Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/23pdf/22-859new_kjfm.pdf
Page Number: 83.0

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

23 

SOTOMAYOR, J., dissenting 

As discussed above, this Court has long endorsed statu-
tory schemes authorizing agency adjudicators to find viola-
tions and award civil penalties to the Government.  See su-
pra,  at  9–12.    Long  before  Atlas  Roofing,  this  Court  held 
that the Constitution permits Congress to enact statutory
obligations and then “sanction their enforcement by reason-
able money penalties” by government officials “without the
necessity of invoking the judicial power.”  Stranahan, 214 
U. S., at 339; see id., at 338–339 (collecting cases).  That the 
SEC imposed civil penalties on respondents therefore has 
little, if any, bearing on the resolution of this case.

Again,  even  if  over  a  century  of  precedent  did  not  fore-
close the majority’s argument, it fails on its own terms.  The 
majority  relies  almost  entirely  on  Tull,  which  held  that 
statutory claims for civil penalties were “a type of remedy
at  common  law”  that  entitled  a  defendant  to  a  jury  trial. 
481 U. S., at 422; see id., at 425.  Critically, however, the 
Tull Court’s analysis took place in an entirely different con-
text: federal court.  See ante, at 8–9 (“In [Tull], the Govern-
ment sued a real estate developer for civil penalties [under 
the Clean Water Act]  in federal court” (emphasis added)). 
Tull did not present the question at issue in Atlas Roofing
and  other  cases  involving  non-Article  III  adjudication  of 
Government  claims  in  the  first  instance.  Rather,  Tull 
stands  for  the  unremarkable  proposition  that,  when  the 
Government sues an entity for civil penalties in federal dis-
trict court, the Seventh Amendment entitles the defendant 
“to a jury trial to determine his liability on the legal claims.”
481 U. S., at 425. 

That conclusion says nothing about the constitutionality 
of the SEC’s in-house adjudicative scheme.  Atlas Roofing
and  its  predecessors  could  not  have  been  clearer  on  this
point: Congress can assign the enforcement of a statutory
obligation  for  in-house  adjudication  to  executive  officials,
“even  if  the  Seventh  Amendment  would  have  required  a
jury where the adjudication of those rights is assigned to a