« Mootness, enforcement, and particularized injunctions | Main | SCOTUS Term: Finding the Law, Abroad and at Home »
Thursday, June 21, 2018
(SCOTUS Term): Trusting adjudicators on remand
The Court on Thursday decided in Lucia v. SEC (link corrected) that SEC ALJs were officers of the United States rather than employees and that the appointment of ALJ's by SEC staff (rather than the SEC itself) violated the Appointments Clause. Justice Kagan wrote for herself, the Chief, Kennedy, Thomas, Alito, and Gorsuch. Thomas concurred, with Gorsuch. Breyer concurred in the judgment in part, agreeing that the ALJ in this case was not properly appointed, but for statutory rather than constitutional reasons. Sotomayor dissented on the constitutional question, joined by Ginsburg.
I want to focus on the issue of remedy in the case. The Court remands for a new hearing on the charges against Lucia (involving alleged deception of prospective clients). But it insists that the new hearing cannot be before the same ALJ; it must be before a different (properly appointed) ALJ or the SEC itself. The original ALJ "has already both heard Lucia's case and issued an initial decision on the merits. He cannot be expected to consider the matter as though he had not adjudicated it before." Appointments Clause remedies are intended to incentivize parties to bring Appointments Clause challenges; a party has no incentive to bring the challenge if the remedy is a new hearing before the same adjudicator, properly appointed. Because there was no suggestion the ALJ erred on the merits, he can be expected to reach the same result from hearing the same case. Breyer dissented on this point (and Ginsburg and Sotomayor joined that portion of his opinion). He compared reversal on appeal, where the same judge typically rehears the case on remand. And because this reversal was on a "technical constitutional question, and the reversal implies no criticism at all of the original judge or his ability to conduct the new proceedings," neither due process nor the structural purposes of the Appointments Clause would be violated by the same ALJ rehearing the case.
The competing approaches reflect a paradox. For Kagan, the fact that the judge was not criticized or corrected on the merits shows that he cannot be trusted to hear the case anew, because his views on the merits will not have changed and no new or different evidence or arguments on the merits cause him to change those views. Implicitly, a decision criticizing the original decision or requiring something new forces him to reconsider those merits, whether to correct the original error or because the new information is convincing. Breyer's approach, on the other hand, presumes that a judge criticized on the merits might be put-off by the reversal (lower-court judges do not believe they were "wrong" even though a reviewing court disagreed with their decision) and more dug-in to his original position. If we trust that judge rehear that case on remand, we should trust a judge in this situation.*
[*] Marcus, Redish, Sherman, and Pfander, the Civ Pro book I previously used, included in the Discovery chapter a defamation action against Diana Ross by a former employee. The district court had dismissed the case on 12(b)(6), but the Second Circuit had reversed. The case back before the same district judge in discovery, every discovery decision went against the plaintiff and in favor of Ross, which can be seen as at least influenced by the judge's previously established views on the merits.
Kagan's approach raises the question of what other "structural" errors might be similar to an appointments problem as to require rehearing by a different judge. Denial of counsel comes to mind, although the assumption is that proper counsel will present evidence and arguments that the pro se party failed to present, changing what is available on the merits and requiring the judge to think about the merits differently. Another possibility is routine shackling in Sanchez-Gomez; if the reviewing court says this defendant should not have been shackled, it does not criticize the trial judge on the merits of any decision she made against the defendant, so that judge would be expected to reach all the same judgments.
Posted by Howard Wasserman on June 21, 2018 at 12:11 PM in 2018 End of Term, Civil Procedure, Constitutional thoughts, Howard Wasserman, Law and Politics | Permalink
Comments
I find the "incentivize parties to bring Appointments Clause challenges" claim quite strong, actually - if you know you'll get the same judge on remand, what's the point in challenging the judge's appointment? Another way to put this is that there is no remedy for a violation of the Appointments Clause if we don't follow Kagan's logic. If you win your case you get...a new hearing before the same exact judge, with no change in the law or facts from your previous go-around. That doesn't seem like a remedy, it seems like a punishment - having to go through the time and expense of doing something you've already done, where there's not even a slight possibility of a different outcome.
Posted by: J | Jul 6, 2018 9:07:29 PM
"Appointments Clause remedies are intended to incentivize parties to bring Appointments Clause challenges; a party has no incentive to bring the challenge if the remedy is a new hearing before the same adjudicator, properly appointed"
That makes good pragmatic sense, but I am struck by the comparison to the suppression remedy required in Fourth amendment cases by the Supreme Court. Thomas has been critical of that, yet the remedy in this case seems motivated by similar pragmatic concerns untethered to any constitutional or statutory text.
Posted by: Jr | Jun 26, 2018 1:03:15 PM
Wasserman , so in accordance , I have forgotten to write to you , that the link in the post, doesn't bring to the opinion subject of the post . But somewhere else it seems , so , I guess you would like to fix it .
Posted by: El roam | Jun 21, 2018 3:58:43 PM
https://www.stanfordlawreview.org/print/article/reassignment/
Posted by: Reassignment | Jun 21, 2018 1:39:19 PM
One may reach the opinion here :
https://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/pdf/17-130.pdf
Posted by: El roam | Jun 21, 2018 1:08:42 PM
The comments to this entry are closed.