GEORGE R. JARKESY, JR.; PATRIOT28, L.L.C., Petitioners, versus SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION, Respondent.
No. 20-61007
United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit
May 18, 2022
Petition for Review of an Order of the United States Securities and Exchange Commission No. 3-15255
Before DAVIS, ELROD, and OLDHAM, Circuit Judges.
Congress has given the Securities and Exchange Commission substantial power to enforce the nation‘s securities laws. It often acts as both prosecutor and judge, and its decisions have broad consequences for personal liberty and property. But the Constitution constrains the SEC‘s powers by protecting individual rights and the prerogatives of the other branches of government. This case is about the nature and extent of those constraints in securities fraud cases in which the SEC seeks penalties.
The SEC brought an enforcement action within the agency against Petitioners for securities fraud. An SEC administrative law judge adjudged Petitioners liable and ordered various remedies, and the SEC affirmed on appeal over several constitutional arguments that Petitioners raised. Petitioners raise those same arguments before this court. We hold that: (1) the SEC‘s in-house adjudication of Petitioners’ case violated their
I.
Petitioner Jarkesy established two hedge funds and selected Petitioner Patriot28 as the investment adviser. The funds brought in over 100 investors and held about $24 million in assets. In 2011, the SEC launched an investigation into Petitioners’ investing activities, and a couple of years later the SEC chose to bring an action within the agency, alleging that Petitioners (along with some former co-parties) committed fraud under the Securities Act, the Securities Exchange Act, and the Advisers Act. Specifically, the agency charged that Petitioners: (1) misrepresented who served as the prime broker and as the auditor; (2) misrepresented the funds’ investment parameters and safeguards; and (3) overvalued the funds’ assets to increase the fees that they could charge investors.
Petitioners sued in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia to enjoin the agency proceedings, arguing that the proceedings infringed on various constitutional rights. But the district court, and later the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, refused to issue an injunction, deciding that the district court had no jurisdiction and that Petitioners had to continue with the agency proceedings and petition the court of appeals to review any adverse final order. See Jarkesy v. SEC, 48 F. Supp. 3d 32, 40 (D.D.C. 2014), aff‘d, 803 F.3d 9, 12 (D.C. Cir. 2015).
Petitioners’ proceedings moved forward. The ALJ held an evidentiary hearing and concluded that Petitioners committed securities fraud. Petitioners then sought review by the Commission. While their petition for Commission review was pending, the Supreme Court held that SEC ALJs had not been properly appointed under the Constitution. Lucia v. SEC, 138 S. Ct. 2044, 2054-55 (2018). In accordance with that decision, the SEC assigned Petitioners’ proceeding to an ALJ who was properly appointed. But Petitioners chose to waive their right to a new hearing and continued under their original petition to the Commission.
The Commission affirmed that Petitioners committed various forms of securities fraud. It ordered Petitioners to cease and desist from committing further violations and to pay a civil penalty of $300,000, and it ordered Patriot28 to disgorge nearly $685,000 in ill-gotten gains. The Commission also barred Jarkesy from various securities industry activities: associating with brokers, dealers, and advisers; offering penny stocks; and serving as an officer or director of an advisory board or as an investment adviser.
Critical to this case, the Commission rejected several constitutional arguments Petitioners raised. It determined that: (1) the ALJ was not biased against Petitioners; (2) the Commission did not inappropriately prejudge the case; (3) the Commission did not use unconstitutionally delegated legislative power—or violate Petitioners’ equal protection rights—when it decided to pursue the case within the agency instead of in an Article III court; (4) the removal restrictions on SEC ALJs did not violate
II.
Petitioners raise several constitutional challenges to the SEC enforcement proceedings.1
A.
Petitioners challenge the agency‘s rejection of their constitutional arguments. We review such issues de novo. See Emp. Sols. Staffing Grp. II, L.L.C. v. Off. of Chief Admin. Hearing Officer, 833 F.3d 480, 484 (5th Cir. 2016); Trinity Marine Prods., Inc. v. Chao, 512 F.3d 198, 201 (5th Cir. 2007).
B.
Petitioners argue that they were deprived of their
1.
Thomas Jefferson identified the jury “as the only anchor, ever yet imagined by man, by which a government can be held to the principles of its constitution.” Letter from Thomas Jefferson to Thomas Paine (July 11, 1789), in The Papers of Thomas Jefferson 267 (Julian P. Boyd ed., 1958). And John Adams called trial by jury (along with popular elections) “the heart and lungs of liberty.” The Revolutionary Writings of John Adams 55 (C. Bradley Thompson ed., 2000); see also Jennifer W. Elrod, Is the Jury Still Out?: A Case for the Continued Viability of the American Jury, 44 Tex. Tech L. Rev. 303, 303-04 (2012) (explaining that the jury is “as central to the American conception of the consent of the governed as an elected legislature or the independent judiciary“).2
Civil juries in particular have long served as a critical check on government power. So precious were civil juries at the
Trial by jury therefore is a “fundamental” component of our legal system “and remains one of our most vital barriers to governmental arbitrariness.” Reid v. Covert, 354 U.S. 1, 9-10 (1957). “Indeed, ‘[t]he right to trial by jury was probably the only one universally secured by the first American state constitutions . . . .‘” Parklane Hosiery Co., Inc. v. Shore, 439 U.S. 322, 341 (1979) (Rehnquist, J., dissenting) (quoting Leonard Levy, Legacy of Suppression: Freedom of Speech and Press in Early American History 281 (1960)). Because “[m]aintenance of the jury as a fact-finding body is of such importance and occupies so firm a place in our history and jurisprudence[,] ... any seeming curtailment of the right to a jury trial should be scrutinized with the utmost care.” Dimick v. Schiedt, 293 U.S. 474, 486 (1935).
