Source: https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/430/442/case.html
Timestamp: 2017-09-23 00:29:24
Document Index: 189909985

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 651', '§ 659', '§ 651', '§ 666', '§ 659', '§ 2200']

Atlas Roofing Co. v. Occupational Safety and Health Review Comm'n (full text) :: 430 U.S. 442 (1977) :: Justia US Supreme Court Center
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Atlas Roofing Co., Inc. v. Occupational Safety Comm'n, 430 U.S. 442 (1977)
Decided March 23, 1977*
After extensive investigation, Congress concluded, in 1970, that work-related deaths and injuries had become a "drastic" national problem. [Footnote 1] Finding the existing state statutory remedies
as well as state common law actions for negligence and wrongful death to be inadequate to protect the employee population from death and injury due to unsafe working conditions, Congress enacted the Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970 (OSHA or Act), 84 Stat. 1590, 29 U.S.C. § 651 et seq. The Act created a new statutory duty to avoid maintaining unsafe or unhealthy working conditions, and empowers the Secretary of Labor to promulgate health and safety standards. [Footnote 2] Two new remedies were provided -- permitting the Federal Government, proceeding before an administrative agency, (1) to obtain abatement orders requiring employers to correct unsafe working conditions and (2) to impose civil penalties on any employer maintaining any unsafe working condition. Each remedy exists whether or not an employee is actually injured or killed as a result of the condition, and existing state statutory and common law remedies for actual injury and death remain unaffected.
If the employer wishes to contest the penalty or the abatement order, he may do so by notifying the Secretary of Labor within 15 days, in which event the abatement order is automatically stayed. §§ 659(a), (b), 666(d). An evidentiary hearing is then held before an administrative law judge of the Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission. The Commission consists of three members, appointed for six-year terms, each of whom is qualified "by reason of training, education or experience" to adjudicate contested citations and assess penalties. §§ 651(3), 659(c), 661, 666(i). At this hearing, the burden is on the Secretary to establish the elements of the alleged violation and the propriety of his proposed abatement order and proposed penalty, and the judge is empowered to affirm, modify, or vacate any or all of these items, giving due consideration in his penalty assessment to "the size of the business of the employer . . the gravity of the violation, the good faith of the employer, and the history of previous violations." § 666(i). The judge's decision becomes the Commission's final and appealable order unless, within 30 days, a Commissioner directs that it be reviewed by the full Commission. [Footnote 3] §§ 659(c), 661(i); see 29 CFR §§ 2200.90, 2200.91 (1976).
"Where adjudicative responsibility rests only in the administering agency, 'jury trials would be incompatible with the whole concept of administrative adjudication, and would substantially interfere with the [agency's] role in the statutory scheme.' [Footnote 4]"
We granted the petitions for writ of certiorari limited to the important question whether the Seventh Amendment prevents Congress from assigning to an administrative agency, under these circumstances, the task of adjudicating violations of OSHA. [Footnote 5] 424 U.S. 964.
