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What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Mr. Justice Jackson
delivered the opinion of the Court.
As this suit in equity was commenced in United States District Court it sought two kinds of specific relief: (1) a declaratory judgment that complainant’s carriage of motion picture film and newsreels between points in Utah constitutes interstate commerce; (2) that the Public Service Commission of Utah and its members be forever enjoined from interfering with such transportation over routes authorized by the Interstate Commerce Commission.
The complaint alleged a course of importing, processing and transporting picture film and newsreels to support the contention that carriage between points in Utah was so integrated with their interstate movement that the whole constituted interstate commerce. It averred that the Commission and its members “threaten to and are attempting to stop and prevent plaintiff from transporting motion picture film and newsreels between points and places within the State of Utah, and they are thereby interfering with the conduct of interstate commerce by the plaintiff and imposing an undue burden upon interstate commerce,” and that unless the defendants are enjoined they will “block, harass and prevent plaintiff in the transportation of said motion picture film and newsreels in Utah.”
The Commission and its members answered that respondent’s transportation between points in Utah was nothing more than intrastate commerce. They specifically denied attempting, threatening, or intending to interfere with or burden interstate commerce.
The District Court, after trial, sustained the contention of the Commission and dismissed the complaint. The Court of Appeals considered only “whether the intrastate transportations are nonetheless integral parts of interstate transportations.” It held the evidence to warrant an affirmative answer, reversed the judgment of the District Court and ordered further proceedings in conformity with that view. We granted certiorari, requesting counsel to discuss whether a single judge could hear and determine the case in view of 28 U. S. C. § 2281. That section provides that an injunction restraining enforcement of a state statute or the order of an administrative body thereunder “shall not be granted” upon the ground of unconstitutionality unless the application is heard and determined by a district court of three judges as provided in 28 U. S. C. § 2284.
The respondent, which was plaintiff, contends that a three-judge court was not required, because the suit does not question constitutionality of any Utah statute nor the validity of any order of the State Commission. It says also that no injunction has been granted or even urged “outside of the naked recitation in the prayer of the Complaint.” It offered no evidence whatever of any past, pending or threatened action by the Utah Commission touching its business in any respect. The pleadings made that a clear-cut issue, which seems to have been completely ignored thereafter. The only issues defined on pretrial hearing were whether as matter of fact and of law the within-state transportation constituted interstate commerce. The trial court, however, made a general finding that no such interference had been made or threatened, which was not reversed or mentioned by the Court of Appeals.
For more reasons than one it is clear that this proceeding cannot result in an injunction on constitutional grounds. In addition to defects that will appear in our discussion of declaratory relief, it is wanting in equity because there is no proof of any threatened or probable act of the defendants which might cause the irreparable injury essential to equitable relief by injunction.
The respondent appears to have abandoned the suit as one for injunction but seeks to support it as one for declaratory judgment, hoping thereby to avoid both the three-judge court requirement and the necessity for proof of threatened injury. Whether declaratory relief is appropriate under the circumstances of this case apparently was not considered by either of the courts below. But that inquiry is one which every grant of this remedy must survive.
The Declaratory Judgment Act of 1934, now 28 U. S. C. § 2201, styled “creation of remedy,” provides that in a case of actual controversy a competent court may “declare the rights and other legal relations” of a party “whether or not further relief is or could be sought.” This is an enabling Act, which confers a discretion on the courts rather than an absolute right upon the litigant.
Previous to its enactment there were responsible expressions of doubt that constitutional limitations on federal judicial power would permit any federal declaratory judgment procedure. Cf. Liberty Warehouse Co. v. Grannis, 273 U. S. 70; Willing v. Chicago Auditorium Assn., 277 U. S. 274; Arizona v. California, 283 U. S. 423; Piedmont & N. R. Co. v. United States, 280 U. S. 469. Finally, as the practice extended in the states, we reviewed a declaratory judgment rendered by a state court and held that a controversy which would be justiciable in this Court if presented in a suit for injunction is not the less so because the relief was declaratory. Nashville, C. & St. L. R. Co. v. Wallace, 288 U. S. 249. Encouraged by this and guided by the experience of the thirty-four states that had enacted such laws, the Senate Judiciary Committee recommended an adaptation of the principle to federal practice. Its enabling clause was narrower than that of the Uniform Act adopted in 1921 by the Commissioners on Uniform State Laws, which gave comprehensive power to declare rights, status and other legal relations. The Federal Act omits status and limits the declaration to cases of actual controversy.
This Act was adjudged constitutional only by interpreting it to confine the declaratory remedy within conventional “case or controversy” limits. In Ashwander v. Tennessee Valley Authority, 297 U. S. 288, 325, the Court said, “The Act of June 14, 1934, providing for declaratory judgments, does not attempt to change the essential requisites for the exercise of judicial power” which still was to be tested by such established principles as that “the judicial power does not extend to the determination of abstract questions” and that “claims based merely upon 'assumed potential invasions’ of rights are not enough to warrant judicial intervention.”
In Aetna Life Insurance Co. v. Haworth, 300 U. S. 227, Mr. Chief Justice Hughes used the whole catalogue of familiar phrases to define and delimit the measure of this new remedy. If its metes and bounds are not clearly marked, it is because his available verbal markers are themselves elastic, inconstant and imprecise. It applies, he points out, only to “cases and controversies in the constitutional sense” of a nature “consonant with the exercise of the judicial function” and “appropriate for judicial determination.” Each must present a “justiciable controversy” as distinguished from “a difference or dispute of a hypothetical or abstract character .... The controversy must be definite and concrete, touching the legal relations of parties having adverse legal interests. . . . It must be a real and substantial controversy admitting of specific relief through a decree of a conclusive character, as' distinguished from an opinion advising what the law would be upon a hypothetical state of facts.” The relief is available only for a “concrete case admitting of an immediate and definitive determination of the legal rights of the parties.” Id., at 240, 241.
Other sources have stated relevant limitations. The Senate Judiciary Committee report regarded the 1,200 American decisions theretofore rendered on the subject as establishing that “the issue must be real, the question practical and not academic, and the decision must finally settle and determine the controversy.” Indeed the Uniform Act, unlike the Federal Act, expressly declares the discretion of the court to refuse a decree that would not “terminate the uncertainty or controversy giving rise to the proceeding.” In recommending Rule 57 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, in order to provide procedures for the declaratory decree, the Committee noted “A declaration may not be rendered if a special statutory proceeding has been provided for the adjudication of some special type of case . . . .”
But when all of the axioms have been exhausted and all words of definition have been spent, the propriety of declaratory relief in a particular case will depend upon a circumspect sense of its fitness informed by the teachings and experience concerning the functions and extent of federal judicial power. While the courts should not be reluctant or niggardly in granting this relief in the cases for which it was designed, they must be alert to avoid imposition upon their jurisdiction through obtaining futile or premature interventions, especialy in the field of public law. A maximum of caution is necessary in the type of litigation that we have here, where a ruling is sought that would reach far beyond the particular case. Such differ-enees of opinion or conflicts of interest must be “ripe for determination” as controversies over legal rights. The disagreement must not be nebulous or contingent but must have taken on fixed and final shape so that a court can see what legal issues it is deciding, what effect its decision will have on the adversaries, and some useful purpose to be achieved in deciding them.
The complainant in this case does not request an adjudication that it has a right to do, or to have, anything in particular. It does not ask a judgment that the Commission is without power to enter any specific order or take any concrete regulatory step. It seeks simply to establish that, as presently conducted, respondent’s carriage of goods between points within as well as without Utah is all interstate commerce. One naturally asks, “So what?” To that ultimate question no answer is sought.
A multitude of rights and immunities may be predicated upon the premise that a business consists of interstate commerce. What are the specific ones in controversy? The record is silent and counsel little more articulate. We may surmise that the purpose to be served by a declaratory judgment is ultimately the same as respondent’s explanation of the purposes of the injunction it originally asked, which is “to guard against the possibility that said Commission would attempt to prevent respondent from operating under its certificate from the Interstate Commerce Commission.” (Emphasis supplied.)
In this connection, Wycoff Co. v. Public Service Commission, -Utah -, 227 P. 2d 323 (1951), is brought to our attention. From this it appears that respondent and its predecessors in interest long made it a practice to obtain from the Utah Commission certificates to authorize this carriage of film commodities between points in Utah. But the Supreme Court of Utah, in the cited case, sustained the Commission in denying such an application upon a finding that the field already was adequately served. We are also told that the Commission filed a petition in a Utah state court to enjoin respondent from operating between a few specified locations within the State, but that process was never served and nothing in the record tells us what has happened to this action. We may conjecture that respondent fears some form of administrative or judicial action to prohibit its service on routes wholly within the State without the Commission’s leave. What respondent asks is that it win any such case before it is commenced. Even if respondent is engaged solely in interstate commerce, we cannot say that there is nothing whatever that the State may require. Eichholz v. Commission, 306 U. S. 268, 273.
A declaratory judgment may be the basis of further relief necessary or proper against the adverse party (28 U. S. C. § 2202). The carrier’s idea seems to be that it can now establish the major premise of an exemption, not as an incident of any present declaration of any specific right or immunity, but to hold in readiness for use should the Commission at any future time attempt to apply any part of a complicated regulatory statute to it. If there is any more definite or contemporaneous purpose to this case, neither this record nor the briefs make it clear to us. We think this for several reasons exceeds any permissible discretionary use of the Federal Declaratory Judgment Act.
In the first place, this dispute has not matured to a point where we can see what, if any, concrete controversy will develop. It is much like asking a declaration that the State has no power to enact legislation that may be under consideration but has not yet shaped up into an enactment. If there is any risk of suffering penalty, liability or prosecution, which a declaration would avoid, it is not pointed out to us. If and when the State Commission takes some action that raises an issue of its power, some further declaration would be necessary to any complete relief. The proposed decree cannot end the controversy.
Nor is it apparent that the present proceeding would serve a useful purpose if at some future date the State undertakes regulation of respondent. After a sifting of evidence and a finding of facts as they are today, there is no assurance that changes of significance may not take place before the State decides to move. Of course, the remedy is not to be withheld because it necessitates weighing conflicting evidence or deciding issues of fact as well as law. That is the province of courts. Aetna Life Insurance Co. v. Haworth, supra, at 242, and see Perkins v. Elg, 307 U. S. 325; Currin v. Wallace, 306 U. S. 1. But when the request is not for ultimate determination of rights but for preliminary findings and conclusions intended to fortify the litigant against future regulation, it would be a rare case in which the relief should be granted. Cf. Coffman v. Breeze Corporations, Inc., 323 U.S. 316.
Even when there is no incipient federal-state conflict, the declaratory judgment procedure will not be used to pre-empt and prejudge issues that are committed for initial decision to an administrative body or special tribunal any more than it will be used as a substitute for statutory methods of review. It would not be tolerable, for example, that declaratory judgments establish that an enterprise is not in interstate commerce in order to forestall proceedings by the National Labor Relations Board, the Interstate Commerce Commission or many agencies that are authorized to try and decide such an issue in the first instance. Cf. Myers v. Bethlehem Shipbuilding Corp., 303 U. S. 41; Eccles v. Peoples Bank, 333 U. S. 426. See Colegrove v. Green, 328 U. S. 549. Responsibility for effective functioning of the administrative process cannot be thus transferred from the bodies in which Congress has placed it to the courts.
But, as the declaratory proceeding is here invoked, it is even less appropriate because, in addition to foreclosing an administrative body, it is incompatible with a proper federal-state relationship. The carrier, being in some disagreement with the State Commission, rushed into federal court to get a declaration which either is intended in ways not disclosed to tie the Commission’s hands before it can act or it has no purpose at all.
Declaratory proceedings in the federal courts against state officials must be decided with regard for the implications of our federal system. State administrative bodies have the initial right to reduce the general policies of state regulatory statutes into concrete orders and the primary right to take evidence and make findings of fact. It is the state courts which have the first and the last word as to the meaning of state statutes and whether a particular order is within the legislative terms of reference so as to make it the action of the State. We have disapproved anticipatory declarations as to state regulatory statutes, even where the case originated in and was entertained by courts of the State affected. Alabama State Federation of Labor v. McAdory, 325 U. S. 450. Anticipatory judgment by a federal court to frustrate action by a state agency is even less tolerable to our federalism. Is the declaration contemplated here to be res judicata, so that the Commission cannot hear evidence and decide any matter for itself? If so, the federal court has virtually lifted the case out of the State Commission before it could be heard. If not, the federal judgment serves no useful purpose as a final determination of rights.
The procedures of review usually afford ample protection to a carrier whose federal rights are actually invaded, and there are remedies for threatened irreparable injuries. State courts are bound equally with the federal courts by the Federal Constitution and laws. Ultimate recourse may be had to this Court by certiorari if a state court has allegedly denied a federal right.
In this case, as in many actions for declaratory judgment, the realistic position of the parties is reversed. The plaintiff is seeking to establish a defense against a cause of action which the declaratory defendant may assert in the Utah courts. Respondent here has sought to ward off possible action of the petitioners by seeking a declaratory judgment to the effect that he will have a good defense when and if that cause of action is asserted. Where the complaint in an action for declaratory judgment seeks in essence to assert a defense to an impending or threatened state court action, it is the character of the threatened action, and not of the defense, which will determine whether there is federal-question jurisdiction in the District Court. If the cause of action, which the declaratory defendant threatens to assert, does not itself involve a claim under federal law, it is doubtful if a federal court may entertain an action for a declaratory judgment establishing a defense to that claim. This is dubious even though the declaratory complaint sets forth a claim of federal right, if that right is in reality in the nature of a defense to a threatened cause of action. Federal courts will not seize litigations from state courts merely because one, normally a defendant, goes to federal court to begin his federal-law defense before the state court begins the case under state law. Tennessee v. Union & Planters’ Bank, 152 U. S. 454; The Fair v. Kohler Die & Specialty Co., 228 U. S. 22; Taylor v. Anderson, 234 U. S. 74.
Since this case should be dismissed in any event, it is not necessary to determine whether, on this record, the alleged controversy over an action that may be begun in state court would be maintainable under the head of federal-question jurisdiction. But we advert to doubts upon that subject to indicate the injury that would be necessary if the case clearly rested merely on threatened suit in state court, as, for all we can learn, it may.
We conclude that this suit cannot be entertained as one for injunction and should not be continued as one for a declaratory judgment. The judgment below should be reversed and modified to direct that the action be dismissed.
Reversed and so ordered.
195 F. 2d 252.
343 U. S. 975.
See 28 U. S. C. § 2201.
S. Rep. No. 1005, 73d Cong., 2d Sess., p. 6, May 10, 1934; Borchard, Declaratory Judgments (2d ed. 1941), 1043, 1048.
Borchard, op. cit., 1042.
See, Developments in the Law — Declaratory Judgments, 62 Harv. L. Rev. 787, 802.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | I | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Justice Powell
delivered the opinion of the Court.
The question presented is whether a United States district court may compel the United States Marshals Service to transport state prisoners to the federal courthouse to testify in an action brought under 42 U. S. C. § 1983 by a state prisoner against county officials.
I — <
In June 1980, Richard Garland brought suit under 42 U. S. C. § 1983 against various Philadelphia County officials in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, alleging that he had been beaten and harassed by the defendant deputy sheriffs and prison guards. At the time Garland filed this suit, he was incarcerated in the Philadelphia County jail, but was subsequently transferred to a state facility. The District Court assigned the action to a Magistrate for disposition on the merits.
In December 1982, the Magistrate issued writs of habeas corpus ad testificandum to produce five witnesses, including plaintiff Garland. At that time, Garland was in a state correctional facility in Huntingdon, approximately 220 miles from Philadelphia. The other four witnesses were all confined in state facilities over 100 miles from Philadelphia. The orders directed the Wardens of the state facilities to transport inmates from state prison to the county jail nearest the federal courthouse in Philadelphia. The orders then commanded the United States Marshals Service (Marshals) to transport the inmates from that county facility to the federal court and to maintain custody of them during trial. The Marshals unsuccessfully moved for reconsideration of that portion of the order that directed them to transport the state prisoners from the county jail to the federal courthouse and to guard them during trial.
On the Marshals’ appeal from this denial, the Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit reversed in part, holding that the All Writs Act did not confer power upon the District Court “to compel non-custodians to bear the expense of [the production of witnesses] simply because they have access to a deeper pocket.” Garland v. Sullivan, 737 F. 2d 1283, 1287 (1984) (emphasis in original). The Court of Appeals did find, however, that the District Court has the power to compel the Marshals to take custody of state prisoners while those prisoners are in the federal courthouse in connection with federal judicial proceedings. Ibid. Finally, the court held that the District Court could order the Marshals to take custody of state prisoners if the trial court made a specific finding that special security risks required that state prisoner-witnesses be in the Marshals’ custody away from the federal courthouse. Id., at 1289.
The Commonwealth Bureau of Correction (Commonwealth) petitioned this Court for a writ of certiorari on the question whether a federal court can command the Marshals to share responsibility with state officials for transporting state inmates to the federal courthouse when neither the State nor any state official is a party. Because this case presents a recurrent problem on which the Circuits differ, we granted the writ. 469 U. S. 1206 (1985). We find that there is no statutory authority for a United States district court to command the Marshals to take custody of state prisoners outside the federal courthouse during the normal course of producing state prisoner-witnesses for trial, and accordingly affirm.