The
That is not to say, however, that Congress may never assign adjudications to agency processes that exclude a jury. See Atlas Roofing Co. v. Occupational Safety & Health Rev. Comm‘n, 430 U.S. 442, 455 (1977). “[W]hen Congress properly assigns a matter to adjudication in a non-Article III tribunal, the
Whether Congress may properly assign an action to administrative adjudication depends on whether the proceedings center on “public rights.” Atlas Roofing, 430 U.S. at 450. “[I]n cases in which ‘public rights’ are being litigated[,] e.g., cases in which the Government sues in its sovereign capacity to enforce public rights created by statutes within the power of Congress to enact[,] the
The Supreme Court refined the public-right concept as it relates to the
The analysis thus moves in two stages. First, a court must determine whether an action‘s claims arise “at common law” under the
2.
The rights that the SEC sought to vindicate in its enforcement action here arise “at common law” under the
Applying that principle, the Court in Tull held that the right to a jury trial applied to an action brought by an agency seeking civil penalties for violations of the Clean Water Act. Id. at 425. Likewise here, the actions the SEC brought seeking civil penalties under securities statutes are akin to those same traditional actions in debt. Under the
That conclusion harmonizes with the holdings of other courts applying Tull. The Seventh Circuit followed the Supreme Court‘s lead in that case and has specifically said that when the SEC brings an enforcement action to obtain civil penalties under a statute, the subject of the action has the right to a jury trial. SEC v. Lipson, 278 F.3d 656, 662 (7th Cir. 2002) (“Because the SEC was seeking both legal and equitable relief (the former under the Insider Trading Sanctions Act,
Other elements of the action brought by the SEC against Petitioners are more equitable in nature, but that fact does not invalidate the jury-trial right that attaches because of the civil penalties sought. The Supreme Court has held that the
3.
Next, the action the SEC brought against Petitioners is not the sort that may be properly assigned to agency adjudication under the public-rights doctrine. Securities fraud actions are not new actions unknown to the common law. Jury trials in securities fraud suits would not “dismantle the statutory scheme” addressing securities fraud or “impede swift resolution” of the SEC‘s fraud prosecutions. And such suits are not uniquely suited for agency adjudication.
Common-law courts have heard fraud actions for centuries, even actions brought by the government for fines. See Blackstone, supra at *42; see also Tull, 481 U.S. at 422 (“A civil penalty was a type of remedy at common law that could only be enforced in courts of law.“). Naturally, then, the securities statutes at play in this case created causes of action that reflect common-law fraud actions. The traditional elements of common-law fraud are (1) a knowing or reckless material misrepresentation, (2) that the tortfeasor intended to act on, and (3) that harmed the plaintiff. In re Deepwater Horizon, 857 F.3d 246, 249 (5th Cir. 2017). The statutes under which the SEC brought securities fraud actions use terms like “fraud” and “untrue statement[s] of material fact” to describe the prohibited conduct. See
Accordingly, the Supreme Court has often looked to common-law principles to interpret fraud and misrepresentation under securities statutes. See, e.g., Omnicare, Inc. v. Laborers Dist. Council Indus. Pension Fund, 575 U.S. 175, 191 (2015) (considering the Restatement (Second) of Torts to determine whether material omissions are actionable under a securities statute); Dura Pharms., Inc. v. Broudo, 544 U.S. 336, 343-44 (2005) (relying on “the common-law roots of the securities fraud action” in “common-law deceit and misrepresentation actions” to interpret the statutory securities-fraud action); SEC v. Cap. Gains Rsch. Bureau, 375 U.S. 180, 192-95 (1963) (considering the principles of common-law fraud to determine the requirements of fraud under the Advisers Act). Thus, fraud actions under the securities statutes echo actions that historically have been available under the common law.
Next, jury trials would not “go far to dismantle the statutory scheme” or “impede swift resolution” of the statutory claims. See Granfinanciera, 492 U.S. at 60-63. For one, the statutory scheme itself allows the SEC to bring enforcement actions either in-house or in Article III courts, where the jury-trial right would apply. See Dodd-Frank Act § 929P(a),
Relatedly, securities-fraud enforcement actions are not the sort that are uniquely suited for agency adjudication. Again, Congress has not limited the SEC‘s ability to bring enforcement actions in Article III courts. Consider the statutory scheme in Atlas Roofing for contrast. The statutes in that case were new and somewhat unusual. They provided elaborate enforcement mechanisms for the sorts of claims that likely could not have been brought in legal actions before that point. See Atlas Roofing, 430 U.S. at 445 (describing how the statutes required factfinders to undertake detailed assessments of workplace safety conditions and to make unsafe-conditions findings even if no injury had occurred). But the federal courts have dealt with actions under the securities statutes for many decades, and there is no reason to believe that such courts are suddenly incapable of continuing that work just because an agency may now share some of the workload. In fact, for the first decades of the SEC‘s existence, securities-fraud actions against nonregistered parties could be brought only in Article III courts. Thomas Glassman, Ice Skating Uphill: Constitutional Challenges to SEC Administrative Proceedings, 16 J. Bus. & Sec. L. 47, 50-52 (2015).7
The SEC counters that the securities statutes are designed to protect the public at large, and that some circuits have identified SEC enforcement actions as vindicating rights on behalf of the public. Indeed, the SEC says, the statutes allow for enforcement proceedings based on theories broader than actions like fraud that existed at common law.
