Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/23pdf/22-859new_kjfm.pdf
Page Number: 65

Cite as:  603 U. S. ____ (2024) 

5 

SOTOMAYOR, J., dissenting 

(2024) (KAGAN, J., concurring). 

A 

There are two key constitutional provisions at issue here. 
One  is  the  Seventh  Amendment,  which  “preserve[s]”  the 
“right of trial by jury” in “Suits at common law, where the 
value  in  controversy  shall  exceed  twenty  dollars.”    The 
other is Article III’s Vesting Clause, which provides that the 
“judicial Power of the United States . . . shall be vested” in 
federal Article III courts.  This case presents the familiar 
interplay between these two provisions.

Although this case involves a Seventh Amendment chal-
lenge, the principal question at issue is one rooted in Article
III and the separation of powers.  That is because, as the 
majority rightly acknowledges, the Seventh Amendment’s
jury-trial right “applies” only in “an Article III court.”  Ante, 
at 7.  That conclusion follows from both the text of the Con-
stitution and this Court’s precedents.

As to the text, the Amendment is limited to “Suits at com-
mon  law.”  That  means  two  things.    First,  that  the  right 
applies only in judicial proceedings.  The term “suit,” after 
all, refers to “the prosecution of some demand in a Court of 
justice,” Cohens v. Virginia, 6 Wheat. 264, 407 (1821) (Mar-
shall, C. J.), or a “proceeding in a court of justice,” Weston 
v. City Council of Charleston, 2 Pet. 449, 464 (1829) (same) 
(“The modes of proceeding may be various, but if a right is 
litigated between parties in a court of justice, the proceed-
ing by which the decision of the court is sought, is a suit”).
Consistent with that understanding, this Court has held re-
peatedly that “the Seventh Amendment is not applicable to 
administrative  proceedings.”  Tull  v.  United  States,  481 
U. S. 412, 418, n. 4 (1987); accord, Atlas Roofing, 430 U. S., 
at  454–455;  Curtis  v.  Loether,  415  U. S.  189,  195  (1974).
Factfinding by a jury is “incompatible with the whole con-
cept of administrative adjudication,” which empowers exec-
utive officials to find the relevant facts and apply the law to