Court Opinion

ID: 9461959
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 22:28:39.269176+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:37:20.007399
License: Public Domain

*1226GARTH, Circuit Judge,
dissenting:
Although I agree with the legal analysis set forth by Judge Gibbons in his opinions dissenting from both the panel and en banc majorities, I disagree strongly with his political analysis (pages 1224-1225 of the en banc dissent) of the reasoning underlying the Supreme Court’s decision in N.L.R.B. v. Jones & Laughlin Steel Corp., 301 U.S. 1, 57 S.Ct. 615, 81 L.Ed. 893 (1937). I am critical of any analytical approach which attributes a court decision to the political motivations and other extra-judicial considerations of the five Justices who joined in the majority opinion.
I do not believe that fear of “court-packing” or other “reprisals” governed the decisions of the Supreme Court in 1937 any more than I believe that considerations of “reprisal” or “reward” dictate the decision of members of the judiciary today. The “considerations” about which Judge Gibbons writes are not the product of evidence and are not matters of judicial record; they are rather political theories advanced by secondary source commentators. If true, they rent great tears in the fabric of justice; if false, they do an enormous disservice to dedicated Justices. In either event, these considerations add nothing to an otherwise analytical and compelling opinion dealing with the applicability of the Seventh Amendment to the issues presented here. Indeed, in advancing a hypothetical and pseudo-political analysis of considerations which might have motivated the court (an analysis better suited to a law review note than an opinion), Judge Gibbons detracts from an otherwise scholarly dissertation.
I note, to set the record straight, that many of the Justices who ultimately constituted the majority in Jones & Laughlin, supra, had consistently been in the minority in those cases decided prior to the November 1936 election,1 which are cited by Judge Gibbons in his opinion at 1224. In Morehead v. New York ex rel. Tipaldo, 298 U.S. 587, 56 S.Ct. 918, 80 L.Ed. 1347 (1936) Chief Justice Hughes and Justices Brandéis, Stone and Cardozo were the dissenters. When Justice Roberts joined Chief Justice Hughes and Justices Brandéis, Stone and Cardozo in Jones & Laughlin, the former dissenters finally became the majority. How can it be said that the “majority” vote which had been developing prior to the 1936 election was the sole product of post-1936 political considerations? I prefer not to indulge in political and historical speculation but to read a Supreme Court opinion for what it says. I perceive nothing in the Jones & Laughlin decision which in any way suggests that the result was based on other than proper judicial considerations based upon matters of record.2
Therefore, I disassociate myself from the dissent’s political analysis, while at the same time joining in Judge Gibbons’ otherwise excellent opinion, holding that the Seventh Amendment mandates a jury trial with respect to penalty proceedings under the Occupational Safety and Health Act.

. Schechter Poultry Corp. v. United States, 295 U.S. 495, 55 S.Ct. 837, 79 L.Ed. 1570 (1935) ; United States v. Butler, 297 U.S. 1, 56 S.Ct. 312, 80 L.Ed. 477 (1936) ; Carter v. Carter Coal Co., 298 U.S. 238, 56 S.Ct. 855, 80 L.Ed. 1160 (1936) ; Morehead v. New York ex rel. Tipaldo, 298 U.S. 587, 56 S.Ct. 918, 80 L.Ed. 1347 (1936).

. Even if there is validity in the contention that political considerations dictated the principal holding in Jones & Laughlin, (a contention which I do not accept), it is absurd to suggest (as Judge Gibbons does in his opinion at 1223-1224) that every “peripheral” issue in that opinion is similarly controlled. Certainly Judge Gibbons does not demonstrate in his opinion nor is there any indication given in his historical analysis, that there was any prevailing political sentiment in 1937 as to the “back pay/Seventh Amendment” issue, the only issue relevant here. Resolution of this “peripheral” issue was by no means legally or analytically dictated by the Court’s holding that the Act itself was constitutional.