Also known as: plenary controls · plenary authority · plenary power
Written by attorneys — see sources below.
Full and complete governmental authority over a designated subject matter that permits actions subject only to rational-basis review rather than strict scrutiny when the classification is not arbitrary or unreasonable.
Pierre Poulin, a lawful permanent resident for four years, applied for federal Medicare benefits but was denied under a statute requiring five years of residence. The denial was upheld because Congress exercised plenary control over immigration and alien classifications, rendering the rule subject only to rational-basis review. The classification advanced legitimate fiscal and integration goals and was neither arbitrary nor unreasonable.
Patrick Phan, a shareholder in a derivative suit, sought immediate appeal from a district court order requiring a bond under state law. The court held that the order was not immediately appealable because the federal rules governing appellate jurisdiction reflect plenary control over the structure of federal appeals. Phan was required to await final judgment before challenging the bond requirement.
In 1943 a stockholder owning 100 shares of Beneficial Industrial Loan Corporation, a Delaware corporation doing business in New Jersey, filed a derivative action in the United States District Court for the District of New Jersey against the corporation and its managers and directors. The complaint alleged that since 1929 the individual defendants had engaged in a continuing conspiracy to enrich themselves at the corporation’s expense, wasting or diverting assets exceeding $100,000,000. The plaintiff had demanded that the corporation institute proceedings for recovery, but the individual defendants’ control prevented it from doing so. The plaintiff was one of 16,000 stockholders and held only 100 of the corporation’s more than two million outstanding shares; together with 150 shares held by an intervenor, the combined interest approximated 0.0125 percent of the stock and had a market value that had never exceeded $9,000. The action remained pending when, in 1945, New Jersey enacted a statute requiring a plaintiff with so small an interest to post security for the reasonable expenses, including attorney’s fees, of the defense if unsuccessful and making the plaintiff liable for those expenses. The corporate defendant moved to require a bond of $125,000, pointing to its bylaws that might obligate it to indemnify the individual defendants. The District Court held the state statute inapplicable to the federal action. The Court of Appeals reversed. The Supreme Court granted certiorari.
View casePatriot Insurance, a California company, challenged a state Holocaust-era insurance disclosure law as preempted by federal executive agreements. The court upheld the preemption because the federal government possesses plenary control over foreign affairs, allowing national policy to displace conflicting state measures even without an express statute. Patriot Insurance could not enforce the state disclosure requirements against insurers.
In 1999, the California legislature enacted the Holocaust Victim Insurance Relief Act (HVIRA). It requires any insurer doing business in the state to disclose details of all life, property, liability, health, annuities, dowry, educational, or casualty insurance policies sold in Europe between 1920 and 1945 by the insurer itself or any related company. This includes any parent, subsidiary, reinsurer, successor in interest, managing general agent, or affiliate. The required disclosures include the current status of each policy, the city of origin or domicile of each policyholder, and the names of the beneficiaries. All information is placed in a central public registry. Noncompliance triggers mandatory suspension of the company's license to do business in California. There are also misdemeanor sanctions for falsehood in required representations about whether and to whom the proceeds of each policy have been distributed. The Act arose against the backdrop of Nazi-era confiscations of Jewish insurance policies and decades of post-war diplomacy. After World War II, the United States participated in the Potsdam and Yalta Conferences and the 1946 Paris Agreement on reparations. The western Allies decided in the London Debt Agreement to put off consideration of claims arising out of the second World War until the final settlement of the problem of reparation. Following German reunification, class-action lawsuits flooded U.S. courts against companies that did business in Germany during the Nazi era. This prompted the federal government to negotiate a resolution. In July 2000, the United States and Germany signed the German Foundation Agreement. Germany established a foundation funded with 10 billion deutsch marks contributed equally by the government and German companies to compensate victims of the National Socialist era. The United States agreed to file statements in U.S. courts that the foundation should be the exclusive remedy for claims against German companies. It also agreed to use its best efforts to encourage state and local governments to respect the foundation as the exclusive mechanism. Parallel agreements were reached with Austria and France. The pacts endorsed the International Commission on Holocaust Era Insurance Claims (ICHEIC) for voluntary handling of insurance claims. This included relaxed standards of proof and procedures for policy information. After HVIRA took effect, administrative subpoenas were issued against subsidiaries of European insurers participating in the ICHEIC. Deputy Secretary of the Treasury Stuart Eizenstat wrote letters to California officials. He stated that the statute damaged the cooperative spirit required for the ICHEIC. He noted that it threatened to derail the German Foundation Agreement by denying companies the legal peace they sought. Several American and European insurance companies and the American Insurance Association then sued California Insurance Commissioner John Garamendi in federal district court. The district court issued a preliminary injunction and later granted summary judgment on due process grounds. The Ninth Circuit rejected the foreign affairs challenge. The Supreme Court granted certiorari in 2003.
