and those aimed at producers and production. The former cannot be sustained when they threaten, as here, the achievement of the comprehensive scheme of federal regulation.
Of course, the Kansas method before us would fail, for the reasons given, even if it were Kansas’ only means of attaining these ends. The State does not, however, appear to be without alternative means of checking waste and disproportionate or discriminatory taking. Moreover, the invalidation of this particular form of state regulation does not result in a regulatory “gap” of the sort which the Act was designed to prevent. Phillips Petroleum Co. v. Wisconsin, supra, at 682-683. For example, we have very recently recognized that the Commission can and should take appropriate account of certain conservation factors in certification proceedings. Federal Power Comm’n v. Transcontinental Gas Pipe Line Corp., supra, at 20-22. See also McGrath, Federal Regulation of Producers in Relation to Conservation of Natural Gas, 44 Geo. L. J. 676 (1956).
IV.
Although what we have said answers the question for decision, it is appropriate that we comment upon a suggestion advanced both by appellant and by the Federal Power Commission as amicus curiae. That suggestion was that if we should hold, as we do hold, that the orders in validly invade the federal regulatory jurisdiction, the judgment should not be reversed but the case should rather be remanded to the Kansas Supreme Court. The theory is that the Kansas Supreme Court might, in light of our holding, now hold that the orders effected a modification of the Republic “A” contract such as to permit performance of the contract through takings from the Republic wells in such lower amounts as may be necessary to achieve ratability with the takings from the wells of appellant’s other producers. In short, the suggestion is that the state court, if afforded the opportunity, might now so harmonize the Republic contract with the Commission’s order that there would result no measurable effect upon interstate transmissions or sales.
We reject this suggestion for several reasons. First, both opinions of the Kansas Supreme Court show that the court clearly recognized the substantiality of the federal question in the asserted encroachment of the orders upon the federal regulatory scheme. The court squarely decided the federal question in favor of the validity of the orders. Neither opinion rests this holding on an independent nonfederal ground of decision, and the appellant and the Commission, by suggesting a remand, in effect concede as much. Nor is there any undecided aspect of the case upon which the Kansas Supreme Court might still sustain the orders upon a nonfederal ground. Cf. Indiana ex rel. Anderson v. Brand, 303 U. S. 95. We and the Kansas Supreme Court are therefore in complete agreement that the federal question as to the validity of the orders cannot be avoided. It would hardly be seemly for us to ask the Kansas Supreme Court to reconsider its holding because we have reached a different conclusion on that question.
Furthermore we have difficulty perceiving how we could properly invite the Kansas Supreme Court to interpret the Republic “A” contract in light of the orders with a view to possible abatement of the federal question. That contract was not in any respect made an issue in this lawsuit — indeed, Republic is not a party; the controversy is solely between the appellant and the State and concerns only the validity of the orders. To invite consideration by the Kansas Supreme Court of the possible accommodation of the contract with the orders so as to avoid the asserted invalid trespass on the federal regulatory area, is necessarily to ask the Kansas court to do one of two things: (1) to determine whether the orders can be accommodated with a contract which is in no sense before the court and in the absence of one of the contracting parties; or (2) to vacate its holding that the orders are not invalid for encroachment on the federal domain, and abstain from deciding that question pending the decision of some action which may squarely pit the contract against the orders. In the circumstances, to follow the suggestion to remand would on our part be highly irregular.
In any event the suggestion misconceives the true nature of the question which the Kansas Supreme Court and this Court were called upon to decide. The federal question does not arise from an asserted actual and immediate conflict between the federal and state regulations. The question is whether the state orders may stand in the face of the pervasive scope of federal occupation of the field. Cf. San Diego Building Trades Council v. Garmon, supra, at 241-244. Indeed, even if the issue of the accommodation of the Republic “A” contract with the orders had been actually framed in the lawsuit, the mere fact that the Kansas court might make the suggested accommodation would not necessarily permit the Kansas court or this Court to avoid decisions of the federal question, since even then it would have to be determined whether the orders invalidly jeopardize the Natural Gas Act’s objective of uniformity. See Federal Power Comm’n v. Transcontinental Gas Pipe Line Corp., supra, at 28. For, if the federal question could be avoided or postponed just short of actual collision, by ad hoc accommodation on the part of every State, then the scope of federal regulatory power would vary in accordance with the kaleidoscopic variations of local contract law.
The judgments are reversed and the causes are remanded for further proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion.
Reversed and remanded.
Mr. Justice White took no part in the consideration or decision of this case.
The general order of the Commission, which was embodied in Rule 82-2-219, provided:
Ratable ProductioN of Gas from CommoN Source of Supply
“In each common source of supply under proration by this Commission, each purchaser shall take gas in proportion to the allowables from all the wells to which it is connected and shall maintain all such wells in substantially the same proportionate status as to overproduction or underproduction; provided, however, this rule shall not apply when a difference in proportionate status results from the inability of a well to produce proportionately with other wells connected to the purchaser (Authorized by G. S. 1959, Supp. 55-703; Effective February 8, I960).”
This order, directed generally at all purchasers within the Commission’s jurisdiction, superseded an order of October 7, 1959, which specifically required appellant “to take gas ratably from all wells to which it is connected in the Kansas Hugoton Gas Field.” When the general order was promulgated, the specific order was rescinded. The Kansas Supreme Court, however, considered the validity of both orders as though both were still in force. For purposes of our jurisdiction and consideration of the merits, it makes no difference whether the specific order survived, for the superseding general order was no less clearly directed at the appellant.
For a history of the discovery and development of the Hugoton Field, and the Kansas Commission’s earlier efforts to insure correlative rights in, and to regulate the taking of gas from, that field, see generally American Bar Association Section of Mineral Law, Conservation of Oil and Gas — A Legal History, 1948 (1949), 165-183.
The original Republic “A” contract, as amended, fixed the minimum-take requirements in terms of a percentage of appellant’s natural gas needs for a particular district which it served from the Hugoton Field. A decision of the Kansas Supreme Court in 1952 modified that term of the contract by holding that appellant’s takes from particular Republic wells could not exceed the production allowables set by the Commission for those wells, regardless of whether the total allowables might be lower than the percentage stipulated by the contract. Northern Natural Gas Co. v. Republic Natural Gas Co., 172 Kan. 450, 241 P. 2d 708.
The substantial underages in appellant’s purchases were attributed to two factors: First, the rate of increase in the allowables for the wells from which appellant was taking had exceeded the increases in appellant’s requirements from the Hugoton Field; and second, appellant’s projected expansion of its system had been delayed unexpectedly by failure to secure the requisite certificates of convenience and necessity from the Federal Power Commission. Neither factor is material to the questions presented by this appeal.
The statute, as amended in 1959, is Kan. Gen. Stat., 1949 (Supp. 1959), §55-703, captioned “Production regulations; rules and formulas.” The terms of the statute speak of “taking” rather than “purchasing” of natural gas; the Commission has decreed that the two terms are synonymous. It was the view of the dissenting judge in the court below, however, that the “taking” comprehended by the statute, nowhere defined in the statute itself, referred only to production so that the Commission lacked authority under state law to regulate purchasing in the manner of the present orders. See 188 Kan. 355, 365, 362 P. 2d 599, 606.
The operative clause of this order designated the order as the basic guide for “the production of natural gas” from the Hugoton Field. No provisions of the order imposed enforceable obligations or sanctions upon purchasers, although one section admonished, “. . . purchasers . . . from any well, shall endeavor to limit their takes of gas to the quantities fixed in the schedule as the allowable production for such well . . . .”
Pending in a Kansas trial court are two suits by Republic against appellant to recover damages for appellant’s failure to purchase gas in the quantities required by the contracts.
Thus we have no need to consider the effect of the “production or gathering” exemption upon ratable-tahe orders directed exclusively at independent producers of natural gas. For contrasting views on that question, compare Kelly, Gas Proration and Ratable Taking in Texas, 19 Tex. Bar J. 763, 797 (1956), with Comment, Ratable Taking of Natural Gas, 11 S. W. L. J. 358, 360-361 (1957).
Persistent efforts to narrow the scope of the broader exclusive federal jurisdiction conferred by the statute have been unavailing. See, inter alia, H. R. 4051, 80th Cong., 1st Sess.; H. R. 4099, 80th Cong., 1st Sess.; H. R. 1758, 81st Cong., 1st Sess.; and S. 1498, 81st Cong., 1st Sess. “Attempts to weaken this protection [of consumers against exploitation at the hands of natural-gas companies] by amend-atory legislation exempting independent natural-gas producers from federal regulation have repeatedly failed, and we refuse to achieve the same result by a strained interpretation of the existing statutory language.” Phillips Petroleum Co. v. Wisconsin, supra, at 685.
Our decisions in Cities Service Gas Co. v. Peerless Oil & Gas Co., 340 U. S. 179, and Phillips Petroleum Co. v. Oklahoma, 340 U. S. 190, are not contrary. “In those cases we were dealing with constitutional questions and not the construction of the Natural Gas Act.” Natural Gas Pipeline Co. v. Panoma Corp., supra, at 45.
See American Bar Association Section of Mineral and Natural Resources Law, Conservation of Oil and Gas — A Legal History, 1958 (I960), 342.
See, e. g., Colorado Interstate Gas Co. v. Federal Power Comm’n, supra, at 602-603; cf. Patterson v. Stanolind Oil & Gas Co., supra. The availability of regulatory alternatives, particularly in the form of proration and similar orders directed at producers, has been much discussed. See the view of a member of the Kansas Corporation Commission, Byrd, Contractual and Property Rights as Affected by Conservation Laws and Regulations, Tenth Annual Institute on Oil and Gas Law and Taxation, 1, 6-7 (1959); see also American Bar Association Section of Mineral Law, Conservation of Oil and Gas — A Legal History, 1948 (1949), 170-171; Kulp, Oil and Gas Rights (1954), § 10.100; 1 Kuntz, Treatise on the Law of Oil and Gas (1962), §4.7.
It has been urged that as a practical matter restrictions upon purchasers more effectively and easily achieve ratable taking, see 1A Summers, Oil and Gas (1954), 139 and n. 9.30. On the contrary, it has also been argued that the very objectives sought to be achieved here may be achieved through ratable production orders, Comment, Ratable Taking of Natural Gas, 11 S. W. L. J. 358, 359, 362 (1957). We note too the suggestion of a witness in the proceeding below that the result sought by the orders herein might have been achieved by requiring Republic to decrease production from its wells rather than by requiring appellant to increase its purchases from those wells. R. 33. This apparently was also the view of the dissenting judge below, 188 Kan., at 365, 362 P. 2d, at 606. See, as to the obligation of the States to pursue alternatives which avoid interference with federally protected interstate commerce, Dean Milk Co. v. Madison, 340 U. S. 349, 354-356.
There is no occasion to consider appellant’s further argument that the Kansas Commission’s orders were tainted by an improper motive, that is, to require overproduction of Kansas Hugoton wells in order to prevent disadvantageous drainage to Texas and Oklahoma, which share the Hugoton Field with Kansas. The relevancy of motive to the validity of such regulations has been questioned, Stephenson v. Binford, 287 U. S. 251, 276. See, however, Thompson v. Consolidated Gas Utilities Corp., 300 U. S. 55, 69-70, where the Court invalidated a state proration order “shown to bear no reasonable relation either to the prevention of waste or the protection of correlative rights . . . .”
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer:
|
J
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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.
Mr. Justice White
delivered the opinion of the Court.
The Seventh Amendment to the Constitution provides that in “[s]uits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved.” Whether the Amendment guarantees the right to a jury trial in stockholders’ derivative actions is the issue now before us.
Petitioners brought this derivative suit in federal court against the directors of their closed-end investment company, the Lehman Corporation, and the corporation’s brokers, Lehman Brothers. They contended that Lehman Brothers controlled the corporation through an illegally large representation on the corporation’s board of directors, in violation of the Investment Company Act of 1940, 54 Stat. 789, 15 U. S. C. § 80a-l et seq., and used this control to extract excessive brokerage fees from the corporation. The directors of the corporation were accused of converting corporate assets and of “gross abuse of trust, gross misconduct, willful misfeasance, bad faith, [and] gross negligence.” Both the individual defendants and Lehman Brothers were accused of breaches of fiduciary duty. It was alleged that the payments to Lehman Brothers constituted waste and spoliation, and that the contract between the corporation and Lehman Brothers had been violated. Petitioners requested that the defendants “account for and pay to the Corporation for their profits and gains and its losses.” Petitioners also demanded a jury trial on the corporation's claims.
On motion to strike petitioners’ jury trial demand, the District Court held that a shareholder’s right to a jury on his corporation’s cause of action was to be judged as if the corporation were itself the plaintiff. Only the shareholder’s initial claim to speak for the corporation had to be tried to the judge. 275 F. Supp. 569. Convinced that “there are substantial grounds for difference of opinion as to this question and ... an immediate appeal would materially advance the ultimate termination of this litigation,” the District Court permitted an interlocutory appeal. 28 U. S. C. § 1292 (b). The Court of Appeals reversed, holding that a derivative action was entirely equitable in nature, and no jury was available to try any part of it. 403 F. 2d 909. It specifically disagreed with DePinto v. Provident Security Life Ins. Co., 323 F. 2d 826 (C. A. 9th Cir. 1963), cert. denied, 376 U. S. 950 (1964), on which the District Court had relied. Because of this conflict, we granted certiorari. 394 U. S. 917 (1969).
We reverse the holding of the Court of Appeals that in no event does the right to a jury trial preserved by the Seventh Amendment extend to derivative actions brought by the stockholders of a corporation. We hold that the right to jury trial attaches to those issues in derivative actions as to which the corporation, if it had been suing in its own right, would have been entitled to a jury.
The Seventh Amendment preserves to litigants the right to jury trial in suits at common law—
“not merely suits, which the common law recognized among its old and settled proceedings, but suits in which legal rights were to be ascertained and determined, in contradistinction to those where equitable rights alone were recognized, and equitable remedies were administered .... In a just sense, the amendment then may well be construed to embrace all suits which are not of equity and admiralty jurisdiction, whatever may be the peculiar form which they may assume to settle legal rights.” Parsons v. Bedford, 3 Pet. 433, 447 (1830).
However difficult it may have been to define with precision the line between actions at law dealing with legal rights and suits in equity dealing with equitable matters, Whitehead v. Shattuck, 138 U. S. 146, 151 (1891), some proceedings were unmistakably actions at law triable to a jury. The Seventh Amendment, for example, entitled the parties to a jury trial in actions for damages to a person or property, for libel and slander, for recovery of land, and for conversion of personal property. Just as clearly, a corporation, although an artificial being, was commonly entitled to sue and be sued in the usual forms of action, at least in its own State. See Paul v. Virginia, 8 Wall. 168 (1869). Whether the corporation was viewed as an entity separate from its stockholders or as a device permitting its stockholders to carry on their business and to sue and be sued, a corporation’s suit to enforce a legal right was an action at common law carrying the right to jury trial at the time the Seventh Amendment was adopted.
The common law refused, however, to permit stockholders to call corporate managers to account in actions at law. The possibilities for abuse, thus presented, were not ignored by corporate officers and directors. Early in the 19th century, equity provided relief both in this country and in England. Without detailing these developments, it suffices to say that the remedy in this country, first dealt with by this Court in Dodge v. Woolsey, 18 How. 331 (1856), provided redress not only against faithless officers and directors but also against third parties who had damaged or threatened the corporate properties and whom the corporation through its managers refused to pursue. The remedy made available in equity was the derivative suit, viewed in this country as a suit to enforce a corporate cause of action against officers, directors, and third parties. As elaborated in the cases, one precondition for the suit was a valid claim on which the corporation could have sued; another was that the corporation itself had refused to proceed after suitable demand, unless excused by extraordinary conditions. Thus the dual nature of the stockholder’s action: first, the plaintiff’s right to sue on behalf of the corporation and, second, the merits of the corporation’s claim itself.
Derivative suits posed no Seventh Amendment problems where the action against the directors and third parties would have been by a bill in equity had the corporation brought the suit. Our concern is with cases based upon a legal claim of the corporation against directors or third parties. Does the trial of such claims at the suit of a stockholder and without a jury violate the Seventh Amendment?
The question arose in this Court in the context of a derivative suit for treble damages under the antitrust laws. Fleitmann v. Welsbach Street Lighting Co., 240 U. S. 27 (1916). Noting that the bill in equity set up a claim of the corporation alone, Mr. Justice Holmes observed that if the corporation were the plaintiff, “no one can doubt that its only remedy would be at law,” and inquired “why the defendants’ right to a jury trial should be taken away because the present plaintiff cannot persuade the only party having a cause of action to sue — how the liability which is the principal matter can be converted into an incident of the plaintiff’s domestic difficulties with the company that has been wronged”? Id., at 28. His answer was that the bill did not state a good cause of action in equity. Agreeing that there were “cases in which the nature of the right asserted for the company, or the failure of the defendants concerned to insist upon their rights, or a different state system, has led to the whole matter being disposed of in equity,” he concluded that when the penalty of triple damages is sought, the antitrust statute plainly anticipated a jury trial and should not be read as “attempting to authorize liability to be enforced otherwise than through the verdict of a jury in a court of common law.” Id,., at 28-29. Although the decision had obvious Seventh Amendment overtones, its ultimate rationale was grounded in the antitrust laws.
Where penal damages were not involved, however, there was no authoritative parallel to Fleitmann in the federal system squarely passing on the applicability of the Seventh Amendment to the trial of a legal claim presented in a pre-merger derivative suit. What can be gleaned from this Court's opinions is not inconsistent with the general understanding, reflected by the state court decisions and secondary sources, that equity could properly resolve corporate claims of any kind without a jury when properly pleaded in derivative suits complying with the equity rules.
Such was the prevailing opinion when the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure were adopted in 1938. It continued until 1963 when the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, relying on the Federal Rules as construed and applied in Beacon Theatres, Inc. v. Westover, 359 U. S. 500 (1959), and Dairy Queen, Inc. v. Wood, 369 U. S. 469 (1962), required the legal issues in a derivative suit to be tried to a jury. DePinto v. Provident Security Life Ins. Co., 323 F. 2d 826. It was this decision that the District Court followed in the case before us and that the Court of Appeals rejected.
Beacon and Dairy Queen presaged DePinto. Under those cases, where equitable and legal claims are joined in the same action, there is a right to jury trial on the legal claims which must not be infringed either by trying the legal issues as incidental to the equitable ones or by a court trial of a common issue existing between the claims. The Seventh Amendment question depends on the nature of the issue to be tried rather than the character of the overall action. See Simler v. Conner, 372 U. S. 221 (1963). The principle of these eases bears heavily on derivative actions..
We have noted that the derivative suit has dual aspects: first, the stockholder’s right to sue on behalf of the corporation, historically an equitable matter; second, the claim of the corporation against directors or third parties on which, if the corporation had sued and the claim presented legal issues, the company could demand a jury trial. As implied by Mr. Justice Holmes in Fleitmann, legal claims are not magically converted into equitable issues by their presentation to a court of equity in a derivative suit. The claim pressed by the stockholder against directors or third parties “is not his own but the corporation’s.” Koster v. Lumbermens Mut. Cas. Co., 330 U. S. 518, 522 (1947). The corporation is a necessary party to the action; without it the case cannot proceed. Although named a defendant, it is the real party in interest, the stockholder being at best the nominal plaintiff. The proceeds of the action belong to the corporation and it is bound by the result of the suit. The heart of the action is the corporate claim. If it presents a legal issue, one entitling the corporation to a jury trial under the Seventh Amendment, the right to a jury is not forfeited merely because the stockholder’s right to sue must first be adjudicated as an equitable issue triable to the court. Beacon and Dairy Queen require no less.
If under older procedures, now discarded, a court of equity could properly try the legal claims of the corporation presented in a derivative suit, it was because irreparable injury was threatened and no remedy at law existed as long as the stockholder was without standing to sue and the corporation itself refused to pursue its own remedies. Indeed, from 1789 until 1938, the judicial code expressly forbade courts of equity from entertaining any suit for which there was an adequate remedy at law. This provision served “to guard the right of trial by jury preserved by the Seventh Amendment and to that end it should be liberally construed.” Schoenthal v. Irving Trust Co., 287 U. S. 92, 94 (1932). If, before 1938, the law had borrowed from equity, as it borrowed other things, the idea that stockholders could litigate for their recalcitrant corporation, the corporate claim, if legal, would undoubtedly have been tried to a jury.
Of course, this did not occur, but the Federal Rules had a similar impact. Actions are no longer brought as actions at law or suits in equity. Under the Rules there is only one action — a “civil action” — in which all claims may be joined and all remedies are available. Purely procedural impediments to the presentation of any issue by any party, based on the difference between law and equity, were destroyed. In a civil action presenting a stockholder’s derivative claim, the court after passing upon the plaintiff’s right to sue on behalf of the corporation is now able to try the corporate claim for damages with the aid of a jury. Separable claims may be tried separately, Fed. Rule Civ. Proc. 42 (b), or legal and equitable issues may be handled in the same trial. Fanchon & Marco. Inc. v. Paramount Pictures, Inc., 202 F. 2d 731 (C. A. 2d Cir. 1953). The historical rule preventing a court of law from entertaining a shareholder’s suit on behalf of the corporation is obsolete; it is no longer tenable for a district court, administering both law and equity in the same action, to deny legal remedies to a corporation, merely because the corporation’s spokesmen are its shareholders rather than its directors. Under the rules, law and equity are procedurally combined; nothing turns now upon the form of the action or the procedural devices by which the parties happen to come before the court. The “expansion of adequate legal remedies provided by . . . the Federal Rules necessarily affects the scope of equity.” Beacon Theatres, Inc. v. Westover, 359 U. S., at 509.
Thus, for example, before-merger class actions were largely a device of equity, and there was no right to a jury even on issues that might, under other circumstances, have been tried to a jury. 5 J. Moore, Federal Practice ¶ 38.38 [2] (2d ed. 1969); 3B id., ¶ 23.02 [1]. Although at least one post-merger court held that the device was not available to try legal issues, it now seems settled in the lower federal courts that class action plaintiffs may obtain a jury trial on any legal issues they present. Montgomery Ward & Co. v. Langer, 168 F. 2d 182 (C. A. 8th Cir. 1948); see Oskoian v. Carmel, 269 F. 2d 311 (C. A. 1st Cir. 1959), aff’g 23 F. R. D. 307; Syres v. Oil Workers Int’l Union, Local 23, 257 F. 2d 479 (C. A. 5th Cir. 1958), cert. denied, 358 U. S. 929 (1959). 2 W. Barron & A. Holtzoff, Federal Practice and Procedure § 571 (Wright ed. 1961).
Derivative suits have been described as one kind of “true” class action. Id., § 562.1. We are inclined to agree with the description, at least to the extent it recognizes that the derivative suit and the class action were both ways of allowing parties to be heard in equity who could not speak at law. 3B J. Moore, Federal Practice ¶¶23.02 [1], 23.1.16 [1] (2d ed. 1969). After adoption of the rules there is no longer any procedural obstacle to the assertion of legal rights before juries, however the party may have acquired standing to assert those rights. Given the availability in a derivative action of both legal and equitable remedies, we think the Seventh Amendment preserves to the parties in a stockholder’s suit the same right to a jury trial that historically belonged to the corporation and to those against whom the corporation pressed its legal claims.
In the instant case we have no doubt that the corporation’s claim is, at least in part, a legal one. The relief sought is money damages. There are allegations in the complaint of a breach of fiduciary duty, but there are also allegations of ordinary breach of contract and gross negligence. The corporation, had it sued on its own behalf, would have been entitled to a jury’s determination, at a minimum, of its damages against its broker under the brokerage contract and of its rights against its own directors because of their negligence. Under these circumstances it is unnecessary to decide whether the corporation’s other claims are also properly triable to a jury. Dairy Queen, Inc. v. Wood, 369 U. S. 469 (1962). The decision of the Court of Appeals is reversed.
It is so ordered.
See, e. g., Curriden v. Middleton, 232 U. S. 633 (1914); Whitehead v. Shattuck, 138 U. S. 146 (1891); 5 J. Moore, Federal Practice ¶ 38.11 [5] (2d ed. 1969).
1 W. Blackstone, Commentaries *475; cf. Bank of Columbia v. Patterson’s Adm’r, 7 Cranch 299 (1813); Bank of Kentucky v. Wister, 2 Pet. 318 (1829).
Prunty, The Shareholders’ Derivative Suit: Notes on Its Derivation, 32 N. Y. U. L. Rev. 980 (1957), treats the development of the equitable remedy.
Delaware & Hudson Co. v. Albany & S. R. Co., 213 U. S. 435 (1909); Doctor v. Harrington, 196 U. S. 579 (1905); Quincy v. Steel, 120 U. S. 241 (1887); Hawes v. Oakland, 104 U. S. 450 (1882). Soon after Hawes v. Oakland, supra, the preconditions to a shareholder’s suit were promulgated as Equity Rule 94, 104 U. S. ix, which became Equity Rule 27, 226 U. S. 656 (1912), then Fed. Rule Civ. Proc. 23 (b), 308 U. S. 690 (1938), and is now Fed. Rule Civ. Proc. 23.1, 383 U. S. 1050 (1966).
See Koster v. Lumbermens Mut. Cas. Co., 330 U. S. 518, 522-523 (1947); Ashwander v. TV A, 297 U. S. 288 (1936). See also 13 W. Fletcher, Cyclopedia of the Law of Private Corporations § 5941.1 (1961 ed.); 2 G. Hornstein, Corporation Law and Practice § 716 (1959); 4 J. Pomeroy, Equity Jurisprudence § 1095, p. 278 (5th ed. 1941). Insofar as the stockholders may have been asserting their own direct interest, they closely resemble other class action plaintiffs who could proceed, before merger, only in equity.
The dilemma of the stockholder seeking treble damages for the corporation became real and complete in United Copper Co. v. Amalgamated Copper Co., 244 U. S. 261 (1917), where the stockholder-plaintiff sought treble damages in an action at law. The Court rejected the claim by reiterating the traditional view that a shareholder was without standing to sue at law on a corporate cause. The treble-damage action was a legal proceeding and only the corporation could bring it. The Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit has held that the federal rules have resolved the dilemma and that derivative actions for treble damages under the antitrust laws are now proper. Fanchon & Marco, Inc. v. Paramount Pictures, Inc., 202 F. 2d 731 (C. A. 2d Cir. 1953). Cf. Ramsburg v. American Inv. Co. of Ill., 231 F. 2d 333 (C. A. 7th Cir. 1956). See generally Comment, Federal Antitrust Law— Stockholders’ Remedies For Corporate Injury Resulting From Antitrust Violations: Derivative Antitrust Suit and Fiduciary Duty Action, 59 Mich. L. Rev. 904 (1961).
For example, in Amalgamated Copper the Court noted that in Quincy v. Steel, 120 U. S. 241 (1887), a shareholder’s bill in equity that sought to enforce “a purely legal claim of the corporation— damages for breach of contract” was dismissed, “not because the suit should have been at law, but because the bill failed to show that complainant had made sufficient effort to induce the directors to enter suit.” 244 U. S., at 264-265, n. 2. Delaware & Hudson Co. v. Albany & S. R. Co., supra, n. 4, involved a derivative suit for money damages due under a lease. The stockholders’ right to sue was sustained; no jury trial issue appears to have been raised.
See, e. g., Goetz v. Manufacturers’ & Traders’ Trust Co., 154 Misc. 733, 277 N. Y. S. 802 (Sup. Ct. 1935); Isaac v. Marcus, 258 N. Y. 257, 179 N. E. 487 (1932); Morton v. Morton Realty Co., 41 Idaho 729, 241 P. 1014 (1925); Neff v. Barber, 165 Wis. 503, 162 N. W. 667 (1917); Robinson v. Smith, 3 Paige Ch. 222, 231, 233 (N. Y. 1832); 4 W. Cook, Corporations § 734 (8th ed. 1923); S. Thompson & J. Thompson, Law of Corporations § 4661 (Supp. 1931); 6 id., § 4653 (3d ed. 1927).
The possibility that the merged federal practice altered the procedures in derivative suits was early recognized, Fanchon & Marco, Inc. v. Paramount Pictures, Inc., supra, n. 6, but until the action of the District Court below DePinto was alone in holding that a right to a jury trial existed in derivative actions. Cf. Richland v. Crandall, 259 F. Supp. 274 (D. C. S. D. N. Y. 1966). See also Metcalf v. Shamel, 166 Cal. App. 2d 789, 333 P. 2d 857 (1959); Steinway v. Griffith Consol. Theatres, 273 P. 2d 872 (Okla. 1954).
As our cases indicate, the “legal” nature of an issue is determined by considering, first, the pre-merger custom with reference to such questions; second, the remedy sought; and, third, the practical abilities and limitations of juries. Of these factors, the first, requiring extensive and possibly abstruse historical inquiry, is obviously the most difficult to apply. See James, Right to a Jury Trial in Civil Actions, 72 Yale L. J. 655 (1963).
