Also known as: Article I tribunal · Article 1 tribunals · Article I court · Article I courts · legislative courts
Written by attorneys — see sources below.
A specialized federal body established by Congress under Article I to resolve disputes arising within regulatory or administrative programs. Such tribunals may combine rulemaking with adjudication and need not employ judges who enjoy life tenure or salary protection.
Argonaut Shipping and Alliance Holdings entered a long-term supply contract governed solely by state law years before any bankruptcy filing. When Argonaut filed Chapter 11, its trustee brought the breach claim as an adversary proceeding in bankruptcy court. The bankruptcy judge attempted to enter final judgment on the purely state-law claim between the two private parties. Horizon Utility objected that only an Article III court could finally decide the dispute.
Congress created the Federal Banking Restructuring Tribunal inside an executive agency to oversee bank resolutions and decide related investor claims. The tribunal's fixed-term judges both approved restructuring plans and adjudicated distribution disputes arising under the federal program. Apex Capital lost a coverage ruling and challenged the tribunal's authority on Article III grounds.
A bankruptcy trustee sued Granfinanciera to recover an alleged fraudulent transfer under state law. The defendant demanded a jury trial. The bankruptcy court asserted authority to decide the private-rights claim without a jury or Article III oversight.
The Chase & Sanborn Corporation filed a petition for reorganization under Chapter 11 of the Bankruptcy Code in 1983. A plan approved by the United States Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of Florida then vested in respondent Nordberg, the trustee in bankruptcy, causes of action for fraudulent conveyances. In 1985 respondent filed suit against petitioners Granfinanciera, S. A., and Medex, Ltda., in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida, alleging that petitioners had received $1.7 million from Chase & Sanborn's corporate predecessor within one year of the bankruptcy petition without receiving consideration or reasonably equivalent value. The complaint sought to avoid the transfers and recover damages under 11 U. S. C. §§ 548(a)(1) and (a)(2), 550(a)(1) (1982 ed. and Supp. V). The District Court referred the proceedings to the Bankruptcy Court. Over five months later respondent served a summons on petitioners in Bogota, Colombia shortly before the Colombian Government nationalized Granfinanciera. In their answer both petitioners requested a trial by jury on all issues so triable. The Bankruptcy Judge denied petitioners' request for a jury trial, deeming a suit to recover a fraudulent transfer a core action that originally, under the English common law, as I understand it, was a non-jury issue. Following a bench trial, the court dismissed with prejudice respondent's actual fraud claim but entered judgment for respondent on the constructive fraud claim in the amount of $1,500,000 against Granfinanciera and $180,000 against Medex. The District Court affirmed without discussing petitioners' claim that they were entitled to a jury trial. The Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit also affirmed, 835 F. 2d 1341 (1988), ruling that petitioners lacked a statutory right to a jury trial because the constructive fraud provision contains no mention of such a right and 28 U. S. C. § 1411 affords jury trials only in personal injury or wrongful death suits, and that the Seventh Amendment supplied no right because fraudulent conveyance actions are equitable in nature and bankruptcy proceedings are inherently equitable. The Supreme Court granted certiorari to decide whether petitioners were entitled to a jury trial, 486 U. S. 1054 (1988), and now reverses.
View caseA district court entered final judgment dismissing a securities suit. Congress later enacted a statute directing courts to reopen and retry cases that had already become final. Spendthrift Farm moved to enforce the original judgment on separation-of-powers grounds.
In 1987 petitioners filed a civil action in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Kentucky against respondents. The complaint alleged that respondents had committed fraud and deceit in the sale of stock in 1983 and 1984 in violation of section 10(b) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 and Rule 10b-5. The District Court dismissed the action as time barred under the then-applicable Kentucky statute of limitations. While petitioners' appeal was pending in the Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, the Supreme Court decided Lampf, Pleva, Lipkind, Prupis & Petigrow v. Gilbertson on June 20, 1991. The next day the Court applied that decision to dismiss another pending appeal. The Sixth Circuit remanded petitioners' case to the District Court for further proceedings in light of Lampf. On August 13, 1991, the District Court dismissed the action with prejudice under the Lampf statute of limitations. Petitioners filed no appeal, and the judgment became final thirty days later on December 18, 1991. On December 19, 1991, the President signed the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation Improvement Act of 1991. Section 476 of that Act added section 27A to the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. Subsection (b) provides that any private civil action under section 10(b) commenced on or before June 19, 1991, which was dismissed as time barred after that date and which would have been timely under the limitation period provided by the laws applicable in the jurisdiction as such laws existed on June 19, 1991, shall be reinstated on motion by the plaintiff not later than sixty days after December 19, 1991. Petitioners promptly filed a motion under section 27A(b) to reinstate their action. The District Court denied the motion. The Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit reversed, and the Supreme Court granted certiorari.
View caseThe Attorney General appointed an independent counsel to investigate executive-branch officials. The counsel exercised prosecutorial powers but could be removed only for good cause by a court panel. Olson challenged the counsel's authority on separation-of-powers and Article III grounds.
Open the case page for the full write-up.
View caseA federal district court was asked to decide a child-custody dispute between two parents who were citizens of different states. The court declined jurisdiction, citing the domestic-relations exception to federal judicial power.
In September 1989 Carol Ankenbrandt, a citizen of Missouri, filed suit in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana on behalf of her daughters L. R. and S. R. against Jon A. Richards and Debra Kesler, both citizens of Louisiana. The complaint alleged that Richards, the divorced father of the children, and Kesler, his female companion, had committed acts of sexual and physical abuse against the daughters and sought monetary damages. Federal jurisdiction rested solely on the diversity-of-citizenship provision of 28 U.S.C. § 1332. One month earlier, on August 9, 1989, a juvenile court in Jefferson Parish, Louisiana, had entered a judgment under state child-protection statutes that permanently terminated Richards' parental rights on account of the alleged abuse and permanently enjoined him from any contact with the children. On December 10, 1990, the District Court granted the respondents' motion to dismiss. The court cited In re Burrus for the proposition that the whole subject of domestic relations belongs to the laws of the States and invoked the domestic relations exception to diversity jurisdiction. It also relied on the abstention principles of Younger v. Harris to dismiss the complaint without prejudice. The Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit affirmed in an unpublished opinion. The Supreme Court granted certiorari limited to three questions concerning the existence and scope of any domestic relations exception and the propriety of Younger abstention in the case.
View caseCongress may create Article I tribunals that perform both administrative and judicial functions as part of implementing its legislative powers. The existence of such hybrid courts does not violate Article III even though their judges lack life tenure and salary protection.
Supporting sources
No. Congress may not take cases of the type traditionally heard by Article III courts, such as state-law contract claims between private parties, and assign them wholesale to Article I courts. A broad grant of jurisdiction to non-Article III bankruptcy courts over such claims violates Article III.
Supporting sources
No. Modern federal practice routinely entrusts agencies and Article I tribunals with mixed functions. The separation-of-powers question turns on whether Congress has usurped the essential role of the Article III judiciary, not on the mere combination of administrative and adjudicative roles.
Supporting sources