II
The Commonwealth argues that the Marshals have a statutory obligation to obey the lawful orders and writs of the federal courts, 28 U. S. C. § 569(b), and are statutorily authorized to expend funds for the specific purpose of transporting prisoners, § 567. It also contends that these provisions recognize the authority of the district courts to seek assistance from the Marshals. Two Circuits have summarily agreed. Ford v. Allen, 728 F. 2d 1369, 1370 (CA11 1984) (per curiam); Ballard v. Spradley, 557 F. 2d 476, 481 (CA5 1977). Two other Circuits have relied in part on these provisions in imposing the responsibility for transport upon the Marshals. Wiggins v. County of Alameda, 717 F. 2d 466 (CA9 1983), cert. denied sub nom. California Dept. of Corrections v. United States, 465 U. S. 1070 (1984); Ford v. Carballo, 577 F. 2d 404 (CA7 1978). The Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit is the only Circuit to deny a district court authority to compel the Marshals to assist in transporting state prisoner-witnesses to the federal courthouse.
Sections 569(b) and 567 merely enumerate obligations of the Marshals. The Marshals must obey the mandates of federal courts and transport prisoners if the court so orders. The courts’ authority to issue such writs, however, must derive from some independent statutory source. We therefore must look to the habeas corpus statute or the All Writs Act to see if they authorize federal courts to order the transportation of state prisoners to the federal courthouse.
r-4 HH » — I
The Court of Appeals reasoned that the Magistrate’s order amounted to a writ of habeas corpus ad testificandum properly directed only to the custodian, and that there was no basis in the habeas corpus statute for the District Court’s authority to direct a writ ad testificandum to a noncustodian. We agree.
Since 1867, the writ of habeas corpus has incorporated the common-law command that the writ “shall be directed to the person in whose custody the party is detained.” Act of Feb. 5, 1867, ch. 28, 14 Stat. 386 (emphasis added). See In re Thaw, 166 F. 71, 74-75 (CA3 1908). It was the custodian who then was to “make return of said writ and bring the party before the judge who granted the writ.” Ibid. Congress preserved this unambiguous directive throughout subsequent revisions, and the current habeas corpus statute states that the writ “shall be directed to the person having custody of the person detained.” 28 U. S. C. §2243. Section 2243 also specifically provides that “the person to whom the writ is directed shall be required to produce at the hearing the body of the person detained.”
The language of the statute thus expressly commands the custodian to bring his prisoner to the court, but extends this duty to no other. See also Fed. Rule Civ. Proc. 81(a)(2) (“The writ of habeas corpus . . . shall be directed to the person having custody of the person detained”). We find no evidence in the language of §§ 2241 and 2243, in their legislative history, or in the common-law writ ad testificandum to suggest that courts are also empowered to cause third parties who are neither custodians nor parties to the litigation to bear the cost of producing the prisoner in a federal court. We therefore conclude that there is no basis in the habeas corpus statute for a federal court to order the Marshals to transport state prisoners to the federal courthouse.
> hH
Finally, the Commonwealth argues that the All Writs Act, 28 U. S. C. § 1651, confers authority upon a district court to order the Marshals to transport state prisoners to and from the federal courthouse in connection with federal litigation. It argues that the “deluge of. . . civil rights actions” calls for “creative” use of federal judicial power to alleviate the drain on the States’ fiscs from the transport of inmates to and from federal courthouses.
It is true that this Court consistently has construed the All Writs Act to authorize a federal court “to issue such commands ... as may be necessary or appropriate to effectuate and prevent the frustration of orders it has previously issued in its exercise of jurisdiction otherwise obtained.” United States v. New York Telephone Co., 434 U. S. 159, 172 (1977). This Court also has held that the supplemental powers of the Act are not limited to situations where it is “necessary” to issue the writ or order “in the sense that the court could not otherwise physically discharge its appellate duties.” Adams v. United States ex rel. McCann, 317 U. S. 269, 273 (1942). An examination of the language of the All Writs Act, its legislative history, and our decisions construing it convinces us, however, that the Act does not authorize a district court to order the Marshals to transport state prisoners from state prisons to the federal courthouse in the ordinary course of litigation in federal courts.
The All Writs Act originally was codified in § 14 of the Judiciary Act of 1789, 1 Stat. 81-82, which provided that
“all the . . . courts of the United States, shall have power to issue writs of scire facias, habeas corpus, and all other writs not specifically provided for by statute, which may be necessary for the exercise of their respective jurisdictions, and agreeable to the principles and usages of law.”
Our early view of the scope of the all writs provision confined it to filling the interstices of federal judicial power when those gaps threatened to thwart the otherwise proper exercise of federal courts’ jurisdiction. McClung v. Silliman, 6 Wheat. 598 (1821); McIntire v. Wood, 7 Cranch 504 (1813). This limitation is especially significant in construing federal courts’ power to issue writs of habeas corpus ad testifican-dum: The Judiciary Act of 1789 codified the ad testificandum writ in the same section as the all writs provision.
The original phrase “not specifically provided for by statute” remained in the all writs section until 1948. Although the legislative history is scant, it appears that Congress then merely consolidated various provisions into § 1651 and made “necessary changes in phraseology” without substantive amendment. See H. R. Rep. No. 308, 80th Cong., 1st Sess., A144 (1947); see also id., at 5. The legislative history did, however, state that the new section was “expressive of the construction recently placed upon [the all writs provision] by the Supreme Court in U. S. Alkali Export Assn. [v. United States, 325 U. S. 196 (1945)].” Id., at A145. In United States Alkali, the Court rejected use of the all writs provision to enable the Court to review a lower court’s determination where jurisdiction did not lie under an express statutory provision. Chief Justice Stone wrote:
“The writs may not be used as a substitute for an authorized appeal; and where, as here, the statutory scheme permits appellate review of interlocutory orders only on appeal from the final judgment, review by certiorari or other extraordinary writ is not permissible in the face of the plain indication of the legislative purpose to avoid piecemeal reviews.” 325 U. S., at 203.
Although Congress dropped the phrase “not specifically provided for by statute” in its 1948 consolidation, we conclude that it apparently intended to leave the all writs provision substantially unchanged. That intention and the favorable reference to United States Alkali convince us that the 1948 changes in phraseology do not mark a congressional expansion of the powers of federal courts to authorize issuance of any “appropriate” writ.
Nevertheless, the Commonwealth, relying on United States v. New York Telephone Co., supra, at 171, as well as Harris v. Nelson, 394 U. S. 286, 299 (1969), and Price v. Johnston, 334 U. S. 266, 282 (1948), insists that under the All Writs Act the District Court can order the Marshals to transport state prisoners upon a mere statement that such an order would be “necessary or appropriate.” As summarized in the margin below, these cases are clearly distinguishable and lend little support to the Commonwealth’s argument.
The All Writs Act is a residual source of authority to issue writs that are not otherwise covered by statute. Where a statute specifically addresses the particular issue at hand, it is that authority, and not the All Writs Act, that is controlling. Although that Act empowers federal courts to fashion extraordinary remedies when the need arises, it does not authorize them to issue ad hoc writs whenever compliance with statutory procedures appears inconvenient or less appropriate. We need not categorically rule out reliance on the All Writs Act and the use of Marshals in procuring or safeguarding state prisoner-witnesses in the course of federal litigation. There may be exceptional circumstances in which a district court can show clearly the inadequacy of traditional habeas corpus writs, such as where there are serious security risks. In such circumstances, a district court may find it “necessary or appropriate” for Marshals to transport state prisoners. We therefore leave open the question of the availability of the All Writs Act to authorize such an order where exceptional circumstances require it.
V
We conclude, at least in the absence of an express finding of exceptional circumstances, that neither a magistrate nor a district court has authority to order the Marshals to transport state prisoners to the federal courthouse to testify in an action brought by a state prisoner under 42 U. S. C. § 1983 against county officials. Accordingly, we affirm the Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit.
It is so ordered.
The Marshals are within the Executive Branch of the Federal Government. The Marshal for each district is appointed by the President, 28 U. S. C. § 561(a), is subject to the supervision and direction of the Attorney General, see, e. g., §§562, 567, 569(c), 571(a) and (d), and is funded through Department of Justice appropriations, e. g., §567.
Judge Becker concurred in the judgment, believing the court to be bound by McClung v. Silliman, 6 Wheat. 598 (1821), and McIntire v. Wood, 7 Cranch 504 (1813). He hoped that this Court would “find that, because statutes can adapt to fit the needs of changing times, the All Writs Act now permits what, in the time of Mclntire and McClung it did not.” 737 F. 2d, at 1292 (footnote omitted). Judge Atkins, sitting by designation from the Southern District of Florida, concurred in part and dissented in part, believing that the Third Circuit could impose a duty on the Marshals to transport state prisoners. Ibid.
The propriety of that part of the order commanding the Marshals to take custody of the state prisoners while they are in the federal courthouse is not specifically before us. The Marshals have conceded that they are responsible for the custody of state prisoners in the federal courthouse as witnesses or parties.
The habeas corpus statute provides in pertinent part that the writ “shall be directed to the person having custody of the person detained,” and that “the person to whom the writ is directed shall be required to produce at the hearing the body of the person detained.” 28 U. S. C. §2243.
Carbo v. United States, 364 U. S. 611 (1961), does not support an expansive reading of the power conferred upon federal district courts by the writ of habeas corpus ad testificandum. In Carbo, the Court found that although § 2241 contained an express territorial limitation of “[w]rits of habeas corpus,” 28 U. S. C. § 2241(a), the limitation applied to habeas corpus ad subjiciendum, but not to habeas corpus ad prosequendum. The Commonwealth similarly argues that the provisions in § 2243 that direct the custodian to produce the prisoners in court do not apply to the writ ad testificandum but instead are limited to the Great Writ, habeas corpus ad subjiciendum.
Carbo’s expansive reading of the statute was consistent with common-law procedure and requirements applied to the writ ad prosequendum and with the legislative history of § 2241(a). 364 U. S., at 615-618. But this ease involves the writ ad testificandum, which has been confined in its application to the actual custodian of the prisoners from before its initial codification in 1789 to the present. We therefore do not believe that Carbo justifies a more expansive view of the writ of habeas corpus ad testificandum today.
The All Writs Act provides in pertinent part:
“The Supreme Court and all courts established by Act of Congress may issue all writs necessary or appropriate in aid of their respective jurisdictions and agreeable to the usages and principles of law.”
In United States v. New York Telephone Co., 484 U. S. 159 (1977), the Court held that a District Court could under the All Writs Act compel a third party, the New York Telephone Company, to assist the Federal Bureau of Investigation in installing devices under a warrant that would register the numbers dialed on certain telephones. In that case the All Writs Act filled a gap in federal statutes by granting the District Court jurisdiction over the only party capable of installing the devices. In the instant case, by contrast, the habeas corpus statute already expressly provides for the issuance of a writ “to the person having custody of the person detained.”
In Price v. Johnston, 334 U. S. 266 (1948), the Court held that a Court of Appeals could order a prisoner to be brought before it to argue his own appeal, finding that the All Writs Act was a mechanism to achieve the “rational ends of law. ” Id., at 282. In Price, however, there was no alternative way to bring the prisoner before the court. In the present ease, the traditional writ ad testificandum is sufficient. Similarly, Harris v. Nelson, 394 U. S. 286 (1969), held that the District Court in that case had no alternative means of providing an effective habeas corpus proceeding except by use of an extraordinary writ. New York Telephone, Price, and Harris afforded resort to the All Writs Act to fill statutory interstices. We do not find their reasoning controlling here, where a writ ad testifican- dum directed to the custodian indisputably provides a district court with a means of producing a prisoner-witness.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | I | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Mr. Chief Justice Burger
delivered the opinion of the Court.
We granted certiorari to resolve a conflict in the Circuits over whether the federal courts in a federal criminal prosecution should recognize a legislative privilege barring the introduction of evidence of the legislative acts of a state legislator charged with taking bribes or otherwise obtaining money unlawfully through exploitation of his official position. 441 U. S. 942 (1979).
I
Respondent Edgar H. Gillock was indicted on August 12, 1976, in the Western District of Tennessee on five counts of obtaining money under color of official right in violation of 18 U. S. C. § 1951, one count of using an interstate facility to distribute a bribe in violation of 18 U. S. C. § 1952, and one count of participating in an enterprise through a pattern of racketeering activity in violation of 18 U. S. C. § 1962. The indictment charged Gillock, then a Tennessee state senator and practicing attorney, with accepting money as a fee for using his public office to block the extradition of a defendant from Tennessee to Illinois, and for agreeing to introduce in the State General Assembly legislation which would enable four persons to obtain master electricians’ licenses they had been unable to obtain by way of existing examination processes.
Before trial, Gillock moved to suppress all evidence relating to his legislative activities. The District Court granted his motion, holding that as a state senator, Gillock had an eviden-tiary privilege cognizable under Rule 501 of the Federal Rules of Evidence. This privilege, deemed by the District Court to be equivalent to that granted Members of both Houses of Congress under the Speech or Debate Clause, Art. I, § 6, cl. 1, was limited to prohibiting the introduction of evidence of Gillock’s legislative acts and his underlying motivations. The coürt stated that the privilege is necessary “to protect the integrity of the [state’s] legislative process by insuring the independence of individual legislators” and “to preserve the constitutional relation between our federal and state governments in our federal system.”
The Government appealed the pretrial suppression order to the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, see 18 U. S. C. § 3731, which vacated the order and remanded for additional consideration. 559 F. 2d 1222 (1977). The Court of Appeals noted that although the District Court had expressed its willingness to recognize a legislative privilege, it had not applied the principle to particularizo items of evidence.
On remand, the Government submitted a formal offer of proof and requested a ruling on the applicability of the legislative privilege to 15 specifically described items of evidence. The offer first detailed the evidence the Government proposed to introduce at trial in support of the count of the indictment charging Gillock with soliciting money from one Ruth Howard in exchange for using his influence as a state senator to block the extradition of Howard’s brother, James Michael Williams. Williams had been arrested in Tennessee in November 1974, and was being held as a fugitive from Illinois. According to the offer of proof, in January 1975 Howard met in Memphis with her brother’s attorney, John Hundley, who allegedly told her that he had a “friend” who could help her brother. A meeting between Gillock and Howard was arranged by Hund-ley, and Gillock agreed to exercise his influence to block the extradition for a fee.
The Government declared its intention to prove that on March 6, 1975, Gillock appeared at Williams’ extradition hearing. Although he denied that he was attending the hearing either as an attorney or in his capacity as a state senator, Gillock reviewed the extradition papers and questioned the hearing officer about the propriety of extradition on a misdemeanor charge. Later that day, Gillock requested an official opinion from the Tennessee Attorney General concerning “Extradition on a Misdemeanor.”
In addition, the Government stated it intended to introduce at trial the transcript of a telephone call Gillock made to Howard on March 25, 1975. During that conversation, Gil-lock allegedly advised Howard that he had delayed the extradition proceedings, and could have blocked them entirely, by exerting pressure on the extradition hearing officer who had appeared before Gillock’s senate judiciary committee on a budgetary matter. To corroborate that conversation, the Government indicated it would prove that on March 19, 1975, Gillock attended a meeting of the senate judiciary committee where the same extradition hearing officer who conducted Williams’ extradition hearing presented his department’s budget request.
Next, the Government recited the evidence it proposed to introduce showing that Gillock used his influence as a member of the Tennessee State Senate to assist four individuals in obtaining master electricians’ licenses valid in Shelby County, Tenn. According to the offer of proof, the four contacted Gillock in early 1972. Two weeks later, Gillock advised them that he could get legislation enacted by the General Assembly which would provide for reciprocity in licensing. Under his proposal, a person who received a license in another county could be admitted without a test in Shelby County. The prosecution represented it would offer evidence that Gillock fixed a contingent fee of $5,000 per person, to be refunded if the legislation was not passed.
The Government also represented that it would offer evidence that Gillock introduced reciprocity legislation in the. senate and that he arranged for the introduction of a similar bill in the house. The Government further proposed to introduce statements made by Gillock on the floor of the senate in support of the bill. After the bill was passed by both branches of the legislature and forwarded to the Governor, several private persons, including union representatives, allegedly met with Gillock and voiced their opposition to the legislation. The Government intended to prove that Gillock replied that he could not financially afford to withdraw the legislation because he had already accepted “fees” for introducing it. Finally, the Government intended to prove that on April 13, 1972, Gillock moved to override the Governor’s veto of the legislation, and stated that it would introduce into evidence any and all statements made by Gillock on the floor of the senate in support of his motion to override.
Based on this offer of proof, the District Court granted Gillock’s renewed motion to exclude evidence of his legislative acts under Rule 501. It ruled inadmissible Gillock’s official request for an opinion from the Attorney General regarding extradition and the answer to that request, and Gillock’s statements to Howard that he could exert pressure on the extradition hearing officer to block the extradition because the hearing officer had appeared before Gilloek’s legislative committee. Similarly, the court ruled that all evidence regarding Gillock’s introduction and support of the electricians’ reciprocal licensing bill, his conversation with the private individuals who opposed the legislation^ and the Governor’s veto letter would be inadmissible.
