Opinion ID: 548355
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The nature of the remedy

Text: 29 The second, more important part of the inquiry directed by Granfinanciera, is the nature of the remedy. The remedy sought in this case, a money judgment, is clearly legal. See, e.g., Granfinanciera, 109 S.Ct. at 2793; Pernell v. Southall Realty, 416 U.S. 363, 370, 94 S.Ct. at 1723, 1727, 40 L.Ed.2d 198 (1974); Dairy Queen, Inc. v. Wood, 369 U.S. 469, 477, 82 S.Ct. 894, 899, 8 L.Ed.2d 44 (1962) (insofar as the complaint requests a money judgment it presents a claim which is unquestionably legal); Whitehead v. Shattuck, 138 U.S. 146, 152, 11 S.Ct. 276, 277, 34 L.Ed. 873 (1891) (where an action is simply for ... the recovery of a money judgment, the action is one at law.). Hence, a complete remedy is available at law, and equity will not allow an action in such a case. See, e.g., Schoenthal v. Irving Trust, 287 U.S. 92, 95, 53 S.Ct. 50, 51-52, 77 L.Ed. 185 (1932). 30 Since Beard's action plainly [sought] relief traditionally provided by law courts or on the law side of courts having both legal and equitable dockets, we must now determine if Congress has permissibly withdrawn jurisdiction over that action by courts of law and assigned it exclusively to non-Article III tribunals sitting without juries. Granfinanciera, 109 S.Ct. at 2794.III. May Congress assign this claim to a non-Article III adjudicative body that does not use a jury as a factfinder? 31 In Atlas Roofing Co., Inc. v. OSHRC, 430 U.S. 442, 97 S.Ct. 1261, 51 L.Ed.2d 464 (1977), the Court dealt with Seventh Amendment challenges to provisions in the Occupational Safety and Health Act, allowing for administrative civil penalties for violations of health and safety standards, subject first to administrative review and then to judicial review in the appropriate court of appeals under a substantial evidence test. 29 U.S.C. Sec. 660(a),(b). The challenge was that the Seventh Amendment prevented the assignment of the factfinding functions in the Act to the administrative agency. The Atlas Court indicated, however, that 32 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.' ... This is the case even if the Seventh Amendment would have required a jury where the adjudication is assigned instead to a federal court of law instead of an administrative agency. 6 33 430 U.S. at 455, 97 S.Ct. at 1269. 34 With regard to the objection that if the right to a jury trial depends on the forum which Congress has chosen, Congress could utterly destroy the right by always providing for administrative resolution, the Court answered: 35 Our prior cases support administrative factfinding in only those situations involving 'public rights,' e.g., where the Government is involved in its sovereign capacity under an otherwise valid statute creating enforceable private rights. Wholly private tort, contract, and property cases, as well as a vast range of other cases as well are not at all implicated. 36 430 U.S. at 458, 97 S.Ct. at 1270 (emphasis supplied). 7 Granfinanciera stated that: 37 We adhere to that general teaching.... [Although] Congress may devise novel causes of action involving public rights free from the strictures of the Seventh Amendment if it assigns their adjudication to tribunals without statutory authority to employ juries as factfinders, 8 ... it lacks the power to strip parties contesting matters of private right of their constitutional right to a jury.... '[L]egal claims are not magically converted into equitable issues by their presentation to a court of equity,' Ross v. Bernhard, 396 U.S. 531, 538, 90 S.Ct. 733, 738 [24 L.Ed.2d 729] (1970), 9 nor can Congress conjure away the Seventh Amendment by mandating that traditional legal claims be brought there or taken to an administrative tribunal. 38 109 S.Ct. at 2795-96 (emphasis added). Granfinanciera concluded that [u]nless a legal cause of action involves 'public rights,' Congress may not deprive parties litigating over that right of the Seventh Amendment's guarantee to a jury trial. Id. at 2796. 39 What are public rights? A comparatively limited view was advanced in Atlas and in Northern Pipeline Construction Co. v. Marathon Pipe Line Co., 458 U.S. 50, 69, 102 S.Ct. 2858, 2870, 73 L.Ed.2d 598 (1982) (a matter of public rights must at a minimum arise 'between the government and others' ) (plurality). However, in Thomas v. Union Carbide Agr. Products Co., 473 U.S. 568, 105 S.Ct. 3325, 87 L.Ed.2d 409 (1985), the Court expanded the public rights doctrine to the extent that: 40 Congress, acting for a valid legislative purpose pursuant to its constitutional powers under Article I, may create a seemingly 'private' right that is so closely integrated into a public regulatory scheme as to be a matter appropriate for agency resolution with limited involvement by the Article III judiciary. 41 Id. at 593-94, 105 S.Ct. at 3339-40. 