See Koster v. Lumbermens Mut. Cas. Co., 330 U. S. 518 (1947); Meyer v. Fleming, 327 U. S. 161, 167 (1946); Davenport v. Dows, 18 Wall. 626 (1874).
The Judicial Code of 1911, § 267, 36 Stat. 1163, re-enacting the Act of Sept. 24, 1789, § 16, 1 Stat. 82, provided: “Suits in equity shall not be sustained in any court of the United States in any case where a plain, adequate, and complete remedy may be had at law.”
It would appear that the same conclusions could have been reached under Equity Rule 23 and the Law and Equity Act of 1915, Act of March 3, 1915, 38 Stat. 956. See Southern R. Co. v. City of Greenwood, 40 F. 2d 679 (D. C. W. D. S. C. 1928); 2 J. Moore, Federal Practice ¶ 2.05 (2d ed. 1967). Rule 23 provided:
“If in a suit in equity a matter ordinarily determinable at law arises, such matter shall be determined in that suit according to the principles applicable, without sending the case or question to the law side of the court.”
Farmers Co-operative Oil Co. v. Socony-Vacuum Oil Co., 43 F. Supp. 735 (D. C. N. D. Iowa 1942).
Other equitable devices are used under the rules without depriving the parties employing them of the right to a jury trial on legal issues. For example, although the right to intervene may in some cases be limited, United States for the Use and Benefit of Browne & Bryan Lumber Co. v. Massachusetts Bonding & Ins. Co., 303 F. 2d 823 (C. A. 2d Cir. 1962); Dickinson v. Burnham, 197 F. 2d 973 (C. A. 2d Cir.), cert. denied, 344 U. S. 875 (1952), when intervention is permitted generally, the intervenor has a right to a jury trial on any legal issues he presents. See 3B J. Moore, Federal Practice ¶ 24.16 [7] (2d ed. 1969); 5 id., ¶ 38.38 [3]. A similar development seems to be taking place in the lower courts in inter-pleader actions. Before merger interpleader actions lay only in equity, and there was no right to a jury even on issues that might, under other circumstances, have been tried to a jury. Liberty Oil Co. v. Condon Nat. Bank, 260 U. S. 235 (1922). This view continued for some time after merger, see Bynum v. Prudential Life Ins. Co., 7 F. R. D. 585 (D. C. E. D. S. C. 1947), but numerous courts and commentators have now come to the conclusion that the right to a jury should not turn on how the parties happen to be brought into court. See Pan American Fire & Cas. Co. v. Revere, 188 F. Supp. 474 (D. C. E. D. La. 1960); Savannah Bank & Trust Co. v. Block, 175 F. Supp. 798 (D. C. S. D. Ga. 1959); Westinghouse Elec. Corp. v. United Elec. Radio & Mach. Workers of America, 99 F. Supp. 597 (D. C. W. D. Pa. 1951); John Hancock Mut. Life Ins. Co. v. Yarrow, 95 F. Supp. 185 (D. C. E. D. Pa. 1951); 2 W. Barron & A. Holtzoff, Federal Practice and Procedure § 556 (Wright ed. 1961); 3A J. Moore, Federal Practice ¶ 22.14 [4] (2d ed. 1969). But see Pennsylvania Fire Ins. Co. v. American Airlines, Inc., 180 F. Supp. 239 (D. C. E. D. N. Y. 1960); Liberty Nat. Life Ins. Co. v. Brown, 119 F. Supp. 920 (D. C. M. D. Ala. 1954).
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer:
|
A
|
sc_issuearea
|
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Justice Kennedy
delivered the opinion of the Court.
In this case a citizen alleged excessive force was used to arrest him. The arresting officer asserted the defense of qualified immunity. The matter we address is whether the requisite analysis to determine qualified immunity is so intertwined with the question whether the officer used excessive force in making the arrest that qualified immunity and constitutional violation issues should be treated as one question, to be decided by the trier of fact. The Court of Appeals held the inquiries do merge into a single question. We now reverse and hold that the ruling on qualified immunity requires an analysis not susceptible of fusion with the question whether unreasonable force was used in making the arrest.
I
In autumn of 1994, the Presidio Army Base in San Francisco was the site of an event to celebrate conversion of the base to a national park. Among the speakers was Vice President Albert Gore, Jr., who attracted several hundred observers from the military and the general public. Some in attendance were not on hand to celebrate, however. Respondent Elliot Katz was concerned that the Army’s Letterman Hospital would be used for conducting experiments on animals. (Katz was president of a group called In Defense of Animals. Although both he and the group are respondents here, the issues we discuss center upon Katz, and we refer to him as “respondent.”) To voice opposition to the possibility that the hospital might be used for experiments, respondent brought with him a cloth banner, approximately 4 by 3 feet, that read “Please Keep Animal Torture Out of Our National Parks.” In the past, as respondent was aware, members of the public had been asked to leave the military base when they engaged in certain activities, such as distributing handbills; and he kept the banner concealed under his jacket as he walked through the base.
The area designated for the speakers contained seating for the general public, separated from the stage by a waist-high fence. Respondent sat in the front row of the public seating area. At about the time Vice President Gore began speaking, respondent removed the banner from his jacket, started to unfold it, and walked toward the fence and speakers’ platform.
Petitioner Donald Saucier is a military police officer who was on duty that day. He had been warned by his superiors of the possibility of demonstrations, and respondent had been identified as a potential protester. Petitioner and Sergeant Steven Parker — also a military police officer, but not a party to the suit — recognized respondent and moved to intercept him as he walked toward the fence. As he reached the barrier and began placing the banner on the other side, the officers grabbed respondent from behind, took the banner, and rushed him out of the area. Each officer had one of respondent’s arms, half-walking, half-dragging him, with his feet “barely touching the ground.” App. 24. Respondent was wearing a visible, knee-high leg brace, although petitioner later testified he did not remember noticing it at the time. Saucier and Parker took respondent to a nearby military van, where, respondent claims, he was shoved or thrown inside. Id., at 25. The reason for the shove remains unclear. It seems agreed that respondent placed his feet somewhere on the outside of the van, perhaps the bumper, but there is a dispute whether he did so to resist. As a result of the shove, respondent claims, he fell to the floor of the van, where he caught himself just in time to avoid any injury. The officers drove respondent to a military police station, held him for a brief time, and then released him. Though the details are not clear, it appears that at least one other protester was also placed into the van and detained for a brief time. Id., at 27.
Respondent brought this action in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California against petitioner and other officials pursuant to Bivens v. Six Unknown Fed. Narcotics Agents, 403 U. S. 388 (1971), alleging, inter alia, that defendants had violated respondent’s Fourth Amendment rights by using excessive force to arrest him. The District Court granted the defendants’ motions for summary judgment on the grounds of qualified immunity on all claims other than the excessive force claim against Saucier. It held a dispute on a material fact existed concerning whether excessive force was used to remove respondent from the crowd and place him into the van. App. to Pet. for Cert. 27a. The District Court held that the law governing excessive force claims was clearly established at the time of the arrest, and that “[i]n the Fourth Amendment context, the qualified immunity inquiry is the same as the inquiry made on the merits.” Id., at 29a-30a. As a result, it ruled, petitioner was not entitled to summary judgment. Id., at 30a.
In the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit petitioner filed an interlocutory appeal from the denial of qualified immunity. 194 F. 3d 962 (1999). The Court of Appeals affirmed, noting at the outset its two-part analysis for qualified immunity questions. First, the Court of Appeals considers “whether the law governing the official’s Conduct was clearly established.” Id., at 967. If it was not, that ends the matter, and the official is entitled to immunity. If, however, the law was clearly established when the conduct occurred, the Court of Appeals’ second step is to determine if a reasonable officer could have believed, in light of the clearly established law, that his conduct was lawful. Ibid. As to the first step of its analysis, the court observed that Graham v. Connor, 490 U. S. 386 (1989), sets forth the objective reasonableness test for evaluating excessive force claims, a principle the Court of Appeals concluded was clearly established for qualified immunity purposes. The court then concluded that the second step of the qualified immunity inquiry and the merits of the Fourth Amendment excessive force claim are identical, since both concern the objective reasonableness of the officer’s conduct in light of the circumstances the officer faced on the scene. 194 F. 3d, at 968. On this reasoning, summary judgment based on qualified immunity was held inappropriate. Id., at 968-969.
Saucier, represented by the Government of the United States; sought review here, arguing the Court of Appeals erred in its view that the qualified immunity inquiry is the same as the constitutional inquiry and so becomes superfluous or duplicative when excessive force is alleged. We granted certiorari, 531 U. S. 991 (2000).
II
The Court of Appeals ruled first that the right was clearly established; and second that the reasonableness inquiry into excessive force meant that it need not consider aspects of qualified immunity, leaving the whole matter to the jury. 194 F. 3d, at 967. This approach cannot be reconciled with Anderson v. Creighton, 483 U. S. 635 (1987), however, and was in error in two respects. As we shall explain, the first inquiry must be whether a constitutional right would have been violated on the facts alleged; second, assuming the violation is established, the question whether the right was clearly established must be considered on a more specific level than recognized by the Court of Appeals.
In a suit against an officer for an alleged violation of a constitutional right, the requisites of a qualified immunity defense must be considered in proper sequence. Where the defendant seeks qualified immunity, a ruling on that issue should be made early in the proceedings so that the costs and expenses of trial are avoided where the defense is dispositive. Qualified immunity is “an entitlement not to stand trial or face the other burdens of litigation.” Mitchell v. Forsyth, 472 U. S. 511, 526 (1985). The privilege is “an immunity from suit rather than a mere defense to liability; and like an absolute immunity, it is effectively lost if a case is erroneously permitted to go to trial.” Ibid. As a result, “we repeatedly have stressed the importance of resolving immunity questions at the earliest possible stage in litigation.” Hunter v. Bryant, 502 U. S. 224, 227 (1991) (per curiam).
A court required to rule upon the qualified immunity issue must consider, then, this threshold question: Taken in the light most favorable to the party asserting the injury, do the facts alleged show the officer’s conduct violated a constitutional right? This must be the initial inquiry. Siegert v. Gilley, 500 U. S. 226, 232 (1991). In the course of determining whether a constitutional right was violated on the premises alleged, a court might find it necessary to set forth principles which will become the basis for a holding that a right is clearly established. This is the process for the law’s elaboration from case to case, and it is one reason for our insisting upon turning to the existence or nonexistence of a constitutional right as the first inquiry. The law might be deprived of this explanation were a court simply to skip ahead to the question whether the law clearly established that the officer’s conduct was unlawful in the circumstances of the case.
If no constitutional right would have been violated were the allegations established, there is no necessity for further inquiries concerning qualified immunity. On the other hand, if a violation could be made out on a favorable view of the parties’ submissions, the next, sequential step is to ask whether the right was clearly established. This inquiry, it is vital to note, must be undertaken in light of the specific context of the case, not as a broad general proposition;. and it too serves to advance understanding of the law and to allow officers to avoid the burden of trial if qualified immunity is applicable.
In this litigation, for instance, there is no doubt that Graham v. Connor, supra, clearly establishes the general proposition that use of force is contrary to the Fourth Amendment if it is excessive under objective standards of reasonableness. Yet that is not enough. Rather, we emphasized in Anderson “that the right the official is alleged to have violated must have been ‘clearly established’ in a more particularized, and hence more relevant,'sense: The contours of the right must be sufficiently clear that a reasonable official would understand that what he is doing violates that right.” 483 U. S., at 640. The relevant, dis-positive inquiry in determining whether a right is clearly established is whether it would be clear to a reasonable officer that his conduct was unlawful in the situation he confronted. See Wilson v. Layne, 526 U. S. 603, 615 (1999) (“[A]s we explained in Anderson, the right allegedly violated must be defined at the appropriate level of specificity before a court can determine if it was clearly established”).
The approach the Court of Appeals adopted — to deny summary judgment any time a material issue of fact remains on the excessive force claim — could undermine the goal of qualified immunity to “avoid excessive disruption of government and permit the resolution of many insubstantial claims on summary judgment.” Harlow v. Fitzgerald, 457 U. S. 800, 818 (1982). If the law did not put the officer on notice that his conduct would be clearly unlawful, summary judgment based on qualified immunity is appropriate. See Malley v. Briggs, 475 U. S. 335, 341 (1986) (qualified immunity protects “all but the plainly incompetent or those who knowingly violate the law”).
This is not to say that the formulation of a general rule is beside the point, nor is it to insist the courts must have agreed upon the precise formulation of the standard. Assuming, for instance, that various courts have agreed that certain conduct is a constitutional violation under facts not distinguishable in a fair way from the facts presented in the case at hand, the officer would not be entitled to qualified immunity based simply on the argument that courts had not agreed on one verbal formulation of the controlling standard.
The Court of Appeals concluded that qualified immunity is merely duplicative in an excessive force case, eliminating the need for the second step where a constitutional violation could be found based on the allegations. In Anderson, a warrantless search case, we rejected the argument that there is no distinction between the reasonableness standard for warrantless searches and the qualified immunity inquiry. We acknowledged there was some “surface appeal” to the argument that, because the Fourth Amendment’s guarantee was a right to be free from “unreasonable” searches and seizures, it would be inconsistent to conclude that an officer who acted unreasonably under the constitutional standard nevertheless was entitled to immunity because he “ ‘reasonably’ acted unreasonably.” 483 U. S., at 643. This superficial similarity, however, could not overcome either our history of applying qualified immunity analysis to Fourth Amendment claims against officers or the justifications for applying the doctrine in an area where officers perform their duties with considerable uncertainty as to “whether particular searches or seizures comport with the Fourth Amendment.” Id., at 644. With respect, moreover, to the argument made in Anderson that an exception should be made for Fourth Amendment cases, we observed “the heavy burden this argument must sustain to be successful,” since “the doctrine of qualified immunity reflects a balance that has been struck ‘across the board.’” Id., at 642 (quoting Harlow v. Fitzgerald, supra, at 821). We held that qualified immunity applied in the Fourth Amendment context just as it would for any other claim of official misconduct. 483 U. S., at 644.
Faced, then, with the heavy burden of distinguishing Anderson and of carving out an exception to the typical qualified immunity analysis applied in other Fourth Amendment contexts, the primary submission by respondent in defense of the Court of Appeals’ decision is that our decision in Graham v. Connor, 490 U. S. 386 (1989), somehow changes matters. Graham, in respondent’s view, sets forth an excessive force analysis indistinguishable from qualified immunity, rendering the separate immunity inquiry superfluous and inappropriate. Respondent asserts that, like the qualified immunity analysis applicable in other contexts, the excessive force test already affords officers latitude for mistaken beliefs as to the amount of force necessary, so that “Graham has addressed for the excessive force area most of the concerns expressed in Anderson.” Brief for Respondents 7. Respondent points out that Graham did not address the interaction of excessive force claims and qualified immunity, since the issue was not raised, see 490 U. S., at 399, n. 12; and respondent seeks to distinguish Anderson on the theory that the issue of probable cause implicates evolving legal standards and resulting legal uncertainty, a subject raising recurrent questions of qualified immunity. By contrast, respondent says, excessive force is governed by the standard established in Graham, a standard providing ample guidance for particular situations. Finally, respondent adopts the suggestion made by one Court of Appeals that the relevant distinction is that probable cause is an ex post inquiry, whereas excessive force, like qualified immunity, should be evaluated from an ex ante perspective. See Finnegan v. Fountain, 915 F. 2d 817, 824, n. 11 (CA2 1990).
These arguments or attempted distinctions cannot bear the weight respondent seeks to place upon them. Graham did not change the qualified immunity framework explained in Anderson. The inquiries for qualified immunity and excessive force remain distinct, even after Graham.
In Graham, we held that claims of excessive force in the context of arrests or investigatory stops should be analyzed under the Fourth Amendment’s “objective reasonableness standard,” not under substantive due process principles. 490 U. S., at 388, 394. Because “police officers are often forced to make split-second judgments — in circumstances that are tense, uncertain, and rapidly evolving — about the amount of force that is necessary in a particular situation,” id., at 397, the reasonableness of the officer’s belief as to the appropriate level of force should be judged from that on-scene perspective, id., at 396. We set out a test that cautioned against the “20/20 vision of hindsight” in favor of deference to the judgment of reasonable officers on the scene. Id., at 393, 396. Graham sets forth a list of factors relevant to the merits of the constitutional excessive force claim, “requiring] careful attention to the facts and circumstances of each particular case, including the severity of the crime at issue, whether the suspect poses an immediate threat to the safety of the officers or others, and whether he is actively resisting arrest or attempting to evade arrest by flight.” Id., at 396. If an officer reasonably, but mistakenly, believed that a suspect was likely to fight back, for instance, the officer would be justified in using more force than in fact was needed.
The qualified immunity inquiry, on the other hand, has a further dimension. The concern of the immunity inquiry is to acknowledge that reasonable mistakes can be made as to the legal constraints on particular police conduct. It is sometimes difficult for an officer to determine how the relevant legal doctrine, here excessive force, will apply to the factual situation the officer confronts. An officer might correctly, perceive all of the relevant facts but have a mistaken understanding as to whether a particular amount of force is legal in those circumstances. If the officer’s mistake as to what the law requires is reasonable, however, the officer is entitled to the immunity defense.
Graham does not always give a clear answer as to whether a particular application of force will be deemed excessive by the courts. This is the nature of a test which must accommodate limitless factual circumstances. This reality serves to refute respondent’s claimed distinction between excessive force and other Fourth Amendment contexts; in both spheres the law must be elaborated from case to case. Qualified immunity operates in this case, then, just as it does in others, to protect officers from the sometimes “hazy border between excessive and acceptable force,” Priester v. Riviera Beach, 208 F. 3d 919, 926-927 (CA112000), and to ensure that before they are subjected to suit, officers are on notice their conduct is unlawful.
Graham and Anderson refute the excessive force/probable cause distinction on which much of respondent’s position seems to depend. The deference owed officers facing suits for alleged excessive force is not different in some qualitative respect from the probable-cause inquiry in Anderson. Officers can have reasonable, but mistaken, beliefs as to the facts establishing the existence of probable cause or exigent circumstances, for example, and in those situations courts will not hold that they have violated the Constitution. Yet, even if a court were to hold that the officer violated the Fourth Amendment by conducting an unreasonable, war-rantless search, Anderson still operates to grant officers immunity for reasonable mistakes as to the legality of their actions. The same analysis is applicable in excessive force cases, where in addition to the deference officers receive on the underlying constitutional claim, qualified immunity can apply in the event the mistaken belief was reasonable.
The temporal perspective of the inquiry, whether labeled as ex ante or ex post, offers no meaningful distinction between excessive force and other Fourth Amendment suits. Graham recognized as much, reviewing several of our probable-cause and search warrant cases, then stating that “[w]ith respect to a claim of excessive force, the same standard of reasonableness at the moment applies.” 490 U. S., at 396 (discussing use of force under Terry v. Ohio, 392 U. S. 1 (1968); probable cause to arrest under Hill v. California, 401 U. S. 797 (1971); and search warrant requirements under Maryland v. Garrison, 480 U. S. 79 (1987)); see also Hunter v. Bryant, 502 U. S., at 228 (“Probable cause existed if ‘at the moment the arrest was made . . . the facts and circumstances within their knowledge and of which they had reasonably trustworthy information were sufficient to warrant a prudent man in believing’” a crime had been committed (quoting Beck v. Ohio, 379 U. S. 89, 91 (1964))). Excessive force claims, like most other Fourth Amendment issues, are evaluated for objective reasonableness based upon the information the officers had when the conduct occurred.
III
The case was presented to the Court of Appeals on the assumption that respondent’s seizure and brief detention did not violate clearly established First Amendment privileges and did not violate the Fourth Amendment right to be free from arrest without probable cause, as distinct from the force used to detain. The sole question, then, is whether the force used violated a clearly established Fourth Amendment protection so that petitioner was not entitled to immunity.
Our instruction to the district courts and courts of appeals to concentrate at the outset on the definition of the constitutional right and to determine whether, on the facts alleged, a constitutional violation could be found is important. As we have said, the procedure permits courts in appropriate cases to elaborate the constitutional right with greater degrees of specificity. Because we granted cer-tiorari only to determine whether qualified immunity was appropriate, however, and because of the limits imposed upon us by the questions on which we granted review, we will assume a constitutional violation could have occurred under the facts alleged based simply on the general rule prohibiting excessive force, then proceed to the question whether this general prohibition against excessive force was the source for clearly established law that was contravened in the circumstances this officer faced. There was no contravention under this standard. Though it is doubtful that the force used was excessive, we need not rest our conclusion on that determination. The question is what the officer reasonably understood his powers and responsibilities to be, when he acted, under clearly established standards.
Respondent’s excessive force claim for the most part depends upon the “gratuitously violent shove” allegedly received when he was placed into the van, although respondent notes as well that the alleged violation resulted from the “totality of the circumstances,” including the way he was removed from the speaking area. See Brief for Respondents 3, n. 2.
These circumstances, however, disclose substantial grounds for the officer to have concluded he had legitimate justification under the law for acting as he did. In Graham we noted that “[o]ur Fourth Amendment jurisprudence has long recognized that the right to make an arrest or investigatory stop necessarily carries with it the right to use some degree of physical coercion or threat thereof to effect it.” 490 U. S., at 396. A reasonable officer in petitioner’s position could have believed that hurrying respondent away from the scene, where the Vice President was speaking and respondent had just approached the fence designed to separate the public from the speakers, was within the bounds of appropriate police responses.
Petitioner did not know the full extent of the threat respondent posed or how many other persons there might be who, in concert with respondent, posed a threat to the security of the Vice President. There were other potential protesters in the crowd, and at least one other individual was arrested and placed into the van with respondent. In carrying out the detention, as it has been assumed the officers had the right to do, petitioner was required to recognize the necessity to protect the Vice President by securing respondent and restoring order to the scene. It cannot be said there was a clearly established rule that would prohibit using the force petitioner did to place respondent into the van to accomplish these objectives.
As for the shove respondent received when he was placed into the van, those same circumstances show some degree of urgency. We have approved the observation that “[n]ot every push or shove, even if it may later seem unnecessary in the peace of a judge’s chambers, violates the Fourth Amendment.” Ibid, (citations omitted). Pushes and shoves, like other police conduct, must be judged under the Fourth Amendment standard of reasonableness.
In the circumstances presented to this officer, which included the duty to protect the safety and security of the Vice President of the United States from persons unknown in number, neither respondent nor the Court of Appeals has identified any case demonstrating a clearly established rule prohibiting the officer from acting as he did, nor are we aware of any such rule. Our conclusion is confirmed by the uncontested fact that the force was not so excessive that respondent suffered hurt or injury. On these premises, petitioner was entitled to qualified immunity, and the suit should have been dismissed at an early stage in the proceedings.
The judgment of the Court of Appeals is reversed, and the case is remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer:
|
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.
Per Curiam.
The motion to dismiss is granted and the appeal is dismissed for want of a substantial federal question.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer:
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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 Souter
delivered the opinion of the Court.
The question in these cases is whether Congress has waived the National Government’s sovereign immunity from liability for civil fines imposed by a State for past violations of the Clean Water Act (CWA), 86 Stat. 816, as amended, 38 U. S. C. § 1251 et seq., or the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act of 1976 (RCRA), 90 Stat. 2796, as amended, 42 U. S. C. § 6901 et seq. We hold it has not done so in either instance.
I
The CWA prohibits the discharge of pollutants into navigable waters without a permit. Section 402, codified at 33 U. S. C. § 1342, gives primary authority to issue such permits to the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), but allows EPA to authorize a State to supplant the federal permit program with one of its own, if the state scheme would include, among other features, sufficiently stringent regulatory standards and adequate provisions for penalties to enforce them. See generally 33 U. S. C. § 1342(b) (requirements and procedures for EPA approval of state water-pollution permit plans); see also 40 CFR §§ 123.1-123.64 (1991) (detailed requirements for state plans). RCRA regulates the disposal of hazardous waste in much the same way, with a permit program run by EPA but subject to displacement by an adequate state counterpart. See generally 42 U. S. C. § 6926 (requirements and procedures for EPA approval of state hazardous-waste disposal permit plans); see also 40 CFR §§271.1-271.138 (1991) (detailed requirements for state plans).
This litigation began in 1986 when respondent State of Ohio sued petitioner Department of Energy (DOE) in Federal District Court for violations of state and federal pollution laws, including the CWA and RCRA, in operating its uranium-processing plant in Fernald, Ohio. Ohio sought, among other forms of relief, both state and federal civil penalties for past violations of the CWA and RCRA and of state laws enacted to supplant those federal statutes. See, e. g., Complaint ¶ 64 (seeking penalties for violations of state law and of regulations issued pursuant to RCRA); id., ¶ 115 (seeking penalties for violations of state law and of CWA). Before the District Court ruled on DOE’s motion for dismissal, the parties proposed a consent decree to settle all but one substantive claim, and Ohio withdrew all outstanding claims for relief except its request for civil penalties for DOE’s alleged past violations. See Consent Decree Between DOE and Ohio, App. 63. By a contemporaneous stipulation, DOE and Ohio agreed on,.the. amount of civil penalties DOE will owe if it is found liable for them, see Stipulation Between DOE and Ohio, id., at 87. The parties thus left for determination under the motion to dismiss only the issue we consider today: whether Congress has waived the National Government’s sovereign immunity from liability for civil fines imposed for past failure to comply with the CWA, RCRA, or state law supplanting the federal regulation.
DOE admits that the CWA and RCRA obligate a federal polluter, like any other, to obtain permits from EPA or the state permitting agency, see Brief for Petitioner DOE 24 (discussing CWA); id., at 34-40 (discussing RCRA). DOE also concedes that the CWA and RCRA render federal agencies liable for fines imposed to induce them to comply with injunctions or other judicial orders designed to modify behavior prospectively, which we will speak of hereafter as “coercive fines.” See id., at 19-20, and n. 10; see also n. 14, infra. The parties disagree only on whether the CWA and RCRA, in either their “federal-facilities” or “citizen-suit” sections, waive federal sovereign immunity from liability for fines, which we will refer to as “punitive,” imposed to punish past violations of those statutes or state laws supplanting them.
The United States District Court for the Southern District of Ohio held that both statutes waived federal sovereign immunity from punitive fines, by both their federal-facilities and citizen-suit sections. 689 F. Supp. 760 (1988). A divided panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit affirmed in part, holding that Congress had waived immunity from punitive fines in the CWA’s federal-facilities section and RCRA’s citizen-suit section, but not in RCRA’s federal-facilities section. 904 F. 2d 1058 (1990). Judge Guy dissented, concluding that neither the CWA’s federal-facilities section nor RCRA’s citizen-suit section sufficed to provide the waiver at issue. Id., at 1065-1069.
In No. 90-1341, DOE petitioned for review insofar as the Sixth' Circuit found any waiver of immunity from punitive fines, while in No. 90-1517, Ohio cross-petitioned on the holding that RCRA’s federal-facilities section failed to effect such a waiver. We consolidated the two petitions and granted certiorari, 500 U. S. 951 (1991).
I — I
We start with a common rule, with which we presume congressional familiarity, see McNary v. Haitian Refugee Center, Inc., 498 U. S. 479, 496 (1991), that any waiver of the National Government’s sovereign immunity must be unequivocal, see United States v. Mitchell, 445 U. S. 535, 538-539 (1980). “Waivers of immunity must be ‘construed strictly in favor of the sovereign,’ McMahon v. United States, 342 U. S. 25, 27 (1951), and not ‘enlarge[d]... beyond what the language requires.’ Eastern Transportation Co. v. United States, 272 U. S. 675, 686 (1927).” Ruckelshaus v. Sierra Club, 463 U. S. 680, 685-686 (1983). By these lights we examine first the two statutes’ citizen-suit sections, which can be treated together because their relevant provisions are similar, then the CWA’s federal-facilities section, and, finally, the corresponding section of RCRA.
A
So far as it concerns us, the CWA’s citizen-suit section reads that
“any citizen may commence a civil action on his own behalf—
“(1) against any person (including... the United States...) who is alleged to be in violation of (A) an effluent standard or limitation under this chapter or (B) an order issued by the Administrator or a State with respect to such a standard or limitation....
“The district courts shall have jurisdiction... to enforce such an effluent standard or limitation, or such an order... as the case may be, and to apply any appropriate civil penalties under [33 U. S. C. § 1319(d)].” 33 U. S. C. § 1365(a).
The relevant part of the corresponding section of RCRA is similar:
“[A]ny person may commence a civil action on his own behalf —
“(1)(A) against any person (including... the United States)... who is alleged to be in violation of any permit, standard, regulation, condition, requirement, prohibition, or order which has become effective pursuant to this chapter...
“(B) against any person, including the United States... who has contributed or who is contributing to the past or present handling, storage, treatment, transportation, or disposal of any solid or hazardous waste which may present an imminent and substantial endangerment to health or the environment....