The Government again appealed the District. Court’s suppression order. The Court of Appeals by a divided vote held that “the long history and the felt need for protection of legislative speech or debate and the repeated and strong recognition of that history in the cases . . . from the Supreme Court, fully justify our affirming [the District Court] in [its] protection of the privilege in this case.” 587 F. 2d 284, 290 (1978). Turning to the scope of the privilege, the court affirmed the suppression of evidence of Gillock’s request for a formal opinion from the Attorney General, his participation in' the senate judiciary committee, his introduction of the reciprocity legislation, his motion on the floor of the senate to override the Governor’s veto, and all the statements he made on the floor of the senate. The other items of evidence were considered to be insufficiently related to the legislative process to be protected by the privilege.
II
Gilloek urges that we construct an evidentiary privilege barring the introduction of evidence of legislative acts in federal criminal prosecutions against state legislators. He argues first that a speech or debate type privilege for state legislators in federal criminal cases is an established part of the federal common law and is therefore applicable through Rule 501. Second, he contends that even apart from Rule 501, a legislative speech or debate privilege is compelled by principles of federalism rooted in our constitutional structure.
It is clear that were we to recognize an evidentiary privilege similar in scope to the Federal Speech or Debate Clause, much of the evidence at issue here would be inadmissible. Recently, in United States v. Helstoski, 442 U. S. 477, 489 (1979), we reaffirmed our holding in United States v. Brewster, 408 U. S. 501, 525 (1972), that with respect to Members of Congress “[t]he Clause protects 'against inquiry into acts that occur in the regular course of the legislative process and into the motivation for those acts.’ ” Under that standard, evidence of Gillock’s participation in the state senate committee hearings and his votes and speeches on the floor would be privileged and hence inadmissible.
The language and legislative history of Rule 501 give no aid to Gillock. The Rule provides in relevant part that "the privilege of a witness . . . shall be governed by the principles of the common law as they may be interpreted by the courts of the United States in the light of reason and experience.” Congress substituted the present language of Rule 501 for the draft proposed by the Advisory Committee of the Judicial Conference of the United States to provide the courts with greater flexibility in developing rules of privilege on a case-by-case basis. Under the Judicial Conference proposed rules submitted to Congress, federal courts would have been permitted to apply only nine specifically enumerated privileges, except as otherwise required by the Constitution or provided by Acts of Congress. See Proposed Federal Rules of Evidence 501-513, H. R. Doc. No. 93-46, pp. 9-19 (1973). Neither the Advisory Committee, the Judicial Conference, nor this Court saw fit, however, to provide the privilege sought by Gillock. Although that fact standing alone would not compel the federal courts to refuse to recognize a privilege omitted from the proposal, it does suggest that the claimed privilege was not thought to be either indelibly ensconced in our common law or an imperative of federalism.
Moreover, the House Conference Committee Report on the Federal Rules of Evidence leaves little doubt that Rule 501 requires the application of federal privilege law in criminal cases brought in federal court. H. R. Conf. Rep. No. 93-1597, p. 7 (1974). Cf. Wolfle v. United States, 291 U. S. 7, 13 (1934) (the admissibility of evidence in criminal trials in the federal courts “is to be controlled by common law principles, not by local statute”); Funk v. United States, 290 U. S. 371 (1933). Thus, the fact that there is an evidentiary privilege under the Tennessee Constitution, Art. II, § 13, which Gillock could assert in a criminal prosecution in state court does not compel an analogous privilege in a federal prosecution.
Ill
Gillock argues that the historical antecedents and policy considerations which inspired the Speech or Debate Clause of the Federal Constitution should lead this Court to recognize a comparable evidentiary privilege for state legislators in federal prosecutions. The important history of the Speech or Debate Clause has been related abundantly in opinions of this Court and need not be repeated. See, e. g., United States v. Helstoski, supra; United States v. Brewster, supra; United States v. Johnson, 383 U. S. 169 (1966). Suffice it to recall that England’s experience with monarchs exerting pressure on members of Parliament by using judicial process to make them more responsive to their wishes led the authors of our Constitution to write an explicit legislative privilege into our organic law. In statutes subject to repeal or in judge-made rules of evidence readily changed by Congress or the judges who made them, the protection would be far less than the legislative privilege created by the Federal Constitution.
Our cases, however, have made clear that “[ajlthough the Speech or Debate Clause’s historic roots are in English history, it must be interpreted in light of the American experience, and in the context of the American constitutional scheme of government rather than the English parliamentary system.” United States v. Brewster, 408 U. S., at 508. In deciding whether the principles underlying the federal constitutional speech or debate privilege compel a similar evidentiary privilege on behalf of state legislators, the analysis must look primarily to the American experience, including our structure of federalism which had no counterpart in England.
Two interrelated rationales underlie the Speech or Debate Clause: first, the need to avoid intrusion by the Executive or Judiciary into the affairs of a coequal branch, and second, the desire to protect legislative independence. Eastland v. United States Servicemen’s Fund, 421 U. S. 491, 502-503 (1975). Cases considering the Speech or Debate Clause have frequently arisen in the context of a federal criminal prosecution of a Member of Congress and have therefore accented the first rationale. Only recently in such a case, we re-emphasized that a central purpose of the Clause is “to preserve the constitutional structure of separate, coequal, and independent branches of government. The English and American history of the privilege suggests that any lesser standard would risk intrusion by the Executive and the Judiciary into the sphere of protected legislative activities.” United States v. Helstoski, 442 U. S., at 491. Accord, United States v. Johnson, supra, at 180-181. The Framers viewed the speech or debate privilege as fundamental to the system of checks and balances. 8 The Works of Thomas Jefferson 322 (Ford ed. 1904); I The Works of James Wilson 421 (R. McCloskey ed. 1967).
The first rationale, resting solely on the separation of powers doctrine, gives no support to the grant of a privilege to state legislators in federal criminal prosecutions. It requires no citation of authorities for the proposition that the Federal Government has limited powers with respect to the states, unlike the unfettered authority which English monarchs exercised over the Parliament. By the same token, however, in those areas where the Constitution grants the Federal Government the power to act, the Supremacy Clause dictates that federal enactments will prevail over competing state exercises of power. Thus, under our federal structure, we do not have the struggles for power between the federal and state systems such as inspired the need for the Speech or Debate Clause as a restraint on the Federal Executive to protect federal legislators.
Apart from the separation of powers doctrine, it is also suggested that principles of comity require the extension of a speech or debate type privilege to state legislators in. federal criminal prosecutions. However, as we have noted, federal interference in the state legislative process is not on the same constitutional footing with the interference of one branch of the Federal Government in the affairs of a coequal branch. Baker v. Carr, 369 U. S. 186, 210 (1962). Cf. Dombrowski v. Pfister, 380 U. S. 479, 489-492 (1965) (federal court may enjoin state-court application of a clearly unconstitutional statute). Our opinion in National League of Cities v. Usery, 426 U. S. 833 (1976), is not to the contrary. There, we held that a federal statute regulating the wages of state employees was unconstitutional because it “operate [d] to directly displace the States’ freedom to structure integral operations in areas of traditional governmental functions.” Id., at 852.
The absence of a judicially created evidentiary privilege for state legislators is not, however, comparable intervention by the Federal Government into essential state functions. First, Gillock’s argument, resting on the Tenth Amendment, has no special force with regard to state legislators; on the rationale advanced, state executive officers and members of the state judiciary would have equally plausible claims that the denial of an evidentiary privilege to them resulted in a direct federal impact on traditional state governmental functions. Moreover, we recognized in National League of Cities that the regulation by Congress under the Commerce Clause of individuals is quite different from. legislation which directly regulates the internal functions of states. Id., at 840-841. Although the lack of an evidentiary privilege for a state legislator might conceivably influence his conduct while in the legislature, it is not in. any sense analogous to the direct regulation imposed by the federal, wage-fixing legislation in National League of Cities.
The second rationale underlying the Speech or Debate Clause is the need to insure legislative independence. Gillock relies heavily on Tenney v. Brandhove, 341 U. S. 367 (1951), where this Court was cognizant of the potential for disruption of the state legislative process. The issue there, however, was whether state legislators were immune from civil suits for alleged violations of civil rights under 42 U. S. C. § 1983. The claim was made by a private individual who alleged that a state legislative committee hearing was conducted to prevent him from exercising his First Amendment rights. The Court surveyed the history of the speech or debate privilege from its roots in the British parliamentary experience through its adoption in our own Federal Constitution. In light of these “presuppositions of our political history,” 341 U. S., at 372, the Court stated:
“We cannot believe that Congress — itself a staunch advocate of legislative freedom — would impinge on a tradition so well grounded in history and reason by covert inclusion in the general language [of § 1983] before us.” Id., at 376.
Accordingly, the Court held that a state legislator’s common-law absolute immunity from civil suit survived the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1871.
Although Tenney reflects this Court’s sensitivity to interference with the functioning of state legislators, we do not read that opinion as broadly as Gillock would have us. First, Tenney was a civil action brought by a private plaintiff to vindicate private rights. Moreover, the cases in this Court which have recognized an immunity from civil suit for state officials have presumed the existence of federal criminal liability as a restraining factor on the conduct of state officials. As recently as O’Shea v. Littleton, 414 U. S. 488 (1974), we stated:
“Whatever may be the case with respect to civil liability generally, ... or civil liability for willful corruption-, . . . we have never held that the performance of the duties of judicial, legislative, or executive officers, requires or contemplates the immunization of otherwise criminal deprivations of constitutional rights. ... On the contrary, the judicially fashioned doctrine of official immunity does not reach ‘so far as to immunize criminal conduct proscribed by an Act of Congress. . . Gravel v. United States, 408 U. S. 606, 627 (1972).” Id., at 503 (emphasis supplied).
Accord, Imbler v. Pachtman, 424 U. S. 409, 429 (1976); Scheuer v. Rhodes, 416 U. S. 232 (1974). Thus, in protecting the independence of state legislators, Tenney and subsequent cases on official immunity have drawn the line at civil actions.
We conclude, therefore, that although principles of comity command careful consideration, our cases disclose that where important federal interests are at stake, as in the enforcement of féderal criminal statutes, comity yields. We recognize that denial of a privilege to a state legislator may have some minimal impact on the exercise of his legislative function; however, similar arguments made to support a claim of Executive privilege were found wanting in United States v. Nixon, 418 U. S. 683 (1974), when balanced against the need of enforcing federal criminal statutes. There, the genuine risk of inhibiting candor in the internal exchanges at the highest levels of the Executive Branch was held insufficient to justify denying judicial power to secure all relevant evidence in a criminal proceeding. See also United States v. Burr, 25 F. Cas. 187 (No. 14,694) (CC Va. 1807). Here, we believe that recognition of an evidentiary privilege for state legislators for their legislative acts would impair the legitimate interest of the Federal Government in enforcing its criminal statutes with only speculative benefit to the state legislative process.
IV
The Federal Speech or Debate Clause, of course, is a limitation on the Federal Executive, but by its terms is confined to federal legislators. The Tennessee Speech or Debate Clause is in terms a limit only on the prosecutorial powers of that State. Congress might have provided that a state legislator prosecuted under federal law should be accorded the same evi-dentiary privileges as a Member of Congress. Alternatively, Congress could have imported the “spirit” of Erie R. Co. v. Tompkins, 304 U. S. 64 (1938), into federal criminal law and directed federal courts to apply to a state legislator the same evidentiary privileges available in a prosecution of a similar charge in the courts of the state. But Congress has chosen neither of these courses.
In the absence of a constitutional limitation on the power of Congress to make state officials, like all other persons, subject to federal criminal sanctions, we discern no basis in these circumstances for a judicially created limitation that handicaps proof of the relevant facts. Accordingly, the judgment of the Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit is
Reversed.
Compare United States v. DiCarlo, 565 F. 2d 802 (CA1 1977), cert. denied, 435 U. S. 924 (1978), and United States v. Craig, 537 F. 2d 957 (CA7) (en banc), cert. denied, 429 U. S. 999 (1976), with In re Grand Jury Proceedings, 563 F. 2d 577 (CA3 1977).
The count based on 18 U. S. C. § 1952 was subsequently dismissed by the District Court.
The Government stated that the offer was made on the assumption that the District Court’s prior ruling was correct. The Government, however, explicitly reserved its position that state legislators in federal criminal prosecutions are not entitled to an evidentiary privilege comparable to the Speech or Debate Clause.
Gillock would be entitled to request an opinion from the State Attorney General by virtue of his status as a state senator. Only state government officials, not private attorneys, can secure official opinions. Tenn. Code Ann. §8-609 (b)(6) (Supp. 1979).
Gilloek makes no claim that state legislators are entitled to the benefits of the Federal Speech or Debate Clause, which by its terms applies only to “Senators and Representatives.” See Lake Country Estates, Inc. v. Tahoe Regional Planning Agency, 440 U. S. 391, 404 (1979).
Rule 501 provides in full:
“Except as otherwise required by the Constitution of the United States as provided by Act of Congress or in rules prescribed by the Supreme Court pursuant to statutory authority, the privilege of a witness, person, government, State, or political subdivision thereof shall be governed by the principles of the common law as they may be interpreted by the courts of the United States in the light of reason and experience. However, in civil actions and proceedings, with respect to an element of a claim or defense as to which State law supplies the rule of decision, the privilege of a witness, person, government, State, or political subdivision thereof shall be determined in accordance with State law.”
We also find it significant that we have not been cited to a single instance in the legislative history of Rule 501 where any Member of Congress manifested interest in providing an evidentiary privilege for state legislators charged in federal court with a violation of a federal criminal statute.
This is not to suggest that the privilege law as developed in the states is irrelevant. This Court has taken note of state privilege laws in determining whether to retain them in the federal system. See, e. g., Trammel v. United States, ante, p. 40 (rejection of the antimarital facts privilege).
Compare Powell v. McCormack, 395 U. S. 486 (1969) (suit for injunction against individual Members of Congress to require the seating of Representative Adam Clayton Powell barred by the Speech or Debate Clause), with Bond v. Floyd, 385 U. S. 116 (1966) (individual state legislators enjoined from depriving Julian Bond of his seat, in the Georgia Legislature).
Despite the frequent invocation of the-federal Speech or Debate Clause in Tenney, the Court has made clear that the holding was grounded on its interpretation of federal common law, not on the Speech or Debate Clause. See Lake Country Estates, Inc. v. Tahoe Regional Planning Agency, 440 U. S., at 404.
Federal prosecutions of state and local officials, including state legislators, using evidence of their official acts are not infrequent. See, e. g., United States v. Rabbitt, 583 F. 2d 1014 (CA8 1978), cert. denied, 439 U. S. 1116 (1979); United States v. Mazzei, 521 F. 2d 639 (CA3), cert. denied, 423 U. S. 1014 (1975); United States v. Homer, 411 F. Supp. 972 (WD Pa. 1976). See also Anderson v. United States, 417 U. S. 211, 214-215 (1974). Of course, even a Member of Congress would not be immune under the federal Speech or Debate Clause from prosecution for the acts which form the basis of the Hobbs Act, 18 U. S. C. § 1951, and RICO, 18 U. S. C. § 1962, charges here. See United States v. Helstoski, 442 U. S. 477 (1979).
Cf. Gravel v. United States, 408 U. S. 606, 627 (1972) (“[W]e cannot carry a judicially fashioned privilege so far as to immunize criminal conduct proscribed by an Act of Congress or to frustrate the grand jury’s inquiry into whether publication of these classified documents violated a federal criminal statute”).
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | I | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Mr. Justice Harlan
delivered the opinion of the Court.
This case calls in question the propriety of a dismissal before trial of the first cause of action in a seaman’s diversity complaint. Dismissal was on the ground that the allegations of the complaint are deficient by reason of the New York Statute of Frauds.
The allegations of the complaint, which for present purposes ■ must be taken as true, are in substance as follows: Petitioner, while employed as chief steward on one of the vessels of respondent, United Fruit Company, suffered a thyroid ailment, not attributable to any fault of the respondent, but with respect to which it concededly had a legal duty to provide him with maintenance and cure. (The Osceola, 189 U. S. 158.) Respondent insisted that petitioner undergo treatment at a United States Public Health Service Hospital. Petitioner, however, considering on the basis of past experience that such treatment would prove unsatisfactory and inadequate, notified respondent that he wished to be treated by a private physician who had agreed to take care of him for. $350, which amount petitioner insisted would be payable by the respondent in fulfillment of its obligation for maintenance and cure.
Respondent, the complaint continues, declined to accede to this course, but agreed that if petitioner would enter a Public Health Service Hospital (where he would receive free care) it would assume responsibility for all consequences of improper or inadequate treatment. Relying on that undertaking, and being unable himself to defray the cost of private treatment, petitioner underwent treatment at a Public Health Service Hospital. The Public Health Service Hospital and private physician alluded to were both located in New York.
Finally, it is alleged that by reason of the improper treatment received at such hospital, petitioner suffered grievous unwonted bodily injury, for which the respondent, because of its undertaking, is liable to the petitioner for damages in the amount of 1250,00o.
The District Court dismissed the complaint, considering that the agreement sued on was void under the New York Statute of Frauds, N. Y. Personal Property Law, § 31, par. 2, there being no allegation that such agreement was evidenced by any writing, 166 F. Supp. 571. The Court of Appeals affirmed. 275 F. 2d 500. We brought the case here because it presented novel questions as to the interplay of state and maritime law. 363 U. S. 838.