The Seventh Amendment provides that "[i]n Suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved. . . ." The phrase "Suits at common law" has been construed to refer to cases tried prior to the adoption of the Seventh Amendment in courts of law in which jury trial was customary, as distinguished from courts of equity or admiralty, in which jury trial was not. Parsons v. Bedford, 3 Pet. 433 (1830). Petitioners claim that a suit in a federal court by the Government for civil penalties for violation of a statute is a suit for a money judgment, which is classically a suit at common law, Whitehead v. Shattuck, 138 U. S. 146, 138 U. S. 151 (1891); and that the defendant therefore has a Seventh Amendment right to a jury determination of all issues of fact in such a case, see Hepner v. United States, 213 U. S. 103, 213 U. S. 115 (1909) (dictum); United States v. Regan, 232 U. S. 37, 232 U. S. 47 (1914) (dictum). [Footnote 6]
Petitioners taken claim that to permit Congress to assign the function of adjudicating the Government's rights to civil penalties for violation of the statute to a different forum -- an administrative agency in which no jury is available -- would be to permit Congress to deprive a defendant of his Seventh Amendment jury right. We disagree. At least in cases in which "public rights" are being litigated -- e.g., cases in which the Government sues in its sovereign capacity to enforce public rights created by statutes within the power of Congress to enact -- the Seventh Amendment does not prohibit Congress from assigning the factfinding function and initial adjudication to an administrative forum with which the jury would be incompatible. [Footnote 7]
Congress has often created new statutory obligations, provided for civil penalties for their violation, and committed exclusively to an administrative agency the function of deciding whether a violation has in fact occurred. These statutory schemes have been sustained by this Court, albeit often without express reference to the Seventh Amendment. Thus, taxes may constitutionally be assessed and collected together with penalties, with the relevant facts in some instances being adjudicated only by an administrative agency. Phillips v. Commissioner, 283 U. S. 589, 283 U. S. 599-600 (1931); Murray's
Lessee v. Hoboken Land Co., 18 How. 272, 59 U. S. 284 (1856). [Footnote 8] Neither of these cases expressly discussed the question whether the taxation scheme violated the Seventh Amendment. However, in Helvering v. Mitchell, 303 U. S. 391 (1938), the Court said, in rejecting a claim under the Sixth Amendment that the assessment and adjudication of tax penalties could not be made without a jury, that "the determination of the facts upon which liability is based may be by an administrative agency, instead of a jury," id. at 303 U. S. 402. Similarly, Congress has entrusted to an administrative agency the tax of adjudicating violations of the customs and immigration laws and assessing penalties based thereon. Lloyd Sabaudo Societa v. Elting, 287 U. S. 329, 287 U. S. 335 (1932) ("[D]ue process of law does not require that the courts, rather than administrative officers, be charged . . . with determining the facts upon which the imposition of [fines] depends"); Oceanic Nav. Co. v. Stranahan, 214 U. S. 320 (1909). [Footnote 9] See also Ex parte Bakelite Corp., 279 U. S. 438, 279 U. S. 451, 279 U. S. 458 (1929).
"The statute is objected to on the further ground that landlords and tenants are deprived by it of a trial by jury on the right to possession of the land. If the power of the Commission established by the statute to regulate the relation is established, as we think it is, by what we have said, this objection amounts to little. To regulate the relation and to decide the facts affecting it are hardly separable."
"[T]he distinction is at once apparent between cases of private right and those which arise between the Government and persons subject to its authority in connection with the performance of the constitutional functions of the executive or legislative departments. . . . [T]he Congress, in exercising the powers confided to it, may establish 'legislative' courts . . . to serve as special tribunals 'to examine and determine various matters, arising between the government and others, which, from their nature, do not require judicial determination, and yet are susceptible of it.' But 'the mode of determining matters of this class is completely within congressional control. Congress may reserve to itself the power to decide, may delegate that power to executive officers, or may commit it to judicial tribunals.' . . . Familiar illustrations of administrative agencies created for the determination of such matters are found in connection with the exercise of the congressional power as to interstate and foreign commerce, taxation, immigration, the public lands, public health, the facilities of the post office, pensions and payments to veterans."
Id. at 285 U. S. 50-51. (Emphasis added.)
Id. at 301 U. S. 48-49. (Emphasis added.) [Footnote 10]
"congressional power to entrust enforcement of statutory rights to an administrative process or specialized court of equity [Footnote 11] free from the strictures of the Seventh Amendment."