“... The district court shall have jurisdiction... to enforce the permit, standard, regulation, condition, requirement, prohibition, or order, referred to in paragraph (1)(A), to restrain any person who has contributed or who is contributing to the past or present handling, storage, treatment, transportation, or disposal of any solid or hazardous waste referred to in paragraph (1)(B), to order such person to take such other action as may be necessary, or both,... and to apply any appropriate civil penalties under [42 U. S. C. §§ 6928(a) and (g)].” 42 U.S. C. § 6972(a).
A State is a “citizen” under the CWA and a “person” under RCRA, and is thus entitled to sue under these provisions.
Ohio and its amici argue that by specifying the United States as an entity subject to suit and incorporating the civil-penalties sections of the CWA and RCRA into their respective citizen-suit sections, “Congress could not avoid noticing that its literal language subjected] federal entities to penalties.” Brief for Respondent Ohio 36; see also, e. g., Brief for National Governors’ Association et al. as Amici Curiae 14-16. It is undisputed that each civil-penalties provision authorizes fines of the punitive sort.
The effect of incorporating each statute’s civil-penalties section into its respective citizen-suit section is not, however, as clear as Ohio claims. The incorporations must be read as encompassing all the terms of the penalty provisions, including their limitations, see, e. g., Engel v. Davenport, 271 U. S. 33, 38 (1926) (adoption of earlier statute by reference “makes it as much a part of the later act as though it had been incorporated at full length”); see also 2B N. Singer, Sutherland on Statutory Construction §51.08 (5th rev. ed. 1992), and significant limitations for present purposes result from restricting the applicability of the civil-penalties sections to “person[sJ.” While both the CWA and RCRA define “person” to cover States, subdivisions of States, municipalities, and interstate bodies (and RCRA even extends the term to cover governmental corporations), neither statute defines “person” to include the United States. Its omission has to be seen as a pointed one when so many other governmental entities are specified, see 2A Singer, supra, §47.23, a fact that renders the civil-penalties sections inapplicable to the United States.
Against this reasoning, Ohio argues that the incorporated penalty provisions’ exclusion of the United States is overridden by the National Government’s express inclusion as a “person” by each of the citizen-suit sections. There is, of course, a plausibility to the argument. Whether that plausibility suffices for the clarity required to waive sovereign immunity is, nonetheless, an issue we need not decide, for the force of Ohio’s argument wanes when we look beyond the citizen-suit sections to the full texts of the respective statutes.
What we find elsewhere in each statute are various provisions specially defining “person” and doing so expressly for purposes of the entire section in which the term occurs. Thus, for example, “[f]or the purpose of this [CWA] section,” 33 U. S. C. § 1321(a)(7) defines “person” in such a way as to exclude the various governmental entities included in the general definition of “person” in 33 U. S. C. § 1362(5). Again, “[f]or the purpose of this section,” § 1322(a)(8) defines “person” so as to exclude “an individual.on board a public vessel” as well as the governmental entities falling within the general definition. Similarly in RCRA, “[f]or the purpose of... subchapter [IX]” the general definition of “person” is expanded to include “the United States Government,” among other entities. 42 U. S. C. §6991(6). Within each statute, then, there is a contrast between drafting that merely redefines “person” when it occurs within a particular clause or sentence and drafting that expressly alters the definition for any and all purposes of the entire section in which the special definition occurs. Such differences in treatment within a given statutory text are reasonably understood to reflect differences in meaning intended, see 2A Singer, supra, §46.06, and the inference can only be that a special definition not described as being for purposes of the “section” or “subchapter” in which it occurs was intended to have the more limited application to its own clause or sentence alone. Thus, in the instances before us here, the inclusion of the United States as a “person” must go to the clauses subjecting the United States to suit, but no further.
This textual analysis passes the test of giving effect to all the language of the citizen-suit sections. Those sections’ incorporations of their respective statutes’ civil-penalties sections will have the effect of authorizing punitive fines when a polluter other than the United States is brought to court by a citizen, while the sections’ explicit authorizations for suits against the United States will likewise be effective, since those sections concededly authorize coercive sanctions against the National Government.
A clear and unequivocal waiver of anything more cannot be found; a broader waiver may not be inferred, see Ruckels- haus, 463 U. S., at 685-686. Ohio’s reading is therefore to be rejected. See United States v. Nordic Village, Inc., ante, 37.
B
The relevant portion of the CWA’s federal-facilities section provides that
“[e]ach department, agency, or instrumentality of the... Federal Government... shall be subject to, and comply with, all Federal, State, interstate, and local requirements, administrative authority, and process and sanctions respecting the control and abatement of water pollution in the same manner... as any nongovernmental entity.... The preceding sentence shall apply (A) to any requirement whether substantive or procedural (including any recordkeeping or reporting requirement, any requirement respecting permits and any other requirement, whatsoever), (B) to the exercise of any Federal, State or local administrative authority, and (C) to any process and sanction, whether enforced in Federal, State, or local courts or in any other manner.... [T]he United States shall be liable only for those civil penalties arising under Federal law or imposed by a State or local court to enforce an order or the process of such court.” 33 U. S. C. § 1323(a).
Ohio rests its argument for waiver as to punitive fines on-two propositions: first, that the statute’s use of the'word “sanction” must be understood to encompass such fines, see Brief for Respondent Ohio 26-29; and, second, with respect to the fines authorized under a state permit program approved by EPA, that they “aris[e] under Federal law” despite their genesis in state statutes, and are thus within the scope of the “civil penalties” covered by the congressional waiver, id., at 29-35.
■ A
Ohio’s first proposition is mistaken. As a general matter, the meaning of “sanction” is spacious enough to cover not only what we have called punitive fines, but coercive ones as well, and use of the term carries no necessary implication that a reference to punitive fines is intended. One of the two dictionaries Ohio itself cites reflects this breadth. See Black’s Law Dictionary 1341 (6th ed. 1990) (defining “sanction” as a “[p]enalty or other mechanism of enforcement used to provide incentives for obedience with the law or with rules and regulations. That part of a law which is designed to secure enforcement by imposing a penalty for its violation or offering a reward for its observance”). Ohio’s other such source explicitly adopts the coercive sense of the term. See Ballentine’s Law Dictionary 1137 (3d ed. 1969) (defining sanction in part as “[a] coercive measure”).
Beyond the dictionaries, examples of usage in the coercive sense abound. See, e. g., Penfield Co. of Cal. v. SEC, 330 U. S. 585, 590 (1947) (fines and imprisonment imposed as “coercive sanctions” when imposed to compel target “to do what the law made it his duty to do”); Hicks v. Feiock, 485 U. S. 624, 633-634, n. 6 (1988) (“sanction” in Penfield was civil because it was conditional; contemnor could avoid “sanction” by agreeing to comply with discovery order); Fed. Rule Civ. Proc. 37(b) (describing as “sanctions” various steps district court may take in response to noncompliance with discovery orders, including holding recalcitrant deponent in contempt); United States v. Westinghouse Elec. Corp., 648 F. 2d 642, 649 (CA9 1981) (discussing “sanctions,” imposed pursuant to Fed. Rule Civ. Proc. 37(b), consisting of fine for each day litigant remained in noncompliance with District Court’s discovery order); Latrobe Steel Co. v. United Steelworkers of America, Local 1537, 545 F. 2d 1336, 1344 (CA3 1976) (“Coercive sanctions... look to the future and are designed to aid the plaintiff by bringing a defiant party into compliance with the court order or by assuring that a potentially contumacious party adheres to an injunction by setting forth in advance the penalties the court will impose if the party deviates from the path of obedience”); Vincent v. Preiser, 175 W. Va. 797, 803, 338 S. E. 2d 398, 403 (1985) (discussing contempt “sanctions” imposed “to compel compliance with a court order”); Maltaman v. State Bar of Cal., 43 Cal. 3d 924, 936, 741 P. 2d 185, 189-190 (1987) (describing as “sanctions” daily fine imposed on party until it complied with order directing it to transfer certain property); Labor Relations Comm’n v. Fall River Educators’ Assn., 382 Mass. 465, 475-476, 416 N. E. 2d 1340, 1347 (1981) (affirming propriety of imposition of “coercive contempt sanction”); Cal. Civ. Proc. Code Ann. § 2023(b)(4) (West Supp. 1992) (authorizing, in response to litigant’s failure to obey discovery order, “terminating sanction^],” including “contempt sanction^] ” and orders staying further proceedings by recalcitrant litigant). Cf. 42 U. S. C. §6992e(a) (waiving federal medical-waste disposal facilities’ sovereign immunity from various requirements, including such “sanctions as may be imposed by a court to enforce [injunctive] relief”); id., §6961 (using same language to waive other federal facilities’ immunity from RCRA provisions). Thus, resort to a “sanction” carries no necessary implication of the punitive as against the coercive.
The term’s context, of course, may supply a clarity that the term lacks in isolation, see, e. g., Shell Oil Co. v. Iowa Dept. of Revenue, 488 U. S. 19, 26 (1988). It tends to do so here, but once again the clarity so found cuts against Ohio’s position. The word “sanction” appears twice in § 1323(a), each time within the phrase “process and sanction[s].” The first sentence subjects Government agencies to “process and sanctions,” while the second explains that the Government’s corresponding liability extends to “any process and sanction, whether enforced in Federal, State, or local courts or in any other manner.”
Three features of this context are significant. The first is the separate statutory recognition of three manifestations of governmental power to which the United States is subjected: substantive and procedural requirements; administrative authority; and “process and sanctions,” whether “enforced” in courts or otherwise. Substantive requirements are thus distinguished from judicial process, even though each might require the same conduct, as when a statute requires and a court orders a polluter to refrain from discharging without a permit. The second noteworthy feature is the conjunction of “sanction[s]” not with the substantive “requirements,” but with “process,” in each of the two instances in which “sanction” appears. “Process” normally refers to the procedure and mechanics of adjudication and the enforcement of decrees or orders that the adjudicatory process finally provides. The third feature to note is the statute’s reference to “process and sanctions” as “enforced” in courts or otherwise. Whereas we commonly understand that “requirements” may be enforced 'either by backward-looking penalties for past violations or by the “process” of forward-looking orders enjoining future violations, such forward-looking orders themselves are characteristically given teeth by equity’s traditional coercive sanctions for contempt: fines and bodily commitment imposed pending compliance or agreement to comply. The very fact, then, that the text speaks of sanctions in the context of enforcing “process” as distinct from substantive “requirements” is a good reason to infer that Congress was using “sanction” in its coercive sense, to the exclusion of punitive fines.
2
The last relevant passage of § 1323(a), which provides that “the United States shall be liable only for those civil penalties arising under Federal law or imposed by a State or local court to enforce an order or the process of such court,” is not to the contrary. While this proviso is unlike the preceding text in that it speaks of “civil penalties,” not “sanctions,” it is obviously phrased to clarify or limit the waiver preceding it. Here our concern is with its clarifying function (leaving its limiting effect until later), and it must be said that as a clarifier the proviso speaks with an uncertain voice. To be sure, the second modifier of “civil penalties” at least makes it plain that the term (like “sanction,” to which it relates) must include a coercive penalty, since “civil penalties” are exemplified by those “imposed by a State or local court to enforce an order or the process of such court.” To this extent, then, the proviso serves to confirm the reading we reached above.
The role of the first modifier is problematical, however. On the one hand, it tugs toward a more expansive reading of “civil penalties.” If by using the phrase “civil penalties arising under Federal law” Congress meant nothing more than coercive fines arising under federal law, it would have been simpler to describe all such penalties as imposed to enforce an order or process, whether of a local, state, or federal court. Thus, the first modifier suggests that the civil penalties arising under federal law may indeed include the punitive along with the coercive. Nevertheless, a reading expansive enough to reflect a waiver as to punitive fines would raise a new and troublesome question about the source of legal authority to impose such a fine. As far as federal law is concerned, the only available source of authority to impose punitive fines is the civil-penalties section, § 1319(d). But, as we have already seen, that section does not authorize liability against the United States, since it applies only against “persons,” from whom the United States is excluded.
Ohio urges us to find a source of authority good against the United States by reading “arising under Federal law” to include penalties prescribed by state statutes approved by EPA and supplanting the CWA. Ohio argues for treating a state statute as providing penalties “arising under Federal law” by stressing the complementary relationship between the relevant state and federal statutes and the role of such state statutes in accomplishing the purpose of the CWA. This purpose, as Ohio states it, is “to encourage compliance with comprehensive, federally approved water pollution programs while shielding federal agencies from unauthorized penalties.” Brief for Respondent Ohio 34-35. Ohio asserts that “federal facility compliance... cannot be... accomplished without the [punitive] penalty deterrent.” Id., at 35.
The case for such pessimism is not, however, self-evident. To be sure, an agency of the Government may break the law where it might have complied voluntarily if it had faced the prospect of punitive fines for past violations. But to say that its “compliance cannot be... accomplished” without such fines is to assume that without sanctions for past conduct a federal polluter can never be brought into future compliance, that an agency of the National Government would defy an injunction backed by coercive fines and even a threat of personal commitment. The position seems also to ignore the fact that once such fines start running they can be every dollar as onerous as their punitive counterparts; it could be a very expensive mistake to plan on ignoring the law indefinitely on the assumption that contumacy would be cheap.
Nor does the complementary relationship between state and federal law support Ohio’s claim that state-law fines thereby “arise under Federal law.” Plain language aside, the far more compelling interpretative case rests on the best known statutory use of the phrase “arising under federal law,” appearing in the grant of federal-question jurisdiction to the courts of the United States. See 28 U. S. C. § 1331. There, we have read the phrase “arising under” federal law to exclude cases in which the plaintiff relies on state law, even when the State’s exercise of power in the particular circumstances is expressly permitted by federal law. See, e. g., Gully v. First Nat. Bank in Meridian, 299 U. S. 109, 116 (1936) (suit over state taxation of nationally chartered bank does not arise under federal law even though such taxation would not be possible without federal approval); International Bridge Co. v. New York, 254 U. S. 126, 133 (1920) (congressional approval of construction of bridge by state-chartered company does not make federal law the source of right to build bridge). Congress’ use of the same language in § 1323(a) indicates a likely adoption of our prior interpretation of that language. See, e. g., ICC v. Locomotive Engineers, 482 U. S. 270, 284-285 (1987) (interpreting statute based on previous interpretation of same language in another statute); Northcross v. Memphis Bd. of Education, 412 U. S. 427, 428 (1973) (per curiam) (similarity of language in two statutes “strong indication that [they] should be interpreted pari passu”). The probability is. enough to answer Ohio’s argument that “arising under Federal law” in § 1323(a) is broad enough to cover provisions of state statutes approved by a federal agency but nevertheless applicable ex proprio vigore.
Since Ohio’s argument for treating state-penalty provisions as arising under federal law thus fails, our reading of the last-quoted sentence from § 1323(a) leaves us with an unanswered question and an unresolved tension between closely related statutory provisions. The question is still what Congress could have meant in using a seemingly expansive phrase like “civil penalties arising under Federal law.” Perhaps it used it just in case some later amendment might waive the Government’s immunity from punitive sanctions. Perhaps a drafter mistakenly thought that liability for such sanctions had somehow been waived already. Perhaps someone was careless. The question has no satisfactory answer.
We do, however, have a response satisfactory for sovereign immunity purposes to the tension between a proviso suggesting an apparently expansive but uncertain waiver and its antecedent text that evinces a narrower waiver with greater clarity. For under our rules that tension is resolved by the requirement that any statement of waiver be unequivocal: as against the clear waiver for coercive fines the indication of a waiver as to those that are punitive is less certain. The rule of narrow construction therefore takes the waiver no further than the coercive variety.
C
We consider, finally, the federal-facilities section of RCRA, which provides, in relevant part, that the National Government
“shall be subject to, and comply with, all Federal, State, interstate, and local requirements, both substantive and procedural (including any requirement for permits or reporting or any provisions for injunctive relief and such sanctions as may be imposed by a court to enforce such relief)... in the same manner, and to the same extent, as any person is subject to such requirements- Neither the United States, nor any agent, employee, or officer thereof, shall be immune or exempt from any process or sanction of any State or Federal Court with respect to the enforcement of any such injunctive relief.” 42 U.S. C. §6961.
Ohio and its amici stress the statutory subjection of federal facilities to “all... requirements,” which they would have us read as an explicit and unambiguous waiver of federal sovereign immunity from punitive fines. We, however, agree with the Tenth Circuit that “all... requirements” “can reasonably be interpreted as including substantive standards and the means for implementing those standards, but excluding punitive measures.” Mitzelfelt v. Department of Air Force, 903 F. 2d 1293, 1295 (1990).
We have already observed that substantive requirements can be enforced either punitively or coercively, and the Tenth Circuit’s understanding that Congress intended the latter finds strong support in the textual indications of the kinds of requirements meant to bind the Government. Significantly, all of them refer either to mechanisms requiring review for substantive compliance (permit and reporting requirements) or to mechanisms for enforcing substantive compliance in the future (injunctive relief and sanctions to enforce it). In stark contrast, the statute makes no mention of any mechanism for penalizing past violations, and this absence of any example of punitive fines is powerful evidence that Congress had no intent to subject the United States to an enforcement mechanism that could deplete the federal fisc regardless of a responsible officer’s willingness and capacity to comply in the future.
The drafters’ silence on the subject of punitive sanctions becomes virtually audible after one reads the provision’s final sentence, waiving immunity “from any process or sanction of any State or Federal Court with respect to the enforcement of any such injunctive relief.” The fact that the drafters’ only specific reference to an enforcement mechanism described “sanction” as a coercive means of injunctive enforcement bars any inference that a waiver of immunity from “requirements” somehow unquestionably extends to punitive fines that are never so much as mentioned.
III
The judgment of the Court of Appeals is reversed, and the eases are remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
The parties agreed to stay one claim pending completion of a technical study. See Stipulation Between DOE and Ohio, App. 87-88.
DOE's water-pollution permit was issued by EPA. See Complaint ¶ 29. DOE had no RCRA permit at the time Ohio commenced this suit, despite RCRA’s requirement that facilities such as DOE’s Fernald plant obtain one. See Complaint ¶¶ 50, 52, 57; Answer of Federal Defendants ¶ 57.
33 U. S. C. § 1323(a) (CWA); 42 U. S. C. §6961 (RCRA). The federal-facilities sections of the CWA and RCRA govern the extent to which federally operated facilities, such as DOE’s Fernald facility, are subject to the requirements, including fines, of both their respective statutes and EPA-approved, state-law regulation and enforcement programs.
33 U. S. C. § 1365(a) (CWA); 42 U. S. C. § 6972(a) (RCRA). The citizen-suit sections of the CWA and RCRA authorize private enforcement of the provisions of their respective statutes. Unlike the waivers in the federal-facilities sections, which set forth the scope of federal sovereign immunity from the requirements, including fines, of both their respective statutes and EPA-approved, state-law regulation and enforcement programs, the citizen-suit sections, to the extent they waive federal immunity at all, waive such immunity only from federal-law penalties.
States may sue the United States under the citizen-suit sections. See 33 U. S. C. § 1365(a) (any “citizen” may bring citizen suit under CWA); id., § 1365(g) (defining “citizen” for purposes of CWA citizen-suit section as “person... having an interest which is or may be adversely affected”); id., § 1362(5) (defining “person” for purposes of CWA to include a State); 42 U. S. C. § 6972 (“any person” may bring citizen suit under RCRA); id., § 6903(15) (“person” for purposes- of RCRA includes a State).
The court held that its ruling on the CWA’s federal-facilities section obviated any need to consider that statute’s citizen-suit section. 904 F. 2d, at 1062.
Ohio’s petition also asked that if we reversed the' lower court’s conclusion on the CWA’s federal-facilities section, we consider whether that statute’s citizen-suit section contained a waiver, an issue the Sixth Circuit declined to reach.
The Sixth Circuit’s holding that the CWA’s federal-facilities section waives federal sovereign immunity from punitive fines conflicts with the Ninth Circuit’s conclusion that that section does not constitute such a waiver. See California v. Department of Navy, 845 F. 2d 222 (1988). One Court of Appeals has found such a waiver in the CWA’s citizen-suit section. See Sierra Club v. Lujan, 931 F. 2d 1421 (CA10 1991). Two other Courts of Appeals agree with the Sixth Circuit that RCRA’s federal-facilities section does not waive federal sovereign immunity from punitive fines. See Mitzelfelt v. Department of Air Force, 903 F. 2d 1293 (CA10 1990); United States v. Washington, 872 F. 2d 874 (CA9 1989). No other Court of Appeals appears to have considered whether RCRA’s citizen-suit section constitutes such a waiver.
See n. 6, supra.
See 33 U. S. C. § 1319(d) (CWA civil-penalties section); 42 U. S. C. §§ 6928(a), (g) (RCRA civil-penalties sections).
See 33 U. S. C. § 1362(5) (defining “person” for purposes of CWA as “an individual, corporation, partnership, association, State, municipality, commission, or political subdivision of a State, or any interstate body”); 42 U. S. C. § 6903(15) (defining “person” for purposes of RCRA as “an individual, trust, firm, joint stock company, corporation (including a government corporation), partnership, association, State, municipality, commission, political subdivision of a State, or any. interstate body”).
A subsection of RCRA dealing'with a federal demonstration program tracking the disposal of medical waste does in fact require that “each department, agency, and instrumentality of the United States” “be treated as” a “person.” See Medical Waste Tracking Act of 1988, §2(a), Pub. L. 100-582, 102 Stat. 2955, 42 U. S. C. §6992e(b). This broader provision, however, applies only “[f]or purposes of this Act,” ibid., which refers to the Medical Waste Tracking Act of 1988 itself, see 102 Stat. 2950.
See n. 11, supra.
The dissent fails to appreciate this difference, arguing that § 1365
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
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 Blackmun
delivered the opinion of the Court.
In Monell v. New York City Dept. of Social Services, 436 U. S. 658 (1978), this Court for the first time held that a local government was subject to suit as a “person” within the meaning of 42 U. S. C. § 1983. Aside from concluding that a municipal body was not wholly immune from civil liability, the Court had no occasion to explore the nature or scope of any particular municipal immunity under the statute. 436 U. S., at 701. The question presented by this case is whether a municipality may be held liable for punitive damages under § 1983.
I
A
Respondent Fact Concerts, Inc., is a Rhode Island corporation organized for the purpose of promoting musical concerts. In 1975, it received permission from the Rhode Island Department of Natural Resources to present several summer concerts at Fort Adams, a state park located in the city of Newport. In securing approval for the final concerts, to be held August 30 and 31, respondent sought and obtained an entertainment license from petitioner city of Newport. Under their written contract, respondent retained control over the choice of performers and the type of music to be played while the city reserved the right to cancel the license without liability if “in the opinion of the City the interests of public safety demand.” App. 27.
Respondent engaged a number of well-known jazz music acts to perform during the final August concerts. Shortly before the dates specified, the group Blood, Sweat and Tears was hired as a replacement for a previously engaged performer who was unable to appear. Members of the Newport City Council, including the Mayor, became concerned that Blood, Sweat and Tears, which they characterized as a rock group rather than as a jazz band, would attract a rowdy and undesirable audience to Newport. 2 Record Appendix (R. A.) 265, 316-317, 325. Based on this concern, the Council attempted to have Blood, Sweat and Tears removed from the program.
On Monday, August 25, Mayor Donnelly informed respondent by telephone that he considered Blood, Sweat and Tears to be a rock group, and that they would not be permitted to perform because the city had experienced crowd disturbances at previous rock concerts. Id., at 195. Officials of respondent appeared before the City Council at a special meeting the next day, and explained that Blood, Sweat and Tears in fact were a jazz band that had performed at Carnegie Hall in New York City and at similar symphony hall facilities throughout the world. Speaking for the Council, the Mayor reiterated that the city did not condone rock festivals. Without attempting to investigate either the nature of the group’s music or the representations made by respondent, the Council voted to cancel the license for both days unless Blood, Sweat and Tears were removed from the program. Id., at 267-269. The vote received considerable publicity, and this adversely affected ticket sales. Id., at 248-G.
Later in the same week, respondent was informed by the City Solicitor that the Council had changed its position and would allow Blood, Sweat and Tears to perform if they did not play rock music. On Thursday, August 28, respondent agreed to attend a second special Council meeting the following day.
The second Council session convened on the afternoon of August 29, the day before the first scheduled performance. Mayor Donnelly informed the Council members that the city had two options — it could either allow Blood, Sweat and Tears to perform subject to the prohibition against rock music, or cancel the concert altogether. Although the City Solicitor advocated the first alternative and advised that cancellation would be unlawful, 3 R. A. 478, the Council did not offer the first option to respondent. Instead, one of the Council members inquired whether all provisions of the contract had been fulfilled. The City Manager, who had just returned from the concert site, reported that the wiring together of the spectator seats was not fully completed by 3 p. m., and that the auxiliary electric generator was not in place. Under the contract, respondent had agreed to fulfill these two conditions as part of the overall safety procedures. App. 28. The Council then voted to cancel the contract because respondent had not “lived up to all phases” of the agreement. 4 R. A. 10. The Council offered respondent a new contract for the same dates, specifically excluding Blood, Sweat and Tears. Respondent, however, indicated that it would take legal action if the original contract was not honored. 1 R. A. 96; 2 R. A. 202; 4 R. A; 11. After the meeting adjourned at 9:30 p.m., the decision to revoke respondent's license was broadcast extensively over the local media. 1 R. A. 97; 2 R. A. 204.
On Saturday morning, August 30, respondent obtained in state court a restraining order enjoining the Mayor, the City Council, and the city from interfering with the performance of the concerts. The 2-day event, including the appearance of Blood, Sweat and Tears, took place without incident. Fewer than half the available tickets were sold.
B
Respondent instituted the present action in the United States District Court for the District of Rhode Island, naming the city, its Mayor, and the six other Council members as defendants. Alleging, inter alia, that the license cancellation amounted to content-based censorship, and that its constitutional rights to free expression and due process had been violated under color of state law, respondent sought compensatory and punitive damages against the city and its officials under 42 U. S. C. § 1983 and under two pendent state-law counts, including tortious interference with contractual relationships. App. 8. At the conclusion of six days of trial, the District Court charged the jury with respect to the § 1983 and tortious interference counts. Included in its charge was an instruction, given without objection, that authorized the jury to award punitive damages against each defendant individually, “based on the degree of culpability of the individual defendant.” App. 62. The jury returned verdicts for respondent on both counts, awarding compensatory damages of $72,910 and punitive damages of $275,000; of the punitive damages, $75,000 was spread among the seven individual officials and $200,000 was awarded against the city.
Petitioner moved for.a new trial, arguing that punitive damages cannot be awarded under § 1983 against a municipality, and that even if they can, the award was excessive. Because petitioner challenged the punitive damages instruction to which it had not objected at trial, the District Court noted that the challenge was untimely under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 51. But the court was determined not to “rest its decision on this procedural ground alone.” App. to Pet. for Cert. B-3. Reasoning that “a careful resolution of this novel question is critical to a just verdict in this case,” id., at B-7, the court proceeded to consider petitioner’s substantive legal arguments on their merits.
The District Court recognized, ibid., that Monell had left undecided the question whether municipalities may be held liable for punitive damages. 436 U. S., at 701. The court observed, however, that punitive damages often had been awarded against individual officials in § 1983 actions, and it found no clear basis for distinguishing between individuals and municipalities in this regard. Emphasizing the general deterrent purpose served by punitive damages awards, the court reasoned that a municipality’s payment of such an award would focus taxpayer and voter attention upon the entity's malicious conduct, and that this in turn might promote accountability at the next election. App. to Pet. for Cert. B-9. Although noting that the burden imposed upon taxpaying citizens warranted judicial caution in this area, the court concluded that in appropriate circumstances municipalities could be held liable for punitive damages in a § 1983 action.
The United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit affirmed. 626 F. 2d 1060 (1980). That court noted, as an initial matter, that the challenge to the punitive damages award was flawed due to petitioner’s failure to object to the charge at trial. The court observed that such a failure should be overlooked “only where the error is plain and 'has seriously affected the fairness, integrity or public reputation of a judicial proceeding.’ ” Id., at 1067. The court found none of these factors present, because the law concerning municipal liability under § 1983 was in a state of flux, and no appellate decision had barred punitive damages awards against a municipality.
The Court of Appeals also expressed a belief that the challenged instruction might well not have been error at all. 626 F. 2d, at 1067. Citing its own prior holdings to the effect that punitive damages are available against § 1983 defendants, and this Court’s recent determination in Monell that a municipality is a “person” within the meaning of § 1983, the court identified the “distinct possibility that municipalities, like all other persons subject to suit under § 1983, may be liable for punitive damages in the proper circumstances.” 626 F. 2d, at 1067.
Because of the importance of the issue, we granted cer-tiorari. 449 U. S. 1060 (1980).