View casePablo Perez sued the State of Maine in state court for overtime wages under federal law. The state asserted immunity, and the court dismissed the action because Congress lacks authority to abrogate state sovereign immunity through Article I legislation. Maine retained plenary control over its own courts and could not be compelled to entertain the federal claim.
In 1992, petitioners, a group of probation officers, filed suit against their employer, the State of Maine, in the United States District Court for the District of Maine. The officers alleged the State had violated the overtime provisions of the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 and sought compensation and liquidated damages. While the suit was pending, the Supreme Court decided Seminole Tribe of Florida v. Florida in 1996. Upon consideration of that decision, the District Court dismissed petitioners' action, and the Court of Appeals affirmed. Petitioners then filed the same action in state court. The state trial court dismissed the suit on the basis of sovereign immunity, and the Maine Supreme Judicial Court affirmed in 1998. The Maine Supreme Judicial Court's decision conflicted with the decision of the Supreme Court of Arkansas in Jacoby v. Arkansas Department of Education. In light of the importance of the question presented and the conflict between the courts, the Supreme Court granted certiorari in 1998. The United States intervened as a petitioner to defend the statute. Petitioners are a group of probation officers who alleged violations of federal overtime requirements by their state employer. The procedural path moved from federal district court through dismissal after Seminole Tribe, to refiling in Maine state court, dismissal there, affirmance by the Maine Supreme Judicial Court, and finally review by the United States Supreme Court.
View casePatricia Patel filed a federal bankruptcy claim asserting tortious interference with an expected inheritance. The probate court had already validated the will and trust. The federal court dismissed the claim because state probate courts exercise plenary control over the administration of estates, and federal jurisdiction cannot interfere with that core state function.
Vickie Lynn Marshall, also known as Anna Nicole Smith, met J. Howard Marshall II in October 1991 and married him on June 27, 1994. J. Howard died on August 4, 1995. Although he had given Vickie substantial gifts and money during their relationship, his will made no provision for her. Vickie maintained that J. Howard had intended to secure her future through a catchall trust. Respondent E. Pierce Marshall, one of J. Howard’s sons, stood as the sole ultimate beneficiary under his father’s estate plan, which consisted of a living trust and a pourover will directing all remaining assets into the trust. In January 1996, while J. Howard’s estate remained subject to probate proceedings in Harris County, Texas, Vickie filed a Chapter 11 bankruptcy petition in the United States Bankruptcy Court for the Central District of California. In June 1996 Pierce filed a proof of claim in that bankruptcy case asserting that Vickie had defamed him through statements made to the press shortly after J. Howard’s death. Vickie answered and asserted a counterclaim alleging that Pierce had tortiously interfered with her expected gift by imprisoning J. Howard against his wishes, surrounding him with hired guards, making misrepresentations to him, and transferring property contrary to his expressed intentions. The Bankruptcy Court granted summary judgment to Vickie on Pierce’s defamation claim. After a trial on the merits it entered judgment for Vickie on her tortious interference counterclaim and awarded her more than $449 million in compensatory damages, less any amount recovered in the Texas probate action, plus $25 million in punitive damages. Pierce then moved to dismiss for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction, arguing that the claim belonged exclusively in the Texas probate proceedings. In the Texas Probate Court, Pierce sought a declaration that the living trust and will were valid. Vickie initially challenged the instruments and asserted her own tortious interference claim there but voluntarily dismissed both claims after the Bankruptcy Court’s judgment. Following a jury trial the Probate Court declared the trust and will valid. On review of the Bankruptcy Court’s judgment the District Court rejected the probate-exception argument. The court adopted the Bankruptcy Court’s findings with supplements. It awarded Vickie approximately $44.3 million in compensatory damages together with an equal amount in punitive damages. The Ninth Circuit reversed. It held that the probate exception barred federal jurisdiction because the claim raised questions ordinarily decided by a probate court and because the Texas Probate Court had asserted exclusive jurisdiction over all of Vickie’s claims. The Supreme Court granted certiorari in 2005.