At the outset, we think it clear that the lower courts were correct in regarding the sufficiency of this complaint as depending entirely upon its averments respecting respondent’s alleged agreement with petitioner. Liability here certainly cannot be founded on principles of respon-deat superior. Nor is there anything in the authorities relating to a shipowner’s duty to provide maintenance and cure which suggests that respondent was obliged, as a matter of law, to honor petitioner’s preference for private treatment, or that it was responsible for the quality of petitioner’s treatment at other hands which, for all that appears, may reasonably have been assumed to be well trained and careful.
With respect to respondent’s alleged agreed undertaking, as the case comes to us, petitioner, on the one hand, does not deny the contract’s invalidity under the New York Statute of Frauds, if state law controls, nor, on the other hand, can its validity well be doubted, though the alleged agreement was not reduced to writing, if maritime law controls. For it is an established rule of ancient respectability that oral contracts are generally regarded as valid by maritime law. In this posture of things two questions must be decided: First, was this alleged contract a maritime one? Second, if so, was it nevertheless of such a “local” nature that its validity should be judged by state law?
I.
The boundaries of admiralty jurisdiction over contracts — as opposed to torts or crimes — being conceptual rather than spatial, have always been difficult to draw. Precedent and usage are helpful insofar as they exclude or include certain common types of contract: a contract to repair, Endner v. Greco, 3 F. 411, or to insure a ship, Insurance Co. v. Dunham, 11 Wall. 1, is maritime, but a contract to build a ship is not. People’s Ferry Co. v. Beers, 20 How. 393. Without doubt a contract for hire either of a ship or of the sailors and officers to man her is within the admiralty jurisdiction. 1 Benedict, Admiralty, 366. A suit on a bond covering cargo on general average is governed by admiralty law, Cie Francaise de Navigation v. Bonnasse, 19 F. 2d 777, while an agreement to pay damages for another’s breach of a maritime charter is not, Pacific Surety Co. v. Leatham & Smith T. & W. Co., 151 F. 440. The closest analogy we have found to the case at hand is a contract for hospital services rendered an injured seaman in satisfaction of a shipowner’s liability for maintenance and cure, which has been held to be a maritime contract. Methodist Episcopal Hospital v. Pacific Transport Co., 3 F. 2d 508. The principle by reference to which the cases are supposed to fall on one side of the line or the other is an exceedingly broad one. “The only question is whether the transaction relates to ships and vessels, masters and mariners, as the agents of commerce . . . I Benedict, Admiralty, 131.
The Court of Appeals here held:
“The contract sued on is not a maritime contract, since it was merely a promise to pay money, on land, if the former seaman should suffer injury at the hands of the United States Public Health Service personnel, on land, in the course df medical treatment. . . . For all that appears in the complaint, it may well be that the contract sued on was allegedly made after the maritime contract of employment of the plaintiff had been terminated. It really makes no difference whether this was so or not. All that remained was the performance by the shipowner of its undisputed obligation to supply maintenance and cure. The shipowner supplied plaintiff with a master’s certificate, which was used by him to obtain admittance as a patient in the United States Public Health Service Hospital. . . . That took care of the obligation to furnish ‘cure.’. . .”
With respect to the learned judges below, we think that is too narrow a view of the matter. It can as well be argued that the alleged contract related to and stood in place of a duty created by and known only in admiralty as a kind of fringe benefit to the maritime contract of hire. See Cortes v. Baltimore Insular Line, 287 U. S. 367. The Court of Appeals and respondent are certainly correct in considering that a shipowner's duty to provide maintenance and cure may ordinarily be discharged by the issuing of a master’s certificate carrying admittance to a public hospital, and that a seaman who refuses such a certificate or the free treatment to which it entitles him without just cause, cannot further hold the shipowner to his duty to provide maintenance and cure. Williams v. United States, 133 F. Supp. 319; Luth v. Palmer Shipping Co., 210 F. 2d 224; The Bouker No. 2, 241 F. 831; see Calmar S. S. Corp. v. Taylor, 303 U. S. 525. But without countenancing petitioner’s intemperate aspersions against Public Health Service Hospitals, and rejecting as we have the noncontractual grounds upon which he seeks to predicate liability here, we nevertheless are clear that the duty to afford maintenance and cure is not simply and as a matter of law an obligation to provide for entrance to a public hospital. The cases which respondent cites hold no more than that a seaman who can receive adequate and proper care free of charge at a public hospital may not “deliberately refuse the hospital privilege, and then assert a lien upon his vessel for the increased expense which his. whim or taste has created.” The Bouker No. 2, supra, at 835. Presumably if a seaman refuses to enter a public hospital or, having entered, if he leaves to undergo treatment elsewhere, he may recover the cost of such other treatment upon proof that “proper and adequate” cure was not available at such hospital. Cf. Williams v. United States, Luth v. Palmer Shipping Co., supra.
No matter how skeptical one may be that such a burden of proof could be sustained, or that an indigent seaman would be likely to risk losing his rights to free treatment on the chance of sustaining that burden, since we should not exclude that possibility as a matter of law as the Court of Appeals apparently did, it must follow that the contract here alleged should be regarded as an agreement on the part of petitioner to forego a course of treatment which might have involved respondent in some additional expense, in return for respondent’s promise to make petitioner whole for any consequences of what appeared to it at the time as the cheaper alternative. In other words, the consideration for respondent’s alleged promise was petitioner’s good faith forbearance to press what he considered — perhaps erroneously — to be the full extent of his maritime right to maintenance and cure. Compare, American Law Institute, Restatement, Contracts §§ 75, 76. So viewed, we think that the alleged agreement was sufficiently related to peculiarly maritime concerns as not to put it, without more, beyond the pale of admiralty law.
This brings us, then, to the remaining, and what we believe is the controlling, question: whether the alleged contract, though maritime, is “maritime and local,” Western Fuel Co. v. Garcia, 257 U. S. 233, 242, in the sense that the application of state law would not disturb the uniformity of maritime law, Southern Pacific Co. v. Jensen, 244 U. S. 205.
M 1 — 1
Although the doctrines of the uniformity and supremacy of the maritime law have been vigorously criticized— see Southern Pacific Co. v. Jensen, supra, at 218 (dissenting opinion); Standard Dredging Co. v. Murphy, 319 U. S. 306, 309 — the qualifications and exceptions which this Court has built up to that imperative doctrine have not been considered notably more adequate. See Gilmore and Black, Admiralty, passim; Currie, Federalism and the Admiralty: “The Devil’s Own Mess,” 1960, The Supreme Court Review, 158; The Application of State Survival Statutes in Maritime Causes, 60 Col. L. Rev. 534. Perhaps the most often heard criticism of the supremacy doctrine is this: the fact that maritime law is — in a special sense at least, Romero v. International Terminal Co., 358 U. S. 354 — federal law and therefore supreme by-virtue of Article VI of the Constitution, carries with it the implication that wherever a maritime interest is involved, no matter how slight or marginal, it must displace a local interest, no matter how pressing and significant. But the process is surely rather one of accommodation, entirely familiar in many areas of overlapping state and federal concern, or a process somewhat analogous to the normal conflict of laws situation where two sovereignties assert divergent interests in a transaction as to which both have some concern. Surely the claim of federal supremacy is adequately served by the availability of a federal forum in the first instance and of review in this Court to provide assurance that the federal interest is correctly assessed and accorded due weight.
Thus, for instance, it blinks at reality to assert that because a longshoreman, living ashore and employed ashore by shoreside employers, performs seaman’s work, the State with these contacts must lose all concern for the longshoreman’s status and well-being. In allowing state wrongful death statutes, The Tungus v. Skovgaard, 358 U. S. 588; The Hamilton, 207 U. S. 398, and state survival of actions statutes, Just v. Chambers, 312 U. S. 383, respectively, to grant and to preserve a cause of action based ultimately on a wrong committed within, the admiralty jurisdiction and defined by admiralty law, this Court has attempted an accommodation between a liability dependent primarily upon the breach of a maritime duty and state rules governing the extent of recovery for such breach. Since the chance of death foreclosing recovery is necessarily a fortuitous matter, and since the recovery afforded the disabled victim of an accident need be no less than that afforded to his family should he die, the intrusion of these state remedial systems need not bring with it any undesirable disuniformity in the scheme of maritime law.
Altogether analogous reasoning was used by Mr. Justice Brandéis in Red Cross Line v. Atlantic Fruit Co., 264 U. S. 109, where it was held that a New York court could properly compel arbitration under the arbitration clause of a maritime contract. It was there reasoned that since such clauses are valid in admiralty and their breach gives rise to an action for damages, to compel arbitration is really to do no more than substitute a different and more effective remedy for that available in admiralty.
The line of cases descended from the early precedent of Cooley v. Board of Wardens, 12 How. 299, and most recently added to by Huron Portland Cement v. Detroit, 362 U. S. 440; see also Kelly v. Washington, 302 U. S. 1, exemplify but another variation of this process of accommodation. In the Huron case we allowed the City of Detroit to impose the requirements of its smoke control regulations on vessels coming to the city, even though they had measured up to federally imposed standards as to ship’s boilers and equipment. There the matter was put thus:
“. . . The thrust of the federal inspection laws [with which petitioner had complied] is clearly limited to affording protection from the perils of maritime navigation. . . .
“By contrast, the sole aim of the Detroit ordinance is the elimination of air pollution to protect the health and enhance the cleanliness of the local community. . . .
“Congressional recognition that the problem of air pollution is peculiarly a matter of state and local concern is manifest in . . . legislation.” 362 U. S., at 445-446.
Turning to the present case, we think that several considerations point to an accommodation favoring the application of maritime law. It must be remembered that we are dealing here with a contract, and therefore with obligations, by hypothesis, voluntarily undertaken, and not, as in the case of tort liability or public regulations, obligations imposed simply by virtue of the authority of the State or Federal Government. This fact in itself creates some presumption in favor of applying that law tending toward the validation of the alleged contract. Pritchard v. Norton, 106 U. S. 124; Ehrenzweig, Contracts in the Conflict of Laws, Part One: Validity, 59 Col. L. Rev. 973. As we have already said, it is difficult to deny the essentially maritime character of this contract without either indulging in fine-spun distinctions in terms of what the transaction was really about, or simply denying the alleged agreement that characterization by reason of its novelty. Considering that sailors of any nationality may join a ship in any port, and that it is the clear duty of the ship to put into the first available port if this be necessary to provide prompt and adequate maintenance and cure to a seaman who falls ill during the voyage, The Iroquois, 194 U. S. 240, it seems to us that this is such a contract as may well have been made anywhere in the world, and that the validity of it should be judged by one law wherever it was made. On the other hand we are hard put to perceive how this contract was “peculiarly a matter of state and local concern,” Huron Portland Cement v. Detroit, supra, unless it be New York’s interest in not lending her courts to the accomplishment of fraud, something which appears to us insufficient to overcome the countervailing considerations.' Finally, since the effect of the application of New York law here would be to invalidate the contract, this case can hardly be analogized to cases such as Red Cross Line v. Atlantic Fruit, or Just v. Chambers, supra, where state law had the effect of supplementing the remedies available in admiralty for the vindication of maritime rights. Nor is Wilburn Boat Co. v. Fireman’s Ins. Co., 348 U. S. 310, apposite. The application of state law in that case was justified by the Court on the basis of a lack of any provision of maritime law governing the matter there presented. A concurring opinion, id., at 321, and some commentators have preferred to refer the decision to the absurdity of applying maritime law to a contract of insurance on a houseboat established in the waters of a small artificial lake between Texas and Oklahoma. See Gilmore and Black, Admiralty 44-45. Needless to say the situation presented here has a more genuinely salty flavor than that.
In sum, were contracts of the kind alleged in this complaint known to be a normal phenomenon in maritime affairs, we think that there would be little room for argument in favor of allowing local law to control their validity. A different conclusion should not be reached either because such a contract may be thought to be a rarity, or because of any suspicion that this complaint may have been contrived to serve ulterior purposes. Cf. 275 F. 2d, at 501; 166 F. Supp., at 573-574, note 1, supra. Without remotely intimating any view upon the merits of petitioner’s claim, we conclude that it was error to apply the New York Statute of Frauds to bar proof of the agreement alleged in the complaint.
Reversed.
Apparently any cause of action against the United States arising out of the alleged negligence of its agents in treating petitioner was barred by the running of a shorter statute of limitations than is applicable to the contract alleged .here. Compare 28 U. S. C. § 2401 (b) with New York Civil Practice Act, § 48.
New York Personal Property Law, § 31, par. 2, provides:
“Every agreement, promise or undertaking is void, unless it or some note or memorandum thereof be in writing, and subscribed by the person to be charged therewith, or by his lawful agent, if such agreement, promise or undertaking;
“2. Is a special promise to answer for the debt, default or miscarriage of another person.”
A second cause of action for maintenance and cure was subsequently discontinued by petitioner, 275 F. 2d, at 502.
Although the question has not often been litigated, Union Fish Co. v. Erickson, 248 U. S. 308; see United States Fidelity & Guaranty Co. v. American-Hawaiian S. S. Co., 280 F. 1023; Hastorf v. Long-W. G. Broadhurst Co., 239 F. 852; Quirk v. Clinton, 20 Fed. Cas. No. 11,518; Northern Star S. S. Co. v. Kansas Milling Co., 75 F. Supp. 534, it is well accepted that maritime contracts do not as a generality depend on writing for their validity. As Judge Hough, one of the most distinguished of the federal admiralty judges, once said:
“. . . [This] failure to stress force of custom, in maritime matters, is found in Union Fish Co. v. Erickson [supra], where with obvious correctness the California statute of frauds was not permitted to defeat a shipmaster’s libel for wrongful discharge from an engagement for more than one year. . . . [T]he ground of decision should have been the simple one that such engagements, orally made, were as old as the history of marine customs, had passed into the maritime law of the United States, and would be recognized and enforced by the courts of the nation, — so that what California said on the subject (if anything) was merely immaterial.” Hough, Admiralty Jurisdiction— Of Late Years, 37 Harv. L. Rev. 529, at 537.
Writing of a different sort of contract, an equally distinguished British admiralty judge has said that “. . . it is common practice for commercial men to assume very extensive financial obligations on the nod of a head or the initialing of a slip, and many binding chartering engagements are no doubt daily concluded in an informal manner..,.” Soc. Portuguesa de Navios Tanques, Ltd. v. Hualfslsk Polaris A/S, [1952] 1 Lloyd’s List Reports 73, 74 (per McNair, J.), in which opinion he is confirmed by Kent, 3 Commentaries 159-160 (1828 ed.), and the French authority, Pothier, Maritime Contracts 10 (Cushing trans.). True, a seaman’s contract of hire, his articles, have long been required to be in writing by statutes of the various maritime nations, among them one of the first • ^atutes passed by our Congress, 1 Stat. 131 (1790). Compare 2 Geo. II, c. 36 (1729). But this rule was clearly instituted for the protection of the seaman, Curtis, Merchant Seamen 37, and in no way assumes the invalidity of such contracts in the absence of writing. In our law the seaman who ships without articles can recover the highest wages paid at the port of embarcation, as well as subjecting the master who took him. on board to penalties, 46 U. S. C. §§564, 578; Norris, The Law of Seamen, §§ 91, 119. An Ordonnance of Louis XIV declares that if the seaman’s contract is not in writing, the seaman’s oath as to its provisions must be credited, Pothier, supra, at 100, while Lord Tenterden, Merchant Ships and Seamen 476, expressly states that an oral contract of hire is not invalid but only results in a penalty against the master. The Union Fish case, supra, no more than exemplifies the enforceability of an oral maritime contract of hire.
Benedict goes on to quote from an anonymous commentary on the Mediaeval Statutes of Culm, one of the early sources of maritime law, that anything pertaining to navigation or seamen is to be considered a part of the maritime law.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | H | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Mr. Justice Black
delivered the opinion of the Court.
Under employment practices in the United States, employers have sometimes limited work opportunities to members of unions, sometimes to non-union members, and at other times have employed and kept their workers without regard to whether they were or were not members of a union. Employers are commanded to follow this latter employment practice in the states of North Carolina and Nebraska. A North Carolina statute and a Nebraska constitutional amendment provide that no person in those states shall be denied an opportunity to obtain or retain employment because he is or is not a member of a labor organization. To enforce this policy North Carolina and Nebraska employers are also forbidden to enter into contracts or agreements obligating themselves to exclude persons from employment because they are or are not labor union members.
These state laws were given timely challenge in North Carolina and Nebraska courts on the ground that insofar as they attempt to protect non-union members from discrimination, the laws are in violation of rights guaranteed employers, unions, and their members by the United States Constitution. The state laws were challenged as violations of the right of freedom of speech, of assembly and of petition guaranteed unions and their members by “the First Amendment and protected against invasion by the State under the Fourteenth Amendment.” It was further contended that the state laws impaired the obligations of existing contracts in violation of Art. I, § 10, of the United States Constitution and deprived the appellant unions and employers of equal protection and due process of law guaranteed against state invasion by the Fourteenth Amendment. All of these contentions were rejected by the State Supreme Courts and the cases are here on appeal under § 237 of the Judicial Code, 28 U. S. C. § 344 (now 28 U. S. C. § 1257). The substantial identity of the questions raised in the two cases prompted us to set them for argument together and for the same reason we now consider the cases in a single opinion.
