Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/19pdf/18-916_f2ah.pdf
Page Number: 31.0

12 

THRYV, INC. v. CLICK-TO-CALL TECHNOLOGIES, LP 

GORSUCH, J., dissenting 

enough:  “An elective despotism was not the government we
fought for.”  The Federalist No. 48, p. 311 (C. Rossiter ed. 
1961) (emphasis deleted).  In a government “founded on free 
principles,”  no  one  person,  group,  or  branch  may  hold  all
the keys of power over a private person’s liberty or property. 
Ibid.    Instead,  power  must  be  set  against  power,  “divided 
and  balanced  among  several  bodies  . . .  checked  and  re-
strained  by  the  others.”    Ibid.   As  Chief  Justice  Marshall 
put it:  “It would excite some surprise if, in a government of
laws and of principle . . . a department whose appropriate
duty it is to decide questions of right, not only between in-
dividuals, but between the government and individuals,” a
statute might leave that individual “with no remedy, no ap-
peal to the laws of his country, if he should believe the claim 
to  be  unjust.”  United  States  v.  Nourse,  9  Pet.  8,  28–29 
(1835).

It  should  come  as  an  equal  surprise  to  think  Congress
might  have  imposed  an  express  limit  on  an  executive  bu-
reaucracy’s  authority  to  decide  the  rights  of  individuals,
and then entrusted that agency with the sole power to en-
force the limits of its own authority.  Yet on Thryv’s account, 
§315(b)’s command that “inter partes review may not be in-
stituted” would be left entrusted to the good faith of the very
executive  officials  it  is  meant  to  constrain.    (Emphasis 
added.)  We do not normally rush to a conclusion that Con-
gress has issued such “ ‘blank checks drawn to the credit of 
some administrative officer.’ ”  Bowen v. Michigan Academy 
of  Family  Physicians,  476  U. S.  667,  671  (1986)  (quoting 
S. Rep. No. 752, 79th Cong., 1st Sess., 26 (1945)).

That  usually  may  be  the  case,  Thryv  counters,  but  this
statute’s  unusually  modest  purpose  makes  it  plausible  to
think Congress meant to shield its application from judicial 
review.  After all, the company submits, §315(b) is not really 
a  firm  limit  on  the  agency’s  authority,  only  a  claim  pro-
cessing  rule.  For  proof,  the  company  reminds  us  that