Source: https://openjurist.org/449/us/200
Timestamp: 2019-04-24 20:31:24+00:00

Document:
Hubert L. WILL et al. UNITED STATES, Appellant, v. Hubert L. WILL et al.
1. This Court has jurisdiction of the appeals under 28 U.S.C. § 1252, providing for appeals to this Court from judgments holding an Act of Congress unconstitutional in any civil action to which the United States is a party. And the District Court had jurisdiction over the actions under 28 U.S.C. § 1346(a)(2), which confers on district courts and the Court of Claims concurrent jurisdiction over actions against the United States based on the Constitution when the amount in controversy does not exceed $10,000, none of the individual claims here having been alleged to have exceeded that amount. Pp. 210-211.
2. Title 28 U.S.C. § 455-which requires a federal judge to disqualify himself in any proceeding in which his impartiality might reasonably be questioned or where he has a financial interest in the subject matter in controversy or is a party to the proceeding-by reason of the Rule of Necessity does not operate to disqualify all federal judges, including the Justices of this Court, from deciding the issues presented by these cases. Where, under the circumstances of these cases, all Article III judges have an interest in the outcome so that it was not possible to assign a substitute district judge or for the Chief Justice to remit the appeal, as he is authorized to do by statute, to a division of the Court of Appeals with judges who are not subject to the disqualification provisions of § 455, the common-law Rule of Necessity, under which a judge, even though he has an interest in the case, has a duty to hear and decide the case if it cannot otherwise be heard, prevails over the disqualification standards of § 455. Far from promoting § 455's purpose of reaching disqualification of an individual judge when there is another to whom the case may be assigned, failure to apply the Rule of Necessity in these cases would have a contrary effect by denying some litigants their right to a forum. And the public might be denied resolution of the crucial matter involved if first the District Judge and now all the Justices of this Court were to ignore the mandate of the Rule of Necessity and decline to answer the questions presented. Pp. 211-217.
In 1975, Congress adopted the Executive Salary Cost-of-Living Adjustment Act, Pub.L. 94-82, 89 Stat. 419. The Adjustment Act subjects the salaries covered by the Salary Act to the same annual adjustment made in the General Schedule under the Federal Pay Comparability Act of 1970, 5 U.S.C. §§ 5305-5306. The Comparability Act requires that each year the President designate an agent to compare federal salaries to data on private-sector salaries compiled by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The agent must undertake certain steps in his investigation and, ultimately, submit a report to the President recommending adjustments as deemed appropriate to bring federal employees' salaries in line with prevailing rates in the private sector. A separate Advisory Committee on Federal Pay then reviews that report and makes its own independent recommendation. Thereafter, the President issues an order adjusting the salaries of federal employees and submits a report to Congress listing the overall percentage of the adjustment and including the reports and recommendations submitted to him on the subject. If the President believes that economic conditions or conditions of national emergency make the planned adjustment inappropriate, he may submit to Congress before September 1 an alternative plan for adjusting federal employees' salaries. This alternative plan controls unless within 30 days of continuous legislative session either House of Congress adopts a resolution disapproving of the President's proposed plan. If one House disapproves, the agent's recommendation governs. The increases take effect with the start of the first pay period starting on or after the beginning of the federal fiscal year on October 1.
"Each judge of a district court of the United States shall receive a salary at an annual rate determined under section 225 of the Federal Salary Act of 1967 (2 U.S.C. 351-361), as adjusted by section 461 of this title." 28 U.S.C. § 135.
Similarly phrased statutes apply to all other Article III judges.2 Title 28 U.S.C. § 461 in turn provides that the annual GS adjustment, rounded to the nearest multiple of $100, shall apply to salaries subject to that section, effective at the start of the next pay period. Compensation of judges is set at an annual figure and paid monthly, with each pay period coinciding with the calendar month. See 5 U.S.C. § 5505. Accordingly, any annual change in salary under the Adjustment Act takes effect at the beginning of October, the start of the fiscal year.
"[N]one of the funds contained in this Act shall be used to increase salaries of Members of the House of Representatives . . . . No part of the funds appropriated in this Act or any other Act shall be used to pay the salary of an individual in a position or office referred to in section 225(f) of the Federal Salary Act of 1967, as amended (2 U.S.C. 356), including a Delegate to the House of Representatives, at a rate which exceeds the salary rate in effect on September 30, 1976, for such position or office . . . ."
Parallel subdivisions applied to the other officials under the Salary Act. According to the House Report on this measure, an Adjustment Act increase would be inappropriate following the Comparability Act increase earlier in the same calendar year. H.R.Rep.No.95-458, p. 2 (1977), U.S.Code Cong. & Admin.News 1977, p. 464.4 The effect of this statute was to nullify the contemplated 7.1% increase for these high-level executive employees, Members of Congress, and federal judges.