First. It is contended that these state laws abridge the freedom of speech and the opportunities of unions and their members “peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.” Under the state policy adopted by these laws, employers must, other considerations being equal, give equal opportunities for remunerative work to union and non-union members without discrimination against either. In order to achieve this objective of equal opportunity for the two groups, employers are forbidden to make contracts which would obligate them to hire or keep none but union members. Nothing in the language of the laws indicates a purpose to prohibit speech, assembly, or petition. Precisely what these state laws do is to forbid employers acting alone or in concert with labor organizations deliberately to restrict employment to none but union members.
It is difficult to see how enforcement of this state policy could infringe the freedom of speech of anyone, or deny to anyone the right to assemble or to petition for a redress of grievances. And appellants do not contend that the laws expressly forbid the full exercise of those rights by unions or union members. Their contention is that these state laws indirectly infringe their constitutional rights of speech, assembly, and petition. While the basis of this contention is not entirely clear, it seems to rest on this line of reasoning: The right of unions and union members to demand that no non-union members work along with union members is “indispensable to the right of self-organization and the association of workers into unions”; without a right of union members to refuse to work with non-union members, there are “no means of eliminating the competition of the non-union worker”; since, the reasoning continues, a “closed shop” is indispensable to achievement of sufficient union membership to put unions and employers on a full equality for collective bargaining, a closed shop is consequently “an indispensable concomitant” of “the right of employees to assemble into and associate together through labor organizations . . . .” Justification for such an expansive construction of the right to speak, assemble and petition is then rested in part on appellants’ assertion “that the right to work as a non-unionist is in no way equivalent to or the parallel of the right to work as a union member; that there exists no constitutional right to work as a non-unionist on the one hand while the right to maintain employment free from discrimination because of union membership is constitutionally protected.” Cf. Wallace Corporation v. Labor Board, 323 U. S. 248.
We deem it unnecessary to elaborate the numerous reasons for our rejection of this contention of appellants. Nor need we appraise or analyze with particularity the rather startling ideas suggested to support some of the premises on which appellants’ conclusions rest. There cannot be wrung from a constitutional right of workers to assemble to discuss improvement of their own working standards, a further constitutional right to drive from remunerative employment all other persons who will not or can not participate in union assemblies. The constitutional right of workers to assemble, to discuss and formulate plans for furthering their own self interest in jobs cannot be construed as a constitutional guarantee that none shall get and hold jobs except those who will join in the assembly or will agree to abide by the assembly’s plans. For where conduct affects the interests of other individuals and the general public, the legality of that conduct must be measured by whether the conduct conforms to valid law, even though the conduct is engaged in pursuant to plans of an assembly.
Second. There is a suggestion though not elaborated in briefs that these state laws conflict with Art. I, § 10, of the United States Constitution, insofar as they impair the obligation of contracts made prior to their enactment. That this contention is without merit is now too clearly established to require discussion. See Home Bldg. & Loan Assn. v. Blaisdell, 290 U. S. 398, 436-439, and cases there cited. And also Veix v. Sixth Ward Bldg. & Loan Assn., 310 U. S. 32, 38; East New York Savings Bank v. Hahn, 326 U. S. 230, 232.
Third. It is contended that the North Carolina and Nebraska laws deny unions and their members equal protection of the laws and thus offend the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Because the outlawed contracts are a useful incentive to the growth of union membership, it is said that these laws weaken the bargaining power of unions and correspondingly strengthen the power of employers. This may be true. But there are other matters to be considered. The state laws also make it impossible for an employer to make contracts with company unions which obligate the employer to refuse jobs to union members. In this respect, these state laws protect the employment opportunities of members of independent unions. See Wallace Corporation v. Labor Board, supra. This circumstance alone, without regard to others that need not be mentioned, is sufficient to support the state laws against a charge that they deny equal protection to unions as against employers and non-union workers.
It is also argued that the state laws do not provide protection for union members equal to that provided for non-union members. But in identical language these state laws forbid employers to discriminate against union and non-union members. Nebraska and North Carolina thus command equal employment opportunities for both groups of workers. It is precisely because these state laws command equal opportunities for both groups that appellants argue that the constitutionally protected rights of assembly and due process have been violated. For the constitutional protections surrounding these rights are relied on by appellants to support a contention that the Federal Constitution guarantees greater employment rights to union members than to non-union members. This claim of appellants is itself a refutation of the contention that the Nebraska and North Carolina laws fail to afford protection to union members equal to the protection afforded non-union workers.
Fourth. It is contended that these state laws deprive appellants of their liberty without due process of law in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment. Appellants argue that the laws are specifically designed to deprive all persons within the two states of “liberty” (1) to refuse to hire or retain any person in employment because he is or is not a union member, and (2) to make a contract or agreement to engage in such employment discrimination against union or non-union members.
Much of appellants’ argument here seeks to establish that due process of law is denied employees and union men by that part of these state laws that forbids them to make contracts with the employer obligating him to refuse to hire or retain non-union workers. But that part of these laws does no more than provide a method to aid enforcement of the heart of the laws, namely, their command that employers must not discriminate against either union or non-union members because they are such. If the states have constitutional power to ban such discrimination by law, they also have power to ban contracts which if performed would bring about the prohibited discrimination. Chicago, B. & Q. R. Co. v. McGuire, 219 U. S. 549, 570, 571.
Many cases are cited by appellants in which this Court has said that in some instances the due process clause protects the liberty of persons to make contracts. But none of these cases, even those according the broadest constitutional protection to the making of contracts, ever went so far as to indicate that the due process clause bars a state from prohibiting contracts to engage in conduct banned by a valid state law. So here, if the provisions in the state laws against employer discrimination are valid, it follows that the contract prohibition also is valid. Bayside Fish Flour Co. v. Gentry, 297 U. S. 422, 427. And see Sage v. Hampe, 235 U. S. 99, 104-105. We therefore turn to the decisive question under the due process contention, which is: Does the due process clause forbid a state to pass laws clearly designed to safeguard the opportunity of non-union workers to get and hold jobs, free from discrimination against them because they are non-union workers?
There was a period in which labor union members who wanted to get and hold jobs were the victims of widespread employer discrimination practices. Contracts between employers and their employees were used by employers to accomplish this anti-union employment discrimination. Before hiring workers, employers required them to sign agreements stating that the workers were not and would not become labor union members. Such anti-union practices were so obnoxious to workers that they gave these required agreements the name of “yellow dog contracts.” This hostility of workers also prompted passage of state and federal laws to ban employer discrimination against union members and to outlaw yellow dog contracts.
In 1907 this Court in Adair v. United States, 208 U. S. 161, considered the federal law which prohibited discrimination against union workers. Adair, an agent of the Louisville & Nashville Railroad Company, had been indicted and convicted for having discharged Coppage, an employee of the railroad, because Coppage was a member of the Order of Locomotive Firemen. This Court there held, over the dissents of Justices McKenna and Holmes, that the railroad, because of the due process clause of the' Fifth Amendment, had a constitutional right to discriminate against union members and could therefore do so through use of yellow dog contracts. The chief reliance for this holding was Lochner v. New York, 198 U. S. 45, which had invalidated a New York law prescribing maximum hours for work in bakeries. This Court had found support for its Lochner holding in what had been said in Allgeyer v. Louisiana, 165 U. S. 578, a case on which appellants here strongly rely. There were strong dissents in the Adair and Lochner cases.
In 1914 this Court reaffirmed the principles of the Adair case in Coppage v. Kansas, 236 U. S. 1, again over strong dissents, and held that a Kansas statute outlawing yellow dog contracts denied employers and employees a liberty to fix terms of employment. For this reason the law was held invalid under the due process clause.
The Allgeyer-Lochner-Adair-Coppage constitutional doctrine was for some years followed by this Court. It was used to strike down laws fixing minimum wages and maximum hours in employment, laws fixing prices, and laws regulating business activities. See cases cited in Olsen v. Nebraska, 313 U. S. 236, 244-246, and Osborn v. Ozlin, 310 U. S. 53, 66-67. And the same constitutional philosophy was faithfully adhered to in Adams v. Tanner, 244 U. S. 590, a case strongly pressed upon us by appellants. In Adams v. Tanner, this Court with four justices dissenting struck down a state law absolutely prohibiting maintenance of private employment agencies. The majority found that such businesses were highly beneficial to the public and upon this conclusion held that the state was without power to proscribe them. Our holding and opinion in Olsen v. Nebraska, supra, clearly, undermined Adams v. Tanner.
Appellants also rely heavily on certain language used in this Court’s opinion in Wolff Packing Co. v. Court of Industrial Relations, 262 U. S. 522. In that case the Court invalidated a state law which in part provided a method for a state agency to fix wages and hours. See Wolff Co. v. Industrial Court, 267 U. S. 552, 565. In invalidating this part of the state act, this Court construed the due process clause as forbidding legislation to fix hours and wages, or to fix prices of products. The Court also relied on a distinction between businesses according to whether they were or were not “clothed with a public interest.” This latter distinction was rejected in Nebbia v. New York, 291 U. S. 502. That the due process clause does not ban legislative power to fix prices, wages and hours as was assumed in the Wolff case, was settled as to price fixing in the Nebbia and Olsen cases. That wages and hours can be fixed by law is no longer doubted since West Coast Hotel Co. v. Parrish, 300 U. S. 379; United States v. Darby, 312 U. S. 100, 125; Phelps Dodge Corp. v. Labor Board, 313 U. S. 177, 187.
This Court beginning at least as early as 1934, when the Nebbia case was decided, has steadily rejected the due process philosophy enunciated in the Adair-Coppage line of cases. In doing so it has consciously returned closer and closer to the earlier constitutional principle that states have power to legislate against what are found to be injurious practices in their internal commercial and business affairs, so long as their laws do not run afoul of some specific federal constitutional prohibition, or of some valid federal law. See Nebbia v. New York, supra at 523-524, and West Coast Hotel Co. v. Parrish, supra at 392-395, and cases cited. Under this constitutional doctrine the due process clause is no longer to be so broadly construed that the Congress and state legislatures are put in a strait jacket when they attempt to suppress business and industrial conditions which they regard as offensive to the public welfare.
Appellants now ask us to return, at least in part, to the due process philosophy that has been deliberately discarded. Claiming that the Federal Constitution itself affords protection for union members against discrimination, they nevertheless assert that the same Constitution forbids a state from providing the same protection for non-union members. Just as we have held that the due process clause erects no obstacle to block legislative protection of union members, we now hold that legislative protection can be afforded non-union workers.
Affirmed.
[For concurring opinion of Mr. Justice Frankfurter, see post, p. 542.]
[For concurring opinion of Mr. Justice Rutledge, joined by Mr. Justice Murphy insofar as it applies to Nos. 34 and 47, see post, p. 557.]
Section 2 of Chapter 328 of the North Carolina Session Laws, enacted in 1947, reads as follows:
“Any agreement or combination between any employer and any labor union or labor organization whereby persons not members of such union or organization shall be denied the right to work for said employer, or whereby such membership is made a condition of employment or continuation of employment by such employer, or whereby any such union or organization acquires an employment monopoly in any enterprise, is hereby declared to be against the public policy and an illegal combination or conspiracy in restraint of trade or commerce in the State of North Carolina.”
Nebraska in 1946 adopted a constitutional amendment, Art. XV, § 13 of which reads as follows:
“No person shall be denied employment because of membership in or affiliation with, or resignation or expulsion from a labor organ-Ration or because of refusal to join or affiliate with a labor organization; nor shall any individual or corporation or association of any kind enter into any contract, written or oral, to exclude persons from employment because of membership in or nonmembership in a labor organization.”
Shops that refuse to employ any but union members are sometimes designated as “closed shops,” sometimes as “union shops.” Contracts which obligate an employer to employ none but union members are sometimes designated as union security agreements, closed shop contracts or union shop contracts. There is also much dispute as to the exact meaning of the term “open shop.” See Encyclopedia of Social Sciences, Yol. 3 (1930), pp. 568-569. There is such an important difference in emphasis between these different labels that we think it better to avoid use of any of them in this opinion.
The Nebraska constitutional amendment was challenged in an action for equitable relief and for a declaratory judgment. A substantial basis of the complaint was that employers had refused to comply with the request of unions to discharge certain employees who had failed to retain union membership. In North Carolina, criminal proceedings were instituted against the appellants charging that an agreement made unlawful by the statute had been entered into by the appellant employer and the other appellants, who are officers and agents of labor unions affiliated with the American Federation of Labor.
State v. Whitaker, 228 N. C. 352, 45 S. E. 2d 860; Lincoln Federal Labor Union No. 19129 v. Northwestern Iron & Metal Co., 149 Neb. 507, 31 N. W. 2d 477. See also American Federation of Labor v. American Sash & Door Co., 67 Ariz. 20, 189 P. 2d 912. An appeal in this latter case was also argued along with the two cases considered in this opinion. We have treated the Arizona case in a separate opinion, post, p. 538, because the challenged Arizona amendment presents a question not raised in the Nebraska or North Carolina laws.
This contention rests on the premise that the Fourteenth Amendment makes the prohibitions and guarantees of the First Amendment applicable to state action. See West Virginia v. Barnette, 319 U. S. 624, 639. The pertinent language of the First Amendment is “Congress shall make no law . . . abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”
Other parts of the state statute related to matters other than wages, prices, and the making of contracts of employment. Considerations involved in the constitutional validity of those other parts of the statute are not relevant here.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | G | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Mr. Justice Douglas
delivered the opinion of the Court.
These cases, here on appeal from the Wisconsin Supreme Court, 28 U. S. C. § 344 (a), 43 Stat. 937, 45 Stat. 54, present the question whether a certification of a union by the Wisconsin Employment Relations Board, Wis. Stats. 1947, ch. Ill, as the collective bargaining representative of the employees of appellant company, conflicts with the National Labor Relations Act, 49 Stat. 449, 29 U. S. C. §§ 151 et seq.
Prior to 1945 the appellant company recognized the appellant union as the collective bargaining representative of its plant and traffic department employees. The company and the union entered into a collective bargaining agreement which by its terms was to continue from year to year unless terminated by either party on a specified notice. At a time when certain provisions of that agreement were being renegotiated a rival union, the Telephone Guild, filed a petition with the National Board asking that it certify the collective bargaining representative of these employees. Before the National Board acted, the Guild withdrew its petition and filed a petition with the Wisconsin Board seeking the same relief.
The Wisconsin Board held a hearing and directed that separate elections be held among the employees in the plant, traffic, and office departments of the company to determine whether they desired to be grouped in a single unit or in departmental units and what representative, if any, they desired to elect. After the election the Wisconsin Board certified that the employees in the plant and traffic departments had elected to combine in a single bargaining unit and had chosen the Guild as their collective bargaining representative, and that the employees in the office department had elected to constitute themselves as a separate unit and had chosen not to have any collective bargaining representative.
Each appellant brought an action in the Wisconsin courts to have the certification set aside. The Circuit Court, relying on Bethlehem Steel Co. v. New York Labor Relations Board, 330 U. S. 767, held that the Wisconsin Board was without jurisdiction to issue the certification. The Supreme Court of Wisconsin reversed. 251 Wis. 583, 30 N. W. 2d 241.
First. We are met at the outset with a contention that the certification of the Wisconsin Board which has been sustained by the Wisconsin Supreme Court is not a “final judgment” within the meaning of § 237 (a) of the Judicial Code, 28 U. S. C. § 344. The argument is that under Wisconsin law the certification is no more than a report on the results of an investigation made known to the parties for such use as they may desire, that nothing can be done by any state agency to enforce observance of the certification, that the company cannot be required to bargain with the certified union until and unless an unfair practice charge is lodged against it, and that in such proceeding all the issues involved in the certification proceeding can be relitigated. If that contention is correct, the case is of course not ripe for the intervention of the federal judicial power. See Rochester Telephone Corp. v. United States, 307 U. S. 125, 130-131 and cases cited.
But it has not been shown that the Wisconsin law gives such slight force to the certification. The statute provides that the representative chosen by the employees shall be the exclusive one for purposes of collective bargaining. § 111.05 (1). Provision is made for the board to take a secret ballot of the employees and to certify the results thereof, whenever a question arises concerning the representation of employees in a collective bargaining unit. § 111.05 (3). And the statute contains the following direction: “The board’s certification of the results of any election shall be conclusive as to the findings in-eluded therein unless reviewed in the same manner as provided by subsection (8) of section 111.07 for review of orders of the board.” § 111.05 (3). The certification in these cases has been reviewed and sustained by the highest court of Wisconsin. While that certification is not irrevocable for all time, it fixes a status to which Wisconsin provides a sanction. Eor it is an unfair labor practice for an employer to refuse to bargain with the representative of a majority of the employees. § 111.06 (d). And since § 111.05 (3) makes the certification, subject to judicial review, “conclusive as to the findings included therein,” it would seem that the certification cannot be collaterally attacked in that proceeding or heard de novo. We are pointed to no Wisconsin authority to the effect that it can be.