II
At the outset, respondent asserts that the punitive damages issue was not properly preserved for review before this Court. Brief for Respondents 7-9. In light of Rule 51’s uncompromising language and the policies of fairness and judicial efficiency incorporated therein, respondent claims that petitioner’s failure to object to the charge at trial should foreclose any further challenge to that instruction. The problem with respondent’s argument is that the District Court in the first instance declined to accept it. Although the punitive damages question perhaps could have been avoided simply by a reliance, under Rule 51, upon petitioner’s procedural default, the judge concluded that the interests of justice required careful consideration of this “novel question” of federal law. Because the District Court reached and fully adjudicated the merits, and the Court of Appeals did not disagree with that adjudication, no interests in fair and effective trial administration advanced by Rule 51 would be served if we refused now to reach the merits ourselves.
Nor are we persuaded that our review should be limited to determining whether “plain error” has been committed, an exception to Rule 51 that is invoked on occasion by the Courts of Appeals absent timely objection in the trial court. No “right” to a specific standard of review exists in this setting, any more than a “right” to review existed at all once petitioner failed to except to the charge at trial. But given the special circumstances of this case, limiting our review to a restrictive “plain error” standard would be peculiarly inapt.
“Plain error” review under Rule 51 is suited to correcting obvious instances of injustice or misapplied law. A court’s interpretation of the contours of municipal liability under § 1983, as both courts below recognized, hardly could give rise to plain judicial error since those contours are currently in a state of evolving definition and uncertainty. See Owen v. City of Independence, 445 U. S. 622 (1980); Monell. See also Maine v. Thiboutot, 448 U. S. 1 (1980); Middlesex County Sewerage Authority v. National Sea Clammers Assn., ante, p. 1. We undertake review here in order to resolve one element of the uncertainty, that is, the availability of punitive damages, and it would scarcely be appropriate or just to confine our review to determining whether any error that might exist is sufficiently egregious to qualify under Rule 51. The very novelty of the legal issue at stake counsels uncon-stricted review.
In addition to being novel, the punitive damages question is important and appears likely to recur in § 1983 litigation against municipalities. And here the question was squarely presented and decided on a complete trial record by the court of first resort, was argued by both sides to the Court of Appeals, and has been fully briefed before this Court. In light of all these factors, we conclude that restricting our review to the plain-error standard would serve neither to promote the interests of justice nor to advance efficient judicial administration. We therefore turn to the merits of petitioner’s claim.
Ill
It. is by now well settled that the tort liability created by § 1983 cannot be understood in a historical vacuum. In the Civil Rights Act of 1871, Congress created a federal remedy against a person who, acting under color of state law, deprives another of constitutional rights. See Monroe v. Pape, 365 U. S. 167, 172 (1961). Congress, however, expressed no intention to do away with the immunities afforded state officials at common law, and the Court consistently has declined to construe the general language of § 1983 as automatically abolishing such traditional immunities by implication. Procunier v. Navarette, 434 U. S. 555, 561 (1978); Imbler v. Pachtman, 424 U. S. 409, 417 (1976); Pierson v. Ray, 386 U. S. 547, 554-555 (1967); Tenney v. Brandhove, 341 U. S. 367, 376 (1951). Instead, the Court has recognized immunities of varying scope applicable to different officials sued under the statute. One important assumption underlying the Court’s decisions in this area is that members of the 42d Congress were familiar with common-law principles, including defenses previously recognized in ordinary tort litigation, and that they likely intended these common-law principles to obtain, absent specific provisions to the contrary.
At the same time, the Court’s willingness to recognize certain -traditional immunities as affirmative defenses has not led it to conclude that Congress incorporated all immunities existing at common law. See Scheuer v. Rhodes, 416 U. S. 232, 243 (1974). Indeed, because the 1871 Act was designed to expose state and local officials to a new form of liability, it would defeat the promise of the statute to recognize any preexisting immunity without determining both the policies that it serves and its compatibility with the purposes of § 1983. See Imbler v. Pachtman, 424 U. S., at 424; id., at 434 (opinion concurring in judgment); Owen v. City of Independence, 445 U. S., at 638. Only after careful inquiry into considerations of both history and policy has the Court construed § 1983 to incorporate a particular immunity defense.
Since Monell was decided three years ago, the Court has applied this two-part approach when scrutinizing a claim of immunity proffered by a municipality. In Owen v. City of Independence, the Court held that neither history nor policy supported a construction of § 1983 that would allow a municipality to assert the good faith of its officers or agents as a defense to liability for damages. 445 U. S., at 638, 657. Owen, however, concerned only compensatory damages, and petitioner contends that with respect to a municipality’s liability for punitive damages, an examination of the common-law background and policy considerations yields a very different result.
A
By the time Congress enacted what is now § 1983, the immunity of a municipal corporation from punitive damages at common law was not open to serious question. It was generally understood by 1871 that a municipality, like a private corporation, was to be treated as a natural person subject to suit for a wide range of tortious activity, but this understanding did not extend to the award of punitive or exemplary damages. Indeed, the courts that had considered the issue prior to 1871 were virtually unanimous in denying such damages against a municipal corporation. E. g., Woodman v. Nottingham, 49 N. H. 387 (1870); City of Chicago v. Langlass, 52 Ill, 256 (1869); City Council of Montgomery v. Gilmer & Taylor, 33 Ala. 116 (1858); Order of Hermits of St. Augustine v. County of Philadelphia, 4 Clark 120, Brightly N. P. 116 (Pa. 1847); McGary v. President & Council of the City of Lafayette, 12 Rob. 668, 674 (La. 1846). Judicial disinclination to award punitive damages against a municipality has persisted to the present day in the vast majority of jurisdictions. See generally 18 E. McQuillin, Municipal Corporations § 53.18a (3d rev. ed. 1977); P. Burdick, Law of Torts 245-246 (4th ed. 1926); 4 J. Dillon, Law of Municipal Corporations § 1712 (5th ed. 1911); G. Field, Law of Damages §80 (1876).
The language of the opinions themselves is instructive as to the reasons behind this common-law tradition. In McGary, for example, the Louisiana Supreme Court refused to allow punitive damages against the city of Lafayette despite the malicious acts of its municipal officers, who had violated an injunction by ordering the demolition of plaintiff’s house. Reasoning that the officials’ malice should not be attributed to the taxpaying citizens of the community, the court explained its holding:
“Those who violate the laws of their country, disregard the authority of courts of justice, and wantonly inflict injuries, certainly become thereby obnoxious to vindictive damages. These, however, can never be allowed against the innocent. Those which the plaintiff has recovered in the present case..., being evidently vindictive, cannot, in our opinion, be sanctioned by this court, as they are to be borne by widows, orphans, aged men and women, and strangers, who, admitting that they must repair the injury inflicted by the Mayor on the plaintiff, cannot be bound beyond that amount, which will be sufficient for her indemnification.” 12 Rob., at 677.
Similarly, in Hunt v. City of Boonville, 65 Mo. 620 (1877), the Missouri Supreme Court held that a municipality could not be found liable for treble damages under a trespass statute, notwithstanding the statute’s authorization of such damages against “any person.” After noting the existence of “respectable authority” to the effect that municipal corporations “can not, as such, do a criminal act or a willful and malicious wrong and they cannot therefore be made liable for exemplary damages,” id., at 624, the court continued:
“[T]he relation which the officers of a municipal corporation sustain toward the citizens thereof for whom they act, is not in all respects identical with that existing between the stockholders of a private corporation and their agents; and there is not the same reason for holding municipal corporations, engaged in the performance of acts for the public benefit, liable for the willful or malicious acts of its officers, as there is in the case of private corporations.” Id., at 625.
Of particular relevance to our current inquiry is Order of Hermits of St. Augustine v. County of Philadelphia, supra, which involved a Pennsylvania statute that authorized property owners within the county to bring damages actions against it for the destruction of their property by mob violence. The court observed that the “persons” against whom the statute authorized recovery included the county corporation, and it held that plaintiffs were entitled to compensatory damages as part of the county’s duty to make reparation to its citizens for injuries sustained as a result of lawless violence. While noting that punitive damages would have been available against the. rioters themselves, the court nonetheless held that such exemplary damages were not recoverable against the county.
The rationale of these decisions was reiterated in numerous other common-law jurisdictions. E. g., Wilson v. City of Wheeling, 19 W. Va. 323, 350 (1882) (“The city is not a spoliator and should not be visited by vindictive or punitive damages”); City of Chicago v. Langlass, 52 Ill., at 259 (“But in fixing the compensation the jury have no right to give vindictive or punitive damages, against a municipal corporation. Against such a body they should only be compensatory, and not by way of punishment”); City Council of Montgomery v. Gilmer & Taylor, 33 Ala., at 132 (“The [municipal] corporation can not, upon any principle known to us, be responsible for the malice of its officers towards the plaintiffs”). In general, courts viewed punitive damages as contrary to sound public policy, because such awards would burden the very taxpayers and citizens for whose benefit the wrongdoer was being chastised. The courts readily distinguished between liability to compensate for injuries inflicted by a municipality’s officers and agents, and vindictive damages appropriate as punishment for the bad-faith conduct of those same officers and agents. Compensation was an obligation properly shared by the municipality itself, whereas punishment properly applied only to the actual wrongdoers. The courts thus protected the public from unjust punishment, and the municipalities from undue fiscal constraints.
Given that municipal immunity from punitive damages was well established at common law by 1871, we proceed on the familiar assumption that “Congress would have specifically so provided had it wished to abolish the doctrine.” Pierson v. Ray, 386 U. S., at 555. Nothing in the legislative debates suggests that, in enacting § 1 of the Civil Rights Act, the 42d Congress intended any such abolition. Indeed, the limited legislative history relevant to this issue suggests the opposite.
Because there was virtually no debate on § 1 of the Act, the Court has looked to Congress’ treatment of the amendment to the Act introduced by Senator Sherman as indicative of congressional attitudes toward the nature and scope of municipal liability. Monell, 436 U. S., at 692, n. 57. Initially, it is significant that the Sherman amendment as proposed contemplated the award of no more than compensatory damages for injuries inflicted by mob violence. The amendment would not have exposed municipal governments to punitive damages; rather, it proposed that municipalities “shall be liable to pay full compensation to the person or persons damnified” by mob violence. Globe, at 749, 765 (emphasis added). That the exclusion of punitive damages was no oversight was confirmed by Representative Butler, one of the amendment’s chief supporters, when he responded to a critical inquiry on the floor of the House:
“The invalidity of the gentleman’s argument is that he looks upon [the amendment] as a punishment for the county. Now, we do not look upon it as a punishment at all. It is a mutual insurance. We are there a community, and if there is any wrong done by our community, or by the inhabitants of our community, we will indemnify the injured party for that wrong....” Id., at 792.
We doubt that a Congress having no intention of permitting punitive awards against municipalities in the explicit context of the Sherman amendment would have meant to expose municipal bodies to such novel liability sub silentio under § 1 of the Act.
Notwithstanding the compensatory focus of the amendment, its proposed extension of municipal liability met substantial resistance in Congress, resulting in its defeat on two separate occasions. In addition to the constitutional reservations broached by legislators, which the Court has discussed at some length in Monell, 436 U. S., at 669-683, Members of both Chambers also expressed more practical objections. Notably, supporters as well as opponents of § 1 voiced concern that this extension of public liability might place an unmanageable financial burden on local governments. Legislators also expressed apprehension that innocent taxpayers would be unfairly punished for the deeds of persons over whom they had neither knowledge nor control. Admittedly, both these objections were raised with particular reference to the threat of the expansive municipal liability embodied in the Sherman amendment. The two concerns are not without relevance to the present inquiry, however, in that they reflect policy considerations similar to those relied upon by the common-law courts in rejecting punitive damages awards. We see no reason to believe that Congress’ opposition to punishing innocent taxpayers and bankrupting local governments would have been less applicable with regard to the novel specter of punitive damages against municipalities.
B
Finding no evidence that Congress intended to disturb the settled common-law immunity, we now must determine whether considerations of public policy dictate a contrary result. In doing so, we examine the objectives underlying punitive damages in general, and their relationship to the goals of § 1983.
Punitive damages by definition are not intended to compensate the injured party, but rather to punish the tortfeasor whose wrongful action was intentional or malicious, and to deter him and others from similar extreme conduct. See Restatement (Second) of Torts §908 (1979); W. Prosser, Law of Torts 9-10 (4th ed. 1971). Regarding retribution, it remains true that an award of punitive damages against a municipality “punishes” only the taxpayers, who took no part in the commission of the tort. These damages are assessed over and above the amount necessary to compensate the injured party. Thus, there is no question here of equitably distributing the losses resulting from official misconduct. Cf. Owen v. City of Independence, 445 U. S., at 657. Indeed, punitive damages imposed on a municipality are in effect a windfall to a fully compensated plaintiff, and are likely accompanied by an increase in taxes or a reduction of public services for the citizens footing the bill. Neither reason nor justice suggests that such retribution should be visited upon the shoulders of blameless or unknowing taxpayers.
Under ordinary principles of retribution, it is the wrongdoer himself who is made to suffer for his unlawful conduct. If a government official acts knowingly and maliciously to deprive others of their civil rights, he may become the appropriate object of the community’s vindictive sentiments. See generally Silver v. Cormier, 529 F. 2d 161, 163 (CA10 1976); Bucher v. Krause, 200 F. 2d 576, 586-588 (CA7 1952), cert, denied, 345 U. S. 997 (1953). A municipality, however, can have no malice independent of the malice of its officials. Damages awarded for punitive purposes, therefore, are not sensibly assessed against the governmental entity itself.
To the extent that the purposes of § 1983 have any bearing on this punitive rationale, they do not alter our analysis. The Court previously has indicated that punitive damages might be awarded in appropriate circumstances in order to punish violations of constitutional rights, Carey v. Piphus, 435 U. S. 247, 257, n. 11 (1978), but it never has suggested that punishment is as prominent a purpose under the statute as are compensation and deterrence. See, e. g., Owen v. City of Independence, 445 U. S., at 651; Robertson v. Wegmann, 436 U. S. 584, 590-591 (1978); Carey v. Piphus, 435 U. S., at 256-257. Whatever its weight, the retributive purpose is not significantly advanced, if it is advanced at all, by exposing municipalities to punitive damages.
The other major objective of punitive damages awards is to prevent future misconduct. Respondent argues vigorously that deterrence is a primary purpose of § 1983, and that because punitive awards against municipalities for the malicious conduct of their policymaking officials will induce voters to condemn official misconduct through the electoral process, the threat of such awards will deter future constitutional violations. Brief for Respondents 9-11. Respondent is correct in asserting that the deterrence of future abuses of power by persons acting under color of state law is an important purpose of § 1983. Owen v. City of Independence, 445 U. S., at 651; Robertson v. Wegmann, 436 U. S., at 591. It is in this context that the Court’s prior statements contemplating punitive damages “in ‘a proper’ § 1983 action” should be understood. Carlson v. Green, 446 U. S. 14, 22 (1980); Carey v. Piphus, 435 U. S., at 257, n. 11. For several reasons, however, we conclude that the deterrence rationale of § 1983 does not justify making punitive damages available against municipalities.
First, it is far from clear that municipal officials, including those at the policymaking level, would be deterred from wrongdoing by the knowledge that large punitive awards could be assessed based on the wealth of their municipality. Indemnification may not be available to the municipality under local law, and even if it were, officials likely will not be able themselves to pay such sizable awards. Thus, assuming, arguendo, that the responsible official is not impervious to shame and humiliation, the impact on the individual tort-feasor of this deterrence in the air is at best uncertain.
There also is no reason to suppose that corrective action, such as the discharge of offending officials who were appointed and the public excoriation of those who were elected, will not occur unless punitive damages are awarded against the municipality. The Court recently observed in a related context: “The more reasonable assumption is that responsible superiors are motivated not only by concern for the public fisc but also by concern for the Government’s integrity.” Carlson v. Green, 446 U. S., at 21. This assumption is no less applicable to the electorate at large. And if additional protection is needed, the compensatory damages that are available against a municipality may themselves induce the public to vote the wrongdoers out of office.
Moreover, there is available a more effective means of deterrence. By allowing juries and courts to assess punitive damages in appropriate circumstances against the offending official, based on his personal financial resources, the statute directly advances the public’s interest in preventing repeated constitutional deprivations. In our view, this provides sufficient protection against the prospect that a public official may commit recurrent constitutional violations by reason of his office. The Court previously has found, with respect to such violations, that a damages remedy recoverable against individuals is more effective as a deterrent than the threat of damages against a government employer. Carlson v. Green, 446 U. S., at 21. We see no reason to depart from that conclusion here, especially since the imposition of additional penalties would most likely fall upon the citizen-taxpayer.
Finally, although the benefits associated with awarding punitive damages against municipalities under § 1983 are of doubtful character, the costs may be very real. In light of the Court’s decision last Term in Maine v. Thiboutot, 448 U. S. 1 (1980), the § 1983 damages remedy may now be available for violations of federal statutory as well as constitutional law. But cf. Middlesex County Sewerage Authority v. National Sea Clammers Assn., ante, p. 1. Under this expanded liability, municipalities and other units of state and local government face the possibility of having to assure compensation for persons harmed by abuses of governmental authority covering a large range of activity in everyday life. To add the burden of exposure for the malicious conduct of individual government employees may create a serious risk to the financial integrity of these governmental entities.
The Court has remarked elsewhere on the broad discretion traditionally accorded to juries in assessing the amount of punitive damages. Electrical Workers v. Foust, 442 U. S. 42, 50-51 (1979); Gertz v. Robert Welch, Inc., 418 U. S. 323, 349-350 (1974). Because evidence of a tortfeasor’s wealth is traditionally admissible as a measure of the amount of punitive damages that should be awarded, the unlimited taxing power of a municipality may have a prejudicial impact on the jury, in effect encouraging it to impose a sizable award. The impact of such a windfall recovery is likely to be both unpredictable and, at times, substantial, and we are sensitive to the possible strain on local treasuries and therefore on services available to the public at large. Absent a compelling reason for approving such an award, not present here, we deem it unwise to inflict the risk.
IV
In sum, we find that considerations of history and policy do not support exposing a municipality to punitive damages for the bad-faith actions of its officials. Because absolute immunity from such damages obtained at common law and was undisturbed by the 42d Congress, and because that immunity is compatible with both the purposes of § 1983 and general.principles of public policy, we hold that a municipality is immune from punitive damages under 42 U. S. C. § 1983. Accordingly, the judgment of the Court of Appeals is vacated, and the case is remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
Fact Concerts, Inc., entered into a joint venture with respondent Marvin Lerman, a promoter, to produce the jazz concerts that gave rise to this lawsuit. For convenience, we refer to the corporation as the respondent.
The individual petitioners are the Mayor of Newport and the other six members of the City Council. Because their claims are not before us, we refer to the city as petitioner. See n. 7, infra.
Contemporary press accounts attributed to the Council members a “fear of attracting ‘long-haired hangers-on.' ” 1 R. A. 87-A.
Testimony at the trial indicated that in fact substantial compliance had been achieved. Id., at 101-102; 2 R. A. 136-137, 141-142, 201. The Director of the Rhode Island Department of Natural Resources, who also visited the site on Friday afternoon, stated that respondent’s preparations were satisfactory for health and safety purposes. Id., at 159. He said that he informed the City Manager that the criticisms offered were “picayune,” id., at 157 (although this characterization, upon objection, was stricken by the trial judge, ibid.), and “frivolous,” id., at 179. The Director offered to attend the second Council meeting to assist in any way possible, but was told by the Mayor and the City Manager that he was not needed. Id., at 158.
See App. 57-58 (instructing on basis for award of punitive damages). Compensatory damages were to be awarded as a single sum against all defendants found liable. Id., at 62.
The jury assessed 75% of the punitive damages upon the § 1983 claim and 25% upon the state-law claim. 3 R. A. 594-595. We do not address the propriety of the punitive damages awarded against petitioner under Rhode Island law.
In addition to challenging the punitive damages award against the city, the defendants sought review of all aspects of the jury verdict as well as numerous rulings made by the District Judge during the trial. Both the District Court and the Court of Appeals determined that respondent had stated valid claims for relief under federal and state law, that the individual defendants were entitled only to qualified good-faith immunity, that respondent had proved its case against each individual defendant, and that objections to the cross-examination of one of the Council members were without merit. Although petitioner sought cer-tiorari on some of these issues, we granted the writ to consider only the question of the availability of punitive damages against a municipality under § 1983. Thus, in all other respects, the findings and conclusions of the lower courts are left undisturbed.
The court, however, went on to rule that the $200,000 award against petitioner was excessive and unjust. App. to Pet. for Cert. B-12 to B-13. It ordered a remittitur, reducing the punitive damages award to $75,000. Respondent accepted the remittitur without objection. App. 68.-
Rule 51 reads in pertinent part:
“No party may assign as error the giving or the failure to give an instruction unless he objects thereto before the jury retires to consider its verdict, stating distinctly the matter to which he objects and the grounds of his objection.”
See 5A J. Moore & J. Lucas, Moore’s Federal Practice ¶ 51.04, n. 3 (1980); 9 C. Wright & A. Miller, Federal Practice and Procedure §2553 (1971).
The District Judge, after observing that the city had failed to object
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
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 petitions for certiorari are granted. The judgments are reversed.
After petitioner’s arrest on a charge of disturbing the peace, he issued a statement to the effect that this arrest was the result of “a diabolical plot,” in which respondents, the County Attorney and Chief of Police of Clarksdale, were implicated. Respondents brought suits for libel and obtained jury verdicts. The Supreme Court of Mississippi affirmed. -Miss.-, 158 So. 2d 28;-Miss. -, 158 So. 2d 695.
The following instructions requested by the respondents, approved by the trial judge, were read to the jury:
“The court instructs the jury for the plaintiff that malice does not necessarily mean hatred or ill will, but that malice may consist merely of culpable recklessness or a wilful and wanton disregard of the rights and interests of the person defamed.”
The jury, was also instructed, at respondents’ request, that
“. . . [I] f you believe from the evidence that defendant published a false statement charging that his arrest . . . was the result of a diabolical plot. . . , you may infer malice, as defined in these instructions, from the falsity and libelous nature of the statement, although malice as a legal presumption does not arise from the fact that the statement in question is false and libelous. It is for you to determine as a fact, if you have first determined from the evidence that defendant published the statement in question and that it is false, whether or not the statement in question was actually made with malice.”
The jury might well have understood these instructions to allow recovery on a showing of intent to inflict harm, rather than intent to inflict harm through falsehood. See Garrison v. Louisiana, 379 U. S. 64, 73. “The constitutional guarantees . . . [prohibit] a public official from recovering damages for a defamatory falsehood relating to his official conduct unless he proves that the statement was made . . . with knowledge that it was false or with reckless disregard of whether it was false or not.” New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, 376 U. S. 254, 279-280.
For the reasons set out in their respective concurring opinions in New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, 376 U. S. 254, 293-305, and Garrison v. Louisiana, 379 U. S. 64, 79-88, Mr. Justice Black, Mr. Justice Douglas and Mr. Justice Goldberg concur in reversal of these judgments, not merely for error in the instructions read to the jury, but on the ground that it would violate the First and Fourteenth Amendments to subject petitioner to any libel judgment solely because of his publication of criticisms against respondents’ performance of their public duties.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
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
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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.
Mr. Justice Black
delivered the opinion of the Court.
The 13 petitioners here, eight Negroes and five white men, are all employees of the respondent railroad, whose duties are to repair and maintain passenger and freight cars in the railroad's yard at Birmingham, Alabama. They brought this action in the United States District Court against the railroad and the Brotherhood of Railway Carmen of America, which is the duly selected bargaining agent for carmen employees. The complaint alleged that all of the plaintiffs were qualified by experience to do the work of carmen but that all had been classified as carmen helpers for many years and had not been promoted. The complaint went on to allege the following explanation for the railroad's refusal to promote them:
“In order to avoid calling out Negro plaintiffs to work as Carmen and to avoid promoting Negro plaintiffs to Carmen, in accordance with a tacit understanding between defendants and a subrosa agreement between the Frisco and certain officials of the Brotherhood, defendant Frisco has for a considerable period of time used so-called ‘apprentices’ to do the work of Carmen instead of calling out plaintiffs to do said work as required by the Collective Bargaining Agreement as properly and customarily interpreted; and the Frisco has used this means to avoid giving plaintiffs work at Carmen wage scale and permanent jobs in the classification of Carmen. This denial to plaintiffs of work as Carmen has been contrary to previous custom and practice by defendants in regard to seniority as far as ‘Upgrade Carmen’ are concerned. Defendant Frisco is not calling any of plaintiffs to work as Carmen in order to avoid having to promote any Negroes to Carmen.”
The complaint also claimed that each plaintiff had lost in excess of $10,000 in wages as the result of being a victim of “an invidious racial discrimination,” and prayed for individual damages, for an injunction to cause the defendants to cease and desist from their discrimination against petitioners and their class and “for any further, or different relief as may be meet and proper . . ..” The respondents moved to dismiss the complaint on the ground, among others, that petitioners had not exhausted the administrative remedies provided for them by the grievance machinery in the collective bargaining agreement, in the constitution of the Brotherhood, and before the National Railroad Adjustment Board. The District Court, in an unreported opinion, sustained the motion to dismiss, and the petitioners then filed the following amendment to their complaint:
“On many occasions the Negro plaintiffs through one or more of their number, have complained both to representatives of the Brotherhood and to representatives of the Company about the foregoing discrimination and violation of the Collective Bargaining Agreement. Said Negro plaintiffs have also called upon the Brotherhood to process a grievance on their behalf with the Company under the machinery provided by the Collective Bargaining Agreement. Although a representative of the Brotherhood once indicated to the Negro plaintiffs that the Brotherhood would ‘investigate the situation/ nothing concrete was ever done by the Brotherhood and no grievance was ever filed. Other representatives of the Brotherhood told the Negro plaintiffs time and time again: (a) that they were kidding themselves if they thought they could ever get white men’s jobs; (b) that nothing would ever be done for them; and (c) that to file a formal complaint with the Brotherhood or with the Company would be a waste of their time. They were told the same things by local representatives of the Company. They were treated with condescension by both Brotherhood and Company, sometimes laughed at and sometimes ‘cussed/ but never taken seriously. When the white plaintiffs brought their plight to the attention of the Brotherhood, they got substantially the same treatment which the Negro plaintiffs received, except that they were called ‘nigger lovers’ and were told that they were just inviting trouble. Both defendants attempted to intimidate plaintiffs, Negro and white. Plaintiffs have been completely frustrated in their efforts to present their grievance either to the Brotherhood or to the Company. In addition, to employ the purported internal complaint machinery within the Brotherhood itself would only add to plaintiffs’ frustration and, if ever possible to pursue it to a final conclusion it would take years. To process a grievance with the Company without the cooperation of the Brotherhood would be a useless formality. To take the grievance before the National Railroad Adjustment Board (a tribunal composed of paid representatives from the Companies and the Brotherhoods) would consume an average time of five years, and would be completely futile under the instant circumstances where the Company and the Brotherhood are working ‘hand-in-glove.’ All of these purported administrative remedies are wholly inadequate, and to require their complete exhaustion would simply add to plaintiffs’ expense and frustration, would exhaust plaintiffs, and would amount to a denial of ‘due process of law,’ prohibited by the Constitution of the United States.”
The District Court again sustained the motion to dismiss. The Court of Appeals affirmed the dismissal, agreeing with the opinion of the District Court and adding several authorities to those cited by the District Court, 386 F. 2d 452 (C. A. 5th Cir. 1967), and we granted certiorari, 390 U. S. 1023 (1968). We think that none of the authorities cited in either opinion justify the dismissal and reverse and remand the case for trial in the District Court.
It is true, as the respondents here contend, that this Court has held that the Railroad Adjustment Board has exclusive jurisdiction, under § 3 First (i) of the Railway Labor Act, set out below, to interpret the meaning of the terms of a collective bargaining agreement. We have held, however, that § 3 First (i) by its own terms applies only to “disputes between an employee or group of employees and a carrier or carriers.” Conley v. Gibson, 355 U. S. 41, 44 (1957). In Conley, as in the present case, the suit was one brought by the employees against their own union, claiming breach of the duty of fair representation, and we held that the jurisdiction of the federal courts was clear. In the present case, of course, the petitioners sought relief not only against their union but also against the railroad, and it might at one time have been thought that the jurisdiction of the Railroad Adjustment Board remains exclusive in a fair representation case, to the extent that relief is sought against the railroad for alleged discriminatory performance of an agreement validly entered into and lawful in its terms. See, e. g., Hayes v. Union Pacific R. Co., 184 F. 2d 337 (C. A. 9th Cir. 1950), cert. denied, 340 U. S. 942 (1951). This view, however, was squarely rejected in the Conley case, where we said, “[F]or the reasons set forth in the text we believe [Hayes, supra] was decided incorrectly.” 355 U. S., at 44, n. 4. In this situation no meaningful distinction can be drawn between discriminatory action in negotiating the terms of an agreement and discriminatory enforcement of terms that are fair on their face. Moreover, although the employer is made a party to insure complete and meaningful relief, it still remains true that in essence the “dispute” is one between some employees on the one hand and the union and management together on the other, not one “between an employee or group of employees and a carrier or carriers.” Finally, the Railroad Adjustment Board has no power to order the kind of relief necessary even with respect to the railroad alone, in order to end entirely abuses of the sort alleged here. The federal courts may therefore properly exercise jurisdiction over both the union and the railroad. See also Steele v. Louisville & Nashville R. Co., 323 U. S. 192 (1944).