42 This holding, however, should not be read too expansively for the right in Thomas, while seemingly private, bore many of the characteristics of a 'public' right. Id. at 589, 105 S.Ct. at 3337. Thomas dealt with the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA), 7 U.S.C. Sec. 136 et seq. As a precondition for registration of a pesticide, manufacturers must submit research data to the Environmental Protection Agency concerning the product's health, safety and environmental effects. To increase efficiency and competition, Congress provided that data submitted by one registrant could be considered in support of future registrants even though much of this data could be considered trade secrets. Congress ultimately established what was, in effect, a mandatory data-licensing scheme, providing that new registrants must offer to compensate the data submitter, and for binding arbitration in the event the two could not agree on a price. Id. at 571-75, 105 S.Ct. at 3328-30. 43 The Court found that the right to compensation was, at most, 10 a claim for a taking, a claim which is between the government and others, and does not require judicial determination but is susceptible of it. See Crowell v. Benson, 285 U.S. 22, 50, 52 S.Ct. 285, 292, 76 L.Ed. 598 (1932). Moreover, the Court indicated that: Congress has the power, under Article I, to authorize an agency administering a complex regulatory scheme to allocate costs and benefits among voluntary participants without providing an Article III adjudication. Thomas, 473 U.S. at 589, 105 S.Ct. at 3337. Of course, the costs and benefits were incurred in connection with a public regulatory program safeguarding the public health. Id. All Congress did in Thomas was to collapse these two public rights inquiries. The Court also noted that the arbitration scheme incorporated its own system of internal sanctions and relied, at most, tangentially on the judicial branch for enforcement. 11 44 The rather limited scope of Thomas is demonstrated by the later conclusion in Granfinanciera that 45 [i]f a statutory right is not closely intertwined with a federal regulatory program Congress has power to enact, and if that right neither belongs to nor exists against the Federal Government, then it must be adjudicated by an Article III court. If the right is legal in nature, then it carries with it the Seventh Amendment's guarantee of a jury trial. 46 109 S.Ct. at 2797. 47 This formulation in Granfinanciera does not conflict with Crowell v. Benson, 285 U.S. at 22, 52 S.Ct. at 285, which upheld a system for compensation under the Longshoremen's and Harbor Workers' Compensation Act, equivalent to worker's compensation, for injuries to employees occurring upon the navigable waters of the United States, where recovery through state workmen's compensation laws was unavailable. Id. at 38, 52 S.Ct. at 287. The act was administered by the United States Employees' Compensation Commission, and claims were investigated, hearings held, and judgments made by deputy commissioners. Findings of fact by a deputy commissioner arising with respect to injuries to employees within the purview of the act ... supported by evidence and within the scope of his authority were deemed final. Id. at 46, 52 S.Ct. at 291. 48 Granfinanciera is distinguishable from Crowell on two bases. First, Crowell involved admiralty jurisdiction, and 49 [i]n cases of equity and admiralty, it is historic practice to call to the assistance of the courts, without the consent of the parties, masters, and commissioners or assessors, to pass upon certain classes of questions.... While the reports of masters and commissioners in such cases are essentially of an advisory nature, it has not been the practice to disturb their findings when they are properly based upon evidence, in the absence of errors of law, and the parties have no right to demand that the court shall redetermine the facts thus found. 50 Crowell, 285 U.S. at 51-52, 52 S.Ct. at 292-93. 51 Civil causes of action in admiralty are not Suits at common law for Seventh Amendment purposes. See Waring v. Clarke, 46 U.S. (5 How.) 440, 12 L.Ed. 226 (1847); Parsons v. Bedford, supra at p. 437. 52 The second distinction between Granfinanciera and Crowell is that Crowell was a public rights action, as that term is now, post-Thomas, defined, in that it involved rights that were an integral part of a public regulatory scheme, assigned to an administrative agency. See 109 S.Ct. at 2797 n. 10. On the other hand, Granfinanciera was a fraudulent conveyance action based on private rather than public rights. While the restructuring of the debtor-creditor relationship might be a public right, 12 53 'matters from their nature subject to a suit at common law or in equity or admiralty ' lie at the 'protected core' of Article III judicial power.... There can be little doubt that fraudulent conveyance actions by bankruptcy trustees--suits, which, we said in Schoenthal v. Irving Trust Co., 287 U.S., at 94-95, 53 S.Ct., at 51 (citation omitted), 'constitute no part of the proceedings in bankruptcy but concern controversies arising out of it'--are quintessentially suits at common law that more nearly resemble state-law contract claims brought by a bankrupt corporation to augment the bankruptcy estate than they do creditors' hierarchically ordered claims to a pro rata share of the bankruptcy res. They therefore appear matters of private rather than public right. 54 Granfinanciera, 109 S.Ct. at 2798 (citations omitted). 55 Beard's action does not merely resemble a state-law contract [action] brought by a bankrupt corporation to augment the bankruptcy estate--it is such an action. Accordingly, it is clearly a matter of private right and we therefore conclude that Braunstein was entitled under the Seventh Amendment to the jury trial he sought on Beard's claim for rent.