On this phase of the case we are, indeed, referred to only one Wisconsin authority and that is United R. & W. D. S. E. v. Wisconsin Board, 245 Wis. 636, 15 N. W. 2d 844. But that case merely held that an order of the Wisconsin Board that a referendum of employees by secret ballot be held to determine whether an “all union” agreement was desired was not reviewable. It did not deal with a certificate which was in fact reviewed and sustained by the same court as in the present cases. It is true that in the opinion below, the Wisconsin Supreme Court said that the “mere fact-finding procedure” of the Wisconsin Board in ascertaining the facts, in ordering an election, and in certifying the result “constitutes action in merely its ministerial capacity.” 251 Wis. at 592, 30 N. W. 2d at 245. But that comment was directed to the lack of discretion which the state statute had left the Wisconsin Board. It had no relevance to the effect of the certification under Wisconsin law.
While the Wisconsin Employment Relations Board seems readier than some to reexamine the status of a bargaining representative on the ground that it has lost the support of a majority, it nevertheless appears to be Wisconsin law that a certification is binding upon an employer so long as it stands.
We assumed in Allegheny Ludlum Steel Corp. v. Kelley, 330 U. S. 767, that the certification of a collective bargaining representative, sustained by the highest court of the state, was a final judgment, although it did not of itself command action but like the certification here was enforcible in law only by another proceeding.
We think that is the correct view. The fact that Wisconsin’s certification was not in the form of a command is immaterial. See American Federation of Labor v. Labor Board, 308 U. S. 401, 408. It was not an abstract determination of status. Nor was it merely an interim adjudication in an uncompleted administrative process. It established legal rights and relationships. It told the employer, subject to judicial review, with whom he could not refuse to negotiate without risk of sanctions. The character of the certification was therefore such as to make it reviewable under the appropriate standards for exercise of the federal judicial power.
Second. The Wisconsin Supreme Court concluded that the Wisconsin Board could exercise jurisdiction here until and unless the National Board undertook to determine the appropriate bargaining representative or unit of representation of these employees. That view was urged on us in the like cases coming here under a New York statute. In Bethlehem Steel Co. v. New York Labor Relations Board, supra, at 776, we rejected that argument, saying:
“The State argues for a rule that would enable it to act until the federal board had acted in the same case. But we do not think that a case by case test of federal supremacy is permissible here.”
We went on to point out that the National Board had jurisdiction of the industry in which those particular employers were engaged and had asserted control of their labor relations in general. Both the state and the federal statutes had laid hold of the same relationship and had provided different standards for its regulation. Since the employers in question were subject to regulation by the National Board, we thought the situation too fraught with potential conflict to permit the intrusion of the state agency, even though the National Board had not acted in the particular cases before us.
Those considerations control the present cases. This employer is concededly engaged in interstate commerce; and the industry is one over which the National Board has consistently exercised jurisdiction. The Wisconsin Act provides that a majority of employees in a single craft, division, department or plant of an employer may elect to constitute that group a separate bargaining unit. § 111.02 (6). The federal act leaves that matter to the discretion of the board. When under those circumstances the state board puts its imprimatur on a particular group as the collective bargaining agent of employees, it freezes into a pattern that which the federal act has left fluid. In practical effect the true measure of conflict between the state and federal scheme of regulation may not be found only in the collision between the formal orders that the two boards may issue. We know that administrative practice also disposes of cases in which, no order has been entered. Disposition of controversies on an administrative as distinguished from a formal basis will often reflect the attitudes of the National Board which have not been reduced to orders in those specific cases. A certification by a state board under a different or conflicting theory of representation may therefore be as readily disruptive of the practice under the federal act as if the orders of the two boards made a head-on collision. These are the very real potentials of conflict which lead us to allow supremacy to the federal scheme even though it has not yet been applied in any formal way to this particular employer. The problem of employee representation is a sensitive and delicate one in industrial relations. The uncertainty as to which board is master and how long it will remain such can be as disruptive of peace between various industrial factions as actual competition between two boards for supremacy. We are satisfied with the wisdom of the policy underlying the Bethlehem case and adhere to it.
The result we have reached is not changed by the Labor Management Relations Act of 1947, 61 Stat. 136, 29 U. S. C. Supp. I, §§ 141 et seq. That Act grants the National Board authority under specified conditions to cede its jurisdiction to a state agency. But it does not appear that there has been any cession of jurisdiction to Wisconsin by the National Board in representation proceedings.
Reversed.
That review extends to administrative decisions affecting legal rights, duties, and privileges whether affirmative or negative in form, § 227.15, and is allowed any person aggrieved and directly affected by the administrative decision. § 227.16.
Section 111.05 (4) provides “The fact that one election has been held shall not prevent the holding of another election among the same group of employes, provided that it appears to the board that sufficient reason therefor exists.”
Section 111.06(d) also provides that where an employer files with the board a petition requesting a determination as to majority representation “he shall not be deemed to have refused to bargain until an election has been held and the result thereof has been certified to him by the board.” But we are pointed to no authority holding that where a certification has already been made, a recertification can be demanded. Section 111.05 (3), indeed, makes the certification “conclusive.”
See § 111.05 (4), supra, note 2; Rydahl’s Launderers & Cleaners, Wis. E. R. B. Decision No. 677 (1944); UAW-CIO and Four Wheel Drive Auto Co., Wis. E. R. B. Decision No. 687 (1944); cf. AUA and Garton Toy Co., Wis. E. R. B. Decision No. 1238 (1947); Killingsworth, State Labor Relations Acts 161-62 (1948).
See In re United Brotherhood of Carpenters & Joiners, 2 L. R. R. M. 894 (Wis. County Cir. Ct., 1938); In re Charles Abresch Co., 3 L. R. R. M. 639 (Wis. E. R. B. Decision No. 744, 1938); cf. Wisconsin Board v. Hall Garage Corp., 18 L. R. R. M. 2419 (Wis. County Cir. Ct., 1946).
In Allegheny Ludlum Steel Corp. v. Kelley, supra, suit had been brought in the state court for a declaratory judgment to restrain the state labor board from determining a representative of plaintiff’s supervisory employees to bargain collectively with the plaintiff. Under New York law the labor board had authority to hold elections to determine employee representation and to certify the results. 30 McKinney’s Cons. Laws § 705. Certification in itself, as in the instant case, did not impose a legal penalty. Suit had to be brought in an unfair labor practice proceeding to accomplish such result. 30 Ibid. § 706. Refusal to bargain with the representative of the employees was an unfair labor practice. 30 Ibid. §704 (6). Even though the New York law did not state, as does the Wisconsin law, that certification by the board was conclusive, we considered a decision of the New York court approving the jurisdiction of the state board to conduct a representative proceeding a final judgment ripe for our consideration.
See Elyria Telephone Co., 58 N. L. R. B. 402; Newark Telephone Co., 59 N. L. R. B. 1408; People’s Telephone Corp., 69 N. L. R. B. 540; Ohio Telephone Service Co., 72 N. L. R. B. 488.
The appellant company operates a telephone business in La Crosse County, Wisconsin. It is a subsidiary of the Central Telephone Co., whose subsidiaries operate telephone businesses in many states. The concession that the company is engaged in interstate commerce is based on the interstate telephone calls which it handles.
“The Board shall decide in each case whether, in order to insure to employees the full benefit of their right to self-organization and to collective bargaining, and otherwise to effectuate the policies of this Act, the unit appropriate for the purposes of collective bargaining shall be the employer unit, craft unit, plant unit, or subdivision thereof.”
Moreover, the Wisconsin Act excludes from the definition of employee those working in a supervisory capacity. §111.02(3). They were, however, included under the protection of the federal act as then written. Packard Motor Co. v. Labor Board, 330 U. S. 485. The definition of employee under the Wisconsin Act also excludes certain strikers and others who have not been at work for certain periods. §111.02(3). These latter exceptions likewise do not in the main square with the definition of employee contained in § 2 (3) of the federal act.
U. S. Const. Art. VI.
Section 10 (a) of the National Labor Relations Act, as amended, now provides in part: “the Board is empowered by agreement with any agency of any State or Territory to cede to such agency jurisdiction over any cases in any industry (other than mining, manufacturing, communications, and transportation except where predominantly local in character) even though such cases may involve labor disputes affecting commerce, unless the provision of the State or Territorial statute applicable to the determination of such cases by such agency is inconsistent with the corresponding provision of this Act or has received a construction inconsistent therewith.”
The agreement of August 27, 1948, between the National Board and the Wisconsin Board is restricted to the implementation of § 14 (b) of the federal act. See 22 L. R. R. 268.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | J | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Mr. Justice Burton
delivered the opinion of the Court.
The question here is whether the rules and practices of the Southern Railway Company, which divide each dining car so as to allot ten tables exclusively to white passengers and one table exclusively to Negro passengers, and which call for a curtain or partition between that table and the others, violate § 3 (1) of the Interstate Commerce Act. That section makes it unlawful for a railroad in interstate commerce “to subject any particular person, ... to any undue or unreasonable prejudice or disadvantage in any respect whatsoever: . . . .” 54 Stat. 902, 49 U. S. C. § 3 (1). We hold that those rules and practices do violate the Act.
This issue grows out of an incident which occurred May 17, 1942. On that date the appellant, Elmer W. Henderson, a Negro passenger, was traveling on a first-class ticket on the Southern Railway from Washington, D. C., to Atlanta, Georgia, en route to Birmingham, Alabama, in the course of his duties as an employee of the United States. The train left Washington at 2 p. m. At about 5:30 p. m., while the train was in Virginia, the first call to dinner was announced and he went promptly to the dining car. In accordance with the practice then in effect, the two end tables nearest the kitchen were conditionally reserved for Negroes. At each meal those tables were to be reserved initially for Negroes and, when occupied by Negroes, curtains were to be drawn between them and the rest of the car. If the other tables were occupied before any Negro passengers presented themselves at the diner then those two tables also were to be available for white passengers, and Negroes were not to be seated at them while in use by white passengers. When the appellant reached the diner, the end tables in question were partly occupied by white passengers but at least one seat at them was unoccupied. The dining-car steward declined to seat the appellant in the dining car but offered to serve him, without additional charge, at his Pullman seat. The appellant declined that offer and the steward agreed to send him word when space was available. No word was sent and the appellant was not served, although he twice returned to the diner before it was detached at 9 p. m.
In October, 1942, the appellant filed a complaint with the Interstate Commerce Commission alleging especially that the foregoing conduct violated § 3 (1) of the Interstate Commerce Act. Division 2 of the Commission found that he had been subjected to undue and unreasonable prejudice and disadvantage, but that the occurrence was a casual incident brought about by the bad judgment of an employee. The Commission declined to enter an order as to future practices. 258 I. C. C. 413. A three-judge United States District Court for the District of Maryland, however, held that the railroad’s general practice, as evidenced by its instructions of August 6, 1942, was in violation of § 3 (1). Accordingly, on February 18, 1946, it remanded the case for further proceedings. 63 F. Supp. 906. Effective March 1, 1946, the company announced its modified rules which are now in effect. They provide for the reservation of ten tables, of four seats each, exclusively and unconditionally for white passengers and one table, of four seats, exclusively and unconditionally for Negro passengers. Between this table and the others a curtain is drawn during each meal.
On remand, the full Commission, with two members dissenting and one not participating, found that the modified rules do not violate the Interstate Commerce Act and that no order for the future was necessary. 269 I. C. C. 73. The appellant promptly instituted the present proceeding before the District Court, constituted of the same three members as before, seeking to have the Commission’s order set aside and a cease and desist order issued. 28 U. S. C. §§ 41 (28), 43-48; 49 U. S. C. § 17 (9); see also, 28 U. S. C. (Supp. III) §§ 1336, 1398, 2284, 2321, 2325. With one member dissenting, the court sustained the modified rules on the ground that the accommodations are adequate to serve the average number of Negro passengers and are “proportionately fair.” 80 F. Supp. 32, 39. The case is here on direct appeal. 28 U. S. C. (Supp. Ill) §§ 1253, 2101 (b). In this Court, the United States filed a brief and argued orally in support of the appellant.
It is clear that appellant has standing to bring these proceedings. He is an aggrieved party, free to travel again on the Southern Railway. Having been subjected to practices of the railroad which the Commission and the court below found to violate the Interstate Commerce Act, he may challenge the railroad's current regulations on the ground that they permit the recurrence of comparable violations. Mitchell v. United, States, 313 U. S. 80, 92-93.
The material language in § 3 (1) of the Interstate Commerce Act has been in that statute since its adoption in 1887. 24 Stat. 380. From the beginning, the Interstate Commerce Commission has recognized the application of that language to discriminations between white and Negro passengers. Councill v. Western & Atlantic R. Co., 1 I. C. C. 339; Heard v. Georgia R. Co., 1 I. C. C. 428; Heard v. Georgia R. Co., 3 I. C. C. 111; Edwards v. Nashville, C. & St. L. R. Co., 121. C. C. 247; Cozart v. Southern R. Co., 161. C. C. 226; Gaines v. Seaboard Air Line R. Co., 16 I. C. C. 471; Crosby v. St. Louis-San Francisco R. Co., 112 I. C. C. 239. That section recently was so applied in Mitchell v. United States, supra.
The decision of this case is largely controlled by that in the Mitchell case. There a Negro passenger holding a first-class ticket was denied a Pullman seat, although such a seat was unoccupied and would have been available to him if he had been white. The railroad rules had allotted a limited amount of Pullman space, consisting of compartments and drawing rooms, to Negro passengers and, because that space was occupied, the complainant was excluded from the Pullman car and required to ride in a second-class coach. This Court held that the passenger thereby had been subjected to an unreasonable disadvantage in violation of § 3 (l).
The similarity between that case and this is inescapable. The appellant here was denied a seat in the dining car although at least one seat was vacant and would have been available to him, under the existing rules, if he had been white. The issue before us, as in the Mitchell case, is whether the railroad’s current rules and practices cause passengers to be subjected to undue or unreasonable prejudice or disadvantage in violation of § 3 (1). We find that they do.
The right to be free from unreasonable discriminations belongs, under § 3 (1), to each particular person. Where a dining car is available to passengers holding tickets entitling them to use it, each such passenger is equally entitled to its facilities in accordance with reasonable regulations. The denial of dining service to any such passenger by the rules before us subjects him to a prohibited disadvantage. Under the rules, only four Negro passengers may be served at one time and then only at the table reserved for Negroes. Other Negroes who present themselves are compelled to await a vacancy at that table, although there may be many vacancies elsewhere in the diner. The railroad thus refuses to extend to those passengers the use of its existing and unoccupied facilities. The rules impose a like deprivation upon white passengers whenever more than 40 of them seek to be served at the same time and the table reserved for Negroes is vacant.
We need not multiply instances in which these rules sanction unreasonable discriminations. The curtains, partitions and signs emphasize the artificiality of a difference in treatment which serves only to call attention to a racial classification of passengers holding identical tickets and using the same public dining facility. Cf. McLaurin v. Oklahoma State Regents, ante, p. 637, decided today. They violate § 3 (1).
Our attention has been directed to nothing which removes these racial allocations from the statutory condemnation of “undue or unreasonable prejudice or disadvantage . . . .” It is argued that the limited demand for dining-car facilities by Negro passengers justifies the regulations. But it is no answer to the particular passenger who is denied service at an unoccupied place in a dining car that, on the average, persons like him are served. As was pointed out in Mitchell v. United States, 313 U. S. 80, 97, “the comparative volume of traffic cannot justify the denial of a fundamental right of equality of treatment, a right specifically safeguarded by the provisions of the Interstate Commerce Act.” Cf. McCabe v. Atchison, T. & S. F. R. Co., 235 U. S. 151; Missouri ex rel. Gaines v. Canada, 305 U. S. 337.
That the regulations may impose on white passengers, in proportion to their numbers, disadvantages similar to those imposed on Negro passengers is not an answer to the requirements of §3(1). Discriminations that operate to the disadvantage of two groups are not the less to be condemned because their impact is broader than if only one were affected. Cf. Shelley v. Kraemer, 334 U. S. 1, 22.
Since § 3 (1) of the Interstate Commerce Act invalidates the rules and practices before us, we do not reach the constitutional or other issues suggested.
The judgment of the District Court is reversed and the cause is remanded to that court with directions to set aside the order of the Interstate Commerce Commission which dismissed the original complaint and to remand the case to that Commission for further proceedings in conformity with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
Mr. Justice Douglas concurs in the result.
Mr. Justice Clark took no part in the consideration or decision of this case.
No reliance is placed in this case upon any action by any state.
Rule of the Southern Railway Company issued July 3, 1941, and in effect May 17, 1942:
“dining car regulations
“Meals should be served to passengers of different races at separate times. If passengers of one race desire meals while passengers of a different race are being served in the dining car, such meals will be served in the room or seat occupied by the passenger without extra charge. If the dining ear is equipped with curtains so that it can be divided into separate compartments, meals may be served to passengers of different races at the same time in the compartments set aside for them.” 258 I. C. C. 413, 415, 63 F. Supp. 906, 910.
Joint Circular of the Southern Railway System issued August 6, 1942:
“Effective at once please be governed by the following with respect to the race separation curtains in dining cars:
“Before starting each meal pull the curtains to service position and place a ‘Reserved’ card on each of the two tables behind the curtains.
