Court Opinion

ID: 9461956
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 22:28:39.25652+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:37:20.324740
License: Public Domain

GIBBONS, Circuit Judge
(dissenting) :
Although I agree with most of what the majority opinion says, I dissent from the judgment enforcing the administrative civil penalty on the single and narrow ground that the administrative civil penalty device violates the seventh amendment. As Judge Weis’ opinion makes clear, suits for recovery of the penalties assessed by the administrative agency may be brought in the district court, Pub.L. No. 91-596, § 17, 29 U.S.C. § 666(k), but the only judicial review afforded with respect to the fact of violation or the amount of the penalty is in this court. Pub.L. No. 91-956, § 11(a), 29 U.S.C. § 660(a). Although the language of 29 U.S.C. § 666 (k) is far from *1208clear, the legislative history referred to in footnote 7 of the majority opinion suggests that the role of the district court is to do nothing other than issue execution on what is essentially an administrative in personam money judgment.
The central feature of the compromise which produced the Constitution of 1787 was the empowerment of the national government to act directly upon persons rather than, as under the Articles of Confederation, on member States. The extent of the transfer of sovereignty to act upon citizens directly was set forth in Article III. One express limitation upon the central government’s power is the provision in Article III, § 2 that the trial of all crimes shall be by jury. When the Constitution was presented to the ratifying conventions the people, fearful of the aggrandizement of power in the national government, insisted on further limitations which were in 1791 incorporated in the Bill of Rights. One of those limitations is the seventh amendment, which guarantees jury trials in civil actions at law. A suit for the recovery of an in personam money judgment is certainly an action at law.
If the civil penalty provisions of the Occupational Safety and Health Act were to be construed as penal, the jury trial provision of Article III, § 2 would apply, as would the double jeopardy clause of the fifth amendment. The respondent so contends, but I agree with the majority that it is now well settled that Congress can, in enforcing federal policies, choose civil or penal remedies, alternatively or concurrently, at least within the limits suggested in cases such as Kennedy v. Mendoza-Martinez, 372 U.S. 144, 83 S.Ct. 554, 9 L.Ed.2d 644 (1963). I agree as well, although with considerable misgivings, that the civil •penalty provisions in OSHA fall within the civil parameters delineated in the cases, and thus that the statute does not infringe the right to a jury trial guaranteed in Article III, § 2.
The civil jury trial guarantee of the seventh amendment is not so easily disposed of. The statute permits the determination of a civil penalty without jury trial, which can be reduced to an in per-sonam money judgment and executed upon. If in 1791 an action for such a money judgment would have been an action at law, it follows that the action falls, today, within the amendment. See Parsons v. Bedford, 28 U.S. (3 Pet.) 433, 447, 7 L.Ed. 732 (1830); Fleitmann v. Welsbach Lighting Co,, 240 U.S. 27, 36 S.Ct. 233, 60 L.Ed. 505 (1916). Not every legal proceeding whereby the government might recover money was in 1791 an action at law. The same First Congress which recommended the ratification of the seventh amendment recognized as much when it enacted the Act of July 31, 1789, ch. 5, 1 Stat. 29, “An Act to regulate the Collection of the Duties imposed by law on the tonnage of ships' or vessels, and on goods, wares and merchandises imported into the United States.” That statute created ports of entry and designated collectors of customs,1 imposed tonnage duties on vessels2 and import duties on goods,3 and provided that the exactions could be collected by detaining the vessels or the goods.4 This has been the uninterrupted course of customs duties assessment in the United States ever since: in rem against the importing vessels.5 Neither libels in admiralty