Also known as: nonconstitutional court · non-constitutional courts · non-constitutional court · legislative courts · article i courts
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An Article I tribunal created by Congress to exercise administrative and adjudicative functions in aid of its legislative powers. Such tribunals may resolve disputes closely tied to federal regulatory schemes even though their judges lack life tenure and salary protection. They may not, however, receive wholesale assignment of traditional private-rights disputes historically resolved by Article III courts.
Heartland Rural Health sued Meditech Devices in the Health Finance Board for overcharges under a state-law supply contract. The Board entered a final money judgment against Meditech. The district court sustained Meditech's objection because the claim was a classic private contract dispute traditionally heard in Article III courts.
The Federal Insurance Claims Tribunal approved policy forms and decided coverage disputes arising under a national crop-insurance program. Its judges served fixed ten-year terms. Adastra Insurance challenged the structure after losing a coverage dispute, but the court rejected the challenge because the tribunal performed integrated administrative and adjudicative work within a federal program.
After filing Chapter 11, Grove Logic sued an advertising network in bankruptcy court for unpaid licensing fees under state contract law. The trustee urged entry of final judgment. The district court stayed the proceeding because the claim was a prepetition private-rights dispute that could not be assigned wholesale to a non-Article III body.
The Chase & Sanborn Corporation filed a petition for reorganization under Chapter 11 of the Bankruptcy Code in 1983. A plan approved by the United States Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of Florida then vested in respondent Nordberg, the trustee in bankruptcy, causes of action for fraudulent conveyances. In 1985 respondent filed suit against petitioners Granfinanciera, S. A., and Medex, Ltda., in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida, alleging that petitioners had received $1.7 million from Chase & Sanborn's corporate predecessor within one year of the bankruptcy petition without receiving consideration or reasonably equivalent value. The complaint sought to avoid the transfers and recover damages under 11 U. S. C. §§ 548(a)(1) and (a)(2), 550(a)(1) (1982 ed. and Supp. V). The District Court referred the proceedings to the Bankruptcy Court. Over five months later respondent served a summons on petitioners in Bogota, Colombia shortly before the Colombian Government nationalized Granfinanciera. In their answer both petitioners requested a trial by jury on all issues so triable. The Bankruptcy Judge denied petitioners' request for a jury trial, deeming a suit to recover a fraudulent transfer a core action that originally, under the English common law, as I understand it, was a non-jury issue. Following a bench trial, the court dismissed with prejudice respondent's actual fraud claim but entered judgment for respondent on the constructive fraud claim in the amount of $1,500,000 against Granfinanciera and $180,000 against Medex. The District Court affirmed without discussing petitioners' claim that they were entitled to a jury trial. The Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit also affirmed, 835 F. 2d 1341 (1988), ruling that petitioners lacked a statutory right to a jury trial because the constructive fraud provision contains no mention of such a right and 28 U. S. C. § 1411 affords jury trials only in personal injury or wrongful death suits, and that the Seventh Amendment supplied no right because fraudulent conveyance actions are equitable in nature and bankruptcy proceedings are inherently equitable. The Supreme Court granted certiorari to decide whether petitioners were entitled to a jury trial, 486 U. S. 1054 (1988), and now reverses.
Marc filed an injury claim with the Federal Reserve Board after participating in a drug trial. The Board conducted a hearing and ordered Pinnacle Bio to pay damages. Pinnacle Bio moved to vacate the award in district court, arguing the Board's fixed-term members could not enter a final judgment on the private claim.
Knudsen filed a claim for compensation against Benson under the Longshoremen's and Harbor Workers' Compensation Act with Deputy Commissioner Crowell of the United States Employees' Compensation Commission. The evidence introduced before the deputy commissioner was directed largely to the employment issue and was conflicting. After considering the evidence the deputy commissioner found that Knudsen was in Benson's employ at the time of the injury and filed an order for compensation. Benson then brought suit in the United States District Court to enjoin enforcement of the award. Benson alleged that Knudsen was not his employee at the time of the injury and that the claim lay outside the deputy commissioner's jurisdiction. An amended complaint further challenged the constitutionality of the Act on multiple grounds. Those grounds included alleged violations of the due process clause of the Fifth Amendment, the Seventh Amendment right to jury trial, the Fourth Amendment prohibition on unreasonable searches and seizures, and the judicial power provisions of Article III. The District Judge denied motions to dismiss and granted a hearing de novo upon the facts and the law. The case was transferred to the admiralty docket, answers were filed presenting the issue as to the fact of employment, and the evidence of both parties having been heard, the District Court decided that Knudsen was not in the employ of the petitioner and restrained the enforcement of the award. The decree was affirmed by the Circuit Court of Appeals, and this Court granted writs of certiorari.
