Opinion ID: 413120
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: the board's article iii status

Text: 9 Article III, Section 1 of the federal Constitution provides: 10 The judicial Power of the United States, shall be vested in one supreme Court, and in such inferior Courts as the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish. The Judges both of the supreme and inferior Courts, shall hold their Offices during good Behaviour, and shall, at stated Times, receive for their Services, a Compensation, which shall not be diminished during their Continuance in Office. 11 U.S. Const. Art. III, Sec. 1. This section requires the Congress to provide certain protections--specifically, life tenure and guaranty against salary diminution--for all judges on Article III courts. 26 The District Court held that the Board was not an Article III court, however, because Congress expresses clearly which courts enjoy Article III status    [and] Congress has not done so here. JA 144-145. The removed members argue that it is not the label that Congress uses that determines which adjudicative bodies are Article III courts, but rather the powers that Congress vests in them, and the powers that Congress vested in the Board, they contend, were those of an Article III court. 27 12 The removed members are correct in pointing out that the District Court employed the wrong test for determining whether Congress has created an Article III court. While Justice Harlan did once suggest that the only way to tell an Article I court from an Article III court is to examine the establishing legislation [to see if it] complies with the limitations of [Article III] 28 --and this does come dangerously close to saying that Article III courts are those with Article III judges, 29 --all OF The opinions filed IN The Court's latest Article III case, Northern Pipeline Const. Co. v. Marathon Pipe Line Co., --- U.S. ----, 102 S.Ct. 2858, 73 L.Ed.2d 598, (1982) 30 agree that it is not what Congress says but what powers Congress vests in the adjudicatory body that counts. 31 What the Northern Pipeline plurality, concurring, and dissenting opinions could not agree upon were the circumstances in which Congress could constitutionally vest certain traditional attributes of the judicial function in adjudicatory bodies whose judges do not have the benefits of life tenure and the guarantee against salary diminution. 32 13 The removed members argue that Congress' amendments to the Act in 1972 endowed the Board with Article III powers and the Board's members with Article III protections. 33 They point to five separate indicia of the Board's Article III status: (1) the Board adjudicates cases of private rights; (2) the Board exercises a judicial review function previously performed by the federal District Courts; (3) the Board applies the substantial evidence test when it reviews administrative law judge decisions; (4) the Board has jurisdiction over admiralty matters; and (5) the Board is free of agency oversight. Reply brief for appellees/cross-appellants at 3. But we do not think that these indicia--taken either alone or together--prove that Congress created an Article III court when it assigned the intermediate review of workers' compensation claims to the Board. 14 First, there can be no doubt that adjudication of workers' compensation claims involves private rights. The Supreme Court so characterized such claims when it approved the constitutionality of the Act's original scheme, in which deputy commissioners, the subordinates of other Executive officials, rendered the initial determinations. See Crowell v. Benson, 285 U.S. 22, 52 S.Ct. 285, 76 L.Ed. 598 (1932). But the Court has never indicated that all federally created private rights must be adjudicated in Article III courts. Northern Pipeline effectively held that certain private state law claims, when adjudicated within the federal system, must be decided by Article III courts. 34 Even the plurality opinion, which would have gone farther than the Court's effective holding, approved the initial determination of private rights by non-Article III judges, 35 so long as the essential attributes of the judicial power were reserved in Article III courts. 36 Thus it is clear that Article III does not require Article III judges to perform every stage of adjudication where private rights are at stake. 15 Second, though the Board exercises a review function previously performed by the District Courts, this review function could also have been performed by a non-Article III court under the 1932 version of the Act. Under that version, the District Courts reviewed findings of fact to determine if they were supported by substantial evidence and legal conclusions to see if they were in accordance with law. 37 Because courts could fully review the deputy commissioners' legal conclusions, delegating the initial determination did not interfere with    the exercise by the court of its jurisdiction. Crowell v. Benson, supra, 285 U.S. at 49-50, 52 S.Ct. at 291-292. Moreover, because courts reviewed the factual findings to determine if they were supported by substantial evidence, the legislation did not improperly deprive Article III courts of access to the necessary facts. 38 This same scheme has been preserved in the 1972 version of the Act: the Courts of Appeals review legal decisions to determine if they are in accordance with law and review findings of fact to determine if they are supported by substantial evidence. 39 While the Board applies the same appellate standards, it is simply providing an additional level of review. 40 Article III requires only that the ultimate judicial power be reserved in the Article III courts; it does not require that all adjudicative bodies exercising the review standards that Article III courts exercise be constituted as Article III courts. 41 Thus the fact that the Board replaced the District Court in the new claims procedure scheme, 42 where more than traditional appellate review was maintained in the appellate courts, 43 does not make the Board an Article III court. For the same reasons, the fact that the Board conducts substantial evidence review does not so vest it with judicial powers that it must be considered an Article III court. 44 16 Third, though the Board's jurisdiction includes admiralty cases, and such cases do arise under    the Laws of the United States within the meaning of Article III, Section 2, the Supreme Court has already decided that non-Article III adjuncts can be constitutionally employed in admiralty and maritime cases. Crowell v. Benson, supra. The law is emphatically clear that when Congress creates a substantive federal right, it possesses substantial discretion to prescribe the manner in which that right may be adjudicated--including assigning to an adjunct some functions historically performed by judges. Northern Pipeline, supra, --- U.S. at ----, 102 S.Ct. at 2875. This is what Congress has done with the Board. 17 Fourth, even if the removed members are correct in asserting that the Board is free from oversight and review of the Executive Branch, 45 it does not follow that the Board is an Article III court and that Board members are Article III judges. Congress can rationally and constitutionally create an administrative framework in which the Executive has only a limited form of control over the administrative appellate process. The test of an Article III court is not how much control the Executive has over an adjudicatory body, but whether an adjudicatory body has enough characteristics of an Article III court. Freedom from oversight is a protection afforded to Article III courts; it is not a test of their existence. 18 Finally, not only do these indicia not make out an Article III court, many of the other, more essential attributes of the judicial power expressly were not vested in the Board. The Board does not have the power of the subpoena or the power to punish anyone for contempt. 46 33 U.S.C. Sec. 927 (1976). The Board possesses only limited powers to issue compensation orders and it must resort to an appropriate District Court to have its orders enforced. 47 Id. Secs. 921(b)(3), 921(d). The Board's narrow jurisdictional grant extends only to claims of employees [under the Act], and not to all potentially related matters. 48 Id. Sec. 921(b)(3). It plays only a limited role in reviewing ALJ determinations and obviously does not exercise all of the jurisdiction usually conferred on District Courts. 49 Moreover, the Board does not have to follow the rules of evidence, id. Sec. 923, which govern proceedings in courts of the United States   . Fed.R.Evid. 101. 19 In sum, the removed members have not shown that the 1972 amendments created an Article III court within the Department of Labor. To the contrary, so many of the essential attributes of an Article III court were omitted that we must conclude that Congress intended to and did create an administrative appellate review board. Congress has the power to place this Board's limited function anywhere it chooses: in a federal court, in an independent agency, or in an Executive agency. See generally L. JAFFE, JUDICIAL CONTROL OF ADMINISTRATIVE ACTION 87-94 (1965). The removed members have not shown that Congress chose the federal court route. 50 We therefore affirm the District Court on this issue. 20