nor customs valuation proceedings were in the Colonies, in England, or in the States prior to 1791 actions at law. The First Congress, which simultaneously considered both the text of the seventh amendment and *1209the first customs act was well aware of the distinction. ■ There is no indication that it believed an in personam judgment for more than $20.00 could after ratification of thé'proposed bill of rights be recovered by the government without a jury trial. The customs law was revised extensively by the Act of March 2, 1799, ch. 22, 1 Stat. 627. That act imposed not only in rem penalties against the vessel, but civil and criminal penalties against the master. It was still in effect, with certain amendments, when in 1870 the case of United States v. The Queen, 27 Fed.Cas. 669 (No. 16,107) (S.D.N.Y.1870) came before then district judge, later Justice, Blatch-ford. That case started when the United States Attorney filed an information against both the master and the vessel for breach of certain duties imposed by the customs laws, seeking forfeitures in excess of twenty dollars. The case against both was tried before the district court, which held that it had admiralty jurisdiction to enforce the penalty against the vessel in rem. Judge Blatchford went on to hold:
“The remaining questions are, as to whether there can be a joint suit against the vessel and the master, and as to whether the master is entitled to a trial by jury, and as to whether this suit, if not maintainable as to both vessel and master, can be dismissed as to the master, and yet a decree be rendered in it against the vessel.
As regards the enforcement of the penalty against the master, he is entitled to a trial by jury. The seventh amendment to the constitution of the United States provides, that, in suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved. The expression ‘suits at common law,’ as there used, means all civil suits, in which legal rights are to be ascertained and determined, which are not of equity or admiralty jurisdiction, whatever may be the peculiar forms of such suits. Parsons v. Bed-ford, 3 Pet. [28 U.S.] 433, 447, 7 L. Ed. 732. The ninth section of the judiciary act of September 24, 1789 (1 Stat. 76, 77), declares, that the trial of issues of fact, in the district courts, in all causes except civil causes of admiralty and maritime jurisdiction, shall be by jury. The suit against the master, under the statute in question, for the penalty imposed, is not made by statute cognizable in admiralty, nor is there any provision that the penalty may be- recovered against the master summarily, by libel, as there is in respect to the vessel.” 27 Fed.Cas. at 671.
Judge Blatchford dismissed the case against the master but sustained the libel against the vessel, rejecting the contention that because of the misjoinder the libel should fall. The latter contention was raised by the owner on appeal to the old Circuit Court, which held that it was proper to discharge the master on the claim that he was entitled to a trial by jury, and that his misjoinder did not affect the in rem proceeding against the vessel. United States v. The Queen, 27 Fed.Cas. 672 (No. 16,108) (C.C.S.D. N.Y.1873). I have found no earlier instance in which any attempt was made to proceed civilly in personam against a master under the customs laws in a summary proceeding. All of the subsequent civil penalties eases under the customs laws are in rem proceedings. A case demonstrating the essentially in rem nature of proceedings under the customs laws, though not involving a civil penalty, but a disputed assessment of duty, also written by Justice Blatchford, is In re Fassett, 142 U.S. 479, 12 S.Ct. 295, 35 L.Ed. 1087 (1892). Others include Passavant v. United States, 148 U.S. 214, 13 S.Ct. 572, 37 L.Ed. 426 (1893) and Origet v. Hedden, 155 U.S. 228, 15 S.Ct. 92, 39 L.Ed. 130 (1894). I have found no case arising under the customs laws which sustained an administrative civil penalty exacted in personam rather than in rem.