The respondents also argue that the complaint should be dismissed because of the petitioners’ failure to exhaust their remedies under the collective bargaining agreement, the union constitution, and the Railway Labor Act. They rely particularly on Republic Steel Corp. v. Maddox, 379 U. S. 650 (1965), and Vaca v. Sipes, 386 U. S. 171 (1967). The Court has made clear, however, that the exhaustion requirement is subject to a number of exceptions for the variety of situations in which doctrinaire application of the exhaustion rule would defeat the overall purposes of federal labor relations policy. Thus, in Vaca itself the Court stressed:
“[I]t is settled that the employee must at least attempt to exhaust exclusive grievance and arbitration procedures established by the bargaining agreement. Republic Steel Corp. v. Maddox, 379 U. S. 650. However, because these contractual remedies have been devised and are often controlled by the union and the employer, they may well prove unsatisfactory or unworkable for the individual grievant. The problem then is to determine under what circumstances the individual employee may obtain judicial review of his breach-of-contract claim despite his failure to secure relief through the contractual remedial procedures.” 386 U. S., at 184-185.
The Court in Vaca went on to specify at least two situations in which suit could be brought by the employee despite his failure to exhaust fully his contractual remedies. The circumstances of the present case call into play another of the most obvious exceptions to the exhaustion requirement — the situation where the effort to proceed formally with contractual or administrative remedies would be wholly futile. In a line of cases beginning with Steele v. Louisville & Nashville R. Co., supra, the Court has rejected the contention that employees alleging racial discrimination should be required to submit their controversy to “a group which is in large part chosen by the [defendants] against whom their real complaint is made.” 323 TJ. S., at 206. And the reasons which prompted the Court to hold as it did about the inadequacy of a remedy before the Adjustment Board apply with equal force to any remedy administered by the union, by the company, or both, to pass on claims by the very employees whose rights they have been charged with neglecting and betraying. Here the complaint alleges in the clearest possible terms that a formal effort to pursue contractual or administrative remedies would be absolutely futile. Under these circumstances, the attempt to exhaust contractual remedies, required under Maddox, is easily satisfied by petitioners’ repeated complaints to company and union officials, and no time-consuming formalities should be demanded of them. The allegations are that the bargaining representatives of the car employees have been acting in concert with the railroad employer to set up schemes and contrivances to bar Negroes from promotion wholly because of race. If that is true, insistence that petitioners exhaust the remedies administered by the union and the railroad would only serve to prolong the deprivation of rights to which these petitioners according to their allegations are justly and legally entitled.
The judgment is reversed and the case is remanded for trial.
Reversed and remanded.
In full, §3 First (i) reads:
“The disputes between an employee or group of employees and a carrier or carriers growing out of grievances or out of the interpretation or application of agreements concerning rates of pay, rules, or working conditions, including cases pending and unadjusted on the date of approval of this Act [June 21, 1934], shall be handled in the usual manner up to and including the chief operating officer of the carrier designated to handle such disputes; but, failing to reach an adjustment in this manner, the disputes may be referred by petition of the parties or by either party to the appropriate division of the Adjustment Board with a full statement of the facts and all supporting data bearing upon the disputes.” 48 Stat. 1191, 45 TJ. S. C. § 153 First (i).
See, e. g., Slocum v. Delaware, L. & W. R. Co., 339 U. S. 239.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer:
|
I
|
sc_issuearea
|
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Justice Stevens
delivered the opinion of the Court.
At issue in this litigation is the right to possession of a “Tract of Land of Fifteen Miles square” described in a 1763 treaty between the King of England and the Catawba Head Men and Warriors. The tract, comprising 144,000 acres and 225 square miles, is located near the northern border of South Carolina; some 27,000 persons now claim title to different parcels within the tract. The specific question presented to us is whether the State’s statute of limitations applies to the Tribe’s claim. The answer depends on an interpretation of a statute enacted by Congress in 1959 to authorize a division of Catawba tribal assets. See 25 U. S. C. §§931-938. We hold that the State’s statute applies, but we do not reach the question whether it bars the Tribe’s claim.
Simply stated, the Tribe claims that it had undisputed ownership and possession of the land before the first Nonintercourse Act was passed by Congress in 1790; that the Nonintercourse Act prohibited any conveyance of tribal land without the consent of the United States; and that the United States never gave its consent to a conveyance of this land. Accordingly, the Tribe’s purported conveyance to South Carolina in 1840 is null and void. Among the defenses asserted by petitioners is the contention that, even if the Tribe’s claim was valid before passage and enactment of the Catawba Division of Assets Act, § 5 of the Act made the state statute of limitations applicable to the claim. Because that is the only contention that we review, it is not necessary to describe much of the historical material in the record.
I
In 1760 and 1763, the Tribe surrendered to Great Britain its aboriginal territory in what is now North and South Carolina in return for the right to settle permanently on the “Tract of Land of Fifteen Miles square” that is now at issue. For purposes of this summary judgment motion, it is not disputed that the Tribe retained title to the land when the Non-intercourse Acts were passed.
By 1840, the Tribe had leased most, if not all, of the land described in the 1763 treaty to white settlers. In 1840, the Tribe conveyed its interest in the “Tract of Land of Fifteen Miles square” to the State of South Carolina by entering into the “Treaty of Nation Ford.” In that treaty, the State agreed, in return for the “Tract,” to spend $5,000 to acquire a new reservation, to pay the Tribe $2,500 in advance, and to make nine annual payments of $1,500 in the ensuing years. In 1842, the State purchased a 630-acre tract as a new reservation for the Tribe, which then apparently had a membership of about 450 persons. This land is still held in trust for the Tribe by South Carolina.
The Tribe contends that the State did not perform its obligations under the treaty — it delayed the purchase of the new reservation for over 2/4 years; it then spent only $2,000 instead of $5,000 to purchase the new land; and it was not actually “new” land because it was located within the original 144,000-acre tract. Still more importantly, as noted, the Tribe maintains that this entire transaction was void because the United States did not consent to the conveyance as required by the Nonintercourse Act.
At various times during the period between 1900 and 1943, leaders of the Tribe applied to the State for citizenship and for a “final settlement of all their claims against the State.” Petitioners argue that these claims merely sought full performance of the State’s obligations under the 1840 treaty, but, for purposes of our decision, we accept the Tribe’s position that it was then asserting a claim under the Nonintercourse Acts and thus challenging the treaty itself. In any event, both state officials and representatives of the Federal Government took an interest in the plight of the Tribe.
In response to this concern, on December 14, 1943, the Tribe, the State, and the Office of Indian Affairs of the Department of the Interior entered into a Memorandum of Understanding which was intended to provide relief for the Tribe, but which, did not require the Tribe to release its claims against the State. Pursuant to that agreement, the State purchased 3,434 acres of land at a cost of $70,000 and conveyed it to the United States to be held in trust for the Tribe. The Federal Government agreed to make annual contributions of available sums for the welfare of the Tribe and to assist the Tribe with education, medical benefits, and economic development. For its part, the Tribe agreed to conduct its affairs on the basis of the Federal Government’s recommendations; it thereafter adopted a Constitution approved by the Secretary of the Interior pursuant to the Indian Reorganization Act, 25 U. S. C. § 476.
In 1953, Congress decided to make a basic change in its policies concerning Indian affairs. The passage of House Concurrent Resolution 108 on August 1, 1953, marked the beginning of the “termination era” — a period that continued into the mid-1960’s, in which the Federal Government endeavored to terminate its supervisory responsibilities for Indian tribes. Pursuant to that policy, the Federal Government identified the Catawba Tribe as a likely candidate for the withdrawal of federal services. Moreover, members of the Tribe desired an end to federal restrictions on alienation Of their lands in order to facilitate financing for homes and farm operations. Accordingly, after discussions with representatives of the Bureau of Indian Affairs in which leaders of the Tribe were assured that any claim they had against the State would not be jeopardized by legislation terminating federal services, the Tribe adopted a resolution supporting such legislation and authorizing a distribution of tribal assets to the members of the Tribe. After receiving advice that the Tribe supported legislation authorizing the disposal of the tribal assets and terminating federal responsibility for the Tribe and its individual members, Congress enacted the Catawba Indian Tribe Division of Assets Act, 73 Stat. 592, 25 U. S. C. §§ 931-938. The Act provides for the preparation of a tribal membership roll, § 931; the tribal council’s designation of sites for church, park, playground, and cemetery purposes, § 933(b); and the division of remaining assets among the enrolled members of the Tribe, § 933(f). The Act also provides for the revocation of the Tribe’s Constitution and the termination of federal services for the Tribe, § 935. It explicitly states that state laws shall apply to members of the Tribe in the same manner that they apply to non-Indians. Ibid. Pursuant to that Act, the 3,434-acre reservation that had been acquired as a result of the 1943 Memorandum of Understanding was distributed to the members of the Tribe; the Secretary of the Interior revoked the Tribe’s Constitution, effective July 1, 1962.
In 1980, the Tribe commenced this action seeking possession of the 225-square-mile tract and trespass damages for the period of its dispossession. All of the District Judges for the District of South Carolina recused themselves, and Judge Willson of the Western District of Pennsylvania was designated to try the case. After the development of a substantial record of uncontested facts, Judge Willson granted petitioners’ motion for summary judgment. His order of dismissal was initially reversed by a panel of the Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, 718 F. 2d 1291 (1983); sitting en banc, the full Court of Appeals adopted the panel’s opinion. 740 F. 2d 305 (1984). Because of the importance of the case, we requested the views of the Solicitor General of the United States and granted certiorari, 471 U. S. 1134 (1985). We now reverse.
II
Section 5 of the Catawba Act is central to this dispute. As currently codified, it provides:
“The constitution of the tribe adopted pursuant to sections 461, 462, 463, 464, 465, 466 to 470, 471 to 473, 474, 475, 476 to 478, and 479 of this title shall be revoked by the Secretary. Thereafter, the tribe and its members shall not be entitled to any of the special services performed by the United States for Indians because of their status as Indians, all statutes of the United States that affect Indians because of their status as Indians shall be inapplicable to them, and the laws of the several States shall apply to them in the same manner they apply to other persons or citizens within their jurisdiction. Nothing in this subchapter, however, shall affect the status of such persons as citizens of the United States.” 25 U. S. C. §935.
This provision establishes two principles in unmistakably clear language. First, the special federal services and statutory protections for Indians are no longer applicable to the Catawba Tribe and its members. Second, state laws apply to the Catawba Tribe and its members in precisely the same fashion that they apply to others.
The Court of Appeals disagreed with this reading of the Act. For it concluded that the word “them” in the second sentence of § 5 could refer to the individual Indians who are members of the Tribe and not encompass the Tribe itself. Relying on the canon that doubtful expressions of legislative intent must be resolved in favor of the Indians, it thus held that the language in § 5 about the inapplicability of federal Indian statutes and the applicability of state laws did not reach the Tribe itself.
The canon of construction regarding the resolution of ambiguities in favor of Indians, however, does not permit reliance on ambiguities that do not exist; nor does it permit disregard of the clearly expressed intent of Congress. It seems clear to us that the antecedent of the words “them” and “their” in the second sentence of § 5 is the compound subject of the first clause in the sentence, namely, “the tribe and its members.” To read the provision otherwise is to give it a contorted construction that abruptly divorces the first clause from the second and the third, and that conflicts with the central purpose and philosophy of the Termination Act. According the statutory language its ordinary meaning, moreover, is reinforced by the fact that the first sentence in the section provides for a revocation of the Tribe’s Constitution. It would be most incongruous to preserve special protections for a tribe whose constitution has been revoked while withdrawing protection for individual members of that tribe.
Without special federal protection for the Tribe, the state statute of limitations should apply to its claim in this case. For it is well established that federal claims are subject to state statutes of limitations unless there is a federal statute of limitations or a conflict with federal policy. Although federal policy may preclude the ordinary applicability of a state statute of limitations for this type of action in the absence of a specific congressional enactment to the contrary, County of Oneida v. Oneida Indian Nation, 470 U. S. 226 (1985), the Catawba Act clearly suffices to reestablish the usual principle regarding the applicability of the state statute of limitations. In striking contrast to the situation in County of Oneida, the Catawba Act represents an explicit redefinition of the relationship between the Federal Government and the Catawbas; an intentional termination of the special federal protection for the Tribe and its members; and a plain statement that state law applies to the Catawbas as to all “other persons or citizens.”
That the state statute of limitations applies as a consequence of terminating special federal protections is also supported by the significance we have accorded congressional action redefining the federal relationship with particular Indians. We have long recognized that, when Congress removes restraints on alienation by Indians, state laws are fully applicable to subsequent claims. Similarly, we have emphasized that Termination Acts subject members of the terminated tribe to “the full sweep of state laws and state taxation.” These principles reflect an understanding that congressional action to remove restraints on alienation and other federal protections represents a fundamental change in federal policy with respect to the Indians who are the subject of the particular legislation.
The Court of Appeals found support for its conclusion about the nonapplicability of the state statute of limitations in § 6 of the Catawba Act, which provides that nothing in the statute affects the rights of the Tribe under the laws of South Carolina. The thrust of the Court of Appeals’ reasoning was that, if a state law was inapplicable to the Tribe or its members before the effective date of the Act, its application after the effective date necessarily violates § 6. But such a reading contradicts the plain meaning of § 5’s reference to the applicability of state laws. In our view § 6 was merely intended to remove federal obstacles to the ordinary application of state law. Section 6 cannot be read to preserve, of its own force, a federal tribal immunity from otherwise applicable state law without defeating a basic purpose of the Act and negating explicit language in § 5. Most fundamentally, § 6 simply does not speak to the explicit redefinition of the federal relationship with the Catawbas that is the basis for the applicability of the state statute of limitations.
Finally, the Court of Appeals relied heavily on the assurance to the Tribe that the status of any claim against South Carolina would not be affected by the legislation. Even assuming that the legislative provisions are sufficiently ambiguous to warrant reliance on the legislative history, we believe that the Court of Appeals misconceived the import of this assurance. We do not accept petitioners’ argument that the Catawba Act immediately extinguished any claim that the Tribe had before the statute became effective. Rather, we assume that the status of the claim remained exactly the same immediately before and immediately after the effective date of the Act, but that the Tribe thereafter had an obligation to proceed to assert its claim in a timely manner as would any other person or citizen within the State’s jurisdiction. As a result, unlike the Court of Appeals, we perceive no contradiction between the applicability of the state statute of limitations and the assurance that the status of any state claims would not be affected by the Act.
We thus conclude that the explicit redefinition of the federal relationship reflected in the clear language of the Catawba Act requires the application of the state statute of limitations to the Tribe’s claim.
HH HH I — I
The District Court held that respondent’s claim is barred by the South Carolina statute of limitations. The Court of Appeals’ construction of the 1959 federal statute made it unnecessary for that court to review the District Court’s interpretation of state law. Because the Court of Appeals is in a better position to evaluate such an issue of state law than we are, we remand the case to that court for consideration of this issue.
It is so ordered.
The 1763 Treaty of Fort Augusta was entered into by the Catawbas and British and colonial officials, and provides, in relevant part:
“And We the Catawba Head Men and Warriors in Confirmation of an Agreement heretofore entered into with the White People declare that we will remain satisfied with the Tract of Land of Fifteen Miles square a Survey of which by our consent and at our request has been already begun and the respective Governors and Superintendant on their Parts promise and engage that the aforesaid survey shall be compleated and that the Catawbas shall not in any respect be molested by any of the King’s subjects within the said Lines but shall be indulged in the usual Manner of hunting Elsewhere.” XI Colonial Records of North Carolina 201-202 (1763), reprinted in App. 35.
Respondent, Catawba Indian Tribe, Inc., is a nonprofit corporation organized under the laws of South Carolina in 1975. Like the District Court and the Court of Appeals, we assume that respondent is the successor in interest of the Catawba Indian Tribe of South Carolina. For convenience, we refer to respondent as the “Tribe” throughout this opinion.
See Act of July 22, 1790, ch. 33, § 4,1 Stat. 138. The Act, now codified at 25 U. S. C. § 177, states in relevant part:
“No purchase, grant, lease, or other conveyance of lands, or of any title or claim thereto, from any Indian nation or tribe of Indians, shall be of any validity in law or equity, unless the same be made by treaty or convention entered into pursuant to the Constitution.”
Petitioners include the State of South Carolina and approximately 76 other parties who are named as defendants in the complaint; they were sued as representatives of a class that was alleged to consist of the approximately 27,000 persons who claim an interest in the disputed land.
An 1825 War Department chart indicated that the Catawbas totaled 450 persons. 2 American State Papers 545 (1925).
See 1920 S. C. Acts 1700, Joint Res. No. 904, § 1.
In 1930, a Subcommittee of the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs held hearings in Rock Hill, South Carolina, which is located in the 144,000-acre tract. Senator Thomas of Oklahoma wrote that the “subcommittee . . . found some hundred and seventy-five remnants of this band located on a tract of practically barren rock and gradually starving to death.” Division of Tribal Assets of Catawba Indian Tribe, Hearings on H. R. 6128, before the Subcommittee on Indian Affairs of the House Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs, 86th Cong., 1st Sess. (unpublished), Insert 5, at 3 (Minutes of State and Federal Conference, Oct. 21, 1958) (6 Record Ex. 56), quoting Feb. 10, 1932, letter, Senator Thomas to Commissioner Rhoads.
Preliminary drafts of the Memorandum of Understanding contained a provision extinguishing the Tribe’s reservation claim (6 Record Ex. 49), but that provision was deleted. The Solicitor of the Department of the Interior emphasized that the agreement should not use “a contract under the Johnson-O’Malley Act in order to deprive the Indian tribe of claims which it might be able to enforce in the courts.” United States Department of the Interior, Office of the Solicitor, Memorandum for the Commissioner of Indian Affairs. Id., Ex. 50, p. 3.
The State also agreed to appropriate at least $9,500 annually for three years for the benefit of the Tribe and to extend to Catawbas the rights and privileges of all citizens, including admission to public schools. Ibid.
That Resolution declared: “[I]t is the policy of Congress, as rapidly as possible, to make the Indians within the territorial limits of the United States subject to the same laws and entitled to the same privileges and responsibilities as are applicable to other citizens of the United States, to end their status as wards of the United States, and to grant them all of the rights and prerogatives pertaining to American citizenship.” H. R. Con. Res. 108, 83d Cong., 1st Sess. (1953), 67 Stat. B132.
According to one compilation, between 1954 and 1962, Congress passed 12 separate “Termination Acts,” the 11th of which was the Catawba Act. See F. Prucha, The Great Father 1048 (1984). The termination policy has been criticized by various commentators. See, e. g., Cornell, The New Indian Politics, 10 Wilson Q. 113, 121 (1986); F. Prucha, supra, at 1046-1059; Wilkinson & Biggs, The Evolution of the Termination Policy, 5 American Indian L. Rev. 139 (1977); Preloznik & Felsenthal, The Menominee Struggle to Maintain Their Tribal Assets and Protect Their Treaty Rights Following Termination, 51 N. D. L. Rev. 53 (1975). The ultimate legislative wisdom of the termination policy is, of course, not before the Court.
In September 1954, a House Study Subcommittee on Indian Affairs reported that the Catawba Tribe was one of the groups able to take responsibility for their affairs and therefore was ready for termination of federal services. H. R. Rep. No. 2680, 83d Cong., 2d Sess., 2-3 (1954). In contrast to the report made by Senator Thomas in 1930, n. 7, supra, the Reports accompanying the Act concluded that the Catawbas had been able to merge into the general community and had been able to attain an economic position comparable to that of non-Indians. See S. Rep. No. 863, 86th Cong., 1st Sess., 3 (1959) (“The Catawba Indians have advanced economically . . . during the past 14 years, and have now reached a position that is comparable to their non-Indian neighbors”); H. R. Rep. No. 910, 86th Cong., 1st Sess., 2 (1959) (same). Most adult male Catawbas were employed at the time: 47% were in industry, 20% in skilled labor, 7% in the Armed Services, 15% in odd jobs, 5% retired, and 6% on the welfare rolls. S. Rep., at 4; H. R. Rep., at 5.
See 105 Cong. Rec. 5462 (1959) (statement of Rep. Hemphill); App. 102.
The resolution adopted at the meeting of the Tribe on January 3,1959, expressly noted that “nothing in this legislation shall affect the status of any claim against the State of South Carolina by the Catawba Tribe. ” Id., at 103.
DeCoteau v. District County Court, 420 U. S. 425, 444 (1975); Antoine v. Washington, 420 U. S. 194, 199-200 (1975); Mattz v. Arnett, 412 U. S. 481, 504-505 (1973).
See Oregon Dept. of Fish and Wildlife v. Klamath Indian Tribe, 473 U. S. 753, 774 (1985) (“[E]ven though ‘legal ambiguities are resolved to the benefit of the Indians,’ DeCoteau v. District County Court, 420 U. S. 425, 447 (1975), courts cannot ignore plain language that, viewed in historical context and given a ‘fair appraisal,’ Washington v. Washington Commercial Passenger Fishing Vessel Assn., 443 U. S. [658, 673 (1979)], clearly runs counter to a tribe’s later claims”); Rice v. Rehner, 463 U. S. 713, 732 (1983) (canon of construction regarding certain Indian claims should not be applied “when application would be tantamount to a formalistic disregard of congressional intent”); Andrus v. Glover Construction Co., 446 U. S. 608, 618-619 (1980); DeCoteau v. District County Court, 420 U. S., at 447 (“A canon of construction is not a license to disregard clear expressions of tribal and congressional intent”).
Respondent argues that the scope of the Act was merely to terminate the specific federal services arising from the 1943 Memorandum of Understanding. Such a limited interpretation cannot be reconciled with the broader language of the Act (“The tribe and its members shall not be entitled to any of the special services performed by the United States for Indians because of their status as Indians”; “all statutes of the United States that affect Indians because of their status as Indians shall be inapplicable to them”; “the laws of the several states shall apply to them in the same manner they apply to other persons or citizens within their jurisdiction”) (emphasis added).
See, e. g., Wilson v. Garcia, 471 U. S. 261, 266-267 (1985); Board of Regents v. Tomanio, 446 U. S. 478, 483-484 (1980); Johnson v. Railway Express Agency, Inc., 421 U. S. 454, 462 (1975); Auto Workers v. Hoosier Cardinal Corp., 383 U. S. 696, 703-704 (1966); Cope v. Anderson, 331 U. S. 461, 463 (1947); Rawlings v. Ray, 312 U. S. 96, 97 (1941); O’Sullivan v. Felix, 233 U. S. 318, 322-323 (1914); Chattanooga Foundry & Pipe Works v. Atlanta, 203 U. S. 390, 397-398 (1906); McClaine v. Rankin, 197 U. S. 154, 158 (1905); Campbell v. Haverhill, 155 U. S. 610, 617 (1895); McCluny v. Silliman, 3 Pet. 270, 277 (1830).
See, e. g., Larkin v. Paugh, 276 U. S. 431, 439 (1928) (“With the issue of the patent, the title not only passed from the United States but the prior trust and the incidental restrictions against alienation were terminated. This put an end to the authority theretofore possessed by the Secretary of the Interior by reason of the trust and restriction — so that thereafter all questions pertaining to the title were subject to examination and determination by the courts, appropriately those in Nebraska, the land being there”); Dickson v. Luck Land Co., 242 U. S. 371, 375 (1917) (“With those restrictions [of Congress] entirely removed and the fee simple issued it would seem that the situation was one in which all questions pertaining to the disposal of the lands naturally would fall within the scope and operation of the laws of the State”); United States v. Waller, 243 U. S. 452, 461-462 (1917) (“We cannot escape the conviction that the plain language of this act evidences the intent and purpose of Congress to make such lands allotted to mixed-blood Indians subject to alienation with all the incidents and rights which inhere in full ownership in persons of full capacity”); Schrimpscher v. Stockton, 183 U. S. 290, 296 (1902) (after a treaty removed restraints from alienation of land by certain Wyandotte Indians, state statute of limitations ran against Indians, even though Indians later asserted claim of a prior federal treaty violation; after removal of restraints on alienation, the Indian’s heirs “were chargeable with the same diligence in beginning an action for their recovery as other persons having title to lands”).
Bryan v. Itasca County, 426 U. S. 373, 389 (1976). See also United States v. Antelope, 430 U. S. 641, 647, n. 7 (1977) (“[M]embers of tribes whose official status has been terminated by congressional enactment are no longer subject, by virtue of their status, to federal criminal jurisdiction under the Major Crimes Act”); Affiliated Ute Citizens v. United States, 406 U. S. 128 (1972) (terminated members of Tribe must bring action to invalidate allegedly fraudulent conveyance under same laws as other citizens).
As the Court of Appeals noted, in Menominee Tribe v. United States, 391 U. S. 404 (1968), the Court concluded that the Menominee Termination Act did not terminate the Tribe’s hunting and fishing rights. The Court emphasized that the Termination Act must be read in pari materia with an Act passed in the same Congress that preserved hunting and fishing rights. Id., at 411. In this ease, of course, there is no similar contemporaneous statute. Moreover, in Menominee, the Court was concerned about a “backhanded” abrogation of treaty rights, id., at 412; no comparable abrogation is at issue here.
As currently codified, §6 provides:
“Nothing in this subehapter shall affect the rights, privileges, or obligations of the tribe and its members under the laws of South Carolina.” 25 U. S. C. §936.
It is an “elementary canon of construction that a statute should be interpreted so as not to render one part inoperative.” Colautti v. Franklin, 439 U. S. 379, 392 (1979). See also Mountain States Tel. & Tel. Co. v. Pueblo of Santa Ana, 472 U. S. 237, 249 (1985); United States v. Menasche, 348 U. S. 528, 538-539 (1955) (“It is our duty ‘to give effect, if possible, to every clause and word of a statute,’ Montclair v. Ramsdell, 107 U. S. 147, 152, rather than to emasculate an entire section”).
See 718 F. 2d 1291, 1296 (1983) (quoting Bureau of Indian Affairs official’s assurance that “‘any claim the Catawbas had against the State would not be jeopardized by carrying out a program with the Federal Government’ ”).
See Pembaur v. Cincinnati, 475 U. S. 469, 484-485, n. 13 (1986); Regents of University of Michigan v. Ewing, 474 U. S. 214, 224, n. 10 (1985); Bishop v. Wood, 426 U. S. 341, 345-347 (1976); Propper v. Clark, 337 U. S. 472, 486-487 (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:
|
B
|
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 judgment is vacated and the cases are remanded to the District Court with directions to dismiss the cause as moot.
Mr. Justice Erankeurter and Mr. Justice Douglas dissent.
Reported below: 138 F. Supp. 411.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
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 Souter
delivered the opinion of the Court.
The question in this case is whether a claimant who shows that she experienced symptoms of an injury after receiving a vaccination makes out a prima facie case for compensation under the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act of 1986, 100 Stat. 3755, 42 U. S. C. §300aa-1 et seq. (1988 ed. and Supp. V), where the evidence fails to indicate that she had no symptoms of that injury before the vaccination. We hold that the claimant does not make out a case for compensation.
I
For injuries and deaths traceable to vaccinations, the Act establishes a scheme of recovery designed to work faster and with greater ease than the civil tort system. H. R. Rep. No. 99-908, pp. 3-7 (1986). Special masters in the Court of Federal Claims hear vaccine-related complaints, 42 U. S. C. §300aa-12(c) (1988 ed., Supp. V), which they adjudicate informally, §300aa-12(d)(2), within strict time limits, §300aa-12(d)(3)(A), subject to similarly expeditious review, § 300aa-12(e)(2). A claimant alleging that more than $1,000 in damages resulted from a vaccination after the Act’s effective date in 1988 must exhaust the Act’s procedures and refuse to accept the resulting judgment before filing any de novo civil action in state or federal court. 42 U. S. C. § 300aa-11(a) (1988 ed. and Supp. V).
The streamlining does not stop with the mechanics of litigation, but goes even to substantive standards of proof. While a claimant may establish prima facie entitlement to compensation by introducing proof of actual causation, §300aa-11(c)(l)(C)(ii), she can reach the same result by meeting the requirements of what the Act calls the Vaccine Injury Table. The table lists the vaccines covered under the Act, together with particular injuries or conditions associated with each one. 42 U. S. C. § 300aa-14 (1988 ed., Supp. V). A claimant who meets certain other conditions not relevant here makes out a prima facie case by showing that she (or someone for whom she brings a claim) “sustained, or had significantly aggravated, any illness, disability, injury, or condition set forth in the Vaccine Injury Table in association with [a] vaccine ... or died from the administration of such vaccine, and the first symptom or manifestation of the onset or of the significant aggravation of any such illness, disability, injury, or condition or the death occurred within the time period after vaccine administration set forth in the Vaccine Injury Table.” 42 U. S. C. §300aa-11(c)(1)(C)(i). Thus, the rule of prima facie proof turns the old maxim on its head by providing that if the post hoc event happens fast, ergo propter hoc. The Secretary of Health and Human Services may rebut a prima facie case by proving that the injury or death was in fact caused by “factors unrelated to the administration of the vaccine . . . § 300aa-13(a)(1)(B). If the Secretary fails to rebut, the claimant is entitled to compensation. 42 U. S. C. § 300aa-13(a)(1) (1988 ed. and Supp. V).
