Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/22pdf/21-86_l5gm.pdf
Page Number: 26

Cite as:  598 U. S. ____ (2023) 

3 

THOMAS, J., concurring 

between core private rights, on the one hand, and mere pub-
lic rights and governmental privileges, on the other.  “Dis-
position of private rights to life, liberty, and property” was
understood to “fal[l] within the core of the judicial power,
whereas  disposition  of  public  rights  [was]  not.”    Wellness 
Int’l  Network,  Ltd.  v.  Sharif,  575  U. S.  665,  711  (2015) 
(THOMAS, J., dissenting).  Thus, “[t]he measure of judicial 
involvement was private right.  In particular, the extent to 
which the judiciary reviewed actions and legal determina-
tions of the executive depended on private right.”  J. Harri-
son, Jurisdiction, Congressional Power, and Constitutional 
Remedies,  86  Geo.  L. J.  2513,  2516  (1998)  (footnote  omit-
ted).2  Even today, the distinction “between ‘public rights’ 
and ‘private rights’ ” continues to inform this Court’s under-
standing of “Article III judicial power.”  Oil States Energy 
Services, LLC v. Greene’s Energy Group, LLC, 584 U. S. ___, 
___ (2018) (slip op., at 6). 

As I have explained, when private rights are at stake, full
Article  III  adjudication  is  likely  required.    Private  rights 
encompass  “the  three  ‘absolute’  rights,”  life,  liberty,  and
property, “so called because they ‘appertain and belong to
particular men merely as individuals,’ not ‘to them as mem-
bers  of  society  or  standing  in  various  relations  to  each 
other’—that is, not dependent upon the will of the govern-
ment.”  Wellness Int’l Network, 575 U. S., at 713–714 (dis-
senting opinion) (quoting 1 W. Blackstone, Commentaries
on  the  Laws  of  England  119  (1765);  alterations  omitted). 

—————— 

2 This also helps to explain why, in Marbury v. Madison, 1 Cranch 137 
(1803),  Chief  Justice  Marshall  found  it  necessary  to  first  determine 
whether  Marbury  was  “entitled  to  the  possession  of  those  evidences  of
office, which, being completed, became his property.”  Id., at 155 (empha-
sis added).  Only once it was established that a vested property right was 
at stake did the Court determine the remaining issues.  Marbury thus 
“stand[s] for the importance of private right.”  Harrison, 86 Geo. L. J., at 
2516, n. 10.