The first attempt by Congress to deal with the business of importing people *1210(aside from measures for the suppression of the slave trade) was the Act of March 2, 1819, eh. 46, 3 Stat. 488. Concerned over inhumane treatment of immigrant passengers, Congress determined to enact limitations upon the number of passengers a vessel could safely carry. It forbade vessels landing at United States ports from carrying more than two passengers for every five tons of vessel according to customs house measurement. For an enforcement mechanism it turned to the example of the earlier customs laws, enacting in personam civil penalties and in rem forfeitures. Section 1 provided that the owner would be liable to forfeit to the United States $150.00 for each excess passenger “to be recovered by suit, in any circuit or district court of the United States, where the said vessel may arrive, or where the owner or owners aforesaid may reside . . . .” Quite obviously the forfeiture could be collected by a libel against the vessel in the district court, as to which there would be no jury trial, or by an in personam action in the old circuit court where the owner resided, as to which there was a right to a jury trial.6 The Act of February 22, 1847, ch. 16, § 1, 9 Stat. 127 added criminal provisions, and a major revision of the Act of March 3, 1855, ch. 213, 10 Stat. 715, in § 19 saved the earlier penalty provisions from repeal. 10 Stat. 721. These passenger vessel safety laws provided the models for an enforcement mechanism when Congress, in 1882, first passed a comprehensive immigration law. Act of Aug. 3, 1882, ch. 376, 22 Stat. 214. 7 That Act imposed a head tax of fifty cents an immigrant passenger, and provided :
“The duty imposed by .this section shall be a lien upon the vessels which shall bring such passengers into the united States, and shall be a debt in favor of the United States against the, owner or owners of such vessels; and the payment of such duty may be enforced by any legal or equitable remedy.” § 1, 22 Stat. 214.
The immigration laws went through a general recodification in the Act of March 3,. 1891, ch. 551, 26 Stat. 1084 and a general revision in the Act of March 3, 1903, ch. 1012, 32 Stat. 1213. Although there were criminal and civil judicial remedies in these statutes, the basic enforcement mechanism continued to be the imposition of duties upon owners and masters of vessels, enforceable by detaining the vessel. These proceedings were clearly in rem. Such an enforcement mechanism was challenged in Oceanic Steam Navigation Co. v. Strana-han, 214 U.S. 320, 29 S.Ct. 671, 53 L.Ed. 1013 (1909) on the ground that it was penal. Justice White for the Court rejected that contention, and his opinion is frequently cited as authority for an extensive discretion in the Congress to choose civil rather than penal means. The case does not speak to the seventh amendment, however, because although the penalties were challenged in a suit for a refund, they had been exacted by detaining the vessel and paid to obtain its release. The proceeding was in rem. Similar enforcement devices were continued in the Quota Act of 1921, Act of May 19, 1921, ch. 8, 42 Stat. 5, as amended, and the Immigration Law of 1917, Act of February 5, 1917, ch. 29, 39 Stat. 874, as amended. These were challenged in Elting v. North German Lloyd, 287 U.S. 324, 53 S.Ct. 164, 77 L. Ed. 337 (1932) and Lloyd Sabaudo So-cieta v. Elting, 287 U.S. 329, 53 S.Ct. 167, 77 L.Ed. 341 (1932). The due process contention was once more rejected, but as in Oceanic Navigation Co. v. Stranahan, supra, no seventh amendment issue was presented since the exac-*1211tions had been paid in order to obtain clearance of the vessel. See also Osaka Shosen Kaisha Line v. United States, 300 U.S. 98, 57 S.Ct. 356, 81 L.Ed. 532 (1937). I have found no case arising under either the passenger safety laws or the immigration laws sustaining an administrative civil penalty exacted in personam rather than in rem.
One other line of cases which must be considered is that commencing with Murray’s Lessee v. Hoboken Land & Improvement Co., 59 U.S. (18 How.) 272, 15 L.Ed. 372 (1855). That case, too, arose out of the collection of import duties. The same Act of July 31, 1789 which created the method for collecting customs duties had provided in § 9:
