Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/23pdf/22-859new_kjfm.pdf
Page Number: 71.0

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

11 

SOTOMAYOR, J., dissenting 

been  written  in  response  to  today’s  ruling,  the  Court  ex-
plained  that  such  a  “proposition  magnifies  the  judicial  to
the detriment of all other departments of the Government,
disregards many previous adjudications of this court, and 
ignores practices often manifested and hitherto deemed to 
be  free  from  any  possible  constitutional  question.”    Ibid. 
For that reason, the validity of legislation authorizing the 
non-Article III adjudication of civil-penalty claims does not
turn on the Judiciary’s assessment of whether it is neces-
sary for executive officials “to enforce designated penalties 
without resort to the courts.”  Id., at 339.  Whether or not 
such  legislation  violates  Article  III  depends  on  whether 
Congress acted pursuant to a “grant of power made by the
Constitution,” and not on whether it “relate[s] to subjects
peculiarly  within  the  authority  of  the  legislative  depart-
ment  of  the  Government”  or  on  the  circumstances  that 
might  have  “caused  Congress  to  exert  a  specified  power.” 
Id., at 339–340. 

By  the  time  Stranahan  was  decided,  Congress  already
routinely  “impose[d]  appropriate  obligations  and  sanc-
tion[ed] their enforcement by reasonable money penalties, 
giving to executive officers the power to enforce such penal-
ties without the necessity of invoking the judicial power.” 
Id., at 339.  Far from limiting the public-rights doctrine to 
the  particular  context  in  Stranahan  and  prior  cases,  this
Court  has  expressly  rejected  the  notion  that  the  public-
rights  doctrine  is  so  confined.    See  infra,  at  18–19.  This 
Court  has  repeatedly  approved  Congress’s  assignment  of
public rights to agencies in diverse areas of the law, reflect-
ing Congress’s varied constitutional powers.5  A nonexhaus-
tive  list  includes  “interstate  and  foreign  commerce,  taxa-
tion,  immigration,  the  public  lands,  public  health,  the 
—————— 

5 The majority’s fixation on this dissent’s discussion of Stranahan, see 
ante, at 16, n. 1, misses the fact that Stranahan exists within a long line
of cases recognizing the diverse areas of the law comprising the public-
rights doctrine.