Delegation of Adjudicatory Power to Agencies

1
Delegation of Adjudicatory Power to Agencies

• This mirrors some of the issues raised by the
  delegation of rulemaking powers
• Can Congress delegate the right to decide
  individual disputes to agencies?
• This is not a critical issue for this course

2
Article III Judges

• Protections
• Lifetime tenure
• Cannot reduce salary
• Cannot fire, only impeach
• Cannot discipline
• Why do we have these protections?

3
How are ALJs different?

• Civil service protections
• Can be fired
• Can have salary lowered, but hard to do this
• Can set work standards and discipline
• How are the pressures different than those on an
  Article III judge?

4
Adjudication of Public Rights

• Public rights have an evolving definition
• One definition is that these are rights created
  by congress, such as the right to government land
  or welfare benefits
• One set of cases indicates that since Congress
  creates these rights, they can set how they are
  awarded
• Congress can set up compensation that is not
  related to real facts
• Remember this later when we see the "bitter with
  the sweet" doctrine

5
Can an Agency Adjudicate Private Claims?

• The United States Supreme Court invalidated a law
  letting bankruptcy judges decide contract issues
  in 1982 because it was not reviewable by an Art.
  III judge
• This was a narrow plurality decision driven by
  the broad powers of bankruptcy courts
• It has been implicitly limited by later cases

6
Commodity Futures Trading Commission v. Schor

• CFTC can adjudicate disputes between clients and
  brokers, and award damages
• Can also adjudicate counterclaims because
  otherwise everything would go do court

7
Does Adjudication of Private Claims Violate
Separation of Powers?

• A key question becomes the appeal rights to the
  courts
• Orders must be enforced by the courts, so they
  can be reviewed
• Decisions are subject to judicial review
• We will see this in the judicial review section
  as a debate over the proper record for review

8
Right to Jury Trial

• There is a right to a jury trial for certain
  federal civil matters that were part of the
  common law when the Constitution was adopted
• The courts have construed these rights narrowly,
  limiting them to their historical antecedents,
  such as maritime cases
• Many states do not allow adjudication of private
  disputes under state constitutional open courts
  provisions
• LA had to have a constitutional amendment to
  allow worker's compensation

9
Limitations on Adjudication

• An agency cannot imprison someone as a punishment
• Under federal and some state laws, a person can
  be imprisoned for violating an agency regulation
• Must get a criminal trial
• Regulation must pass the vagueness test

10
State v. Broom, 439 So.2d 357 (La. 1983)

• Defendant was prosecuted for violating the
  Louisiana Explosives Code
• Challenged on void for vagueness and on
  non-delegation theories
• On first review, the LA SC rejected the
  challenges and found that he could be prosecuted
  for violating an agency regulations
• On rehearing, the Court found that prosecuting on
  an agency rule violated separation of powers