Respondents, Margaret Whitecotton and her parents, filed a .claim under the Act for injuries Margaret allegedly sustained as a result of vaccination against diphtheria, pertussis, and tetanus (or DPT) on August 18, 1975, when she was nearly four months old. They alleged that Margaret (whom we will refer to as claimant) had suffered encephalopathy after the DPT vaccination, and they relied on the table scheme to make out a prima facie case. The Act defines encephalopathy as “any significant acquired abnormality of, or injury to, or impairment of function of the brain,” 42 U. S. C. § 300aa-14(b)(3)(A), and lists the condition on the Vaccine Injury Table in association with the DPT vaccine. Under the Act, a claimant who does not prove actual causation must show that “the first symptom or manifestation of the onset or of the significant aggravation” of encephalopathy occurred within three days of a DPT vaccination in order to make out a prima facie right to compensation. § 300aa-11(c)(1)(C)(i); 42 U. S. C. § 300aa-14(a) (1988 ed., Supp. V).
The Special Master found that claimant had suffered clonic seizures on the evening after her vaccination and again the following morning, App. to Pet. for Cert. 24a, 27a, and accepted those seizures as symptoms of encephalopathy. He also found, however, that by the time claimant received the vaccination she was “clearly microcephalic” (meaning that she had a head size more than two standard deviations below the mean for a girl her age) and that her microcephaly was a symptom or evidence of encephalopathy that existed before the vaccination. Id., at 32a-33a. Accordingly, the Master concluded that the first symptom or manifestation of the onset of claimant’s encephalopathy had occurred before the vaccination and the ensuing 3-day period provided for in the table. Id., at 34a.
The Master then considered whether the series of seizures was “the first symptom or manifestation ... of [a] significant aggravation” of the claimant’s encephalopathy, 42 U. S. C. § 300aa-11(c)(1)(C)(i), and again decided that it was not. The Act defines “significant aggravation” as “any change for the worse in a preexisting condition which results in markedly greater disability, pain, or illness accompanied by substantial deterioration of health.” § 300aa-33(4). The Master found that “[t]here is nothing to distinguish this case from what would reasonably have been expected considering [claimant’s] microcephaly. . . . [T]here was nothing that occurred in temporal relationship to the DPT vaccination which indicates that it is more likely than not that the vaccine permanently aggravated her condition. . . . [T]he seizures did not continue and there was no dramatic turn for the worse in her condition .... Thus, there is no basis for implicating the vaccine as the cause of any aspect of [claimant’s] present condition.” App. to Pet. for Cert. 41a-48a. Because he found that claimant had failed to satisfy the table requirements, and had not tried to prove actual causation, the Master denied her compensation for failure to make out a prima facie case.
The Court of Federal Claims found the Master’s decision neither arbitrary nor otherwise unlawful, see 42 U. S. C. § 300aa-12(e)(2) (1988 ed., Supp. V), and affirmed. The Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit then reversed, holding that a claimant satisfies the table requirements for the “first symptom or manifestation of the onset” of an injury whenever she shows that any symptom or manifestation of a listed condition occurred within the time period after vaccination specified in the table, even if there was evidence of the condition before the vaccination. Because claimant here showed symptoms of encephalopathy during the 3-day period after her DPT vaccination, the Court of Appeals concluded for that reason alone that she had made out a prima facie entitlement to recovery. 17 F. 3d 374, 376-377 (1994).
The Court of Appeals went on to say that the Secretary had failed to rebut this prima facie case because she had not shown that claimant’s encephalopathy was caused by “factors unrelated to the administration of the vaccine,” 42 U. S. C. § 300aa-13(a)(1)(B). The Court of Appeals relied on the provision that a “facto[r] unrelated” cannot include an “idiopathic” condition, § 300aa-13(a)(2)(A), which the court read to mean that even when the Secretary can point to a specific factor, unrelated to the vaccine, as the source of a claimant’s injury, she does not defeat a prima facie case when the cause of the identified factor is itself unknown. Taking the Secretary to have relied on claimant’s microcephaly as the unrelated factor (or as associated with it), the court ruled the Secretary’s evidence insufficient on the ground that the cause of microcephaly is unknown. 17 F. 3d, at 377-378.
We granted certiorari to address the Court of Appeals’s construction of the Act’s requirements for making and rebutting a prima facie case. 513 U. S. 959 (1994). Because we hold that the court erroneously construed the provisions defining a prima facie case under the Act, we reverse without reaching the adequacy of the Secretary’s rebuttal.
II
The Court of Appeals declared that nowhere does the Act “expressly state” that a claimant relying on the table to establish a prima facie case for compensation must show “that the child sustained no injury prior to administration of the vaccine,” that is, that the first symptom of the injury occurred after vaccination. 17 F. 3d, at 376. This statement simply does not square with the plain language of the statute. In laying out the elements of a prima facie case, the Act provides that a claimant relying on the table (and not alleging significant aggravation) must show that “the first symptom or manifestation of the onset... of [her table illness] . . . occurred within the time period after vaccine administration set forth in the Vaccine Injury Table.” §300aa-ll(c)(l)(C)(i). If a symptom or manifestation of a table injury has occurred before a claimant’s vaccination, a symptom or manifestation after the vaccination cannot be the first, or signal the injury’s onset. There cannot be two first symptoms or onsets of the same injury. Thus, a demonstration that the claimant experienced symptoms of an injury during the table period, while necessary, is insufficient to make out a prima facie case. The claimant must also show that no evidence of the injury appeared before the vaccination.
In coming to the contrary conclusion, the Court of Appeals relied on language in the table, which contains the heading, “Time period for first symptom or manifestation of onset . . . after vaccine administration.” 42 U. S. C. § 300aa-14(a) (1988 ed., Supp. V). The Court of Appeals saw a “significant” distinction, 17 F. 3d, at 376, between this language and that of 42 U. S. C. § 300aa-11(c)(1)(C)(i), which is set forth above. We do not. The key to understanding the heading is the word “onset.” Since the symptom or manifestation occurring after the vaccination must be evidence of the table injury’s onset, an injury manifested before the vaccination could qualify only on the theory that it could have two onsets, one before the vaccination, one after it. But it cannot: one injury, one onset. Indeed, even if the language of the heading did conflict with the text of § 300aa-11(c)(1)(C)(i), the latter would prevail, since the table heading was obviously meant to be a short form of the text preceding it.
The Court of Appeals sought to shore up the contrary conclusion with two further arguments. As the court read the Act, Congress “expressly made the absence of preexisting injury an element of the prima facie case” for residual seizure disorder (another table injury), 17 F. 3d, at 376; thus, the court reasoned, Congress had implicitly rejected any need to negate the pre-existence of other injuries like encephalopathy. This argument rests on a misreading of the language in question. The statutory notes explaining the table provide that a claimant “may be considered to have suffered a residual seizure disorder if [she] did not suffer a seizure or convulsion unaccompanied by fever or accompanied by a fever of less than 102 degrees Fahrenheit before the first seizure or convulsion after the administration of the vaccine involved . . . .” § 300aa-14(b)(2). But this is not the language that requires a claimant alleging a seizure disorder to demonstrate the absence of pre-existing symptoms. This provision specifies instead that certain types of seizures (those accompanied by a high fever) may not be considered symptoms of residual seizure disorder, and, so, do not preclude a prima facie case even when a claimant suffered them before vaccination. The language carries no implication about a claimant’s burden generally and does nothing to undermine Congress’s global provision that a claimant who has actually suffered symptoms of a listed injury before vaccination cannot make out a prima facie case of the injury’s onset after vaccination.
Finally, we cannot accept the Court of Appeals’s argument that because the causal “factors unrelated” on which the Secretary may rely to defeat a prima facie case can include occurrences before vaccination, see § 300aa-13(a)(2)(B), such occurrences cannot bar the establishment of a prima facie case in the first instance. The “factors unrelated” provision is wholly independent of the first-symptom and onset provisions, serving the distinct purpose of allowing the Secretary to defeat a claim even when an injury has not manifested itself before vaccination. It does not relieve a claimant of the clear statutory requirements for making out a prima facie case.
Ill
The judgment of the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit is accordingly reversed, and the case is remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
The Court of Appeals’s language can also be read as casting doubt on the Special Master’s conclusion that claimant’s microcephaly evidenced a pre-existing encephalopathy. We express no view as to the validity of that conclusion.
The Secretary has recently, issued new regulations that may affect the Court of Appeals’s definition of an idiopathic condition in future cases. These regulations apply only to petitions for compensation filed after March 10, 1995, and accordingly have no application to the present case. 60 Fed. Reg. 7678-7696 (1995).
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
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.
In 1981 Thomas Eugene Creech beat and kicked to death a fellow inmate at the Idaho State Penitentiary. He pleaded guilty to first-degree murder and was sentenced to death. The sentence was based in part on the statutory aggravating circumstance that “[b]y the murder, or circumstances surrounding its commission, the defendant exhibited utter disregard for human life. ” Idaho Code § 19 — 2515(g)(6) (1987). The sole question we must decide is whether the “utter disregard” circumstance, as interpreted by the Idaho Supreme Court, adequately channels sentencing discretion as required by the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments.
I
The facts underlying this case could not be more chilling. Thomas Creech has admitted to killing or participating in the killing of at least 26 people. The bodies of 11 of his victims — who were shot, stabbed, beaten, or strangled to death — have been recovered in seven States. Creech has said repeatedly that, unless he is completely isolated from humanity, he likely will continue killing. And he has identified by name three people outside prison walls he intends to kill if given the opportunity.
Creech’s most recent victim was David Dale Jensen, a fellow inmate in the maximum security unit of the Idaho State Penitentiary. When he killed Jensen, Creech was already serving life sentences for other first-degree murders. Jensen, about seven years Creech’s junior, was a nonviolent car thief. He was also physically handicapped. Part of Jensen’s brain had been removed prior to his incarceration, and he had a plastic plate in his skull.
The circumstances surrounding Jensen’s death remain unclear, primarily because Creech has given conflicting accounts of them. In one version, Creech killed Jensen in self-defense. In another — the version that Creech gave at his sentencing hearing — other inmates offered to pay Creech or help him escape if he killed Jensen. Creech, through an intermediary, provided Jensen with makeshift weapons and then arranged for Jensen to attack him, in order to create an excuse for the killing. Whichever of these accounts (if either) is true, the Idaho Supreme Court found that the record supported the following facts:
“Jensen approached Creech and swung a weapon at him which consisted of a sock containing batteries. Creech took the weapon away from Jensen, who returned to his cell but emerged with a toothbrush to which had been taped a razor blade. When the two men again met, Jensen made some movement toward Creech, who then struck Jensen between the eyes with the battery laden sock, knocking Jensen to the floor. The fight continued, according to Creech’s version, with Jensen swinging the razor blade at Creech and Creech hitting Jensen with the battery filled sock. The plate imbedded in Jensen’s skull shattered, and blood from Jensen’s skull was splashed on the floor and walls. Finally, the sock broke and the batteries fell out, and by thát time Jensen was helpless. Creech then commenced kicking Jensen about the throat and head. Sometime later a guard noticed blood, and Jensen was taken to the hospital, where he died the same day.” State v. Creech, 105 Idaho 362, 364, 670 P. 2d 463, 465 (1983), cert. denied, 465 U. S. 1051 (1984).
Creech pleaded guilty to first-degree murder. The trial judge held a sentencing hearing in accordance with Idaho Code § 19-2515(d) (1987). After the hearing, the judge issued written findings in the format prescribed by Rule 33.1 of the Idaho Criminal Rules. Under the heading “Facts and Argument Found in Mitigation,” he listed that Creech “did not instigate the fight with the victim, but the victim, without provocation, attacked him. [Creech] was initially justified in protecting himself.” App. 32. Under the heading “Facts and Argumen[t] Found in Aggravation,” the judge stated:
“[T]he victim, once the attack commenced, was under the complete domination and control of the defendant. The murder itself was extremely gruesome evidencing an excessive violent rage. With the victim’s attack as an excuse, the . . . murder then took on many of the aspects of an assassination. These violent actions . . . went well beyond self-defense.
“. . . The murder, once commenced, appears to have been an intentional, calculated act.” Id., at 32-33.
The judge then found beyond a reasonable doubt five statutory aggravating circumstances, including that Creech, “[b]y the murder, or circumstances surrounding its commission,... exhibited utter disregard for human life.” Id., at 34. He observed in this context that “[a]fter the victim was helpless [Creech] killed him.” Ibid. Next, the judge concluded that the mitigating circumstances did not outweigh the aggravating circumstances. Reiterating that Creech “intentionally destroyed another human being at a time when he was completely helpless,” ibid., the judge sentenced Creech to death.
After temporarily remanding for the trial judge to impose sentence in open court in Creech’s presence, the Idaho Supreme Court affirmed. The court rejected Creech’s argument that the “utter disregard” circumstance is unconstitutionally vague, reaffirming the limiting construction it had placed on the statutory language in State v. Osborn, 102 Idaho 405, 631 P. 2d 187 (1981):
“ ‘A .. . limiting construction must be placed upon the aggravating circumstances in I. C. § 19 — 2515[g] (6), that “[b]y the murder, or the circumstances surrounding its commission, the defendant exhibited utter disregard for human life.” To properly define this circumstance, it is important to note the other aggravating circumstances with which this provision overlaps. The second aggravating circumstance, I. C. § 19 — 2515[g](2), that the defendant committed another murder at the time this murder was committed, obviously could show an utter disregard for human life, as could the third aggravating circumstance, I. C. § 19-2515[g](3), that the defendant knowingly created a great risk of death to many persons. The same can be said for the fourth aggravating circumstance, I. C. § 19-2515[g](4), that the murder was committed for remuneration. Since we will not presume that the legislative intent was to duplicate any already enumerated circumstance, thus making [the “utter disregard” circumstance] mere surplusage, we hold that the phrase “utter disregard” must be viewed in reference to acts other than those set forth in I. C. §§19-2515[g](2), (3), and (4). We conclude instead that the phrase is meant to be reflective of acts or circumstances surrounding the crime which exhibit the highest, the utmost, callous disregard for human life, i. e., the cold-blooded, pitiless slayer.’” Creech, supra, at 370, 670 P. 2d, at 471 (quoting Osborn, supra, at 418-419, 681 P. 2d, at 200-201) (citation omitted).
After independently reviewing the record, the Idaho Supreme Court also held that the evidence clearly supported the trial judge’s -findings of aggravating and mitigating circumstances, including the finding that Creech had exhibited “utter disregard for human life.” 105 Idaho, at 369, 670 P. 2d, at 470. Then, as required by Idaho law, see Idaho Code § 19-2827(c)(3) (1987), the court compared Creech’s case to similar cases in order to determine whether his sentence was excessive or disproportionate. The court emphatically concluded that it was not: “We have examined cases dating back more than 50 years and our examination fails to disclose that any such remorseless, calculating, cold-blooded multiple murderer has . . . ever been before this Court.” 105 Idaho, at 375, 670 P. 2d, at 476 (footnote omitted).
Creech filed a petition for writ of habeas corpus in the United States District Court for the District of Idaho. The District Court denied relief. See Creech v. Arave, No. 86-1042 (June 18, 1986). The Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, however, agreed with Creech that the “utter disregard” circumstance is unconstitutionally vague. 947 F. 2d 873 (1991). The court first considered the statutory language itself and concluded that the phrase “utter disregard” does not adequately channel sentencing discretion. Id., at 882-883. The court then considered the Osborn narrowing construction and found it unsatisfactory as well. Explaining what “utter disregard” does not mean, the Court of Appeals reasoned, does not give the phrase content. 947 F. 2d, at 883, n. 12. Nor do the words “ ‘the highest, the utmost, callous disregard for human life’ ” clarify the statutory language; they merely emphasize it. Id., at 883-884 (citing Maynard v. Cartwright, 486 U. S. 356, 364 (1988)). The phrase “cold-blooded, pitiless slayer” also was deemed inadequate. The Court of Appeals construed our precedents, including Walton v. Arizona, 497 U. S. 639 (1990), to require that a limiting construction “defin[e] the terms of the statutory aggravating circumstance through objective standards.” 947 F. 2d, at 884. “[C]old-blooded, pitiless slayer” fails, the court said, because it calls for a “subjective determination.” Ibid. The court found further evidence of the Osborn construction’s infirmity in its application to this case. In the Court of Appeals’ view, the trial judge’s findings that Jensen attacked Creech “without provocation” and that the murder “ ‘evidenced] an excessive violent rage’ ” could not be reconciled with the conclusion that Creech was a “coldblooded, pitiless” killer. 947 F. 2d, at 884. The Court of Appeals therefore found the “utter disregard” circumstance facially invalid. Id., at 884-885.
Three judges dissented from an order denying rehearing en banc. The dissenters argued that the panel had misconstrued both the “utter disregard” factor and this Court’s prior decisions. Whether a defendant is a “cold-blooded, pitiless slayer,” they said, is not a subjective inquiry; it is an evidentiary question to be determined from facts and circumstances. Id., at 890 (opinion of Trott, J.). The dissenters found the Osborn limiting construction indistinguishable from the construction this Court approved in Walton. 947 F. 2d, at 890. We granted certiorari, limited to the narrow question whether the “utter disregard” circumstance, as interpreted by the Idaho Supreme Court in Osborn, is unconstitutionally vague. See 504 U. S. 984 (1992).
II
This case is governed by the standards we articulated in Walton, supra, and Lewis v. Jeffers, 497 U. S. 764 (1990). In Jeffers we reaffirmed the fundamental principle that, to satisfy the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments, a capital sentencing scheme must “ ‘suitably direc[t] and limi[t]’ ” the sentenced discretion ‘“so as to minimize the risk of wholly arbitrary and capricious action.’ ” Id., at 774 (quoting Gregg v. Georgia, 428 U. S. 153, 189 (1976) (joint opinion of Stewart, Powell, and Stevens; JJ.)). The State must “ ‘channel the sentencer’s discretion by clear and objective standards that provide specific and detailed guidance, and that make rationally reviewable the process for imposing a sentence of death.’” 497 U. S., at 774 (quoting Godfrey v. Georgia, 446 U. S. 420, 428 (1980) (plurality opinion) (internal quotation marks omitted)).
In Walton we set forth the inquiry that a federal court must undertake when asked to decide whether a particular aggravating circumstance meets these standards:
“[The] federal court.. . must first determine whether the statutory language defining the circumstance is itself too vague to provide any guidance to the sentences If so, then the federal court must attempt to determine whether the state courts have further defined the vague terms and, if they have done so, whether those definitions are constitutionally sufficient, i. e., whether they provide some guidance to the sentences” 497 U. S., at 664 (emphasis in original).
Where, as in Idaho, the sentencer is a judge rather than a jury, the federal court must presume that the judge knew and applied any existing narrowing construction. Id., at 653.
Unlike the Court of Appeals, we do not believe it is necessary to decide whether the statutory phrase “utter disregard for human life” itself passes constitutional muster. The Idaho Supreme Court has adopted a limiting construction, and we believe that construction meets constitutional requirements.
Contrary to the dissent’s assertions, see post, at 481-485, the phrase “cold-blooded, pitiless slayer” is not without content. Webster’s Dictionary defines “pitiless” to mean devoid of, or unmoved by, mercy or compassion. Webster’s Third New International Dictionary 1726 (1986). The lead entry for “cold-blooded” gives coordinate definitions. One, “marked by absence of warm feelings: without consideration, compunction, or clemency,” id., at 442, mirrors the definition of “pitiless.” The other defines “cold-blooded” to mean “matter of fact, emotionless.” Ibid. It is true that “coldblooded” is sometimes also used to describe “premeditation],” Black’s Law Dictionary 260 (6th ed. 1990) — a mental state that may coincide with, but is distinct from, a lack of feeling or compassion. But premeditation is clearly not the sense in which the Idaho Supreme Court used the word “cold-blooded” in Osborn. Other terms in the limiting construction — “callous” and “pitiless” — indicate that the court used the word “cold-blooded” in its first sense. “Premedita[tion],” moreover, is specifically addressed elsewhere in the Idaho homicide statutes, Idaho Code § 18-4003(a) (1987) (amended version at Supp. 1992); had the Osborn court meant premeditation, it likely would have used the statutory language.
In ordinary usage, then, the phrase “cold-blooded, pitiless slayer” refers to a killer who kills without feeling or sympathy. We assume that legislators use words in their ordinary, everyday senses, see, e. g., INS v. Phinpathya, 464 U. S. 183, 189 (1984), and there is no reason to suppose that judges do otherwise. The dissent questions our resort to dictionaries for the common meaning of the word “cold-blooded,” post, at 482, but offers no persuasive authority to suggest that the word, in its present context, means anything else.
The Court of Appeals thought the Osborn limiting construction inadequate not because the phrase “cold-blooded, pitiless slayer” lacks meaning, but because it requires the sentencer to make a “subjective determination.” We disagree. We are not faced with pejorative adjectives such as “especially heinous, atrocious, or cruel” or “outrageously or wantonly vile, horrible and inhuman” — terms that describe a crime as a whole and that this Court has held to be unconstitutionally vague. See, e. g., Shell v. Mississippi, 498 U. S. 1 (1990) (per curiam); Cartwright, 486 U. S., at 363-364; God- frey, supra, at 428-429. The terms “cold-blooded” and “pitiless” describe the defendant’s state of mind: not his mens rea, but his attitude toward his conduct and his victim. The law has long recognized that a defendant’s state of mind is not a “subjective” matter, but a fact to be inferred from the surrounding circumstances. See United States Postal Service Bd. of Governors v. Aikens, 460 U. S. 711, 716-717 (1983) (“ ‘The state of a man’s mind is as much a fact as the state of his digestion. It is true that it is very difficult to prove ..., but if it can be ascertained it is as much a fact as anything else’” (quoting Edgington v. Fitzmaurice, 29 Ch. Div. 469, 483 (1885))).
Determining whether a capital defendant killed without feeling or sympathy is undoubtedly more difficult than, for example, determining whether he “was previously convicted of another murder,” Idaho Code § 19-2515(g)(l) (1987). But that does not mean that a State cannot, consistent with the Federal Constitution, authorize sentencing judges to make the inquiry and to take their findings into account when deciding whether capital punishment is warranted. This is the import of Walton. In that case we considered Arizona’s “especially heinous, cruel, or depraved” circumstance. The Arizona Supreme Court had held that a crime is committed in a “depraved” manner when the perpetrator “‘relishes the murder, evidencing debasement or perversion,’ or ‘shows an indifference to the suffering of the victim and evidences a sense of pleasure’ in the killing.” Walton, supra, at 655 (quoting State v. Walton, 159 Ariz. 571, 587, 769 P. 2d 1017, 1033 (1989)). We concluded that this construction adequately guided sentencing discretion, even though “the proper degree of definition of an aggravating factor of this nature is not susceptible of mathematical precision.” 497 U. S., at 655; accord, Jeffers, 497 U. S., at 777; cf. Proffitt v. Florida, 428 U. S. 242, 260 (1976) (White, J., concurring in judgment) (approving Florida statutory aggravating circumstances that, “although .. . not susceptible of mechanical application . . . are by no means so vague and overbroad as to leave the discretion of the sentencing authority unfettered”).
The language at issue here is no less “clear and objective” than the language sustained in Walton. Whether a defendant “relishes” or derives “pleasure” from his crime arguably may be easier to determine than whether he acts without feeling or sympathy, since enjoyment is an affirmative mental state, whereas the cold-bloodedness inquiry in a sense requires the sentencer to find a negative. But we do not think so subtle a distinction has constitutional significance. The Osborn limiting construction, like the one upheld in Walton, defines a state of mind that is ascertainable from surrounding facts. Accordingly, we decline to invalidate the “utter disregard” circumstance on the ground that the Idaho Supreme Court’s limiting construction is insufficiently “objective.”
Of course, it is not enough for an aggravating circumstance, as construed by the state courts, to be determinate. Our precedents make clear that a State’s capital sentencing scheme also must “genuinely narrow the class of persons eligible for the death penalty.” Zant v. Stephens, 462 U. S. 862, 877 (1983). When the purpose of a statutory aggravating circumstance is to enable the sentencer to distinguish those who deserve capital punishment from those who do not, the circumstance must provide a principled basis for doing so. See Jeffers, supra, at 776; Godfrey, 446 U. S., at 433. If the sentencer fairly could conclude that an aggravating circumstance applies to every defendant eligible for the death penalty, the circumstance is constitutionally infirm. See Cartwright, supra, at 364 (invalidating aggravating circumstance that “an ordinary person could honestly believe” described every murder); Godfrey, supra, at 428-429 (“A person of ordinary sensibility could fairly characterize almost every murder as ‘outrageously or wantonly vile, horrible and inhuman’ ”).
Although the question is close, we believe the Osborn construction satisfies this narrowing requirement. The class of murderers eligible for capital punishment under Idaho law is defined broadly to include all first-degree murderers. Idaho Code §18-4004 (1987). And the category of first-degree murderers is also broad. It includes premeditated murders and those carried out by means of poison, lying in wait, or certain kinds of torture. §18-4003(a). In addition, murders that otherwise would be classified as second degree, §18-4003(g) — including homicides committed without “considerable provocation” or under circumstances demonstrating “an abandoned and malignant heart” (a term of art that refers to unintentional homicide committed with extreme recklessness, see American Law Institute, Model Penal Code §210.2(l)(b) Comment, n. 4 (1980)), Idaho Code §§18-4001, 18-4002 (1987) — become first degree if they are accompanied by one of a number of enumerated circumstances. For example, murders are classified as first degree when the victim is a fellow prison inmate, § 18-4003(e), or a law enforcement or judicial officer performing official duties, § 18 — 4003(b); when the defendant is already serving a sentence for murder, §18-4003(c); and when the murder occurs during a prison escape, §18-4003(f), or the commission or attempted commission of arson, rape, robbery, burglary, kidnaping, or mayhem, § 18-4003(d). In other words, a sizable class of even those murderers who kill with some provocation or without specific intent may receive the death penalty under Idaho law.
We acknowledge that, even within these broad categories, the word “pitiless,” standing alone, might not narrow the class of defendants eligible for the death penalty. A sentencing judge might conclude that every first-degree murderer is “pitiless,” because it is difficult to imagine how a person with any mercy or compassion could kill another human being without justification. Given the statutory scheme, however, we believe that a sentencing judge reasonably could find that not all Idaho capital defendants are “coldblooded.” That is because some within the broad class of first-degree murderers do exhibit feeling. Some, for example, kill with anger, jealousy, revenge, or a variety of other emotions. In Walton we held that Arizona could treat capital defendants who take pleasure in killing as more deserving of the death penalty than those who do not. Idaho similarly has identified the subclass of defendants who kill without feeling or sympathy as more deserving of death. By doing so, it has narrowed in a meaningful way the category of defendants upon whom capital punishment may be imposed.
Creech argues that the Idaho courts have not applied the “utter disregard” circumstance consistently. He points out that the courts have found defendants to exhibit “utter disregard” in a wide range of cases. This, he claims, demonstrates that the circumstance is nothing more than a catchall. The dissent apparently agrees. See post, at 485-487. The State, in turn, offers its own review of the cases and contends that they are consistent. In essence, the parties and the dissent would have us determine the facial constitutionality of the “utter disregard” circumstance, as construed in Osborn, by examining applications of the circumstance in cases not before us.
As an initial matter, we do not think the fact that “[a]ll kinds of... factors,” post, at 486, may demonstrate the requisite state of mind renders the Osborn construction facially invalid. That the Idaho courts may find first-degree murderers to be “cold-blooded” and “pitiless” in a wide range of circumstances is unsurprising. It also is irrelevant to the question before us. We did not undertake a comparative analysis of state court decisions in Walton. See 497 U. S., at 655 (construing the argument that -the aggravating circumstance “has been applied in an arbitrary manner” as a challenge to the state court’s proportionality review). And in Jeffers we stated clearly that the question whether state courts properly have applied an aggravating circumstance is separate from the question whether the circumstance, as narrowed, is facially valid. See 497 U. S., at 778-780. To be sure, we previously have examined other state decisions when the construction of an aggravating circumstance has been unclear. In Sochor v. Florida, 504 U. S. 527 (1992), for example, the argument was that the state courts had not adhered to a single limiting construction of Florida’s “heinous, atrocious, or cruel” circumstance. Id., at 536-537; see also Proffitt v. Florida, 428 U. S., at 255, n. 12 (joint opinion of Stewart, Powell, and Stevens, JJ.) (reviewing other cases to establish that the state courts had construed an aggravating circumstance consistently). Under our precedents, a federal court may consider state court formulations of a limiting construction to ensure that they are consistent. But our decisions do not authorize review of state court cases to determine whether a limiting construction has been applied consistently.
