Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/23pdf/22-859new_kjfm.pdf
Page Number: 76

16 

SEC v. JARKESY 

SOTOMAYOR, J., dissenting 

actually injured or killed as a result of the [unsafe or un-
healthy  working]  condition”).    The  employer’s  failure  to
maintain  safe  and  healthy  working  conditions  violates
OSHA even if there is no actionable harm to an employee,
just as a misrepresentation to investors in connection with 
the buying or selling of securities violates federal-securities
law even if there is no actual injury to the investors. 

Moreover, both here and in Atlas Roofing, Congress em-
powered  the  Government  to  institute  administrative  en-
forcement proceedings to adjudicate potential violations of 
federal law and impose civil penalties on a private party for
those violations, all while making the final agency decision 
subject  to  judicial  review.  In  bringing  a  securities  claim, 
the SEC seeks redress for a “violation” that “is committed 
against the United States rather than an aggrieved individ-
ual,” which “is why, for example, a securities-enforcement
action may proceed even if victims do not support or are not 
parties to the prosecution.”  Kokesh v. SEC, 581 U. S. 455, 
463  (2017).    Put  differently,  the  SEC  seeks  to  “ ‘remedy
harm  to  the  public  at  large’ ”  for  violation  of  the  Govern-
ment’s  rights.  Ibid.    The  Government  likewise  seeks  to 
remedy a public harm when it enforces OSHA’s prohibition 
of unsafe working conditions.

Ultimately,  both  cases  arise  between  the  Government
and others in connection with the performance of the Gov-
ernment’s constitutional functions, and involve the Govern-
ment  acting  in  its  sovereign  capacity  to  bring  a  statutory 
claim on behalf of the United States in order to vindicate 
the public interest.  They both involve, as Atlas Roofing put
it, “new cause[s] of action, and remedies therefor, unknown 
to the common law.”  430 U. S., at 461.  Neither Article III 
nor  the  Seventh  Amendment  prohibits  Congress  from  as-
signing the enforcement of these new “Governmen[t] rights 
to civil penalties” to non-Article III adjudicators, and thus 
“supplying speedy and expert resolutions of the issues in-
volved.”  Id., at 450, 461.  In a world where precedent means