On February 7, 1978, 13 United States District Judges filed an action (No. 79-983 in this Court) in the District Court for the Northern District of Illinois. The complaint, which named the United States as defendant, challenged the validity of the statutes in Years 1 and 2 under the Compensation Clause, U.S.Const., Art. III, § 1.6 The plaintiff judges were certified as representatives of two classes of Article III judges the classes defined with reference to Years 1 and 2.7 The Government, while not opposing certification of the classes, defended the validity of both statutes.
In an opinion filed August 29, 1979, the District Court granted summary judgment for the plaintiffs, appellees here. 478 F.Supp. 621. A corresponding judgment order was entered September 24. On appeal by the Government, we postponed decision on jurisdiction to the hearing on the merits and directed the parties to address the effect of 28 U.S.C. § 455, if any, on the jurisdiction of the District Court and this Court. 444 U.S. 1068, 100 S.Ct. 1010, 62 L.Ed.2d 749 (1980).
No. 79-1689 comes to us from a similar complaint filed in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois on October 19, 1979, after the District Court had entered judgment in No. 79-983. At issue this time were the statutes in Years 3 and 4. The same 13 judges, joined by one other, again sought to represent two classes of Article III judges defined by the years.8 The United States is defendant. The case was referred to the same member of the District Court who had presided over the proceedings in No. 79-983.
Although it is clear that the District Judge and all Justices of this Court have an interest in the outcome of these cases, there is no doubt whatever as to this Court's jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 12529 or that of the District Court under 28 U.S.C. § 1346(a)(2) (1976 ed., Supp. III).10 Section 455 of Title 2811 neither expressly nor by implication purports to deal with jurisdiction. On its face § 455 provides for disqualification of individual judges under specified circumstances; it does not affect the jurisdiction of a court. Nothing in the text or the history of § 455 suggests that Congress intended, by that section, to amend the vast array of statutes conferring jurisdiction over certain matters on various federal courts.
Jurisdiction being clear, our next inquiry is whether 28 U.S.C. § 455 or traditional judicial canons12 operate to disqualify all United States judges, including the Justices of this Court, from deciding these issues. This threshold question reaches us with both the Government and the appellees in full agreement that § 455 did not require the District Judge, and does not now require each Justice of this Court, to disqualify himself. Rather, they agree the ancient Rule of Necessity prevails over the disqualification standards of § 455. Notwithstanding this concurrence of views resulting from the Government's concession, the sensitivity of the issues leads us to address the applicability of § 455 with the same degree of care and attention we would employ if the Government asserted that the District Court lacked jurisdiction or that § 455 mandates disqualification of all judges and Justices without exception.
In federal courts generally, when an individual judge is disqualified from a particular case by reason of § 455, the disqualified judge simply steps aside and allows the normal administrative processes of the court to assign the case to another judge not disqualified. In the cases now before us, however, all Article III judges have an interest in the outcome; assignment of a substitute District Judge was not possible. And in this Court, when one or more Justices are recused but a statutory quorum of six Justices eligible to act remains available, see 28 U.S.C. § 1, the Court may continue to hear the case. Even if all Justices are disqualified in a particular case under § 455, 28 U.S.C. § 2109 authorizes the Chief Justice to remit a direct appeal to the Court of Appeals for final decision by judges not so disqualified.13 However, in the highly unusual setting of these cases, even with the authority to assign other federal judges to sit temporarily under 28 U.S.C. §§ 291-296 (1976 ed. and Supp. III), it is not possible to convene a division of the Court of Appeals with judges who are not subject to the disqualification provisions of § 455. It was precisely considerations of this kind that gave rise to the Rule of Necessity, a well-settled principle at common law that, as Pollack put it, "although a judge had better not, if it can be avoided, take part in the decision of a case in which he has any personal interest, yet he not only may but must do so if the case cannot be heard otherwise." F. Pollack, A First Book of Jurisprudence 270 (6th ed. 1929).
"[I]t is well established that actual disqualification of a member of a court of last resort will not excuse such member from performing his official duty if failure to do so would result in a denial of a litigant's constitutional right to have a question, properly presented to such court, adjudicated." Id., at 629, 143 P.2d, at 656.
Other state16 and federal17 courts also have recognized the Rule.
"[I]f there is [any] reasonable factual basis for doubting the judge's impartiality, he should disqualify himself and let another judge preside over the case." S.Rep.No.93-419, p. 5 (1973) (emphasis added); H.R.Rep.No.93-1453, p. 5 (1973) (emphasis added), U.S.Code Cong. & Admin.News 1974, pp. 6351, 6355.
"The statutes contain ample authority for chief judges to assign other judges to replace either a circuit or district court judge who become disqualified [under § 455]." S.Rep.No.93-419, supra, at 7 (emphasis added); H.R.Rep.No.93-1453, supra, at 7 (emphasis added), U.S.Code Cong. & Admin.News 1974, p. 6357.
