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Page Number: 21

16 

AXON ENTERPRISE, INC. v. FTC 

Opinion of the Court 

firm remained enmeshed in a Board investigation).  But the 
Government’s argument still conflicts with Free Enterprise 
Fund’s reasoning.  In addressing why the firm’s claim was 
collateral, the Court focused solely on what it was about— 
again, that the firm challenged “the Board’s existence,” not 
“its auditing standards.”  561 U. S., at 490.  And anyway, 
the  Government’s  theory  ill  fits  the  point  of  the  Thunder 
Basin inquiry—to decide when a particular claim is “of the 
type” to fall outside a statutory review scheme.  510 U. S., 
at 212.  That inquiry, just as Free Enterprise Fund recog-
nized, requires considering the nature of the claim, not the 
status  (pending  or  not)  of  an  agency  proceeding.  Or  said 
another  way,  the  inquiry  contemplates  (as  our  collateral-
order  doctrine  also  does)  that  even  when  a  proceeding  is 
pending, an occasional claim may get immediate review— 
in part because it involves something discrete.  Cf. Cohen v. 
Beneficial Industrial Loan Corp., 337 U. S. 541, 546 (1949) 
(allowing  an  interlocutory  appeal  from  a  district  court’s 
“collateral” ruling, “independent of the cause itself ”).  The 
Government’s  redefinition  of  what  counts  as  collateral 
would effectively foreclose that possibility. 

Third and finally, Cochran’s and Axon’s claims are “out-
side  the  [Commissions’]  expertise.”  Thunder  Basin,  510 
U. S.,  at  212.   On  that  issue,  Free  Enterprise  Fund  could 
hardly  be  clearer.   Claims  that  tenure  protections  violate 
Article  II,  the  Court  there  determined,  raise  “standard 
questions  of  administrative”  and  constitutional  law,  de-
tached from “considerations of agency policy.”  561 U. S., at 
491 (internal quotation marks and alterations omitted); see 
supra, at 10.  That statement covers Axon’s and Cochran’s 
claims that ALJs are too far insulated from the President’s 
supervision.    And  Axon’s  constitutional  challenge  to  the 
combination of prosecutorial and adjudicative functions is 
of  a  piece—similarly  distant  from  the  FTC’s  “competence 
and expertise.”  561 U. S., at 491.  The Commission knows 
a  good  deal  about  competition  policy,  but  nothing  special