A comparative analysis of state court cases, moreover, would be particularly inappropriate here. The Idaho Supreme Court upheld Creech’s death sentence in 1983 — before it had applied Osborn to any other set of facts. None of the decisions on which the dissent relies, or upon which Creech asks us to invalidate his death sentence, influenced either the trial judge who sentenced Creech or the appellate judges who upheld the sentence. And there is no question that Idaho’s formulation of its limiting construction has been consistent. The Idaho Supreme Court has reaffirmed its original interpretation of “utter disregard” repeatedly, often reciting the definition given in Osborn verbatim. See, e. g., State v. Card, 121 Idaho 425, 435-436, 825 P. 2d 1081, 1091-1092 (1991) (citing cases), cert. denied, 506 U. S. 915 (1992). It also has explained that “utter disregard” differs from Idaho’s “heinous, atrocious or cruel” aggravating circumstance, Idaho Code § 19-2515(g)(5) (1987), because the Osborn construction focuses on the defendant’s state of mind. State v. Fain, 116 Idaho 82, 99, 774 P. 2d 252, 269 (“[T]he ‘utter disregard’ factor refers not to the outrageousness of the acts constituting the murder, but to the defendant’s lack of conscientious scruples against killing another human being”), cert. denied, 493 U. S. 917 (1989). In light of the consistent narrowing definition given the “utter disregard” circumstance by the Idaho Supreme Court, we are satisfied that the circumstance, on its face, meets constitutional standards.
HH > — (
Creech argues alternatively that the “utter disregard’ circumstance, even if facially valid, does not apply to him. He suggests — as did the Court of Appeals and as does the dissent, post, at 488 — that the trial judge’s findings that he was provoked and that he exhibited an “excessive violent rage” are irreconcilable with a finding of “utter disregard.” The Idaho Supreme Court, Creech claims, did not cure the error on appeal. There also appears to be some question whether the other murders that Creech has committed, and the self-defense explanations he has offered for some of them, bear on the “utter disregard” determination. See Tr. of Oral Arg. 5-7, 18-21; cf. post, at 488, n. 15.
These are primarily questions of state law. As we said in Jeffers, a state court’s application of a valid aggravating circumstance violates the Constitution only if “no reasonable sentencer” could find the circumstance to exist. 497 U. S., at 783. The Court of Appeals had no occasion to decide the Jeffers issue in this case, since it found the “utter disregard” circumstance facially vague. The posture of the case, moreover, makes it unnecessary for us to reach the remaining arguments. The Court of Appeals granted Creech relief on two other claims: that the trial judge improperly refused to allow him to present new mitigating evidence when he was resentenced in open court, and that the judge applied two aggravating circumstances without making a finding required under state law. See 947 F. 2d, at 881-882. On the basis of the first claim, Creech is entitled to resentencing in state trial court. Id., at 882. Accordingly, we hold today only that the “utter disregard” circumstance, as defined in Osborn, on its face meets constitutional requirements. The judgment of the Court of Appeals is therefore reversed in part, and the case is remanded for 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 Black
delivered the opinion of the Court.
Section 3 of the Railway Labor Act confers jurisdiction on the National Railroad Adjustment Board to hold hearings, make findings, and enter awards in all disputes between carriers and their employees “growing out of grievances or out of the interpretation or application of agreements concerning rates of pay, rules, or working conditions . ...” The question presented is whether state courts have power to adjudicate disputes involving such interpretations when the Adjustment Board has not acted.
The respondent railroad has separate collective-bargaining agreements with the Order of Railroad Telegraphers and the Brotherhood of Railway Clerks. A dispute arose between the two unions concerning the scope of their respective agreements. Each claimed for its members certain jobs in the railroad yards at Elmira, New York. The railroad agreed with the Clerks Union. The chairman of Telegraphers protested, urging reassignment of the work to members of his union and claiming back pay on behalf of certain individual members. The claims were pursued in “the usual manner” required by § 3 First (i) of the Railway Labor Act, 45 U. S. C. § 153 First (i), as a prerequisite to invoking jurisdiction of the Adjustment Board. That section further provides that, “failing to reach an adjustment in this manner, the disputes may be referred by petition of the parties or by either party to the appropriate division of the Adjustment Board . . .
Instead of invoking the jurisdiction of the Adjustment Board, the railroad filed this action for declaratory judgment in a New York state court, naming both unions as defendants. It prayed for an interpretation of both agreements, and for a declaration that the Clerks’ agreement, not the Telegraphers’, covered the jobs in controversy. It also asked for a declaration that the Telegraphers must refrain from making similar claims under its bargaining agreement. Telegraphers moved to dismiss the case on the ground that the Railway Labor Act left the state court without jurisdiction to interpret the contracts and adjudicate the dispute. That motion was denied. After a trial, the court interpreted the contracts as the railroad had urged, and entered the requested declarations. This judgment was affirmed by the Court of Appeals of New York, two judges dissenting. 299 N. Y. 496, 87 N. E. 2d 532. The majority thought that our opinion in Moore v. Illinois Central R. Co., 312 U. S. 630, left state courts free to adjudicate disputes arising out of a carrier-union collective agreement without obtaining the Board’s interpretation of that agreement. The dissenting judges, however, relied on Order of Conductors v. Pitney, 326 U. S. 561, where we held that federal courts should not interpret such agreements prior to interpretation by the Adjustment Board. They asserted that this rule was also applicable in state courts. We granted certiorari to consider these questions. 338 U. S. 890.
The first declared purpose of the Railway Labor Act is “To avoid any interruption to commerce or to the operation of any carrier engaged therein.” 48 Stat. 1186 (§2), 45 U. S. C. § 151a. This purpose extends both to disputes concerning the making of collective agreements and to grievances arising under existing agreements. See Elgin, J. & E. R. Co. v. Burley, 325 U. S. 711, 722. The plan of the Act is to provide administrative methods for settling disputes before they reach acute stages that might be provocative of strikes. Carriers are therefore required to negotiate with bargaining representatives of the employees. Virginian R. Co. v. Federation, 300 U. S. 515, 547, 548. The Act also sets up machinery for conciliation, mediation, arbitration and adjustment of disputes, to be invoked if negotiations fail.
In this case the dispute concerned interpretation of an existing bargaining agreement. Its settlement would have prospective as well as retrospective importance to both the railroad and its employees, since the interpretation accepted would govern future relations of those parties. This type of grievance has long been considered a potent cause of friction leading to strikes. It was to prevent such friction that the 1926 Act provided for creation of various Adjustment Boards by voluntary agreements between carriers and workers. 44 Stat. 578. But this voluntary machinery proved unsatisfactory, and in 1934 Congress, with the support of both unions and railroads, passed an amendment which directly created a national Adjustment Board composed of representatives of railroads and unions. 48 Stat. 1189-1193. The Act thus represents a considered effort on the part of Congress to provide effective and desirable administrative remedies for adjustment of railroad-employee disputes growing out of the interpretation of existing agreements. The Adjustment Board is well equipped to exercise its congressionally imposed functions. Its members understand railroad problems and speak the railroad jargon. Long and varied experiences have added to the Board’s initial qualifications. Precedents established by it, while not necessarily binding, provide opportunities for a desirable degree of uniformity in the interpretation of agreements throughout the nation’s railway systems.
The paramount importance of having these chosen representatives of railroads and unions adjust grievances and disputes was emphasized by our opinion in Order of Conductors v. Pitney, supra. There we held, in a case remarkably similar to the one before us now, that the Federal District Court in its equitable discretion should have refused “to adjudicate a jurisdictional dispute involving the railroad and two employee accredited bargaining agents . . . Our ground for this holding was that the court “should not have interpreted the contracts” but should have left this question for determination by the Adjustment Board, a congressionally designated agency peculiarly competent in this field. 326 U. S. at 567-568. This reasoning equally supports a denial of power in any court — state as well as federal — ■ to invade the jurisdiction conferred on the Adjustment Board by the Railway Labor Act.
Our holding here is not inconsistent with our holding in Moore v. Illinois Central R. Co., 312 U. S. 630. Moore was discharged by the railroad. He could have challenged the validity of his discharge before the Board, seeking reinstatement and back pay. Instead he chose to accept the railroad’s action in discharging him as final, thereby ceasing to be an employee, and brought suit claiming damages for breach of contract. As we there held, the Railway Labor Act does not bar courts from adjudicating such cases. A common-law or statutory action for wrongful discharge differs from any remedy which the Board has power to provide, and does not involve questions of future relations between the railroad and its other employees. If a court in handling such a case must consider some provision of a collective-bargaining agreement, its interpretation would of course have no binding effect on future interpretations by the Board.
We hold that the jurisdiction of the Board to adjust grievances and disputes of the type here involved is exclusive. The holding of the Moore case does not conflict with this decision, and no contrary inference should be drawn from any language in the Moore opinion. It was error for the New York courts to uphold a declaratory judgment interpreting these collective-bargaining agreements. The judgment of the New York Court of Appeals is reversed and the cause is remanded for further proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
Mr. Justice Douglas took no part in the consideration or decision of this case.
48 Stat. 1185, 1189-1193, 45 U. S. C. § 153.
The full name of the latter union is Brotherhood of Railway and Steamship Clerks, Freight Handlers, Express and Station Employees.
“The disputes between an employee or group of employees and a carrier or carriers growing out of grievances or out of the interpretation or application of agreements concerning rates of pay, rules, or working conditions . . . shall be handled in the usual manner up to and including the chief operating officer of the carrier designated to handle such disputes; but, failing to reach an adjustment in this manner, the disputes may be referred by petition of the parties or by either party to the appropriate division of the Adjustment Board with a full statement of the facts and all supporting data bearing upon the disputes.” 48 Stat. 1191.
The Appellate Division of the Supreme Court (3d Dept.) also affirmed both the order of the trial court denying the motion to dismiss, 269 App. Div. 467, 57 N. Y. S. 2d 65, and the subsequent judgment on the merits, 274 App. Div. 950, 83 N. Y. S. 2d 513. An opinion of the New York Supreme Court denying petitioner’s motion to remove the action to the United States District Court is reported at 183 Misc. 454, 50 N. Y. S. 2d 313. The opinion of the United States District Judge remanding the case to the state court is reported in 56 F. Supp. 634.
“These unadjusted disputes have become so numerous that on several occasions the employees have resorted to the issuance of strike ballots and threatened to interrupt interstate commerce in order to secure an adjustment. This has made it necessary for the President of the United States to intervene and establish an emergency board to investigate the controversies. This condition should be corrected in the interest of industrial peace and of uninterrupted transportation service. This bill, therefore, provides for the establishment of a national board of adjustment to which these disputes may be submitted if they shall not have been adjusted in conference between the parties.” H. R. Rep. No. 1944, 73d Cong., 2d Sess. 3.
For an interesting discussion of the Act’s history and purposes, see Garrison, “The National Railroad Adjustment Board: A Unique Administrative Agency,” 46 Yale L. J. 567 et seq.
We are not confronted here with any disagreement or conflict in interest between an employee and his bargaining representative, as in Steele v. Louisville & N. R. Co., 323 U. S. 192. Nor are we called upon to decide any question concerning judicial proceedings to review board action or inaction.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
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
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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.
In this school desegregation case, the District Court for the Western District of Oklahoma, by order entered August 13, 1969, approved respondent Oklahoma City School Board’s proposal for furthering desegregation of some Oklahoma City schools by revising school attend-anee boundaries effective September 2, 1969, the start of the 1969-1970 school year. The order also decreed that the School Board prepare and submit on or before November 1, 1969, a comprehensive plan for the complete desegregation of the entire school system. In-tervenors of the “McWilliams Class” appealed to the Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit from the provision of the order which approved implementation of the School Board’s proposed boundary changes by September 2, 1969, and sought a stay of that provision pending decision of the appeal. The Court of Appeals, on August 27, 1969, instead of limiting relief to the requested stay, summarily vacated the District Court’s approval of the School Board’s proposal. The Court of Appeals held that consideration of the proposal was inappropriate “at this stage of the proceedings” and should await the District Court’s “consideration and adoption of a full and comprehensive plan for the complete desegregation and integration of the Oklahoma City School system as contemplated in the court’s order of August 13, 1969.”
The petition for certiorari is granted. The Court of Appeals erred in holding that the District Court’s approval of the School Board’s plan must be vacated because consideration of the proposal was inappropriate except in the context of a comprehensive city-wide plan. The burden on a school board is to desegregate an unconstitutional dual system at once. Green v. County School Board, 391 U. S. 430, 439 (1968); Alexander v. Holmes County Board of Education, ante, p. 19. Since the District Court ordered the desegregation measures into effect, and since the petitioners did not object to their scope, the Court of Appeals should have permitted their implementation pending argument and decision of the appeal. Alexander v. Holmes County Board of Education, supra. The order of the Court of Appeals is therefore vacated and the case is remanded to that court promptly to hear and determine, consistently with Alexander, all pending appeals from the District Court order.
It is so ordered.
The petition was filed pursuant to an expedited schedule specified by Mr. Justice Brennan when on petitioners’ application he, as Acting Circuit Justice, vacated the order of the Court of Appeals and reinstated that of the District Court, pending action by this Court on the petition.
We are informed by the parties that the School Board on September 12, 1969, also filed an appeal from the District Court’s approval of the Board’s proposal, and another appeal from the District Court’s denial on September 11, 1969, of the Board’s application for amendment of the August 13 order to extend from November 1, 1969, to March 31, 1970, the time for filing of a comprehensive desegregation plan for secondary schools. The District Court granted the Board’s application as to a plan for desegregation of the elementary schools.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
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.
Mr. Justice Brennan
delivered the opinion of the Court.
Regulation 25 of the Mississippi State Tax Commission requires out-of-state liquor distillers and suppliers to collect from military installations within Mississippi, and remit to the Commission, a tax in the form of a wholesale markup of 17% to 20% on liquor sold to the installations. The United States has four military installations in the State. Exclusive federal jurisdiction is exercised over two of the installations, Keesler Air Force Base and the Naval Construction Battalion Center. The United States and Mississippi exercise concurrent jurisdiction over the other two installations, Columbus Air Force Base and Meridian Naval Air Station. The issue presented on this appeal is whether Regulation 25 imposes an unconstitutional state tax upon these federal instrumentalities.
I
The controversy between the United States and the Tax Commission over Regulation 25 is here for the second time. Shortly after adoption of the Regulation, the United States asserted before the Commission that the markup was unconstitutional as a tax upon federal instrumentalities, and proposed an escrow account for the amount of the tax pending a judicial determination of its legality. The Commission refused and advised out-of-state distillers by letter that the markup “must be invoiced to the Military and collected directly from the Military . . .” or the distillers would face criminal prosecution and delistment of their authority to sell liquor in Mississippi. The United States thereupon paid the markup under protest and brought this action in the District Court for the Southern District of Mississippi. The complaint sought a declaratory judgment that Regulation 25 imposed an unconstitutional tax on federal instrumentalities, an injunction against its enforcement, and a refund of the sums paid under protest. The Tax Commission moved for summary judgment. A three-judge District Court granted the Commission’s motion. 340 F. Supp. 903 (1972). The District Court concluded that despite Art. I, § 8, cl. 17, of the Constitution, the Twenty-first Amendment permitted the Tax Commission to apply the markup to out-of-state purchases destined for nonappropriated fund activities on the two installations, Keesler and the Naval Construction Battalion Center, over which the United States exercises exclusive jurisdiction, and that therefore, a fortiori, the liquor sales made on the two bases over which the United States and Mississippi exercise concurrent jurisdiction, Meridian and Columbus, are similarly subject to the Mississippi tax. We . reversed and remanded for further proceedings. We held that the court erred in ruling that the Twenty-first Amendment empowered the Tax Commission to apply the markup to transactions between out-of-state distillers and nonappropriated fund activities on the two exclusively federal enclaves, and held that this conclusion also eliminated the essential premise of the District Court’s decision concerning the two concurrent jurisdiction bases. 412 U. S. 363 (1973).
There were, however, other issues addressed to Regulation 25 that had not been reached by the District Court. We therefore remanded the case for that court’s initial consideration and determination of the issues. In respect to the two exclusively federal enclaves, the Tax Commission argued that the markup might properly be viewed as a sales tax, and that the United States had consented to the imposition of such a “tax” under the Buck Act of 1940, now 4 U. S. C. §§ 105-110. Section 105 (a) provides that no person may be relieved of any sales or use tax levied by a State on the ground that the sale or use occurred in whole or part within a federal area. But § 107 (a) provides that § 105 (a) “shall not be deemed to authorize the levy or collection of any tax on or from the United States or any instrumentality thereof . . . .” We directed that, upon remand, the District Court address and determine the questions whether the markup should be treated as a tax on sales occurring within a federal area within the meaning of § 105 (a), and, if so, whether the exception contained in § 107 (a) nevertheless preserves the federal immunity with respect to transactions with nonappropriated fund activities on the two exclusively federal enclaves. 412 U. S., at 378-379.
The Buck Act questions are irrelevant to the markup as applied to the two concurrent jurisdiction bases, and, therefore, the United States argued that the markup is a tax upon instrumentalities of the United States that is unconstitutional under McCulloch v. Maryland, 4 Wheat. 316 (1819). We directed that the District Court also address and decide the instrumentality argument on remand. 412 U. S., at 380-381.
II
On the remand the District Court held, as to the exclusively federal enclaves, that the markup constituted a “sales or use tax” within the meaning of § 105 (a) of the Buck Act, and that the exception in § 107 (a) for taxes upon federal instrumentalities was inapplicable because Regulation 25 imposes the legal incidence of the tax upon the distillers, and not upon any federal instrumentality, 378 F. Supp. 558, 570-573 (1974). For the same reason, the District Court held that the tax upon the sales to the two concurrent jurisdiction bases was not an unconstitutional tax upon instrumentalities of the United States. Id., at 569. We again noted probable jurisdiction, 419 U. S. 1104 (1975). We reverse.
III
The exception in § 107 (a) is plainly a congressional preservation of federal immunity from any state tax that would violate the principle of McCulloch v. Maryland, supra, prohibiting state taxation of instrumentalities of the United States. If Regulation 25 is invalid under that principle, it is invalid in its imposition of the markup upon all out-of-state purchases, both those destined for the nonappropriated fund activities on the exclusive jurisdiction bases, and those destined for those activities on the concurrent jurisdiction bases. We therefore turn to our reasons for concluding that Regulation 25 is an unconstitutional tax upon instrumentalities of the United States.
Before 1966, Mississippi prohibited the sale or possession of alcoholic beverages within its borders. In that year, however, the state legislature enacted the “Local Option Alcoholic Beverage Control Law,” Miss. Code Ann. § 67-1-1 et seq., which created the State Tax Commission as the sole importer and wholesaler of alcoholic beverages, not including malt liquor, in the State, Miss. Code Ann. § 67-1-41. The statute authorized the Tax Commission to purchase intoxicating liquors and sell them “to authorized retailers within the state including, at the discretion of the commission, any retail distributors operating within any military post . . . within the boundaries of the state, . . . exercising such control over the distribution of alcoholic beverages as seem[s] right and proper in keeping with the provisions and purposes of this chapter.” Ibid. The legislature also directed the Commission to add to the cost of all alcoholic beverages a price markup designed to cover the cost of operation of the wholesale liquor business, yield a reasonable profit, and keep Mississippi’s liquor prices competitive with those of neighboring States, Miss. Code Ann. § 27-71-11. Generally, the wholesale markup was 17% on distilled spirits and 20% on wine.
Pursuant to its statutory authority the Commission promulgated Regulation 25 which gave post exchanges, officers’ clubs, ship’s stores, and other nonappropriated fund activities operating on military installations within Mississippi the option of purchasing alcoholic beverages directly from out-of-state distillers or from the Commission. The Regulation requires that orders from distillers bear the usual price markup as charged by the Commission on its sales, which the distiller in turn must remit to the Commission or face a fine, imprisonment, or delisting, i. e., withdrawal of the privilege of distributing alcoholic beverages to the Commission for resale in Mississippi. See, e. g., Miss. Code Ann. § 27-71-23. The various nonappropriated fund activities at the four military installations in Mississippi all chose to purchase their alcoholic beverages directly from out-of-state distillers, and thereby continued the practice begun when Mississippi was a “dry” State.
The District Court correctly determined that post exchanges and similar facilities are instrumentalities of the United States: “it is clear that the ship’s stores, officers’ clubs and post exchanges ‘as now operated are arms of the government deemed by it essential for the performance of governmental functions . . . and partake of whatever immunities it may have under the constitution and federal statutes.’ ” 378 F. Supp., at 562-563. See also Standard Oil Co. v. Johnson, 316 U. S. 481 (1942); cf. Paul v. United States, 371 U. S. 245, 261 (1963). The District Court also correctly held that the markup constitutes a tax on the purchases made by the nonappropriated fund activities from out-of-state suppliers. The markup can only be understood as an “enforced contribution to provide for the support of government,” the standard definition of a tax. United States v. La Franca, 282 U. S. 568, 572 (1931). The District Court held, however, that federal immunity from state taxation extends only to “a state tax whose legal, as opposed to purely economic, incidence falls upon the federal government, its property or its instruments ...” 378 F. Supp., at 566.
In determining that the legal incidence of the Mississippi wholesale markup fell not upon the Federal Government but upon the out-of-state distillers, the District Court defined legal incidence as “the legally enforceable, unavoidable liability for nonpayment of the tax.” Ibid. That was error. The Tax Commission, of course, has not attempted to collect the markup directly from the nonappropriated fund activities, but has instead compelled out-of-state suppliers to collect the markup for it. But that fact alone is not determinative that the markup is a tax on the suppliers rather than on the instrumentalities of the United States. In First Agricultural Nat. Bank v. Tax Comm’n, 392 U. S. 339 (1968), we squarely rejected the proposition that the legal incidence of a tax falls always upon the person legally liable for its payment. Massachusetts imposed a sales and use tax on purchases of tangible personal property, including purchases by national banks for their own use. The statute directed that “ ‘each vendor in this commonwealth shall add to the sales price and shall collect from the purchaser the full amount of the tax imposed ....”’ Id., at 347. Like the District Court here, the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts stated: “The legal incidence of a tax. [is] . . . determined by ‘who is responsible ... for payment to the state of the exaction.’ ” 353 Mass. 172, 177, 229 N. E. 2d 245, 249 (1967). Accordingly, the state court held that the legal incidence of the tax was on the vendor. We reversed, stating: “It would appear to be indisputable that a sales tax which by its terms must be passed on to the purchaser imposes the legal incidence of the tax upon the purchaser. . . . There can be no doubt from the clear wording of the statute that the Massachusetts Legislature intended that this sales tax be passed on to the purchaser. For our purposes, at least, that intent is controlling.” 392 U. S., at 347-348. See also Gurley v. Rhoden, ante, p. 200.
We see no difference between this markup and a sales tax which must be collected by the seller and remitted to the State. The Tax Commission would distinguish First Agricultural Nat. Bank on the ground that because the immunity of the national bank from state taxation in all but a few closely defined areas was conferred by statute, c. 267, 42 Stat. 1499, as amended, 12 U. S. C. § 548, the Court did not decide “the constitutional question of whether today national banks should be considered nontaxable as federal instrumentalities.” 392 U. S., at 341. But the controlling significance of First Agricultural Nat. Bank for our purposes is the test formulated by that decision for the determination where the legal incidence of the tax falls, namely, that where a State requires that its sales tax be passed on to the purchaser and be collected by the vendor from him, this establishes as a matter of law that the legal incidence of the tax falls upon the purchaser. That is plainly the requirement of Regulation 25. Regulation 25 provides that all direct orders by military facilities of alcoholic beverages from distillers “shall bear the usual wholesale markup in price,” that the “price of such alcoholic beverages shall be paid by such organizations directly to the distiller,” and that the .distiller “shall in turn remit the wholesale markup” to the Tax Commission. The Tax Commission clearly intended — indeed, the scheme unavoidably requires — that the out-of-state distillers and suppliers pass on the markup to the military purchasers. And to underscore this conclusion, the Director of the Alcoholic Beverage Control Division of the Tax Commission informed the distillers by letter that the wholesale markup “must be invoiced to the Military and collected directly from the Military (Club) or other authorized organization located on the Military base,” warning that any distiller who sells alcoholic beverages to the military without “collecting said fee directly from said Military organization shall be in violation of the Alcoholic Beverage Control laws and regulations issued pursuant thereto,” and subject to the penalties provided, including delisting. Plainly that ruling explicitly imposes the legal incidence of the tax upon the military.
Kern-Limerick, Inc. v. Scurlock, 347 U. S. 110 (1954); and Alabama v. King & Boozer, 314 U. S. 1 (1941), buttress our conclusion. Kern-Limerick held unconstitutional, as regards sales to the United States, a state sales tax statute which purported to tax the seller, but provided that the seller “ ‘shall collect the tax levied hereby from the purchaser.’ ” 347 U. S., at 111. Similarly, the Alabama statute in King & Boozer required the seller to pay the sales tax, but also required him “ ‘to add to the sales price and collect from the purchaser the amount due by the taxpayer on account of said tax.’ ” 314 U. S., at 7. We held that the statute, by requiring the passing on of the tax and its collection from the purchaser, placed the legal incidence of the tax on the purchaser.
We hold, therefore, that viewing the markup as a sales tax, the legal incidence of that tax was intended to rest upon instrumentalities of the United States. We turn therefore to consideration of the question whether the Buck Act is of assistance to the Tax Commission in its attempt to enforce Regulation 25.
IV
The Buck Act was enacted in 1940 to bar the United States, among other things, from asserting immunity from state sales and use taxes on the ground that “the Federal Government has exclusive jurisdiction over the area where the transaction occurred.” S. Rep. No. 1625, 76th Cong., 3d Sess., 2 (1940). Section 105 (a) of the Buck Act provides:
“No person shall be relieved from liability for payment of, collection of, or accounting for any sales or use tax levied by any State, or by any duly constituted taxing authority therein, having jurisdiction to levy such a tax, on the ground that the sale or use, with respect to which such tax is levied, occurred in whole or in part within a Federal area; and such State or taxing authority shall have full jurisdiction and power to levy and collect any such tax in any Federal area within such State to the same extent and with the same effect as though súeh area was not a Federal area.”
The District Court concluded that under this section “Congress has legislatively acceded to Mississippi’s markup on . . . wholesale liquor transactions.” 378 F. Supp., at 562.
Section 107 (a) of the Buck Act, however, contains a limitation upon the application of § 105 (a). It provides that § 105 (a) “shall not be deemed to authorize the levy or collection of any tax on or from the United States or any instrumentality thereof . . . Although the District Court recognized that § 107 (a) “limits” § 105 (a), the court held that § 107 (a) was inapplicable in light of its holding that the legal incidence of the tax was on the distillers. Our reversal of the District Court in that respect and our holding that the legal incidence of the tax is upon the United States plainly brings § 107 (a) into play. The section can only be read as an explicit congressional preservation of federal immunity from state sales taxes unconstitutional under the immunity doctrine announced by Mr. Chief Justice Marshall in McCulloch v. Maryland, 4 Wheat. 316 (1819). “[U]n-shaken, rarely questioned, ... is the principle that possessions, institutions, and activities of the Federal Government itself in the absence of express congressional consent are not subject to any form of state taxation.” United States v. County of Allegheny, 322 U. S. 174, 177 (1944). See also Kern-Limerick, Inc. v. Scurlock, 347 U. S., at 117-118. Regulation 25 is therefore outside the coverage of § 105 (a) and the markup is unconstitutional as a tax imposed upon the United States and its instrumentalities.
Nor does the Twenty-first Amendment require a different result. When the case was last here we held that “the Twenty-first Amendment confers no power on a State to regulate — whether by licensing, taxation, or otherwise — the importation of distilled spirits into territory over which the United States exercises exclusive jurisdiction [pursuant to Art. I, § 8, cl. 17, of the Constitution].” 412 U. S., at 375; see Collins v. Yosemite Park & Curry Co., 304 U. S. 518, 538 (1938). Cf. James v. Bravo Contracting Co., 302 U. S. 134, 140 (1937). We reach the same conclusion as to the concurrent jurisdiction bases to which Art. I, §8, cl. 17, does not apply: “Nothing in the language of the [Twenty-first] Amendment nor in its history leads to [the] extraordinary conclusion” that the Amendment abolished federal immunity with respect to taxes on sales of liquor to the military on bases where the United States and Mississippi exercise concurrent jurisdiction. Department of Revenue v. James B. Beam Distilling Co., 377 U. S. 341, 345-346 (1964); Hostetter v. Idlewild Bon Voyage Liquor Corp., 377 U. S. 324 (1964). James Beam involved a Kentucky tax upon the importation into that State of whiskey produced in Scotland and transported through the United States directly to bonded warehouses in Kentucky. The Court held that the tax was prohibited by the Export-Import Clause of the Constitution, Art. I, § 10, cl. 2, and that the Amendment had not repealed that clause:
“To sustain the tax which Kentucky has imposed in this case would require nothing short of squarely holding that the Twenty-first Amendment has completely repealed the Export-Import Clause so far as intoxicants are concerned. Nothing in the language of the Amendment nor in its history leads to such an extraordinary conclusion. This Court has never intimated such a view, and now that the claim for the first time is squarely presented, we expressly reject it.” 377 U. S., at 345-346.
