Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/14pdf/13-352_c0n2.pdf
Page Number: 27

Cite as:  575 U. S. ____ (2015) 

1 

THOMAS, J., dissenting 

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES 

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No. 13–352 
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B&B HARDWARE, INC., PETITIONER v. HARGIS 

INDUSTRIES, INC., DBA SEALTITE BUILDING 

FASTENERS, DBA EAST TEXAS 

 FASTENERS ET AL. 

ON WRIT OF CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF 

APPEALS FOR THE EIGHTH CIRCUIT
 

[March 24, 2015]

 JUSTICE  THOMAS,  with  whom  JUSTICE  SCALIA  joins,

dissenting. 

The Court today applies a presumption that when Con-
gress  enacts  statutes  authorizing  administrative  agencies 
to  resolve  disputes  in  an  adjudicatory  setting,  it  intends
those  agency  decisions to  have  preclusive  effect  in  Article 
III  courts.    That  presumption  was  first  announced  in 
poorly  supported  dictum  in  a  1991  decision  of  this  Court,
and we have not applied it since.  Whatever the validity of 
that presumption with respect to statutes enacted after its 
creation,  there  is  no  justification  for  applying  it  to  the 
Lanham  Act,  passed  in  1946.    Seeing  no  other  reason  to
conclude that Congress implicitly authorized the decisions 
of the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board (TTAB) to have
preclusive  effect  in  a subsequent  trademark  infringement
suit, I would affirm the decision of the Court of Appeals. 

I 

A 

The  presumption  in  favor  of  administrative  preclusion
the  Court  applies  today  was  first  announced  in  Astoria 
Fed.  Sav.  &  Loan  Assn.  v.  Solimino,  501  U. S.  104,  108 
(1991).  In  that  case,  the  Court  confronted  the  question