Those facts do not convert the SEC‘s action into one focused on public rights. Surely Congress believes that the securities statutes it passes serve the public interest and the U.S. economy overall, not just individual parties. Yet Congress cannot
That being so, Petitioners had the right for a jury to adjudicate the facts underlying any potential fraud liability that justifies penalties. And because those facts would potentially support not only the civil penalties sought by the SEC, but the injunctive remedies as well, Petitioners had a
4.
The dissenting opinion cannot define a “public right” without using the term itself in the definition. That leads to a good bit of question-begging. It says at times that the “SEC‘s enforcement action” is itself “a ‘public right’ because it is a case ‘in which the Government sues in its sovereign capacity to enforce public rights.‘” Post at 37. So the action is a public right because (1) the SEC is the government, and (2) it is vindicating a public right. And what is that public right being vindicated? The dissenting opinion does not say. In reality, the dissenting opinion‘s rule is satisfied by the first step alone: The action is itself a “public right” because the SEC is the government. And the not-so-far-removed consequences that flow from that conclusion: When the federal government sues, no jury is required. This is perhaps a runner-up in the competition for the “Nine Most Terrifying Words in the English Language.”8 But fear not, the dissenting opinion‘s proposal runs headlong into Granfinanciera: “Congress cannot eliminate a party‘s
In this light, this approach treats the government‘s involvement as a sufficient condition for converting “private rights” into public ones. But from 1856 to 1989, the government‘s involvement in a suit was only a necessary condition, not a sufficient condition, for determining whether a suit vindicated public rights. See Granfinanciera, 492 U.S. at 65-66, 68-69 (Scalia, J., concurring in part) (referring to Murray‘s Lessee v. Hoboken Land & Improvement Co., 18 U.S. (How.) 272, 283 (1856), and N. Pipeline Constr. Co. v. Marathon Pipeline Co., 458 U.S. 50, 68-69 (1982) (plurality op.)); cf. N. Pipeline Constr. Co., 458 U.S. at 69 n.23 (“It is thus clear that the presence of the United States as a proper party to the proceeding is a necessary but not sufficient means of distinguishing ‘private rights’ from ‘public rights.‘“). Then Granfinanciera said that a dispute between two private parties could still vindicate “public rights,” such that the government was no longer a necessary condition for such suits. See 492 U.S. at 53-55. The dissenting opinion thus says that, after Granfinanciera, the government is no longer a necessary condition, but it is now a sufficient condition. That is at odds with Granfinanciera and does not follow from any of the Court‘s previous decisions, which stressed that the government‘s involvement alone does not convert a suit about private rights into one about public rights.
The question is not just whether the government is a party, but also whether the right being vindicated is public or private, and how it is being vindicated. Tracing the roots of, and justification for, the public-rights doctrine, the Supreme Court has explained “that certain prerogatives were [historically] reserved to the political Branches of Government.” N. Pipeline Constr. Co., 458 U.S. at 67. Specifically, “[t]he public-rights doctrine is grounded in a historically recognized distinction between matters that could be conclusively determined by the Executive and Legislative Branches and matters that are ‘inherently . . . judicial.‘” Id. at 68 (quoting Ex parte Bakelite Corp., 279 U.S. 438, 458 (1929)).
The inquiry is thus inherently historical. The dissenting opinion tries to avoid the history by again emphasizing that Granfinanciera dealt with private parties, not the government. But again, if the right being vindicated is a private one, it is not enough that the government is doing the suing. That means we must consider whether the form of the action—whether brought by the government or by a private entity—is historically judicial, or if it reflects the sorts of issues which courts of law did not traditionally decide.
As discussed in Part II.B.2, history demonstrates that fraud claims like these are “traditional legal claims” that arose at common law. Even aside from post-Atlas Roofing refinements of the “public rights” doctrine, this fact, among others, distinguishes that case. In Atlas Roofing, OSHA empowered the government to pursue civil penalties and abatement orders whether or not any employees were “actually injured or killed as a result of the [unsafe working] condition.” 430 U.S. at 445; see also id. at 461 (“[Congress] created a new cause of action, and remedies therefor, unknown to the common law ....“). The government‘s right to relief was exclusively a creature of statute and was therefore distinctly public in nature.
In contrast, fraud claims, including the securities-fraud claims here, are quintessentially about the redress of private harms. Indeed, the government alleges that Petitioners defrauded particular investors. Cf.
That being so, Granfinanciera‘s considerations about whether Congress created a new action unfamiliar to the common law, and whether jury trial rights are incompatible with the statutory scheme, are appropriate
C.
Petitioners next argue that Congress unconstitutionally delegated legislative power to the SEC when it gave the SEC the unfettered authority to choose whether to bring enforcement actions in Article III courts or within the agency. Because Congress gave the SEC a significant legislative power by failing to provide it with an intelligible principle to guide its use of the delegated power, we agree with Petitioners.9
“We the People” are the fountainhead of all government power. Through the Constitution, the People delegated some of that power to the federal government so that it would protect rights and promote the common good. See The Federalist No. 10 (James Madison) (explaining that one of the defining features of a republic is “the delegation of the government .. to a small number of citizens elected by the rest“). But, in keeping with the Founding principles that (1) men are not angels, and (2) “[a]mbition must be made to counteract ambition,” see The Federalist No. 51 (James Madison), the People did not vest all governmental power in one person or entity. It separated the power among the legislative, executive, and judicial branches. See The Federalist No. 47 (James Madison) (“The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands, whether of one, a few, or many, and whether hereditary, self-appointed, or elective, may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny.“). The legislative power is the greatest of these powers, and, of course, it was given to Congress.