415 U.S. at 415 U. S. 194-195. (Emphasis added.)
Finally, in Pernell v. Southall Realty, 416 U. S. 363 (1974), [Footnote 12] in discussing Block v. Hirsh, 256 U. S. 135 (1921), and Jones & Laughlin, we stated:
"Block v. Hirsh merely stands for the principle that the Seventh Amendment is generally inapplicable in administrative proceedings, where jury trials would be incompatible with the whole concept of administrative adjudication. . . . We may assume that the Seventh Amendment would not be a bar to a congressional effort to
416 U.S. at 416 U. S. 383. (Emphasis added.)
In sum, the cases discussed above stand clearly for the proposition that, when Congress creates new statutory "public rights," it may assign their adjudication to an administrative agency with which a jury trial would be incompatible, without violating the Seventh Amendment's injunction that jury trial is to be "preserved" in "suits at common law." [Footnote 13] Congress is not required by the Seventh Amendment to choke the already crowded federal courts with new types of litigation or prevented from committing some new types of litigation to administrative agencies with special competence in the relevant field. This is the case even if the Seventh Amendment would have required a jury where the adjudication of those rights is assigned to a federal court of law, instead of an administrative agency. Petitioners would nevertheless have us disregard the interpretation of Jones & Laughlin which we recently espoused in Curtis v. Loether and Pernell v. Southall Realty, reading it instead as a holding solely that the entire proceeding before the NLRB was really equitable in nature; and they would have us entirely disregard Block v.
18 How. at 59 U. S. 284. In Oceanic, which sustained the administrative imposition of a fine for the wrongful importation of aliens, the Court said that its ruling was in accordance with "settled judicial construction" that, "not only as to tariff, but as to internal revenue, taxation and other subjects," Congress could
214 U.S. at 214 U. S. 339. (Emphasis added.) Crowell spoke broadly of the distinction between cases of private right and those which arise between the Government and persons subject to its authority "in connection with the performance of the constitutional functions of the executive or legislative departments," see supra at 430 U. S. 452, and gave "familiar illustrations" of the permissible use of administrative agencies in connection with the exercise of such congressional powers as "interstate and foreign commerce." 285 U.S. at 285 U. S. 51. Helvering v. Mitchell, supra at 303 U. S. 402-403, relying on Oceanic and similar cases, stated simply that "the determination of the facts upon which liability is based may be by an administrative agency, instead of a jury." It is also apparent that Jones & Laughlin, Pernell, and Curtis are not amenable to the limitations suggested by petitioners.
More to the point, it is apparent from the history of jury trial in civil matters that factfinding, which is the essential function of the jury in civil cases, Colgrove v. Battin, 413 U. S. 149, 413 U. S. 157 (1973) was never the exclusive province of the jury under either the English or American legal systems at the time of the adoption of the Seventh Amendment; and the question whether a fact would be found by a jury turned to a considerable degree on the nature of the forum in which a litigant found himself. Critical factfinding was performed without juries in suits in equity, and there were no juries in admiralty, Parsons v. Bedford, 3 Pet. 433 (1830); nor were there juries in the military justice system. The jury was the factfinding mode in most suits in the common law courts, but it was not exclusively so: condemnation was a suit at common law, but constitutionally could be tried without a jury, Kohl v. United States, 91 U. S. 367, 91 U. S. 375-376 (1876); Bauman v. Ross, 167 U. S. 548, 167 U. S. 593 (1897); United States v. Reynolds, 397 U. S. 14, 397 U. S. 18 (1970). "[M]any civil as well as criminal proceedings at common law were without a jury." Kohl v. United States, supra at 91 U. S. 376. The question whether a particular case was to be tried in a court of equity -- without a jury -- or a court of law -- with a jury -- did not depend on whether the suit involved factfinding or on the nature of the facts to be found. Factfinding could be a critical matter either at law or in equity. Rather, as a general rule, the decision turned on whether courts of law supplied a cause of action and an
adequate remedy to the litigant. [Footnote 14] If it did, then the case would be tried in a court of law before a jury. Otherwise, the case would be tried to a court of equity sitting without a jury. Thus, suits for damages for breach of contract, for example, were suits at common law with the issues of the making of the contract and its breach to be decided by a jury; but specific performance was a remedy unavailable in a court of law, and, where such relief was sought, the case would be tried in a court of equity with the facts as to making and breach to be ascertained by the court.
