Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/22pdf/21-86_l5gm.pdf
Page Number: 35.0

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AXON ENTERPRISE, INC. v. FTC 

GORSUCH, J., concurring in judgment 

in-controversy  requirement).    Today,  §1331  provides  that 
“district courts shall have original jurisdiction of all civil ac-
tions arising under the Constitution, laws, or treaties of the 
United States.”  Not may have jurisdiction, but shall.  Not 
some civil actions arising under federal law, but  all.  The 
statute  is  as  clear  as  statutes  get,  and  everyone  agrees  it 
encompasses the claims Ms. Cochran and Axon seek to pur-
sue.  See ante, at 7.  End of case, right? 

Not so fast.  As the Court sees it, Ms. Cochran, Axon, and 
others like them must satisfy not only §1331.  They must 
also satisfy a judge-made, multi-factor balancing test.  One 
assembled  from  remarks  scattered  here  and  there  across 
the pages of Thunder Basin Coal Co. v. Reich, 510 U. S. 200 
(1994).  And one, we are told, designed to ferret out whether 
the legislators who adopted the Federal Trade Commission 
Act in 1914 and the Securities Exchange Act in 1934 har-
bored an “implici[t]” wish to “ous[t]” district courts of juris-
diction in favor of agency proceedings.  Ante, at 7.  So, yes, 
the law on the books may promise you the right to be heard 
in  a  court  of  law.  But  sometimes  that  doesn’t  count  for 
much.  Sometimes  judges  can  shunt  you  to  an  agency  in-
stead—so long as a test we have fabricated suggests to us 
that is what Congress really wanted. 

There  are many problems with the Thunder Basin pro-
ject,  but  start  with  its  sheer  incoherence.    At  the  outset, 
Thunder Basin requires litigants and courts to ask whether 
a “ ‘comprehensive review process’ ” exists.  Ante, at 7.  What 
does that mean?  It seems a review process will “typically” 
qualify as “comprehensive” when “review in a court of ap-
peals follow[s] the agency’s own review.”  Ibid.  But “typi-
cally” does not mean “necessarily.”  Ibid.  Just because an 
agency can hear a case does not mean a district court can-
not.  To  decide  whether  a  particular  case  belongs  in  an 
agency rather than a court, you must consult three further 
“considerations . . . commonly known now as the Thunder 
Basin factors.”  Ante, at 7–8.