Hostetter held that the Twenty-first Amendment did not supersede the Commerce Clause, Art. I, § 8, cl. 3, so as to permit the State of New York to prohibit the sale of liquor, under the supervision of United States Customs, to departing international airline passengers. We said that “[s]uch a conclusion would be patently bizarre and is demonstrably incorrect.” 377 U. S., at 332. Similarly, it is a “patently bizarre” and “extraordinary conclusion” to suggest that the Twenty-first Amendment abolished federal immunity as respects taxes on sales to the bases where the United States and Mississippi exercise concurrent jurisdiction, and “now that the claim for the first time is squarely presented, we expressly reject it.”
Reversed.
Mr. Justice Douglas and Mr. Justice Rehnquist dissent for the reasons stated in the dissenting opinion of Mr. Justice Douglas in United States v. State Tax Comm’n of Mississippi, 412 U. S. 363, 381-390 (1973).
Regulation 25 provides:
“Post exchanges, ship stores, and officers’ clubs located on military reservations and operated by military personnel (including those operated by the National Guard) shall have the option of ordering alcoholic beverages direct from the distiller or from the Alcoholic Beverage Control Division of the State Tax Commission. In the event an order is placed by such organization directly with a distiller, a copy of such order shall be immediately mailed to the Alcoholic Beverage Control Division of the State Tax Commission.
“All orders of such organizations shall bear the usual wholesale markup in price but shall be exempt from all state taxes. The price of such alcoholic beverages shall be paid by such organizations directly to the distiller, which shall in turn remit the wholesale markup to the Alcoholic Beverage Control Division of the State Tax Commission monthly covering shipments made for the previous month.”
The United States acquired exclusive jurisdiction over the lands composing Keesler Air Force Base under the terms of § 1, 84 Stat. 835, 40 U. S. C. § 255, in a series of letters between the Governor of Mississippi and the Secretary of War. On January 9, 1945, Secretary of War Stimson wrote Governor Bailey acknowledging the acquisition of exclusive jurisdiction as required by §255: “Accordingly, notice is hereby given that the United States accepts exclusive jurisdiction over all lands acquired by it for military purposes within the State of Mississippi, title to which has heretofore vested in the United States, and over which exclusive jurisdiction has not heretofore obtained.” In 1942 and 1943, the Secretary of the Navy filed Declarations of Taking in three separate actions in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Mississippi to acquire the lands for the Naval Construction Battalion Center. In accordance with the requirement of §255, the Department of the Navy formally accepted exclusive jurisdiction over these lands in two letters to the Governor dated December 14, 1942, and January 6, 1944.
The parties stipulated that the amount of markups paid by nonappropriated fund activities on the four military installations from September 1966 through July 31, 1971, totaled $648,421.92. Counsel for the United States estimated that by now this amount has doubled. Tr. of Oral Arg. 6.
Article I, §8, cl. 17, provides:
“. . . Congress shall have Power . . . [t]o exercise exclusive Legislation ... over all Places purchased by the Consent of the Legislature of the State in which the Same shall be, for the Erection of Forts, Magazines, Arsenals, dock-yards, and other needful Buildings.”
The District Court was also directed on remand to determine the merits of the Government’s argument that Regulation 25 was invalid under the Supremacy Clause because it constituted an attempt by the State to interfere with federal procurement regulations and policy, see 32 CFR §261.4 (c) (1974), established by the Secretary of Defense pursuant to authority granted him by Congress. The District Court rejected the argument as without merit. 378 F. Supp. 558, 570-573 (1974). In light of our decision, we have no occasion to determine whether the District Court was correct.
See also Federal Land Bank v. Bismarck Lumber Co., 314 U. S. 95 (1941). North Dakota imposed a sales tax and required retailers to add the tax to the sales price of goods, “ 'and when added such taxes shall constitute a part of such price or charge, shall be a debt from consumer or user to retailer until paid, and shall be recoverable at law in the same manner as other debts. . . Id., at 97. A lumber company attempted to collect this tax from a national bank. Bismarck held that the requirement that the vendor pass on the tax placed the legal incidence on the purchaser, which was congressionally immunized from state taxation. Id., at 99. Cf. National Bellas Hess, Inc. v. Department of Revenue, 386 U. S., 753, 757 n. 9 (1967).
The Mississippi state courts have not passed upon the matter of the legal incidence of the tax under Regulation 25, cf. American Oil Co. v. Neill, 380 U. S. 451, 455-456 (1965); Gurley v. Rhoden, ante, p. 200, and, in any event, "the duty rests on this Court to decide for itself facts or constructions upon which federal constitutional issues- rest.” Kern-Limerick, Inc. v. Scurlock, 347 U. S. 110, 121 (1954).
The District Court’s view that because “Mississippi’s ABC [Alcoholic Beverage Control] Act and regulations do not impose any sanctions on the vendor if he absorbs all or any portion of the markup’s economic burden,” the Regulation does not actually require the passing on of the tax, 378 F. Supp., at 567, is without merit by virtue of First Agricultural Nat. Bank. “We cannot accept the reasoning of the court below that simply because there is no sanction against a vendor who refuses to pass on the tax (assuming this is true), this means the tax is on the vendor.” 392 U. S., at 348. Indeed, the Tax Commission letter to the distillers threatens sanctions: “Any supplier who ships or sells alcoholic beverages to Military organizations located within the boundaries of Mississippi without . . . collecting said fee directly from the said Military organization shall be in violation” of the statute and subject to its penalties, including delisting. Finally, even in the absence of this clear , statement of the Tax Commission’s intentions, obviously economic realities compelled the distillers to pass on the economic burden of the markup.
Polar Co. v. Andrews, 375 U. S. 361 (1964), relied upon by appellees, is not contrary. That case involved a Florida tax upon the seller’s activity of processing or bottling milk for sale on enclaves over which the Federal Government exercised exclusive jurisdiction. The tax was not a sales tax and there was no requirement that the amount of the tax be passed on to the federal purchasers. See also Gurley v. Rhoden, ante, p. 200, holding that the legal incidence of federal and state excise taxes on gasoline was on the producer-distributor of the gasoline who was not required to pass on the amount of the tax to his purchasers. And see American Oil Co. v. Neill, 380 U. S. 451 (1965); Norton Co. v. Department of Revenue, 340 U. S. 534 (1951).
Act of Oct. 9, 1940, c. 787, 54 Stat. 1059, codified as 4 U. S. C. § 105 et seq. by Act of July 30, 1947, § 105 et seq., 61 Stat. 644.
The legislative history associated with the amendment of § 107 in 1954 describes the purpose of the section as follows: “Section 107 sets up certain exceptions to the power of States to tax in [federal] areas . . . .” See H. R. Rep. No. 1981, 83d Cong., 2d Sess., 2 (1954). See also S. Rep. No. 2498, 83d Cong., 2d Sess., 3 (1954).
Section 107 (a) provides: “The provisions of [§ 105 of this Act] shall not be deemed to authorize the levy or collection of any tax on or from the United States or any instrumentality thereof, or the levy or collection of any tax with respect to sale, purchase, storage, or use of tangible personal property sold by the United States or any instrumentality thereof to any authorized purchaser,” 4 U. S. C. § 107 (a). An “authorized purchaser” is defined in § 107 (b) as one who buys goods from military commissaries, ship’s stores, or similar voluntary unincorporated organizations. 4 U. S. C. § 107 (b), as amended, Act of Sept. 3, 1954, §4, 68 Sta't. 1227. There is no question that the portion of § 107 (a) dealing with a tax on or from the United States or any instrumentality thereof was intended to be distinct from the remaining portion of the section dealing with taxes on goods sold to an “authorized purchaser.” See S. Rep. No. 1625, 76th Cong., 3d Sess., 3-4 (1940).
Polar Co. v. Andrews, supra, does not support the Tax Commission’s argument under the Buck Act. In Polar, the Court rejected an attack by milk producers upon a Florida gallonage tax imposed upon milk distributed by them, including milk sold to military bases located within the State. As to the sales to the military bases, over which the United States exercised exclusive jurisdiction, the Court indicated that consent to the imposition of the tax was to be found in § 105 of the Buck Act. But the Court specifically distinguished situations, such as that presented here, where the tax falls “upon the facilities of the United States or upon activities conducted within these facilities . . . .” 375 U. S., at 382. Rather, it pointed out that the “incidence of the tax appears to be upon the activity of processing or bottling milk in a plant located within Florida, and not upon work performed on a federal enclave or upon the sale and delivery of milk occurring within the boundaries of federal property.” Ibid.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
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.
OPINION OF THE COURT
[559 U.S. 135]
Justice Scalia
delivered the opinion of the Court.
We decide whether the Florida felony offense of battery by “[a] dually and intentionally touch [ing]” another person, Fla. Stat. § 784.03(1)(a), (2) (2003), “has as an element the use . . . of physical force against the person of another,” 18 U.S.C. § 924(e)(2)(B)(i), and thus constitutes a “violent felony” under the Armed Career Criminal Act, § 924(e)(1).
I
Curtis Johnson pleaded guilty to knowingly possessing ammunition after having been convicted of a felony, in violation
[559 U.S. 136]
of 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1). The Government sought an enhanced penalty under § 924(e), which provides that a person who violates § 922(g) and who “has three previous convictions” for “a violent felony” “committed on occasions different from one another” shall be imprisoned for a minimum of 15 years and a maximum of life. A “violent felony” is defined as “any crime punishable by imprisonment for a term exceeding one year” that:
“(i) has as an element the use, attempted use, or threatened use of physical force against the person of another; or
“(ii) is burglary, arson, or extortion, involves use of explosives, or otherwise involves conduct that presents a serious potential risk of physical injury to another.” § 924(e)(2)(B).
Johnson’s indictment specified five prior felony convictions. The Government contended that three of those convictions—for aggravated battery and for burglary of a dwelling in October 1986, and for battery in May 2003—rendered Johnson eligible for sentencing under § 924(e)(1). At the sentencing hearing, Johnson did not dispute that the two 1986 convictions were for “violent felon [ies],” but he objected to counting his 2003 battery conviction. That conviction was for simple battery under Florida law, which ordinarily is a first-degree misdemeanor, Fla. Stat. § 784.03(1)(b), but is a third-degree felony for a defendant who (like Johnson) has been convicted of battery (even simple battery) before, § 784.03(2).
Under § 784.03(1)(a), a battery occurs when a person either “1. [a]c-tually and intentionally touches or strikes another person against the will of the other,” or “2. [intentionally causes bodily harm to another person.” Because the elements of the offense are disjunctive, the prosecution can prove a battery in one of three ways. State v. Hearns, 961 So.2d 211, 218 (Fla. 2007). It can prove that the defendant
[559 U.S. 137]
“[i]ntentionally caus[ed] bodily harm,” that he “intentionally str[uck]” the victim, or that he merely “[ajctually and intentionally touche [d]” the victim.
Since nothing in the record of Johnson’s 2003 battery conviction permitted the District Court to conclude that it rested upon anything more than the least of these acts, see Shepard v. United States, 544 U.S. 13, 26, 125 S. Ct. 1254, 161 L. Ed. 2d 205 (2005) (plurality opinion), his conviction was a predicate conviction for a “violent felony” under the Armed Career Criminal Act only if “[ajctually and intentionally touch[ing]” another person constitutes the use of “physical force” within the meaning of § 924(e)(2)(B)(i). The District Court concluded that it does, and accordingly sentenced Johnson under § 924(e)(1) to a prison term of 15 years and 5 months.
The Eleventh Circuit affirmed. 528 F.3d 1318 (2008). We granted certiorari, 555 U.S. 1169, 129 S. Ct. 1315, 173 L. Ed. 2d 583 (2009).
II
Florida has a statute similar to the Armed Career Criminal Act that imposes mandatory-minimum sentences upon “violent career criminal[s],” Fla. Stat. § 775.084(4)(d) (2007), defined to mean persons who have three convictions for certain felonies, including any “forcible felony,” § 775.084(1)(d)(1)(a). “[F]orcible felony” is defined to include a list of enumerated felonies—including murder, manslaughter, sexual battery, carjacking, aggravated assault, and aggravated battery—and also “any other felony which involves the use or threat of physical force or violence against any individual.” § 776.08. In Hearns, the Florida Supreme Court held that the felony offense of battery on a law enforcement officer, § 784.07(2)(b)—which requires the same conduct (directed against a law enforcement officer) as misdemeanor battery under § 784.03(1)(a)—was not a forcible felony. See 961 So.2d, at 219. It said that since § 784.03(1)(a) requires proof of only the slightest unwanted physical touch,
[559 U.S. 138]
“the use ... of physical force” was not an element of the offense. Id., at 219.
Johnson argues that in deciding whether any unwanted physical touching constitutes “physical force” under 18 U.S.C. § 924(e)(2)(B)(i), we are bound by the Florida Supreme Court’s conclusion in Hearns that it does not constitute “physical force.” That is not so. The meaning of “physical force” in § 924(e)(2)(B)(i) is a question of federal law, not state law. And in answering that question we are not bound by a state court’s interpretation of a similar—or even identical— state statute.
We are, however, bound by the Florida Supreme Court’s interpretation of state law, including its determination of the elements of Fla. Stat. § 784.03(2). See Johnson v. Fankell, 520 U.S. 911, 916, 117 S. Ct. 1800, 138 L. Ed. 2d 108 (1997). The Florida Supreme Court has held that the element of “actually and intentionally touching” under Florida’s battery law is satisfied by any intentional physical contact, “no matter how slight.” Hearns, 961 So.2d, at 218. The most “nominal contact,” such as a “ta[p] . . . on the shoulder without consent,” id., at 219, establishes a violation. We apply “th [is] substantive elemen[t] of the criminal offense,” Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U.S. 307, 324, n. 16, 99 S. Ct. 2781, 61 L. Ed. 2d 560 (1979), in determining whether a felony conviction for battery under Fla. Stat. § 784.03(2) meets the definition of “violent felony” in 18 U.S.C. § 924(e)(2)(B)(i).
III
Section 924(e)(2)(B)(i) does not define “physical force,” and we therefore give the phrase its ordinary meaning. Bailey v. United States, 516 U.S. 137, 144-145, 116 S. Ct. 501, 133 L. Ed. 2d 472 (1995). The adjective “physical” is clear in meaning but not of much help to our inquiry. It plainly refers to force exerted by and through concrete bodies—distinguishing physical force from, for example, intellectual force or emotional force. It is the noun that poses the difficulty; “force” has a number of meanings. For present purposes we can exclude its specialized
[559 U.S. 139]
meaning in the field of physics: a cause of the acceleration of mass. Webster’s New International Dictionary 986 (2d ed. 1954) (hereinafter Webster’s Second). In more general usage it means “ [strength or energy; active power; vigor; often an unusual degree of strength or energy,” “Iplower to affect strongly in physical relations,” or “[p]ower, violence, compulsion, or constraint exerted upon a person.” Id., at 985. Black’s Law Dictionary 717 (9th ed. 2009) (hereinafter Black’s) defines “force” as “[p]ower, violence, or pressure directed against a person or thing.” And it defines “physical force” as “[floree consisting in a physical act, esp. a violent act directed against a robbery victim.” Ibid. All of these definitions suggest a degree of power that would not be satisfied by the merest touching.
There is, however, a more specialized legal usage of the word “force”: its use in describing one of the elements of the common-law crime of battery, which consisted of the intentional application of unlawful force against the person of another. See 2 W. LaFave & A. Scott, Substantive Criminal Law § 7.15(a), p. 301 (1986 and Supp. 2003); accord, Black’s 173. The common law held this element of “force” to be satisfied by even the slightest offensive touching. See 3 W. Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England 120 (1768) (hereinafter Blackstone); Lynch v. Commonwealth, 131 Va. 762, 765, 109 S.E. 427, 428 (1921); see also 2 LaFave & Scott, supra, § 7.15(a). The question is whether the term “force” in 18 U.S.C. § 924(e)(2)(B)(i) has the specialized meaning that it bore in the common-law definition of battery. The Government asserts that it does. We disagree.
Although a common-law term of art should be given its established common-law meaning, United States v. Turley, 352 U.S. 407, 411, 77 S. Ct. 397, 1 L. Ed. 2d 430 (1957), we do not assume that a statutory word is used as a term of art where that meaning does not fit. Ultimately, context determines meaning, Jarecki v. G. D. Searle & Co., 367 U.S. 303, 307, 81 S. Ct. 1579, 6 L. Ed. 2d 859 (1961), and we “do not force term-of-art definitions into contexts where they plainly
[559 U.S. 140]
do not fit and produce nonsense,” Gonzales v. Oregon, 546 U.S. 243, 282, 126 S. Ct. 904, 163 L. Ed. 2d 748 (2006) (Scalia, J., dissenting). Here we are interpreting the phrase “physical force” as used in defining not the crime of battery, but rather the statutory category of “violent felon[ies],” § 924(e)(2)(B). In Leocal v. Ashcroft, 543 U.S. 1, 125 S. Ct. 377, 160 L. Ed. 2d 271 (2004), we interpreted the statutory definition of “crime of violence” in 18 U.S.C. § 16. That provision is very similar to § 924(e)(2)(B)(i), in that it includes any felony offense which “has as an element the use ... of physical force against the person or property of another,” § 16(a). We stated:
“In construing both parts of § 16, we cannot forget that we ultimately are determining the meaning of the term ‘crime of violence.’ The ordinary meaning of this term, combined with § 16’s emphasis on the use of physical force against another person (or the risk of having to use such force in committing a crime), suggests a category of violent, active crimes . . . .” 543 U.S., at 11, 125 S. Ct. 377, 160 L. Ed. 2d 271.
Just so here. We think it clear that in the context of a statutory definition of “violent felony,” the phrase “physical force” means violent force— that is, force capable of causing physical pain or injury to another person. See Flores v. Ashcroft, 350 F.3d 666, 672 (CA7 2003) (Easterbrook, J.). Even by itself, the word “violent” in § 924(e)(2)(B) connotes a substantial degree of force. Webster’s Second 2846 (defining “violent” as “[m]oving, acting, or characterized, by physical force, esp. by extreme and sudden or by unjust or improper force; furious; severe; vehement . . . ”); 19 Oxford English Dictionary 656 (2d ed. 1989) (“[c]haracterized by the exertion of great physical force or strength”); Black’s 1706 (“ [o]f, relating to, or characterized by strong physical force”). When the adjective “violent” is attached to the noun “felony,” its connotation of strong physical force is even clearer. See id., at 1188 (defining “violent felony” as “[a] crime characterized by extreme physical force, such as murder, forcible rape, and
[559 U.S. 141]
assault and battery with a dangerous weapon”); see also United States v. Doe, 960 F.2d 221, 225 (CA1 1992) (Breyer, C. J.) (“[T]he term to be defined, ‘violent felony,’ . . . calls to mind a tradition of crimes that involve the possibility of more closely related, active violence”).
It is significant, moreover, that the meaning of “physical force” the Government would seek to import into this definition of “violent felony” is a meaning derived from a common-law misdemeanor. At common law, battery—all battery, and not merely battery by the merest touching—was a misdemeanor, not a felony. See 4 Blackstone 216-218 (1769); see also 1 LaFave & Scott, supra, § 2.1(b), at 90; ALI, Model Penal Code § 211.1, Comment, p. 175 (1980). As the dissent points out, post, at 149-150, 176 L. Ed. 2d, at 15-16 (opinion of Alito, J.), the dividing line between misdemeanors and felonies has shifted over time. But even today a simple battery— whether of the mere-touching or bodily-injury variety—generally is punishable as a misdemeanor. See, e.g., 2 W. LaFave, Substantive Criminal Law § 16.1(b) (2d ed. 2003 and Supp. 2009-2010); Cal. Penal Code Ann. §§ 242 and 243 (West 2008); Fla. Stat. § 784.03(1 (b); Ill. Comp. Stat., ch. 720, § 5/12-3(b) (West 2009); Tex. Penal Code Ann. § 22.01(b) (West Supp. 2009). It is unlikely that Congress would select as a term of art defining “violent felony” a phrase that the common law gave peculiar meaning only in its definition of a misdemeanor. Of course “physical force” can be given its common-law misdemeanor meaning by artful language, but here the only text that can be claimed to accomplish that is the phrase “physical
[559 U.S. 142]
force” itself. Since, as we have seen, that is as readily (indeed, much more readily) taken to describe violent force, there is no reason to define “violent felony” by reference to a nonviolent misdemeanor.
The Government argues that we cannot construe 18 U.S.C. § 924(e)(2)(B)(i) to reach only offenses that have as an element the use of violent force, because there is no modifier in § 924(e)(2)(B)(i) that specifies the degree of “physical force” required. As we have discussed, however, the term “physical force” itself normally connotes force strong enough to constitute “power”—and all the more so when it is contained in a definition of “violent felony.” Nor is there any merit to the dissent’s contention, post, at 148-149, 176 L. Ed. 2d, at 14-15, that the term “force” in § 924(e)(2)(B)(i) cannot be read to require violent force, because Congress specifically named “burglary” and “extortion” as “violent felon [ies]” in § 924(e)(2)(B)(ii) notwithstanding that those offenses can be committed without violence. The point would have force (so to speak) if burglary and extortion were listed in § 924(e)(2)(B)(i), as felonies that have “as an element the use, attempted use, or threatened use of physical force.” In fact, however, they are listed in § 924(e)(2)(B)(ii) as examples of felonies that “presen [t] a serious potential risk of physical injury to another.” The Government has not argued that intentional, unwanted touching qualifies under this latter provision. What the dissent’s argument comes down to, then, is the contention that, since felonies that create a serious risk of physical injury qualify as violent felonies under sub-paragraph (BXii), felonies that involve a mere unwanted touching must involve the use of physical force and qualify as violent felonies under sub-paragraph (B)(i). That obviously does not follow.
[559 U.S. 143]
The Government also asks us to draw a negative inference from the presence of the “bodily injury” specification added to the phrase “physical force” in § 922(g)(8)(C)(ii). That provision forbids the possession of firearms by a person subject to a court order explicitly prohibiting the “use, attempted use, or threatened use of physical force against [an] intimate partner or child that would reasonably be expected to cause bodily injury.” Ibid. The absence of such language in § 924(e)(2)(B)(i), the Government contends, proves that the merest touch suffices. Even as a matter of logic that does not follow. Specifying that “physical force” must rise to the level of bodily injury does not suggest that without the qualification “physical force” would consist of the merest touch. It might consist, for example, of only that degree of force necessary to inflict pain—a slap in the face, for example. Moreover, this is not a case where Congress has “include [d] particular language in one section of a statute but omitfted] it in another section of the same Act,” Russello v. United States, 464 U.S. 16, 23, 104 S. Ct. 296, 78 L. Ed. 2d 17 (1983) (internal quotation marks omitted; emphasis added). Section 922(g)(8)(C)(ii) was enacted into law in 1994—eight years after enactment of the language in § 924(e)(2)(B)(i). Compare Pub. L. 103-322, § 110401, 108 Stat. 2015 (1994), with Pub. L. 99-570, § 1402, 100 Stat. 3207-39 (1986).
IV
The Government contends that interpreting 18 U.S.C. § 924(e)(2)(B)(i) to require violent force will undermine its ability to enforce the firearm disability in § 922(g)(9) for persons who previously have been convicted of a “misdemeanor crime of domestic violence,” which is defined to include certain misdemeanor offenses that have, “as an element, the use or attempted use of physical force . . . ,” § 921(a)(33)(A)(ii). The prediction is unfounded. We have interpreted the phrase “physical force” only in the context of a statutory definition of “violent felony.” We do not decide that the phrase has the same meaning in the context of defining a
[559 U.S. 144]
misdemeanor crime of domestic violence. The issue is not before us, so we do not decide it.
In a similar vein, the Government asserts that our interpretation will make it more difficult to remove, pursuant to 8 U.S.C. § 1227(a)(2)(E), an alien convicted of a “crime of domestic violence.” That phrase is defined to mean “any crime of violence (as defined in [18 U.S.C. § 16])” committed by certain persons, including spouses, former spouses, and parents. § 1227(a)(2)(E)(i). The Government contends it will be harder to obtain removal based upon battery convictions that, like those in Florida, do not require the use of violent physical force. The dissent likewise anticipates that in the States it has identified, post, at 151-152, 176 L. Ed. 2d, at 16-17, and n. 3, as having generic felony-battery statutes that cover both violent force and unwanted physical contact, our decision will render convictions under those statutes “outside the scope of [the Armed Career Criminal Act],” post, at 152, 176 L. Ed. 2d, at 16.
This exaggerates the practical effect of our decision. When the law under which the defendant has been convicted contains statutory phrases that cover several different generic crimes, some of which require violent force and some of which do not, the “ ‘modified categorical approach’ ” that we have approved, Nijhawan v. Holder, 557 U.S. 29, 41, 129 S. Ct. 2294, 174 L. Ed. 2d 22 (2009), permits a court to determine which statutory phrase was the basis for the conviction by consulting the trial record— including charging documents, plea agreements, transcripts of plea colloquies, findings of fact and conclusions of law from a bench trial, and jury instructions and verdict forms. See Chambers v. United States, 555 U.S. 122, 126, 129 S. Ct. 687, 172 L. Ed. 2d 484 (2009); Shepard, 544 U.S., at 26, 125 S. Ct. 1254, 161 L. Ed. 2d 205 (plurality opinion); Taylor v. United States, 495 U.S. 575, 602, 110 S. Ct. 2143, 109 L. Ed. 2d 607 (1990). Indeed, the Government has in the past obtained convictions under the Armed Career Criminal Act in precisely this manner. See, e.g., United States v. Simms, 441 F.3d 313, 316-317 (CA4 2006) (Maryland battery); cf. United States v. Robledo-Leyva, 307 Fed. Appx. 859, 862 (CA5) (Florida battery), cert. denied,
[559 U.S. 145]
558 U.S. 831, 130 S. Ct. 64, 175 L. Ed. 2d 47 (2009); United States v. Luque-Barahona, 272 Fed. Appx. 521, 524-525 (CA7 2008) (same).
It may well be true, as the Government contends, that in many cases state and local records from battery convictions will be incomplete. But absence of records will often frustrate application of the modified categorical approach—not just to battery but to many other crimes as well. See, e.g., Shepard, supra, at 22-23, 125 S. Ct. 1254, 161 L. Ed. 2d 205 (burglary). It is implausible that avoiding that common-enough consequence with respect to the single crime of battery, under the single statute that is the Armed Career Criminal Act, caused Congress to import a term of art that is a comical misfit with the defined term “violent felony.”
The Government asks us to remand to the Eleventh Circuit for its consideration of whether Johnson’s 2003 battery conviction is a “violent felony” within the meaning of the so-called “residual clause” in 18 U.S.C. § 924(e)(2)(B)(ii). We decline to do so. The Government did not keep this option alive because it disclaimed at sentencing any reliance upon the residual clause. App. 44-45. Moreover, the parties briefed the § 924(e)(2)(B)(ii) issue to the Eleventh Circuit, which nonetheless reasoned that if Johnson’s conviction under Fla. Stat. § 784.03(2) satisfied § 924(e)(2)(B)(i), then it was a predicate “violent felony” under § 924(e)(1); but “if not, then not.” 528 F.3d, at 1320.
We reverse the judgment of the Eleventh Circuit, set aside Johnson’s sentence, and remand the case for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
. The dissent notes, post, at 150, 176 L. Ed. 2d, at 15, that, around the time the Armed Career Criminal Act became law, in “quite a few States’’ it was a felony offense to commit an unwanted physical touching of certain victims, such as police officers. That would be relevant for determining whether a conviction under one of those statutes meets the 18 U.S.C. § 924(e)(2)(B) requirement of being a “felony” conviction. But it has no bearing upon whether the substantive element of those offenses—making unwanted physical contact with certain special categories of individuals— involves the use of “force” within the meaning of § 924(e)(2)(B)(i), a statute applicable to all victims.
. Even farther afield is the dissent’s argument, post, at 147, 176 L. Ed. 2d, at 13-14, that since § 924(e)(2)(B)(ii) requires conduct that “presents a serious potential risk of physical injury to another,’’ § 924(e)(2)(B)(i) must not. That is rather like saying a provision which includes (i) apples and (ii) overripe oranges must exclude overripe apples. It does not follow.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
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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