“That . . . the collectors of the different ports shall at all times pay to the order of the officer who shall be authorized to direct the same, the whole of the monies which they may respectively receive by virtue of this act (such monies as they are otherwise by this act directed to pay, only excepted), and shall also, once in every three months, or oftener if they shall be required, transmit their accounts for settlement to the department or officer before mentioned.” 1 Stat. 38.
The collectors thus were fiduciaries collecting monies on behalf of the Treasury of the United States and under a duty to account as such. In 1820 Congress enacted “An Act providing for the better organization of the Treasury Department”, Act of May 15, 1820, ch. 107, 3 Stat. 592, which designated specific officers in the Treasury Department for the enforcement of the fiduciary obligations of federal fiscal officers. The statute provided in § 2:
“That ... if any collector of the revenue . . . who shall have received the public money before it is paid into the treasury of the United States, shall fail to render his account, or pay over the same in the manner, or within the time required by law, it shall be the duty of the first comptroller of the treasury to cause to be stated the account of such collector . exhibiting truly the amount due to the United States, and certifying the same to the agent of the treasury, who is hereby authorized to issue a warrant of distress against such delinquent officer . . . . ” 3 Stat. 592.
The same section authorized the execution of such a distress warrant on personal property of the delinquent officer or his sureties. It also provided:
“And the amount due by any such officer . . . shall be ... a lien upon the lands, tenements, and hereditaments of such officer and his sureties, from the date of a levy in pursuance of the warrant of distress issued against him or them, and a record thereof, made in the office of the clerk of the district court of the proper district, until the same shall be discharged according to law.” 3 Stat. 593.
Section 4 of the 1820' Act provided that any person aggrieved by a distress' warrant could sue in the United States district court for an injunction to stay execution, but no injunction could issue unless the complaining party gave bond with sufficient surety to pay any judgment which might result against him, and no injunction would impair the lien imposed by Section 2. 3 Stat. 595.
The famous Samuel Swartwout became collector of the Port of New York in 1830. When his account was audited in 1838 he was short $1,374,119.65, and a distress warrant was issued in that amount. Swartwout owned real estate in New Jersey, and the lien of the distress warrant was prior in time to an execution on a judgment in favor of another creditor. Purchasers at the judgment execution sale brought an action in ejectment against purchasers at the warrant execution sale, contending that the Act of May 15, 1820 was unconstitutional for a host of reasons, including a claimed seventh amendment violation and thus that their title was superior. *1212The opinion of Justice Curtís in Murray’s Lessee, supra, is often cited in support of a broad authority in Congress to resort to summary remedies for the collection of debts claimed to be due the United States. More refined analysis than is sometimes made, however, leads me to conclude that it is no authority for the proposition that there is no right to a jury trial when the United States seeks to recover an in personam money judgment. In the first place, although the plaintiffs urged the seventh amendment8 Justice Curtis does not discuss it. Possibly this silence reflects a conclusion that remote successors to Swartwout’s title lacked standing to assert his right to a jury trial rather than to the provision for equitable relief set forth in Section 4. But more likely Justice Curtis did not take the seventh amendment claim seriously, because Swartwout was a fiduciary under a duty to account. The enforcement of the duty of a fiduciary to account is a matter of equitable jurisdiction. See 4 Pome-roy’s Equity Jurisprudence § 1075-80, at 217-31 (5th ed. 1941). Secondly, the case involved an in rem proceeding. The