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Page Number: 32.0

6 

B&B HARDWARE, INC. v. HARGIS INDUSTRIES, INC. 

THOMAS, J., dissenting 

on the “well settled doctrine that res judicata and equita-
ble estoppel do not ordinarily apply to decisions of admin-
istrative  tribunals.”  Churchill  Tabernacle  v.  FCC,  160 
F. 2d 244, 246 (1947).

The Restatement of Judgments also reflected this prac-
tice:  It  contained  no  provision  for  administrative  preclu-
sion and explained that it would not address “the effect of 
the decisions of administrative tribunals.”  Restatement of 
Judgments,  Scope  Note,  at  2.  It  rejected  the  idea  of  any 
consistent  practice  in  favor  of  administrative  preclusion, 
noting  that  “the  question  whether  the  decisions  of  a  par-
ticular  tribunal  are  binding  in  subsequent  controversies
depends upon the character of the tribunal and the nature 
of its procedure and the construction of the statute creat-
ing the tribunal and conferring powers upon it.”  Ibid. 

Consistent  with  that  comment,  federal  courts  approved
of  administrative  preclusion  in  narrow  circumstances 
arguably  involving  only  claims  against  the  Government,
over  which  Congress  exercises  a  broader  measure  of  con-
trol.2    In  the  19th  century,  for  instance,  this  Court  effec-
tively  gave  preclusive  effect  to  the  decisions  of  the  U. S. 
Land  Department  with  respect  to  land  patents  when  it
held such patents unreviewable in federal court “for mere 
errors of judgment.”  Smelting Co. v. Kemp, 104 U. S. 636, 
646 (1882) (“A patent, in a court of law, is conclusive as to
all  matters  properly  determined  by  the  Land  Depart-
ment”).  Commentators  explained  that  these  cases  could 

—————— 

2 This  distinction  reaches  at  least  as  far  back  as  17th-century  Eng-
land.  See Jaffe, The Right to Judicial Review I, 71 Harv. L. Rev. 401,
413  (1958)  (explaining  that,  since  the  17th  century  in  England,  courts
have been “identified with the enforcement of private right, and admin-
istrative agencies with the execution of public policy”); see also Hetley v. 
Boyer,  Croc.  Jac.  336,  79  Eng.  Rep.  287  (K.  B.  1614)  (reviewing  the 
actions  of  the  “commissioners  of  the  sewers,”  who  had  exceeded  the 
bounds  of  their  traditional  jurisdiction  and  had  imposed  on  citizens’
core private rights).