The Constitution, in turn, provides strict rules to ensure that Congress exercises the legislative power in a way that comports with the People‘s will. Every member of Congress is accountable to his or her constituents through regular popular elections.
But that accountability evaporates if a person or entity other than Congress exercises legislative power. See Gundy v. United States, 139 S. Ct. 2116, 2134 (2019) (Gorsuch, J., dissenting) (“[B]y directing that legislating be done only by elected representatives in a public process, the Constitution sought to ensure that the lines of accountability would be clear: The sovereign people would know, without ambiguity, whom to hold accountable for the laws they would have to follow.“). Thus, sequestering that power within the halls of Congress was essential to the Framers. As John Locke—
a particularly influential thinker at the Founding—explained, not even the legislative branch itself may give the power away:
The legislative cannot transfer the power of making laws to any other hands; for it being but a delegated power from the people, they who have it cannot pass it over to others. The people alone can appoint the form of the commonwealth, which is by constituting the legislative, and appointing in whose hands that shall be. And when the people have said we will submit to rules, and be governed by laws made by such men, and in such forms, nobody else can say other men shall make laws for them; nor can the people be bound by any laws but such as are enacted by those whom they have chosen and authorised to make laws for them.
Id. at 2133-34 (quoting John Locke, The Second Treatise of Civil Government and a Letter Concerning Toleration § 141, p. 71 (1947)).11
(“Congress is not permitted to abdicate or to transfer to others the essential legislative functions with which it is thus vested.“). According to the Supreme Court‘s more recent formulations
We first conclude that Congress has delegated to the SEC what would be legislative power absent a guiding intelligible principle. Government actions are “legislative” if they have “the purpose and effect of altering the legal rights, duties and relations of persons . . . outside the legislative branch.” INS v. Chadha, 462 U.S. 919, 952 (1983). The Supreme Court has noted that the power to assign disputes to agency adjudication is “peculiarly within the authority of the legislative department.” Oceanic Steam Navigation Co. v. Stranahan, 214 U.S. 320, 339 (1909).15 And, as discussed above, in some special circumstances Congress has the power to assign to agency adjudication matters traditionally at home in Article III courts. Atlas Roofing, 430 U.S. at 455. Through Dodd-Frank § 929P(a), Congress gave the SEC the power to bring securities fraud actions for monetary penalties within the agency instead of in an Article III court whenever the SEC in its unfettered discretion decides to do so. See
The SEC argues that by choosing whether to bring an action in an agency tribunal instead of in an Article III court it merely exercises a form of prosecutorial
Next, Congress did not provide the SEC with an intelligible principle by which to exercise that power. We recognize that the Supreme Court has not in the past several decades held that Congress failed to provide a requisite intelligible principle. Cf. Whitman v. Am. Trucking Ass‘ns, Inc., 531 U.S. 457, 474-75 (2001) (cataloguing the various congressional directives that the Court has found to be “intelligible principle[s]“). But neither in the last eighty years has the Supreme Court considered the issue when Congress offered no guidance whatsoever. The last time it did consider such an open-ended delegation of legislative power, it concluded that Congress had acted unconstitutionally: In Panama Refining Co. v. Ryan, 293 U.S. 388, 405-06 (1935), the Court considered a statutory provision granting the President the authority to prohibit the transportation in interstate commerce of petroleum and related products. The Court scoured the statute for directives to guide the President‘s use of that authority, but it found none. Id. at 414-20. It therefore explained:
[I]n every case in which the question has been raised, the Court has recognized that there are limits of delegation which there is no constitutional authority to transcend. We think that section 9(c) goes beyond those limits. As to the transportation of oil production in excess of state permission, the Congress has declared no policy, has established no standard, has laid down no rule.
Congress‘s grant of authority to the SEC here is similarly open-ended. Even the SEC agrees that Congress has given it exclusive authority and absolute discretion to decide whether to bring securities fraud enforcement actions within the agency instead of in an Article III court. Congress has said nothing at all indicating how the SEC should make that call in any given case. If the intelligible principle standard means anything, it must mean that a total absence of guidance is impermissible under the Constitution.16 See Gundy, 139 S. Ct. at 2123 (Kagan, J., plurality op.) (noting that “we would face a nondelegation question” if the statutory provision at issue had “grant[ed] the Attorney General plenary power to determine SORNA‘s applicability to pre-Act offenders—to require them to register, or not, as she sees fit,
D.
The SEC proceedings below suffered from another constitutional infirmity: the statutory removal restrictions for SEC ALJs are unconstitutional.17 SEC ALJs perform substantial executive functions. The President therefore must have sufficient control over the performance of their functions, and, by implication, he must be able to choose who holds the positions. Two layers of for-cause protection impede that control; Supreme Court precedent forbids such impediment.
But a problem arises when both of those protections act in concert. In Free Enterprise Fund, the Supreme Court considered the constitutionality of two layers of for-cause protection for members of the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB). 561 U.S. at 492. The members of the board answered to the SEC Commissioners. But the SEC could remove them only for “willful violations of the [Sarbanes-Oxley] Act, Board rules, or the securities laws; willful abuse of authority; or unreasonable failure to enforce compliance—as determined in a formal Commission order, rendered on the record and after notice and an opportunity for a hearing.” Id. at 503. On top of that, the President could only remove SEC Commissioners for “inefficiency, neglect of duty, or malfeasance in office.” Id. at 486-87, 502. The Supreme Court held that this extensive system insulating PCAOB members from removal deprived the President of the ability to adequately oversee the Board‘s actions. Id. at 492, 496.
