Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/23pdf/22-859new_kjfm.pdf
Page Number: 91

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

31 

SOTOMAYOR, J., dissenting 

met,  including  qualifications,  notices,  and  account  state-
ments).

The  majority  further  rests  on  the  notion  that  Congress 
drew inspiration from the common law in enacting the an-
tifraud  provisions  of  the  federal-securities  laws,  whereas
OSHA’s new statutory duty did not bring any common-law 
soil  with  it.   See  ante,  at  23–24.  Yet  both  statutes  share 
elements with claims at common law that Congress deemed 
inadequate to address the national problems that prompted
it to legislate.  See supra, at 14–15.  Still, even accepting
that  federal-securities  laws  bring  common-law  soil  with
them  and  OSHA  does  not,  the  majority  does  not  explain 
why that is a constitutionally relevant distinction.11 

In  sum,  all  avenues  by  which  the  majority  attempts  to
distinguish Atlas Roofing fail.  The majority cannot escape
the  entrenched  principle  that  a  “legal  cause  of  action  in-
volves ‘public rights’ ” that can be taken outside of Article 
III if the “statutory right is . . . closely intertwined with a
federal regulatory program Congress has power to enact” or 
if it “belongs to [o]r exists against the Federal Government.” 
Granfinanciera, 492 U. S., at 53–54.12  In both Atlas Roof-
ing and this case, a public right exists.  In both statutory 

—————— 

11 In Tull v. United States, 481 U. S. 412 (1987), for example, there was 
no common-law soil brought into that federal regulatory regime, and the 
Seventh Amendment still applied.  Indeed, no one can argue that “[t]he 
purpose of [the Clean Water Act] was . . . to enable the Federal Govern-
ment to bring or adjudicate claims that traced their ancestry to the com-
mon law.”  Ante, at 23–24. 

12 The concurrence’s assertion that the majority is “follow[ing] the ad-
vice  of  Justices  Brennan  and  Marshall”  by  “ ‘limit[ing]  the  judicial  au-
thority of non-Article III federal tribunals’ ” is misleading.  Ante, at 20 
(quoting  Schor,  478  U. S.,  at  859  (Brennan,  J.,  joined  by  Marshall,  J., 
dissenting)).  Justice Brennan in his Schor dissent wrote that he would 
limit the authority of non-Article III tribunals to three recognized excep-
tions: (1) territorial courts; (2) courts-martial; and (3) forums adjudicat-
ing public-rights matters.  As examples of the public-rights category, Jus-
tice Brennan cited Murray’s Lessee, Ex parte Bakelite, Crowell, Thomas, 
and his plurality opinion in Northern Pipeline.  See Schor, 478 U. S., at