“These tables are not to be used by white passengers until all other seats in the car have been taken. Then if no colored passengers present themselves for meals, the curtain should be pushed back, cards removed and white passengers served at those tables.
“After the tables are occupied by white passengers, then should colored passengers present themselves they should be advised that they will be served just as soon as those compartments are vacated.
“ ‘Reserved’ cards are being supplied you.” 258 I. C. C. at p. 415, 63 F. Supp. at p. 910.
“(1) It shall be unlawful for any common carrier subject to the provisions of this part to make, give, or came any undue or unreasonable preference or advantage to any particular person, company, firm, corporation, association, locality, port, port district, gateway, transit point, region, district, territory, or any particular description of traffic, in any respect whatsoever; or to subject any particular person, company, firm, corporation, association, locality, port, port district, gateway, transit point, region, district, territory, or any particular description of traffic to any undue or unreasonable prejudice or disadvantage in any respect whatsoever: . . . .” (Emphasis supplied.) 54 Stat. 902, 49 U. S. C. §3 (1).
The appellant sought an order directing the railroad not only to cease and desist from the specific violations alleged but also to establish in the future, for the complainant and other Negro interstate passengers, equal and just dining-car facilities and such other service and facilities as the Commission might consider reasonable and just, and requiring the railroad to discontinue using curtains around tables reserved for Negroes.
The appellant sought damages, but the Commission found no pecuniary damages and that issue has not been pressed further.
“TRANSPORTATION DEPARTMENT CIRCULAR NO. 142. CANCELLING INSTRUCTIONS ON THIS SUBJECT DATED JULY 3, 1941, AND AUGUST 6, 1942.
“SUBJECT: SEGREGATION OF WHITE AND COLORED PASSENGERS IN DINING CARS.
“To: Passenger Conductors and Dining Car Stewards.
“Consistent with experience in respect to the ratio between the number of white and colored passengers who ordinarily apply for service in available diner space, equal but separate accommodations shall be provided for white and colored passengers by partitioning diners and the allotment of space, in accordance with the rules, as follows:
“(1) That one of the two tables at Station No. 1 located to the left side of the aisle facing the buffet, seating four persons, shall be reserved exclusively for colored passengers, and the other tables in the diner shall be reserved exclusively for white passengers.
“(2) Before starting each meal, draw the partition curtain separating the table in Station No. 1, described above, from the table on that side of the aisle in Station No. 2, the curtain to remain so drawn for the duration of the meal.
“(3) A ‘Reserved’ card shall be kept in place on the left-hand table in Station No. 1, described above, at all times during the meal except when such table is occupied as provided in these rules.
“ (4) These rules become effective March 1, 1946.
“R. K. McClain,
“Assistant Vice-President.”
2691. C. C. 73, 75,80 F. Supp. 32,35.
Counsel for the railway company, at a subsequent hearing, corrected the above rules “to the extent of using the word ‘negroes’ in the place of ‘colored persons.’ ” Also, the evidence shows, and the Commission has stated, that “White and Negro soldiers are served together, without distinction.” 258 I. C. C. 413, 415, 63 F. Supp. 906, 910. The rules, accordingly, are treated as applicable only to civilian passengers. The company further showed that it is now substituting a five-foot high wooden partition in place of the curtain. The steward’s office is being placed in the table space opposite that reserved for Negro passengers and a similar wooden partition is being erected between that office and the rest of the car.
The company was permitted to introduce two tabulations, covering about ten days each, showing the comparative numbers of meals served to white and Negro passengers on trips comparable to the one which the appellant had taken. These show that only about 4% of the total meals served were served to Negro passengers whereas four reserved seats exceed 9% of a total seating capacity of 44. On the other hand, the tabulations also show that at one meal 17 Negro passengers, and at each of 20 meals more than eight Negro passengers, were served. Similarly, the brief filed by the Commission states that, out of the 639 serving periods reported, on 15 occasions more than four times as many white passengers were served as there were seats reserved for them, and, on 541 occasions, there were two or more rounds of servings.
“The Western and Atlantic Railroad Company will be notified to cease and desist from subjecting colored persons to undue and unreasonable prejudice and disadvantage in violation of section 3 of the Act to regulate commerce, and from furnishing to colored persons purchasing first-class tickets on its road accommodations which are not equally safe and comfortable with those furnished other first-class passengers.” 11. C. C. at p. 347.
The rules also denied access by Negroes to the dining car and observation car. The principles there announced applied equally to those facilities.
That specific denial of service was condemned by the Commission and the District Court as a violation of §3 (1). Review of that condemnation is not sought here.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | B | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Justice Powell
delivered the opinion of the Court.
The question presented- is whether respondent, involuntarily committed to a state institution for the mentally retarded, has substantive rights under the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to (i) safe conditions of confinement; (ii) freedom from bodily restraints; and (iii) training or “habilitation.” Respondent sued under 42 U. S. C. § 1983 three administrators of the institution, claiming damages for the alleged breach of his constitutional rights.
I
Respondent Nicholas Romeo is profoundly retarded. Although 33 years old, he has the mental capacity of an 18-month-old child, with an I. Q. between 8 and 10. He cannot talle and lacks the most basic self-care skills. Until he was 26, respondent lived with his parents in Philadelphia. But after the death of his father in May 1974, his mother was unable to care for him. Within two weeks of the father’s death, respondent’s mother sought his temporary admission to a nearby Pennsylvania hospital.
Shortly thereafter, she asked the Philadelphia County Court of Common Pleas to admit Romeo to a state facility on a permanent basis. Her petition to the court explained that she was unable to care for Romeo or control his violence. As part of the commitment process, Romeo was examined by a physician and a psychologist. They both certified that respondent was severely retarded and unable to care for himself. App. 21a-22a and 28a-29a. On June 11, 1974, the Court of Common Pleas committed respondent to the Penn-hurst State School and Hospital, pursuant to the applicable involuntary commitment provision of the Pennsylvania Mental Health and Mental Retardation Act, Pa. Stat. Ann., Tit. 50, § 4406(b) (Purdon 1969).
At Pennhurst, Romeo was injured on numerous occasions, both by his own violence and by the reactions of other residents to him. Respondent’s mother became concerned about these injuries. After objecting to respondent’s treatment several times, she filed this complaint on November 4, 1976, in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania as his next friend. The complaint alleged that “[djuring the period July, 1974 to the present, plaintiff has suffered injuries on at least sixty-three occasions.” The complaint originally sought damages and injunctive relief from Pennhurst’s director and two supervisors; it alleged that these officials knew, or should have known, that Romeo was suffering injuries and that they failed to institute appropriate preventive procedures, thus violating his rights under the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments.
Thereafter, in late 1976, Romeo was transferred from his ward to the hospital for treatment of a broken arm. While in the infirmary, and by order of a doctor, he was physically restrained during portions of each day. These restraints were ordered by Dr. Gabroy, not a defendant here, to protect Romeo and others in the hospital, some of whom were in traction or were being treated intravenously. 7 Tr. 40, 49, 76-78. Although respondent normally would have returned to his ward when his arm healed, the parties to this litigation agreed that he should remain in the hospital due to the pending lawsuit. 5 id., at 248; 6 id., at 57-58 and 137. Nevertheless, in December 1977, a second amended complaint was filed alleging that the defendants were restraining respondent for prolonged periods on a routine basis. The second amended complaint also added a claim for damages to compensate Romeo for the defendants’ failure to provide him with appropriate “treatment or programs for his mental retardation.” All claims for injunctive relief were dropped prior to trial because respondent is a member of the class seeking such relief in another action.
An 8-day jury trial was held in April 1978. Petitioners introduced evidence that respondent participated in several programs teaching basic self-care skills. A comprehensive behavior-modification program was designed by staff members to reduce Romeo’s aggressive behavior, but that program was never implemented because of his mother’s objections. Respondent introduced evidence of his injuries and of conditions in his unit.
At the close of the trial, the court instructed the jury that "if any or all of the defendants were aware of and failed to take all reasonable steps to prevent repeated attacks upon Nicholas Romeo," such failure deprived him of constitutional rights. App. 73a. The jury also was instructed that if the defendants shackled Romeo or denied him treatment “as a punishment for filing this lawsuit,” his constitutional rights were violated under the Eighth Amendment. Id., at 73a-75a. Finally, the jury was instructed that only if they found the defendants “deliberate[ly] indrfferen[t] to the serious medical [and psychological] needs” of Romeo could they find that his Eighth and Fourteenth Amendment rights had been violated. Id., at 74a-75a. The jury returned a verdict for the defendants, on which judgment was entered.
The Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, sitting en banc, reversed and remanded for a new trial. 644 F. 2d 147 (1980). The court held that the Eighth Amendment, prohibiting cruel and unusual punishment of those convicted of crimes, was not an appropriate source for determining the rights of the involuntarily committed. Rather, the Fourteenth Amendment and the liberty interest protected by that Amendment provided the proper constitutional basis for these rights. In applying the Fourteenth Amendment, the court found that the involuntarily committed retain liberty interests in freedom of movement and in personal security. These were “fundamental liberties” that can be limited only by an “overriding, non-punitive” state interest. Id., at 157-158 (footnote omitted). It further found that the involuntarily committed have a liberty interest in habilitation designed to “treat” their mental retardation. Id., at 164-170.
The en banc court did not, however, agree on the relevant standard to be used in determining whether Romeo’s rights had been violated. Because physical restraint “raises a presumption of a punitive sanction,” the majority of the Court of Appeals concluded that it can be justified only by “compelling necessity.” Id., at 159-160 (footnote omitted). A somewhat different standard was appropriate for the failure to provide for a resident’s safety. The majority considered that such a failure must be justified by a showing of “substantial necessity.” Id., at 164. Finally, the majority held that when treatment has been administered, those responsible are liable only if the treatment is not “acceptable in the light of present medical or other scientific knowledge.” Id., at 166-167 and 173.
Chief Judge Seitz, concurring in the judgment, considered the standards articulated by the majority as indistinguishable from those applicable to medical malpractice claims. In Chief Judge Seitz’ view, the Constitution “only requires that the courts make certain that professional judgment in fact was exercised.” Id., at 178. He concluded that the appropriate standard was whether the defendants’ conduct was “such a substantial departure from accepted professional judgment, practice, or standards in the care and treatment of this plaintiff as to demonstrate that the defendants did not base their conduct on a professional judgment.” Ibid.
We granted the petition for certiorari because of the importance of the question presented to the administration of state institutions for the mentally retarded. 451 U. S. 982 (1981).
II
We consider here for the first time the substantive rights of involuntarily committed mentally retarded persons under the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution. In this case, respondent has been committed under the laws of Pennsylvania, and he does not challenge the commitment. Rather, he argues that he has a constitutionally protected liberty interest in safety, freedom of movement, and training within the institution; and that petitioners infringed these rights by failing to provide constitutionally required conditions of confinement.
The mere fact that Romeo has been committed under proper procedures does not deprive him of all substantive liberty interests under the Fourteenth Amendment. See, e. g., Vitek v. Jones, 445 U. S. 480, 491-494 (1980). Indeed, the State concedes that respondent has a right to adequate food, shelter, clothing, and medical care. We must decide whether liberty interests also exist in safety, freedom of movement, and training. If such interests do exist, we must further decide whether they have been infringed in this case.
A
Respondent’s first two claims involve liberty interests recognized by prior decisions of this Court, interests that involuntary commitment proceedings do not extinguish. The first is a claim to safe conditions. In the past, this Court has noted that the right to personal security constitutes a “historic liberty interest” protected substantively by the Due Process Clause. Ingraham v. Wright, 430 U. S. 651, 673 (1977). And that right is not extinguished by lawful confinement, even for penal purposes. See Hutto v. Finney, 437 U. S. 678 (1978). If it is cruel and unusual punishment to hold convicted criminals in unsafe conditions, it must be unconstitutional to confine the involuntarily committed — who may not be punished at all — in unsafe conditions.
Next, respondent claims a right to freedom from bodily restraint. In other contexts, the existence of such an interest is clear in the prior decisions of this Court. Indeed, “[ljiberty from bodily restraint always has been recognized as the core of the liberty protected by the Due Process Clause from arbitrary governmental action.” Greenholtz v. Nebraska Penal Inmates, 442 U. S. 1, 18 (1979) (Powell, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part). This interest survives criminal conviction and incarceration. Similarly, it must also survive involuntary commitment.
B
Respondent’s remaining claim is more troubling. In his words, he asserts a “constitutional right to minimally adequate habilitation.” Brief for Respondent 8, 23, 45. This is a substantive due process claim that is said to be grounded in the liberty component of the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The term “habilitation,” used in psychiatry, is not defined precisely or consistently in the opinions below or in the briefs of the parties or the amici. As noted previously in n. 1, supra, the term refers to “training and development of needed skills.” Respondent emphasizes that the right he asserts is for “minimal” training, see Brief for Respondent 34, and he would leave the type and extent of training to be determined on a case-by-case basis “in light of present medical or other scientific knowledge,” id., at 45.
In addressing the asserted right to training, we start from established principles. As a general matter, a State is under no constitutional duty to provide substantive services for those within its border. See Harris v. McRae, 448 U. S. 297, 318 (1980) (publicly funded abortions); Maher v. Roe, 432 U. S. 464, 469 (1977) (medical treatment). When a person is institutionalized — and wholly dependent on the State — it is conceded by petitioners that a duty to provide certain services and care does exist, although even then a State necessarily has considerable discretion in determining the nature and scope of its responsibilities. See Richardson v. Belcher, 404 U. S. 78, 83-84 (1971); Dandridge v. Williams, 397 U. S. 471, 478 (1970). Nor must a State “choose between attacking every aspect of a problem or not attacking the problem at all.” Id., at 486-487.
Respondent, in light of the severe character of his retardation, concedes that no amount of training will make possible his release. And he does not argue that if he were still at home, the State would have an obligation to provide training at its expense. See Tr. of Oral Arg. 33. The record reveals that respondent’s primary needs are bodily safety and a minimum of physical restraint, and respondent clearly claims training related to these needs. As we have recognized that there is a constitutionally protected liberty interest in safety and freedom from restraint, supra, at 315-316, training may be necessary to avoid unconstitutional infringement of those rights. On the basis of the record before us, it is quite uncertain whether respondent seeks any “habilitation” or training unrelated to safety and freedom from bodily restraints. In his brief to this Court, Romeo indicates that even the self-care programs he seeks are needed to reduce his aggressive behavior. See Brief for Respondent 21-22, 50. And in his offer of proof to the trial court, respondent repeatedly indicated that, if allowed to testify, his experts would show that additional training programs, including self-care programs, were needed to reduce his aggressive behavior. App. to Pet. for Cert. OSa-lOéa. If, as seems the case, respondent seeks only training related to safety and freedom from restraints, this case does not present the difficult question whether a mentally retarded person, involuntarily committed to a state institution, has some general constitutional right to training per se, even when no type or amount of training would lead to freedom.
Chief Judge Seitz, in language apparently adopted by respondent, observed:
“I believe that the plaintiff has a constitutional right to minimally adequate care and treatment. The existence of a constitutional right to care and treatment is no longer a novel legal proposition.” 644 F. 2d, at 176.
Chief Judge Seitz did not identify or otherwise define— beyond the right to reasonable safety and freedom from physical restraint — the “minimally adequate care and treatment” that appropriately may be required for this respondent. In the circumstances presented by this case, and on the basis of the record developed to date, we agree with his view and conclude that respondent’s liberty interests require the State to provide minimally adequate or reasonable training to ensure safety and freedom from undue restraint. In view of the kinds of treatment sought by respondent and the evidence of record, we need go no further in this case.
Ill
A
We have established that Romeo retains liberty interests in safety and freedom from bodily restraint. Yet these interests are not absolute; indeed to some extent they are in conflict. In operating an institution such as Pennhurst, there are occasions in which it is necessary for the State to restrain the movement of residents — for example, to protect them as well as others from violence. Similar restraints may also be appropriate in a training program. And an institution cannot protect its residents from all danger of violence if it is to permit them to have any freedom of movement. The question then is not simply whether a liberty interest has been infringed but whether the extent or nature of the restraint or lack of absolute safety is such as to violate due process.
In determining whether a substantive right protected by the Due Process Clause has been violated, it is necessary to balance “the liberty of the individual” and “the demands of an organized society.” Poe v. Ullman, 367 U. S. 497, 542 (1961) (Harlan, J., dissenting). In seeking this balance in other cases, the Court has weighed the individual’s interest in liberty against the State’s asserted reasons for restraining individual liberty. In Bell v. Wolfish, 441 U. S. 520 (1979), for example, we considered a challenge to pretrial detainees’ confinement conditions. We agreed that the detainees, not yet convicted of the crime charged, could not be punished. But we upheld those restrictions on liberty that were reasonably related to legitimate government objectives and not tantamount to punishment. See id., at 539. We have taken a similar approach in deciding procedural due process challenges to civil commitment proceedings. In Parham v. J. R., 442 U. S. 584 (1979), for example, we considered a challenge to state procedures for commitment of a minor with parental consent. In determining that procedural due process did not mandate an adversarial hearing, we weighed the liberty interest of the individual against the legitimate interests of the State, including the fiscal and administrative burdens additional procedures would entail. Id., at 599-600.
