Opinion ID: 437633
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Ways of Denying Authority

Text: 23 The opinion announcing the judgment of the court relies on the hoary cases of McIntire v. Wood, 11 U.S. (7 Cranch) 504, 3 L.Ed. 420 (1813), and McClung v. Silliman, 19 U.S. (6 Wheat.) 598, 5 L.Ed. 340 (1821), to reach the conclusion that the All Writs Act, 28 U.S.C. Sec. 1651 (1976), does not authorize a writ of mandamus against a federal executive officer. While I ultimately agree with the opinion of Judge Gibbons on this point, I am not without serious doubts. 24 Standing alone, I do not think the cryptic opinion in McIntire v. Wood could support the result reached today. In that case, a person claiming to own land by virtue of a federal statute brought suit in federal court in order that the court might direct a land officer to perform various acts apparently needed to perfect title (or to bring suit to perfect title). There being no arising under jurisdiction as there is in modern federal practice, the Supreme Court held that the 11th Section of the Judiciary Act of 1789 did not permit the suit to be brought in federal court. Generally put, that section vested the then-circuit courts with jurisdiction only over certain types of diversity and alienage cases, and cases in which the United States was the plaintiff or petitioner. Were we writing on a clean slate, we would say that the only comment McIntire made with respect to the All Writs Act was that it did not in and of itself create federal jurisdiction; though Congress might have granted jurisdiction to the federal courts in cases wherein performance by some federal officer was a precondition to enforcement of some federal entitlement, it had not done so in the All Writs Act. 25 It is only because of McClung v. Silliman and because of that case's interpretation of McIntire that I feel constrained to adhere to the judgment announced today by Judge Gibbons. In that case, the same litigant who had not been permitted to sue in federal court in McIntire sued in state court and asked it to issue a writ of mandamus to the recalcitrant federal land officer. The state court believed it had the power to issue such a writ, but, on the merits, declined to do so. Because of this factual background, it would seem that the issue before the Supreme Court was essentially one of federalism: whether the state court had the power to issue orders to a federal executive official. 26 For reasons that are lost to antiquity the Supreme Court in McClung determined whether a federal court could issue such a writ in cases (such as the one before it) where diversity of citizenship existed. Unaided by consultation of McClung, I would have thought that a federal court could issue such a writ under those circumstances; as I read McIntire, the problem was an absence of statutory jurisdiction, not some limitation on remedial powers. In McClung, however, the Supreme Court spoke to the contrary and stated (so far as I can discern) that, because there was no jurisdiction, a federal court of original jurisdiction could not issue a writ of mandamus against a federal official, even in cases where the parties were of diverse citizenship. Why there would be no jurisdiction in such a case is a mystery that perhaps only those deeply schooled in the mindset of that era could solve. 3 27 My bewilderment does not permit me to disregard what the Supreme Court has written, however. Thus, so long as I accept the assertion that the magistrate issued a writ of mandamus against the Marshals Service, and the notion that a marshal, like the land officer in McClung, is a member of the federal executive branch, then I must resign myself to the decision reached by Judge Gibbons.