The question here is whether SEC ALJs serve sufficiently important executive functions, and whether the restrictions on their removal are sufficiently onerous, that the President has lost the ability to take care
We agree with Petitioners and hold that the removal restrictions are unconstitutional. The Supreme Court decided in Lucia that SEC ALJs are “inferior officers” under the
The dissenting opinion‘s response is all built on dicta from Free Enterprise Fund. There, in noting what issues the Court was leaving open, the Court identified characteristics that were true of ALJs that were not true of PCAOB members: “[U]nlike members of the [PCAOB], many” ALJs “perform adjudicative rather than enforcement or policymaking functions.” Free Enterprise Fund, 561 U.S. at 507 n.10. Far from “stat[ing]” that this “may justify multiple layers of removal protection,” post at 22, the Court merely identified that its decision does not resolve the issue presented here. In any event, the Court itself said in Myers that “quasi[-]judicial” executive officers must nonetheless be removable by the President “on the ground that the discretion regularly entrusted to that officer by statute has not been on the whole intelligently or wisely exercised.” 272 U.S. at 135.19
Finally, the SEC urges us to interpret the for-cause protections for ALJs to instead allow removal for essentially any reason. Even if we could do so (and the statutory language likely does not give us that flexibility), that would not solve the Article II problem. As noted above, the MSPB is part of the mix as well. Furthermore, MSPB members “may be removed by the President only for inefficiency, neglect of duty, or malfeasance in office.”
Thus, SEC ALJs are sufficiently insulated from removal that the President cannot take care that the laws are faithfully executed. The statutory removal restrictions are unconstitutional.
III.
In sum, we agree with Petitioners that the SEC proceedings below were unconstitutional. The SEC‘s judgment should be vacated for at least two reasons: (1) Petitioners were deprived of their Seventh Amendment right to a civil jury; and (2) Congress unconstitutionally delegated legislative power to the SEC by failing to give the SEC an intelligible principle by which to exercise the delegated power. We also hold that the statutory removal restrictions for SEC ALJs are unconstitutional,
We GRANT the petition for review, VACATE the decision of the SEC, and REMAND for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
W. EUGENE DAVIS, Circuit Judge, dissenting:
The majority holds that (1) administrative adjudication of the SEC‘s enforcement action violated Petitioners’ Seventh Amendment right to a jury trial; (2) Congress unconstitutionally delegated an Article I legislative power to the executive branch when it gave the SEC the discretion to choose between bringing its enforcement action in an Article III court or before the agency without providing an intelligible principle to guide the SEC‘s decision; and (3) the removal protections on SEC administrative law judges violate Article II‘s requirement that the President “take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed.” I respectfully disagree with each of these conclusions.
I.
The majority holds that the Seventh Amendment grants Petitioners the right to a jury trial on the facts underlying the SEC‘s enforcement action, and administrative adjudication without a jury violated that right. In reaching this conclusion, the majority correctly recognizes that a case involving “public rights” may be adjudicated in an agency proceeding without a jury notwithstanding the Seventh Amendment.1 But, the majority then erroneously concludes that the SEC‘s enforcement action does not involve “public rights.” In my view, the majority misreads the Supreme Court‘s decisions addressing what are and are not “public rights.”
A.
As declared by Professors Wright and Miller, “A definitive statement by the Supreme Court regarding congressional authority in this context is found in Atlas Roofing v. Occupational Safety & Health Review Commission.”2 That case concerned the Occupational Safety and Health Act (“OSHA” or “the Act“), which created a new statutory duty on employers to avoid maintaining unsafe or unhealthy working conditions. OSHA also empowered the Federal Government, proceeding before an administrative agency without a jury, to impose civil penalties on those who violated the Act.3 Two employers who had been cited for violating the Act argued that a suit in a federal court by the Government seeking civil penalties for violation of a statute is classically a suit at
At least in cases in which “public rights” are being litigated—e.g., cases in which the Government sues in its sovereign capacity to enforce public rights created by statutes within the power of Congress to enact—the Seventh Amendment does not prohibit Congress from assigning the factfinding function and initial adjudication to an administrative forum with which the jury would be incompatible. . . . This is the case even if the Seventh Amendment would have required a jury where the
adjudication of those rights is assigned instead to a federal court of law instead of an administrative agency.5
Atlas Roofing drew its definition of “public rights” from, inter alia, Crowell v. Benson, which described “public rights” in slightly broader terms: matters “which arise between the Government and persons subject to its authority in connection with the performance of the constitutional functions of the executive or legislative departments.”6
The Supreme Court has never retreated from its holding in Atlas Roofing.7 In fact, the Court implicitly re-affirmed Atlas Roofing‘s definition of “public rights” as recently as 2018, when it decided Oil States Energy Services, LLC v. Greene‘s Energy Group, LLC.8 That case involved the Leahy-Smith America Invents Act, which granted the Patent and Trademark Office (“PTO“) the power to reconsider a previously-issued patent via an administrative process called “inter partes review.”9 This was a departure from historical practice, which placed this function in Article III courts alone.10 The petitioner argued that inter partes review violated both Article III and the Seventh Amendment.11 The Court disagreed and explained that Congress has “significant latitude” to assign adjudication of “public rights” to non-Article III tribunals that do not use a jury.12 Moreover, the Court, quoting Crowell, defined “public rights” as “matters ‘which arise between the Government and persons subject to its authority in connection with the performance of the constitutional functions of the executive or legislative
As mentioned, Atlas Roofing‘s definition of “public rights” is a slightly narrower version of Crowell‘s definition. Thus, when Oil States re-affirmed Crowell, it necessarily re-affirmed Atlas Roofing‘s definition as well.14
Oil States is also significant because it held that historical practice is not determinative in matters governed by the public rights doctrine, as such matters “‘from their nature’ can be resolved in multiple ways.”15 Accordingly, the Court rejected the view that “because courts have traditionally adjudicated patent validity in this country, courts must forever continue to do so.”16
Like Oil States, this court relied on Crowell to define “public rights” in Austin v. Shalala.17 That case involved the Government‘s action to recover overpayment of social security benefits via an administrative proceeding before the Social Security Administration.18 Austin rejected the plaintiff‘s argument that the proceeding violated her Seventh Amendment right, explaining that “if Congress may employ an administrative body as a factfinder in imposing money penalties for the violation of federal laws“—as was done in Atlas Roofing and in the securities statutes at issue here—“it plainly may employ such a body to recover overpayments of government largess.”19
Consistent with the above cases, our sister circuits routinely hold that an enforcement action by the Government for violations of a federal statute or regulation is a “public right” that Congress may assign to an agency for adjudication without offending the Seventh Amendment.20 For example, the Eleventh Circuit relied solely on Atlas Roofing when it rejected a Seventh Amendment challenge to administrative adjudication of an SEC enforcement action and declared “it is well-established that the Seventh Amendment does not require a jury trial in administrative proceedings designed to adjudicate statutory ‘public rights.‘”21
The SEC‘s enforcement action satisfies Atlas Roofing‘s definition of a “public
Because the SEC‘s enforcement action is a “public right,” the Seventh Amendment does not prohibit Congress from assigning its adjudication to an administrative forum that lacks a jury.29 As discussed below, the fact that the securities statutes at issue resemble (but are not identical to) common-law fraud does not change this
B.