lien of the United States, under foreclosure of which the successful defendant held title, had not resulted from the execution of an in personam judgment against Swartwout. Thus the case, for seventh amendment purposes, is indistinguishable from those arising under the customs, immigration, and vessel safety laws. The statute sustained in Murray’s Lessee v. Hoboken Land and Improvement Co., supra has served as the model not only for those statutes securing the federal fisc from defaulting fiduciaries, but also for those securing the internal revenue. See Act of July 13, 1866, ch. 184, § 9, 14 Stat. 107, now codified in the Internal Revenue Act, 26 U.S.C. § 6321. These in rem lien statutes do not present a seventh amendment problem.
We come, then, to the case upon which the government places its chief reliance. In Helvering v. Mitchell, 303 U.S. 391, 58 S.Ct. 630, 82 L.Ed. 917 (1938), the Supreme Court' sustained the 50% civil fraud penalty provisions of the Revenue Act of 1928, ch. 852, § 293, 45 Stat. 791. The case arose on certiorari to the Second Circuit which had reviewed a decision of the Board of Tax Appeals. The chief attack upon the statute was that it was penal. Justice Brandéis rejected this contention. In the course of his discussion he wrote:
“Thus the determination of the facts upon which liability is based may be by an administrative agency instead of a jury,7 . . .
7. Passavant v. United States, 148 U.S. 214, 13 S.Ct. 572, 37 L.Ed. 426; Oceanic Steam Navigation Co. v. Stranahan, 214 U.S. 320, 29 S.Ct. 671, 53 L.Ed. 1013; Elting v. North German Lloyd, 287 U.S. 324, 327-328, 53 S.Ct. 164, 77 L.Ed. 337: Lloyd Sobando Societa v. Elting, 287 U.S. 329, 334, 53 S.Ct. 167, 77 L.Ed. 341; cf. Hamburg-American Line v. United States, 291 U.S. 420, 54 S.Ct. 491, 78 L. Ed. 887; Osaka Shosen Kaisha Line v. United States, 300 U.S. 98, 57 S.Ct. 356, 81 L.Ed. 532. Compare also San Souci v. Compagnie Francaise de Navigation A Vopeur, 71 F.2d 651, 653 (C.C.A. 1) ; Lloyd Royal Beige, S.A. v. Elting, 61 F.2d 745, 747 (C.C.A. 2) ; Navigazione Libera Triestina v. United States, 36 F.2d 631, 633 (C.C.A. 9) ; Clay v. Swope, 38 F. 396 (C.C.D.Ky.). And see cases cited in note 2, supra.
Administrative determination of sanctions imposed by the income tax laws has likewise been upheld. Berlin v. Commissioner, 59 F.2d 996, 997 (C.C.A. 2) ; McDowell v. Heiner, 9 F.2d 120 (W.D.Pa.), aff’d on opinion below, 15 F.2d 1015 (C.C.A.3); Board v. Commissioner, 51 F.2d 73, 76 (C.C.A. 6) ; Wickham v. Commissioner, 65 F.2d 527, 531-532 (C.C.A. 8) ; Little v. Helvering, 75 F.2d 436, 439 (C.C.A. 8); Bothwell v. Commissioner, 77 F.2d 35, 38 (C.C.A. 10); Doll v. Evans, Fed.Cas. No. 3,969 (C.C.E.D.Pa.).” 303 U.S. at 402-403, 58 S.Ct. at 635.
The government urges this statement as dispositive of the jury trial contention, but it is abundantly clear that Justice Brandéis’ reference to jury trial is to the guarantee of jury trial in Article III, § 2, and not to the seventh amendment. It is abundantly clear, first in the context of *1213the entire sentence, which goes on to contrast civil versus criminal procedure.- It is clear, as well, in the context of the prior sentence, contrasting those constitutional guarantees applicable to criminal prosecutions. Moreover no seventh amendment issue was presented,’ since the taxpayer had elected to pursue the administrative remedy before the Board of Tax Appeals rather than to pay the tax and sue for a refund in the district court, where he could have had a jury trial. See Int.Rev.Code of 1954, § 7422, 26 U.S.C. § 7422; 28 U.S.C. § 1346 and notes. Finally, and most significantly, Justice Brandéis shows a complete awareness of the essentially in rem nature of the tax collection machinery. See especially 303 U.S. at 400, 58 S.Ct. 630. Indeed every case listed in footnote 7 to the opinion in Helvering v, Mitchell involves a penalty or forfeiture assessed in rem rather than in person-am. His principal references I have discussed hereinabove. His reference to jury trial in Helvering v. Mitchell is not a reference to jury trial in actions at law guaranteed by the seventh amendment. It is a reference solely to the guarantee in Article III, § 2.
