Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/22pdf/21-86_l5gm.pdf
Page Number: 3.0

Cite as:  598 U. S. ____ (2023) 

3 

Syllabus 

due process grounds to the agency’s imposition of a fine before holding 
a hearing.  See 510 U. S., at 205.  The Court held that the district court 
lacked  jurisdiction  over  those  claims,  emphasizing  the  commission’s 
“extensive  experience”  in  addressing  the  statutory  issues  raised,  as 
well  as its  ability  to  resolve them  in  light  of  its  “expertise”  over the 
mining industry.  Id., at 214–215.  The Court acknowledged the com-
pany’s constitutional challenge was less tied to the agency’s experience 
and  expertise,  but  concluded  it  could  be  “meaningfully  addressed  in 
the Court of Appeals.”  Id., at 215. 

The  Court  applied  similar  reasoning  in  Elgin  v.  Department  of 
Treasury, 567 U. S. 1, which involved a statutory review scheme that 
directed federal employees challenging discharge decisions to seek re-
view  in  the  Merit  Systems  Protection  Board  (MSPB)  and  then,  if 
needed, in the Federal Circuit.  Elgin filed suit in district court when 
the  government  fired  him  for  failing  to  register  for  the  draft.    This 
Court held that the district court lacked jurisdiction even though Elgin 
mainly claimed that the draft’s exclusion of women violated the Equal 
Protection Clause.  Although the MSPB might not be able to hold the 
draft law unconstitutional, the Court of Appeals could—and that was 
sufficient to ensure “meaningful review” of Elgin’s claim.  Id., at  21. 
Further,  Elgin’s  challenge  to  his  discharge  was  neither  collateral  to 
the MSPB’s ordinary proceedings nor unrelated to its expertise in the 
employment context. 

In contrast, the Court in Free Enterprise Fund applied the Thunder 
Basin  factors  to  determine  that  an accounting  firm’s  Article  II  chal-
lenge  to  the  structure  of  the  Public  Company  Accounting  Oversight 
Board—an agency regulating the accounting industry under the SEC’s 
oversight—landed outside the Exchange Act’s review scheme.  Because 
not  all  Board  action  culminates  in  Commission  action—which  alone 
the statute makes reviewable in a court of appeals—the Court deter-
mined that the Exchange Act provided no “meaningful avenue of re-
lief.”  561 U. S., at 490–491.  And even if the  SEC took up a  matter 
arising from the Board’s investigation of the firm, the firm’s constitu-
tional challenge to the Board’s existence would be “collateral” to the 
subject of that proceeding, as well as “outside the Commission’s com-
petence and expertise.”  Ibid.  Pp. 7–10. 

(b) The Court must decide if the constitutional claims here are “of 
the  type”  Congress  thought  belonged  within  a  statutory  review 
scheme.  Thunder Basin, 510 U. S., at 212.  Like the accounting firm 
in Free Enterprise Fund, Cochran and Axon assert sweeping constitu-
tional claims: They charge that the SEC and FTC are wielding author-
ity unconstitutionally in all or broad swaths of their work.  Applying 
the Thunder Basin factors here, the Court comes out in the same place 
as in Free Enterprise Fund.