The majority‘s conclusion that the SEC‘s enforcement action is not a “public right” is based primarily on an erroneous reading of Granfinanciera, S.A. v. Nordberg.32 Specifically, the majority interprets that case as abrogating Atlas Roofing. Granfinanciera did nothing of the sort.
In Granfinanciera, a bankruptcy trustee sued in bankruptcy court (where a jury was unavailable) to avoid allegedly fraudulent transfers the defendants had received from the debtor.33 The defendants argued that they were entitled to a jury trial under the Seventh Amendment.34 A key issue was whether the trustee‘s claim involved “public” or “private” rights. The Court held that the action was a private right.35
Unlike Atlas Roofing, Granfinanciera did not involve a suit by or against the Federal Government. This distinction is important. In discussing what constitutes a “public right,” Granfinanciera, citing Atlas Roofing, recognized that “Congress may effectively supplant a common-law cause of action carrying with it a right to a jury trial with a statutory cause of action shorn of a jury trial right if that statutory cause of action inheres in, or lies against, the Federal Government in its sovereign capacity.”36 Granfinanciera then clarified that “the class of ‘public rights’ whose adjudication Congress may assign to administrative agencies . . . is more expansive than Atlas Roofing‘s discussion suggests“;37 i.e., the “Government need not be a party for a case to revolve around ‘public rights‘” provided certain other criteria are met.38 Nevertheless, and contrary to what is implied by the majority, Granfinanciera‘s recognition that the public-rights doctrine can extend to cases where the Government is not a party in no way undermines or alters Atlas Roofing‘s holding that a case where the Government sues in its sovereign capacity to enforce a statutory right is a case involving “public rights.”39
This understanding of Granfinanciera is supported by our subsequent decision in Austin, which stated:
Although the definition is somewhat nebulous, at a minimum, suits involving public rights are those “which arise between the Government and persons subject to its authority in connection with the performance of the constitutional functions of the executive or legislative departments.” Crowell v. Benson, 285 U.S. 22, 50, 52 S. Ct. 285, 292, 76 L.Ed. 598 (1932). Beyond that, certain other cases are said to involve public rights where Congress has created a “seemingly ‘private’ right that is so closely integrated into a public regulatory scheme as to be a matter appropriate for agency resolution with limited involvement by the Article III judiciary.” Granfinanciera, 492 U.S. at 54 . . . .40
Similarly, while Oil States acknowledged that Crowell did not provide the sole definition of what constitutes a “public right,” it did not discuss any of the other “formulations” because Crowell‘s definition was met.41
The majority overlooks the fact that Granfinanciera‘s expansion of the public-rights doctrine applies only when the Government is not a party to the case. As a result, the majority applies “considerations” that have no relevance here. For example, the majority, quoting Granfinanciera, states that “jury trials would not ‘go far to dismantle the statutory scheme’ or ‘impede swift resolution’ of statutory claims.” Again, Granfinanciera discussed these considerations in the context of a suit between private
persons, not a case involving the Government acting in its sovereign capacity under an otherwise valid statute creating enforceable public rights.42 Indeed, neither Austin nor Oil States, both of which were decided after Granfinanciera and which found public rights to exist, mentions these considerations.43The majority also states that the securities statutes at issue created causes of
The majority asserts that Atlas Roofing is distinguishable from the SEC‘s enforcement action because “OSHA empowered the government to pursue civil penalties regardless of whether any employe[e]s were ‘actually injured or killed as a result of the [unsafe working] condition.‘”45 But the securities statutes share this feature: The SEC may impose civil penalties on a person who makes a material misrepresentation even if no harm resulted from the misrepresentation.46 The statutory cause of action created by the securities statutes is as “new” to the common law as the one created by OSHA.47
Relatedly, the majority harps on the fact that federal courts have dealt with actions under the securities statutes for decades. But Oil States makes clear that “[h]istorical practice is not decisive here.”48 “That Congress chose the courts in the past does not foreclose its choice of [an administrative adjudication] today.”49
The majority also states that “securities-fraud enforcement actions are not the sort that are uniquely suited for agency adjudication.” Again, this is not relevant. As Oil States explained, “the public-rights doctrine applies to matters ‘arising between the government and others, which from their nature do not require judicial determination and yet are susceptible of it.‘”50 Indeed, “matters governed by the public-rights doctrine ‘from their nature’ can be
Finally, it should be emphasized that Tull v. United States52 does not control the outcome here. That case concerned the Government‘s suit in district court seeking civil penalties and an injunction for violations of the Clean Water Act.53 Tull did not involve an administrative proceeding. Thus, while Tull concluded that the Government‘s claim was analogous to a “Suit at common law” for Seventh Amendment purposes,54 the Court did not engage in the “quite distinct inquiry” into whether the claim was also a “public right” that Congress may assign to a non-Article III forum where juries are unavailable.55 Tull itself acknowledges in a footnote prior decisions “holding that the Seventh Amendment is not applicable to administrative proceedings,” making clear that it was not deciding whether the defendant would be entitled to a jury in an administrative adjudication.56
C.
