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Page Number: 31.0

8 

AXON ENTERPRISE, INC. v. FTC 

THOMAS, J., concurring 

facts”).  And, it may violate due process by empowering en-
tities  that  are  not  courts  of  competent  jurisdiction  to  de-
prive citizens of core private rights.  See B&B Hardware, 
575  U. S.,  at  164  (THOMAS,  J.,  dissenting)  (“[H]owever
broadly  ‘court  of  competent  jurisdiction’  was  defined,  it
would require quite a leap to say that the concept encom-
passes administrative agencies, which were recognized as 
categorically  different  from  courts”  (alteration  omitted));
see  also  Hamburger  256  (“The  guarantee  of  due  process 
. . . . bars the government from holding subjects to account 
outside courts and their processes”).  Finally, the appellate
review model may run afoul of the Seventh Amendment by 
allowing an administrative agency to adjudicate what may 
be  core  private  rights  without  a  jury.    See  Tull  v.  United 
States, 481 U. S. 412, 417 (1987) (explaining that the Sev-
enth Amendment ensures the right to a jury trial for all ad-
judications “analogous to ‘Suits at common law’ ”). 

It is no answer that an Article III court may eventually 
review  the  agency  order  and  its  factual  findings  under  a 
deferential standard of review.  In fact, there seems to be 
no  basis  for  treating  factfinding  differently  from  deciding 
questions of law.  Both are at the core of judicial power, as
Article III itself acknowledges.  See §2, cl. 2 (providing that 
this  Court’s  appellate  jurisdiction  is  “both  as  to  Law  and
Fact”); see also Stern v. Marshall, 564 U. S. 462, 484 (2011). 
For  much  of  the  Nation’s  history,  it  was  understood  that
Article III precluded “the political branches” from exercis-
ing “power over the determination of individualized adjudi-
cative facts when core private rights were at stake.”  Nelson 
593 (emphasis deleted); see also Hamburger 297.  It is ob-
vious that Article III “would not be satisfied if Congress pro-
vided for judicial review but ordered the courts to affirm the 
agency no matter what.”  G. Lawson, The Rise and Rise of 
the  Administrative  State,  107  Harv.  L. Rev.  1231,  1247 
(1994) (Lawson).  And, “[t]here is no reason to think that it
is any different if Congress instead simply orders courts to