Opinion ID: 184717
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Separation of Powers Challenge

Text: 85 BellSouth next argues that § 271 is contrary to the principle of separation of powers. It concedes that Congress may modify generally applicable rules and thereby supersede a prior consent decree arising from those underlying rules. Reply Brief for Appellants at 4. However, the problem, according to BellSouth, is that § 271 pinpoint[s] the BOCs, and replaces the restrictions imposed on them by the MFJ with what Congress deem[ed] ... a more appropriate sanction. Id. BellSouth contends that, in so doing, Congress interfered with the prerogative of the judicial branch. Although we agree with BellSouth that Congress may not reopen the last word of the judicial department, Plaut v. Spendthrift Farm, Inc., 514 U.S. 211, 227, 115 S.Ct. 1447, 131 L.Ed.2d 328 (1995), we do not agree that § 271 implicates this concern. 86 In Pennsylvania v. Wheeling and Belmont Bridge Co., 59 U.S. (18 How.) 421, 15 L.Ed. 435 (1855), the Court had entered a final judgment in 1851, ordering the private owner of a bridge across the Ohio River to either remove or raise a bridge because it obstructed traffic along the river. See id. at 429. After that decision, Congress passed legislation that made the bridge in question a post-road, which meant that the bridge could remain in place with no interference from navigation along the river. See id. The bridge was then destroyed by a storm. See id. at 422. When the owner began to rebuild the bridge, the state of Pennsylvania filed suit to prevent its reconstruction based on the Supreme Court's original finding that the bridge was a nuisance. See id. Faced with this dilemma, the Court held that the legislation was not unconstitutional, because the injunctive remedy awarded in 1851 was a continuing decree, see id. at 431, and, thus, could be modified by Congress. As a result, the statute passed by Congress prevented the Court from enjoining the construction of the bridge. See id. at 431-32. Therefore, as the Fifth Circuit pointed out, under [Wheeling], it has long been clear that Congress may change the law underlying ongoing equitable relief, even if, as in Wheeling itself, the change is specifically targeted at and limited in applicability to a particular injunction, and even if the change results in the necessary lifting of that injunction. SBC Communications (5th), 154 F.3d at 245. 87 The Supreme Court recently revisited the separation of powers doctrine in Plaut. There, Congress had passed a statute that would have allowed cases alleging claims under the Securities Exchange Act § 10(b) that had been dismissed as time-barred to be reinstated. See Plaut, 514 U.S. at 214-15, 115 S.Ct. 1447. The Court held that the statute violated separation of powers principles, because it reopened final judgments of the judiciary. See id. at 240, 115 S.Ct. 1447. The Court was careful, however, not to overrule Wheeling, implicitly [drawing] a ... distinction between two kinds of final judgments for separation of powers purposes--final judgments without prospective effects, which could not be constitutionally revised through legislation, and final judgments with prospective effects, whose effects could constitutionally be so revised. Benjamin v. Jacobson, 124 F.3d 162, 171 (2d Cir.1997); see Plaut, 514 U.S. at 232, 115 S.Ct. 1447 (stating that nothing in our holding today calls [Wheeling] into question). 88 The 1996 Act did not reopen a final judgment, but rather eliminated the prospective effects of the MFJ, and provided new restrictions to govern the future acts of the BOCs in its place, such as those found in § 271. Our analysis is not altered by the fact that Congress targeted the BOCs for different treatment, because the Court upheld precisely this type of specificity in Wheeling. 89 Moreover, BellSouth's argument appears to be the same argument that SBC made to the Fifth Circuit regarding separation of powers, i.e., a not-too-well-defined argument that all of the problematic aspects of the Special Provisions--including particularly their specificity, their interference with the MFJ, and the near-punitive nature of the liability they impose--when added together somehow amount to a separation-of-powers violation that is greater than the sum of its parts. SBC Communications (5th), 154 F.3d at 246. But in Plaut, the Court made clear that [i]t makes no difference whatever to [the] separation-of-powers violation ... that it is not accompanied by an 'almost' violation of the Bill of Attainder Clause. 514 U.S. at 239, 115 S.Ct. 1447; see SBC Communications (5th), 154 F.3d at 246. Thus, although BellSouth is troubled by the particularity with which § 271 operates, and the fact that it believes § 271 is at least near-punitive, this combination does not change the result of our analysis of the separation of powers claim. We agree with the Fifth Circuit that § 271 does not violate separation of powers principles.