In summary, the SEC‘s enforcement action against Petitioners for violations of the securities laws is a “public right” under Supreme Court precedent as well as our own. Accordingly, Congress could and did validly assign adjudication of that action to an administrative forum where the Seventh Amendment does not require a jury.
II.
I also disagree with the majority‘s alternative holding that Congress exceeded its power by giving the SEC the authority to choose to bring its enforcement action in either an agency proceeding without a jury or to a court with a jury. The majority reasons that giving the SEC this power without providing guidelines on the use of that power violates Article I by delegating its legislative authority to the agency. The majority‘s position runs counter to Supreme Court precedent. As set forth below, by authorizing the SEC to bring enforcement actions either in federal court or in agency proceedings, Congress fulfilled its legislative duty.
In support of its determination that Congress unconstitutionally delegated its authority to the SEC, the majority relies on Crowell v. Benson, wherein the Supreme Court explained that “the mode of determining” cases involving public rights “is completely within congressional control.”57 Crowell did not state that Congress cannot authorize that a case involving public rights may be determined in either of two ways. By passing
In Batchelder, the issue presented was whether it was constitutional for Congress to allow the Government, when prosecuting a defendant, to choose between two criminal statutes that “provide[d] different penalties for essentially the same conduct.”59 The defendant had been convicted under the statute with the higher sentencing range, and the Court of Appeals determined that the delegation of authority to prosecutors to decide between the two statutes, and thus choose a higher sentencing range for identical conduct, was a violation of due process and the nondelegation doctrine.60 Specifically, the Court of Appeals determined that “such prosecutorial discretion could produce unequal justice” and that it might be “impermissibl[e] [to] delegate to the Executive Branch the Legislature‘s responsibility to fix criminal penalties.”61
The Supreme Court disagreed. The Court explained that “[t]he provisions at issue plainly demarcate the range of penalties that prosecutors and judges may seek and impose.”62 The Court further stated: “In light of that specificity, the power that Congress has delegated to those officials is no broader than the authority they routinely exercise in enforcing the criminal laws.”63 The Court concluded: “Having informed the courts, prosecutors, and defendants of the permissible punishment alternatives available under each Title, Congress has fulfilled its duty.”64
The Supreme Court has analogized agency enforcement decisions to prosecutorial discretion exercised in criminal cases.65 If the Government‘s prosecutorial authority to decide between two criminal statutes that provide for different sentencing ranges for essentially the same conduct does not violate the nondelegation doctrine, then surely the SEC‘s authority to decide between two forums that provide different legal processes does not violate the nondelegation doctrine. Thus, the SEC‘s forum-selection authority is part and parcel of its prosecutorial authority.66
Although no other circuit court appears to have addressed the particular nondelegation issue presented in this case, a district court did so in Hill v. SEC.67 Like the
I agree with the district court in Hill that if Chadha‘s definition of legislative action is interpreted broadly and out of context, then any SEC decision which affected a person‘s legal rights—including charging decisions—would be legislative actions, which is contrary to the Supreme Court‘s decision in Batchelder.71 Chadha, one of the primary authorities the majority relies on, does not touch on any issue involved in this case.
I agree with the persuasive and well-reasoned decision of the district court in Hill that “Congress has properly delegated power to the executive branch to make the forum choice for the underlying SEC enforcement action.”72 In sum, it is clear to me that Congress‘s decision to give prosecutorial authority to the SEC to choose between an Article III court and an administrative proceeding for its enforcement actions does not violate the nondelegation doctrine.
III.
Finally, the majority concludes that the statutory removal restrictions applicable to SEC administrative law judges are unconstitutional because they violate Article II‘s requirement that the President “take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed.” Specifically, the majority determines that SEC ALJs enjoy at least two layers of for-cause protection, and that such insulation from the President‘s removal power is unconstitutional in light of the Supreme Court‘s decisions in Free Enterprise Fund v. Public Company Accounting Oversight Board73 and Lucia v. SEC.74 I disagree. Rather than support the majority‘s conclusion, these cases explain why the SEC ALJs’ tenure protections are constitutional: ALJs perform an adjudicative function.