One other case bears mention. In N. L. R. B. v. Jones & Laughlin Steel Corp., 301 U.S. 1, 57 S.Ct. 615, 81 L.Ed. 893 (1937), the Supreme Court directed the enforcement of a Board order in an unfair labor practice case which required reinstatement and back pay. It was contended that the award of back pay was the equivalent of a money judgment and was in contravention of the seventh amendment. Chief Justice Hughes wrote:
“The Seventh Amendment provides that ‘In suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved.’ The amendment thus preserves the right which existed under the common law when the amendment was adopted. . Thus it has no application to cases where recovery of money damages is an incident to equitable relief even though damages might have been recovered in an action at law. . It does not apply where the proceeding is not in the nature of a suit at common law.” 301 U.S. at 48, 57 S. Ct. at 629 (citations omitted).
Since the essence of the NLRB enforcement proceeding was injunctive relief directed at the cessation of unfair practices, the proceeding was essentially equitable, and incidental money relief could be awarded without a jury trial. But in the case before us, the only relief sought was the recovery of an in person-am money judgment. The civil penalty provisions of OSHA cannot be sustained on the ground that they are incident to the grant of equitable relief.
Summarizing, then, no case in the Supreme Court has ever sustained the imposition of an in personam judgment for a civil penalty in a proceeding in which the defendant claimed and was denied the right of jury trial guaranteed by the seventh amendment. Each case on which the government relies involved the rejection of a penal contention, and hence of a different jury trial guarantee, or involved a proceeding in equity or admiralty, or involved a proceeding in rem. Ross v. Bernhard, 396 U.S. 531, 90 S.Ct. 733, 24 L.Ed.2d 729 (1970), holding that the seventh amendment applies in stockholder derivative suits, though not directly in point, certainly suggests the result which I would reach.9 I am unenthusiastic about narrowing the specific guarantees of the Bill of Rights. In the absence of a case in point in the Supreme Court, I prefer to assume that *1214the seventh amendment still has meaning.
Nor, does it seem, that compliance with the seventh amendment would seriously frustrate the congressional policy of entrusting primary enforcement authority to an administrative agency. Until recently 10 Congress commonly provided for civil penalties which could be proposed by an agency but recovered in a civil suit in which the defendant obtained a trial de novo.11 With respect to such statutes, Professor Jaffe referring particularly to 47 U.S.C. §§ 503 & 504 of the Federal Communications Act writes:
“Here it will be seen is a flexible penalty of substantial proportions. By the device of a notice of ‘apparent liability’, the commission is able to make a semi-formal though legally inconclusive adjudication. It will be seen that by failing to prosecute or by a process of remission and mitigation the Commission has considerable control over the amount of the penalty. To date, so far as I know, in not a single determination of apparent liability has the Government been put to a suit to recover.” L. Jaffe, Judicial Control of Administrative Action 113 (Student ed. 1965).
Recognizing that there are differences, with respect to the degree of difficulty of the enforcement problem, between OSHA and some of the earlier models such as the Federal Communications Act, still I find it difficult to understand why, with such models in effect and apparently working, Congress has chosen in its more recent regulatory enactments to push so hard and so far in the direction of avoiding compliance with an express provision of the Bill of Rights. I would hold that the civil penalty provisions of OSHA which result in *1215an in personam money judgment, but deprive the defendant of the jury trial guaranteed by the seventh amendment, are unconstitutional.12
Before: SEITZ, Chief Judge, STALEY, VAN DUSEN, ALDISERT, ADAMS, GIBBONS, ROSENN, HUNTER, WEIS and GARTH, Circuit Judges.