The congressional purpose so clearly expressed in the Reports gives no hint of altering the ancient Rule of Necessity, a doctrine that had not been questioned under prior judicial disqualification statutes.20 The declared purpose of § 455 is to guarantee litigants a fair forum in which they can pursue their claims. Far from promoting this purpose, failure to apply the Rule of Necessity would have a contrary effect, for without the Rule, some litigants would be denied their right to a forum. The availability of a forum becomes especially important in these cases. As this Court has observed elsewhere, the Compensation Clause is designed to benefit, not the judges as individuals, but the public interest in a competent and independent judiciary. Evans v. Gore, supra, at 253, 40 S.Ct., at 553. The public might be denied resolution of this crucial matter if first the District Judge, and now all the Justices of this Court, were to ignore the mandate of the Rule of Necessity and decline to answer the questions presented. On balance, the public interest would not be served by requiring disqualification under § 455.
"Judges Commissions be made Quamdiu se bene gesserint [during good behavior], and their Salaries ascertained and established . . . ." 12 & 13 Will. III, ch. 2, § III, cl. 7 (1701).
"It will readily be understood, that the fluctuations in the value of money, and in the state of society, rendered a fixed rate of compensation [of judges] in the Constitution inadmissible. What might be extravagant to-day might in half a century become penurious and inadequate. It was therefore necessary to leave it to the discretion of the legislature to vary its provisions in conformity to the variations in circumstances; yet under such restrictions as to put it out of the power of that body to change the condition of the individual for the worse." The Federalist No. 79, pp. 491-492 (1818).
The Government contends that Congress could reduce compensation as long as it did not "discriminate" against judges, as such, during the process. That the "freeze" applied to various officials in the Legislative and the Executive Branches, as well as judges, does not save the statute, however. This is quite different from the situation in O'Malley v. Woodrough, 307 U.S. 277, 59 S.Ct. 838, 83 L.Ed. 1289 (1939). There the Court held that the Compensation Clause was not offended by an income tax levied on Article III judges as well as on all taxpayers; there was no discrimination against the plaintiff judge. Federal judges, like all citizens, must share "the material burden of the government . . . ." Id., at 282, 59 S.Ct., at 840. The inclusion in the freeze of other officials who are not protected by the Compensation Clause does not insulate a direct diminution in judges' salaries from the clear mandate of that Clause; the Constitution makes no exceptions for "nondiscriminatory" reductions.30 Accordingly, we hold that the statute with respect to Year 1, as applied to compensation of members of the certified class, violates the Compensation Clause of Art. III.
We are unable to agree with the District Court's analysis and result. Our discussion of the Framers' debates over the Compensation Clause, supra, at 219-220, led to a conclusion that the Compensation Clause does not erect an absolute ban on all legislation that conceivably could have an adverse effect on compensation of judges.31 Rather, that provision embodies a clear rule prohibiting decreases but allowing increases, a practical balancing by the Framers of the need to increase compensation to meet economic changes, such as substantial inflation, against the need for judges to be free from undue congressional influence. The Constitution delegated to Congress the discretion to fix salaries and of necessity placed faith in the integrity and sound judgment of the elected representatives to enact increases when changing conditions demand.
A paramount-indeed, an indispensable-ingredient of the concept of powers delegated to coequal branches is that each branch must recognize and respect the limits on its own authority and the boundaries of the authority delegated to the other branches. To say that the Congress could not alter a method of calculating salaries before it was executed would mean the Judicial Branch could command Congress to carry out an announced future intent as to a decision the Constitution vests exclusively in the Congress.33 We therefore conclude that a salary increase "vests" for purposes of the Compensation Clause only when it takes effect as part of the compensation due and payable to Article III judges. With regard to Year 2, we hold that the Compensation Clause did not prohibit Congress from repealing the planned but not yet effective cost-of-living adjustment of October 1, 1977, when it did so before October 1, the time it first was scheduled to become part of judges' compensation. The statute in Year 2 thus represents a constitutionally valid exercise of legislative authority.
See 28 U.S.C. § 5 (the Chief Justice and each Associate Justice of the Supreme Court); 28 U.S.C. § 44(d) (circuit judges); 28 U.S.C. § 173 (Court of Claims); 28 U.S.C. § 213 (Court of Customs and Patent Appeals); 28 U.S.C. § 252 (Court of International Trade (formerly Customs Court)).
See Act of Mar. 3, 1911, ch. 231, §§ 20, 21, 36 Stat. 1090 (current version at 28 U.S.C. §§ 144, 455 (1976 ed. and Supp. III)). This statute applied only to district judges, but its existence demonstrates that the Rule of Necessity has continued in force side by side with statutory disqualification standards.

References: v. 
 § 1252
 § 1346
 § 455
 § 455
 § 455
 § 455
 § 135
 § 461
 § 5505
 § 1
 § 455
 § 12529
 § 1346
 § 455
 § 455
 § 455
 § 455
 § 455
 § 455
 § 455
 § 455
 § 1
 § 455
 § 2109
 § 455
 § 455
 § 455
 v. 
 § 455
 v. 
 § 5
 § 44
 § 173
 § 213
 § 252