The point is that the Seventh Amendment was never intended to establish the jury as the exclusive mechanism for factfinding in civil cases. It took the existing legal order as it found it, and there is little or no basis for concluding that the Amendment should now be interpreted to provide an impenetrable barrier to administrative factfinding under otherwise valid federal regulatory statutes. We cannot conclude that the Amendment rendered Congress powerless when it concluded that remedies available in courts of law were inadequate to cope with a problem within Congress' power to regulate -- to create new public rights and remedies by statute and commit their enforcement, if it chose, to a tribunal other than a court of law -- such as an administrative agency -- in which facts are not found by juries. Indeed, as the Oceanic opinion said, the "settled judicial construction" was to the contrary "from the beginning." 214 U.S. at 214 U. S. 339. That case indicated, as had Hepner v. United States, 213 U. S. 103 (1909), that the Government could commit the enforcement of statutes and the imposition and collection of fines to the judiciary, in which event, jury trial would be required, see also United States v. Regan, 232 U. S. 37 (1914), but that the United States could also validly opt for administrative enforcement, without judicial trials. See also Helvering v. Mitchell, 303 U.S. at 303 U. S. 402-403, and Crowell v. Benson, 285 U.S. at 551. [Footnote 15]
right to a jury trial turns not solely on the nature of the issue to be resolved, but also on the forum in which it is to be resolved. [Footnote 16] Congress found the common law and other existing remedies for work injuries resulting from unsafe working conditions to be inadequate to protect the Nation's working men and women. It created a new cause of action, and remedies therefor, unknown to the common law, and placed their enforcement in a tribunal supplying speedy and expert resolutions of the issues involved. The Seventh Amendment is no bar to the creation of new rights or to their enforcement outside the regular courts of law.
These cases do not involve purely "private rights." In cases which do involve only "private rights," this Court has accepted factfinding by an administrative agency, without intervention by a jury, only as an adjunct to an Art. III court, analogizing the agency to a jury or a special master and permitting it in admiralty cases to perform the function of the special master. Crowell v. Benson, 285 U. S. 22, 285 U. S. 51-65 (1932). The Court there said: "On the common law side of the federal courts, the aid of juries is not only deemed appropriate, but is required by the Constitution itself." Id. at 285 U. S. 51.
18 How. at 59 U. S. 284. (Emphasis added.)
"In accord with this settled judicial construction, the legislation of Congress from the beginning, not only as to tariff, but as to internal revenue, taxation, and other subjects, has proceeded on the conception that it was within the competency of Congress, when legislating as to matters exclusively within its control, to impose appropriate obligations and sanction their enforcement by reasonable money penalties, giving to executive officers the power to enforce such penalties without the necessity of invoking the judicial power."
214 U.S. at 214 U. S. 339. (Emphasis added.)
The Court also rejected the Seventh Amendment claim in Jones & Laughlin on the separate ground that that Amendment is inapplicable where "recovery of money damages is an incident to [nonlegal] relief even though damages might have been recovered in an action at law," 301 U.S. at 301 U. S. 48-49, since, in such cases, courts of equity would historically have granted monetary relief. In Jones & Laughlin, the NLRB ordered reinstatement of a dismissed employee, an order analogous to injunctive relief historically obtainable only in a court of equity, and consequently this alternative ground was an adequate one to decide Jones & Laughlin. However, this alternative ground would have been insufficient to decide the more general question of the NLRB's power to order backpay where, for one reason or another, no such equitable order was sought. See Radio Officers v. NLRB, 347 U. S. 17, 347 U. S. 54 (1954); NLRB v. National Garment Co., 166 F.2d 233 (CA8 1948); NLRB v. Brookside Industries, Inc., 308 F.2d 224 (CA4 1962); Bon Hennings Logging Co. v. NLRB, 308 F.2d 548 (CA9 1962); NLRB v. West Coast Casket Co., Inc., 205 F.2d 902 (CA9 1953); Reliance Mfg. Co. v. NLRB, 125 F.2d 311 (CA7 1941); NLRB v. Carpenters, 238 F.2d 832 (CA5 1956); Indianapolis Power & Light Co. v. NLRB, 122 F.2d 757 (CA7 1941).
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