Opinion ID: 187426
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Appointments Clause Challenge

Text: Before reviewing the substance of the Judges' determination, we must address a question raised about the tribunal itself. Nearly a year after appealing the Judges' order, and almost three months after filing its opening brief, Royalty Logic submitted a supplemental brief in which it argued for the first time that the manner in which the Copyright Royalty Judges are appointed violates the Appointments Clause of the United States Constitution. This court allowed the filing without prejudice to the merits panel deciding whether or not to consider the Appointments Clause issue and directed the Board and SoundExchange to file responsive supplemental briefs. Supp. Briefing Order (D.C.Cir. May 30, 2008). [T]he Congress may by Law vest the Appointment of ... inferior Officers  a category that all parties agree includes the Judges  in the President alone, in the Courts of Law, or in the Heads of Departments. U.S. CONST. art. II, § 2, cl. 2. Congress has entrusted the appointment of the Judges to the Librarian of Congress. See 17 U.S.C. § 801(a) (The Librarian shall appoint 3 full-time Copyright Royalty Judges ... after consultation with the Register of Copyrights.). The Librarian, of course, is neither the President nor a court of law. Royalty Logic argues that he is also not a Head of Department, maintaining that under Freytag v. Commissioner, 501 U.S. 868, 111 S.Ct. 2631, 115 L.Ed.2d 764 (1991), only the heads of cabinet-level departments within the executive branch qualify. According to Royalty Logic, the Library of Congress is within the legislative branch. The government and SoundExchange dispute both points. They note that the Library serves several executive functions and that the Librarian is subject to appointment and removal by the President. They also reject the reading of Freytag that limits Departments to those at the cabinet level. We need not resolve the dispute. As appellees point out, Royalty Logic has forfeited its argument by failing to raise it in its opening brief. See Sw. Airlines Co. v. Transp. Sec. Admin., 554 F.3d 1065, 1072 (D.C.Cir.2009). It is certainly within our power to consider Royalty Logic's challenge. The Freytag petitioners failed to object to the special trial judge's appointment, raising their constitutional argument for the first time on appeal. But the Court emphasized that its consideration of the untimely objection was an exercise of discretion, and that only in rare cases is it proper to do so. Freytag, 501 U.S. at 879, 111 S.Ct. 2631; see also id. at 893, 111 S.Ct. 2631 (Scalia, J., concurring) (noting that the majority did not accept petitioners' argument that Appointments Clause challenges cannot be forfeited). This is not the rare case that compels us to exercise our discretion to consider an untimely argument. An Appointments Clause challenge is nonjurisdictional, id. at 878, 111 S.Ct. 2631 (majority opinion), and thus not subject to the axiom that jurisdiction may not be waived, see NetworkIP, LLC v. FCC, 548 F.3d 116, 120 (D.C.Cir.2008). And Royalty Logic has not given us any reason to depart from our normal forfeiture rule. It offers no justification for its delay. At oral argument, Royalty Logic's counsel explained that the issue simply had not occurred to him until, several months after filing his opening brief, he was reading the cases ... and particularly Freytag,  and concluded that this was a foundational and structural issue. Oral Arg. Rec. at 1:35-55. But these cases were not new. Freytag was decided over eighteen years ago, and the most recent case cited in Royalty Logic's supplemental brief dates from 2003. See Royalty Logic Supp. Br. ii-iii. We have cautioned litigants that [s]upplemental briefs do not provide an opportunity to convert review of an agency order into a broadbased ... constitutional attack, and that we will not consider a supplemental brief that is nothing more than a poorly disguised attempt to file a second main brief to advance arguments overlooked in [the party's] first main brief. Plaquemines Port, Harbor & Terminal Dist. v. Fed. Mar. Comm'n, 838 F.2d 536, 551 (D.C.Cir.1988). Nothing in the supplemental briefing (which was allowed without prejudice to the decision we have now made to hold Royalty Logic to its forfeiture) persuades us otherwise. To the contrary, the briefs' incomplete treatment of the Appointments Clause issue underscores our decision. For example, the parties failed to cite or discuss the effect of our statements, in other contexts, that the Library of Congress is not part of the executive branch. See, e.g., Wash. Legal Found. v. U.S. Sentencing Comm'n, 17 F.3d 1446, 1449 (D.C.Cir.1994) (noting that the Library is exempt from the APA because its provisions do not apply to `the Congress'  that is, the legislative branch); Judd v. Billington, 863 F.2d 103, 105 (D.C.Cir.1988) (former Library employee could not bring claim under Rehabilitation Act because that statute applies only to employees in the executive branch). The absence of the webcasters' views compounds the problem. Were we to decide the constitutional question without thorough, considered briefing from all interested parties, we would run the risk of an improvident or ill-advised opinion on the legal issues tendered, McBride v. Merrell Dow & Pharm., Inc., 800 F.2d 1208, 1211 (D.C.Cir.1986) (refusing to decide issue not raised until reply brief). Finally, the potential for far-reaching consequences counsels against resolving the Appointments Clause question on this record. The Librarian of Congress appoints not only the Copyright Royalty Judges but also the Register of Copyrights. See 17 U.S.C. § 701(a). To hold that the Librarian is not the head of a department within the meaning of the Appointments Clause would invalidate the Judges' determinations and call into question the status of every registered American copyright. We decline to resolve this important question[] of far-reaching significance, Carducci v. Regan, 714 F.2d 171, 177 (D.C.Cir.1983), on the basis of hasty, inadequate, and untimely briefing.