Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/23pdf/22-859new_kjfm.pdf
Page Number: 66.0

6 

SEC v. JARKESY 

SOTOMAYOR, J., dissenting 

those facts like juries do in a courtroom.  Pernell v. Southall 
Realty, 416 U. S. 363, 383 (1974) (collecting cases).

Second,  the  requirement  that  the  “ ‘[s]uit’ ”  must  be  one
“ ‘at common law’ ” means that the claim at issue must be 
“ ‘legal in nature.’ ”  Ante, at 8.  So, whether a defendant is 
entitled to a jury under the Seventh Amendment depends
on both the forum and the cause of action.  If the claim is in 
an Article III proceeding, then the right to a jury attaches 
if the claim is “legal in nature” and the amount in contro-
versy exceeds $20.  Granfinanciera, S. A. v. Nordberg, 492 
U. S. 33, 53 (1989); Atlas Roofing, 430 U. S., at 454, n. 12, 
461, n. 16.  Yet when, as here, the claim proceeds in a non-
Article  III  forum,  the  relevant  question  becomes  whether
“Congress  properly  assign[ed  the]  matter”  for  decision  to 
that forum consistent with Article III and the separation of 
powers.  Oil States Energy Services, LLC v. Greene’s Energy 
Group, LLC, 584 U. S. 325, 345 (2018).  In other words, the 
question is whether Congress improperly bestowed federal 
judicial power on a non-Article III forum.  See id., at 334 
(Congress  cannot  “ ‘confer  the  Government’s  “judicial 
Power”  on  entities  outside  Article  III’ ”  (quoting  Stern  v. 
Marshall, 564 U. S. 462, 484 (2011))).2 

The conclusion that Congress properly assigned a matter 
to an agency for adjudication therefore necessarily “resolves 
[any]  Seventh  Amendment  challenge.”    Oil  States,  584 
U. S., at 345 (explaining that if non-Article III adjudication 

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2 Since the founding, Executive Branch officials have adjudicated cer-
tain  matters,  while  others  have  required  resolution  in  an  Article  III 
court.  An  executive  official  properly  vested  with  the  authority  to  find 
facts,  apply  the  law  to  those  facts,  and  impose  the  consequences  pre-
scribed  by  law  exercises  executive  power  under  Article  II,  not  judicial 
power under Article III.  See Arlington v. FCC, 569 U. S. 290, 305, n. 4 
(2013) (explaining that agency rulemaking and adjudications may “take
‘legislative’ and ‘judicial’ forms, but they are exercises of—indeed, under 
our  constitutional  structure  they  must  be  exercises  of—the  ‘executive 
Power’ ” (quoting Art. II, §1, cl. 1)).