. Act of July 31, 1789, ch. 5, § 1, 1 Stat. 29.

. Act of July 20, 1789, ch. 3, 1 Stat. 27.

. Act of July 4, 1789, ch. 2, 1 Stat. 24.

. Act of July 31, 1789, ch. 5, § 12, 1 Stat. 39.

. The statute also provided for civil penalties recoverable in an action at law, Act of July 31, 1789, ch. 5, § 12, 1 Stat. 39, § 36, 1 Stat. 47.

. Section 2 provided for total in rem forfeiture of the vessel for overloading by more than twenty passengers. Section 3 created a private cause of action for passengers suffering from short allowances “to be recovered in the same manner as seaman’s wages are, or may be, recovered.”

. See an earlier limited immigration law, Act of March 3, 1875, ch. 141, 18 Stat. 477.

. See 59 U.S. (18 How.) at 273.

. Justice Holmes, in Fleitmann v. Welsbach Co., 240 U.S. 27, 29, 36 S.Ct. 233, 234, 60 L.Ed. 505 (1916), noted
“when a penalty of triple damages is sought to be inflicted, the statute should not be read as attempting to authorize liability to be enforced otherwise than through the verdict of a jury in a court of common law.”

. A recent survey conducted for the Administrative Conference of the United States on the use of civil money penalties by federal administrative agencies indicated only three other agencies which claim the power to impose sanctions administratively subject to judicial review solely upon the “substantial evidence” test. 2 Recommendations and Reports of the Administrative Conference of the United States 948-52 (Appendix A) (1972).
These include: (1) the modern compilation of sanctions enforced by the Immigration and Naturalization Service collected in Title 8 of the United States Code whose historical antecedents have already been reviewed. The Report noted the three Supreme Court decisions which sustained the administratively imposed civil penalties. (As indicated previously — all in the context of in rem proceedings). Lloyd Sabaudo Societa v. Elting, 287 U.S. 329, 53 S.Ct. 167, 77 L.Ed. 341 (1932) ; Elting v. North German Lloyd, 287 U.S. 324, 53 S.Ct. 164, 77 L.Ed. 337 (1932) ; and Oceanic Steam Navigation Co. v. Stranahan, 214 U.S. 320, 29 S.Ct. 671, 53 L.Ed. 1013 (1909). Conference Report at 952 n. 3. (2) The Federal Home Loan Bank Board which is given authority to enforce a number of civil money penalty provisions in Title 12. See, e. g„ 12 U.S.C. §§ 1425a (d), 1425b (b). However, as the Conference Report noted, “[cjounsel for the FHLBB reported that ‘there has never been a court appeal’ but that review would be limited to considering whether the Board has acted arbitrarily or capriciously.” Conference Report at 952 n. 5. (3) The United States Postal Service which is authorized to impose civil money penalties on private contract carriers pursuant to 39 U.S.C. § 3603 and 49 U.S.C. § 1471. This authority was upheld in Allman v. United States, 131 U.S. 31, 35, 93 S.Ct. 632, 33 L.Ed. 51 (1889) ; Great Northern Ry. v. United States, 236 F. 433, 443-444 (8th Cir. 1916). Allman however, does not discuss any seventh amendment issue, undoubtedly because the postal contractor had by contract agreed to the administrative determination of a • penalty for non-performance. See Great Northern Ry Co., supra, at 439. Conference Report at 952 n. 6.
In addition to those statutes listed in the Administrative Conference survey, the Endangered Species Act of 1973, 16 U.S.C. § 1540(a) authorizes the Secretary of Interior to assess a variety of civil money penalties subject to judicial review under the “substantial evidence” standard. The provision has not been tested in the courts.

. The survey conducted for the Administrative Conference, indicated that with the exception of those civil money penalties enumerated in note 10 supra, the remaining monetary sanctions were either administratively imposed, or administratively assessed and judicially imposed, by some 34 different executive departments and independent agencies subject always to de novo judicial review.

. In Brennan v. Occupational Safety and Health Review Comm’n, 502 F.2d 946 (3d Cir., 1974) the seventh amendment issue was not raised in connection with the administrative imposition of a civil penalty because the employer-respondent, while not withdrawing its contest of the Secretary’s citation, filed no response to the Secretary’s petition for review.