View casePeter Park, a removable alien, challenged his indefinite detention after the statutory removal period expired. The court construed the statute to impose a presumptive six-month limit because Congress's plenary control over immigration does not extend to indefinite detention without a significant likelihood of removal. Park was released pending further proceedings.
When an alien has been found to be unlawfully present in the United States and a final order of removal has been entered, the Government ordinarily secures the alien's removal during a subsequent 90-day statutory removal period, during which time the alien normally is held in custody. After entry of a final removal order and during the 90-day removal period, aliens must be held in custody. Subsequently the Government may continue to detain an alien who still remains here or release that alien under supervision. INS regulations provide for an initial District Director review followed by panel review after three months that considers the alien's disciplinary record, criminal record, mental health reports, evidence of rehabilitation, history of flight, prior immigration history, and family ties. The first case concerns Kestutis Zadvydas, a resident alien who was born, apparently of Lithuanian parents, in a displaced persons camp in Germany in 1948. When he was eight years old, Zadvydas immigrated to the United States with his parents and other family members, and he has lived here ever since. Zadvydas has a long criminal record involving drug crimes, attempted robbery, attempted burglary, and theft. Most recently he was convicted of possessing with intent to distribute cocaine, sentenced to sixteen years' imprisonment, released on parole after two years, taken into INS custody, and in 1994 ordered deported to Germany. Germany told the INS that it would not accept Zadvydas because he was not a German citizen. Lithuania refused because he was neither a Lithuanian citizen nor a permanent resident. The Dominican Republic also declined. Lithuania later rejected Zadvydas' effort to obtain citizenship based on his parents' citizenship. The second case is that of Kim Ho Ma, who was born in Cambodia in 1977. When he was two, his family fled, taking him to refugee camps in Thailand and the Philippines and eventually to the United States, where he has lived as a resident alien since the age of seven. In 1995 at age seventeen Ma was involved in a gang-related shooting, convicted of manslaughter, and sentenced to thirty-eight months' imprisonment. He served two years, after which he was released into INS custody. In light of his conviction of an aggravated felony, Ma was ordered removed. Although the 90-day removal period expired in early 1999, the INS continued to keep Ma in custody because it was unable to conclude that he would remain nonviolent and not violate the conditions of release given his former gang membership, the nature of his crime, and his planned participation in a prison hunger strike. A panel of five judges in the Western District of Washington considering Ma's and about one hundred similar cases together issued a joint order, held an evidentiary hearing, decided there was no realistic chance that Cambodia would accept Ma, and ordered him released. Zadvydas filed a petition for a writ of habeas corpus under 28 U.S.C. § 2241 in September 1995. In October 1997 a Federal District Court granted the writ and ordered him released under supervision, but the Fifth Circuit reversed in 1999. Ma filed a petition for a writ of habeas corpus under 28 U.S.C. § 2241 in 1999, after which the Ninth Circuit affirmed his release in 2000. Zadvydas asked the Supreme Court to review the Fifth Circuit decision authorizing his continued detention. The Government asked the Court to review the Ninth Circuit decision forbidding Ma's continued detention. The Court granted writs in both cases, consolidated them for argument on February 21, 2001, and decided them together.
View caseFederal alienage classifications receive only rational-basis review and are upheld if not arbitrary or unreasonable. This deferential standard follows directly from Congress's plenary power in the immigration field.
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Yes. A five-year residency requirement for Medicare benefits has been upheld because it is rationally related to legitimate fiscal and integration objectives and is neither arbitrary nor unreasonable.
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Such statutes are permissible under rational-basis review. Congress may grant immigration preferences to marital children over nonmarital children without violating equal protection or due process.
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No. Although states have broad authority over intestacy, an absolute ban on paternal inheritance by nonmarital children fails intermediate scrutiny under the Equal Protection Clause.
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…as the Nation has developed. See id. , at 552–559. We have not, however, declared that the Constitution grants Congress a plenary power to regulate the conduct of individuals. In Lopez , we held that the Gun-Free School Zones Act of 1990, which made it a federal crime to possess a firearm in a school zone, exceeded…