Opinion ID: 73608
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Separation of Powers Under Klein

Text: We review briefly the now-familiar facts of Klein. Klein, the administrator of the estate of Confederate sympathizer, V. F. Wilson, filed a petition pursuant to the Abandoned and Captured Property Act of 1863 to secure the proceeds of cotton that had been abandoned to federal treasury agents. To obtain reimbursement, petitioners were required to prove loyalty during the war. Wilson had taken an 2 The appellants have also argued here that section 3626(b)(2) of the PLRA violates the Due Process Clause and Equal Protection dimension of the Fifth Amendment. As appellants noted, however, we rejected those challenges in Dougan and we decline to revisit them here. 4 oath in 1864 pursuant to President Lincoln's proclamation granting full pardon to those who took an oath of allegiance to the United States. Prior Supreme Court precedent held that those who took such an oath satisfied the loyalty provision of the 1863 act. In 1870, while Klein's case was pending, however, Congress passed legislation stating that a presidential pardon was proof of disloyalty and directing the dismissal for lack of jurisdiction any pending recovery action brought on behalf of a pardon recipient. The Supreme Court invalidated the statute, holding that Congress violates the separation of powers doctrine when a statute “prescribes a rule for the decision of a cause in a particular way.” See Klein, 80 U.S. at 146. In striking down the statute, the Klein Court distinguished the case of Pennsylvania v. Wheeling & Belmont Bridge Co., 59 U.S. (18 How.) 421 (1855). In Wheeling Bridge, Congress passed an act that legalized the structure of a bridge that the Supreme Court decreed in an earlier lawsuit to be a nuisance. When the Court was asked to enforce its prior nuisance decree, it held that the bridge had ceased to be a nuisance as defined by the legislation of Congress. As the Court later explained, “[n]o arbitrary rule of decision was prescribed in [Wheeling], but the court was left to apply its ordinary rules to the new circumstances created by the act.” See Klein, 80 U.S. at 146-47. The statute in Klein, on the other hand, 5 created “no new circumstances” and this “inadvertently passed the limit which separates the legislative from the judicial power.” Id. at 147. More recently, in Robertson v. Seattle Audubon Society, 503 U.S. 429, 112 S. Ct. 1407, 118 L.Ed.2d 73 (1992), the Supreme Court declined to decide whether an act of Congress was unconstitutional under Klein because the act merely amended underlying law and did not prescribe a rule of decision. See 503 U.S. at 441, 112 S. Ct. at 1414. Recalling its holding in Wheeling Bridge, the Court held that the challenged legislation “replaced the legal standards” in an environmental statute “without directing particular applications under either the old or new standards.” Id. at 437, 112 S. Ct. at 1413. The Court noted that the legislation “expressly provided for judicial determination of the lawfulness” of activity under the statute and that the legislation did not instruct the courts whether any particular activity would violate the legislation. Id. at 438-39, 112 S. Ct. at 1413 (emphasis in original). See also Henderson v. Scientific-Atlanta, Inc., 971 F.2d 1567, 1573 (11th Cir. 1992) (applying Seattle Audubon and finding the challenged legislation did “not require courts to make any particular findings of fact or applications of law to fact. Any effect on pending cases is solely a result of a change in the underlying law.”). 6 Finally, in Plaut v. Spendthrift Farm, Inc., 514 U.S. 211, 115 S. Ct. 1447, 131 L.Ed.2d 328 (1995), the Court once again attempted to clarify the meaning of Klein. “Whatever the precise scope of Klein, . . . later decisions have made clear that its prohibition does not take hold when Congress These cases illustrate that the separation of powers doctrine is not a model of clarity. The Supreme Court, however, has articulated certain boundaries. The legislation considered in Wheeling Bridge is permissible, that in Klein is not. We conclude that the PLRA more closely resembles the legislation involved in Wheeling Bridge because it amends the applicable law. Here, Congress has enacted new standards, but has left to the courts the judicial functions of applying those standards.3 See Seattle Audubon, 503 U.S. at 437, 112 S. Ct. at 1413. If the court finds that the consent order in question has been narrowly drafted, extends no further than necessary, and is the least intrusive means necessary to correct the 3 The appellants argue that this defense of the PLRA is inapplicable because the PLRA purports to amend underlying constitutional law and Congress does not have “the power to determine what constitutes a constitutional violation.” City of Boerne v. Flores, 521 U.S. 507, 117 S. Ct. 2157, 2164, 138 L.Ed.2d 624 (1997). The applicable law, however, is not constitutional in nature. The PLRA addresses the authority of the district court to grant relief greater than that required by federal law, but does not determine what conduct constitutes a violation of the Eighth Amendment. See Plyler v. Moore, 100 F.3d 365, 372 (4th Cir. 1996), cert. denied, ___ U.S. ___, 117 S. Ct. 2460, 138 L.Ed.2d 217 (1997). 7 violation, then the order will not terminate.4 Section 3626(b)(2) of the PLRA thus “provides only the standard to which district courts must adhere, not the result they must reach,” Plyler v. Moore, 100 F.3d 365, 372 (4th Cir. 1996), cert. denied, ___ U.S. ___, 117 S. Ct. 2460, 138 L.Ed.2d 217 (1997), and does not violate the separation of powers principles set out in Klein. We note that other circuits have reached the same conclusion. See Hadix v. Johnson, 133 F.3d 940, 943 (6th Cir.), cert. denied, ___ U.S. ___, 118 S. Ct. 2368, 141 L.Ed.2d 737 (1998) (the “interpretation and application of law to fact and the ultimate resolution of prison condition cases remain at all times with the judiciary”); Inmates of Suffolk County Jail v. Rouse, 129 F.3d 649, 658 (1st Cir. 1997), cert. denied, ___ U.S. ___, 118 S. Ct. 2366, 141 L.Ed.2d 735 (1998) (the PLRA “does not tamper with the courts' decisional rules – that is, courts remain free to interpret and apply the law to the facts as they discern them. Because the PLRA leaves the courts' adjudicatory processes intact, it does not transgress the Klein doctrine.”); Gavin v. Branstad, 122 F.3d 1081, 1089 (8th Cir. 1997), cert. denied, ___ U.S. ___, 118 S. Ct. 2374, 141 4 The appellants further argue that the statute at question in Klein was also rejected because it guaranteed that the government would win every case. See United States v. Sioux Nation of Indians, 448 U.S. 371, 404, 100 S. Ct. 2716, 2735, 65 L.Ed.2d 844 (1980). Here, there is no prescribed answer for all motions to terminate that come before the court. If the district court finds that the consent decree meets the requirements of the PLRA, the decree may not be terminated. See 18 U.S.C. § 3626(b)(3). 8 L.Ed.2d 741 (1998) (“Congress has left the judicial functions of interpreting the law and applying the law to the facts entirely in the hands of the courts. The PLRA leaves the judging to judges, and therefore it does not violate the Klein doctrine.”); Plyler, 100 F.3d at 372 (Section 3626(b)(2) “provides only the standard to which district courts must adhere, not the result they must reach”). We thus join Hadix, Inmates of Suffolk County Jail, Gavin, and Plyler, in upholding the constitutionality of the PLRA on this ground.5