Free Enterprise concerned the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (“PCAOB“), which Congress created in 2002 to regulate the accounting industry.75 The PCAOB‘s powers included promulgating standards, inspecting accounting firms, initiating formal investigations and disciplinary proceedings, and issuing sanctions.76 In other words, PCAOB members were inferior officers who exercised “significant
Free Enterprise, however, “did not broadly declare all two-level for-cause protections for inferior officers unconstitutional.”81 Furthermore, the Court expressly declined to address “that subset of independent agency employees who serve as administrative law judges.”82 The Court made two observations about ALJs that potentially distinguished them from the PCAOB: (1) whether ALJs are “Officers of the United States” was, at that time, a disputed question, and (2) “unlike members of the [PCAOB], many administrative law judges of course perform adjudicative rather than enforcement or policymaking functions or possess purely recommendatory powers.”83
The Supreme Court subsequently addressed the first observation in Lucia v. SEC.84 There, the Court held that SEC ALJs are “inferior officers” within the meaning of the Appointments Clause in Article II.85 However, the Court again expressly declined to decide whether multiple layers of statutory removal restrictions on SEC ALJs violate Article II.86
Thus, neither Free Enterprise nor Lucia decided the issue raised here: whether multiple layers of removal restrictions for SEC ALJs violate Article II. As the Ninth Circuit recently concluded, the question is open.87
It is important to recognize that the Constitution does not expressly prohibit removal protections for “Officers of the United States.”88 The concept that such protections may be unconstitutional is drawn from the fact that “Article II vests ‘[t]he executive Power . . . in a President of the United States of America,’ who must ‘take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed.‘”89 The test is functional, not categorical:
The analysis contained in our removal cases is designed not to define rigid categories of those officials who may or may not be removed at will by the President, but to ensure that Congress does not interfere with the President‘s exercise of the “executive power” and his constitutionally appointed duty to “take care that the laws be faithfully executed” under Article II.90
Consistent with this standard, Free Enterprise thoroughly explained why two levels of removal protection for the PCAOB interfered with the executive power.91 The first step in the Court‘s analysis focused on the fact that the PCAOB exercised “significant executive power”92 as it “determine[d] the policy and enforce[d] the laws of the United States.”93 Then the Court explained how the PCAOB‘s removal protections subverted the President‘s ability to oversee this power.94 The point here is that the function performed by the officer is critical to the analysis—the Court did not simply conclude that because members of the PCAOB were “Officers of the United States” (which was undisputed)95 that dual for-cause protections were unconstitutional.
Unlike the PCAOB members who determine policy and enforce laws, SEC ALJs perform solely adjudicative functions. As the Lucia Court stated, “an SEC ALJ exercises authority ‘comparable to’ that of a federal district judge conducting a bench trial.”96 Their powers include supervising discovery, issuing subpoenas, deciding motions, ruling on the admissibility of evidence, hearing and examining witnesses, generally regulating the course of the proceeding, and imposing sanctions for contemptuous conduct or procedural violations.97 After a hearing, the ALJ issues an initial decision that is subject to review by the Commission.98 Commentators have similarly observed that “SEC ALJs do not engage in enforcement or rulemaking”99 and proceedings before them are “analogous to that which would occur before a federal judge.”100
Free Enterprise stated, albeit in dicta, that the fact that an ALJ performs adjudicative rather than enforcement or policymaking functions may justify multiples layers of removal protection.101 I believe this to be the case. The ALJs’ role is similar to that of a federal judge;102 it is not central to the functioning of the Executive Branch for purposes of the Article II removal precedents.103 As the Southern District of
In fact, the Ninth Circuit recently employed similar reasoning in Decker Coal Co. v. Pehringer, which held that two layers of removal protection for ALJs in the Department of Labor do not violate Article II.105 Like SEC ALJs, the ALJs in Decker Coal performed “a purely adjudicatory function.”106 The majority‘s decision is in tension, if not direct conflict, with Decker Coal.
Free Enterprise also noted that the exercise of “purely recommendatory powers” may justify multiple removal protections.107 When an SEC ALJ issues a decision in an enforcement proceeding, that decision is essentially a recommendation as the Commission can review it de novo.108 Even when the Commission declines review, the ALJ‘s decision is “deemed the action of the Commission.”109 Furthermore, the Commission is not required to use an ALJ and may elect to preside over the enforcement action itself.110 This further supports the conclusion that the SEC ALJs’ removal protections do not interfere with the President‘s executive power.
The majority reasons that because Lucia determined that SEC ALJs are inferior officers under the Appointments Clause, “they are sufficiently important to executing the laws that the Constitution requires that the President be able to exercise authority over their functions,” and, consequently, multiple for-cause protections inhibit the President‘s ability to take care that the laws be faithfully executed. But nowhere does the majority explain how the ALJs’ tenure protections interfere with the President‘s ability to execute the laws. The majority does not mention Free Enterprise‘s observation that the performance of “adjudicative rather than enforcement or policymaking functions” or “possess[ing] purely recommendatory powers” distinguishes ALJs from the PCAOB and may justify multiples layers of removal protection for ALJs.111 The majority does not mention that Lucia found SEC ALJs to be similar to a federal judge.112 The majority does not mention Decker Coal. Instead, the majority applies what is essentially a rigid, categorical standard, not the functional analysis required by the Supreme Court‘s precedents.113
IV.
I find no constitutional violations or any other errors with the administrative proceedings below. Accordingly, I would deny the petition for review.
Notes
Id. at 54-55 (quoting Thomas, 473 U.S. at 593-94) (footnote omitted; emphasis added; bracketed alterations in original).The crucial question, in cases not involving the Federal Government, is whether “Congress, acting for a valid legislative purpose pursuant to its constitutional powers under Article I, [has] create[d] a seemingly ‘private’ right that is so closely integrated into a public regulatory scheme as to be a matter appropriate for agency resolution with limited involvement by the Article III judiciary.” If a statutory right is not closely intertwined with a federal regulatory program Congress has power to enact, and if that right neither belongs to nor exists against the Federal Government, then it must be adjudicated by an Article III court.