Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/23pdf/22-859new_kjfm.pdf
Page Number: 45.0

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

13 

GORSUCH, J., concurring 

“brought by the government against a private party” under
a statute designed “to remedy harm to the public at large.” 
Id., at 24 (internal quotation marks omitted).

The Court rightly rejects these arguments.  See ante, at 
19–21.  No one denies that, under the public rights excep-
tion, Congress may allow the Executive Branch to resolve 
certain matters free from judicial involvement in the first
instance.  Ante,  at  6,  14–15.    But,  despite  its  misleading
name, the exception does not refer to all matters brought
by the government against an individual to remedy public 
harms,  or  even  all  those  that  spring  from  a  statute.  See 
ante,  at  16–17.    Instead,  public  rights  are  a  narrow  class
defined and limited by history.  As the Court explains, that 
class  has  traditionally  included  the  collection  of  revenue, 
customs enforcement, immigration, and the grant of public 
benefits.  Ante, at 15–17. 

How  did  these  matters  find  themselves  categorized  as
public rights?  Competing explanations abound.  Some have 
pointed  to  ancient  practical  considerations.    In  Murray’s 
Lessee, for example, the Court reasoned that the “[i]mpera-
tive  necessity”  of  tax  collection  for  a  functional  state  had 
long caused governments to treat “claims for public taxes” 
differently from “all others.”  18 How., at 282.  Others have 
theorized that “the core of the judicial power” concerns the
disposition  of  the  “three  ‘absolute’  rights”  “to  life,  liberty,
and property.”  Wellness Int’l Network, Ltd. v. Sharif, 575 
U. S. 665, 713–714 (2015) (THOMAS, J., dissenting).  Public 
rights,  the  theory  goes,  involve  matters  originally  under-
stood to fall outside this core.  Id., at 714.  So, for example,
“[a]lthough Congress could authorize executive agencies to 
dispose of public rights in land—often by means of adjudi-
cating a claimant’s qualifications for a land grant under a 
statute—the  United  States  had  to  go  to  the  courts  if  it 
wished to revoke” that grant, which had become the owner’s
private property.  Id., at 715.  There are still other theories 
yet.  See, e.g., Stern, 564 U. S., at 489.