The independent counsel investigated Olson and issued a report recommending prosecution. Olson moved to quash the subpoena, claiming the counsel's appointment by a court of Article I judges violated separation of powers. The Supreme Court upheld the structure because the counsel exercised limited executive functions within a statutory scheme.
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View casePinnacle Bio sought Board approval of a new drug and simultaneously litigated a related injury claim. The Board approved the drug and ordered compensation after a combined hearing. Pinnacle Bio challenged the award in district court, but the court upheld the tribunal because the adjudication was incidental to a comprehensive federal regulatory program.
Following the 1978 amendments to the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act, the Environmental Protection Agency gained authority to consider data submitted by one registrant to support the registration of pesticides by follow-on applicants, provided the applicant offers compensation to the original data submitter. If the parties fail to agree on the amount of compensation, either may initiate binding arbitration, and the arbitrator's findings are final except for review based on fraud, misrepresentation, or other misconduct. Appellees are thirteen large firms that had submitted research data to the EPA for pesticide registrations. After the 1978 amendments took effect, the firms filed suit in the Southern District of New York challenging the data-consideration and compensation provisions on constitutional grounds, later amending the complaint to include an Article III claim regarding the arbitration mechanism. The district court granted appellees' motion for summary judgment on their Article III claims. The District Court, rather than striking down the statutory limitation on judicial review, enjoined the entire FIFRA data use and compensation scheme. The Supreme Court vacated that judgment and remanded the case for reconsideration in light of its decision in Ruckelshaus v. Monsanto Co. On remand in this case, appellees amended their complaint to reflect that EPA had, in fact, considered their data in support of other registration applications. The amended complaint also alleged that data submitted by appellee Stauffer Chemical Company had been used in connection with registrations by PPG Industries, Inc., and Drexel Chemical Company. Stauffer had invoked the arbitration provisions of § 3(c)(1)(D)(ii) against PPG, and appellees entered in evidence the award of the arbitration panel, handed down on June 28, 1983. The district court reinstated its prior judgment enjoining the operation of the data-consideration provisions as violative of Article III. The Supreme Court noted probable jurisdiction on EPA's direct appeal.
Congress may create such tribunals when the adjudication is closely tied to a federal regulatory or benefits scheme and functions as part of implementing Congress's legislative powers. The tribunal may combine rulemaking and dispute resolution even though its judges lack life tenure and salary protection. The key limit is that traditional private-rights disputes between private parties may not be assigned wholesale to these bodies for final decision.
…§ 2053(a), which engage substantially in what has been called the "quasi-legislative activity" of rulemaking, and for members of Article I courts, such as the Court of Military Appeals, see 10 U. S. C. § 867(a)(2), who engage in the "quasi-judicial" function of adjudication. It has often been observed, correctly in my view, that the…
…which the judicial power extends that may not be subjected to the conclusive determination of administrative bodies or federal legislative courts, it is not because of any prohibition against the diminution of the jurisdiction of the federal district courts
…judges unprotected by Art. III. First, it is urged that "pursuant to its enumerated Article
…Corp. , 279 U. S., at 451. See also Williams v. United States , 289 U. S. 553, 581 (1933) (noting sovereign immunity origins of legislative courts); Ex parte Bakelite , supra , at 453-454 (same). Cf. McElrath v. United States , 102 U. S. 426, 440 (1880). In Thomas v. Union Carbide Agricultural Products Co. , 473 U. S. 568 (1985),…
…judiciary and entrust the finding of case-dispositive facts to a non-Art. III tribunal. The rationale of our decisions involving legislative courts has been far more limited, focusing on Congress' plenary power over specialized areas of geography or subject matter and on the manifest need for a more flexible tribunal to perform…
No. Article III requires life tenure and salary protection only for judges exercising the judicial power of the United States in Article III courts. Congress may establish legislative tribunals whose judges serve fixed terms when those tribunals perform administrative and adjudicative functions within a federal program. The absence of tenure protections does not invalidate the tribunal if its work remains incidental to Congress's enumerated powers.
Permissible tribunals decide disputes that arise directly from a federal regulatory scheme or involve public rights created by Congress. Impermissible assignments occur when Congress routes traditional common-law contract or tort actions between private parties to a non-Article III body for final adjudication without meaningful Article III review. The distinction turns on whether the claim is integral to a legislative program or is instead a freestanding private-rights dispute historically resolved in Article III courts.