Accordingly, whether respondent’s constitutional rights have been violated must be determined by balancing his liberty interests against the relevant state interests. If there is to be any uniformity in protecting these interests, this balancing cannot be left to the unguided discretion of a judge or jury. We therefore turn to consider the proper standard for determining whether a State adequately has protected the rights of the involuntarily committed mentally retarded.
B
We think the standard articulated by Chief Judge Seitz affords the necessary guidance and reflects the proper balance between the legitimate interests of the State and the rights of the involuntarily committed to reasonable conditions of safety and freedom from unreasonable restraints. He would have held that “the Constitution only requires that the courts make certain that professional judgment in fact was exercised. It is not appropriate for the courts to specify which of several professionally acceptable choices should have been made.” 644 F. 2d, at 178. Persons who have been involuntarily committed are entitled to more considerate treatment and conditions of confinement than criminals whose conditions of confinement are designed to punish. Cf. Estelle v. Gamble, 429 U. S. 97, 104 (1976). At the same time, this standard is lower than the “compelling” or “substantial” necessity tests the Court of Appeals would require a State to meet to justify use of restraints or conditions of less than absolute safety. We think this requirement would place an undue burden on the administration of institutions such as Pennhurst and also would restrict unnecessarily the exercise of professional judgment as to the needs of residents.
Moreover, we agree that respondent is entitled to minimally adequate training. In this case, the minimally adequate training required by the Constitution is such training as may be reasonable in light of respondent’s liberty interests in safety and freedom from unreasonable restraints. In determining what is “reasonable” — in this and in any case presenting a claim for training by a State — we emphasize that courts must show deference to the judgment exercised by a qualified professional. By so limiting judicial review of challenges to conditions in state institutions, interference by the federal judiciary with the internal operations of these institutions should be minimized. Moreover, there certainly is no reason to think judges or juries are better qualified than appropriate professionals in making such decisions. See Parham v. J.R., supra, at 607; Bell v. Wolfish, supra, at 544 (Courts should not ‘“second-guess the expert administrators on matters on which they are better informed’ ”). For these reasons, the decision, if made by a professional, is presumptively valid; liability may be imposed only when the decision by the professional is such a substantial departure from accepted professional judgment, practice, or standards as to demonstrate that the person responsible actually did not base the decision on such a judgment. In an action for damages against a professional in his individual capacity, however, the professional will not be liable if he was unable to satisfy his normal professional standards because of budgetary constraints; in such a situation, good-faith immunity would bar liability. See n. 13, supra.
IV
In deciding this case, we have weighed those postcom-mitment interests cognizable as liberty interests under the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment against legitimate state interests and in light of the constraints under which most state institutions necessarily operate. We repeat that the State concedes a duty to provide adequate food, shelter, clothing, and medical care. These are the es-sentíais of the care that the State must provide. The State also has the unquestioned duty to provide reasonable safety for all residents and personnel within the institution. And it may not restrain residents except when and to the extent professional judgment deems this necessary to assure such safety or to provide needed training. In this case, therefore, the State is under a duty to provide respondent with such training as an appropriate professional would consider reasonable to ensure his safety and to facilitate his ability to function free from bodily restraints. It may well be unreasonable not to. provide training when training could significantly reduce the need for restraints or the likelihood of violence.
Respondent thus enjoys constitutionally protected interests in conditions of reasonable care and safety, reasonably nonrestrictive confinement conditions, and such training as may be required by these interests. Such conditions of confinement would comport fully with the purpose of respondent’s commitment. Cf. Jackson v. Indiana, 406 U. S. 715, 738 (1972); see n. 27, supra. In determining whether the State has met its obligations in these respects, decisions made by the appropriate professional are entitled to a presumption of correctness. Such a presumption is necessary to enable institutions of this type — often, unfortunately, overcrowded and understaffed — to continue to function. A single professional may have to make decisions with respect to a number of residents with widely varying needs and problems in the course of a normal day. The administrators, and particularly professional personnel, should not be required to make each decision in the shadow of an action for damages.
In this case, we conclude that the jury was erroneously instructed on the assumption that the proper standard of liability was that of the Eighth Amendment. We vacate the decision of the Court of Appeals and remand for further proceedings consistent with this decision.
So ordered.
The American Psychiatric Association explains: “The word ‘habilitation,’ ... is commonly used to refer to programs for the mentally-retarded because mental retardation is ... a learning disability and training impairment rather than an illness. [T]he principal focus of habilitation is upon training and development of needed skills.” Brief for American Psychiatric Association as Amicus Curiae 4, n. 1.
Mrs. Romeo’s petition to the Court of Common Pleas stated: “Since my husband’s death I am unable to handle him. He becomes violent — Kicks, punches, breaks glass; He can’t speak — wants to express himself but can’t. He is [a] constant 24 hr. care. [Without my husband I am unable to care for him.” App. 18a.
Petitioner Duane Youngberg was the Superintendent of Pennhurst; he had supervisory authority over the entire facility. Petitioner Richard Matthews was the Director of Resident Life at Pennhurst. Petitioner Marguerite Conley was Unit Director for the unit in which respondent lived. According to respondent, petitioners are administrators, not medical doctors. See Brief for Respondent 2. Youngberg and Matthews are no longer at Pennhurst.
Although the Court of Appeals described these restraints as “shackles,” “soft” restraints, for the arms only, were generally used. 7 Tr. 53-55.
Respondent uses “treatment” as- synonymous with “habilitation” or “training.” See Brief for Respondent 21-23.
Pennhurst State School and Hospital v. Halderman, 451 U. S. 1 (1981) (remanded for further proceedings).
Prior to his transfer to Pennhurst’s hospital ward, Romeo participated in programs dealing with feeding, showering, drying, dressing, self-control, and toilet training, as well as a program providing interaction with staff members. Defendants’ Exhibit 10; 3 Tr. 69-70; 5 id., at 44-56, 242-250; 6 id., at 162-166; 7 id., at 41-48.
Some programs continued while respondent was in the hospital, 5 id., at 227,248,256; 6 id., at 50,162-166; 6 id., at 32, 34, 41-48, and they reduced respondent’s aggressive behavior to some extent, 7 id., at 45.
2 id., at 7; 5 id., at 88-90; 6 id., at 88, 200-203; Defendants’ Exhibit 1, p. 9. The program called for short periods of separation from other residents and for use of “muffs” on plaintiff’s hands for short periods of time, i. e., five minutes, to prevent him from harming himself or others.
1 Tr. 53; 4 id., at 25; 6 id., at 204.
The District Judge refused to allow testimony by two of Romeo's witnesses — trained professionals — indicating that Romeo would have benefited from more or different training programs. Hie trial judge explained that evidence of the advantages of alternative forms of treatment might be relevant to a malpractice suit, but was not relevant to a constitutional claim under § 1983. App. to Pet. for Cert. 101.
The “deliberate indifference” standard was adopted by this Court in Estelle v. Gamble, 429 U. S. 97, 104 (1976), a case dealing with prisoners’ rights to punishment that is not “cruel and unusual” under the Eighth Amendment. Although the District Court did not refer to Estelle v. Gamble in charging the jury, it erroneously used the deliberate-indifference standard articulated in that case. See App. 45a, 75a.
The Court of Appeals used “habilitation” and “treatment” as synonymous, though it regarded “habilitation” as more accurate in describing treatment needed by the mentally retarded. See 644 F. 2d, at 165, and n. 40.
The existence of a qualified immunity defense was not at issue on appeal. The defendants had received instructions on this defense, App. 76a, and it was not challenged by respondent. 644 F. 2d, at 173, n. 1. After citing Pierson v. Ray, 386 U. S. 547 (1967), and Scheuer v. Rhodes, 416 U. S. 232 (1974), the majority of the Court of Appeals noted that such instructions should be given again on the remand. 644 F. 2d, at 171-172.
Actually, the court divided the right-to-treatment claim into three categories and adopted three standards, but only the standard described in text is at issue before this Court. The Court of Appeals also stated that if a jury finds that no treatment has been administered, it may hold the institution’s administrators liable unless they can provide a compelling explanation for the lack of treatment, id., at 165,173, but respondent does not discuss this precise standard in his brief and it does not appear to be relevant to the facts of this case. In addition, the court considered “least intrusive” analysis appropriate to justify severe intrusions on individual dignity, such as permanent physical alteration or surgical intervention, id., at 165-166 and 173, but respondent concedes that this issue is not present in this case.
Judge Aldisert joined Chief Judge Seitz’ opinion, but wrote separately to emphasize the nature of the difference between the majority opinion and that of the Chief Judge. On a conceptual level, Judge Aldisert thought that the court erred in abandoning the common-law method of deciding the case at bar rather than articulating broad principles unconnected with the facts of the case and of uncertain meaning. Id., at 182-183. And, on a pragmatic level, Judge Aldisert warned that neither juries nor those administering state institutions would receive guidance from the “amorphous constitutional law tenets” articulated in the majority opinion. Id., at 184. See id., at 183-185.
Judge Garth also joined Chief Judge Seitz’ opinion, and wrote separately to criticize the majority for addressing issues not raised by the facts of this case. Id., at 186.
In pertinent part, that Amendment provides that a State cannot deprive “any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law . . . .” U. S. Const., Arndt. 14, § 1.
Respondent no longer relies on the Eighth Amendment as a direct source of constitutional rights. See Brief for Respondent 13, n. 12.
Brief for Petitioners 8, 11, 12, and n. 10; Brief for Respondent 15-16. See also Brief for State of Connecticut et al. as Amici Curiae 8. Petitioners argue that they have fully protected these interests.
Petitioners do not appear to argue to the contrary. See Brief for Petitioners 27-31.
Respondent also argues that because he was committed for care and treatment under state law he has a state substantive right to habilitation, which is entitled to substantive, not procedural, protection under the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. But this argument is made for the first time in respondent’s brief to this Court. It was not advanced in the courts below, and was not argued to the Court of Appeals as a ground for reversing the trial court. Given the uncertainty of Pennsylvania law and the lack of any guidance on this issue from the lower federal courts, we decline to consider it now. See Dothard v. Rawlinson, 433 U. S. 321, 323, n. 1 (1977); Duignan v. United States, 274 U. S. 195, 200 (1927); Old Jordan Milling Co. v. Société Anonyme des Mines, 164 U. S. 261, 264-265 (1896).
Professionals in the habilitation of the mentally retarded disagree strongly on the question whether effective training of all severely or profoundly retarded individuals is even possible. See, e. g., Favell, Risley, Wolfe, Riddle, & Rasmussen, The Limits of Habilitation: How Can We Identify Them and How Can We Change Them?, 1 Analysis and Intervention in Developmental Disabilities 37 (1981); Bailey, Wanted: A Rational Search for the Limiting Conditions of Habilitation in the Retarded, 1. Analysis and Intervention in Developmental Disabilities 45 (1981); Kauffman & Krouse, The Cult of Educability: Searching for the Substance of Things Hoped for; The Evidence of Things Not Seen, 1 Analysis and Intervention in Developmental Disabilities 53 (1981).
See, e. g., description of complaint, supra, at 310.
See also Brief for Appellant in No. 78-1982, pp. 11-14, 20-21, and 24 (CA3).
In the trial court, respondent asserted that “state officials at a state mental hospital have a duty to provide residents . . . with such treatment as will afford them a reasonable opportunity to acquire and maintain those life skills necessary to cope as effectively as their capacities permit.” App. to Pet. for Cert. 94a-95a. But this claim to a sweeping per se right was dropped thereafter. In his brief to this Court, respondent does not repeat it and, at oral argument, respondent’s counsel explicitly disavowed any claim that respondent is constitutionally entitled to such treatment as would enable him “to achieve his maximum potential.” Tr. of Oral Arg. 46-48.
Chief Judge Seitz used the tern “treatment” as synonymous with training or habilitation. See 644 F. 2d, at 181.
It is not feasible, as is evident from the variety of language and formulations in the opinions below and the various briefs here, to define or identify the type of training that may be required in every case. A court properly may start with the generalization that there is a right to minimally adequate training. The basic requirement of adequacy, in terms more familiar to courts, may be stated as that training which is reasonable in light of identifiable liberty interests and the circumstances of the case. A federal court, of course, must identify a constitutional predicate for the imposition of any affirmative duty on a State.
Because the facts in cases of confinement of mentally retarded patients vary widely, it is essential to focus on the facts and circumstances of the case before a court. Judge Aldisert, in his concurring opinion in the court below, was critical of the “majority’s abandonment of incremental decision-making in favor of promulgation of broad standards . . . [that] lac[k] utility for the groups most affected by this decision.” Id., at 183-184. Judge Garth agreed that reaching issues not presented by the case requires a court to articulate principles and rules of law in “the absence of an appropriate record . . . and without the benefit of analysis, argument, or briefing” on such issues. Id., at 186.
In Romeo’s case, there can be no question that physical restraint was necessary at times. See n. 2, supra.
See also Jackson v. Indiana, 406 U. S. 715, 738 (1972) (holding that an incompetent pretrial detainee cannot, after a competency hearing, be held indefinitely without either criminal process or civil commitment; due process requires, at a minimum, some rational relation between the nature and duration of commitment and its purpose). This case differs in critical respects from Jackson, a procedural due process case involving the validity of an involuntary commitment. Here, respondent was committed by a court on petition of his mother who averred that in view of his condition she could neither care for him nor control his violence. N. 2, supra. Thus, the purpose of respondent’s commitment was to provide reasonable care and safety, conditions not available to him outside of an institution.
See also Addington v. Texas, 441 U. S. 418 (1979). In that case, we held that the State must prove the need for commitment by “clear and convincing” evidence. See id., at 431-432. We reached this decision by weighing the individual’s liberty interest against the State’s legitimate interests in confinement.
See Parham v. J. R., 442 U. S. 584, 608, n. 16 (1979) (In limiting judicial review of medical decisions made by professionals, “it is incumbent on courts to design procedures that protect the rights of the individual without unduly burdening the legitimate efforts of the states to deal with difficult social problems”). See also Rhodes v. Chapman, 452 U. S. 337, 352 (1981) (“[Cjourts cannot assume that state legislatures and prison officials are insensitive to the requirements of the Constitution or to the perplexing sociological problems of how best to achieve the goals of the penal function in the criminal justice system . . .”); Bell v. Wolfish, 441 U. S. 520, 539 (1979) (In the context of conditions of confinement of pretrial detainees, “[cjourts must be mindful that these inquiries spring from constitutional requirements and that judicial answers to them must reflect that fact rather than a court’s idea of how best to operate a detention facility”); Wolff v. McDonnell, 418 U. S. 539, 556 (1974) (In considering a procedural due process claim in the context of prison, “there must be mutual accommodation between institutional needs and objectives and the provisions of the Constitution that are of general application”). See also Townsend & Mattson, The Interaction of Law and Special Education: Observing the Emperor’s New Clothes, 1 Analysis and Intervention in Developmental Disabilities 75 (1981) (judicial resolution of rights of the handicapped can have adverse as well as positive effects on social change).
By “professional” decisionmaker, we mean a person competent, whether by education, training or experience, to make the particular decision at issue. Long-term treatment decisions normally should be made by persons with degrees in medicine or nursing, or with appropriate training in areas such as psychology, physical therapy, or the care and training of the retarded. Of course, day-to-day decisions regarding care — including decisions that must be made without delay — necessarily will be made in many instances by employees without formal training but who are subject to the supervision of qualified persons.
All members of the Court of Appeals agreed that respondent’s expert testimony should have been admitted. This issue was not included in the questions presented for certiorari, and we have no reason to disagree with the view that the evidence was admissible. It may be relevant to whether petitioners’ decisions were a substantial departure from the requisite professional judgment. See supra, this page.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | D | sc_issuearea |
"What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine t(...TRUNCATED) | I | sc_issuearea |
"What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine t(...TRUNCATED) | A | sc_issuearea |
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Lawma fine-tuning dataset
This fine-tuning dataset contains 260 legal classification tasks derived from the Supreme Court and Songer Court of Appeals databases, totalling over 500k training examples and 2B tokens. This dataset was used to train Lawma 8B and Lawma 70B. The Lawma models outperform GPT-4 on 95% of these legal tasks, on average by over 17 accuracy points. See our arXiv preprint and GitHub repository for more details.
Our reasons to study these legal classification tasks are both technical and substantive. From a technical machine learning perspective, these tasks provide highly non-trivial classification problems where even the best models leave much room for improvement. From a substantive legal perspective, efficient solutions to such classification problems have rich and important applications in legal research.
This dataset was created for the project
Lawma: The Power of Specizalization for Legal Tasks. Ricardo Dominguez-Olmedo and Vedant Nanda and Rediet Abebe and Stefan Bechtold and Christoph Engel and Jens Frankenreiter and Krishna Gummadi and Moritz Hardt and Michael Livermore. 2024
Please cite as:
@misc{dominguezolmedo2024lawmapowerspecializationlegal,
title={Lawma: The Power of Specialization for Legal Tasks},
author={Ricardo Dominguez-Olmedo and Vedant Nanda and Rediet Abebe and Stefan Bechtold and Christoph Engel and Jens Frankenreiter and Krishna Gummadi and Moritz Hardt and Michael Livermore},
year={2024},
eprint={2407.16615},
archivePrefix={arXiv},
primaryClass={cs.CL},
url={https://arxiv.org/abs/2407.16615},
}
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